Our Own Titanic

History has been repeating itself, over and over, at the East Hampton Housing Authority's affordable housing complex on Accabonac Highway. The project, plagued since its inception, continues to slip into the briny deep, weighed down by legal, construction, and budgetary problems, while Democratic officials, who espoused the laudable concept in the first place, continue to give it blind support.

Perhaps no one other than the town budget officer, Michael Haran, and former Republican Councilman Thomas Knobel have had the nerve to consider the fiscal and political consequences should the authority take to the lifeboats. The authority's new members, appointed by the 1996-97 Republican Town Board majority, vowed to take a firm grasp of the rudder. But the accounting firm they hired to audit its books gave up after a year, reporting that it was unable to sort things out.

The Star has done innumerable articles about the agency's troubles and editorialized three times that it should not be allowed to spend another penny until it can tell the public where every penny has gone so far. This is still the prudent course.

The authority has borrowed $4.1 million for the Accabonac housing in loans that are ultimately the taxpayers' responsibility. The single investor in the partnership it established to see the project through, the Bank of New York, has refused to turn over any of the funds needed to pay the loans back, telling the authority it needs another $1 million to be fiscally sound and should obtain it as a "gift" from the town.

The Town Board's lack of interest - or has it been ability - in protecting the taxpayers in this fiasco is incredible. Think it unbelievable that the authority was allowed to spend more than $4 million without having to deliver a full accounting?

Go to the movies. This would not be the first time the public was sold an attractive and expensive bill of goods and been told there were no icebergs in the sea.