‘Enough time on this’: Visalia’s new logo is chosen by city councilmembers

VISALIA, Calif. ( KSEE/KGPE ) – Visalia’s city council members have voted on which logo the city would use going forward, but the vote came on the same day the city was supposed to be opening the logo redesign process up for public comment.

Councilmembers gathered on Monday to hear an update about the city’s logo redesign and discuss how to proceed – resulting in the logo below being chosen. The logo redesign schedule previously posted online by the City of Visalia says that the “public comment feedback period opens” on Monday, but the city announced on Tuesday that the logo below will be the newest city logo going forward – ten days before the “public comment feedback period” was supposed to end.

In May, the City of Visalia changed its city logo for its 150th anniversary , but that change was met with pushback from the community. The city then announced in June that they would be going back to their “legacy logo.”

Following the response to the new logo, the city asked the community to submit their own designs earlier this month. City staff received 87 designs from local artists, who had to follow a list of guidelines, including having a strong “V” design and keeping it simple and modern.

Visalia’s city communications and brand manager Allison Mackey says the redesign committee met on July 8 and reconvened on July 10 to further discuss the logo. Committee members looked at the selected logos and Mackey says four out of the five committee members recommended a financial compensation of $1,500 and a plaque for the individual who had their logo selected.

During the city council meeting on Monday, public comment included suggestions that the city has been giving olive branches to the community and that “this logo fiasco has gone long enough.”

In the city council meeting, Councilmember Emmanuel Hernandez Soto thanked the committee for their time and said he did not want to change the timeline.

“I hate to change the timeline, only because we did give the public that deadline originally. But I also think that we have spent enough time on this,” Soto said.

According to the city’s website, the public comment feedback period was supposed to close on July 26. On Aug. 5, the city council was supposed to vote on the logo out of the five finalists chosen.

Councilmember Liz Wynn agreed with Soto that the process had gone on long enough, with Vice Mayor Brett Taylor and Visalia Mayor Brian Poochigian also choosing to vote on a logo. During the meeting on Monday, Councilmember Steve Nelsen said he didn’t want to have to pick a new logo and felt like they should have had the previous “new” logo.

“We have way bigger issues we have to deal with,” Nelsen said. “When we look at the budget, we had no one in the audience to discuss budget. You got homelessness, litter on trails, you got parks, a major issue right now is water, yet no one sits on a committee meeting on water.”

At the end of the discussion about the logo, the council all favored a motion to select logo 59 as the new logo.

In their post on social media , the City of Visalia told its residents that officials “still want to hear from you” and asked for public comment on the new logo to be sent to communityfeedback@visalia.city .

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