New Canaan Approves New Flag Policy For Town Buildings

NEW CANAAN, CT — The Board of Selectmen recently approved a draft of a new policy that articulates the types of flags allowed to be flown at town buildings.

First Selectman Dionna Carlson introduced a draft of the flag policy for municipal buildings in town during a board meeting Tuesday but said it excluded school buildings and other Board of Education properties.

"The history is that my first week in office I had an individual come up to me and ask to fly another country's liberation flag," Carlson said. "I guess my predecessor allowed a week of flying that flag, and I feel strongly that the only flags that should be flown in municipal buildings are the American flag, the state of Connecticut flag and any town flag."

She also noted she thought school-related flags should be reserved for school buildings as opposed to municipal buildings.

"The other thing that I'm trying to avoid is who gets to [fly] what flag when," Carlson said. "If we did that school flags at the municipality, it's like so we fly it for a football win, then do we fly it for every debate win...I don't want to have to make those calls. I don't think it's really appropriate for this office to be doing that."

Carlson said she believed flags flown at municipal buildings should "reflect the country and state and local things" they represent and not be used as a speech mechanism.

"A flagpole in front of a municipal building, I believe, shouldn't be a speech mechanism," Carlson said, "and so I just would like to make it very clean and have those three uses."

Selectman Stephen Karl asked if other towns have policies about flags at municipal buildings in place. Carlson said Darien recently instituted a similar version of this policy.

Karl also noted there were already many different ways to recognize school victories or different events in town.

"The idea is that the flagpole that flies above the building is for this purpose only," Karl said, "which I get it because there's a lot of competing interests and you can see that it could become sort of a...there's areas of misuse I guess."

Selectman Amy Murphy Carroll agreed a tight policy for town building was a good idea.

"We don't need more dividing us," Carroll said. "What we do in town is town [related]."

The draft of the policy presented during the meeting also made exceptions for some U.S. military flags. Carroll questioned whether the policy should even allow military flags but emphasized she was not against it.

"This way if you have kind of a just tight policy," Carroll said, "then we're not picking one person's interest over somebody else's interest and dividing people."

Karl said he thought New Canaan, as a community, already does an excellent job recognizing the military.

"I mean obviously we have the plaques downstairs," Karl said. "God's Acre is another spot that has a flagpole where we could say 'hey that's the appropriate spot for recognition of military,' so keeping it tight, that's what the draft and the idea behind this policy is, so I can support that."

Carlson reiterated that having a tight policy was her desire.

"I want no confusion," Carlson said. "I don't want anyone to feel like I don't support their cause when they ask me to fly a flag. It shouldn't be anything about my [or] any of our personal opinions about any issues. As I said, our flagpole should not be a speech mechanism. It is a recognition that we are a member of this country and this state and this community, and that's what it should be."