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Judge Acquits Schwenk While F inding“Wrong” The family and friends of Edwin M. (Buzz) Schwenk joined hands at lunch —in the tense two hours between the summations at the former County Republican Chairman’s trial and the judge’s verdict—and they prayed. Dr. Benjamin Franklin Barnes, Mr. Schwenk’s 85-year-old father-in-law, led the prayers, at the Holiday Inn in Riverhead Tuesday. Tears flowed from the eyes of Mr. Schwenk’s wife, Diana. Then their two daughters quietly thanked their grand father. Nervously, the group of 15 witness ing the last day of an episode that began last July, when Mr. Schwenk, of Southampton, was indicted on a charge he stole $245,000 in Party funds between 1967 and last year, while he was Suffolk GOP leader, returned to the fortress-like Criminal Courts Build ing. Discharged “It can go either way. You never can tell,” said Mr. Schwenk’s lawyer, John J. Sutter, on the stairs up to the courthouse. The sign in front of the third-floor courtroom where John A. Gallucci, a Rockland County judge especially as signed to the Schwenk trial, lit up: “COURT IN SESSION.” The people filed in. Mrs. Schwenk in tearful anguish, waited for a few minutes outside, trying to compose herself. She was helped in by her daughters. Then, finally, 15 minutes later, came the decision: “The defendant is found not guilty and discharged,” said Judge Gallucci. Applause erupted from the court room, and more tears. The two prosecutors disappeared instantly. Mr. Schwenk, his ebullient smile fully returned, said he would “go back and peddle some milk and telephones.” Would he “do it again” and become Suffolk Republican Chairman? There was no hesitation. “No.” Buzz Schwenk’s trial was over, but, said Mrs. Schwenk, still amidst tears, “How can anyone recover from what we’ve been through? We have been the target of a political assassination.” Summations Summations had consumed the morning. “Where is the basis of this case?” asked Mr. Sutter, of Mineola, going to what he termed the “heart” of the matter. Mr. Schwenk had been granted “broad discretion” when he became Party Chairman to handle the Party’s “financial matters.\ “What we’re dealing with is a possible debt, not a larceny,” he declared. There was “no criminal intent... the prosecution hypothesizes an evil motive, but it’s unsubstantiated by anything in the record.” Only in the “fertile mind of the prosecutor” is there any sign that Mr. Schwenk stole GOP monies, he main tained. There were “no fictitious papers, no phony bills, no attempt to cover up anything... to hide or conceal. Anyone could see what happened,” said Mr. Sutter. There were transfers back and forth between Mr. Schwenk’s and the Party’s bank accounts, he said, but “how can you say Buzz Schwenk had an intent to steal. . . when he lends the Committee $40,000 for campaigns, when Buzz Schwenk puts his name on $270,000 in Party obligations?” Further, noted Mr. Sutter, Mr. Schwenk had written to his successor as Party chief, Gilbert C. Hanse, a month after he left, asking for a “reconcilement” of funds. If anything, it is the Party that now owes Mr. Schwenk for overpayments he made, money he has not received “credit” for by the District Attorney’s office, Mr. Sutter said. “Nobody” among Party leaders “complains about money taken,” Mr. Sutter said. Mr. Schwenk, then a banker, had taken over “a behemoth a half million in hock” in 1967, was given wide latitude in handling its money, and the back and forth shifting of funds was “totally inconsistent with larcenous intent . . . Buzz Schwenk may have done it his way, but his way was not a larcenous way,” Mr. Sutter concluded. Gerard Sullivan, chief of the DA’s Trial Bureau who at the trial had assisted Ira Simon, chief of the Anti- Corruption section, gave the prosecu tion summation. Called “Embezzlement” Mr. Schwenk, he declared, had made an “habitual pattern” of “careless, grossly negligent. . . financial maneu- verings.” It was with a “conscious objective to deprive the Republican Committee of funds.” Mr. Schwenk “repeatedly” put Party funds in his own bank account, at the Marine Midland Bank in Southampton, said Mr. Sullivan, as a “scheme” to use “Party money” for his own “personal, selfish” purposes. “Time and time again,” said the prosecutor, he did this. It was years of “manipulation.” That he returned much of the money should be only “mitigation Continued on Page 14 School Smoking T opic The East Hampton School Board, at its meeting Tuesday night, approved on first reading a resolution to repeal two sections of the Board’s by-laws. One concerns the Board’s smoking policy, the other its policy on alcohol con sumption. The resolution, which must be voted on favorably again at the next Board meeting, before it takes effect, was offered in response to the recent community uproar over alleged stud ent drinking and smoking of tobacco and marijuana at the High School and Middle School. The resolution would “clear the slate” for the Board to write new regulations regarding smoking and drinking, the Board stated. It has not yet decided, though, what those new regulations would be. The resolution was passed by a vote of four to one, with Board member Marvin LaMoore casting the only dissenting vote. Mr. LaMoore said he did not think there was a problem with the current regulations as much as there was with the enforcement of those regulations. He also seemed perturbed that the Board was re pealing its old regulations before it had decided what it wanted to replace them with. Details The by-laws in question state that the consumption of alcoholic beverages is forbidden on school grounds, and that no smoking is allowed in school buildings while school-age children are present. The smoking rules also state that no smoking is allowed at any time in the auditoriums and gymnasiums, and is permitted in the cafeterias after school hours only at the permission of the building principal. Smoking is thus allowed at School Board meetings, which are held after hours in the Middle School cafeteria. John McCuen, the Board member who introduced the resolution, said the action was “purely procedural.” It takes two consecutive Board meetings (or two months) to repeal any of the Board’s by-laws, he explained, and another two consecutive Board meet ings to institute new by-laws. He was merely trying to get the ball rolling so that new smoking and alcohol regula tions might be in effect for next fall, he said. In the event that the Board got “bogged down” trying to decide what the new regulations might be, Mr. McCuen pointed out that the resolution gave the District principal, Robert Freidah, the power to institute emer gency regulations at the Board’s direc tion. “Handbook” On the same subject, Christopher Sarlo, the High School principal, re ported that a committee of six teachers and a committee of eight students were meeting separately and jointly to discuss the “Student Handbook,” par ticularly the sections of the Handbook . dealing with rules and regulations. Eventually reports will be issued by the committees with suggested changes in the Handbook, he said. The Board was expected to adopt Tuesday night a tentative budget for the District for the 1978-79 fiscal year. However, it was reported at the meeting that the tentative budget was not yet ready. The Board plans another of its open “work sessions” tonight at 7 p.m. in the District office in the Middle School, and, if it completes its review of the budget drawn up by Mr. Friedah, will schedule a special public meeting to adopt the tentative proposal. The tentative budget will then be mailed to all the District residents. Annual Meeting A budget information meeting has been scheduled for June 7 at 8 p.m. in the Middle School cafeteria, and the District’s annual meeting will be held June 27 at 8 p.m. at the High School. Voting will follow the next day at the High School between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Registration for voters will be held on June 16 from 2 to 4 p.m. and June 17 Continued on Page 8 Motel P lan Delayed The East Hampton Town Board last Thursday night passed another resolu tion aimed at delaying and possibly altering or halting construction of a 45-unit motel at Ditch Plain, Montauk. The motel was approved recently by the Town Planning Board and sub sequently protested by a group of residents of the Ditch Plain area and representatives of the Group for Amer ica’s South Fork, who showed up at a Town Board meeting May 5. The following Wednesday, May 10, the protest carried over to a Planning Board meeting, and the next evening the Town Board, meeting again, re solved to have the Planning Board investigate whether an environmental impact statement was required for the motel under the new State Environ mental Quality Review Act. Armand DeRose, chairman of the Planning Board, has since sent a letter making that inquiry to Daniel Larkin of the State Department of Environ mental Conservation. The SEQRA law reportedly does not go into effect for “private actions” until Sept. 1, but it has been suggested the motel might come under the SEQRA requirements now since it is proposed for a “critical area.” Meanwhile, Councilman Larry Cant well said there has been some more discussion among Town Board mem bers about a possible Town purchase of the two-acre parcel on which the motel is to be built. He said he was not sure though how the voting would go on that issue. The site of the proposed motel, between the southerly end of Ditch Plain Road and the Atlantic Ocean, next to the Town-owned Rheinstein Park, has been leased during the summer months for many years by the Town, which uses it as a parking lot for its beach there. The property was owned by Samuel Rubin; however, Edward Pospisil, a Montauk realtor, was the contract purchaser for the motel project. The Town Board con sidered purchasing the lot from Mr. Rubin in the past, but never reached a decision about it. Much of what was said against the project at last week’s Planning Board and Town Board meetings came from Aileen McLean, who lives on Miller Avenue, near the site. She said she was concerned that the motel would disrupt the natural drainage flow from the low-lying Rheinstein Park area to the northeast; that the cesspools from the motel would be “too much for the land to take,” and that the motel would deprive the local residents of the use of the beach by bringing in crowds of new people. “Second Coney Island” The Town should buy the lot, Mrs. McLean said. Otherwise the area was in danger of becoming “a second Coney Island,” she said. Mr. DeRose replied that he “couldn’t agree more” that the property should be purchased by the Town, but noted that only the Town Board could authorize such a purchase, and unless it did, the Planning Board would have to approve the motel since it was an allowable use in that area. The drainage question, he added, had been addressed by the Town engineer, and the Board had attached certain conditions to its site plan approval of the project which had been recommended by the engineer in that regard. The cesspools, he said, were a County Health Department matter, and the County had found the proposed cesspool arrangement satisfactory. “Motel Study” Patrick Trunzo, a representative of the Group for America’s South Fork, Continued on Page 15 Flounder Time John Spear Contractor Sees A Gravel P lot Two partners in a Long Beach construction firm, hired by the New York State Transportation Depart ment to dig a sump off Route 114 at East Hampton, a job that should have been completed last December, alleged this week that they had been done dirt by “the Town” and by the Bistrian Gravel Corporation. The partners, A1 DiMaro and Bill Lemminn, of DiMaro Construction Corporation, said that the Bistrian Corporation had “stalled for five months” on what they claimed was “a verbal contract,” entered into last December, to remove about 30,000 to 40,000 cubic yards of .dirt from the 70,000-cubic-yard sump that DiMaro has been constructing since last May. Pat Bistrian of the Bistrian Corpor ation denied that he had had any dealings with DiMaro, other than one telephone conversation in which “he wanted to rent some of my equipment and I said it wasn’t available.” Highway Superintendent In making their complaint, the partners stressed Pat Bistrian’s rela tionship to the Town Highway Super intendent, John Bistrian, his uncle. They predicted that should the State DOT “default” them, Bistrian Gravel would wind up with the remainder of the sump’s fill and would sell some of it to the Town for a greater price than the $1.25 a cubic yard they said they had offered it to the Town for a year ago. While the Highway Department does buy much material from Bistrian Gravel, including sand (which Harvey Katz, president of DiGate Corporation, another sand-mining firm, equated with fill), John Bistrian said the Highway Department bought no fill from Bistrian Gravel. A marl pit at the Bull Path landfill dump provided road-base material, Mr. Bistrian said. Alleged Offer From what Mr. DiMaro said, it appeared that “the Town” in this case was the Landfill Department’s labor foreman, Tom Bennett. The Landfill Department is not under Highway Superintendent John Bistrian’s man agement. Mr. DiMaro said that about a year ago he had offered Mr. Bennett the sump’s fill — about 70,000 cubic yards, in all — for $1.25 a yard to bury refuse at the Bull Path landfill. “No money had been appropriated,” said Mr. Bennett. “We couldn’t buy it. I told him if he wanted to get rid of it and haul it, we’d take it at Bull Path, as much as he wanted to get rid of. That way, we can save some of our marl.” “We don’t buy fill,” Mr. Bennett emphasized. “He’s making you a story . . . As a matter of fact, we sell surplus fill ourselves at $1 a yard . . . We made no deals.” Not Much Choice A Town Councilman, Larry Cant well, head of the Town Board’s landfill committee, said that unless the Town Board granted a waiver, DiMaro would, under a Town ordinance, have to pay $8 per axle per load to bring the fill into the landfills. “He doesn’t have much choice,” said Mr. Cantwell, “but I’ve had no correspondence on this from anybody.” “I assume if the contractor wanted to Friday’s hearing on the Sea Spray Inn Corporation’s application attracted a sizeable crowd to the East Hampton Village Hall annex but, for procedural reasons, was over almost before it had begun, with nothing decided one way or another. The Corporation, which is owned by Douglas LaChance and Brian Wyatt and leases the Inn from Donald Clause, had asked the Village Zoning Board of Appeals for an “interpretation” of a section of the zoning ordinance that says a nonconforming use of a building can be restored if it is “destroyed less than 50 per cent of its sound value, exclusive of foundations, by fire . . . .” The Inn has been nonconforming use of residential property. Its main build ing, which had been a hotel for over a century, burned to the ground on Feb. 18. Messrs. LaChance and Wyatt want to replace part of it, and their lawyer, John McGowan, argued that they were entitled to do so because, he main tained, the destroyed building had represented less than half the “sound value” of the “whole” Inn, most of whose hotel rooms were in cottages that were untouched by the fire. He defined sound value as replacement costs minus “appropriate depreciation.” sell surplus fill or bring it in for free, he would have contacted me or another member of the Town Board.” As far as the partners’ prediction that Bistrian Gravel would come into possession of the remaining sump fill and would sell some to the Town, for $2 to $3 a yard, Mr. Cantwell said, “It wouldn’t make sense for the Town to sell surplus fill from its landfills and then to buy it from someone else.” Wainscott Project \I don’t ever recall the Landfill Department buying fill,” he continued. “We have a marl pit at Bull Path that’s used by the Parks Department, the Highway Department, or whomever for filling and grading.” The partners said that they had sold 20,000 cubic yards of sump material, at $1 a yard, delivered, to Dr. Arthur Ashman of Beach Lane, Wainscott, and Mr. McGowan cited two court cases in which this interpretation of similar ordinances in other towns had been upheld. One involved a migrant labor camp, the other a country club; in each case the nonconforming operation’s main building had burned down and was allowed to be rebuilt on the reasoning that its value had been less that 50 per cent of that of the whole group of buildings. The courts had confirmed that the word “building” in the ordinances “would be construed as buildings, plural,” the lawyer said. It soon became apparent, however, that the Zoning Board members thought Mr. McGowan should not be telling them these things at all — at least not yet. The Village’s building department, said Board Chairman Ken neth Wessberg, “should have worked this out.” Mr. McGowan said the building inspector, Victor Amman, had “ad vised” him in a conversation a few days after the fire that a building permit to replace the hotel structure would be denied because it had been a non- conforming use. He said he had inferred that the inspector thought more than half the Inn’s value had been destroyed; that was why he was in December had entered into the “verbal contract” with Pat Bistrian, first to remove the fill for free, and then to remove it for 25-cents a yard. “We met him in his office twice,” said Mr. DiMaro. “We shook on the deal. We were on the phone with him for at least once a week for the past year.” Under its contract with the State, DiMaro Construction is to be paid $1.60 a yard for removing the material, Mr. DiMaro said. So, if the material were removed at no charge, DiMaro would make $1.60 a yard. If it were removed for 25 cents a yard, DiMaro would make $1.35 a yard. Mr. DiMaro said he planned now to truck the fill to Bull Path, in which case the firm would make 60 to 70 cents a yard, he figures. “Only Contact” Pat Bistrian denied that any agree- Continued on Page 9 appealing to the Zoning Board. Nothing In Writing The Board members did not regard the conversation between the two men as having official status; no formal application for a permit had been made, and there was nothing in writing. The outcome of Friday’s hearing was as follows: The Corporation will make a formal application to Mr. Amman for a building permit. If he grants one, that will apparently be the end of the matter; it can go ahead and build. If he doesn’t, it can return to the ZBA and ask for a contrary interpretation again, or for a variance from the property’s residential zoning. An incidental fact that emerged as Board members questioned Mr. Mc Gowan was that Messrs. LaChance and Wyatt intend to exercise an option to buy the Inn buildings and the six acres that they lease from Mr. Clause. Before they can do so, however, Mr. Clause would have to get the Planning Board's approval to divide the property, which comprises 18 acres. Whether he could get it is question able, since the Board turned him down in 1975 when he proposed to divide the 12-acre portion into six house lots. The Continued on Page 9 The Sea Spray Matter VOL. XCIII, NO. 37 MAY 18, 1978
