Library Bill Draws Outrage From Village, Mayor attacks 'inside-dealing' legislation

The East Hampton Library's plan to expand its children's wing has faced serious hurdles at the village's zoning board of appeals, but if a bill passed last month by the New York State Legislature is signed into law by Gov. George E. Pataki, the zoning board will no longer have any say on one of the most visible and controversial projects it has reviewed in the past year and a half.

The bill, sponsored by Senator Kenneth P. LaValle, would allow the library to expand without a special permit, as is now required under village zoning, provided that the expansion is no more than 8,000 square feet, complies with other zoning and land use regulations, needs no variances, and is approved by the village's design review board. Without the need for a special permit, the children's wing expansion would no longer require approval from the zoning board.

"It usurps the authority given to villages," East Hampton Village Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. said on Friday. "It goes right to the very core and grain of village government and what local zoning is all about."

Governor Pataki's office called the village last week for its opinion on the legislation. It was the first time the mayor or any other village official had heard about the bill. "It's an obvious act of deception," said Larry Cantwell, the village administrator. "It's the most outrageous thing I've seen in 30 years in government."

Mayor Rickenbach said he is frustrated not only by the general implications of the bill, but by the fact that it appears to be written specifically to help the East Hampton Library and is sponsored by a senator who is closely connected to the president of the library's board of managers, Tom Twomey.

It is "without question in the absolutely worst tradition of special interest, inside-dealing legislation," the mayor said in a memorandum of opposition sent to the governor's office on Friday.

Mr. LaValle is "of counsel" to the law firm Twomey, Latham, Shea, and Kelley, but he vehemently denied that he sponsored the legislation as a favor to his associate.

"I happen to be in a law firm. I can't sequester myself in a monastery," Mr. LaValle said Monday. "This bill was not started by Tom Twomey. It was started by the [New York State] library association." Over the past 20 years, Mr. LaValle said, he has sponsored almost every library bill in the Senate, including one that helped the Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton to build its new facility on Windmill Lane.

The new law applies only to "free association" libraries that have added two or more school districts to their charter since 2000. They must also be in historic districts that are listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Only one other library - the Port Jefferson Free Library - fits those criteria, and it has recently completed an expansion, according to Bruce Massis, the director of the Suffolk County Library System.

"Why are the New York State Legislature and the State of New York interested in a local zoning matter that affects one library in the State of New York?" Mr. Cantwell asked on Tuesday. "You couldn't have crafted a piece of legislation that was better designed to affect one specific application."

The East Hampton Library first appeared before the village zoning board in October 2003, after securing conceptual approval from the design review board for an expanded children's wing. A public hearing was held in April 2004. Some residents, including the mayor, have suggested since then that the village infrastructure may not be able to handle an expanded library.

"We love the library," the mayor said Friday. "It serves a very nice function, but as the community at large continues to grow in population . . . maybe the time is right for some ancillary or auxiliary location."

Last September, the zoning board, which was concerned about how the expansion would affect traffic at the busy Buell Lane-Route 27 intersection, asked the library to prepare a detailed environmental impact statement.

"We're one of the only libraries in the state to be asked to prepare an environmental impact statement," Mr. Twomey said Tuesday. That document should be finished by the end of the summer, he said.

If the governor signs the library legislation, however, the library will no longer be beholden to the zoning board's requests, although it will still need site plan, historic district, and environmental approvals.

"It's not right," Mayor Rickenbach said Friday. "You don't have to be a rocket scientist to read between the lines."

Andrew Goldstein, the chairman of the zoning board, would not comment on the record but said he agree completely with the mayor's memorandum.

"I'm hurt," Mr. Rickenbach said.

"I can't understand why and I'm a little upset with him that he got very personal with his memo in opposition," Senator LaValle said. "I've known the mayor forever and this was not meant to be personal."

Rather, he said, the legislation, which at first contained much broader language and would have affected all free association libraries in the state, was meant to address the disparities between public school district libraries and free association libraries.

Like public libraries, free association libraries are chartered by the Board of Regents and have certain missions as set forth by the board and the State Education Department. But public libraries do not need local permission to expand their facilities.

"The gap has widened between what we have done with the school district libraries versus free association libraries," Mr. LaValle said. "You can't ask the libraries to meet their demand and then tell them that they can't have a reasonable playing field."

"All we're asking for is a fair hearing," Mr. Twomey said. "The library is going way beyond what most libraries do to involve the public in the process. The citizens of East Hampton are entitled to a world class library and we're falling behind other libraries on the East End because we don't have enough space for books and computers."

The bill was part of a New York State Library Association legislative package drafted by Jerry Nichols, the director of Long Island University's Palmer Institute for Public Library Organizations and Management. Mr. Nichols is a former director of the Suffolk County Library System."This is about providing quality library services for all kids that the library serves," Mr. Nichols said.

Mr. Nichols said he did not have a hand in the evolution of the bill, which was first introduced in January and amended twice before passing in the Senate and Assembly on June 21. Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. sponsored the corresponding Assembly bill through the rules committee with cosponsorship from Assemblymen Steve Englebright and Herman D. Farrel Jr.

"We went through and amended it to make sure local zoning was protected and preserved," Mr. LaValle said. "We put things in here to ensure that we were not trampling on their zoning powers."

"It started out way broader. It would have exempted all libraries, period, in New York State," Mr. Thiele said Monday.

Mr. Thiele, Mr. LaValle, and Mr. Twomey all maintain that the bill would do little to curtail a village's zoning powers.

"Special permits were established to handle things in a community that were noxious to the community, things like gas stations," Mr. LaValle said. "I have never had anyone tell me that a public library was a noxious facility."

"The courts have said they're preferred uses," Mr. Thiele said. The bill says "that if a library is already in existence, that's already a permitted use and would not require a special permit."

"Special permit review is a broader permit review process with broader zoning questions as to is this use appropriate to the site and if it is permitted, what are the impacts?" Mr. Cantwell said.

Mr. LaValle pointed out that the village would continue to have control over site plan, building code, height and setback requirements, historic district issues, and traffic patterns. "I don't believe the village has really read what we have put forth," he said.

Mr. Thiele agreed. "I'm not sure it warrants the attention it's receiving. I don't think the bill does all that much."

"The village still has complete control over the application," Mr. Twomey said Tuesday. Yes, the zoning board would be removed from the process, but, said Mr. Twomey, "I'm not sure that's consequential. . . . We still have to secure four more approvals from the village. The library has a long row to hoe to secure the approvals and there will be many chances for the public to comment."

That may be so, but Mayor Rickenbach is not likely to be convinced. In his memo to the governor he said the bill "subverts the legal zoning review process, and is frankly, an outrageous effort on the part of the East Hampton Library and the bill sponsors to replace local decision making with that of the state." The New York State Conference of Mayors and Municipal Officials and the Suffolk County Village Officials Association have joined him in opposition to the legislation.

The conference of mayors said in a letter to Mr. Pataki that the bill sets a "dangerous precedent . . . with regard to a municipality's right to create and enforce its own zoning." The village officials association took an even stronger stand, writing that the legislation "would trample on - and obliterate - village zoning and special use permitting in the Village of East Hampton." To pass such legislation when the library application is still being reviewed "sets a terrible precedent for future projects in any village in this county, or in our state," the association said.

"It would eviscerate the review," said Jeffrey Bragman, a lawyer representing over 100 people who are opposed to the library's expansion plans. "It suggests power brokers getting together to give a favored applicant a free ride. . . . I think it stinks."

"It's just dismal," Joan Osborne, a village resident who has monitored the library's plans for the Village Preservation Society, said on Tuesday.

"I'm really surprised that the New York State Library Association and the Suffolk County Library Association and both houses of the Legislature are so aware of what has transpired here in East Hampton," said Donald Hunting, a member of the library board of managers who also chairs the East Hampton Village Planning Board. He first heard about the pending legislation through the mayor. "As far as I know, none of the other board of 20 had any inkling whatsoever that this was in the works," he said.

The library's attorney, Edward Reale, briefed the board of managers on the progress of the environmental impact statement at a board meeting Friday, telling them it would be finished in three to four weeks. According to Ms. Osborne, he also mentioned "some legislation that might help the situation with the z.b.a.," but did not offer specifics.

Mr. Hunting supports the library's expansion plans. "The state has urged libraries to expand themselves. Unfortunately the library doesn't have the facilities it needs to take care of the children," he said. However, he also agrees the legislation seems tailored to the East Hampton Library's situation. "It might as well have our picture on it."

Senator LaValle and Assemblyman Thiele were to meet with Mayor Rickenbach this afternoon at Village Hall.

"I just hope that the village and the library can continue this process without demonizing each other," Mr. Hunting said.