FARMINGTON — Selectmen voted to spend $2,000 from the Downtown TIF Account at their April 22 meeting to purchase American flags and buntings.

“Has this generated any issue, comment from the TIF Committee,” Selectman Richard Morton asked.

“The TIF Committee is actually the one who voted to ask you, to put this on [the agenda],” Town Manager Erica LaCroix responded. “They have already voted it. They wanted the extra money. It’s $1,440 for the grant match that gets us 48 flags at $30 apiece.”

The Galen Cole Family Foundation‘s American Flag Program will match half of the $60 cost for up to 48 flag kits per locality, according to information provided.

The committee doesn’t think that will be enough flags for the places in the downtown where they want to put them, LaCroix said. “They want to ask for a little more to cover either more flags or maybe some buntings for across Center Bridge,” she noted. “They are requesting the $2,000.”

“The terms mention flags are to be up Memorial Day to Labor Day,” Selectman Randall Gauvin said. He asked if Farmington had previously displayed flags all summer long.

“My understanding is that we haven’t had the flags,” LaCroix replied. Winslow had flags, kept them up until Veterans Day, she said. “You do have to pay attention to their condition,” she stressed. “We are supposed to keep those flags for two years but there is a clause in there, “unless they become unserviceable” which can happen depending on the weather or if one of them falls down and gets run over on the road.”

There is nothing saying the flags can’t be kept up longer, LaCroix stated. In prior years the foundation had donated all the money it had for flags, this year they haven’t and are pushing to get the word out about the program, she noted.

“I thinks it is a great way for us to get something that we would really like to be doing anyway and get a little help doing it,” LaCroix added.

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