Poll: How was LIPA's response to flag fees?

LIPA chairman Howard Steinberg publicly  apologized Thursday to the family of U.S. Army 1st Lt. Joseph Theinert after the recent furor over the authority's mandated fee for hanging flags on utility poles.

The flags, hung on poles on Shelter Island starting this month to commemorate Theinert and other troops killed in Afghanistan, were hit with a $1.25 per-pole fee that LIPA said it was required to charge by a public authorities reform law. Word of the fee set off a furor in the close-knit Shelter Island community, where Theinert was remembered as Joey, and public officials demanded LIPA rescind the fee.