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Fallon In Top Spot; White Leads Planners East Hampton Town Supervisor Mary Fallon said Tuesday that her priorities in office would include an update of the Town’s ten-year-old Comprehensive Plan, taking into ac count the recommendations in the Town Planner’s much-discussed motel study; approval of a “senior citizen” housing project; and closer attention to issues raised by the construction of an oceanfront revetment at Amagansett East. Mrs. Fallon, the fifth Supervisor the Town has had since she joined the Town Board in 1973, began the day as Councilwoman and, in a sort of musical- chairs proceeding at the start of the Board’s organizational meeting, moved over one seat to the center spot on the official dais after its previous occupant, Ronald Rioux, left the meeting room with a cheery wave to the assembled crowd, which gave both standing ovations. Committee Choice Mr. Rioux had announced after ten months as Supervisor that he would leave office at the end of the year because, as he explained in his letter of resignation, his doctor had advised him it would be “in the best interest of my health” to do so. Mrs. Fallon, the Republican Committee’s choice to re place him, was appointed by the votes of two Republicans remaining on the Board: Hugh King and Samuel Lester. Her own letter of resignation as Councilwoman was read out just before the vote, along with Mr. Rioux’s, and she descended momentarily to aud ience level as he made his exit. The Board’s sole Democrat, Larry Cantwell, voted against her appoint ment, explaining later that, while he considered her “philosophical ap proach” to government similar to his own, he was “not going to endorse the Republican candidate for Supervisor.” Mr. Cantwell, who at times has been aligned with Mrs. Fallon in taking a more environmentalist stance than other Board members, is widely re garded as the most likely Democratic candidate for Supervisor in next fall’s election. White Heads Planners Also with Mr. Cantwell dissenting, the Board appointed Richard White as a member of the Planning Board and as its chairman and reappointed Edward Horne as Town Attorney. Mr. White, a Republican Committeeman and Mon- tauk liquor store proprietor, had been the Planning Board chairman until his election in 1971 as Town Councilman, a post to which he did not seek reelection in 1975. More recently, he has served as the Town’s budget officer, as acting deputy County Parks Commissioner whi? j Town Republican Chairman Ed ward Ecker temporarily left that job for Perry Duryea’s gubernatorial cam paign, and as a member of the County Charter Review Commission. As Planning Board chairman again, he succeeds Armand DeRose, who recently announced he would resign because he is moving out of town. Numerous other appointments to various Town functions that are rou tine in organizational meetings passed unanimously, except for a resolution to appoint Clayton Morey, a member of the Planning Board, as its vice chair man, which he had been until last year. This failed for lack of a majority as Mrs. Fallon and Mr. Cantwell found themselves aligned again in its favor, opposed by Councilmen King and Lester. Ceremony A short swearing-in ceremony con ducted by Town Clerk Charles Ander son after Mrs. Fallon’s appointment — following which she recessed the meeting for a coffee-and-doughnuts celebration in her office — also included Edward Deyermond, a Republican who was elected Assessor in November. Not appointed and sworn in Tuesday, contrary to expectations, was another Assessor to replace John Behan, an other Republican who resigned after his election to the State Assembly seat relinquished by Mr. Duryea for his unsuccessful quest for the Governor ship. The Republican Committee’s choice for Mr. Behan’s replacement was Elizabeth Cafiso, whose husband, George, is a Committeeman. Mrs. Fallon said after the meeting that the Assessor appointment had been put off to the Board’s next meeting, on Jan. 19, because, though she herself supported Mrs. Cafiso, “we don’t have all the votes.” Councilman Lester said the vote had been postponed at his request but declined to say why. “It would be very hard for me to give the exact reason without some embarrassment to some people,” he said. “I don’t want to embarrass Mr. Cafiso or anyone else.” Mr. Cantwell, meanwhile, supports the Democratic Committee’s recommenda tion, of George Gilmer, who was Mr. Deyermond’s opponent. Councilman Vacancy Another appointment expected at the Jan. 19 meeting is that of a new Councilman or woman for the spot vacated by Mrs. Fallon. Mr. Ecker said his Committee would meet next Tues day to interview nominees for its recommendation, of whom he said there were six that he knew of, and Continued On Page 3 NRC Okays Jamesport The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board of the Federal Nuclear Regu latory Commission last week gave approval to the Long Island Lighting Company to build two nuclear power plants at Jamesport. The decision was not unexpected. The NRC has never denied an application to a utility to build a nuclear plant after a hearing and had, last May, given LILCO pre liminary approval. “We’re delighted,” June Bruce, chief of “media information” for LILCO, said Tuesday. She said LILCO expected “to have the physical permit this week.” She said the decision was “the first step in getting Jamesport under way.” She said “we’re very pleased” that ' the NRC had “supported the need for the plants,” and found the proposed $3.7 billion nuclear facility to be “safe and desirable and would get us off the kick of OPEC oil.” State Refusal? “It stinks,” said A1 Kirby, of Suffolk for Safe Energy. “It’s what we said all along: the NRC is just a rubber stamp for the utilities. The hearings were just a farce. The NRC went through the motions without paying any attention to what was said. The government already had its mind made up.” He said he “was confident” that the Jamesport proposal would be refused by the State of New York. The State last week formally ordered new hear ings on the LILCO application. “I don’t think Carey is going to allow these things to go up because they will produce huge amounts of poisonous nuclear waste and he has said there’ll be no new nuclear plants sited in New York until there is a solution for the waste problem,” said Mr. Kirby, who lives in Mattituck. The NRC decision said: “We have found that a nuclear plant is more desirable than a coal plant on the basis of economy and fuel availability and the health effects of the coal fuel cycle are higher than those of nuclear fuel cycles for comparable electric output.” Exploration Cited The NRC ruling also said the agency “explored several possible alternative means of generating power and found they were not viable. These included purchased power, solar and wind power, refuse-derived power, and con servation and a combination.” The NRC said it found the “environ mental review” conducted by the agency’s staff as having been “ade quate. The board has weighed environ mental, economic, and other costs of the proposed facility and has independ ently considered the final balance among conflicting factors contained in the record of this proceeding.” In October, an NRC appeals board heard challenges from Suffolk County, the League of Women Voters, and others, to the initial decision made on Jamesport. Next Year? Susan Gagner, a public relations person for the NRC, said the appeals board operates separately from the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. The NRC decision to “authorize issuance of a construction permit” to LILCO to erect the Jamesport facility was made Dec. 26. Ms. Gagner, speaking from the NRC’s headquarters in Maryland, near Washington, said that the actual construction permit would be issued by the NRC’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. Ms. Bruce said LILCO couldn’t begin actual construction of the two 1,150 megawatt plants it plans for Jamesport until “we get the State construction permit” and she hoped this would be forthcoming \next year.” LILCO earl ier erected a meterological tower at the Jamesport site. The hearings on which the NRC based its decision were conducted in 1976 and 1977 in River- head. Karl Grossman Clears Way For Vote After a brief hearing Friday at the Village Hall Annex, the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals unani mously approved the application of Donald Clause for a year’s extension of the pre-existing non-conforming use status of his oceanfront Sea Spray Inn property, 16 acres of which he has offered to sell to the Village. The extension clears the way for a Village referendum Jan. 19 during which voters will decide whether to approve or reject Mr. Clause’s offer to sell to the Village the parcel, which is adjacent to the Main Beach, at the end of Ocean Avenue. The referendum will propose a 20-year bond issue of $1.35 million. In granting unanimous approval, the ZBA emphasized that, should the referendum fail on Jan. 19, which would probably cause Mr. Clause to, sometime later, submit building plans for the parcel to the Village Planning Board, the owner would be able to reconstruct only what had been there before. Year To The Day The extension, commencing Feb. 18, begins a year to the day of the fire that razed the Inn; investigation of the fire’s origins has been unsuccessful. Should the referendum pass, the public would gain about 1,200 feet of beach frontage. The only portion of the Sea Spray property not included in the proposed sale is the 1.6-acre parking lot; Mr. Clause has rented the 150- space lot to the Village each summer — the price was $8,000 in 1978. Mayor Douglas Dayton has said that he hopes Mr. Clause might donate the tract “at a future date.” A “public beach study” of May, 1977, by John F. Collins of the Philadelphia, Pa., “Delta Group” recommended ac quisition of the Sea Spray property, as did the Village Planning Board. Mayor Dayton has projected that the Village could recoup its investment within “20 to 25 years” by seasonal rentals of ten cottages on the oceanfront land. $2.3 Million The estimated, total cost of the 20-year bond issue has been put at $2.3 million by Mayor Dayton. Assuming a 6.5 per cent interest rate, and not taking into account the above-men tioned rental income, the tax burden would range from 97 cents per $100 assessed value during the first four years to 73 cents per $100 at the tenth year, and 45 cents per $100 by the 20th year. In July of 1977, the Village and Mr. Clause attempted to negotiate for the parcel, but Mr. Clause’s price had been $2.5 million, too high for the Village. Last September, Mr. Clause reopened negotiations. Mr. Clause has also been involved in suits and counter-suits with the former tenants of the Inn, Douglas LaChance and Brian Wyatt, who had a long-term lease on the Inn and its six-acre parcel. Although an out-of-court settlement has reportedly been reached, “The settlement has yet to be performed,” according to John McGowan, an East Hampton lawyer who represents the former tenants. Affidavit William Esseks, a Riverhead lawyer, represented Mr. Clause at the hearing and presented an affidavit stating Mr. Clause’s reasons for seeking the ex tension. Briefly, the reasons given were fire-insurance payment delay (because of the undetermined cause of the blaze), the decision, in December of 1978, by the former tenants not to rebuild or exercise an option to buy the Inn and its six acres, negotiations between the Village and Mr. Clause begun in fall of 1978 which resulted in a contract being signed, “subject to referendum,” on Dec. 15 for the sale of Continued On Page 4 VOL. XCIV, NO. 18 EAST HAMPTON, N.Y. THURSDAY, JANUARY 4, 1979 Bottoms-Up Till Spring JohnSpoar Proposition 13 For Suffolk? A “Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights” was offered Tuesday to the Suffolk Legis lature by County Executive John V.N. Klein as his “annual report” to the body. Mr. Klein proposed a Countywide referendum in June on reducing “the total property tax burden in Suffolk from its current level of approximately four per cent value to one per cent value over a five-year period,” a cut by 25 per cent over a five-year period in County taxes starting in 1980, and a “cap” on the property tax “burden” for the County Police. The moves would come as amend ments to the Suffolk Charter, said Mr. Klein, and are rooted in “the sense of the people of Suffolk County that when the relationship of property taxes to the value of property exceeds a given level those taxes become confiscatory and a negative influence on the value of that property, both of which results are totally unacceptable.” California-Style He said that “the voters will be asked to approve the same limitation for Suffolk as has been imposed in the State of California, that is, a maximum property tax of one per cent of full value.” Anthony Noto, a 41-year-old County Legislator, from Babylon, who started with the panel in 1971 as an aide, was elected its chairman Tuesday. In an inaugural address, Mr. Noto, a restaurateur for many years and former deputy Babylon Town Super visor, said he would seek “to restore what we felt in the past was the dignity of the Legislature.” Legislator William C. Richards of Smithtown was elected the Legis lature’s vice chairman. Both are Re publicans. The Democratic minority on the Legislature voted against the appointments. More Later Mr. Klein, whose annual reports have since his election in 1971 been far-ranging, said he had limited this message to his “Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights” because “no issue . . . occupies the urgency and priority as that of property tax reform.” He said that “at subsequent meetings of this legislative body, I will deliver the balance of the . . . report.” Mr. Klein’s program follows the passage in November’s election, by an overwhelming margin, of a system of “Initiative and Referendum” for Suf folk. He said it comprised “a first initia tive which deals forcefully and directly with our County’s highest priority — the property tax.” Not Binding The major element of Suffolk prop erty taxes are taxes for schools, and Mr. Klein noted that the proposed referendum would not be “binding upon taxing authorities other than the County. . . . However, it can be a compelling mandate from the people of this County to their elected officials at all levels as to the size, cost, and fiscal impact of government services upon the property tax.” He said a reduction of the property tax load to one per cent of residential value, cannot “be achieved in an immediate time frame without enor mous fiscal dislocations and social convulsions. If it is the will of the The Sag Harbor Village Board Tuesday night scheduled a public hearing on a proposed- local law that would make it illegal to drink alcoholic beverages in public. The proposal is similar to a local law adopted by the Town of East Hampton last month. The law, which would prohibit “possession of open containers of alcoholic beverages,” was proposed in an attempt to reduce vandalism and rowdyism, which local residents and merchants have complained is on the increase. Much of the Village Board’s meeting last month was taken up by a group of angry residents who related numerous tales of youngsters drinking on the street at night, breaking windows and fences, and generally making a lot of noise when others were trying to sleep. The hearing on the proposed ban, which would apply to all age groups, will be held on Jan. 18 at 7:30 p.m. in the Municipal Building. Other measures which Village officials are reportedly reviewing to combat vandalism are a curfew, expansion of the Village police force, and local laws to make parents people, however, it can and must be achieved by their governmental rep resentatives.” His plan also calls for restrictions on the County Legislature on amending an Executive’s tentative County budget — requiring a vote of 80 per cent or 15 members on the 18-person panel for amendment, 80 per cent “plus one” additional vote for an override. Praise Overall This drew complaints from the Legislature. It would “kind of give you a dictatorship,” said Legislator John Wehrenberg to Mr. Klein, and would be “taking power away from the Legis lature.” Currently, a two-thirds legis lative vote is all that is required for budget amendments or veto overrides. But, overall, the Klein plan drew praise. “I for one am deeply impressed,” said Legislator Robert Mrazek, a Democrat, of the proposal of Mr. Klein, more responsible for the actions of their children. Sag Harbor Hills Another hearing was scheduled at Tuesday’s Board meeting on a proposal that the Village incorporate the roads in the Sag Harbor Hills subdivision into the Village road system. That hearing will be held Feb. 1 at 8 p.m. in the Municipal Building. The roads of the subdivision, which lies north of Route 114, are presently unpaved, and would have to be improved to Village road standards before the Village could accept them. Once accepted into the Village road system, the Village would be responsi ble for future repairs and upkeep. The request that the roads become public came from the residents of Sag Harbor Hills themselves, according to Trustee James Brannen. The amount of money each property owner in the subdivision would pay toward the initial road improvements, he added, would be determined by the amount of road frontage each had. In other action at the meeting the Board resolved to hire Gladys Laspesa a Republican. “Somebody has to make a stand somewhere.” William Carney, a Conservative elected to Congress in the past election who was sitting with the Legislature for the last time, said he would include the Klein plan in the Congressional Record. “It goes to the core of the problem,” said Mr. Carney. Legislator Martin Feldman, a Demo crat seeking to run against Mr. Klein for County Executive this year, said because the proposed referendum would have little binding effect it would be “like baying at the moon,” although he said, “I agree with the idea of cutting back taxes.” More On Money East End Legislator Denis Hurley said, “This is a very good document going in the right direction” but added that “if the people have to undertake sacrifices, there should be some Continued On Page 5 as a part-time clerk-typist. During the portion of the meeting reserved for comments from the audience, Paul Vey, president of the Noyac Civic Association, complained that he and another Noyac resident had had trouble with the radio dispatcher who handles fire calls for the Village. On Dec. 29, he said, a pile of brush on the side of Bayview Drive in Noyac caught fire and there was considerable delay before trucks arrived, he claimed, because the radio dispatcher who answered the call for assistance argued that Bayview Drive was in the jurisdic tion of the Southampton Fire Depart ment rather than the Sag Harbor District. Trustee Brannen said he would look into the matter, but there appeared to be a question about whether Mr. Vey was calling the right number. Mr. Vey said the dispatcher he talked to was in the County Sheriffs Office, and Mayor Fred Runco noted that Sag Harbor’s fire calls were taken by the East Hampton Fire Department, not the Sheriffs Office. Tim Neale Bottle Ban For Harbor
