The President's Coming

They say that Bill Clinton is headed our way
And he's looking around for a nice place to stay
This rumor pops up at the start of each season
But this time the hype may be for good reason.

Such a major event, there is simply no question
Will bring to our town monumental congestion
After giving it thought, I have some ideas
About what we can do to allay all our fears.

First, right turns only, no lefts and no straights
To allow otherwise would be tempting the fates
True, we'll all go in circles, around and around
But I think that in this there is something profound.

Next, on to the problem of the Newtown Lane lot
Where cars idle for hours and can't find a spot.
It is bound to be horrid, there isn't a doubt

So let's try an idea that's been bandied about.

Remember those gates, that recent proposal
That some tried to toss in a garbage disposal
Here's the ultimate test, I say we should try it
It may just succeed - or lead to a riot.

Now about the Baldwin-Basinger digs
It's not the location for all these big wigs
I guess the advance team did not use a map
And so the result - a directional flap.

To be blunt, there's a huge discrepancy
Between where the farm is and where it should be
It's north of the highway, a major faux pas
That threatens to grow to a real brouhaha.

So, to avoid undue consternation
I'd like to make this recommendation
Move Route 27 to the left of their farm
It's just for the weekend, it won't do much harm.

Then south of the highway will be their address
Which I'm sure they will handle with utmost finesse
(Note to Alec and Kim: If you're thinking of selling
This move will result in your house value swelling.)

Alas, the "little guy" will be nowhere in sight
Unless by little you're referring to height
So listen up, Bill, on you is the onus
We'll be at Brent's, come for coffee and doughnuts

COLLEEN RANDO

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Not Just For One Tribe
Youngstown, Ohio
June 13, 1998

To The Editor:

I read with interest your editorial on the issue of too many day trippers. I visited your enclave the entire week of June 7 through 12 and found it to be beautiful, inspiring, and exciting. We must remember though that the divine creator did not give the ocean to just one tribe of people. I am of somewhat American Indian extraction (one-eighth Navajo) and wonder what my ancestors thought as they were pushed from the ocean to the middle of the nation.

Did the settlers stake claim to oceanfront beaches because their guns were bigger or did they have more money to demand that the unwashed could only serve them? Be careful when you answer that question.

I will be back again in August, in the heat of tourist season, to share in your frustration and that of my ancestors.

I am reminded of the quote by Buddha . . . "There is no fire like passion, there is no shark like hatred, there is no snare like folly, there is no torrent like greed."

Peace,

BOB HAGAN
State Senator

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Killer Balloons
Wainscott
June 13, 1998

Dear Helen,

It's the season of the killer balloons again. Murderous Mickey Mice, poisonous Pooh bears, brutal Bugs Bunnies, happy birthdays, and anniversaries lurk soggily along the beaches, waiting for an ocean breeze to waft them into the water where they can choke a seal, a seagull, or a dolphin.

In a walk on the Wainscott beach last week we collected 18 spent balloons between Town Line Road and Beach Lane. Signs of our happy celebrations are deadly party favors for sea life. There should be a hefty deposit on all gas balloons so we can't carelessly release them to pollute and kill.

Sincerely,

NAN ORSHEFSKY

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A Kick In The Face
Amagansett
June 15, 1998

Dear Mrs. Rattray,

In the June 11 edition of The New York Times, former Long Island Lighting Company head William Catacosinos is quoted as having said, "I want to give something back to the people" at the time of his appointment as LILCO's chief executive.

Now the outgoing chairman of the no-longer-existent utility appears to have had a profound change of heart, as he seeks to collect a $42 million golden parachute while he bails out of the smoldering wreckage that is now the Long Island Power Authority, or MarketSpan, or whatever they are calling it in this election year. Anything but the Long Island Lighting Company.

The numbing conclusion of the painful and humiliating saga that is LILCO and its relationship to its customers would probably draw more official scrutiny and media outrage if the economic picture in the New York area (or at least downstate) were not so cozy.

Wall Streeters applaud the LIPA takeover as a brilliantly engineered piece of politics-public policy that saved LILCO shareholders and officials from having to face reality and accept ultimate responsibility for the poorly run utility.

As for Catacosinos, many investors, bankers, and C.E.O.s are undoubtedly admire his savvy play and don't give a damn about a lousy $42 million as a means of closing the book on the LIPA takeover and deeming it a great success. No matter that an extremely viable grassroots effort, as well as initiatives in Suffolk County's Legislature to oppose the LIPA deal, were crushed by a fascistic court order in Suffolk that was the final blow to ratepayers and all but assured that the LILCO-LIPA debacle will go down in history as one of the most mean-spirited abuses of public authority in New York State history.

The economy is perceived to be purring along, so the critical mass of the masses that are critical of this deal will never be reached. Long Islanders, it seems, are either too frustrated, too numb, or too practical to have mounted a serious opposition to the LIPA plan.

Newsday, a lapdog for nuclear power on Long Island for decades, endorsed the plan with little or no rationale. And now, after Catacosinos and his band of merry board members have carted away a grand total of $67 million in payments, Gov. George E. Pataki and State Attorney General Vacco are outraged and promising investigations.

The LIPA deal, in which the beleaguered LILCO and Brooklyn Union Gas were taken over by a state authority (LIPA) in order to lower Long Island utility rates, was an important project for the Pataki administration, which pushed aggressively for the finalization of the deal, which had been proposed before Pataki was Governor.

Mario Cuomo had pushed for a state takeover of LILCO as a means to circumvent the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and ultimately leverage the shutdown of the Shoreham nuclear power plant in the early 1980s.

Cuomo stopped short of an actual takeover, however, fearful that the largest such acquisition by a state authority would have negative implications for his potential run for the U.S. Presidency.

Catacosinos substantially raised the cost of dismantling the Shoreham plant simply by throwing the on switch and running the plant at low-level power. Once active, the radioactivity would create an entirely different and more expensive set of conditions for decommissioning the plant.

Catacosinos's intent was obvious: to drive ahead with the full-blown operation of the plant. (Catacosinos, a former Brookhaven National Laboratory administrator, has a record as an incurable nuclear junkie.) He would lose that battle, but succeeded in pressing Cuomo and the Public Service Commission to the limit.

LILCO would pass on the inconceivable cost overruns of Shoreham to the already overburdened Long Island ratepayers, who would be forced to eat the entire cost for Shoreham, the only nuclear power plant in U.S. history to be decommissioned before ever going on-line to serve its intended customers. With no evacuation plan in place for millions of Long Islanders, residents bit the bullet and forked up the money.

Enter Pataki. The LIPA deal would kick up to an entirely different level under Pataki and his administration. With Shoreham already shut down and its massive debt heaped on the shoulders of Long Islanders, Pataki would execute an actual takeover of LILCO under the guise of lowering LILCO rates. New York State would form a power authority to buy LILCO, its Shoreham debt, its interest in the failing Nine Mile Point II nuclear plant upstate, and swallow up Brooklyn Union Gas for good measure.

The cost would be borne by selling bonds, underwritten by brokerage firms with a solid, proven record of fealty to Alfonse D'Amato and his campaign fund raising (all of which is currently under Federal investigation).

Pataki would spread the sewage of the LILCO debt like some nutrient-rich fertilizer all over New York State. Furthermore, he would redesign the original intent of the LIPA plan, making its board a group of appointees, not elected officials, with the Governor holding most of the appointment cards (nine out of 15). Without the consent of the voters, and without the consent of the State Legislature, $7.8 billion will change hands. Meanwhile, Bear Stearns (big-dollar friends of Alfonse) lands the role of lead underwriter, Catacosinos retains leadership of LILCO's generating facilities (now called MarketSpan), having only sold its transmission facilities to LIPA, and ex-LILCO executives will divvy up $67 million for all of their good work, efforts that have perpetually smothered any chance of reviving Long Island's business growth.

The LIPA deal is complicated indeed. Now Pataki wants New Yorkers to believe that it was so complicated that even New York's Governor, who rewrote the deal and engineered its ultimate completion, did not realize that Catacosinos and company would pause on the way out the door for one last kick in the face of Long Island residents.

This oversight actually means one of two things: Pataki is either a liar or he is incredibly stupid. The Governor who claims ignorance of so enormous a component as the details of LILCO's severance package and its subsequent public relations implications in this supercharged climate is either not telling the truth or is too careless, too insensitive, and too dumb to be Governor of New York.

Pataki, in his role as D'Amato's puppet, has demonstrated his willingness to embrace the "pay and play" approach to government, a system whereby men such as D'Amato and Pataki wrestle control of the enormous powers of government and use those powers to enrich those who simply give them money to get them elected and/or re-elected.

Along the way, the public policies forged by such a system almost never enrich the public interest. The election for Governor, as well as U.S. Senator, is a little over four months away.

Sincerely,

ALEC BALDWIN

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