Amarillo City Hall perhaps can find some comfort — although it is small comfort indeed — in knowing it isn’t the only government entity to struggle with a form of identity crisis.

The city has unveiled a new official logo that looks almost identical to a logo used by a Dubai company. The city is rightfully embarrassed by the mixup, which reportedly occurred when it went with a design submitted by a city employee instead of using a company it had sought to produce the new logo.

There seems to be a copyright infringement issue in play here. City Hall needs to fix this problem in a hurry.

Ah, but this might sound a bit familiar to long-time area residents.

There once was a day when Potter County ran a flag up the flagpole at the County Courthouse. They thought they were unfurling the Texas flag that day. Instead of the Lone Star banner, it turns out they were flying the Chilean national flag, which also features a single star on a red, white and blue banner.

http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1994/Potter-County-Mistakenly-Flies-Chilean-Flag-Instead-of-Texas-Banner/id-a8b851f0061247dacbafd192e6139adf

The two flags look quite similar, although not as nearly identical as the newly minted Amarillo logo and the insignia representing the Dubai company.

The Chilean flag was run up the courthouse pole in April 1994. It flew over the courthouse for a full day before anyone noticed it. Turns out a sharp-eyed assistant district attorney, Paul Hermann, noticed the discrepancy.

”We thought we had been invaded, overthrown, and didn’t know about it,” Hermann said at the time.

The Chilean flag boo-boo occurred because someone crated the wrong flag in a box marked for Potter County. At least the county didn’t commit any potential copyright offenses.

In Potter County’s case, one can say simply that “These things happen.” Regarding the city’s embarrassment, some serious repair is in order.