Hats, t-shirts, and patches of various versions of the American flag — including more than a few “Thin Blue Line” flags — adorned the crowd of community members gathering in the Easthampton High School auditorium entryway on Monday. The group had come together for a Parks and Recreation Commission meeting that had only one item on the agenda: “American Flag on Nashawannuck Pond.”
The topic has evolved into a tense debate, with community members shouting at the seven-member volunteer Parks and Recreation Commission at Monday’s meeting. “Cowards!” some members of the crowd shouted. Name-calling was followed by calls to remove Mayor Nicole LaChapelle from office. By the conclusion of the meeting, an Easthampton police officer was standing at the doorway of the auditorium.
Under discussion was the permanent removal of the U.S. flag that is annually suspended over Nashawannuck Pond. Prior to the meeting, community members posted on social media about the agenda item, which originally appeared on a Nov. 20 agenda.
“Aww quit griping over stupid nonsense and put one in your own yard, or hang it on your door, who cares!” one person wrote. “It’s nice to see who the troublemakers are who stand against OUR flag!” another said.
The removal of the flag came after a request from LaChapelle’s office, which asked to take down the flag over the pond after Armistice Day. According to Parks and Recreation Commission members speaking at Monday’s meeting, the request to Parks and Recreation Department Director John Mason indicated that the mayor’s office believed the arrangement of the flag to be a unique situation organized by private citizens and anchored on city property without any specific permissions to do so.
Former Mayor Michael Tautznik disagreed with this statement and reached out to the Parks and Recreation Commission “seeking affirmation” for the ongoing anchoring of the flag, which he said is a 9/11 memorial that a group of volunteers has maintained. An additional letter from LaChapelle’s office reportedly said the flag was not hung properly according to the U.S. federal flag code, citing a lack of lighting among the issues with the flag. According to Tautznik’s public comments, he and other volunteers have drafted a lighting plan.
This was not the first flag-related disturbance to Parks and Recreation Commission business.
On Nov. 20, the parks commission was forced to abandon its business and close a public meeting, in consideration for fire code safety, after those upset about the flag flooded their regular meeting room, reaching room capacity. Community members flocked to the municipal building and also attempted to join the meeting virtually to voice their feelings about the permanent removal of the flag.
Following the shut-down of that meeting, the commission requested that the City Council step in. In the meantime, the commission scheduled the Dec. 2 meeting in Easthampton High School’s auditorium.
At the opening of the Dec. 2 meeting, the parks commissioners voted unanimously to move the agenda item to the full City Council. The seven-member commission is composed entirely of volunteers who are appointed to the commission by the mayor following City Council approval. Most boards and committees of Easthampton are formed in this way, except for the members of the City Council and School Committee, who are elected by popular vote.
City Council President Homar Gomez told The Shoestring in an email that the council received a request from the parks and recreation director on Nov. 26 to move the item onto the City Council agenda.
“Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, we lacked sufficient time to include it in our last meeting,” Gomez said. “We plan to add it to the December 18th agenda and subsequently assign it to the relevant committee.”
During the Dec. 2 Parks and Recreation Commission meeting, many community members expressed their feelings about the flag despite commissioners having just voted the issue out of the commission. Most members of the public who spoke at the meeting seemed to know each other on a first name basis and slapped hands or high-fived as they passed each other heading up to the podium to speak. Many spoke about the U.S. flag code and inconsistencies with other flags in the city as related to the code.
Part of that code defines explicitly the characteristics of the U.S. flag. And any modification to that description — for example, monochrome flags or “Thin Blue Line” flags — is widely considered a violation of the code. There are also specific ways the flag should be hung under the code, and it is generally not supposed to be worn on clothing or as patches, with the exception being for military, police, and firefighters in uniform.
At the conclusion of the public speaking period, members of the crowd demanded the commission vote on the issue of the flag and that the commission affirm the allowance of the cable anchor for the flag on city property.
When commission chair Andrew Hunter explained that they would not be voting on the issue and had already voted to move the topic to the full City Council, members of the audience began shouting at the committee and accusing the commission of “passing the buck.”
“This is a discussion between the mayor and the City Council,” Hunter told the crowd. “The Park and Recreation Commission is here to be stewards of the parks, not to discuss cables and flags.”
“I have been on the commission for 20 years, we have had zero to do with the cable, the flag, or anything to do with that,” Hunter added. “The city in general has had nothing to do with that.”
The commission will be back to business as usual on Dec. 16 and will be taking up their Nov. 20 agenda items. These items include dog park designs at Nonotuck Park, fiscal year 2025 budgets, parks communications, facilities — including the department’s ongoing maintenance building update – pickleball expansion, park entrance/Daley Field road direction, the New City Steering Committee, and the Main Street improvement Project.
Mason, the parks director, told The Shoestring at the conclusion of the Dec 2 meeting that the arrangements for the demolition of the old parks maintenance building was squared away and that he expected the delivery of the temporary storage and office space for parks maintenance staff to arrive in the next couple of weeks.
R. Nicholas contributed reporting for this article.
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Tommy Lee is a writer, investigative journalist, and audio video producer for community television based in Western Massachusetts.
