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Smithtown, New York (U.S.)

Suffolk County

image by Jens Pattke, 4 May 2014

The flag
Seal
Public Safety Department

Municipal flags in Smithtown:

Nissequogue

See also:

Description of the flag

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

Seal

image located by Paul Bassinson, 26 April 2020

Source: https://www.smithtownny.gov/ImageRepository/Document?documentID=3474
Paul Bassinson, 26 April 2020

Public Safety Department

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