Harry Macklowe's request for a change of venue in a court case involving East Hampton Village Code violations was denied by a county judge last Thursday.

The Georgica Close Road resident had sought to have the case removed from East Hampton Town Justice Court because of what he called an "all-out vendetta" against him.

County Criminal Court Judge Charles F. Cacciabaudo ruled, however, that "the trial judge is the sole arbiter of his recusal."

The next move will be up to Mr. Macklowe. He could appeal the decision, proceed with a separate hearing in a related matter, as he initially requested, or go right to trial.

Mayor Is Pleased

Two sets of code-violation charges are pending in the local court, one stemming from landscaping and electrical wiring carried out in 1995 without a required wetlands permit, and the other involving a disputed fence.

"I am pleased, and ready for trial," Daniel G. Rodgers of Riverhead, the village's prosecutor, declared this week. "One way or another, let's get this done."

"It's an appropriate determination," said Village Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. "It sends a good message."

In legal papers, Mr. Macklowe had accused the Mayor in December of applying "pressure" to "harass" him.

"Let's not lose sight of the substantive issues," said Mr. Rickenbach this week.

Border Skirmishes

Michael G. Walsh, Mr. Macklowe's Water Mill attorney, did not return a phone call this week. He and his client have continually declined to speak with Star reporters.

The activities in question took place along the border Mr. Macklowe shares with Martha Stewart. The Manhattan real estate magnate and the lifestyle authority have been embroiled in zoning and legal disputes for several years.

The fence that the village says is illegal was erected in May 1997. According to Mr. Rodgers, Mr. Macklowe was given a chance to remove it without penalty, but declined. His attorney, Mr. Walsh, reportedly said his client had "a 'personal' problem with removing said fence in connection with an ongoing dispute with his neighboring property owner," according to legal papers filed with the county court.

The first set of charges has been on Justice Roger W. Walker's calendar several times, but each time a trial has been postponed due to last-minute legal maneuverings. The most recently scheduled trial, on Dec. 16, was delayed when Mr. Walsh filed the change-of-venue request.

The change was necessary, according to Mr. Macklowe, "because the extraordinarily hostile political climate in the Village of East Hampton . . . directed at defendants has so imbued these proceedings with bias that a fair trial cannot be had."

At the time, both the village and Justice Walker indignantly denied the allegation.

Disputed Subpoenas

Just before requesting the change of venue, Mr. Macklowe had sought, unsuccessfully, to quash subpoenas issued by the local court at the village prosecutor's request.

The subpoenas - for Bruce A. Anderson of Suffolk Environmental Consulting in Bridgehampton, Jack Whitmore of Whitmore and Worsley in Amagansett, Donald Bousson, Mr. Macklowe's caretaker, and Edward Bulgin of Andreassen and Bulgin Construction in Southampton - were a form of "harassment," Mr. Macklowe said.

A hearing on the subpoenas was to have taken place in the local court on Dec. 15, but that matter, too, was postponed because of the change-of-venue motion.

Mr. Rodgers had characterized the subpoenas in December as "perfectly legitimate," saying it was "incumbent upon me to establish each and every part of this case."

Ownership

The witnesses are expected to testify either to carrying out work that the village claims violated the code, or to the question of whether Mr. Macklowe does indeed own the Georgica Close Road property.

In court in September, Mr. Walsh had asked that Mr. Macklowe be removed as a defendant in the case since he "does not own the property . . . and he is not a shareholder or stockholder of KAM Hampton I Realty Corp.," the corporate owner of record.

In June, KAM Hampton and Harry and Linda Macklowe had stated in connection with a lawsuit against the village and Ms. Stewart that "KAM Hampton I Realty Corp. . . . is a New York corporation owned by Harry and Linda Macklowe. . . . Mr. and Mrs. Macklowe and their family use the KAM Hampton premises as a summer residence."

Each count of violating the Village Code could bring six months in jail and/or a fine of $500. The village could conceivably charge Mr. Macklowe with one additional count for each offense each week that the violations continue.

In New York

Meanwhile, Mr. Macklowe more than has his hands full in the Manhattan real estate market, according to a New York Times article yesterday.

He is building a 300-unit apartment building on 50th Street and Eighth Avenue, demolishing buildings that will be replaced with another apartment complex at Second Avenue and 53d Street, and planning a $400-million speculative skyscraper office building on Madison Avenue property near 42d Street, which he bought just two weeks ago. According to the article, his company owns property in Manhattan worth $1.5 billion.

In 1985 Mr. Macklowe admitted to having four Manhattan buildings torn down in the middle of the night without a demolition permit. His company and vice president of construction at the time both pleaded guilty to charges of reckless endangerment, and, although Mr. Macklowe was not charged himself, he paid the City of New York $2 million.

A carved Buddha sits, centered, above an electric eye in a darkened space that resembles a classroom less than an affluent homeowner's well-appointed library. Below the Buddha, a likeness of Michelangelo's "David," nearly as large as life, is projected on a screen.

A group of ninth-graders, many tapping notes on laptop computers, listen, answer, and joke a little as an instructor directs their attention to the statue's large hands, intense mien, and curly hair, then asks them to compare it to Donatello's rendering of the same subject.

This was a recent art history class at the Ross School, though it could well have been an introductory college course.

Intel Inside

The school's spanking-new, multi-story facility off Route 114 in East Hampton, completed in November, houses some of the most cutting-edge learning paraphernalia available, much of it supplied by Intel, the computer-chip manufacturer.

Intel "wanted to see what we could do with it," said the school's founder, Courtney Sale Ross, whose late husband, Steve Ross, headed Time-Warner Inc.

Juxtaposed and contrasting with the electronics is a collection of high-quality reproduction art and some colorful Warner Brothers Studios memorabilia, including an eye-catching frieze of tin lunch boxes from the '40s and '50s.

Six Hundred Outlets

Mrs. Ross is proud of the space-age "learning laboratory" on the roughly five-acre campus, which has separate buildings for its fifth through eighth-graders, all girls. (The ninth grade, the only upper-school grade so far, is coeducational.)

"We could be a model for the country," Mrs. Ross told The Star last week, spelling out her priorities - an "integrated curriculum," "international teaching initiatives," "mining the technology" for maximum usefulness.

Technology is everywhere at Ross. Some 600 outlets for both desktop and notebook computers, accommodating both Macintoshes and I.B.M. clones, peek discreetly from below built-in wooden desks, behind seating, in the walls. Touch a table and a keyboard leaps out from underneath.

Teleconferencing

In a spherical, domed room reminiscent of Disney World's Epcot Center, students and teachers sit in the round, gazing upon multiple images: works of art, charts, symbols captured with digital cameras, math equations, outlines - working documents of all kinds, including E-mail - all projected and controlled from a computer.

Students can manipulate or adjust what they see via their own computers, plugged in under their seats. Every Ross School ninth-grader receives a Toshiba laptop to take notes on during the day and do homework on at night, and all the students' machines are networked with all the teachers'.

Inside this room, the sky seems the technological limit. In fact, it is a teleconferencing center, able to access students and teachers not only nearby but in Japan, Latin America, and Paris, where the school's founder has developed relationships with similarly equipped schools.

Global Village

Communication on a subject of common interest takes place in real time, an example of what Mrs. Ross calls the "global village" in action.

"It is a world vastly different," she said, from the one she grew up in. It remains, though, a world where English is emerging as the dominant language, according to those working with the technology in academic settings.

"It's about dissolving boundaries," said the school's founder.

Partnership

In recent weeks, Mrs. Ross has begun planning to bring all South Fork students and their teachers, in both private and public schools, into Ross's technology adventure.

In what school officials call a private-public partnership - something the New York State Education Department now encourages - Ross has established a working relationship with the Peconic Teachers Center, a teacher-training group supported by 12 East End public school districts and 11 private and parochial schools.

The goal is to bring the various faculties together, exchange ideas on the use of technology in learning and teaching, and teach teachers how to make the best use of available equipment. Grant money for such public-private efforts is becoming increasingly available, said Mrs. Ross.

Technology

Both public and private schools here have allocated substantial funds in recent years to beef up their technology capacity. The East Hampton School District, for instance, has spent $1.1 million wiring, networking, and outfitting its three buildings in the past three years.

While many teachers have gone for computer training on their own, and some districts provide it to a degree, much, apparently, remains to be learned.

To find out how much, the Peconic Teachers Center conducted a detailed survey of its members. All of them responded, according to Larrilee Capps-Jamiola, the director, who said South Fork schools were "ahead of the national average."

Wired Schools

Among the survey results:

86 percent of South Fork schools have Internet access.

50 percent have an E-mail system.

41 percent have a Web site.

61 percent run a Windows program.

Most teachers are self-taught, though 55 percent say they have received training in how to use computers and 36 percent have been taught how to integrate technology into the curriculum.

Half the teachers have consulted a professional computer trainer within the past three years.

Webliography

Ms. Capps-Jamiola said the new partnership has its own Web site (www.ross.org/peconic), which among other things will make it a snap for members to talk to each other, one-on-one or in conference chat sessions.

A "design team" is being formed, she said, from various schools, to determine overall needs.

Among the team's projects, said Ms. Capps-Jamiola, might be a "webliography" - a library of Web sites, by subject, for teachers.

Anywhere, Any Time

Meanwhile, at the Ross School, ninth-graders practice their foreign-language pronunciation on the audio components of their laptops, and their teachers listen. They complete homework assignments on computer, and teachers check it. No more dogs eating the homework, says the faculty.

And, if the students take a family vacation to Florida, or China, or just down the road, they can share the experience by transmitting images from their digital cameras back to the school.

The point of it all, according to Linda Brown, head of media studies and the former director of educational television for the Discovery Channel, is that "learning can happen anywhere, at any time."

What had been a productive fishing season took a violent, albeit temporary, turn for local trap fishermen when winds and waves generated by last week's surprise northeast storm tore their traps to pieces. The four-day blow pulled boats from their moorings and caused serious erosion on bay as well as ocean beaches.

"Annihilated," was how Mickey Miller, an East Hampton bayman, described what the storm had done to his pound trap near Old House Landing on Gardiner's Bay. He said wind and waves had pushed seaweed into the trap's netting, the added weight pulling the trap's stakes from the bottom. "I can rebuild, but it's hard to find trees to cut for stakes with all the foliage."

"It was as bad as it can get," said Brad Loewen, a veteran pound-trap fisherman and president of the East Hampton Town Baymen's Association. Mr. Loewen's three traps, located in Gardiner's Bay between Cedar Point Park and Hedges Bank, were pulled apart. "The first trap lost 23 stakes, the second, 20." He was putting two back together this week, but the westernmost trap was a "total loss."

The bayman said that at Hedges Bank, "there's nothing between us and Rhode Island but the fort," the remains of old Fort Michie, known as The Ruins, on the northern end of Gardiner's Island. "It was like the ocean. Northeast winds. It had to be blowing 40 - ungodly gusts. It was a particularly hard storm and blew for four days, relentless."

Bob Stalker, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Brookhaven, said the unusual weather was the result of an upper-level disturbance stalled between the Rocky Mountains and a blocking weather pattern offshore. The stalled front allowed more than one low-pressure system moving up from the south of Long Island to combine with full-moon tides to "pile water up along the coast."

Richard Hendrickson, the National Weather Service's local statistician, put the gusts at over 40 miles per hour out of the northeast early on Wednesday, May 25, a day after the storm began. Between Tuesday and Thursday of last week, when the big low-pressure system faded away, one and a half inches of rain fell, filling an already swollen Georgica Pond. "To have one in late May with two days of severity and high tides and beach erosion is unusual, but it's no record-breaker," Mr. Hendrickson said.

But it was a trap and back-breaker, according to Mr. Loewen. "It's not that I can't get them back together, but I'm 56 years old with a sore back. I've been through hurricanes, and this was worse." Two of his traps should be back fishing by the end of the week, he said.

His and Mickey Miller's were not the only traps to suffer. Kevin Miller's trap at Fresh Pond was lost, and Jens Lester and Doug Rigby were said to have lost stakes as well.

Most traps had been fishing since early May, catching "mostly squid, the best I've seen in 15 years," a fact Mr. Loewen attributed to the colder-than-normal water temperatures, which might have kept bluefish from their usual squid attack. Porgies, bluefish, and weakfish had begun to show up when the northeaster struck.

The storm caused a 48-foot Endeavor sailboat to come ashore on Havens Beach last week, according to the Sag Harbor Village Police Department. Flying High, owned by Dawn Cziraki of Sag Harbor, came to rest near the Havens Park playground.

Bruce Tait, a yacht broker and member of the village's harbor committee, said the storm was rare for late May. "It was more like a fall storm."

Last Thursday, on the second day of the storm, two more sailboats, Swans of 61 and 42 feet, were pushed over the top of the Sag Harbor breakwater. No one was aboard the boats at the time. They had been moored outside the protection of the breakwater, about 1,600 to 2,000 feet from the Breakwater Yacht Club, according to Ed Barry, a village harbormaster.

David Whelan of D.J. Whelan Corporation, a marine contractor, hauled the Swans away from the breakwater on Saturday, and was expected to remove Flying High from the beach today at high tide. He said the job will require a crane barge, two tug boats, and an excavator. "It's a delicate process. It's like moving a beached whale - you can't just pull on its fin and put it back in the water."

Flying High escaped without serious damage, but the boats on the breakwater weren't as lucky. The smaller vessel "was holed," the rudder of the larger one was damaged, and their rigging became entangled, Mr. Whelan said. "The priority was to remove the boats on the breakwater because they were in peril." Village police and the harbormaster did not release the names of the boats' owners.

Mr. Barry pointed out that Sag Harbor was located between two masses of land, Shelter Island and Cedar Point, which tended to funnel northeast winds toward the village. The harbormasters' wind gauge on top of the Sag Harbor Village Marine Center on Bay Street showed 52-mile-per-hour winds on May 25.

Mr. Barry said he suspected that gusts reached 15 or 20 miles per hour higher than that because of the funneling effect. Full-moon tides added to boaters' difficulties in Sag Harbor. "In fairness to everybody involved, it was an unexpected and an unpredicted gale that wasn't announced to be so strong," the harbormaster said.

"I can't remember a nor'easter in May," said Larry Penny, the director of natural resources for East Hampton Town. He said the town's more vulnerable shorelines took a hit, including those at Soundview Drive on Montauk's Block Island Sound side, Mulford Lane just west of Lazy Point on Napeague, and sections of ocean beach. High tide caused "slumping" of Montauk's bluffs, and scoured Ditch Plain down to the glacial till in places, the resources director said.

Beaches recently replenished with sand were stripped again at Gerard Drive in Springs, and piping plover nests and fences to protect them were washed away by the storm.

Mr. Penny said the endangered shore birds would rebuild their nests, but the loss meant that beachgoers would have to stay away from them that much longer.

According to a survey taken by Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., residents of East Hampton Town are opposed to the death penalty, 61 to 39 percent, while opinion across the Second Assembly District, which also includes Southampton and Brookhaven Towns, is fairly evenly split.

Southampton residents registered opposition to the death penalty, with 56 percent voting against it 44 percent voting in its favor. Brookhaven showed a near reversal of the East Hampton results, with residents favoring the death penalty, 63 to 37 percent. In all, 1,200 residents of the three towns were questioned.

Mr. Thiele decided to find out what his constituents thought as the State Senate's recent attempts to revive the death penalty in New York were defeated in an assembly committee.

Last June, the New York State Court of Appeals declared the state's death penalty statute unconstitutional because a provision of the law was coercive. "The deadlock instruction" provided that in cases of jury deadlock, life imprisonment with parole would be imposed. The court's opinion was that those who rejected the possibility of parole would vote to impose the death penalty instead.

Mr. Thiele said that the district's divided stance is reflective of the state's position as a whole. A recent statewide poll found that 46 percent of state residents would like to see the death penalty remain dormant. Those that support its reinstatement only totaled 42 percent. In a poll conducted by Siena College, 29 percent of state residents supported the death penalty over life without parole as the maximum sentence.

Mr. Thiele said that he would have voted against the bill that the Assembly Codes Committee defeated if it had come to a full vote.

"I believe the death penalty should be used sparingly for the most heinous crimes such as terrorism and only where proof of guilt is irrefutable. The bill before the Legislature this year would not have met such standards," he said.

Jacqui Lofaro, a Bridgehampton resident and Southampton Town Planning Board member, produced a film with Victor Teich on the death penalty called "The Empty Chair," which was screened at the Hamptons Film Festival and the New York Bar Association last month. The film has also been shown on television and can be seen on the Hallmark Channel on June 12.

Her film presents both sides of the issue, but Ms. Lofaro said she was heartened by the local survey results. "I think people in this country want fairness in trials and the criminal justice system.

. . . It's time for people in New York State and Suffolk County to re-examine this. All arguments for its use have proven to be untrue."

She added that DNA evidence produced by groups like the Innocence Project, founded by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld at the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law in 1992, had shown states like Illinois, which had a high number of false convictions, that the system is fallible.

Edward Burke Jr., a defense attorney based in Sag Harbor, also favorably cited the project's work with DNA in allowing cases to be considered "through the facts of evidence. As a defense attorney, I'm pleased to see where it's at" in terms of the effect of such evidence on appeals in the decade or so since the project started.

Mr. Thiele said that the use of DNA in capital cases "cuts both ways." It makes the "system closer to perfect" so that juries will be less likely to doubt the guilt of someone whose DNA evidence links him to the crime, but also raises questions about the fallibility of previous cases.

"It's tricky stuff," Ms. Lofaro said, adding that she believed that some legislators who initially voted for the death penalty "are reconsidering their vote."

The death penalty by lethal injection was first enacted in the state in 1995. Seven people have been sentenced to death since then, three in Suffolk County under former District Attorney James Catterson, who helped draft the death penalty law. None have been executed.

Two defendants had their sentences overturned by the court to life without parole. One defendant's sentence was changed to 37 1/2 years to life. It was one of the Suffolk County defendants, Steven LaValle, whose case overturned the death penalty and may have invalidated the sentences of the other three prisoners on death row. Two cases remain before the Court of Appeals pending the law's reinstatement.

Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota favors the death penalty, but has not pursued it since he took office in 2002. Three cases were eligible, but he declined each time, according to Robert Clifford, a spokesman for Mr. Spota.

Mr. Clifford said that district attorneys are reluctant to discuss in detail the criteria that are involved in such decisions because the information shared publicly often ends up as "arguments in legal briefs."

There are some verifiable standard criteria, however. The charge must be first-degree murder. If the crime includes torture, if it is an act of terrorism, or if the victim is a police officer, it automatically qualifies for consideration of the death penalty.

While he said that it was never discussed, Mr. Burke, who was one of Daniel Pelosi's defense attorneys, said that the charges against his client might have qualified for death penalty consideration. Mr. Pelosi was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

Mr. Pelosi was fortunate in being able to hire Mr. Burke and Gerald Shargel, an attorney famous for defending Mafia figures. For people who could not afford that level of representation, the State Legislature set up three Capital Defenders Offices when the law took effect.

The office provided experienced defense attorneys to build a coordinated case for both the trial and sentencing. Under that system, Mr. Clifford said, the district attorney had to notify the defender's office as soon as a case was deemed eligible so that an adequate attorney was available for the arraignment.

Those offices still exist while the fate of the law is being determined. Gov. George E. Pataki has said he will discontinue funding the offices if the death penalty is not reinstated by the end of June. When the law was repealed, several cases in the state were pending in which either death notices had been filed or were under consideration. Since the Court of Appeals invalidated the law, only one prosecutor has sought the death penalty. If the law is revived, that case can then go to trial.

The state senate amended the law to allow the option of life without parole in case of a jury deadlock, but it was that version of the law that was defeated in the Assembly Codes Committee. The full assembly has not voted on the issue and probably will not anytime soon, according to Mr. Thiele.

Mr. Thiele said that support for the death penalty has "waned in recent years." He attributed the change to the overall reduction in violent crimes across the country and the "spectacle" raised by states such as Texas where the death penalty is very frequently imposed. "It makes people very uncomfortable," he said.

The League of Women Voters of New York State issued a report last July on the use of the death penalty in the state. Its findings led to a policy position in favor of permanently abolishing the law and imposing life sentences without parole instead at the beginning of this year.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has recently mounted a campaign to end the death penalty across the country. A recent poll of Catholics found that fewer than half support the death penalty and that includes 29 percent who have changed their minds after supporting it initially.

"From a political point of view, it's not the issue it was 10 to 15 years ago," Mr. Thiele said.

This memorial, one of three honoring the men and women of Springs who served in the armed forces in World War II, was made by Daniel T. Miller, who ran the Springs General Store. It was displayed at the store, which in 1943 was on the corner of School Street and Fireplace Road. Nobody remembers what happened to it or when it was taken down.

Members of a group claiming to lead the Montaukett Indian Tribe announced at a press conference on Saturday that they would pursue ownership of lands they say were stolen from their ancestors, including Montauk County Park, the Camp Hero State Park near Montauk Point, and the former Grumman site in Calverton.

It is at Calverton where the group hopes to build a tribal center and a long list of recreational, social service, and medical facilities - all funded by a casino.

Robert Cooper, a former East Hampton Town Councilman who was elected Chief in November by 37 of an estimated 350 members on the most recent tribal roll, leads the group. His election has been called "irrelevant" by Robert Pharaoh of Sag Harbor, who claims he is Chief, or Grand Sachem. Some 100 Montauketts are said to have signed documents of allegiance to him.

"Economic Engine"

Mr. Cooper called the press conference after it was reported that his supporters were negotiating with would-be casino developers called the Dreamcatchers.

Wearing a headband and necklace, Mr. Cooper described the Montauketts' cultural, spiritual, and legal history in detail for about an hour before confirming that the tribe was indeed interested in building a casino at Calverton.

He called a casino "an economic engine," which, he said, would "do good for the people." Furthermore, Mr. Cooper claimed that the Montaukett Tribe had rights to lands the length and breadth of Long Island. He declined to name any of the would-be casino developers the group was talking to. The Dreamcatchers were "out of the picture," however, he said.

Dreamcatchers

Led by William D. Talmage, a real estate broker involved in developing the Tanger Mall in Riverhead, the Dreamcatchers had approached the Shinnecocks in Southampton, the Poosepatucks in Mastic, and Robert Pharaoh before beginning negotiations with Mr. Cooper's group.

As reported here previously, Mr. Cooper and members of the Dreamcatchers had toured the 2,900-acre Grumman site at Calverton with a representative of the Riverhead Community Development Agency, which has been showing the site to potential developers. The Star also obtained and reported on minutes of a Nov. 15 meeting between Mr. Cooper and the Dreamcatchers.

Members of the Montaukett Tribe confirmed that a lawyer for Mr. Cooper's group had written to the Dreamcatchers recently to say that they were not interested in doing business with them. Mr. Talmage did not return calls by press time and Doug Herrlin, an East Hampton architect who is listed as one of the Dreamcatchers, declined to be interviewed.

Five Council Members

On Saturday, Mr. Cooper denied signing anything with the Dreamcatchers, saying a contract to develop a casino would have to bear seven Montaukett signatures, his and the six members of his executive council, who, he said, live in western Suffolk, Nassau, and Queens.

Five appeared with him on Saturday: John Brewster Fowler, a retired police officer from Amityville, Delores Bunn Vaughan, a former state finance officer from Hollis, Cheryl Cuffey-Carrion, a bookkeeper from Hempstead, the Rev. Kenneth Nelson, a Methodist minister from Oyster Bay, and Corinne Bunn Whitaker, a retired postal worker from Copiague.

They said they had not chosen a casino developer, and noted that "there are offers on the table." The council had been "looking, talking, and listening," according to Mr. Cooper.

'We have a people out there who are definitely yearning to find their way back home. We're going to be their compass.' Robert Cooper

The group said it would use the profits from the casino to, in Mr. Cooper's words, "move the Montauketts out of the dark and into the light."

Long Island Caretakers

After a judge ruled the tribe was extinct in 1909, which Mr. Cooper said pushed tribal members into the "mainstream," their descendants became doctors, lawyers, and other professionals, he said, who can develop and operate as sophisticated a complex as the group has proposed. They have formed a nonprofit corporation, called the Montaukett Caretakers of Long Island, under which to raise funds to document their genealogy and pursue Federal recognition as a tribe.

Two years ago, Mr. Pharaoh sent the Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs a letter of intent, the first step in the application process for receiving tribal recognition. Last month, at a monthly gathering of Montauketts in Amityville, they took the second step, approving a final version of the actual application and the extensive documentation it requires.

"It took two years to ask for all the genealogies but it's done. And Bob Cooper submitted his own genealogy for our document so he is a participant in it," said James Devine, a Montaukett supporting Mr. Pharaoh.

Recognition would make the tribe eligible for educational, housing, and social services and grant it sovereign rights, including the right to operate a casino.

Money Charges

Reached at home Tuesday night, Mr. Pharaoh confirmed that he and his supporters had "absolutely no interest in a casino."

"Our goal is to receive Federal recognition as a tribe, to regain our identity, and eventually to reclaim some of our ancestral lands," he said.

He and other Montauketts said Montauk County Park was clearly an ancestral land, which they could try to reclaim in the future. But, they said, there was less evidence of the former military base at Camp Hero's being of significance and none whatsoever of ownership of the Calverton site.

"This is only about money. Take the chance for some money away and Bob Cooper will go away," charged Mr. Pharaoh.

Artifacts As Proof

Mr. Cooper said "artifacts" had been found during an environmental study of the Calverton site and that, as a result, the Environmental Protection Agency had recommended the Montauketts' concerns be considered as the study was completed.

"Do people die where they live? Most likely," he said.

The Navy is overseeing the study, and a spokesman told The Star no formal Montaukett claim to the land had been made. To questions about whether lacking Federal recognition could hold up a claim, Mr. Cooper said the Department of the Interior could temporarily hold the land in trust while a final decision on recognition was made. That could take could take several years, he added.

Calling the Montauketts "a proud people" and "decent and genuine people," Mr. Cooper said they believed "spiritual and divine guidance is leading us to this point." He called his supporters "a new breed of Montaukett."

Social Services

"We have a people out there who are definitely yearning to find their way back home. We're going to be their compass," he said.

Plans include a breast cancer clinic, youth recreation center, affordable housing, clinics for abused children and drug abusers, a shelter for victims of domestic violence, a nutritional program for homebound seniors and day care centers for seniors, and children.

Also on the wish list are a center for Native American crafts and culture, a reconstruction of an old village, a restaurant, a museum and genealogy library, horseback riding, a theme park, a convention center, a performing arts theater, a sports arena, a hospital, and picnic and camp grounds.

And Many Jobs

The group said the complex would generate many jobs - and enough revenue for the town to decrease property taxes. Mr. Cooper said the first employees chosen would come from Riverhead, which has a large low-income population.

Additionally, the revenue to the Montauketts "can establish some repatriation on the wrongs that were done to us," said Mr. Cooper. He and his council said they were not interested in obtrusive architecture. "We're a low profile people that do low profile things that get maximum effect," he said.

The group said it would soon approach the Riverhead Town Board with a specific proposal for the site, and expected that it would meet there with enthusiasm. It was learned that Mr. Pharaoh had already written to the Riverhead Town Board, however, saying Mr. Cooper does not represent the Montauketts and that the tribe lays no claim to the Calverton site.

Legal Aid

Mr. Cooper's group has hired two lawyers. They are Nina Stewart, who is East Hampton Town's housing director and who will watch over the transfer and development of the land, and Ann Nowak, who has a practice in Water Mill, and will help manage the group's finances. She also will help the group "avoid people looking out for themselves," as Mr. Cooper put it.

Ms. Nowak played the latter role on Saturday. She kept a list of reporters who had been approved to attend the conference, screening each as he or she arrived, and she operated a tape recorder throughout the conference, as did Mr. Cooper.

Bob Goodale, chairman of the Riverhead Development Corporation, who has been authorized by the town to oversee development at Calverton, joined the press conference halfway through and left before it was over. He said yesterday that he awaited a formal proposal.

Recognition Key

Mr. Goodale added that his role was only to advise the Town Board on the viability of any proposals made and that he would leave the question of gambling's suitability to the Calverton site to the board.

State and county parks officials said they had yet to receive any legal papers on the Montauketts' land claims and Mr. Cooper was not ready to say when that would occur.

Peter A. Scully, assistant deputy county executive, said "obviously, the assertion is very interesting but it remains to be seen whether the group making it will be recognized as a tribe, or whether in fact they have rights to anything at all."

"I thought Bob Cooper claimed to be Chief so he could march at the head of the town's 350th anniversary parade," said Mr. Devine, who lives in Montauk, referring to the East Hampton Town celebration in October.

Stolen Lands

"But now he's dealing with these people and no one knows who they are. If they have millions to sink into a casino, somebody better find out who the hell they are."

The group's claims to land outside Montauk County Park are "pure nonsense," Mr. Devine alleged. "As far as the tribe is concerned, we only want back the rights to the land that was stolen from us."

"The Europeans made us slaves and servants, and we refuse to yield to that. . . . Montauk to Brooklyn is Montaukett country," said Mr. Cooper.

Thoughtlessness

Amagansett

March 3, 1998

To The Editor:

I am appalled by the base thoughtlessness of persons having those blue handicapped driving permits, who sit in the designated parking places at the Amagansett Post Office and read their mail! They couldn't seem to care less that they may be depriving other handicapped drivers of occupying those few spaces.

PETER B. TURGEON

Remain Vigilant

East Hampton

March 3, 1998

To The Editor:

The Security Council has finally endorsed the compromise reached by Kofi Annan last week.

Those of us who breathed a sigh of relief at the narrow escape must remain vigilant. Sounds of posturing and bluster are still being emitted from Washington. We must keep the pressure on our legislators to remind them we reject the war option, we deplore the seven years of sanctions which have killed and weakened a million children.

We may not like Saddam Hussein, but let us admit that we created the monster to quell Iran and it is our heavy-handed need to dominate the oil fields that motivated our recurring sorties in that area. Were we really so sensitive to land grabs, we would have reined in Israel long ago. Let Unscom finish inspecting and get out.

And in the meantime, can we not find some way to send medicine and water purification materials in there under the Red Cross or Medicins Sans Frontieres? If our Government plays the bully because they think the polls indicate our approval, we are guilty for not expressing our horror at the situation.

Sincerely,

HELEN FITZGERALD

Include, Don't Exclude

Sag Harbor

March 3, 1998

Dear Editor,

There is no justification for government, communities, or schools to allow ignorant fears based on prejudices toward any group of people to influence their decisions.

Whether or not young people are welcome in a "neighborhood," a moral society cannot pander to the phantom fears created in the minds of adults afraid of being in the vicinity of teenagers. Youth centers, youth programs, and schools exist successfully in communities and neighborhoods across the U.S.A.

We need to stop these rude prejudices that deny our young people access to their own communities. Let us exercise some intelligence, integrity, and spirit by encouraging young people to feel included in their communities and let us recognize prejudice and intolerance for the harmful attitudes they are.

If neighborhoods would take the time to work with youth, they might benefit from the openness, sharing, and respect so many of us who have worked on these projects with kids have experienced and learned from.

WINIFRED BROOKS

Please address correspondence to [email protected]

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What appears on the outside to be a resolution of the runway reconstruction issue by the East Hampton Town Board could be just another chapter in a controversy that has raged for months now.

By unanimous resolution on Tuesday, four members of the East Hampton Town Board authorized Supervisor Cathy Lester to sign the construction contract with Hendrickson Brothers that she had refused to execute earlier on environmental grounds. They also voted to drop a pending appeal of the State Supreme Court decision ordering her to do so.

Councilwoman Pat Mansir was absent from the meeting, but had circulated a memo supporting the decision.

Lawsuit Loomed

Hendrickson intended to pursue punitive damages against the town by the end of the month if the Supervisor did not sign the contract, board members said Tuesday. The town's special counsel, Richard Cahn, informed the town that there was a good chance Hendrickson may have been successful, Ms. Lester said.

"I had to struggle with this over the past couple of days," Ms. Lester said Tuesday. "That was the one issue that brought me to the point of voting for this."

The runway was a key issue in this fall's election campaigns. Both the Supervisor and Councilman Job Potter rode into office on what some saw as a referendum against airport expansion, and their actions Tuesday sorely disappointed some opponents.

"A Wimp-Out"

Ed Gorman, a plaintiff in the suit seeking to stop the runway project, called Tuesday's resolution "a wimp-out." He said the town was "missing a great opportunity to escape from the clutches of the F.A.A."

If the course set out in the resolution is followed, the town will accept a $2.4 million Federal Aviation Administration grant to rebuild a 100-foot-wide main runway at the East Hampton Airport, but will put the brakes on all other projects proposed in the 1994 airport layout plan until a new plan is in place.

The resolution sets in motion changes to the Town Code insuring that future projects and airport plans of any sort will be subjected to rigorous public scrutiny.

Though it gives the pilots the runway they have been fighting for and offers project opponents the public input they say was lacking in the past, neither side appears happy with the decision.

The pilots say it makes too many concessions and project opponents say it doesn't do enough. "It was the best compromise we could come up with under a bad set of circumstances," Councilman Peter Hammerle said.

"When everbody walks away from the table a little bit disappointed then you must be doing something right," Ms. Lester said.

No Shortening

Settlement talks in a lawsuit Mr. Gorman and other project opponents brought against the town reached a deadlock last week over a stipulation that would have effectively shortened the runway.

The plaintiffs wanted the F.A.A. to give the town permission to change the spot at which aircraft land.

With a shorter landing area, larger airplanes and small jets would not have been able to use the airport.

In the end, the town agreed only to question changing the "runway threshold point," or the point on the the runway where the plane touches down. That makes a settlement next to impossible, according the group's attorney, Pat Trunzo 3d.

"Critical Issue"

The Town Board adopted all the secondary conditions agreed on in settlement discussions. But this one was the condition that would have kept the Town Airport from becoming what Mr. Trunzo and other plaintiffs called a "jetport."

Mr. Potter said that "it's become more and more clear to me that this widening project in and of itself is not the critical issue. The critical issue is the instrument landing system and the length of the runway."

He doesn't believe the town has closed its doors on the possibility of moving the touchdown point, but said there is a legal procedure, set up by the F.A.A., that the town will have to go through if it wants to change it. That's not enough for the plaintiffs.

"Frivolous Suit"

"You're creating the most secure possible barn after all the horses are gone," Mr. Gorman told the Town Board Tuesday. His group will not drop the suit and may seek a restraining order to prohibit the work.

"We're not seeking damages," Mr. Trunzo said. "What we're saying is that this project is an outlaw project."

The town has to respond to that suit on March 25. At that time members of the Airport Property Owners Association, who are seeking to enjoin the Trunzo suit, also hope to have their say.

"I can't see how the town could be coerced into accepting virtually all of the things that Trunzo, [Ed] Gorman, et al. wanted since they have, in effect, a frivolous suit," Tom Lavinio, the president of the East Hampton Aviation Associaton, said Tuesday night.

New Plan

But Councilman Len Bernard said yesterday the agreement reached this week did not differ dramatically from what the Republican majority was willing to do five months ago. At the time, he said, the Republicans wanted to sign the contract, accept the grant, and put all new airport projects on hold until a new airport layout plan was developed.

"Why did we go through all this? Why did we spend, I'm guessing, $10,000 in legal fees?" he asked yesterday. "How much has election-year politics cost the taxpayers of East Hampton?"

As it prepares a new airport layout plan, the town will consider eliminating proposals for an instrument landing system at the airport. It will consider increasing landing fees and rezoning land bordering the airport and also explore legal ways to see that the main runway is not lengthened.

Code Changes

The resolution paves the way for code changes that will require a new airport layout plan, capital improvement plan, grant application to the F.A.A., or annual budget for airport operations to conform with a current airport master plan. All of these will require public hearings and may require environmental impact statements.

The town will also commission a long-term plan for all runways and an independent financial analysis of the airport. The financial analysis will look at the possibility of establishing a separate airport accounting district and a reserve fund, so that future airport projects could be funded in whole or part by aviation-related revenues.

All of these are issues Mr. Bernard believes the Republican board would have considered anyway, but Ms. Lester, of course, says this week's agreement provides a process that wasn't there before.

Those waiting for the runway work to begin are hardly ready to celebrate a victory. "The contract is not signed yet," said a skeptical Sherry Wolfe, the president of the East Hampton Business Alliance. "People need to realize that."

Herrick Park on Newtown Lane was known only as "the playground" for years, until the identity of the donor was revealed. He was James B. Ford, who bought the property in 1917 anonymously and donated it in memory of his sister, Harriet F. Herrick, an early supporter of the East Hampton Free Library and a member of its board of managers from its formation until her death in 1912.

Mrs. Herrick and two others gave a considerable gift of books and money in the mid-1890s to establish the library in its first home, at what is now the Hedges Inn on James Lane. Not long after, in August 1897, it moved to Clinton Hall.

Mrs. Herrick and her husband, Dr. Everett Herrick, lived at Pudding Hill on Ocean Road. Her father, John R. Ford, bought the property in 1887, razed the dilapidated Revolutionary War-era cottage that gave the site its name, cut down the lot's steep hill, and built the mansion that was presented to his daughter and son-in-law as a wedding gift.

Dr. and Mrs. Herrick - "the Maharajah and Maharanee," as they were sometimes called - lived at Pudding Hill for 27 years. Dr. Herrick was an ultra-conservative, much concerned with propriety. He is recalled in "The Maidstone Club: The First Fifty Years" as "a big, handsome, powerfully built man who wore a tam-o'-shanter and knickerbockers, and was generally smoking a big cigar . . . the 'Pooh-Bah' of his day; his word was law."

In the same volume, Harry Jefferys (of Jefferys Lane) described Mrs. Herrick as "a dear, but not a too-energetic person. She once said to me, 'Do you know, Harry, every morning I walk down to the beach, take my ocean bath, and walk home again; then I feel that the rest of the day is my own.' "

Dr. Herrick was a founder of the Maidstone Club and its first president, from 1891 until his death in 1914, and had been president as well of the club's predecessor, the East Hampton Lawn Tennis Club. He was an enthusiastic ocean-swimmer and bicyclist, and kept a pug, Belle - who was an exception, apparently, to his own rule prohibiting dogs from the club's grounds.

He also banned gambling there, as well as alcohol and Sunday sports. (Members soon rebelled over the no-golf-on-Sunday rule, and in June 1906 it was revised to permit play after 12:30 p.m. Sunday-morning golf was not allowed until after Dr. Herrick's death.)

In his will, he left the $7,500 balance of a mortgage on club property to the Maidstone, with conditions. Among them, the Herrick Cup for men's singles tennis was to be awarded in perpetuity, the "character" of the club was to be maintained, and liquor was never to be sold on the premises.

As the repeal of Prohibition approached, however, a member wrote the club a check to replace Dr. Herrick's $7,500 gift, triggering a provision in his will that awarded the bequest instead to the East Hampton Free Library.

Herrick Park is owned today by the Incorporated Village of East Hampton.

Lion Gardiner "defined the meaning of 'American' before the word existed," says Roger Wunderlich, professor of history at the State University at Stony Brook.

Dr. Wunderlich will discuss the Englishman he calls "Long Island's Founding Father" in relation to his times, on Saturday at Guild Hall, as the fourth in a series of lectures commemorating the 350th anniversary of the founding of East Hampton Town.

The editor of the Long Island Historical Journal, Dr. Wunderlich has been absorbed in the study of "Long Island as America." His talk will begin at 4:30 p.m.; it was underwritten by the Dayton and Osborne Insurance Company of East Hampton.