There's a dispute raging in San Jose’s large Vietnamese American community over a monthly flag raising ceremony.
The United Vietnamese Community of Northern California or "UVCNC" has conducted a popular flag raising ceremony at the Vietnamese Heritage Garden. It has happened on the first Saturday of every month since 2021.
But San Jose City Councilmember Bien Doan found out the group has been doing it without a city permit for years and has had access to the park with its own key, even though the park is city property. He got the city to take back the key and require new permits.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Doan said it was to open up the park for ceremonies by other Vietnamese groups.
“The UVACNC used a private held key to the city property to manipulate, influence and strike political favor among the Vietnamese American communities,” he said. “This will help our community heal. It will help bond many other groups that their voices have been muted for many years.”
But the UVCNC said the move was political since Doan and the head of the group have had numerous disputes over the years. The group said it's spirit of the law versus the letter of the law.
“The councilmember, he’s splitting hairs, you know?" attorney Minh Steven Dovan said. "How often do you go verbatim, word for word, ‘well, this is the way it is,' and no other way? Where as most of the time, we go with the flow and we go with, you know, at the moment, these things proceed properly. Why change it?"
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The City of San Jose Department of Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services said it’s sympathetic but the letter of the law must be followed.
“One of the members of this group is also part of the ‘Adopt-A-Park’ program for this site and through that process, accessed a key," said San Jose parks director Jon Cicirelli. "I don’t know if this group copied it or not. But this key started showing up in different places in the community. Ultimately, we had to take all the keys back and re-change the locks.”
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With 11 different different groups now planning to conduct their own ceremonies on the first Saturday of the month, it means the UVCNC won’t get a chance to do it again for about a year.
