Members of the Shinnecock Indian Nation can take any of three paths to federal acknowledgment. They appear to be following all of them at once.

Last week, the Shinnecocks' financial sponsors, one of whom owns the Detroit Tigers, were in the owner's box at Major League Baseball's All-Star Game, raising money for the congressman who has the power to legislate their federal acknowledgment.

Yesterday, they also followed the judicial path and filed a motion for recognition and sovereign immunity in federal court in Islip. (A story on this topic can be found on page A15.)

Finally, they are awaiting the results of a petition for acknowledgment in the United States Department of the Interior. The most traditional route to acknowledgment, it could take 15 years or more.

Christopher Ilitch and Mark Malik hosted a two-day event for Representative Richard Pombo's political action committee, Rich PAC, at Comerica Park in Detroit.

According to the National Republican Congressional Committee Web site, a $5,000 donation bought access to batting practice, team photos, and a seat for the game and the home run derby in the owner's box.

Mr. Ilitch is president and chief executive officer of Ilitch Holdings, a Detroit firm that owns the Tigers baseball team, among other entities. His mother, Marian Ilitch, is a partner with Mr. Malik in Gateway Funding Associates, which is financially backing the efforts of the Shinnecock Indian Nation to gain the legal rights to build a casino. She is also vice chairwoman of Ilitch Holdings.

Mr. Pombo is the chairman of the House Resources Committee, which ovbersees Native American issues, including the care and allotment of tribal lands. Any Congressional legislation involving Indian affairs is initially vetted by them. The Committee on Indian Affairs, whose chairman is John McCain, has similar responsibilities in the United States Senate.

Ms. Ilitch and Mr. Malik were previously partners in Motor City Casino L.L.C., a commercially operated casino in Detroit. Ms. Ilitch is still an owner. They have supported and continue to support a number of tribes in other casino efforts.

Tom Shields, a Gateway spokesman, said that a governors meeting in Detroit brought some 20 to 25 state governors to the ballpark. These types of events "tend to attract groups, organizations, and political figures as a way to get together," he said.

Although the congressman held hearings on New York State land claims last Thursday, the Shinnecock land claim suit was not discussed or considered. The fact that the Shinnecock Indian Nation is not a federally recognized tribe technically places it outside of the House Resource Committee's jurisdiction for now.

According to Matt Streit, deputy communications director for the committee, the only way to legislate federal recognition in the House is through the Resources Committee. The only exception is a rider to an appropriations bill that is tacked on at the last minute. Congress also has the power to terminate recognition that has been previously granted and to forbid tribes from seeking recognition.

Gateway officials recognize this connection. Mr. Shields said that the group has worked with a number of tribes whose recognition has been reaffirmed, "some through the B.I.A., some through Congress."

Further, Gateway is not shy about its donations. In addition to the money they give to Indian tribes, Mr. Shields said that Ms. Ilitch and Mr. Malik "are also involved in the political process. They have helped raise money for local politicians, state politicians, and federal politicians from Michigan and around the country."

Their purpose is to help support elected officials who are supportive of them and their goal of helping tribes overcome the legal hurdles to casinos. "If they help you, you help them get re-elected."

Mr. Streit said that Mr. Pombo does not support bypassing the Bureau of Indian Affairs for recognition. Nonetheless, the committee did hold hearings last year on the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, who are also seeking to establish casino gambling in that state.

That tribe applied to the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1987, and have been attempting to pass legislation through Congress for full federal recognition since 1974. In a form of partial recognition, the tribe's name was recognized by federal legislation in 1956. Mr. Streit said the present bill has not moved any farther since the hearing.

Any congressman can attach a rider that recognizes a tribe or allows a casino to an appropriations bill. Mr. Streit said, however, that "when they find out it was done this way, the public gets pretty upset and there is a backlash."

A California congressman attempted such an effort to "slip through" the process in 2000, he said. The tribe, the Lytton Band of Pomo Indians, gained the right to have a casino as a result. But Senator Diane Feinstein is seeking to reverse that legislation.

While he may prefer that tribes go through the bureau, Mr. Pombo apparently thinks the process could be improved and held oversight hearings on the topic in March 2004. Lance A. Gumbs, a Shinnecock tribal trustee at the time of the hearing, appeared as a witness along with members of three other tribes under consideration.

According to Mr. Gumbs's testimony, the Shinnecocks initially applied for recognition in 1978, but had to wait until 2003 to be placed on the active consideration list. At the time of the hearing, their petition was waiting behind 11 others.

Mary Boyle, the press secretary for Common Cause, an advocacy group that examines the role of money and politics, said "the legislative route could get them there fastest."

Mr. Streit said Mr. Pombo concluded from the hearing that the bureau "should be working in a timely manner. We should fix the B.I.A., not act legislatively."

To this end, he said that the committee's staff attempt to read the fine print on every appropriations bill that comes up for a vote. When and if they find such a measure, they pull it out "to see what's in there," Mr. Streit said. The committee aims to "vet all things under its jurisdiction."

Mr. Streit said that last Thursday's hearing was an oversight hearing on the status of the state's land claims with no legislation considered. If New York or any state decided to settle an Indian land claim, Congress would have to enact legislation to approve it.

Mr. Streit said the committee members act strictly as observers until the governor and tribe involved are able to decide on a form of settlement, and "then they become participants."

The Shinnecocks were not on the agenda because they are not federally recognized. He said a tribe did not have to be federally recognized to file a land claim, but they did need recognition to settle one.

The role of money in these affairs is a sensitive subject and not one that many wanted to comment on directly. A spokesman for Representative Tim Bishop's office was wary of the issue and would not speak on the record regarding it. Jack Abramoff, a Washington lobbyist nicknamed "Casino Jack," is being investigated for collecting some $82 million in fees from tribes in exchange for a promise of favorable treatment of their bids for casinos in Congress.

If the Shinnecocks end up with a casino, Gateway could collect up to 35 percent of the profits for the first five to seven years of operation. Mr. Shields said such terms are determined by the Department of the Interior and then negotiated differently for each tribe. He added most contracts were considerably less than the maximum allowable amount.

Such agreements are only profitable for investors if they come to fruition, he said. "It's a risky investment and not a whole lot of people are doing it."

Spokesmen for Mr. Pombo reiterated comments made last week that the congressman's hearing was purely informational and the timing of the land claims hearing and the fund-raising event was coincidental. Mr. Shields also stressed that the Shinnecocks were not on last week's agenda, nor does the committee have specific legislation involving the Shinnecocks before it.

Until last week, Thomas Miller was a Democratic nominee for East Hampton Town Trustee. But Mr. Miller withdrew his name on July 13, and is threatening to sue the town for rezoning his property, a result of the update to the town comprehensive plan.

Mr. Miller, a retired East Hampton Town police officer, and his wife, Lianne Miller, own a farm of almost 15 acres on Three Mile Harbor Road in East Hampton. They board horses there, and lease part of the property to Cedar Walk Nursery. The property, zoned for one-acre residential lots, was changed to three-acre residential zoning in the comprehensive plan update.

Since 2001, the Millers and town officials have been discussing a town purchase of development rights on 12 acres of the farm. The Millers wanted to keep three house lots - one that already holds their house, and two for their children's future use.

The Millers submitted a subdivision proposal to the town planning board in 2003 that showed a potential for 10 approximately one-acre lots and a six-acre agricultural reserve, under one-acre zoning, with the potential for development dictating its value. Over the years, negotiations went back and forth, with several appraisals conducted and offers made.

A purchase price of $1.8 million for the 12 acres of development rights was agreed to on May 4, according to the Millers and their attorney, David Eagan - two days before the town board formally adopted the new comprehensive plan and zoning.

With an oral agreement reached, Mr. Eagan said, he and his clients "expected the property to be taken out of the rezonings." Instead, when the comprehensive plan was passed, the land was rezoned for residential lots of at least three acres.

According to a policy adopted by the town board, properties that the town was interested in buying would not be exempted from rezoning unless a public hearing had been held, and a resolution passed by the board authorizing a sales contract to be signed.

The Miller farm was originally recommended for five-acre residential zoning based on its location in a groundwater protection area and to protect its farm soils. However, in discussions of objections to rezoning proposals, board members decided that three-acre zoning would adequately protect it.

The zoning change, allowing subdivision only into four three-acre lots, scuttled the Millers' plan, and affected the potential value of the site. The town has now offered $1.3 million to buy development rights on two three-acre lots, plus a wetlands area. The Millers would keep the other two three-acre lots.

"We would have subdivided into enough lots for our family four years ago if we had known," Mrs. Miller said Tuesday. She said they had had other offers for the land, but had declined because they preferred to sell the development rights to the town.

"If it was pure profit, they wouldn't even be talking to the town," Mr. Eagan said. "It was a win-win."

As they worked to finish the comprehensive plan, town officials were faced with the conflict of ongoing negotiations for a number of properties that had also been recommended for upzoning. Because upzoning limits development potential it could also affect land value, posing a conflict of interest for the town.

"It's very hard to be doing a comprehensive plan and heading toward zone changes, and doing acquisition at the same time," Job Potter, the town councilman in charge of land purchases, said Tuesday.

"Our position has always been that negotiations are separate and that they will move forward at their own pace," Supervisor Bill McGintee said in March, during a discussion about properties for which the town was negotiating. They included Camp Blue Bay in East Hampton, where the town hopes to buy a conservation easement, and Gardiner's Island.

Camp Blue Bay was rezoned because no agreement was reached before May 6; easements were finalized on Gardiner's Island before the passage of the comprehensive plan. Other properties that the town has on its acquisition list, including Montauk acreage owned by Dick Cavett and Carrie Nye, and woodland owned by the Ross School, were also rezoned.

"Where do you stop if you don't set a standard and stick to it?" Mr. Potter asked Tuesday. "It was more important in the big picture to complete the comprehensive plan and the upzonings than to buy any one of these."

It was the responsibility of the Millers and their attorney "to watch that clock," Mr. Potter said. "It's not our job as the town to get to people and say, 'Accept this offer or your zoning will change.'"

"We've dealt with them the same way we've dealt with everybody else," he said. Other property owners, Mr. Potter noted, had "determined it was in their best interest" to accept a purchase offer by the town in advance of the passage of the comprehensive plan, precluding a proposed zoning change.

According to the resolution adopting the new town zoning maps, "factors that were considered by the town board in making any changes included whether a landowner had been in long and intensive negotiations for a property for land preservation and a change in zoning would upset the public good that would be achieved by bringing such discussion to conclusion."

The Millers said that they understood from town officials that if they were in "good-faith negotiations," their land wouldn't be upzoned. "Basically, they went back on their word," Ms. Miller said. "We had a deal; they should have stuck by it."

Mr. Eagan said that the town had set a "purely arbitrary cutoff" point for rezoning exemptions and that the town could make an exception to its own rule. The exception should be made out of "a general sense of fair play," Mr. Eagan said.

"There is no legal impediment to them righting this wrong," he said. "It's their town attorney's unwillingness to make an exception to their own self-imposed rules. If it doesn't happen, the town will be liable for violating the Millers's constitutional rights."

The attorney said that federal case law establishes that "it is fundamentally unfair to actively negotiate at the same time as you're threatening to upzone."

"If this doesn't get fixed, we're going to bring a full-blown lawsuit against the town for the illegal upzoning of this property . . . for negotiating and bringing these people to the 11th hour and then rezoning them."

Mrs. Miller, a member of the Bennett family, said the farm had been in her family, which includes branches of the Conklin and Lester families, from about 1760.

"We spent thousands of dollars on surveying and attorneys' fees to get this done," Mrs. Miller said. "We're very frustrated."

"We put faith in the town," her husband said. "We're in a position now with them not buying the development rights, we're going to have to sell the place, or sue."

"There were statements being made that the upzonings were not going to hurt local people," Mr. Eagan said. "These people have been hit pretty hard." He said he believed the probable outcome would be one in which "no one wins," with the court invalidating the rezoning and the Millers subdividing and selling 10 house lots to pay their costs. "And the town gets 10 house lots when they could have had three, and a horse farm."

"The die is cast on this thing, and we have to work it through at the zoning that it is now," Mr. Potter said. But, he added, "It's an unfortunate thing that it worked out this way. We're truly sympathetic to what has happened here. We haven't given up on trying to find an outcome that will satisfy everybody."

He said the town would seek new appraisals of the property, under its current zoning, and had asked Kathleen Kennedy of the Peconic Land Trust to review different potential development and purchase scenarios, in an effort to justify a sales price on which both buyer and seller could agree. The town has followed a policy of not paying more than 110 percent of a property's appraised value.

"They haven't lost their property; they've lost an opportunity," Mr. Potter said. "They still are sitting with almost 15 acres of land; they have a lot of value there. They have a lot of options."

The East Hampton Town Democratic Committee is discussing whether to replace Mr. Miller with another trustee candidate, according to its co-chairman, Bob Schaeffer. According to Board of Election rules, a decision will have to be made by tomorrow.

Gov. George E. Pataki on Tuesday vetoed a bill that would have allowed the East Hampton Library to expand without a special permit and eliminated the village zoning board of appeals from the review process.

"My faith in government has been restored," East Hampton Village Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. said yesterday.

The bill, sponsored by State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle and passed by both houses of the State Legislature on June 21, drew heated criticism from the East Hampton Village Board, the New York State Conference of Mayors and Municipal Officials, and the Suffolk County Village Officials Association, who charged that it would undermine home rule and trample on the village's zoning powers.

Supporters of the measure, including Mr. LaValle, Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., and Tom Twomey, the president of the library's board of managers, said it would instead level the playing field for "free association" libraries like the East Hampton Library by allowing them just one of the zoning exemptions enjoyed by public school district libraries.

The bill was aimed only at free association libraries in Suffolk County that are in historic districts listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and only at those that have amended their charters in the last five years to add two or more school districts to their service area. The East Hampton Library and the Port Jefferson Free Library are the only two libraries that fit that description.

Because the bill was so specific, the mayor and others suggested that Mr. LaValle had drafted it as a favor to Mr. Twomey. Mr. LaValle is of counsel to Mr. Twomey's law firm, Twomey, Latham, Shea, Kelley, Dubin, Reale, and Quartararo.

One of the firm's partners, Ed Reale, has been working pro bono on the library's expansion application. At a special board of managers meeting yesterday that was called by three library board members, Henrika Conner, Patricia Mercer, and Lawrence Randolph, board members were clearly frustrated with the turmoil caused by the proposed legislation.

Mr. Randolph called for a motion to remove Mr. Reale and the firm as legal counsel to the board. The motion was defeated 14-to-7.

Another board member, Suzanne Dayton, called for Mr. Twomey to step down as president and resign from the board. When that motion was defeated by the same margin, Ms. Dayton, Mr. Randolph, Ms. Conner, Ms. Mercer, and Eleanor Ratsep all resigned from the board of managers and walked out of the meeting.

The state bill had started as one that would have affected all free association libraries in the state, but was amended at the Assembly's urging.

Had it become law, the East Hampton and Port Jefferson Libraries would have been able to expand by 8,000 square feet or less without a special use or similar permit, as long as the expansion complied with other zoning requirements and had been approved by the village's design review board.

"That kind of clarification with regards to how zoning is applied to libraries is something I would like to see statewide," Mr. Thiele said last week.

Removing the zoning board from the review process might have made things much easier for the library, whose plans for a 10,000-square-foot children's wing received conceptual approval from the design review board in 2003, but faced considerable opposition from the zoning board.

The zoning board asked the library to scale back its proposal, and the library whittled away at the plans, bringing the children's wing down to 6,800 square feet of usable space, with 3,545 square feet on the ground floor. That was still not enough for the board, which suggested 900 square feet might be more appropriate for a project at the busy Buell Lane-Route 27 intersection.

The board asked the library to prepare an environmental impact statement last September. According to Mr. Twomey, that study should be complete in the next few weeks.

With the bill awaiting the governor's signature, the mayor, the state council of mayors, and the county village officials association, along with a number of residents, called and wrote Mr. Pataki to express their opposition.

When Mr. Pataki visited Montauk on Saturday for a press conference on the state-county-town acquisition of Amsterdam Beach, Mr. Rickenbach said, he "spent a few moments" explaining to the governor that "it was bad legislation for all the right reasons."

The governor had until Tuesday to sign or veto the bill. His office did not return phone calls by press time.

"I'm just glad he put good planning above bad politics," said Jeffrey Bragman, a lawyer who represents over 100 people who are opposed to the library's expansion. "I'm grateful to the village for standing strong on local control and strict on environmental review. Nobody should be exempt."

Journalists and editors who live or summer on the East End had much to say this week about the imprisonment of Judith Miller, a Sag Harbor resident and New York Times reporter who was jailed on July 6 for refusing to name a source.

Ms. Miller, who had investigated the Valerie Plame affair but never actually wrote a story about it, was charged with civil contempt.

"It appears that no crime has been committed," said Jay Severin, a conservative radio talk show host who broadcasts from Sag Harbor, and who said he had recently changed his opinion about Ms. Miller's imprisonment.

"It seems brutal and senseless to confine Judith Miller in the absence of any evidence of the committing of a crime. It is appalling that she is there."

"I don't understand how Judith Miller ever committed a crime when she didn't ever write a story," said James Brady, a columnist for Parade and former editor of Women's Wear Daily who lives in East Hampton.

"It is tremendously confusing," added Mr. Severin. "The only thing that keeps a shred of dignity and legitimacy in the government's corner is the fact that the federal prosecutor can say to the world, 'We know things you don't know.' "

David Margolick, a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, said he admired Ms. Miller. "Once you start compromising, fudging your sources, you are no longer reliable." Ms. Miller was sent to a prison in Alexandria, Va., and will remain there until the grand jury investigation on the matter ends in October. If she were to change her mind and reveal the name of her source, she would be released.

"I am assuming that she may have different sources than Matt Cooper," said Roger Rosenblatt of Quogue, an essayist for Time magazine and for the "NewsHour" on PBS, referring to the Time magazine reporter whose notes were handed over to the government. "The important thing is that she had the courage to do the right thing even at the expense of a portion of her life."

"I would absolutely do the same," Mr. Margolick said. "She is honoring the highest traditions of the profession."

"I think she is absolutely right," said Mr. Brady. "You can't have journalism both ways. You either protect your sources or you don't have any."

Mr. Severin called Ms. Miller's decision "very very courageous. I don't think it exaggerates it to call it Martin Luther King-like. I believe it is in the finest tradition of civil disobedience."

Joan Konner of Sagaponack, former dean of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and the former publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review, saw public reaction to Ms. Miller's imprisonment in a slightly different light.

"There isn't an enormous amount of sympathy for her because people are ambivalent about her work as a journalist," Ms. Konner said. "It seems to be unreliable sometimes, particularly with her weapons of mass destruction reporting. She is not a heroine, though she is doing great things."

"It is a disgrace that she is in jail," she added, "an egregious miscarriage of justice."

"I don't understand why [Robert Novak] was never dragged before courts and subpoenaed," said Mr. Brady.

Ms. Konner and Mr. Brady also considered the matter of Norman Pearlstein, the editor in chief of Time Inc., who decided to hand over the notes of Matthew Cooper, a Time magazine reporter, to the special prosecutor.

"The other side of the equation is that Norman Pearlstein did the wrong thing for Time magazine," Ms. Konner said. "Pearlstein says nobody is above the law, even journalists. But if the notes can be turned over and sources can be revealed under certain circumstances, what it's really saying really undermines the fundamental underpinnings of good reporting."

Mr. Brady said he "would hate to have been in Norm Pearlstein's shoes; you don't know what internal or external pressures were working on him. He claims that he made the decision on his own. I think he made a mistake."

"People don't choose to be heroes," said the syndicated columnist Richard Reeves. "Heroism chooses them and now I think Judy is one."

When Sharon and Todd Kopetic relinquished Mocha, a chocolate and black Labrador mix, to the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons in June, they never imagined it would mean a death sentence. The Kopetics had been promised that if the dog was not adopted she would spend the rest of her days at the shelter.

Mocha was killed within hours of their departure.

ARF, a privately funded adoption center and shelter in Wainscott, describes itself as a "no-kill" facility. "We were shocked and devastated to learn of Mocha's fate," Ms. Kopetic said. "And the worst part is, her life didn't have to end that way."

The Kopetics, who live in Glen Cove, have retained the services of Leeds, Morelli and Brown, a law firm in Nassau County. "We are looking at the case with a view toward commencing legal action," Lenard Leeds confirmed this week.

"We stand by our decision," said Sara Davison, ARF's executive director. "The dog was deemed dangerous after she lunged at the face of a veterinary technician during a behavioral test."

"As a responsible agency, we can't place animals that are deemed dangerous back into the community," she said. Ms. Davison did concede that "mistakes were made" in the four months preceding the dog's death.

The Kopetics adopted Mocha from ARF two years ago when she was 10 months old and they were living in East Hampton. During the adoption process, Moira Chowdhury, an ARF adoption coordinator, informed them that the dog had had an abusive upbringing and that she did not do well with men.

The couple brought Mocha home, enrolled her in an ARF obedience course, and worked with a private trainer. Her behavior improved considerably. "Other than on our first night, when Mocha snapped at Todd's face, we never had any problems with her," said Ms. Kopetic. "She certainly never bit anyone."

The Kopetics, who are expecting their first child in September, brought Mocha back to ARF on June 29. They said the decision was "extremely difficult" to make, but that, in light of the dog's protectiveness with Ms. Kopetic and anxiousness around children, they were concerned about how she would behave around a newborn.

"We sent out an e-mail to family and friends seeking a loving home for Mocha," said Ms. Kopetic. Their private e-mail made its way to ARF and Ms. Chowdhury contacted the couple.

"Moira told us we were contractually obligated to return Mocha to the shelter instead of trying to find a home for her ourselves," said Mr. Kopetic. Paperwork the couple signed at the time of the adoption stipulated that they needed ARF's approval before giving their adopted pet to anyone else, but not that the adopted animal would necessarily have to be returned to ARF.

"Moira told us ARF was the best place for her," said Ms. Kopetic. "When we dropped her off, she assured us Mocha would not be killed and that ARF was a 'no-kill' facility."

The Kopetics said they had misgivings and called ARF within 48 hours after returning Mocha to the shelter. Mr. Kopetic was told there had been a problem and that the dog was dead.

Based on Mocha's history and what they observed at the shelter, Ms. Davison said, destroying the animal was the only course to take.

The agency will not destroy an animal unless it is incurably ill or has severe behavioral problems such that it is a danger to the community, Ms. Davison said. "We go to extreme lengths to rehabilitate animals and have kept many who were not immediately adopted at our facility for years."

But shortly after being dropped off, Mocha failed two behavioral tests. She was put down after attempting to bite two ARF staff members.

Mr. Kopetic met twice with ARF executives following Mocha's death, and each time Ms. Davison "apologized profoundly" for not having been up-front about the possibility that the animal might be killed. Ms. Davison said the agency's seven-member shelter committee made the decision to withhold that information when they dropped off the dog based on Ms. Kopetic's pregnancy.

"It was a terrible mistake and in hindsight we should have told them," Ms. Davison said.

The Kopetics maintain that the definition of "no-kill" needs to be made clear to pet owners who leave their animals at the shelter. When the couple asked for clarification about the term after Mocha's death, Ms. Davison referred them to Maddie's Fund, a leading "no-kill" advocacy group.

"No-kill" as defined on its Web site as "saving both healthy and treatable dogs and cats, with euthanasia reserved only for non-rehabilitable animals."

As a result, ARF has "rethought several policies," including how animals with behavior problems will be evaluated in the future, Ms. Davison said. "A mandatory five-day holding period has been instituted, at which point an animal will undergo a behavior test to determine its adoptability."

"These tests are a crock," said Dr. Peter Borchelt, a certified applied animal behaviorist with 30 years in the field. "What happened with Mocha is a tragedy, but only scratches the surface of a much larger animal welfare issue."

According to Dr. Borchelt there is no such thing as a standardized behavioral test on which life-and-death decisions can securely be made.

During the first six months of 2005, ARF placed 159 animals in homes and destroyed four, two for incurable illnesses and two, including Mocha, for behavioral reasons. In 2004, the agency placed 440 animals and destroyed five, four with incurable illnesses and one for reasons of behavior.

The decision to destroy an animal "is agonizing for us to make," said Ms. Davison. "It only happens in unusual cases after very careful consideration."

"Where's the trail?" asked Ken Kinder as he walked on Tuesday afternoon through the woods in Southampton, into an overgrown clearing and past a sandy oval rut - a makeshift track carved by dirt bikes and all-terrain vehicles.

He searched for the markers that Southampton Town uses to delineate trails - in this case, blue owl blazes. Often, he found only nails where the blazes had once hung. The trail itself has been cut by new paths created by the motorized vehicles.

"Dirt bikers like to go straight down the hill. It's more fun," Mr. Kinder said.

The carefully plotted trail, which is just two years old, was harder to see than the improvised path of the vehicles. "Where's the trail?" he repeated.

The noise of motorized vehicles, including A.T.V.s and dirt bikes, and the damage they cause on trails in East Hampton and Southampton Towns have led to a variety of protests and actions by trail advocates and residents.

Residents whose properties abut trails, including the Paumanok Path, which runs from Rocky Point to the Montauk Lighthouse with interruptions in Southampton, have complained to the towns, and some have alerted local trails preservation societies. In response, the societies have installed more signs, saying that such use is prohibited, and have stepped up their trails surveillance.

Some residents have erected barricades and painted over or pulled down trail markers. Now, no one can navigate the trails, including the hikers, bicyclists, and horseback riders for whom the Paumanok Path and accessory trails were intended.

In East Hampton, damage from A.T.V.s has been greatest in Laurel Canyon in Montauk, but effects can be seen in other places where trails are wide enough to accommodate the vehicles. "At Culloden Point, kids riding A.T.V.s rode right by us as if we were not there," said Steve Tamber, president of the East Hampton Trails Preservation Society.

Mr. Tamber said that abuse of the trails leads to irreparable erosion and unsafe conditions. In some cases, he said, the town has erected fences. Nature preserves have been chained off at night so that "cars and trucks don't make a mess of the place."

Mr. Kindler, a Sayville resident who is secretary of the Southampton Trails Preservation Society, is working to complete the Paumanok Path as well as to ensure its sustainability. He said that fines need to be higher. "The damage is spreading like a cancer, and everywhere I look there is a new store retailing these nightmares on wheels."

Off-road vehicles such as dirt bikes and A.T.V.s are not allowed on public lands whether they are owned by the state, county, or town. The county's fine is $500. The state will fine anywhere from $75 to $250 if the vehicle is registered. If not, they will impound it and issue a summons. Southampton Town's fine is $250 and in East Hampton, the fine depends on the specific charge. Southampton is considering raising its fine.

Richard Lupoletti, a member of the East Hampton Trails Preservation Society who lives in the Buckskill area, said, "The problem with all of this is no enforcement. . . . Nobody seems to think that it's important."

"If there's no enforcement, kids know, and it makes it very difficult to stop," Mr. Tamber said. "They ride with impunity. The town doesn't have enough resources to put people in its park land."

One East Hampton resident has called for the town either to build an A.T.V. park or to provide transportation to parks farther west.

Mr. Tamber said that the preservation movement is a victim of its own success. "We've created so much parkland there's too much to cover." The town has 45 miles on the Paumanok Trail, 250 miles in all, with connecting trails included. "You have to be in the right place at the right time," he said.

Southampton Town alone has spent millions in Community Preservation Fund money to buy land for open space, including some areas specifically targeted for trails to help complete the Paumanok Path.

The town recently named an ordinance inspector for code enforcement on Community Preservation Fund properties. Ron Carter, a nine-year veteran of code enforcement, was named to the position five months ago. Although the townwide area he covers is vast, Mr. Carter is focusing on the Long Pond Greenbelt in Bridgehampton and the area around Tuckahoe woods where residents have reported off-road vehicle activity.

The difficulty is in catching the drivers. Mr. Carter said that while he is on foot, he cannot chase down those that will not stop for him. He said that in Southampton, the violators are a mix of teenagers and adults. The one person Mr. Carter has captured was a 43-year-old man from New York City. "He knew better," Mr. Carter said.

People who live alongside the trails have complained to town officials about noise and property destruction. They also worry that recent dry weather will create conditions in which an errant spark could cause a brush or forest fire.

In some cases there have been attempts to vandalize or sabotage the trail system. Not only have blazes been pulled from their nails, but those painted on trees have been cut completely out of the bark, forcing those who maintain the trails to repaint them.

In North Sea, a farmer's deer fence now blocks off part of the Paumanok Path. Mr. Kindler has seen other makeshift barricades in the woods off of the Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike, in the same area where the blazes have been cut out.

If residents think that they are deterring hikers from traveling through their neighborhoods, they are misguided, Mr. Kindler said. When the hikers cannot follow the trail, "there will be a bunch of people wandering around where the trail is broken," trying to find their way back onto it. "It really defeats the purpose," he said.

Patrice Magnier of Montauk was killed after apparently losing control of her car and striking a tree in Manorville on Monday, the night before her 18th birthday.

Ms. Magnier had graduated from East Hampton High School in June. With her was a passenger, Hannah Hennings of Montauk, who will be a senior at the high school this fall. Ms. Hennings was taken to Brookhaven Memorial Hospital to be treated for a head injury.

The two young women were returning from a day of "shopping UpIsland," Ms. Hennings's father, John Hennings, said yesterday morning.

At about 9:30 p.m. Ms. Magnier was headed south on County Road 111, about half a mile south of the 7-Eleven store, when the car traveled across the two northbound lanes and struck a tree, police said. As of yesterday, police were not sure what caused Ms. Magnier's car to cross the oncoming lanes.

"There is some indication that speed was involved," said Lt. Gerard Gagante of the Suffolk County Police Department.

Ms. Hennings, 16, was conscious when police and ambulance crews arrived, according to Lieutenant Gagante.

Mr. Hennings said his daughter had a gash on the back of her head and a concussion, but that she was in stable condition in the intensive care unit. He said she had several tests at the hospital and would most likely have an M.R.I. before being released - perhaps as early as today or tomorrow.

"She was very lucky. She got a second chance," Mr. Hennings said. "Our heart goes out to Patrice's family. She will be sorely missed. We are severely shaken by the accident."

Mr. Hennings said yesterday morning that his daughter had not yet been told that Ms. Magnier had died in the crash, but that he and Ms. Hennings's mother, Laura Smith of Montauk, were preparing to do so later. "We are working up the strength to tell her," he said.

Mr. Hennings said Ms. Magnier and his daughter had been friends since they were toddlers.

About 25 East Hampton High School students visited Ms. Hennings at the Brookhaven hospital on Tuesday.

Ms. Hennings has been working part time in Montauk at the Breakwater Cafe and at Island to Island, a retail store, for the summer. She lives in Montauk with her mother, sister, and brother. Mr. Hennings lives in East Hampton.

Ms. Magnier was working at the Guild Hall box office in East Hampton for the summer. She had plans to start pre-law studies at Briarcliff College in Patchogue in the fall. She alternated between living with her grandparents and her mother, all of whom live in Montauk, according to Mr. Hennings.

Raymond Gualtieri, the East Hampton School District superintendent, said that counselors came to the school on Tuesday to talk with summer school students who wanted to discuss the accident.

In a school board meeting on Tuesday night, Mr. Gualtieri called the accident a "parent's worst nightmare." He asked for a moment of silence.

In a departure from previous expansion plans, Tuesday night the East Hampton School Board decided to explore concentrating construction behind the John M. Marshall Elementary School.

According to Raymond Gualtieri, the district superintendent, the plan would bring the fifth-grade class back to the elementary school and add at least seven new classrooms and a new cafeteria there. The middle school building on Newtown Lane would be renovated, and the high school would be expanded and renovated, according to the preliminary plans.

Presented at the second work session of the summer devoted to discussing a referendum, the plan is the first not to call for a new middle school building on the Long Lane campus.

Representatives of Beatty, Harvey, and Associates, the architects working on the project, estimated that the John Marshall project would cut between $15 million and $20 million from the $90 million figure that was defeated in a June referendum. The plans were given to Victor Canseco of Sandpebble Builders to calculate the cost of the project.

Although the board agreed that this new plan is not as comprehensive as the one that was just voted down, there were elements that appealed to most members.

First, the school district has the space to expand behind John Marshall, and this would not greatly affect the already crowded high school fields. Second, with added class space there is the prospect of starting a prekindergarten program at John Marshall. Third, it would not put middle school students on the same campus as high school students, a feature of the previous expansion plan that worried many parents. Finally, board members believe the plan could garner more support by improving the most highly regarded school in the East Hampton School District, John Marshall.

"There's a lot of positive feeling about John Marshall," said Laura Anker Grossman, a board member. "I'd rather just build on the good feelings with John Marshall."

"This school has the most support in the community," said James Amaden, another board member.

Recent voting trends seem to support Mr. Amaden's statement. During the June vote, there were polling places at both the high school and John Marshall. The vote failed by a 2-to-1 ratio at the high school, but the vote at John Marshall was slightly in favor of expansion. With a decreased price tag and construction at the elementary school, the board expects to get more support, especially from elementary school parents.

If the plan were to pass, the middle school would have more space for sixth, seventh, and eighth-grade students, who would no longer have to take classes in the basement. The plan would also build a cafeteria and extra classrooms at the high school.

Still, board members were wary of advancing the new proposition, which would probably amount to about $70 million, without more cuts.

"I don't think that a few million will cut the mustard," said Sandy Vorpahl, a board member. "They don't believe we're overcrowded. They believe we're educating people who aren't here legally, and they're scared by what the feeder schools will do."

There could be a referendum as soon as December.

New Assistant Principal

After the work session concluded, the board convened a regular meeting and announced that Chris Tracey would be the middle school's new assistant principal.

Mr. Tracey had been the district's athletic director since 1995, spending one of those years as an interim principal for the high school. He applied for the job after Anael Alston resigned at the end of the school year. Mr. Alston had been on "special assignment" for the district, away from the middle school, since April.

The district didn't advertise the opening. "We conducted an internal search, and someone expressed interest in the position," Dr. Gualtieri said.

Michael Burns, an assistant principal at the high school and an assistant football coach, was appointed athletic director. He has experience in that capacity, having filled in for Mr. Tracey as athletic director for a year in the late 1990s.

Dr. Gualtieri said the district will begin searching for a new high school assistant principal this week.

When word spread in May that the National Marine Fisheries Service had initiated a "90-day finding" to determine if the Eastern oyster should be placed on the federal list of endangered species, oyster farmers, politicians, fishmongers, municipal hatcheries, and consumers of stew, Rockefeller, and half-shell oysters with lemon and a drop of Tabasco found the idea hard to swallow.

The Eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica, has been a staple food, as well as a delicacy, since long before European settlers arrived. By 1880, oysters were the number-one fishery product in the United States. That year, 2.4 million bushels were harvested from the Chesapeake Bay alone.

On Long Island, the Eastern oyster was domesticated by companies, most prominently Long Island Oyster Farms, which leased bottomland in the Peconic Bays, Gardiner's Bay, and in Long Island Sound. A series of brown algae blooms that inundated East End waters beginning in the 1980s forced the company out of business.

During the 1950s, disease in the form of a protozoan parasite called MSX decimated the Chesapeake resource. Forty years later, another parasite known as dermo, or Perkinsus marinus, struck. As a result, the Chesapeake Bay oyster industry, once the largest in the country, has fallen on hard times. New York's oyster resource has fared better, but production of both natural population and farmed oysters has declined dramatically since the early 1980s, according to State Department of Environmental Conservation statistics.

Still, the resource is far from endangered, according to John Aldred, the director of the East Hampton Town Shellfish Hatchery and chairman of the Long Island Shellfish Managers Group. "The native oyster population in eastern Long Island is stable and has been for many decades," Mr. Aldred said in a letter, one of many, directed to the fisheries service.

The idea to list the Eastern oyster as endangered has been pushed by Wolf-Dieter N. Busch, an environmental consultant from Maryland who was formerly a scientist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Mr. Busch's petition states that an endangered listing is called for because the species has been endangered by habitat destruction, disease, and poor harvest management.

He is also seeking to halt the introduction of another, disease-resistant species, the Asian oyster, into the Chesapeake. Listing the Eastern oyster as endangered would, according to the Endangered Species Act, preclude the introduction of an exotic species.

New York's oyster industry has strongly objected to the listing because while vertebrates can be listed as endangered in specific areas, invertebrates like oysters, if listed as endangered in one area, such as Chesapeake Bay, must be considered endangered wherever they are found. State law mandates that the Eastern oyster is the only species that can be farmed in New York State.

Among those voicing their opposition to an endangered species listing is Representative Tim Bishop, who hosted a press conference at Twin Fork Oysters in Aquebogue on Saturday. He was joined by Phil Cardinale, the Riverhead Town supervisor, and Joe Gergela, the executive director of the Long Island Farm Bureau, which represents East End oyster growers.

Greg Rivara, a shellfish specialist with Cornell Cooperative Extension, said it was not clear how an endangered species listing would affect Long Island's oyster industry. At least 90 percent of the annual harvest comes from oyster farms, the largest being the Frank M. Flower and Sons company of Oyster Bay, which was founded in 1887. Each year, the East Hampton Town hatchery breeds and raises Eastern oysters that are placed in town waters for commercial as well as recreational harvesters.

"It could be a total 'Hands off them,' or it could do very little. Most people are worried that [farmers] would have to abandon a lot of research," Mr. Rivara said, adding that something similar happened when a breed of salmon was listed as endangered in Maine. The listing hurt certain salmon farmers.

The idea of protecting the native stock of Eastern oysters through an endangered species listing might well backfire, Mr. Rivara said, explaining that native oysters have been few and far between for years. He said that numbers of so-called "natural set" Eastern oysters were actually increased by way of spawn from farmed oysters that drift beyond the farms. Putting oyster farms out of business would decrease the population of Eastern oysters. "If listed, the draconian plan could actually mean fewer oysters here," Mr. Rivara said.

The National Marine Fisheries Service will accept comment on the proposed listing until January.

The ashes of the late Ward Bennett were returned last Thursday morning to the property on Accabonac Harbor in Springs that he loved. Mr. Bennett, an architectural, interior, and fashion designer, died at 85 in Key West, Fla., in 2003.

His ashes, and those of his dog, Mischka, were spread, according to his wishes, around a gingko tree by Robert Middleton, Mr. Bennett's companion, caretaker, and executor. Also attending were Andrew Sabin of Amagansett, a precious-metals trader who now owns the property; Lei Shen, a friend of Mr. Sabin, and a reporter. A security officer watched from a sedan parked nearby.

Mr. Sabin arrived last, talking into a cellphone, and the group gathered in front of the tree, surrounded by the summer quiet of the cedar woods and salt meadows stretching to the water.

It took a bit of doing to open the crematorium box containing Mr. Bennett's ashes, but Mr. Middleton managed, using a key to pry open the lid. He emptied the fine, soft ashes in a wide circle around the base of the tree. "It was the only tree he ever planted," Mr. Middleton said. The dog's ashes formed a separate circle around the tree.

"He always talked about bonemeal," Mr. Middleton said. Mr. Bennett had tried to garden, he said, despite the nibbling of deer and of turtles who took bites out of ripe tomatoes. "If it shoots up, we'll know," said Mr. Sabin, a better-than-amateur herpetologist who said the estate is a great habitat for turtles.

"He's home," Mr. Middleton said. After a moment, Mr. Sabin offered a tour of the house, whose four corners are aligned to the cardinal points. Mr. Bennett designed the house, which has a Japanese quality, to fit naturally into the landscape.

When he bought the 26-acre property in 2002, Mr. Sabin became the subject of complaints that he had snatched it out from under the town at $2 million, a hard-to-believe bargain price.

Town officials believed Mr. Bennett had bequeathed the estate for public use as an environmental and cultural center. They talked about condemning the land after Mr. Sabin bought it, but eventually dropped that plan.

The sale also prompted an investigation into whether Mr. Middleton, who had power of attorney and fiduciary responsibility for the Bennett estate, had sold the site too cheaply. Jann Wenner, the publisher of Rolling Stone and Men's Journal, had once rented the house and said his own offer of $3 million was declined. He complained to the New York State attorney general. No charges were filed.

Walking through the house last week, Mr. Sabin took pains to point out how things had remained mostly unchanged, according to Mr. Bennett's wishes. An easement over the land given by Mr. Sabin to the Peconic Land Trust almost completely curtails further development, but, he noted, the house has also been left in its original state.

A large central room contains Bennett furniture and a large tropical houseplant that the designer owned for decades. The plant survived even while the house stood empty because rain was leaking through skylights, which have since been repaired. Even the dishes and flatware in the kitchen were of Mr. Bennett's design.

The visitors lingered a little while, as Mr. Middleton recalling his years at the house. Then they headed down the long driveway, over the soft needles of the cedar trees, and out again into the world.