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Republicans Triumph In Town and County Tuesday night was joyous for East Hampton Town Republicans as they did what they said they would do — sweep the local election. With the exception of John Bistrian, the popular Democratic Highway Superintendent, who apparently won his third two-year term, the sweep would have been utterly clean. The Democrats, who had expected their Supervisor candidate, Mary Ella Richard, to triumph over the Republic an Ronald Rioux; who thought one of their Board candidates, Russ Cough lin, might win, and who hoped that a Bay Constable, and possibly a Trustee, would be added to that list, were set back on their heels. As a turn-out, the vote was light as local elections go — 61 per cent of the electorate voted in the Supervisor’s race, as opposed to 69 per cent two years ago — and the Democrats, who stood to benefit from Republican stay-at-homes, failed miserably, ac cording to their lone Town Board member, Larry Cantwell. Percentages The Republicans’ campaign man ager, Darrell Weaver, said that as of 8 p.m. Tuesday, the Republican turn-out was at 70 per cent; 93 per cent had turned out last year for the Presi dential election. The Democratic turn out at that hour was around 50 per cent — Mr. Weaver said the Democrats had voted about 80 per cent last year — and the “Independent” or “Blank” turn-out was about half its potential. He gave the figures, roughly, as 3,400 of the enrolled 4,757 Republicans; 1,200 of the enrolled 2,305 Democrats, and 1,000 to 1,200 of the 2,216 souls the Board of Elections now lists as “Blanks.” In addition, Mr. Weaver observed that in those Election Districts that have large numbers of independent voters, the totals were down, indicat ing to him that a number of part-time residents from New York and New Jersey decided not to make the trip out here this year in the sometimes heavy rain. Whether the Republican victory was strictly party-line or not was a matter of debate. Local voters are known for ticket-splitting, yet Democrats tended to attribute the GOP victory to “the well-oiled machine . . . the Republicans made sure that the Town would be kept for Duryea.” Republican pundits, on the other hand, chose to say that the independ ent voters kept both Parties honest and added that the Republicans had won — as they did elsewhere — because people perceived the Repub lican Party as the one to “get us out of the mess . .. the rising taxes, inflation, et cetera.” “They Ran With It” Certainly, the local Republicans hit hard on the issue of fiscal con servatism, and, as Mr. Cantwell ack nowledged, they “rode it harder” than did the Democrats, who, he noted, had raised the issue in their September primary campaign. “They took that issue and ran with it,” he said. The District’s Congressman, Otis Pike, last week predicted a Republican comeback, nation-wide, saying, “I think the Republicans are going to make one hell of a comeback, if they go the route of representing the middle-class tax payers against the demands of those who are asking for more and more Federal spending.\ Here, according to Mr. Weaver, the voters were saying, in effect, that “a delicate balance should be struck between the economy and the environ ment . . . In the past, the environment has been stressed at the expense of local economic conditions.” Money Mr. Cantwell, who Tuesday night was grimly looking forward to two years as the lone Democratic Town Board member, was cynical. The real reason the Republicans had won, he said, was because that Party, as opposed to the divided Democrats, was well-organized, and had been able to spend a lot of money for radio and newspaper advertisements. “It’s no different here than anywhere else in the country,” he said. Mr. Weaver reported the Republic ans’ campaign budget at around $20,000. Mr. Cantwell said he thought the Democrats’ fund was “around $8,000, at the ceiling.” Democratic Town Leader Nancy Woodward acknowledged that the “split” within the Democratic Commit tee which led to the primary contest between Mrs. Richard and Arthur Roth had hurt the Democrats in the election campaign. She said a special Committee meet ing — “which we had planned, win or lose” — would be held Tuesday, “to see where we go from here.” County Races Particularly upsetting to the Demo crats here were the outcomes of County-level races that saw the bal ance of power on the County Legisla ture turn around in the Republicans’ favor, and the defeat of incumbent Democrats, Joyce Burland, the First District Legislator, and Henry O’Brien, Continued on Page 15 P e n c ils: A F ine P oint The pencils hanging on strings in voting booths in East Hampton Town were removed at 2 o’clock Tuesday afternoon, and put on tables outside the booths, at the orders of a Repub lican County Elections Commissioner who happened to be around that day. So two supporters of the campaign to reelect Town Supervisor Eugene Haas with write-in votes drove to River head, found a judge, and came back with a court order that said, in effect, put the pencils back in the booths and make sure they stay there. By the time they got back to the polling place from which they had set out, which was in the East Hampton Fire House, it was 8:30 p.m., and the polls were going to close in half an hour anyway. “Just Sneered” The elections officials inside the Fire House, according to Russell Stein, a Montauk lawyer, did not put the pencils back in the booths when he and Richard Johnson, the moving force behind the Haas campaign, presented copies of the court order they had obtained. “They all just sneered at me and threw them down at the floor,” Mr. Stein reported. He said he had advised the officials, “as a friend,” that if they did not obey the order they could be held in contempt of court. One of the officials, he related, consulted by phone with other officials in Yaphank and then told him, refer ring to the copies of the order, “We reject them.” Mr. Stein and Mr. Johnson gave up and went home to Montauk. Phone Call At 20 minutes of nine, according to Darrell Weaver, manager of the local Republicans’ campaign, he received a phone call from that polling place, asking whether GOP headquarters had an attorney available. They couldn’t find one. Mr. Weaver went to the Fire House himself. He too, by his account, told the people there that they could be held in contempt of court if they did not put the pencils back in the booths. He said he had told them: “If I were you, I’d put those pencils back in.” Then a power failure occurred, and the lights went out. By the time the Fire House’s generators were started up, and the pencils were, according to Mr. Weaver, in fact put back in the booths, it was a quarter to nine. “Maybe one or two people voted after that,” said Mr. Weaver. Why did Elections Commissioner Everett McNab order the pencils taken out? Jamming According to Mr. Weaver, the Com missioner was afraid that the pencils, which were hanging from long strings, might fall into the slots that contained the large levers that registered the votes and opened the curtains, and thus jam the machines. Why did Mr. McNab not simply order the strings shortened? Mr. Weaver said he supposed the Commissioner had not thought of that. For several reasons, it would not have made any practical difference where the pencils were. Most people, especially those who plan to cast write-in votes, carry their own pencils or pens with them anyway. About a dozen of Mr. Haas’s supporters, more over, were standing outside polling places, handing out pencils that bore the inscription, “Use this pencil to write in ‘Gene Haas.”’ Finally, not many people did write in “Gene Haas” — certainly not enough to elect him, and apparently not enough to affect the race between the Repub lican and Democratic nominees. In the 13 (out of 16) election districts where unofficial counts of the write-in votes were made, there were said to be only 120 of them. A Point So why did Mr. Stein and Mr. Johnson bother to round up State Supreme Court Justice Gordon Lipitz in Riverhead and obtain a court order from him? Continued on Page 15 Baymen Angry Again Roy T. Parker III, attorney for the Town Trustees, has again been blasted by the Town Baymen’s Association. The Baymen’s irritation involves a resolution the Trustees passed at their last meeting, on Oct. 11, calling for the removal of all jetties in the Town, a resolution strongly supported by the Baymen, who believe, as many do, that the jetties are a prime cause of beach erosion. The resolution was stated verbally at the meeting after Virginia York had prodded the Trustees into taking a stand on the controversial jetty issue. Mr. Parker, who was not present at the meeting, later wrote a formal draft of the resolution which Arnold Leo, secretary of the Baymen’s Association, charged this week was \different” from the resolution he remembered being passed by the Trustees last month. The Trustees had simply stated their opposition to jetties, while Mr. Park er’s version stated the Trustees want ed a study of the jetty problem. “Effects” Specifically the resolution drafted by Mr. Parker stated that the Trustees favored a study of the “effects of jetties on beach erosion” and another study of “effective means to reduce beach erosion.” It stated that the Trustees presently take the position that the jetties should be removed, but their final position on the matter would be “subject to further study and input by other interested parties.” Mr. Leo said he was “shocked” when he read what Mr. Parker had drafted. The Trustees had taken a definite stand against the jetties and Mr. Parker had diluted that stand by making it conditional on “some study that the Trustees had never mention ed” at their meeting, he maintained. Mr. Parker, who dismissed Mr. Leo’s protest as “much ado about nothing,” said the resolution he drafted still mentioned the Trustees’ present opposition to the jetties. He admitted the study was his own idea, but added that “if the guys don’t like the resolution as I’ve written it they can change it.” It would not be final until the Trustees approved the minutes of their October meeting, which would include Mr. Parker’s draft of the resolution. Procedures Mr. Parker also said the Trustees had not followed “normal procedures” when they passed the resolution last month. On issues of major importance resolutions are not supposed to be passed, he said, until the subject is discussed at several Trustee meetings. If he had been present at last month’s meeting “there wouldn't have been a resolution,” he said, because it was “dangerous” to adopt a resolution off the top of one’s head. Resolutions should be typed out before the meeting in formal form, he said, which is what he had done with the jetty resolution in preparation for the Trustees’ next meeting. Mr. Parker said the content of the resolution he had written was based on the notes taken at the meeting by the Trustees’ secretary and on what he believed to be the feelings of the Board. Kenneth Yardley, chairman of the Trustees, said Tuesday he did not remember any mention of a study when the jetty resolution was adopted, but Mr. Parker said he put in the study clause because he had thought it should be included. “The jetties won’t be removed until a study is made, anyway,” he said. Tim Neale THE S T A R VOL. 3|CII, NO. 10 EAST HAMPTON, N.Y. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1977 SINGLE COPY 25* Main Beach Enid Roth Bipartisan Critics Hit Budget $ Salary raises proposed for some East Hampton Town officials and not others proved to be the most controversial items in the Town’s “preliminary” 1978 budget when that document was debated for three and a half hours at a public hearing Monday, the day before Election Day. Town Councilmen, now paid $10,000 each, will receive $13,500 next year if the Town Board, which consists of the four Councilmen and the Supervisor, adopts the proposed budget un changed. The two Town Justices’ salaries would rise from $15,225 each to $17,500. While these raises would amount to 35 per cent and 15 per cent, salaries of all the other elected officials would rise 5.4 per cent, and those of appointed officials, policemen, clerical staff, and laborers, 4.9 per cent. This arrange ment offended the other elected officials, who, in an unusual instance of Republican and Democratic politicians joining to protest a proposal made by other Republican and Democratic officials, made their indignation known Monday. The Audience Others in the audience, which filled Town Hall at the start of the hearing and gradually dwindled until only three remained when it ended, protested the budget in more general terms, because it would cause Town taxes to rise by about 11 per cent. That, said a number of retired persons, would be more than many could afford to pay. They agreed that the increase should be reduced to no more than five per cent, but did not say how this should be done. Another delegation comprised sup porters of Guild Hall, who were unhappy because the Board had not given the cultural institution any Federal Revenue Sharing money this year, and was not proposing to give it any next year, though it had given it $10,000 in 1975 and again in 1976. After the retired persons and the Guild Hall supporters went home, a few of the remaining spectators and Board members put their minds to possible ways in which the budget could actually be cut, and thought of several. The Board was to meet yesterday to peruse the budget again— “with a scalpel,” said Supervisor Eugene Haas. A final budget must be adopted by Nov. 20. Expenditures proposed in the pre liminary budget amount to $4,606,621. Taxes would be $6.81 outside the Incorporated Villages and $2.69 inside them, up from $6.25 and $2.60. For every percentage point removed from this 11-per-cent increase, according to Mr. Haas, $38,000 must be cut. Mr. Haas described the proposed raise for Councilmen as “quite con servative in terms of the amount of time put in, probably only about half of what they should be given in my own estimation of the work they’re doing.” How much time did each Councilman put in?, wondered Lona Rubenstein, a State Assembly aide who has been active in local Republican campaigns. Assuming they did not all put in the same, she suggested, could some way be found to vary their pay proportion ately? Weekly Hours Councilman Eamon McDonough said he put in between 20 and 25 hours a week and maintained, as did other Board members, that elected officials could not legally be paid an hourly rate. Councilman Larry Cantwell said the job was a full-time one for him, averaging 40 hours a week; he spent “probably no time in my office Gandy dancers can be seen these days replacing worn-out railroad ties with new ones all along the Montauk branch of the Long Island Rail Road. The work is not, however, the major overhaul of the dilapidated line that has been promised for so long to residents of the South Fork. The men are doing “customary repair work,” according to George Thune, a spokesman for the LIRR. The major rehabilitation work, for which the State allocated $5.8 million and the Federal government $10.2 million last summer, is yet to come. Why is the LIRR spending money replacing ties when a major rehabilita tion is just around the corner? Used Again “We’re not spending a great deal now,” Mr. Thune said, and the ties twiddling my thumbs,” and he received no extra compensation for the travel the job required. He suggested that the raises were “really a drop in the bucket when you look at some of the other expenditures we’re considering.” Getting elected was hard work, Mr. Cantwell added, and “salary has some thing to do with the kind of and the quality of the people who are attracted to the position.” Councilwoman Mary Fallon, the only Board member who did not defend the raises—she did not protest them either, but said she wanted to know what the public thought—said the job had grown from a part-time one since she was first elected five years ago and now “almost meets the criteria of a full-time job.” It obliged her to work nights two or three times a week attending meetings, she pointed out. The Phone Rings Councilman Samuel Lester said he put in “a minimum of at least 30 hours a week, and after you get home the phone still rings. You can’t even say 40 hours; it’s 50 or even longer.” Besides, he said, he wanted to see businessmen serving on the Board, and they needed to be compensated for the cost of hiring someone else to do their business work. being purchased can be kept and used again when the major work is done. The LIRR, however, is not just purchasing ties. It is installing them as well, atop beds that Mr. Thune admitted would be dug up when the major rehabilitation work begins. The entire right-of-way of the Montauk branch will be “scooped out” and a new rock ballast bed laid for the tracks in place of the present powdered cinder base, he acknowledged. The work is also supposed to include installation of new switches and con tinuous welded rails, all designed to return high-speed rail service to the East End. Exactly how fast the trains will be able to go when all the work is completed, Mr. Thune was hesitant to say because of the many “variables” involved. These answers did not altogether satisfy Mrs. Rubenstein, who observed that every item in the budget, by itself, looked like a drop in the bucket. The Board should consider the incomes of the taxpayers, she said, and if State law forbade hourly rates for officials, it should try to get the law changed. Both she and Walter Fried, chairman of the board of Guild Hall, said they didn't question the fact that Council- men worked hard. However, said Mr. Fried, “I venture to suggest that the proposed increase is somewhat large.” Guild Hall, he said, which had a “recurring deficit” and “needs funding if we are to survive,\ could not afford to give its employes even cost-of-living increases, such as those proposed for other Town employes. Statement Town Assessor Frederick Butts read the Board a statement urging it to approve only cost-of-living increases for everyone, “in the interest of austerity, fairness, and good govern ment.” The Justices, his letter com plained, worked only 26 weeks a year; the raise proposed for them “smacks of government by cronyism.” He called it a desperate effort by Board members Continued on Page 16 The distances between stations, the switching system, and the number of rails along the branch all will have an effect on the speeds of the trains, he said. “Much Faster” Mr. Thune assured, though, that the welded rails and new beds would allow trains on the Montauk branch to travel “much faster than they do now.” “It will be like replacing the horse and buggy with a new-fangled ma chine,” he said. The State and Federal funds ear marked for the major repair work are being funnelled through the Metro politan Transportation Authority. A spokesman for the MTA, John Adams, said bids on the work have come in from private contractors, but no con tracts have been signed to date. Tim Neale Track-Work: Wasted?
