A Vietnam veteran upset over the city’s lack of care for U.S. flags on Main Street took his concerns to Mayor Anita Dugatto in Derby City Hall Thursday.
Robert Federico presented the mayor with more than 50 donated flags to replace torn and tattered flags that previously lined Main and Elizabeth streets in downtown Derby.
Federico was accompanied by Richard Dziekan, the Republican nominee for mayor.
The flag flap started after Federico said a U.S. flag from a city pole on Main Street was picked up off the street in front of the Derby Senior Center.
It had just been run over by a truck.
Federico said he raised the issue with the mayor’s office through Dugatto’s secretary.
But then Federico described running into a wall of low-level bureaucracy.
The mayor’s office told him to call the Department of Public Works, which he did. Then he said he called the mayor’s office back and received “attitude” from the mayor’s secretary.
Eventually Federico reached out to Dziekan for help.
The treatment reminded him of the treatment Vietnam vets received upon returning to the U.S., Federico told the mayor Thursday.
“That really was inappropriate,” Federico said.
The video below contains the second half of an approximately five-minute conversation between Federico and the mayor.
Eventually the press was notified, which led to a story from the New Haven Register and several TV news outlets — and the realization that Derby was dotted with badly damaged flags.
Here is a video report on the issue from WTNH.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, flag donations funneled through Dziekan came from the American Legion, Catholic War Veterans and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, along with donations from private groups.
WoodmenLife, a fraternal benefit society, also contacted Derby City Hall to donate flags.
In addition to Dziekan, Federico was accompanied by former Marine and Derby native Greg Lovisolo, who lives in Naugatuck and works with Sam Pollastro, Dziekan’s campaign manager, who was also in attendance.
Lovisolo brought a flag to donate to his hometown as well.
Dugatto listened to Federico in the hallway outside her office Thursday, eventually telling him the buck stops with her.
The video below is the first half of their approximately five-minute conversation.
Dugatto told reporters the flags had been damaged by passing trucks and weather, and that the Department of Public Works was trying to maintain them. She said the flags were scheduled to come down in a few weeks, but they were simply left outside for too long.
Dziekan, who chipped in with state Republican lawmaker Themis Klarides to purchase some new flags for the city, said the embarrassing problem originated in the mayor’s office.
“This was jumpstarted by the way Mr. Federico said he was treated by the front office. It could have been solved right there,” Dziekan said. “It’s not his responsibility to go from department to department.”
When and if the new, donated flags will go up remains to be seen.
This isn’t Derby’s first flag flap.
In 2013, U.S. flags from the graves of veterans were discovered in piles of rubbish in Derby at Mount Saint Peter Cemetery.
Here is the WTNH report on that controversy:
