Rep. Michael Arcuri, D-Utica, spent the days before his Thursday wedding last week getting to know some of his constituents.

On Monday morning, he helped prepare and serve lunch at the Charles T. Sitrin Health Center in New Hartford. Later that day, he worked with dispatchers at Otsego County’s 911 Center in Phoenix Mills.

After delivering mail Tuesday in Cortland, Arcuri was in Norwich on Wednesday milking cows on a dairy farm owned by Henry Tumilowicz. Then he was off to New Hartford to work at the Special Metals Plant.

"When you do someone else’s job for a while," Arcui said in Norwich, "you begin to understand what they’re going through."

First, we congratulate the 48-year-old freshman member of Congress on his wedding to Sabrina Deon of Utica. And as a wedding present, we’d like to offer this bit of advice.

Working various jobs can give you a good idea of what the voters in your district care about, and there is much to be learned.

However, we would have been far more impressed if your toil had not been prefaced by news releases coveting coverage of what you were doing.

Doing the work just for the noble purpose of getting to know your constituents would have made your efforts seem more like good involvement in the community and less like a gimmick designed to help you get re-elected in 2008.

That said, may you and your bride have a long and happy marriage.

Better ways to handle flag disagreement

On the same day as Arcuri’s wedding, a rather sad spectacle occurred in Cooperstown.

David Butler of Fly Creek was arrested for attempting to raise an American flag that had been lowered in memory of Walter Rich, 61, who had died earlier in the day.

Cooperstown Mayor Carol Waller had ordered the flag lowered to half-staff to honor Cooperstown’s Rich, chairman of the board of the New York Susquehanna & Western Railway.

This outraged Butler, a former chief of police for the railway and the author of a highly critical book about Rich.

Butler, who was arrested for disorderly conduct after twice attempting to raise the flag at the corner of Main and Pioneer streets, said the mayor had no right to lower it.

``(Rich is) not a veteran," Butler said, "and I think it’s a disgrace to the flag.’’ He said he believed that only presidents and governors have the power to command that the American flag be lowered.

He would, however, appear to be wrong.

According to Brad Maione, public information officer with the state Office of General Services, state law provides ``that flags may be flown at half-staff ... to commemorate the death of a local serviceman, official or public servant who, in the opinion of the local agency concerned, contributed to the community.’’

Whether Waller was right or wrong, the disgrace was Butler’s. If he thought the mayor was violating the law, he should have notified the police or sought some other solution rather than attempting to take the law into his own hands.