![[Flag of Smithtown, New York]](../images/u/us-nysmt.gif)
image by Jens Pattke, 4 May 2014
Last modified: 2023-08-03 by rick wyatt
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image by Jens Pattke, 4 May 2014
Municipal flags in Smithtown:
See also:
From http://www.smithnetny.com/smithnews/jun2697/story2.htm [no longer
available]
Flapping Over Town Flag - Supervisor Rejects Request For Smithtown Flag At
County Center
In a dispute over whether to make a second town flag at a cost of between $500
and $2,000, some flag information has been gleaned. Fuelling the controversy is
the desire to provide the Suffolk Legislature with a Smithtown flag to hang in
its County auditorium. All nine other Suffolk towns have a flag adorning the
auditorium but where the Smithtown flag should fly there is only a pole. It
appears that the town flag embodies the the Town seal.
The Town seal has on it a shield, a crown, and a bull encircled by "The Town of
Smithtown, Suffolk County, New York • 1665 •." Under the shield it says in Latin
"Nec Timeo Nec Sperno," which means "neither fear nor despise". The art work in
the center of the Smithtown seal is from the family logo of Richard Smith, who
founded the Town 332 years ago.
Dov Gutterman, 2 January 2003
I recently came across some partial images of the flag of the town of
Smithtown, Suffolk County, New York. The town's website has some videos showing
draped flags of the nation, state, county, and town. While there isn't a full
view of the town flag, enough is apparent to add an important detail: the town
seal on the flag is not in full color, rather it is a monochromatic line image,
gold on a dark blue field.
www.smithtowngtv.org/tagged/Town%20Council%20Update. A full color thumbnail
image of the town seal alone can be seen at
www.smithtownny.gov/index.aspx?NID=27.
Also, fwiw the text says the seal was taken from the logo [sic] of the town's
founder, Richard Smith. While it is true that the arms on the seal are
traditionally ascribed to him, there are serious reservations about the accuracy
of that.
Ned Smith, 3 May 2014
![[Municipal seal]](../images/u/us-nysmt).gif)
image located by Paul Bassinson, 26 April 2020
Source:
https://www.smithtownny.gov/ImageRepository/Document?documentID=3474
Paul Bassinson, 26 April 2020
![[Flag of Smithtown Public Safety Department, New York]](../images/u/us-nysmt-psd.gif)
image by Randy Young, 7 September 2021
The department has adopted a new flag.
Paywalled article:
https://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/smithtown-public-safety-office-flag-1.50341259
Park ranger designs flag for Smithtown public safety department |
Newsday
A Smithtown Public Safety officer’s design for a department flag was
formally adopted by the Town Council last week. The emblem Park Ranger Michael
Losee devised over the course of a few weeks ...
www.newsday.com
By
Nicholas Spangler nicholas.spangler@newsday.com @spanglernewsday Updated August
23, 2021 4:55 PM
A Smithtown Public Safety officer’s design for a
department flag was formally adopted by the Town Council last week.
The
emblem Park Ranger Michael Losee devised over the course of a few weeks and
several drafts earlier this summer combines town founder Richard Smith’s family
crest, dominated by a rearing bull with seven blue and white stripes for the
town’s hamlets and five gold stars for the divisions of the department.
"I wanted something that, when we look at it, we feel a sense of honor and pride
and togetherness with the community," said Losee, 35, a former member of the New
York Air National Guard 106th Rescue Wing and Suffolk County park ranger who
joined the town department five months ago.
Smithtown’s public safety
department has Fire Prevention, Park Ranger, Investigation, Waterways and
Navigation, and Emergency Management divisions. Its personnel perform some of
the same functions as police.
"It is our hope that it will instill esprit
de corps amongst department members," Tom Lohmann, public safety director, said
in an email.
Police departments serving New York City and Suffolk County
have their own flags, but representatives for a handful of Smithtown’s
neighboring towns that operate their own public safety departments said they had
no flags of their own.
Losee took edits on his work from Smithtown’s Sgt.
Michael Nuzzo, the quartermaster in charge of department equipment, who last
week was checking prices for a bulk purchase of flags of various sizes from a
Melville supplier, Premier Flag & Banner, with prices ranging from $30 to $200
per flag.
Nuzzo said he envisioned buying some miniature flags for
employees’ desks, mid-sized flags for Bay Constable vessels and full-sized flags
for department functions, including walkout ceremonies for employee retirements.
The flag will likely not be flown at town facilities, he said. "The problem is
space," he said. "Most facilities only have one flagpole, if that," already
occupied by the American or Smithtown flag based on the Smith family crest.
Jill Fleming, creative director of the Montauk advertising agency blumenfeld
+ fleming, said the "extremely traditional" design might bemuse some viewers
from outside the department, because it conveys no information about Public
Safety’s duties. For insiders though, "logos and flags and anything like that
can really unify … Already, members of these groups have cohesion, collective
psyche, a unification that can be strengthened with graphic design that everyone
embraces."
Nuzzo, like Fleming, said he believed in the power of logos —
practically every successful organization has one, even Coca-Cola, he said. He
also took to heart the motto of the Smith family crest, adapted for Losee’s
design: "Nec Timeo Nec Sperno" in the Latin, which translates to "I neither fear
nor despise." The lesson Nuzzo took from the words was rooted in history but
timeless: "Back in Colonial times when the bull rider was out here, these were
uncharted lands. He kept an open mind about new people he was going to meet."
Dave Fowler, 23 August 2021
