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Date: 7/1/2022
BELCHERTOWN – During the Belchertown Select Board’s June 27 meeting, the board met with members of Belchertown Pride before declaring June as Pride Month and agreeing to fly the Pride Flag outside Town Hall on June 28.
To begin the Pride Month discussion, Belchertown Pride co-leader Lesa Lessard Pearson said the organization was formed after two Belchertown residents organized a movement to raise the Pride flag outside of Town Hall.
“They inspired us to form the Belchertown Pride community group as a way to strengthen our voices and share that they are not alone and we’re all together,” she said. “The mission of Belchertown Pride is to raise awareness of the unique contributions, history and plight of the LGBTQIA+ and allies’ community who live, work in or visit Belchertown.”
Lessard Pearson further elaborated on the goals of Belchertown Pride, specifically with creating a respectful environment for everyone.
“The mission is to create one community where all residents feel safe, welcome and respected,” she said. “The aims of Belchertown Pride are to promote inclusivity, to advance public awareness and to produce cultural events and safe spaces for all our residents.”
Lessard Pearson also detailed why June is celebrated as Pride Month, beginning with the Stonewall riots that took place in New York City in June of 1969.
“The riots are widely credited as being the spark that instituted the gay rights movement in America and around the world,” she said. “In essence Pride is about being proud of who you are, no matter who you love. Pride is about acceptance and equality, it marks the journey that shows how far the LGBTQIA+ rights have come and how in some places, there is still work to do.”
Following Lessard Pearson’s overview, Belchertown Pride co-leader Jaime Michaels said the group had two asks, one to name June Pride Month in Belchertown and to raise the Pride flag outside of Town Hall for one day in June.
Board Vice Chair Jim Barry gave his full support to officially acknowledge June as Pride month in Belchertown.
“This is a serious issue throughout the country, I often don’t recognize it as being serious because I have friends and relatives in the community and as such to us it is always in the forefront and seems relatively straightforward,” he said. “It’s good to be reminded that not everybody has a community they feel safe and not everyone has allies.”
Barry added that now was the time to issue the proclamation.
“The least we can do is to recognize Pride Month, I don’t see any reason not to, we should’ve been doing this for years,” Barry added.
One issue with flying the Pride flag was the fact that Belchertown currently does not have a flag policy, which has been a discussion point for the board for several months. By issuing the proclamation to name June Pride month, Michaels said it could create an opportunity to circumvent the policy because it could be categorized as government speech.
Board member Ron Aponte said his concern about flying the Pride flag comes from the fact that the board is still working on an official flag policy for the town and the uncertainty about the distinction between government and free speech.
“I certainly do not want to get to the point where our flag policy is that we can fly any and every flag because that is a slippery slope and that puts you in potentially a very uncomfortable situation. If the proclamation changes and there is more subjectivity to the town, then I am open to that, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable unless we had town counsel provide an opinion on that,” he said.
Despite the concern, Barry said June 28 was the perfect day to fly the flag.
“The argument convinces me and tomorrow being the 53rd anniversary of Stonewall, I think tomorrow would be a great day to fly it,” he said.
The board unanimously agreed to proclaim June as Pride Month and passed the second vote to fly the Pride flag with board Chair Jen Turner and Barry in favor and Aponte abstaining because of the uncertainty around the flag policy.
Michaels said she was happy the board agreed to issue the proclamation.
“We are thrilled, we are grateful, and we appreciate the Select Board issuing this proclamation. It is historical and is a big day Belchertown. It is really significant for the LGBTQIA+ community and allies to say that Belchertown is a welcoming, safe, respectful community for everybody,” she said. “I am part of Belchertown Pride but at this very moment I’m Belchertown Proud.”
Town manager search update
During the meeting, Turner also provided an update on the contract with Community Paradigm, the firm the town will be using in its search and transition process from a town administrator to a town manager.
“A couple weeks ago we voted to approve the Community Paradigm Associates contract, that bid was $11,000. We had not gone through procurement at that point and that was an issue the town accountant had raised. I went to town counsel to find out what we needed to do, and I was advised if we got the bid under $10,000, we could approve it,” she said.
Turner said she went back to Community Paradigm, and they said they could lower the price to $9,980 and the town would be required to pay for advertisements for the position directly as opposed to it being included in the contract. With a source of funding still up in the air with fiscal year 2023 beginning, the board agreed to determine a funding source for the contract.
With the contract on its way to being finalized, Turner said the next step is to establish a screening committee, which will be appointed by Town Moderator Amanda Halperin.
The Belchertown Select Board next meets on July 11 and coverage of that meeting will appear in the July 18 edition of The Reminder.