The Village of Sundridge has created a flag protocol policy to address how specialty flags and others can be flown at municipally-owned sites.
Council began working on a policy shortly after passing a resolution this year to fly the Pride flag during June.
See: Sundridge council gives unanimous support to fly Pride flag
Nearby Powassan ran into public opposition last year when agreeing to fly the Pride flag. The Powassan municipal office at 250 Clark St. has a single flagpole that can only fly one flag at a time. For the Pride flag to be raised in Powassan, the Canadian flag had to come down and that act drew complaints from residents.
See: Pride flag controversy prompts Powassan council to take action
Sundridge has two flagpoles outside the municipal office at 110 Main St. One pole solely flies the Maple Leaf and the second pole flies the Village of Sundridge municipal flag.
To avoid a situation where the village is asked to fly a specialty flag on the second pole, council opted to buy and erect a wall-mounted flagpole.
That pole is mounted to the side of the building adjacent to the public entrance.
The first flag flown was the Every Child Matters flag in recognition of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
Organizations and associations that want the village to fly their flag on the wall-mounted pole have to meet several requirements.
They include that all requests must be submitted to the town hall office by Nov. 1. The Town council will then consider all those requests at one meeting to determine the flags that can be flown in the next year.
When applying for consideration to have their specialty flags flown, the applicants need to supply information like the name of the organization, when they want their flag flown, and the purpose of the event.
The applicant needs to supply the flag, which can’t be larger than 27 by 54 inches.
Organizations can fly their special interest flags only once a year for no more than a month on the wall-mounted pole and have to apply annually to have their flag flown each year.
Although organizations from outside the Almaguin Highlands are welcome to apply to have their flags flown, groups in the Highlands will have precedence if multiple requests are made to fly flags at the same time.
In the event there is still a conflict, like two Highlands groups asking for the same time frame to fly their respective flag, then the town council will determine which flag is raised.
Rocco Frangione is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter with Almaguin News. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.
