Runway Rift Resolved? Lester Agrees To Sign

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."