By Dakota Antelman, Managing Editor
UPDATE: The deadline to submit letters of interest for the Town Seal Review Committee has been extended to July 16.
WESTBOROUGH – Those interested in joining Westborough’s soon-to-be-formed Town Seal Review Committee can still submit letters of interest to the Town Moderator.
Established by Town Meeting vote earlier this year, the committee will review the history of town seals in Westborough, consider whether to replace Westborough’s current seal and provide a report to a future town meeting based on that deliberation. If it suggests changing the seal, the committee will be further tasked with laying out a possible process for making that happen.
The original deadline for letters of interest has been extended. Originally set for June 30, Town Moderator John Arnold announced in a new statement, June 28, that he will continue to accept letters through July 16.
This, he wrote in a message to the Community Advocate, is “due to end of school year activities and people’s busy schedules for the July 4th weekend.”
Learn more about how to submit a letter of interest… https://www.town.westborough.ma.us/home/news/town-seal-review-committee-letters-interest-now-due-july-16.
The town seal has been a topic of intense debate in town particularly over the last two years.
The seal features a depiction of the cotton gin whose inventor, Eli Whitney, once lived in town. As a series of protests and social movements regarding racism in America have prompted a reexamination of historical symbols and figures, some have discussed the ways Whitney’s invention helped industrialize systems of slavery in the American South.
As a result, critics say Westborough should remove the cotton gin from its seal.
With others in town arguing the seal should remain unchanged, the matter will, for now, be in the hands of the Town Seal Review Committee before ultimately coming back before Town Meeting.
