Chopper proposed for Soldier Ride event stirs up dust in Town Hall
Two neighbors objected on Tuesday to plans to land a Vietnam-era helicopter at Fiske Field and have it on display as part a Wounded Warrior bike ride planned for Sunday, September 2 to benefit the Lt. Joe Theinert Memorial Fund.
“Between all the activities” that go on in the summer in the neighborhood, “there’s never a minute’s peace,” said Bill Banks from the audience at Tuesday’s town Board work session.
Reacting to a recent amendment to the organization’s application for a town public assembly permit, Mr. Banks and his sister Mary Wilson — the town building inspector and town permit administrator, who live next to Fiske Field on Bateman Road — said they’d had enough disruptions.
“We love these people,” Ms. Wilson said of the Thienert Foundation’s organizers, but “it just keeps going and every year it becomes more and more. It’s getting to be out of control.”
She said so many public events take place nearby, at the school district’s Fiske Field or the nearby American Legion Hall, that she felt she’d “have to put a family function on the community calendar to see if it’s okay.”
In addition to the helicopter — a Sikorsky UH-34 Stinger from a Marine veterans’ group called Freedoms Flying Memorial — the amended event application calls for live amplified music from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. with unspecified breaks. The application was submitted for the foundation by Matt Rhode.
The Town Board seemed to agree with Mr. Banks and Ms. Wilson.
Board members informally agreed to ask organizers to land the helicopter at town-owned Klenawicus airfrield, a bit less than two miles from the American Legion Hall, where the day’s events will be centered after a 12- or 25-mile Wounded Warrior Island bike ride to support the Theinert Foundation.
Supervisor Jim Dougherty said he’d ask representatives of the Theinert Foundation to attend next Tuesday’s Town Board work session. The school district superintendent, Michael Hynes, gave permission for the landing, Mr. Dougherty said. Organizers also sought Town Board permission because the Town Code does not allow helicopter landings except at designated landing sites at the private Westmoreland Field and town-owned Klenawicus.
The Shelter Island event, called a “Spur Ride,” is slated for the day after a North Fork Wounded Warriors bike ride. The event was announced by the fund’s organizers — the family of Islander Joe Theinert, who was killed on duty in Afghanistan in June 2010 — in late July.
The Island Spur Ride will start off with a “kick-off celebration” at 8 a.m. at the American Legion Hall at 1 Bateman Road in the Center. Registration and packet pick-up begins at 7 a.m. and the ride begins at 8:30 a.m. There will be a cookout at the Legion Hall for all riders beginning at 5 p.m.
Registration fee is $50 for adults (“Honorary Cav Trooper) and $25 for children 16 and under (“Honorary Cav Shave Tail”) plus a small additional administrative fee for each.
