Flag flap has led to threats, officials say
Town Councilwoman Brennan Kearney says she has been threatened and Supervisor Elizabeth Spinzia says she is troubled by anger and misinformation about the removal of the POW/MIA flag from the pole in front of the Town Hall.
Spinzia said Thursday that postings on Facebook included incorrect assumptions that Kearney sought to have the flag taken down.
“One of our board members has been targeted through a lie,” she said.
Neither Spinzia nor Kearney would identify a specific threat, but Kearney said state police were notified.
“The viciousness of some of the messages I have received on Facebook and have seen in the threads of conversation on several Facebook pages has been downright horrifying,” Kearney said.
Both the town and village of Rhinebeck have been reviewing how often the POW/MIA flag should fly, and they have issued separate statements about the practice going forward.
“The town had received requests from various interest groups and organizations seeking to have their own flags displayed on the flagpole too, and citing the POW/MIA flag as an example,” town officials wrote. “In what we now realize was an overabundance of caution and too quick of a decision, we took immediate action to remove the POW/MIA flag from the flagpole.”
Town officials have returned the flag to daily display.
“We have decided — out of respect for and appreciation to our country’s veterans, prisoners of war and those missing in action and their loved ones — that the town will display the POW/MIA flag on the Town Hall flagpole on all days on which the flag of the United States is displayed,” they wrote.
The state flag policy says POW/MIA flags are to be displayed at government buildings “on Memorial Day, POW Remembrance Day (third Friday of September) and Veterans Day.” It does not say that flying the flag on other days is prohibited.
One opponent of Rhinebeck removing the flag threatened a boycott of local businesses until it went back up.
“We’re not doing business in Rhinebeck until the flags go back up,” read an email from Robert Clydesdale of Walden, which is about 40 miles away. “Not a store. Not a restaurant. Not even a cup of coffee. You’re entitled to nothing but silence.
“We will do our best to bring this protest to everyone in the Hudson Valley in the hope that we break the banks of Rhinebeck-based businesses,” Clydesdale added. “We will also ask our fellow business owners outside of Rhinebeck to, wherever possible, refuse to conduct business with anyone from Rhinebeck as a protest.”
The email told town officials that they should “not run again. You lack the strength to lead.”
Village officials wrote the POW/MIA flag will continue to be displayed until the Village Board receives a report on the matter.