{ title: 'The East Hampton Star. (East Hampton, N.Y.) 1885-current, May 11, 1978, Page 7, Image 7', download_links: [ { link: 'http://www.loc.gov/rss/ndnp/ndnp.xml', label: 'application/rss+xml', meta: 'News about NYS Historic Newspapers - RSS Feed', }, { link: '/lccn/sn83030960/1978-05-11/ed-1/seq-7/png/', label: 'image/png', meta: '', }, { link: '/lccn/sn83030960/1978-05-11/ed-1/seq-7.pdf', label: 'application/pdf', meta: '', }, { link: '/lccn/sn83030960/1978-05-11/ed-1/seq-7/ocr.xml', label: 'application/xml', meta: '', }, { link: '/lccn/sn83030960/1978-05-11/ed-1/seq-7/ocr.txt', label: 'text/plain', meta: '', }, ] }
Image provided by: East Hampton Library
THE EAST HAMPTON STAR, EAST HAMPTON, N.Y., MAY 11, 1978 SEVEN Amagansett Susan Pollack 267-3784 Susan Burnap of Hampton Lane and New Canaan, Conn., was recently awarded the Daughters of the Ameri can Revolution’s “good citizen award” presented annually to a New Canaan High School senior. Her sister, Amy, is doing free-lance sports photography for the New Can aan Advertiser and her brother, John, a dean’s list student at the San Diego, Cal., Community College has been accepted for fall admission to the University of New Haven where he will enroll in a bachelor’s degree program in fire science. St. Michael’s Church in the place of a sermon during Sunday’s service. A party celebrating the 60th wedding anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Benzenberg followed the service. Brian Lydon, son of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Lydon of Lazy Point Road, was named recently to the dean’s list at the University of Tampa in Florida. Arlene Stettinger found on Sunday at the Lazy Point launching ramp while visiting her grandparents, Mary and Scotty Eames, who live nearby, a curious - looking bottle which had washed up on shore. She broke open its wax seal and found inside a stamped self-addressed postcard which stated that the bottle had been launched in Long Island Sound at Peconic Inlet on April 5 as part of a school earth science experi ment. The sender, Donna ’ Iaston, requested that replies be sent to her teacher in Mattituck with information about where it had been found and when. School News John Goodman’s third and fourth graders at the Amagansett School recently constructed their own pro tractors in order to plot on models they made of the sky, the paths of the moon, sun, and stars. Milford Crandall’s fifth grade science students are mounting an exhibit concerning the metric system in con junction with “Metric Week,” which will be observed this month. Ray Durlacher’s eighth grade social studies class is studying juvenile problems and the law. A group of sixth, seventh, and eighth grade girls is studying yoga with Carol Kurtz, art teacher, as a selective studies offering. The boys’ baseball team last week defeated Sag Harbor, 10-5. Leon Pear sall and Mitchell Lester pitched and Mitchell and Joseph La Carrubba hit home runs while Leon and Raymond King each had two hits. A bus transporting persons to the “Jesus ’78” inter-faith rally at the Giants Stadium in New Jersey will leave the Amagansett School parking lot on Saturday at 5 a.m. For reserva tions and further information persons can speak to Mr. or Mrs. Ray Dur- lacher. School B udget Is Topic Tax Rate Down MRS. RUTH DENHARD of Amagan sett recently set off for Bermuda aboard the Holland America Line steamer S.S. Statendam, leaving from New York. Berton Roueche, Stony Hill Road, will be honored for “excellence in medical reporting through the written media” at a May 23 meeting of the American Medical Writers Association, New York Chapter, at the Yale Club in Manhattan. It is the second time Mr. Roueche has been so singled out; he won the award in 1963. He is a writer for the New Yorker magazine, where his “Annals of Medi cine” pieces are regular features. Mr. and Mrs. Roueche recently returned from Corydon, Ind., where Mr. Roueche was doing the initial work on a piece about the place. The Amagansett Citizens Planning Committee will meet in the Parks and Planning Building, Bluff Road, on Monday at 7:30 p.m. The public has been invited. Silver Tea The Altar Guild of St. Michael’s Church will hold a silver tea at the Church next Wednesday from 1 to 3 p.m. Yesterday evening members of the Church and their friends partici pated in a wine and cheese party. In other news, the Church is seeking donations for its May 27 fair and yard sale. Donations of handcrafts, books, plants, furniture, and cookies, pies, and cakes are being sought. Alice Johnson has more information. A selection of songs concerning the life of Jesus was sung by the choir of About 30 persons including parents, teachers, and a resident who is seeking the Republican nomination for Con gress attended the Amagansett School District’s annual meeting at Scoville Hall on Tuesday evening. Compared to years past, the meeting was quiet and uneventful, possibly because the Dist rict’s tax rate is going down some 44 cents to $7.97 per $100 of assessed valuation, it was suggested. Voting on the District’s proposed $894,476 budget and an additional proposition to allocate $ 22,000 for the Amagansett Free Library was held yesterday from 2 to 8 p.m., too late for a report on the results in this issue. An incumbent Board member, Elsie Tre- leaven, was running unopposed for reelection. While several perfunctory questions were asked Tuesday, the only matter receiving any extended concern was why more persons did not turn out for the meeting. “Why the complacency?” Mrs. Margaret Molnar asked. Lower Rate Thomas Scott, Board president, sug gested that besides a declining tax rate, persons had not turned out because of the change made this year scheduling the annual meeting one evening and the vote the next day. In years past, about 100 persons had voted, he said, adding that if fewer showed up on Wednesday, the District might consider going back to its format of holding the meeting and vote the same evening. Virginia Kuhn, a parent and para- professional teacher, suggested that, were the meeting to be held in July, summer residents might turn out. On another matter, Mrs. Kuhn asked why the Federal Fish and Wildlife Bureau yearly contributed $400 to $500 to the District and Mr. Scott suggested that because a certain amount of land in the District is in “recognized nature sanc tuaries” and therefore off the tax rolls. Specifically, the money is for the sanctuary that stretches from the Town Marine Museum to the ocean beach. Another question concerned the Dist rict’s allocation of $2,900 to bus one student to the Hampton Day School. Mr. Scott replied that the District, by law, had to provide transportation to students traveling to private or paroch ial school within 15 miles. Combined Classes “Do we need as many teachers as we’ve got? I hear some classes have as few as three or four students,” Irving Goddard asked. Mr. Scott replied that the smaller classes in the School had been combined, with the smallest number of students in any class being 13 students in the kindergarten and first grade. One or two other persons asked for a clarification of items on the budget format such as how frequently a dental hygienist and nurse would be on call. Mr. Scott, for his part, stated that proposed legal expenses were up from $2,000 to $3,000 to cover the costs of teacher-contract negotiations, which would begin in January. He also, in a prepared statement, said that the Board would not enter into a con solidation agreement with another District or make a decision to send Amagansett’s junior high school stud ents elsewhere without the approval of the District. Declining enrollment has forced a lot of schools to the west to close down, he said, adding, “We will do everything in our power to see Amagansett does not suffer that fate.” The East Hampton School Board devoted the half-hour preceding its budget meeting in the Middle School Tuesday night to public concerns about the District’s 1978-79 budget, still in the making. With no point of reference at hand, neither last year’s budget figures nor those anticipated for next year, the audience of some 12 persons was clearly at sea. Nicholas Randall, speaking for mem bers of the American Association of Retired Persons, grabbed at the only straw available — that costs were too high — and made a lengthy plea to the Board to hold the line on spending. The plight of the person on a fixed income was desperate, he indicated, even for those who enjoyed the 50 per cent reduction in taxes, and the percentage of retired persons who were not eligible for the reduction was large. Robert Denny, chairman of a com mittee of insurance brokers in the District which was appointed two years ago by the School Board, reviewed the District’s current cover age and its anticitated needs. The few key words that reached the audience, reached it repeatedly: Inflation, es calating costs, increases. Increases were needed in student accident coverage, Mr. Denny advised. He cited the use of the trampoline, and its “severe” accident potential, as a threat to the “marketability” of the District’s coverage, even with strict rules for use. School Lunches The broker reviewed, item for item, the Districts needs — insurance cover ing the buildings, grounds equipment, boilers, crime, cameras, musical in struments, automobiles and buses, accidents, liability — and recommend ed an increase of about $ 10,000 coverage next year. The Board then carried on a dialogue with Connie Parr, former president of the Parent-Teacher-Community Organ ization, and Dr. H. Pinkney Phyfe and Diane Astorr, members of its school lunch committee. They recommended, primarily, that the District retain a school lunch committee to work con tinuously with the director of the lunch program. Secondly, they recommended the acquisition of vending machines for frozen yogurt and/or milkshakes, which would pay for itself in a short time while it was providing nutritive food that students would enjoy. Thirdly, it pointed out a need for new eating utensils, either of heavy-duty plastic, or standard cafeteria ware. Grace? The committee, assuming that the Board members had read its written report, detailed it no further. John McCuen, a Board member who had read it, noted the omission of any reference to the concept that “the consumption of school lunches teaches social graces.” There was no argument, didn’t seem to be part of the mechanics of setting up a lunch program. Robert J. Freidah, the District supervising principal, alluding to man dates from Albany, questioned wheth er a School Board could give up authority to a school lunch committee to make up menus, and such. Stephen M. Miller, the Board’s president, twice spoke of complaints about school lunches per se, and complaints that the District was short changing its educational programs by devoting too much attention to such matters as lunches, transportation, and the like. He said he had sometimes wondered if a lunch program should be continued at all, but had been re assured by the committee “that some people think we should go on.” More Help Finally, there was talk about using outside supplementary help to relieve the staff as Carl Johanson, the Middle School principal, complained of having to close his library at lunch time in order to have a cashier in the lunchroom. More about school lunches surfaced later in the meeting when Mr. Freidah said he hoped they would be contracted out next year, a system that has been used in the past. William Crommett, District clerk, then reviewed projected costs of bonding, attorneys' services, printing and mailing of “Chalk Talk,” the District newsletter, custodians’ salar ies, utilities, contractual expenses, grounds equipment, and so forth, most of which were on the rise. He proposed a “trade-in” of some 17-year-old equip ment for snow removal that could be operated “by our own people” at a savings to the District of “about 50 per cent.” “Periodically, overtime might be involved,” he added, “but we’re still ahead of the game.” Benefits Up “Employe benefits is one of the biggies this year — $149,000 over last year,” Mr. Freidah offered, taking over the meeting. “We get quite a turnover. Every time someone leaves us, we save about 13 per cent.” Mr. Freidah recommended the es tablishment of an unemployment re serve fund: “We had about a half-dozen subs this year. If they become unem ployed, [we’re billed],” he said, explain ing that, as of June, municipalities would be taking over unemployment insurance payments from the Federal government. “So now when we hire somebody, we have to worry about when we lay them off,” Mr. Miller added. “The plan hasn’t changed, just who pays for it,” Mr. Freidah said. Under “capital funds” the Board revealed that it had finally solved the old traffic problem at the Elementary School: The roadway across the play ing fields to Railroad Avenue was to be eliminated — “grassed over” — so that traffic would enter and leave the grounds by the same route in a circular flow. New Press Also under capital funds came print ing costs. The District is contemplating the purchase of a photo-offset press for $16,000, which could be used in educational programs to print the School newspaper, magazine, letter heads, and graduation programs at an annual savings of about $5,000. Transportation costs will rise, too, it was reported. Transportation costs of Board of Cooperative Educational Ser vices (and many other categories) are up; the District will be obliged to put out for bid one additional route because of a change of schedule at Most Holy Trinity which is out of step with the present buses. The complicated special education program was briefly discussed. The costs are high and are likely to escalate with all the rest, it was reported. Regarding the summer program, there will be no increase in instructional salaries, Mr. Freidah said: “Last year we decided to reinvest the profit; this year I think we ought to use it.” Debts The last category touched upon at Tuesday’s session was debts. The District will be paying one year’s principle of $75,000 on the construction of the Elementary School and the addition to the Middle School; $130,000 on the High School, and $10,000 on the addition to the Elementary School. “We’ll have to set up another reserve fund for debt service,” Mr. Freidah said. The meeting was adjourned until 7:30 tonight in the faculty room of the Middle School. There will be no public participation, although the public has been invited to listen. It is expected that at this session the proposed budget will be approved. The Board will have a regular meeting on Tuesday night and is expected to set a public information meeting on the adopted budget for June at that time. The annual meeting is set for June 27, with voting the following day. Phyllis Reed
