Sapore di Mare will be closed until spring, after several winters of opening on weekends.

The decision to close, combined with a confusing message on the answering machine, have apparently revived the lingering rumor that the restaurant was sold and that Ronald O. Perelman, whose estate, the Creeks, is nearby, was the buyer.

The Post's "Page Six" reported his "rumored takeover" on Monday.

Pino Luongo, the owner of Sapore di Mare, was in Florence this week on business. The staff in his Manhattan office said they knew nothing about any sale but would certainly be in the loop if there was any truth to it.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Luongo also said the answering machine message had been changed so would-be patrons would understand the eatery was only closed for the season and not for good.

Future commercial growth in Amagansett - where to allow it and how to control it - will be a matter for the public to debate next week, as the East Hampton Town Board holds its first public hearing on the Amagansett Corridor Study. The hearing is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Friday, Jan. 16, at Town Hall.

The 300-page study, commissioned by the board more than a year and a half ago, sets forth recommen dations designed to guide development in the village core and along a significant portion of Montauk Highway to the east and west.

Recommendations range from zone changes to the construction of more sidewalks. When adopted by the board, it will become part of the town's overall Comprehensive Plan.

No Commercial District

The Town Board has already eliminated some of the potentially controversial recommendations in the document - most significantly the "planned commercial district" proposed east of the village.

The town also disagreed with creating "central-business" zoning around Brent's General Store and extending small residential lanes off Main Street to serve potential future development behind the Amagansett Library.

The board still has one major question to grapple with, however: What about the Bistrian family's 42 acres of vacant land behind the municipal parking lot?

Road A Possibility

The Bistrians have had a long-pending request before the Town Board to rezone a substantial portion of that land for commercial use. It is now residentially zoned, with provisions for affordable housing.

Any significant development on the former farmland, whether commercial or residential, is likely to be accompanied by the opening of a new road from the adjacent Windmill Lane, the study suggests.

The town owns a right-of-way running from Windmill Lane to the back of the municipal parking lot. Windmill Lane residents have vehemently opposed such a road.

Open Space Preservation

The Corridor Study suggests leaving the Bistrian property's zoning intact - that is, with one-acre minimum lots and the possibility of more densely clustered affordable-housing units - and adding the designation of an agricultural district. The latter would insure the preservation of open space in any future subdivisions.

Under current zoning, up to 80 affordable housing apartments and 46 single-family houses could be built on the Bistrian property.

As for the roughly 25 acres east of the village that had been proposed for "planned commercial" development, the plan offered no alternatives.

Housing Possibilities

Six acres of that land, just east of the Amagansett I.G.A. complex and north of the highway, is currently zoned for "central business."

The rest, running all the way to Bunker Hill Road, has the same zoning as the Bistrian property, and has been the subject of discussions about possible affordable or senior housing.

Under current zoning, the commercial portion of the land could house up to 130,000 square feet of new commercial buildings, and the residential portion (with its affordable housing designation) could house up to 152 affordable apartments, 42 affordable houses, or 21 market-value houses.

The Corridor Study also addresses other properties such as the Amagansett Farmers Market site and Lorne Michaels's property adjacent to the Miss Amelia's Cottage lot, but recommends against zoning changes proposed by their owners.

Scenic Character

The bulk of the study focuses on planning strategies to retain the vitality of the village while protecting the scenic character along the highway.

Copies of the plan are available for review at the Planning Board and Planning Department offices at 300 Pantigo Place.

In addition to the hearing on the Corridor Study, the Town Board has two minor hearings on the agenda for Friday, Jan. 16, on modifications to the town's urban renewal maps.

Seventy-five years ago, only one road went to Montauk - the old Montauk highway. Rumbling scenically along the ocean coast from Hither Hills to Montauk Point, the road had already been winding its way into the hearts of residents and visitors for 50 years.

The people of East Hampton Town were horrified to learn, in 1930, that Robert Moses intended to pave a new highway connecting the same two points, which his parks commission had recently appropriated to create two state parks. Instead of traveling the same route as the old Montauk highway, two significant sections of Moses's new route would be built to the north, meaning farther inland: those from Hither Hills to Fort Pond (basically, today's downtown Montauk) and from Third House (near Deep Hollow Ranch) to Montauk Point.

The fear was that the dear old road would eventually be abandoned, most likely to make room for larger oceanfront properties for the real estate developers to sell. Inexplicably the Montauk Beach Development Corporation, which owned nearly all of Montauk, including the land just south of the old highway, had agreed to give the state 40 acres to enlarge the Montauk Point state park, not to mention a 300-foot right of way for the new route that would terminate there.

Having learned about Moses's scheme somewhat late in the game, The East Hampton Star alerted its readers in appropriately dark language - "Old Montauk Highway Threatened . . . A matter of great importance . . . has come to the fore this week . . . To the astonishment of the East Hampton officials and townspeople. . ." The paper also fired off an eight-point questionnaire to Moses in an effort to nail down his intentions.

"Brooklyn sympathizes with East Hampton in its protest," said an editorial in The Brooklyn Daily Times extolling the virtues of the old road, for which it said city-originating visitors watched "with eagerness" as they motored east.

Meanwhile, the town board appointed a committee to investigate the matter, L.V.I.S. members put their names to a "paper of protest" in which they "stood firmly for keeping the ocean front drive where it is," and a group of taxpayers mounted their own effort to oppose the parkway. Raymond Malone, attorney, of Brooklyn wrote a poem:

Aye, close the road that skirts the sea,

Blot out old Ocean's breaking waves,

What do they mean to you and me

Or to a City's million slaves.

Stand back, give realtors a chance,

Ye hurdles are in Progress' path.

See values instantly advance

Large profits - as an aftermath.

That winding road midst Montauk's dunes

Which seem to love the summer sea,

Whose bosom heaves 'neath autumn's moons

God put it there for fools like me.

The deal was sealed, however, as Moses pointed out in a prompt response to The Star's questionnaire. Having just finished legally defending the state's taking of Hither Hills and Montauk Point, Moses was in no mood to start litigating all over again to secure a different right of way when he had already struck an agreement for the one he wanted.

"It has always been the aim of the Commission to connect the two parks at Montauk by means of a highway, which at least from Napeague Harbor to Fort Pond and from Third House to the Point would be a genuine parkway or boulevard, planted and protected from all commercial and unsightly developments and free from all advertising signs, hot dog stands, filling stations, etc.," Moses said.

"Part of the new route will be a boulevard or parkway. Part of it will be an ordinary highway. The part which will be built on park land or on land dedicated to the Park Commission will be restricted against any possible disfigurement

. . . and keep it free from the eyesores which seem to be an inevitable feature of practically every highway on Long Island."

The six miles between Fort Pond and Third House, in the middle of the new route and indeed the heart of Montauk, would have to trace the path of the original highway, Moses explained, because the bordering properties had already been sold for commercial purposes and development could not be prevented there, nor could the state secure a right of way any wider than 99 feet.

"I am sure that you will agree that we are doing something for the Montauk peninsula, which will help to preserve it for all time. Of course, it would be better if all of Montauk were a state park, but it is too late to think of this."

The fate of the old highway was to be left entirely up to the East Hampton Town Board, the parks commissioner told The Star, although he acknowledged that the Montauk Beach Development Company would be happy to see its western portion closed down. Moses for one saw no reason to keep open the eastern portion of the old road, from Third House to Montauk Point.

The Brooklyn attorney got a letter from Moses too:

"Dear Mr. Malone - I have your letter to the Brooklyn Daily Times with the poem which is slightly reminiscent of Oliver Wendell Holmes and Joyce Kilmer."

"I hate to throw any cold water on your noble rage, but the fact is that the Montauk Parkway plan is wholly in the interest of the public. It is pretty stupid to think that, after battling with private owners and real estate interests in all the courts up to the United States Supreme Court, to establish the present parks at Montauk, the State officials are now selling out to them. The parkway at Montauk will be the finest thing of its kind on the Atlantic Seaboard."

Not a hot dog stand can be found on the new route today - on the parkway portion at least. Old Montauk Highway is still open from Hither Hills to Fort Pond, as well as from near Third House up to Camp Hero State Park, but the section to the east, which used to run all the way out to Montauk Point, has long been closed.

Hospital Layoffs Loom

Southampton Hospital will lay off 25 full-time employees, including seven registered nurses and two vice presidents, and also reduce the hours of 25 part-time and per diem employees, as of Feb. 7.

Hospital officials promised there would be no further cuts this year, noting that the last staff reduction was five years ago.

Dr. John J. Ferry Jr., the facility's president and chief executive officer, and Richard Q. Byers, its executive vice president, notified its 900 full and part-time employees of the decision in a memorandum Friday. The Hospital and Health Care Employees Union Local 1199, six of whose members are affected, and the New York State Nurses Association, the nurses' union, also were notified Friday.

Hope To Rehire

Those who lost their positions, most of them hired within the past two years or less, learned the news by Monday. Their reactions were said to have included grief and disappointment, with one question first on their minds: Would they be rehired when the financial picture improved?

"Absolutely," said Dr. Ferry. "This is not about capability or performance." As jobs become available, through attrition or retirements, he promised, those let go this week will be called.

Most workers declined comment, though some longtime employees expressed dismay at what they called the "top-down" action, noting that over the past year or so management has touted a new communications program of "shared decision-making" at the hospital.

"We are like a family," said one nurse, speaking on condition of anonymity. "This is very sad."

Among the seven to lose management positions are Richard Fenton, vice president for professional services, who supervises outpatient facilities and laboratories, and Rebecca Chapman, the development director, also a vice president. Mr. Fenton has worked for the hospital for five years, Ms. Chapman for two.

Refinancing

Friday's announcement was not unexpected, coming on the heels of a year marked by financial distress and an accompanying slowdown in the expansion of hospital facilities and services. The board is taking "prudent steps to bring expenses in line with revenues," said Elliot Vose, its chairman, who described the move as a "relatively minor retrenching."

Dr. Ferry said that, after showing a small surplus in 1996, the hospital was "several million dollars" in the red. He estimated its 1998 operating budget at $68.8 million, 8 to 9 percent lower than last year's.

To deal with a now persistent cash-flow problem, something most of the nation's hospitals are contending with, Southampton Hospital officials plan to take on a new, long-term mortgage - for as much as $16 million - against its six-acre Southampton property. An existing mortgage, a $55,000-a-month obligation dating back to the 1970s, will be paid off in October.

Talks are under way with several banks, Dr. Ferry said, adding that a decision will be made by the end of this month.

Caught By Surprise

The loan should ease the flow of payments to local contractors, several of whom have complained in recent weeks that the hospital is in a rears for work and materials on various projects.

"None of us is crazy about the slow pay to our friends and neighbors," said Mr. Vose.

"Surprised by the combination of events" in 1997, hospital officials "overestimated patient revenues a little," for both in-hospital and outpatient care, Mr. Vose explained, and underestimated the impact of delayed reimbursements by managed care companies.

Mr. Vose said the board may hire an outside fund-raiser later this year to launch a new $25 million capital campaign. Such an endowment, "like Harvard's and other universities'," he said, would "help us replenish, close the gap" where government and insurance reimbursements fall short.

To Buy In Bulk

The private, nonprofit hospital also expects to save roughly $2.5 million a year from cooperative purchasing now possible through the Peconic Health Corporation, a consortium of the three East End hospitals.

Employees have received regular briefings on the hospital's financial status since it reached a crisis in October. With cash reserves at a low point, it delayed payments to employee pension, health, and child care funds, sparking union reaction. The hospital has since brought its payments up to date.

The staff reduction will save about $1.2 million in salaries and benefits, Dr. Ferry said this week - "just shy" of the amount the hospital will lose in new Medicare reimbursement reductions. Close to another $1 million will come from cost-cutting measures, including slashing the staff-training budget by $200,000, its marketing and printing budget by $100,000, and eliminating the use of some outside consultants and service contracts.

Still Optimistic

The staff cuts leave five top administrators, including besides Dr. Ferry and Mr. Byers, Joseph Zwolak, who manages finances, Teresa Samot, in charge of patient services, including nursing, and Patrick Long, who supervises the facilities.

"I'm every bit as optimistic as I've ever been" about Southampton Hospital, said its president. "Our nursing staff is superb, and the care here is efficient and warm."

"With these cuts," he added, "we won't lose that."

Sandra Wasserstein Meyer, a resident of Lee Avenue, East Hampton, and Manhattan, who was one of the first female executives at several major corporations, died on Dec. 30, 1997, at New York University Hospital in Manhattan. Mrs. Meyer, who was 60, had breast cancer for several years.

Mrs. Meyer played a part in inspiring "The Sisters Rosensweig," a long-running Broadway drama written by her younger sister, Wendy Wasserstein, a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright.

"My sister was the glue in the family," Ms. Wasserstein said this week. "Extraordinary, and really smart," her sister was a role model, she said, because she was "simultaneously very strong and very nurturing. She was a wonderful mother, and the best older sister."

Mrs. Meyer was proud to serve for several years as a member of Guild Hall's board, her sister said, and held the post at the time of her death. The last gala the two women attended together was in Manhattan on Dec. 2, 1997, when the playwright re ceived a Lifetime Achievement Award from the East Hampton cultural center.

"She loved East Hampton," said her sister, where, on New Year's Eve, Cantor Debra Stein Davidson of the Jewish Center of the Hamptons conducted a private service. A second service is planned for 4 p.m. on Jan. 19, at Manhattan's Lincoln Center.

The eldest of the four children of Lola and Morris Wasserstein, Mrs. Meyer was born in Brooklyn on Aug. 20, 1937. She graduated from Brooklyn's Madison High School when she was 15, and the next year went on to the University of Michigan. She earned a bachelor's degree cum laude from Syracuse University, and did graduate work in economics and philosophy at the London School of Economics.

Mrs. Meyer made history as a female marketing executive, her family said. In 1969, she became General Foods' first female product group manager, running marketing campaigns for some of its biggest brands, including Maxwell House coffee. In 1976 she was named head of worldwide marketing for the American Express card, and in 1980 she became the first female president of an American Express Company division - communications.

Mrs. Meyer joined Citicorp in 1989 as its first female senior officer to run corporate affairs, and was widely credited with restoring the company's reputation following a financial crisis in the early '90s.

Three years ago, she became a senior partner at Clark and Weinstock, management consultants, a job she held until her death. She also was a managing director of Russell Reynolds Associates, a corporate search firm, and a board member of B.C.A.M. International, a software firm. She also served on the boards of Munsingwear Incorporated, Anchor Hocking, and Horizons International Foods.

She was a managing director of the Metropolitan Opera Association, a trustee of the Metropolitan Opera Guild, and a founding member of the Committee of 200, a national group of senior female executives.

Mrs. Meyer's two marriages, to Richard Meyer and to Peter Schweitzer, with whom she had two daughters, ended in divorce.

Besides her parents and her sister Wendy, of Manhattan, Mrs. Meyer is survived by two daughters, Jenifer Schweitzer of Manhattan and Samantha Schweitzer of San Francisco. Another sister, Georgette Levis, lives in Manchester, Vt., and a brother, Bruce Wasserstein, lives in East Hampton and Manhattan.

The family has suggested memorial donations to the Sandra W. Meyer Foundation, care of Jenifer Schweitzer, 150 East 77th Street, New York, N.Y. 10021.

Set Panel And Appeal

Supervisor Cathy Lester and her Democratic allies on the East Hampton Town Board voted Tuesday to appeal a State Supreme Court ruling ordering her to sign a construction contract for work on East Hampton Airport's main runway.

The decision followed the announcement, during a State of the Town address on Friday, that she would create a "blue ribbon commission" to look into the runway's reconstruction and other projects associated with the 1994 Airport Layout Plan.

Ms. Lester will give the commission 30 to 40 days to examine immediate safety needs at the airport and come up with suggestions for easing the impact of the proposed projects.

"In the long term we will look at ways to limit airport growth and limit the impact to East Hampton Town residents," she said.

Time To Breathe

"The main thing about the appeal is it will give us some time to breathe," the Supervisor said Tuesday. The town's special counsel, Gary Weintraub, has 35 days to file a formal notice of appeal and as long as nine months after that to perfect it.

"We wouldn't have an appellate decision before the end of the year," he said Tuesday afternoon.

The Supervisor also plans to ask the Federal Aviation Administration to extend, rather than cancel, a $2.7 million grant for the runway work until March, while the commission works on its recommendations. Jim Peters, a representative of the F.A.A., confirmed yesterday that the grant would be held for the next several months.

"Certainly we will accede to her requests," he said, adding that the F.A.A. was prepared to work with the Supervisor and new Democratic Town Board majority.

Wants Mitigation

"I simply did not have the flexibility in 1997 [to do] what I wanted to do to resolve this issue. I don't want the personality of the individual special interests involved. I want solid answers, solid mitigation measures," the Supervisor said this week.

Ms. Lester will present the names of potential commission members to the rest of the Town Board on Tuesday. "I'm not going to drag my feet on it," she vowed this week.

Although she would not confirm whether her recommendations would include representatives of the most vocal pro-airport group, the East Hampton Aviation Association, she said they would include the "pro and the con" - pilots, residents of affected areas, members of the Committee to Stop Airport Expansion, and members of the Town Airport Advisory Committee.

She also plans to ask the Mayors of East Hampton and Sag Harbor Villages, both of whom have opposed a "wider" runway, to participate.

"Needs Fixing"

"What sort of recommendation does she expect?" asked Mary O'Connor of the Aviation Association. The association has continued to pressure the Supervisor to set the runway reconstruction in motion.

Ms. O'Connor said she hoped the commission included pilots, "some of the people whose livelihood depends on the airport," as well as members of the association, of which her father, Thomas P. Lavinio, is president. Mr. Lavinio has asked to be on the panel.

"Our concern is that it not be politicized - unfortunately it has been - and that we get on with the thing," Mr. Lavinio said yesterday. "That runway needs fixing and it does need fixing back to its original dimensions."

"If she plans to sign the contract pending the recommendations of the panel it seems a little bit extraneous to do at the same time an appeal at the taxpayers' expense. . . . It's wasteful of taxpayers' money to continue the lawsuit," Ms. O'Connor added.

Councilman Len Bernard's comments mirrored Ms. O'Connor's. "It's costing us money to appeal. . . . There's no practical reason for an appeal," he said. He did not vote on the resolution to appeal the State Supreme Court decision, saying he wanted to see Mr. Weintraub's comments in writing. Councilwoman Pat Mansir opposed the resolution.

Mr. Weintraub said Tuesday that the appeal would be based on questions about financing.

Open Meetings

His defense claimed the budget note approved to fund the town's portion of the project did not comply with the law and was ineffective. State Supreme Court Justice Donald Kitson ruled that the project was properly financed.

"I think the judge is wrong," Mr. Weintraub said Tuesday. "The funding aspect is the most cogent and forceful argument the town would have," he said. "Unless you cross your Ts and dot your Is, you can't spend the people's money."

The commission is expected to meet on a weekly basis and to hold its discussions in public.

State legislation that could restrict beach driving is being roundly criticized on the South Fork as either an attempt to privatize a common resource, or a way to allow any New York resident onto

the East Hampton and Southampton beaches.

The law would require the State Department of Environmental Conservation to restrict vehicle access to "coastal erosion hazard areas . . . unless a municipality can show that [its beach-driving law] is consistent with protecting the health and safety of surrounding property and the public." The ecology of coastal areas would also have to be assured.

Trustees in both towns say the state has no authority to enforce the changes even if they did become law.

"I believe this is an issue of removal, not protection," said Scott Strough, president of the Southampton Town Trustees. The bill, being debated in both houses of the Legislature, was introduced by State Senator Charles Fuschillo, a Republican from Merrick.

Richard Brodsky, a Democrat from Hartsdale in Westchester County, and a candidate for state attorney general, is its Assembly sponsor. Mr. Strough said he suspected that wealthy Southampton residents had encouraged the bill sponsors.

Mr. Brodsky sharply denied the allegation yesterday, saying that he was the victim of character assassination.

"The bill doesn't bar people from the beach. It guarantees beach access for the first time. The purpose is to ensure equitable access, care of the beach, and public safety. Mr. Brodsky said.

He said the measure was supported by the Audubon Society, the Sierra Club, and the Adirondack Council.

East Hampton Town Supervisor Bill McGintee spoke at a meeting of the town trustees on Tuesday evening at Town Hall and said that State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. was spearheading an effort to defeat the bill.

"Thiele said to take this seriously," the supervisor told the trustees. He said that during a recent meeting of East End supervisors and mayors, a resolution was passed to oppose the amendment. He asked the trustees to join the town board in a joint statement of opposition. The trustees agreed. Both boards will send their own letters to Albany as well.

Sportfishing organizations including the Montauk Surfcasters Association and the Long Island Beach Buggy Association are also up in arms.

"The wording is peculiar," Mr. McGintee said. On the one hand, the state is saying it is giving up authority as part of its program to transfer control of vulnerable coastal areas from the State Department of Environmental Conservation to local governments. "Now these guys are saying we want to say what goes on there," Mr. McGintee said.

Mr. Strough said that the coastal erosion hazard area is "the entire South Shore from Brooklyn to Montauk from the high water line landward above the crest of the dune into the secondary dunes where building is precluded. It includes areas where driving is not allowed. It's the same everywhere on Long Island. It's already regulated. It's absolutely false that vehicles hurt beaches. We are the board that the D.E.C., Department of State, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, Army Corps, and county consult with to deal with coastal matters in Southampton. There is no question in my mind that this is an attempt to take the common man off the beach," Mr. Strough said.

As for the foreshore, he said the public is guaranteed access in Southampton and East Hampton towns by virtue of Colonial-era patents that supersede state authority. In addition, he said that last year, the state signed away its authority over the coastal erosion hazard area in Southampton after reviewing and approving of the town's plan to manage it alone. East Hampton has been in the process of taking on the same responsibility.

Assemblyman Brodsky said that once the amendment was in place, if a review by the D.E.C. found a town's beach-driving policy to be adequate, nothing would change. However, the bill also says that for a beach-driving policy to be deemed acceptable, "access must be provided to all persons and the vehicle access must apply equally throughout the municipality."

"It's all or nothing," Tom Knobel, an East Hampton Town Trustee and chairman of the town Republican committee, said at Tuesday's meeting. According to the proposal, if a town's beach-driving policy is deemed not acceptable, nobody would be able to drive the beach except emergency vehicles. On the other hand, if the policy passed state muster, then anyone with a state beach-driving permit could use it. "That's how I read it," Mr. Knobel said.

Yesterday, Mr. Thiele said he felt confident that the measure was not likely to be voted on in the Senate, although it remained on the Assembly calendar.

A deal between East Hampton Town and the State Department of Environmental Conservation will allow the town to spread the gargantuan task of closing its two landfills over the next 13 years. Although a final decision on how to do so was not made, the town also learned last week that its 1990 application for $4 million in state assistance finally had been approved.

Town Board members were shocked by estimates last year that the cost of permanently closing the landfills, as required, could be as much as $50 million - the largest capital project in town history.

But two productive meetings with the State Department of Environmental Conservation in the weeks before and after Christmas left the new Town Board and its team of landfill experts with some hope.

Long-Term Schedule

Steven Latham, the town's lawyer for landfill matters, reported, during a Town Board meeting Tuesday, that East Hampton had been found eligible for the maximum assistance, $2 million per landfill. The town will have to borrow the rest, which could have a huge effect on the tax rate.

But the returning Town Board members - Supervisor Cathy Lester and Councilmen Len Bernard and Peter Hammerle - appeared relieved that the D.E.C. had agreed to a "highly flexible" preliminary work schedule, as Mr. Latham put it.

"Keep in mind that you are not making a final decision now on whether to cap or mine. The decision now is whether to accept $4 million. . . . This is just the beginning of the process," Mr. Latham said.

Mine One, Cap Other

Dr. Kevin Phillips, who heads the town's team of consulting engineers and geohydrologists and is a partner in the Ronkonkoma engineering firm of Fanning, Phillips, and Molnar, and Peter Dermody, a geohydrologist with that firm, had recommended last year that the town cap the East Hampton landfill and mine the landfill in Montauk.

Although the consultants said mining, the removal of some 30 years' worth of garbage and land reclamation, was the better alternative environmentally, they advised the board that it would cost significantly more at East Hampton, the larger of the two dumps.

From a fiscal perspective, the elongated schedule will permit the town to borrow in smaller increments. Additionally, there are generous repayment schedules available with municipal bonds, sometimes as long as 20 or 30 years.

Logistically, it will give the town until the end of 1999 to polish a work plan for the Montauk landfill and begin mining, and until the middle of 2008 to finish the job. It also will delay any capping at Springs-Fireplace Road until the halfway point for mining Montauk, the end of 2003. That would allow the findings there to help steer the course for the East Hampton dump.

Capping East Hampton and mining Montauk was estimated to cost a combined $38.4 million, compared to $50 million for mining both.

"Nominal" Fines

Mr. Latham told The Star that the earlier meeting allowed him to correct a "miscommunication" that had caused the D.E.C. to cite the town for violations at its Springs-Fireplace Road facility, which resulted in a threat of up to $80,000 in fines.

While the possibility of "nominal" fines lingers, Mr. Latham said, all the violations have been cured and the D.E.C. has been appeased.

The violations stemmed from aD.E.C. report that work to remove old septic sludge lagoons near the East Hampton landfill was behind schedule and paperwork on the operation of the adjacent recycling center was not filed on time. Mr. Latham said these situations were quickly brought up to date when the Town Board learned of them.

Ways To Recoup

Dr. Phillips said the second of the two meetings, on Dec. 30, went "extraordinarily well." He said the town and the D.E.C. took just a half hour to agree on a preliminary schedule for closing the two landfills and to hear the news of the $4 million grant.

Landfilling at the dumps ceased in 1993.

The consultants were quick to say the D.E.C. had agreed the town could mine East Hampton if something compelling turned up in Montauk to change the Town Board's mind about capping. And, they agreed there were ways to cut costs that should be explored.

Selling the hundreds of tons of gravel estimated to be in the Montauk landfill and reclaiming the land there for another use, if permitted by the D.E.C., could help the town recoup millions, and using town employees to do some or all of the work could be cheaper than hiring a contractor, they advised.

Capping Problems

While cheaper, capping is not without disadvantages, as well. It requires the 100-foot-high mountain between Springs-Fireplace Road and Acca bonac Highway to be regraded to half its height, a three-year project that would cause significant odor and require the monitoring of the area for groundwater contamination and methane gas build-up for at least 30 years.

A good portion of the $4 million in assistance will go toward paying down previous loans for lawyers, engineers, land around the East Hampton dump, where a series of monitoring wells were required to be installed, and the wells themselves.

Supervisor Lester noted, however, that the town also had applied for nearly $72 million in grant money and low-cost financing for a variety of capital projects, including landfill closure and the construction of the recycling and composting plants.

Helpful Infusion?

Though that money is expected to take several years to arrive, it would pay off or refinance loans for already completed projects and help keep the tax rate from soaring.

During Tuesday's meeting, the returning members of the board also tried to bring the two new members, Councilwoman Pat Mansir and Councilman Job Potter, up to speed on the complexities of the project. They had many questions, but appeared, by the end of the hour-long discussion, satisfied that the town was moving in the right direction.

At one point, Mr. Potter wondered whether it was possible to do nothing in Montauk, which was found to be a benign landfill with no groundwater contamination, and Ms. Mansir asked whether the consultants weren't overlooking some third option that could be cheaper or simpler.

Warning Given

"Will we look back in 20 years and say 'Aw, gee, if only we'd known. . . ?'" she asked.

Dr. Phillips warned, instead, that in 20 years people were likely "to look back and say it was ridiculous to spend all that money capping landfills; they're going to say they're all split, they're leaking, and we're still getting plumes of contamination in the groundwater," he said, adding that the expense and futility of capping was the board's impetus for studying mining.

Dr. Phillips went on to explain that a third method of closing landfills, known as phyto-remediation, had been tried experimentally upstate. Willow trees were planted to stabilize the surface of the landfill and to absorb rainwater so it wouldn't carry contaminants into the groundwater.

No Successes

But the roots of the willow trees absorbed heavy metals from the garbage below, and the trees themselves had to be disposed of in a landfill as a result, said Mr. Dermody.

The same team of consultants had also, it was explained, tried to negotiate an easier and cheaper alternative to capping for Fishers Island. While the D.E.C. did relax some of the rules, Mr. Latham said they argued unsuccessfully that the island's comparatively tiny dump posed no environmental hazard and should be exempt altogether.

"The D.E.C. will not give full relief and the number of variances it will grant is limited," said Mr. Latham. He added that East Hampton had managed to procure a few variances of its own during recent negotiations, such as a 75-percent reduction in the number of monitoring wells the agency had once wanted installed.

Further Aid?

Councilman Potter also wondered if the state would offer more financial assistance later, but Mr. Latham said that was unlikely. No municipality had gotten more than East Hampton, though it costs far more than $2 million to close even a small landfill. He suggested a statewide lobbying effort by the State Association of Towns.

The consultants, D.E.C. officials, and the Town Board will explain the details of the agreement and answer questions at an informational meeting set for 7 p.m. on Jan. 22. The meeting will be at the LTV Studio in East Hampton.

Without a $1 million-plus gift from the town, the East Hampton Housing Authority's beleaguered Accabonac Highway affordable housing project may never be completed, according to Maureen Murphy, the group's new chairwoman.

Until the town agrees to help the authority meet its mortgage obligations and to cover expected shortfalls in the construction budget, the project's largest investor, the Bank of New York, is reluctant to release even a third of the $3 million it pledged to provide, she said.

Meanwhile, the bank's concerns are expected to be exacerbated by a report that the East Hampton accounting firm of Markowitz, Preische & Stevens has been unable to complete an audit of the Seymour Schutz Limited Partnership, which was set up to build the complex, after examining its records for the past 12 months.

No Audit

Michael Haran, the town budget officer, said this week that the report "puts a big cloud over the entire Housing Authority as well as the project," and alleges a lack of cooperation and a failure to provide information.

Ms. Murphy, who had requested the audit, called the structure of the limited partnership a "donkey's head on an elephant's body" but was quick to say the inability of Markowitz, Preische & Stevens to do the audit did not mean "there's money missing."

"We supplied all the information we could obtain to [the firm]," Robert Brach, the former Housing Authority chairman, said Monday.

Mr. Haran acknowledged that tax-credit financing was extremely complicated, but added, "I don't think the Housing Authority can accept this report. I think it could create a major problem with financial viability," he said.

Good Deal

The bank purchased a more than $5 million Federal tax-credit package from the Housing Authority in early 1996 for $3.15 million and was to pay for it in three lump sums - the first when the agreement was signed, the second when construction was complete, and the third six months after the apartments received a certificate of occupancy.

In the process, the bank became a 99 percent partner in the Housing Authority's Seymour Schutz Limited Partnership.

The Housing Authority's attorney, Scott Allen, who replaced Christopher T. Kelley of Twomey, Latham, Shea & Kelley a year and a half ago, said he expected the numbers to eventually "straighten out" and the Bank of New York to stand by the authority.

"The bank's getting a good deal on the tax credits," he said.

$1 Million In Escrow

According to 1995 documents soliciting investors, "tax credits, and profits and losses from operations of the partnership, are scheduled to be allocated 99 percent to the investor [the bank] and 1 percent to the general partner [the Housing Authority]." The procedure is sanctioned by Section 42 of the Internal Revenue Code.

Although the 50-unit apartment complex has been nearly 80 percent complete since November, the Bank of New York is holding the first $1 million in escrow while seeking answers to a slew of questions. The funds are in a Housing Authority account and are drawing interest, but the bank has asked the group not to use them.

With key funding unavailable and little money to speak of, construction on Accabonac Highway is at a dead stop once again. The only work going on is some engineering.

Wants Guarantee

To date, the Housing Authority has borrowed $4.1 million for its Accabonac project, all with the town's backing. The town had agreed to back the authority for up to $6 million, but the Bank of New York is suggesting now that the Housing Authority should not rack up any further loans but petition the town for a gift of whatever money it needs to bring this project to fruition.

"If we take on more loans we will be unable to support our long-term mortgage," Ms. Murphy said yesterday.

Once construction is complete and all the revenue is in, the short-term financing will be transferred to a long-term mortgage.

The mortgage was originally established at $1.9 million but will end up at more than $3 million. Ms. Murphy believes the bank is concerned that the authority may not be able to meet its mortgage payments from its rental income and that the bank would have to make up the difference.

"They want some guarantee they're not going to be on the hook," she said.

"The Town of East Hampton should be put on notice, if they are not already, that there are funding issues here and they should be required to definitively state that they will cover these shortfalls in a manner acceptable to the bank and its legal counsel," one of the bank's vice presidents, Noel Purcell, wrote in an October letter to the Housing Authority attorney.

Mr. Purcell is no longer with the bank and no other bank official could be reached by press time who was familiar with the partnership.

Concerns about the financing and other aspects of the project apparently arose early on at the bank. After construction blunders, innumerable extra costs, and legal disputes with the first contractor, the Housing Authority is now on its third set of engineers and its second contractor and is working on a revised site plan that rectifies mistakes made over the past year and a half.

Inadequate Budget

Housing Authority members now say the budget for the Accabonac project was never large enough to cover all legitimate expenses that should have been anticipated and that it listed many essential items as extras, to be covered by a small, $600,000 contingency fund.

"Where did the trouble start? Where didn't it start?" Ms. Murphy said this week.

She said the financing was so complex that even the auditors were at a loss to unravel on paper exactly who owns the project. She said it could be the not-for-profit Housing Authority, or the profit-making Seymour Schutz Limited Partnership, in which the Housing Authority is the managing partner but has only a 1 percent interest.

This week, the group's members were wondering how much longer the project would languish near the brink of completion.

"Could I convince myself that from here on in we're going to play this like we're business people and not children playing with blocks? From now on in we're not going to screw up any further?" asked one member, David Lee of Sag Harbor, at a meeting Monday.

Supervisor Cathy Lester pledged this week to help get rid of the "discomfort zone" the bank might have about the project. She also wants to reopen the canvassing of local applicants for apartments.

The Housing Authority has received applications from 473 people for the unit, of whom 161 have been declared ineligible so far.

"Welcome to the world of refugees. Your life will never be the same," the executive director of the International Rescue Committee told Robert P. DeVecchi as he began his first assignment in May 1975. Transport planes full of Vietnamese refugees were landing at Fort Chaffee in Arkansas and Mr. DeVecchi had been told that he would have to leave New York the next day. Mr. DeVecchi, who had recently been through a divorce, said, "No, I can leave tonight."

"Something told me that this was a major crossing point in my life," he said, seated at a small desk in the office of his house on Dunemere Lane in East Hampton, overlooking the Maidstone Club.

"I thought, this is it, I am going from unreality to reality. I am going through the looking glass."

Now the president emeritus of the International Rescue Committee and once its president and chief executive officer, Mr. DeVecchi was recognized last month at Yale University's commencement with the honorary degree of doctor of humane letters. "With compassion, business sense, brilliance, and leadership, you built the International Rescue Committee from a small organization into a global agency of caring and concern," reads a statement included with the degree.

Mr. DeVecchi said that it had never occurred to him that he would be given the degree, whose past recipients include Alan Greenspan, William F. Buckley Jr., George Soros, and Steven Spielberg.

A native of New York City, he earned an undergraduate degree from Yale in 1952, served in the Air Force in Europe for two years, and then returned home to complete an M.B.A at Harvard University in 1956. He joined the Foreign Service, working as a political officer on multilateral diplomacy, East-West relations, and arms control in Washington, D.C., at NATO headquarters in Paris, and at U.S. Embassies in Warsaw and later in Rome.

After 10 years, Mr. DeVecchi and his first wife returned to Paris so that he could take a job with the Conference Board, an economic think tank. As the board's European director, fluent in French and with a working knowledge of Italian and Polish, he was responsible for enlisting European companies to become members of the organization.

His work assisting those in need began in 1972 when he became director of inner cities programs and the New York representative of the Save the Children Federation. "That is where I got my first real taste of fieldwork," he said. He worked in New York neighborhoods including Sunset Park in Brooklyn and the Lower East Side and Harlem in Manhattan.

The 30 years he spent with the International Rescue Committee began with a leave of absence from Save the Children and a four-week volunteer stint at Fort Chaffee where 50,809 Vietnamese refugees were processed in 1975.

Soon afterward, Mr. DeVecchi moved on to Indochina, where he became the region's coordinator. He eventually was responsible for starting refugee assistance programs in 28 countries including Thailand, Cambodia, Burma, Pakistan, Afganistan, Somalia, Sudan, Rwanda, Congo, Iraq, El Salvador, Bosnia, and Kosovo. The committee assists an average of one million refugees and displaced persons each year.

Mr. DeVecchi said that although he missed doing fieldwork after moving to the organization's highest level, "I realized that part of the responsibility with anything like that is to give other people that opportunity and to create a spirit within the organization that rewards people that want to get their hands dirty."

Even in retirement he is still involved with the committee, and is adjunct senior fellow for refugees and the displaced at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Betsy Trippe DeVecchi, Mr. DeVecchi's wife and a third-generation East Hampton resident, is no stranger to providing assistance to those in need. She is a cofounder of Orbis International, a nonprofit organization that focuses on ophthalmological assistance and education in third world countries. The DeVecchis, who have been married for 23 years and have six children and 13 grandchildren between them, met at the age of 4. Almost 40 years passed before they ran into each other again, while Ms. DeVecchi was walking her son's dog.

Of her husband's honorary degree, she said, "I was so proud I was in tears. He has made an enormous contribution to the world, humbly."

Mr. DeVecchi said he isn't sure why he volunteered for that first job, in a place that he had to find on a map. "Something told me that this was the challenge I was looking for," he said. "I am a great believer in second chances."