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Top LIPA officials attends Island Memorial Day Parade

Legion flag on Shelter Island utility pole.

The chief operating officer of the Long Island Power Authority, who was in hot water last week because LIPA insisted it had to levy a fee for the town to mount flags on LIPA utility poles, came to Shelter Island’s Memorial Day Parade Monday morning.

LIPA’s Michael Hervey and his wife drove from western Long Island Saturday morning to watch the parade from the Legion Hall steps at the invitation of Legion Commander Mike Loriz. “He really did a stand-up thing by showing up,” Mr. Loriz said the next day.

Mr. Loriz said Mr. Hervey, who wound up paying the town’s pole fee himself last week — it amounted to just over $23 — “was impressively humble and quiet.”

Mr. Loriz said he had invited him by email Friday evening and Mr. Hervey had answered Saturday morning that he’d be here.

“I asked him to thank him for trying to work with us constructively,” Mr. Loriz said, not only to settle the local issue but the larger problem: As Mr. Loriz explained it, “The state and Verizon think there’s some flexibility in state law” that allows them to waive fees for the use of their utility poles, “but LIPA doesn’t.” Mr. Loriz said either the law should be changed to make it clear that discretion is allowed or LIPA needs to adjust its interpretation of the law so that other communities are never charged for patriotic flag displays.

The flags, bought by the Legion, were mounted by town highway workers on many poles along Route 114 to welcome the late Lt. Joe Theinert’s troop to the Island last week for a four-day visit. They will remain in place through the July 4 weekend. Lt. Theinert, a Shelter Islander, died in Afghanistan a year ago.

Town Board members over the past month discussed the flag project at their Tuesday work sessions and it appeared the flag fee was never considered an issue. The board knew about the $5 fee, but Supervisor Jim Dougherty, after talking to County Legislator Ed Romaine and others, indicated that he did not expect the town or anyone on the Island to have to pay it.

Then on Monday, May 23, Newsday ran a story on its front page about LIPA insisting that state law required it to impose the fee. The story, which followed from an interview with Mr. Romaine, was picked up by New York city TV stations and eventually went national.

Mr. Romaine complained in an interview the following day that most of the poles along the route belong to Verizon, not LIPA, and yet LIPA wanted to charge for all of them anyway. He said LIPA was an “out of control company” that “has done so many skunky things.” Verizon, he said, never demanded any fee. But even as the story went coast to coast, Mr. Romaine also said the case was closed and no one on the Island would pay any fees.

Supervisor Dougherty disclosed on Tuesday that he’d spoken with Mr. Hervey that afternoon and that the CEO, who was not available for interviews during the parade,  had written a personal check and paid the fee himself.