My experience watching the Minnesota flag redesign process did not fill me with confidence when I learned that MA's flag was also up for a committee-led redesign.  I have no real attachment to the current flag, nor do I feel much animosity towards it.  If there are Indian groups in Massachusetts who say it offends them and their communities I think that's entirely reasonable and the state should look into redesigning the flag.  My great fear earlier this year when the initial call for submissions went out was that the uninspired slop that adherents of the infamous "Good Flag Bad Flag" pamphlet (which it should be noted is one man's opinions written in 2006 that is taken as gospel because a snarky YouTuber has spent the last decade plus evangelizing them) would rise to the top of the committee's rankings because these committees are often either uninspired or are themselves held captive to the arbitrary standards of Mr. Kaye.  

I think it would have been entirely appropriate for the committee to not bother with the submission and selection process and just put up the New England flag (red field with a green pine tree in the top left) and asked the voters "Should we adopt this flag as it is or keep the current one?"  My opinions are beside the point, but I can't imagine that there would be this much popular resentment if the committee had done this instead of choosing to put themselves in their current predicament.

This brings me to the main purpose of this post - the committee.  I seemingly have nothing better to do, and I watched the video recording of the committee's August 28th virtual meeting in which they revealed and discussed their finalists for the flag, seal, and motto (video linked to this post).  I skipped over the motto section because I don't really care, and they knocked it out of the park including the red chickadee seal as a finalist so I don't have much to say about that.  The other two seals are absolutely boring, uninspired, and bland, which makes me think they were put there to make the correct choice even more obvious.  The interesting segment of the meeting was the committee's discussion of the flag finalists.  I don't think a single committee member was happy with the flags that ended up as finalists, and much discussion at the end of the meeting was dedicated to whether or not the flags should be re-ranked, or if the ranking criteria should be changed to achieve the desired result of not having crappy designs as the final options (this went nowhere and no action was taken as far as I could tell).  This is what I was worried about happening, this is what happens when a committee of hapless people is crammed together to make a creative determination.  

There is no world in which a ten-person committee was going to come to a satisfying selection of finalists, especially when several members are highly motivated activists who are skewing the results to meet their personal objectives.  The membership of this committee is honestly a little baffling.  They are (in order as listed on their own website):

* Secretary Patrick Tutwiler, Secretary, Executive Office of Education, Co-Chair
* Kate Fox, Executive Director, Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism, Co-Chair
* Jim Peters, Executive Director, Commission on Indian Affairs
* Lilia Melikechi, Communications and Training Manager, Massachusetts Office on Disability
* Summer Confuorto, Traditional Arts Programs Officer, Massachusetts Cultural Council
* Brian Boyles, Executive Director, Mass Humanities
* Elizabeth Solomon, Member chosen by the Executive Director of the Commission on Indian Affairs
* Rhonda Anderson, Member chosen by the Governor
* Dr. John D. Warner, Jr., State Archivist
* Ben Haley, National Register Director at the Massachusetts Historical Commission

To be perfectly frank, I don't see why the Disability Office needed to be represented on this committee, full stop.  I would also like to complain about the redundancy of the committee's membership.  Three members (Mr. Peters, Ms. Solomon, and Ms. Anderson) satisfy the desire to include the input of indigenous voices and wants.  On the surface this is admirable, however, why bloat the committee when having just one of these people present would do?  The same goes for the three history-focused members (Mr. Boyles, Mr. Warner, and Mr. Haley).  Why have three experts in the same subject filling up spots on this committee?  I believe that the selection process would have been more smooth is the committee was slimmed down to something like so:

* Secretary Tutwiler (I guess the Education Secretary has a relevant role in developing a framework for choosing a symbol that stands for our state's history and values.  His inclusion makes more sense than not)
* Co-Chair Fox (the flag will ultimately become a marketable symbol of the state, so her presence makes sense)
* Mr. Peters **or** Ms. Solomon **or** Ms. Anderson (indigenous input)
* Ms. Confuorto (artistic input)
* Mr. Boyles **or** Mr. Warner **or** Mr. Haley (historians' input)

This slimmed down committee still represents the relevant executive-level stakeholders and viewpoints that should be considered in the flag's redesign while avoiding bloat and a consensus-driven push for mediocre and "inoffensive" selections.

TLDR - a ten-person committee was never going to make the right decision, and was always going to leave everyone (**INCLUDING THEMSELVES**) disappointed.  If the finalists are not revised I would urge you all to vote to keep the current flag based on nothing else than animosity directed at the committee and its flawed processes.

Regarding the Flag Committee