By MARK SARDELLA
WAKEFIELD —— A request by a local citizen to fly a Christian flag and a “straight pride” flag in front of the Americal Civic Center led to a heated discussion at Monday’s Town Council meeting over the town’s Flag Policy in general and the chairman’s authority to keep flag requests off the the meeting agenda.
The request from Ronald P. McCarron, dated July 29, was addressed to “Town Council members.” In his letter, he requests permission to fly the straight pride flag and the Christian flag in front of the Civic Center in either September or October, with the month split between the two flags.
A second flag pole was installed at the Americal Civic Center earlier this year and has been used to fly the Pride flag and the Juneteenth flag.
Town Councilor Edward Dombroski raised the issue at the end of Monday’s Town Council meeting under “Matters not anticipated for agenda.” Dombroski noted that Town Administrator Stephen P. Maio had forwarded McCarron’s letter to all Town Councilors with a note indicating that Chairman Jonathan Chines had decided the request would not be placed on the meeting agenda.
“I don’t think it’s up to the chair to make the determination that flag requests are to be denied,” Dombroski said. “You can’t just have the chair say, ‘It’s not going to be on the agenda,’ and toss it aside.”
He noted that he was opposed to the town’s current flag policy and had advocated for flying only the American flag and POW-MIA flags from town-owned poles. He also stressed that he was not advocating for or against McCarron’s request but was arguing that it should have been placed on the agenda for the full board to consider.
“I don’t want to be in the flag business,” Dombroski said. “But the majority of this board has voted in a policy that puts us in the flag business. If the majority of this board wants to have a flag policy, then you have to consider flag requests,” he insisted.
Dombroski maintained that since McCarron’s request was properly made, it should be deliberated by the full board. “If not, then I don’t think we should have a flag policy,” he said.
Chines argued that it was not a violation of the Flag Policy for the chairman to withhold a particular request from the meeting agenda. The policy, he observed, does not require the board to entertain any request from any constituent.
“It’s up to the discretion of the chair,” he said.
Chines noted that Maio had forwarded McCarron’s request to all members of the Town Council on Aug. 4. If any member had requested that it be placed on the agenda he would have added it, Chines said. But no one did.
Dombroski argued that it was a matter of process. Other requests, such as common victualer licenses and one-day liquor license requests are not handled that way and don’t require a Town Councilor to specifically ask that they be placed on the agenda, he noted. Nor do requests from the Human rights Commission to fly the Pride Flag or the Juneteenth flag require individual councilors to ask that such requests be placed on the agenda.
Dombroski observed that when the flag policy was approved, it was pointed out that if the citizens did not like the Town Council’s decisions on flag requests, they could vote them out of office.
“Well, people need to be able to see where we stand on these issues,” he insisted, adding that Chines had stripped his colleagues of the right to have a vote on the flag request.
At that point, Chines interrupted Dombroski and asked if he had a motion to make.
Dombroski moved that the board consider the flag request made by McCarron. But Chines’ call for a second to the motion was met with silence.
“The motion fails,” Chines announced.
Dombroski wasn’t finished, however.
“The majority of this board wanted to have this flag policy,” he said. “I raised concerns at the time. Now, when push comes to shove and a hard decision has to be made, you won’t even second it to have the discussion and vote on it.”
Dombroski insisted that when a resident submits something to the board for consideration, the board owes it to the resident to consider the request.
In response to Chines repeated assertion that any member could have requested to have the flag request put on the agenda, Dombroski made a blanket request that all future flag requests be placed on the Town Council meeting agenda.
Councilor Anne Danehy questioned whether such a standing request was appropriate.
Chines said that he would be happy to honor Dombroski’s request.
Councilor Robert Vincent said that there should be a provision in the Flag Policy that guarantees that all Town Councilors will be notified of flag requests.
