New Castle Planning Board Member Recuses Over Israeli Flag at Town Hall

A senior member of the New Castle Planning Board has recused himself from all meetings until the Town Board decides to remove the Israeli flag from outside of Town Hall.

Tom Curley, who has served on the Planning Board for more than 20 years, read a statement at the start of the Dec. 5 meeting strongly objecting to the Town Board’s decision to raise the flag in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attacks against Israel, something he hadn’t been aware of until after Nov. 14. It was at that meeting where members of the public spoke for close to two hours, mostly in support of the town’s decision.

With two other members of the Planning Board absent last Tuesday, Curley’s recusal forced the cancellation of the meeting.

“My allegiance is to the American flag that flies outside of our Town Hall,” Curley said in his statement before stepping off the dais and leaving Town Hall. “That flag is where my duty and my affection abide. For the Town Board to assume and then to declare by implication my sympathies for any other nation by displaying its flag is an overreach far beyond your legislative civic duties.”

He further stated that “the immorality on both sides of this conflict is not conditional nor is it negotiable. There is wrong and there is right. In my view, nothing in our history mitigates the horror of these innocents’ deaths on either side.”

When reached later last week, Curley said he sent a separate letter as a town resident, not in his capacity as a Planning Board member, to the Town Board on Dec. 2 voicing his opposition to its decision. He took the time to craft a statement that he intended to read at the Planning Board’s next meeting to see if the board took action and removed the Israeli flag.

When Curley arrived for the Dec. 5 Planning Board meeting and saw the flag on one of the two flagpoles, he decided he would read his statement and leave the meeting.

Curley said that just because the town has the legal authority to raise the Israeli flag doesn’t mean it should have been done.

“It’s going to be something that causes division in our town, which is completely unnecessary, and when these types of wounds get open, it’s really hard to heal,” he said. “When people start to take sides, it’s hard for people to come down from their side and be a community again.”

Supervisor Lisa Katz said last Friday that Curley, an architect who first served on the board in the 1990s, and later returned for a second stint, has a right to his opinion but his action was a disservice to the people who were counting on the Planning Board to do its work.

“While I appreciate that Tom has the right to his freedom of speech, I’m disappointed by the timing of his action, which was unfair to those applicants and professionals who attended and were expected to be heard at the Planning Board meeting,” Katz said.

Councilwoman Holly McCall said she respects Curley’s opinion and that the board will have to discuss its options.

“I definitely respect his opinion, although I don’t like the position it’s put the Planning Board and the town in, especially the other Planning Board members,” McCall said. “They’re put in a difficult situation.”

There were three applications on last week’s Planning Board agenda, and one of the applicants was angered by the delay. Resident Earl Graves, who was to have his application heard to replace and expand a deck and to remove a basketball court outside his Random Farms Drive home, scolded the board to do its job. Chairman Robert Kirkwood announced that under state law there needs to be a quorum of a three-member majority in order to meet.

Graves said he was annoyed because his application has been delayed since last February for a variety of reasons and urged the board not to let one member “hijack a meeting.”

“We don’t care what your political affiliations are; none of us do,” he said. “We really don’t. Live up to your damn responsibility.”

Curley said it was unfortunate for the parties that had business before the board, but it wasn’t his actions that caused the meeting to have to be called off. He mentioned that if the Town Board appointed members who took their responsibilities more seriously, the Planning Board wouldn’t have to work shorthanded as often.

While Curley doesn’t expect his decision to make the Town Board change its mind, he felt he couldn’t go against his convictions.

“They’re not going to take the flag down because I’m not there to get me back,” Curley said. “I’m not delusional in any way about any of that, but I cannot in good conscience go into that building with that flag flying there. It just represents something that’s happening right now, which is just about as morally reprehensible as any that a group of people have done to innocent people in history.”

Curley was reappointed last year to another five-year term.

The items on last week’s agenda have been rescheduled to be heard at the Planning Board’s Dec. 19 meeting.