Editor’s note: The Associated Press reported on June 7 that the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors had decided to reconsider a deal it reached June 1 to remove the cross from the county’s seal. The board had voted to remove the cross to avoid a lawsuit by the ACLU. Two supervisors, however, said their offices were bombarded with phone calls and e-mails after the decision was made, including from a conservative legal group offering to represent the county for free.

LOS ANGELES — The American Civil Liberties Union is demanding the removal of a tiny cross that is among historic symbols on Los Angeles County’s official seal.

The seal “prominently depicts a Latin cross, a sectarian religious symbol that represents the beliefs of one segment of the county’s diverse population” and is an “impermissible endorsement of Christianity” by the county government, the ACLU Foundation of Southern California said in a letter to county officials this week.

“Under clearly established law, the seal is unconstitutional,” the letter said, warning that refusal to remove the cross in a “reasonable time-frame” would cause the ACLU to seek a court order.

The cross was incorporated into the seal to represent the area’s settlement by Spanish missionaries who, in the 1700s, founded two of California’s famous missions in what is now Los Angeles County.

“The cross on our county seal reflects these historical facts,” Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich wrote back to Ramona Ripston, executive director of the local ACLU organization. “It does not mean that we are all Roman Catholics or that everyone who resides in our county is a Christian — it only reflects our historical roots.”

Supervisor Don Knabe on May 25 introduced a motion for a vote June 1 that would direct the county counsel to “begin preparations to protect and defend the county seal if such frivolous litigation is brought against the county.”

The motion requires approval by three of the five members of the Board of Supervisors to pass.

The cross is in a panel with two stars above a depiction of the Hollywood Bowl. The Bowl was intended as a symbol of culture while one star represents film and the other television.

The panel is one of six around the seal’s main figure, Pomona, a Roman goddess of fruits and trees representing the region’s agriculture. Pomona is also the name of one of the county’s earliest cities.

County spokeswoman Judy Hammond said the seal is in many of the county’s 5,000 buildings, as well as on stationery, business cards, flags and many other places. Just last summer the county made a special effort to make sure the seal was widely displayed, and there was no way to put a price tag on changing it, she said.

The seal has been in use for nearly a half-century but controversy arose after the ACLU got the city of Redlands to remove a cross from its seal when two citizens there complained in February.

People read about the Redlands case and then called the ACLU about the Los Angeles County seal, said Ben Wizner, an ACLU attorney.

Wizner said the ACLU was mindful of budget pressures facing the county and was willing to be flexible about a transition period for removal of the cross from the seal. Citing precedents, Wizner said there could be no serious dispute about whether or not the seal was legal.

The ACLU did not object to the Roman goddess or the name Los Angeles, which means “the angels.” Wizner said that to do so would push the issue to “extreme limits.”

The issue is what a reasonable person looking at the seal would understand it to represent, he said.

The seal was designed by the late Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, father of Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn. Drawn by artist Millard Sheets, it was adopted by the Board of Supervisors on March 1, 1957.

The full figure of Pomona stands in the center of the seal in front of the San Gabriel Mountains, with wavy blue lines of the Pacific at her feet. She holds a sheaf of grain, an orange, a lemon, an avocado and grapes.

The seal’s other symbols are: a triangle and calipers to represent industry — aerospace in particular; oil derricks; the Spanish galleon San Salvador that was sailed into San Pedro Harbor in 1542 by the explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo; and a tuna and a champion cow named Pearlette, for the once-huge fishing and dairy industries.