Upstate town board votes against reciting Pledge of Allegiance
http://nypost.com/2016/03/18/upstate-town-board-votes-against-reciting-pledge-of-allegiance/By Beckie Strum
March 18, 2016 | 11:40pm
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Upstate town board votes against reciting Pledge of Allegiance
The planning board for the upstate town of New Paltz has voted against saying the Pledge of Allegiance at its meetings after one of its members called it a “total waste of time.”
The showdown over the Pledge came at Monday’s session, when board member Amy Cohen introduced a motion to say the patriotic oath at future bi-monthly meetings as a show of respect.
Cohen, a local business owner and former mayoral candidate, said she’d been contacted by several veterans and “many community members” with the suggestion.
“This is a government building, we have a flag here,” Cohen told fellow board members. “Personally, coming in off the street to do our governance . . . I feel that it helps me kind of transition.”
But when objections were raised, the motion was voted down 4-3.
“To me, it’s a total waste of time,” said Vice Chair Lyle Nolan.
“It’s a pressure type of thing, because if you don’t stand, it looks like you’re against it and I don’t think we need that. We’re all adults. We’re all here to do a job,” Nolan added, before voting no.
Board member Lagusta Yearwood also spoke out against the oath, calling it a “funny little thing.”
“I love this country, I don’t see any reason to say a pledge to it,” she said, before bizarrely opining that reciting an oath to the US flag “goes against the principles this country was founded on.”
Board member Adele Ruger jumped in to defend the Pledge, saying it wouldn’t hurt.
“It literally takes 15 seconds,” she argued.
In the end, board chair Michael Calimano and another board member, Michael Zierler, also joined the anti-Pledge camp and killed the proposal in the Ulster County town about 80 miles north of New York City.
Zeirler said he didn’t want the issue to divide the otherwise cooperative board.
“If we’re going to do it and some people choose not to . . . that creates a wedge,” he said.
Their decision has upset local veterans, said Iraq War veteran Dietrich Orris, junior vice commander of New Paltz’s VFW Post 8645.
“It is unfortunate that members of the planning board misinterpret our nation’s Pledge as divisive rather than unifying. We can only hope that the dissenting members choose to re-evaluate their position and support the time-honored tradition that we hold so dearly,” he told The Post in an e-mail.
Monday’s vote also provoked an outcry from Andrew Heaney, a local Republican congressional candidate.
“We either have a country, or we don’t. It’s shocking that an elected official won’t take the 15 seconds required to put their hand over their heart and recite the Pledge of Allegiance,” he said.
