Opinion: Most votes against changing the county's logo

The Linn County Commission has already begun efforts to redesign the county's logo. The Journal conducted a non-scientific poll to determine whether residents were in favor of the change or not.

There would be a cost involved if the county scrubbed every evidence of the logo. Putting a new symbol on vehicles and buildings would be costly.

Most of the respondents favored keeping the logo the same.

Those who were in favor of the change, though, wanted the public to have an opportunity to vote on the new design. Gov. Laura Kelly's office faced similar opposition when the state decided on a new design for license plate for vehicles last year.

Pushback on the plate chosen by the governors office was so strong that Kelly opted to let state residents weigh in on the design.

Here are the final results on the Journal's survey on replacing the county logo:

Number of total responses to the survey: 85

Option A (The current logo is fine, don't change it.): 61

Option B (We need a new logo; let the commissioners choose which one.):  2

Option C ( We need a new logo; let the public vote on which one.): 22​​​

So what's the Journal's editorial opinion on the logo. Like one of our respondents, we'd like to see more color. If the commission decides to adopt a new or redesigned logo, we would like to see implementation on county vehicles stretched out over several years.

When a vehicle needs to be replaced, it will need a logo plastered on the doors whether it is the new logo or the old one. That would be the time to make the switch.

The maple leaf and sword logo has been the county's logo for nearly three decades.

Here are some of the comments we received via email: 

• "With all the issues the commissioners need to deal with, the last thing they need to deal with is changing our beautiful logo.!! Unnecessary money spending."

• "If leadership is cutting budgets, not giving any funding to mental health,  micro managing the health department, what is the need/reason for changing the logo would be my question. And, out of genuine curiosity, is this level of micromanagement and comparison to “other counties” happening across all departments, or is it being directed toward specific departments because of bias, discrimination, or the populations they serve?"

• "Linn County is making some adjustments to employee benefits, seems like they went a bit over budget, and now they're considering adding extra expenses for something that may not be needed. Curious of the cost of having a logo made, and implementation to change to the new logo."

 • "New logo is a waste of money."

• "For the email received on 8.1 I was unable to vote on any of the three choices. For the record I don't mind the logo per se, but the colors don't really work . . . together it seems really washed out and doesn't demand attention in any way."

 Again, thanks to those who responded. We will work to make better use of our new survey app in the future. 

S