By Dakota Antelman — Dakota@concordbridge.org
The Select Board settled one question but left another unanswered in its latest attempt to finish updating Concord’s guest flag raising policy.
Board members voted 3-1 on Monday to end a tradition of flying individual nations’ flags around town on United Nations Day and Peace Day each year. But they deadlocked on a second question of whether to allow ceremonial flags on light poles.
With clerk Mark Howell absent and no way to break the tie, the board resolved to revisit the question later.
“Why is this so hard?” Select Board chair Mary Hartman asked.
Hartman told The Concord Bridge after Monday’s meeting that the board’s December 16 meeting will be too busy to pick up the flag discussion. As a result, she said the board will probably wait until January.
In the meantime, Hartman said a moratorium on outside requests to fly banners remains in effect.
Lengthy debate
Policy questions date back to at least June, when the Select Board delayed a decision on whether to raise the Pride flag for this year’s inaugural Concord Pride celebration.
The board approved the flag raising at its next meeting but agreed to also reexamine the town’s rules in light of a 2022 Supreme Court case involving the city of Boston.
“We wanted to protect the town so that we are not making decisions where people could say, ‘You discriminated against us by not letting us fly our flag when you let them fly their flag,’” Hartman said Monday.
Select Board members last discussed the flag policy in September but tabled the matter after getting hung up on the topic of flags on light poles.
Board members Cameron McKennitt and Wendy Rovelli, who have been drafting the policy update, brought a new presentation to this week’s meeting and posed two options.
One centered on U.N. flags. As options, McKennitt and Rovelli said the town could discontinue its biannual tradition of flying foreign flags. Alternatively, it could amend and codify the practice by agreeing to fly the colors of the U.N.’s 51 founding members, minus five countries currently under comprehensive U.S. sanctions.
Rovelli was the lone board member in favor of the second option. The rest of her colleagues agreed to stop flying individual flags and instead display the overarching U.N. flag on the town’s central pole in Monument Square.
Light poles
All guest flags would fly below the American flag in accordance with U.S. Flag Code.
Separate from foreign nations’ flags, the board already agreed to consider letting ceremonial flags fly on the central pole for one day if they’re connected to a town celebration or proclamation. A board member would have to sponsor each request, which the board would consider on a case-by-case basis.
Though the question never made it to a formal vote, Hartman and Rovelli said the town should also allow ceremonial flags to fly on Concord’s light poles.
Hartman said the town could avoid legal trouble by extending the agreed-upon policy for the central pole to the light poles. Acknowledging concerns about the cost of town employees installing flags around town, she said she hoped the board could have conversations with individuals and groups who might agree to raise their flag only on the central pole.
Light poles would remain an option for every flag raising, though not every group would use them, Hartman said.
McKennitt and colleague Terri Ackerman argued light poles should be off the table. Among arguments, McKennitt said he and Rovelli could not find any Massachusetts communities that included language in their policies like the proposed light pole clause.
He said residents and business owners could still put flags on their property. Event organizers could also still display flags in parades and other celebrations.
“We’re allowing people to [use the light poles],” Hartman said as she made her case. “We can’t discriminate.”
Hartman said she thinks that using the light poles to fly small flags is “what people want.”
“Not me,” McKennitt responded.
