Condominium Assn. Sues Him : Veteran Runs Up the Flag; Not All Neighbors Salute

Jim Meltzer fought in “the big one,” was wounded five times and won a Silver Star for freeing a buddy from a tangle of barbed wire while braving fire from six enemy machine guns in Italy.

But all that hasn’t stopped his Marina Del Rey condominium association from filing suit to keep him from flying an American flag.

A few days before this Memorial Day weekend began, the 63-year-old combat hero was served with papers involving a Los Angeles Superior Court suit, alleging that the 12-foot flagpole bolted to his street-side patio fence violates regulations of the complex.

Furthermore, the suit says that when Meltzer planted the pole and ran up the Stars and Stripes on about July 4 of last year, he failed to ask anyone’s permission.

“That sucker will never come down,” Meltzer vowed Saturday. “And if somebody objects to it over a technicality, regardless of whether they are right or wrong in court, I will go to jail.”

Long disabled and now ill with a heart ailment that requires him to take “15 pills a day in order to sustain life,” Meltzer said he spends hours on the patio of his Villa San Remo town house just watching Old Glory ripple in the breeze. With its red, white and blue fields framed “against the blue sky and green evergreen trees” rising behind, he said, “It is the most beautiful sight.

“I get tears every time I see that thing. . . . It whips and cracks and talks to me. It is a meaningful symbol.”

Of the five homeowner association officers who brought the suit, only Leah Olson could be reached, and she declined to comment in detail. However, Olson said, “I’ll tell you one thing, the homeowners and the board are not opposed to the flag being flown. Mr. Meltzer is saying that we’re against the American flag.”

In fact, she said, the case “has to do with what can be erected in a patio” in accordance with condominium rules.

Residents of the fashionable 30-unit complex on Fiji Way seem to be equally divided over the issue, according to one who spoke only on condition that she not be identified.

“I see nothing wrong with (the flagpole),” the woman said. “I think it seems like such a little thing to fuss over, don’t you?”

Calls Suit ‘Foolish’

Russell Dean, who lives a few doors down from Meltzer, said he believes that the suit is “foolish” and should never had been filed. His wife, Janet, is also disturbed that association officials have used part of the owners’ monthly maintenance fees to cover legal expenses.

“I was in the Navy during World War II,” Dean said, “and I’ve always had a very warm feeling for the flag.” He said he was “astonished” to learn that a suit had been filed, partly because Meltzer’s home is at the very end of the complex. Dean said the flag can be seen from the patios of only a half dozen neighbors and is largely screened from street view by several large evergreens.

“It was objected to by somebody,” Dean explained, “but that person has never been identified.”

The suit alleges that Meltzer’s “act of erecting the flagpole directly violates the (condominium regulations) and was done without obtaining consent from the (homeowners association).”

Acceptable uses of such patio areas, the suit says, “has been defined by 15 years of use by all owners to preclude erection of structures of any kind; personal use limited to ordinary outside activities such as sunbathing and outdoor cooking and placing of personal property items limited to plants and patio furniture.”

Wrote to Him Twice

Association officials wrote to Meltzer twice last fall to ask that the flagpole be removed, the suit continues, but the Army veteran, who was discharged in 1947 as a captain, did not comply.

Meltzer’s actions “raise issues that must be resolved to protect the architectural plan of the Villa San Remo common interest development and the emotional harmony of other member owners,” the suit says.

The legal action asks that a judge grant an injunction to force Meltzer to remove the flagpole. And the association also want Meltzer to pay its attorney fees and other unspecified “just relief.”

Meltzer said he believes that the controversy stems from a wooden handrail that he had installed on an outside walkway last summer--admittedly without prior association approval--when he returned from a long hospital stay after nearly dying from a ruptured artery.

Beyond the fact that his left ankle joint is “fused” from an old war wound, walking was even more difficult after the artery rupture because blood clots moved into his right leg, Meltzer said.

‘Technical Oversight’

In a letter at the time, association officials told Meltzer that they would permit this “technical oversight” if he violated no further condominium regulations.

Meltzer acknowledges that he has been a vocal resident when it comes to debating various condominium-related issues.

“In every group there are in-ies and out-ies, and I happen to be an out-ie,” he said.