JESSICA DIECKMAN: THIS IS A WIN FOR EVERYONE...

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To the editor,

It has reached the attention of many people both inside and outside of the village that the village government had recently undertaken a legal process (involving a fine and the prospect of arrest) against our neighbor Lenny Amicola because of his displaying of a flag on his property. I had initially begun this letter to urge the village board to halt this process. Fortunately they have come to their senses after the Department of Justice got involved and stopped their unconstitutional attack on our neighbor. This is a win for everyone in Croton and across the country. This win protects everyone’s freedom of speech, no matter what their leanings are.

This was not the first time Lenny has been targeted in such a way by the village, and being that the situation is now on display for a much wider audience (the story quickly turned up on many news outlets), it threatened to have serious negative consequences for the village.

The contention that the flag Lenny is flying had not been technically compliant with the village’s code did little to convince the public that this was not a targeted action based on the content of the flag. The situation read (regardless of whether true or not) as an overly imperious village government wasting village funds to harass a long-time resident, senior citizen and veteran, over technicalities.

Lenny is honored and celebrated on a veteran-recognition pennant directly across from his property, and yet he has been threatened for having a display of his own of nearly equal size and format as the veteran-recognition pennant.

In the still increasingly widespread conversations among residents about this, mention is made of the Ukrainian-support banner that was displayed on Riverside Drive for quite some time, that as far as anyone knows did not receive any criticism. One of our neighbors asked, “How can we honor our servicemen while at the same time fining a veteran for engaging in a form of free speech that he risked his life to defend?”

All of this is worth considering, not simply in the periphery of a robotic deference to village rules, but for the effects and consequences it has had on a community that strives to respect free speech as well as the veterans who have actively protected our rights and our liberties.

Jessica Dieckman