The film-making career of Alan J. Pakula, the contributions of women to the world of motion pictures, and the collaborative process of making a film all will receive special emphases at this year's Hamptons International Film Festival, which begins on Wednesday evening with an opening screening and party.

   As has been the practice in the past, the festival will hold a day of free screenings on Oct. 21, the day after the last film and the closing-night party.

   More details of the fourth annual festival were released this week. Tickets for individual movies and other events go on sale today at the festival's box office. The official guide to the six-day event can be found inside today's Star and will be inserted again next Thursday.

Award To Director

   Mr. Pakula, who with his wife, Hannah, has an East Hampton house, will be honored on Oct. 19 with the festival's Distinguished Achievement Award. The first film he ever directed, "The Sterile Cuckoo," starring Liza Minelli and Wendell Burton, will be shown following the ceremony.

   After spending 12 years producing such notable films as "To Kill A Mockingbird," Mr. Pakula turned his talents to directing. He was at the helm of "All the President's Men," "Sophie's Choice," "Comes A Horseman," "Presumed Innocent," "Klute," "Starting Over," and "The Pelican Brief," among others.

   "In a cinematic climate where morality is often discarded in favor of what will sell, Alan J. Pakula's films have always been about compassion in the face of human frailty, and commercialism has not been his concern," observes a release.

Archival Films

   The director is said to be particularly adept at telling complicated, emotional stories, bringing the viewer close to his protagonists, and knowing just the right place to put the camera.

   Mr. Pakula is currently finishing "The Devil's Own," starring Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt. Some scenes were filmed on the North Fork this summer.

   The 6 p.m. award presentation and screening of "The Sterile Cuckoo" will be held at Guild Hall in East Hampton.

   Each year the Film Festival shows several archival and restored films, to point up the importance of protecting footage from vanished eras, films that would otherwise disappear - and are disappearing.

   The three films chosen this year are different in tone and topic, but together they focus on the contributions women have made to cinema, whether in front of the camera or behind.

   The silent classic "The Siren of the Tropics," starring Josephine Baker, will be introduced at its screening next Thursday night by Jean-Claude Baker, one of the extraordinary performer's adopted children, who lives in East Hampton.

   Set in a forest 10 miles from Paris, the film follows the story of a vivacious Antillean beauty (Ms. Baker) who rescues a clueless hero from the machinations of an evil marquis.

   So far as is known, this will be only the fifth showing of "The Siren of the Tropics" since its 1929 American release. The screening, which was underwritten by the Jean-Claude Baker Foundation, will be accompanied by a live performance of a piano piece written specifically for the film.

   "Siren" has been completely restored.

Ida Lupino's "Hitch-Hiker"

   The actress-turned-director Ida Lupino, a woman ahead of her time, directed a number of films in the 1950s. Her fifth one, "The Hitch-Hiker," said to be the only classic film noir directed by a woman, will be shown on Friday, Oct. 18. It tells the story of a psychotic murderer with a facial deformity who hitches rides and then kills the drivers.

   The movie, which has no female characters, is nevertheless "an excellent example of Lupino's feminist, pioneering directorial spirit," says the festival committee.

   "The Hitch-Hiker" will be presented by the American Museum of the Moving Image, based in Astoria, as a preview of its upcoming Ida Lupino retrospective next month.

"Born Yesterday"

   The comedienne Judy Holliday won a best-actress Oscar for her role as Billie Dawn in "Born Yesterday," which will be shown on Oct. 19 as part of the festival's archival presentation.

   Directed by George Cukor, the film is set in Washington, D.C., where the dim Billie Dawn is the mistress of a millionaire junk dealer. He finds her unsophisticated ways a social liability, and hires a reporter to be her tutor.

   Ultimately, she takes to her lessons, and the millionaire, played by Broderick Crawford, finds that Alexander Pope was right: "A little learning is a dangerous thing."

   Recently remade starring Melanie Griffith and also parodied in "The Girl Can't Help It," the original

   "Born Yesterday" is still the funniest, the festival maintains. It has been preserved by Sony Pictures Entertainment and the Museum of Modern Art's Department of Film and Video, which will present a Judy Holliday film retrospective in December.

Collaboration

   "Film: A Collaborative Art" will be the theme of four panel discussions during the Film Festival, all to be held at the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor. The panels include directors and a sampling of the artists with whom they work: cinematographers, screenwriters, editors, and composers.

   The first, next Thursday, will focus on "The Look: Directors and Cinematographers," or directors of photography, who together address such important film-making issues as camera placement, movement, and angles.

   Serving as moderator will be David Schwartz, the chief curator of film and video at the American Museum of the Moving Image, who programs the museum's annual "Masters of Cinematography" series.

Capturing The Look

   Panelists scheduled are Matt Mahurin, a former photographer whose directorial debut, "Mugshot," is featured in the festival's American Independents Showcase; Fred Murphy, a cinematographer for nearly 30 years whose credits include "The Trip to Bountiful," "The Dead," and "Murder in the First"; Maryse Alberti, an up-and-coming director of photography with the documentary "Crumb" already to his credit, and Steven Soderbergh, whose directorial debut was "sex, lies and videotape," winner of the Palme d'Or at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival.

   Mr. Soderbergh's two new films, "Gray's Anatomy" and "Schizopolis," are in this year's Hamptons International Film Festival.

Telling The Story

   "The Story: Directors and Screenwriters," on Friday, Oct. 18, will be moderated by Tod Lippy, the editor of Scenario magazine. Among the panelists are Jay Chandrasekhar and Kevin Heffernan, members of a cutting-edge comedy troupe called Broken Lizard

   The troupe, using improvisational methods, wrote the feature film "Puddle Cruiser," which is included in the Film Festival and marks Mr. Chandrasekhar's directorial debut.

   Other panelists will be Terry George and Jim Sheridan, longtime collaborators who together wrote "Some Mother's Son," the festival's opening-night film. Mr. George directed "Some Mother's Son," his first venture into directing.

   The pair also collaborated in writing the Academy Award-nominated "In The Name of the Father," directed by Mr. Sheridan, who made his directorial bow with "My Left Foot."

Putting It Together

   "Putting It All Together: Directors and Editors" will be moderated by George T. Nierenberg, a veteran producer and director of documentaries who is on the board of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

   The panelists include Anthony Harvey, who was an editor of "Dr. Strangelove," among other films, and a director of such films as "The Lion in Winter."

   Marshall and Nina Brickman will also be panelists. Mr. Brickman is best known as a screenwriter but he has directed three films (all of them edited by his wife), including "The Manhattan Project."

   Adriani Trigiani and Rachel DeSario, the director and editor, respectively, of "Queens of the Big Times," fill out the panel. Their documentary will have its world premiere at the festival.

The Sound

   Finally, "The Sound: Directors and Composers" will be moderated by Randall Poster, a music supervisor with many notable credits including "Kids," "I Shot Andy Warhol," and "The Pallbearer."

   The panelists are Carter Burwell, a composer whose credits include "Waterland," "Kalifornia," and "Rob Roy"; Danny Leiner, who has directed two short films and will make his feature-length directorial debut next week with "Layin' Low," and Evan Lurie, who has composed for theater, television, dance, and film, including the music for "Layin' Low."

   Though the fourth Hamptons International Film Festival does not begin until Wednesday night, it will kick off on Tuesday, as in the past, with a welcoming cocktail party sponsored by the East Hampton Chamber of Commerce, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the James Lane Cafe at the Hedges Inn.

   Twenty-five dollar tickets to the party include an open bar, hors d'oeuvres, music by the Brill-Gaffney Trio, and a chance to meet many of those associated with the festival.

   Golfers who show up this month at Montauk Downs State Park wearing T-shirts without collars or cutoff shorts have a big surprise coming. As of next spring, they are being warned, New York State plans to institute a required dress code at all its public golf courses. On Long Island, besides Montauk Downs, Sunken Meadow and Bethpage State Parks will be affected.

   No longer will tank tops, cutoff or "muscle" shirts, halters, short shorts or running shorts, torn pants, or work boots be considered "proper attire" on the course, and any duffer so clad will not be allowed to play.

   According to Edward Wankel of the Long Island State Park and Recreation Commission, the new policy is not really new, it's just being newly enforced. Similar restrictions have been in effect at county parks, including Indian Island in Riverhead, for three years, having been imposed by the self same Mr. Wankel during his tenure as Suffolk Parks Commissioner.

   What's going on? The state, or at least Mr. Wankel, is trying to legislate taste, good or otherwise, and moving into a realm where it simply doesn't belong.

   John Updike, musing in his latest book, "Golf Dreams," upon "Golf As a Game of the People," writes of "the daily mob, costumed in tank tops and cut-offs, sneakers and baseball hats." The "mob," says the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, "leaves the rough downtrodden and turns grass tees into dust bowls."

   But the barbs, it turns out, are chiefly tongue-in-cheek. Comes the stinger:

   "What a harvest of pleasure springs from acres so democratically exploited!"

    When push comes to shove, or in this case putt to cup, what's really important is not what golfers wear but how they behave. In that, golf is just like any other game. In fact, it's just like life.

   What a letdown. The Federal Government has axed the money it would have appropriated next year to buy Shadmoor, a breathtaking 98-acre tract on the ocean in Montauk.

   The Senate already had earmarked $2 million. The House chose not to earmark anything. But the Nature Conservancy and other parties still expected the funding would survive negotiations in Congress. It did not.

   Perhaps because they needed to look fiscally conservative in an election year, members of Congress decided to hold the line on such land purchases nationwide, and to give New York State only one of two high-priority purchases on its list. The Sterling Forest, a 20,000-acre watershed on the New York-New Jersey border, beat Shadmoor out.

   Ironically, the Federal money would have come from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a repository of royalties from privately used public resources that has been largely diverted to non-conservation purposes. Furthermore, to get the overall parks bill saving the Sterling Forest through the Senate last week, President Clinton had to agree to extend a logging lease in Alaska's Tongass National Forest and to ease development restrictions on some of Florida's barrier islands.

   The lesson, perhaps, is that nothing comes without a price. It hurts indeed when our corner of the earth is the one to pay it.

   A more pragmatic lesson is that Congress could avert "this kind of natural areas conservation cannibalism," as Sara Davison of the Nature Conservancy puts it in a letter to The Star today, if the Land and Water Fund were used exclusively for the purpose for which it was named.

   Shadmoor is habitat to one of the last populations in the world of a snapdragon called the sandplain gerardia. Thus, the Nature Conservancy can be expected to continue to pursue Federal funds from the 1998 budget.

   In the meantime, however, the East Hampton Town Planning Board has given Shadmoor's owners preliminary approval for its development. Let's hope something can be worked out before the bulldozers arrive.

   As the days shorten and the nights get longer, it is only natural that many of us draw the curtains and concentrate on the comforts in our own private lives. It is easy amid the plenty that surrounds us to forget that others have to struggle to pay the rent or buy clothes for their schoolchildren.

   That struggle gets tougher once cold weather comes in, what with fuel bills and diminished work opportunities. But this year bodes to be worse than usual as a result of the drastic cutbacks in public assistance being approved by the Federal Government.

   The Government's cutoff of benefits to legal immigrants will seem particulary harsh on the East End, as our population has become increasingly diverse. Human Resources, the East End's largest food pantry, based in Southampton, recently reported a 20-percent increase in the number of families needing its help.

   We urge South Fork residents to pay heed in the months ahead to appeals from organizations that help the needy, many of which rely on quiet written appeals rather than splashy fund-raisers.

   One of these organizations, the East Hampton Town Community Council, which assists residents facing financial emergencies and helps provide equipment for the sick, has just begun its annual fund-raising drive. Residents also can help by contributing their time. Many of these organizations are in serious need of volunteers to help manage their increasing workload.

   Other local organizations also are deserving recipients of time and money, including, to name but a few, Meals on Wheels, which provides food to shut-ins; the various local food pantries, including East Hampton's, which has just moved to new quarters behind St. Luke's Episcopal Church; Catholic Charities, which has an office in Bridgehampton; East End Hospice, a Westhampton agency that provides care to the terminally ill, and the Long Island Association for AIDS Care.

   It's hard to beat the Good Book for moral imperatives.

   "If thou has vast abundance, give alms accordingly: if thou have but a little, be not afraid to give according to that little."

   Despite an owner's plea for a shore-hardening structure to protect a King's Point Road, Springs, property, the East Hampton Town Planning Department recommended last week that Dora Barmack's request for a rock revetment be denied.

   A planner, Brian Frank, told the Town Zoning Board of Appeals Sept. 17 that it should require an environmental impact statement on the project.

   That would allow the board "to better assess the impacts" on the subject as well as adjoining properties and the beach in front, Mr. Frank said, as well as give an opportunity to explore alternatives.

   Dora Barmack, who owns the Gardiner's Bay property with her fam- ily and who hopes for a nat- ural resources permit to build a 180-foot-long stone revetment with a 20-foot return at its western end.

Domino Effect

   This is the most recent of a string of similar requests that the board has faced. This winter, the Z.B.A. approved a similar revetment for Paul Frahm at his Gerard Drive, Springs, property, but only after the board wrestled with the fact that each time it approves a shore-hardening structure, other requests from adjoining neighbors follow since the structures block the natural flow of sand.

   At the time of Mr. Frahm's revetment was approved (his revetment is under construction this week), the board agreed to ask the East Hampton Town Board for better defined policies on shore-hardening structures. The Town Board earlier this month held a hearing on the Waterfront Advisory Committee's report on controlling flooding and erosion, which was finished just after Mr. Frahm's approval.

   Yesterday, Supervisor Cathy Les ter said she wanted to see the report adopted into the Town Code and would direct deputy town attorney Richard Whalen to start drafting an amendment to the code.

   At last week's hearing, Roy Haje of En-Consultants of Southampton told the Zoning Board that the bluff on the Barmack property is eroding, mostly from surge tides during storms, and scalloping around the return on the adjacent property to the east.

Devastated By Storms

   Mrs. Barmack's daughter, Laura Kaiser, a part-owner of the property, said her late father had always favored "soft solutions" because he liked the beach natural, but that now her family has no choice.

   In the 1980s they started to see erosion of the property, Ms. Kaiser said. Then, in 1991, Hurricane Bob and the Halloween storm "devastated the property." She estimated from 900 to 1,400 square feet, or eight linear feet, of property have been lost since her family bought it in 1969.

   Their neighbor's bulkhead makes it "infinitely worse," she added. "Some properties are forced to be vulnerable while others are protected. I submit to you that this is an injustice."

Actually Accreting

   A differing view was offered by Mr. Frank, who told the board that the Barmack property has not undergone severe erosion in the last few years, and that in the bigger picture, that area of King's Point Road, roughly between the eastern jetty of Hog Creek Inlet and Hog Creek Point, is actually accreting.

   Some of the erosion on the property was "self-created, even if it was inadvertent," Mr. Frank added. Sparse vegetation, a patio at the bluff's edge, and a stairway and landing over the face of the bluff were all contributing to erosion there, he said.

   The Barmack house is set about 80 feet from the edge of the bluff, and is no immediate danger from storms.

   The rest of King's Point Road, continuing in a southeast direction, is heavily armored with bulkheads and revetments, and in some places the beach has all but disappeared. To the west of the Barmack property, until the jetty that helps maintain an open inlet to Hog Creek, the properties are unarmored.

Soft Sell

   Mr. Frank said the Barmack property was a reasonable place to deny a revetment request and stop the so-called "domino effect" these structures create. He noted that the flooding and erosion report suggested looking at the shoreline of a whole region when assessing its protection and recommended no hard structures be allowed in the immediate area where the Barmack property is.

   "You have enough information to deny it right now," Mr. Frank concluded. He suggested the Barmack family try a soft solution, such as adding sand and plantings to provide natural protection, instead.

   Mrs. Kaiser countered, however, that her family had tried a soft solution and that it didn't work; letters of support from six neighbors agreed with her. Mrs. Kaiser told the board that a vegetation plan begun the day before the December 1992 storm was wiped out.

Revised Plan

   "This is $13,000 of soft solution that lasted 26 hours," she said. "The storm took it out."

   Mr. Frank pointed out that plant ings need time to become established and need to be maintained to provide any meaningful protection.

   According to Mr. Haje, the proposed revetment before the board last week was revised from an earlier plan, which the State Department of Environmental Conservation had said would cause "physical loss of beach," the town engineer had called "excessive," and the East Hampton Town Trustees had called "too drastic."

   They have yet to review the new proposal, but Mr. Haje said conceptual approval had been given by the D.E.C. The board will seek the opinion of the Trustees and the engineer on the new design.

   There is no question that customers aboard the Viking Starship party boat caught school-size bluefin tuna during a two-day trip offshore Sept. 12 and 13. What the National Marine Fisheries Service wants to know is whether they were caught prior to the start of a special 46-and-a-half-hour opening that began at 1 a.m. on the 13th, and whether the catch exceeded the daily "bag limit" specified for the opening. The regular school-size bluefin season had been closed on Aug. 17.

   Disgruntled customers aboard the Starship reported the ship's captain, Steven Forsberg, to the Federal agency. They were reportedly angered when he ordered the 18-fish catch over the side after learning, by radio, that the former one-fish-per-angler limit that had applied before the regular season closure had been changed to one-fish-per-boat for the limited opening.

   Captain Forsberg was not commenting this week on advice of counsel. James Greenbaum, the Viking Fleet lawyer in this case, is arguing that the government's failure to properly notice the opening, and its rules, was responsible for the confusion.

Shut Out

   Capt. Joe McBride, an advocate for the party and charter boat industries, said he understood that Mr. Forsberg had not caught the bluefin outside the short opening. He said that Captain Forsberg properly ordered the 18 fish dumped, because possession of them would surely have been an illegal act - "no different than when draggers dump extra fluke."

   The ongoing investigation is the latest episode in an unhappy bluefin season for local charter and party boat owners and customers. For the second year in a row, the Fisheries Service shut down the season for school-sized bluefin (27 to 47 inches long) before the migrating fish ever made it to the Northeast. The annual coastwide quota had once again been filled by southern anglers. The Aug. 17 closure effectively took away the popular bluefin fishery from local fishermen.

   After a general hue and cry from fishermen and from Rep. Michael Forbes, the Fisheries Service admitted mismanagement and allowed two brief openings.

   Closer to shore, the striped bass and false albacore fishing is described as nonpareil. The action around the point is fast and furious. Bill Beasley of Freddie's Bait and Tackle in Montauk said there were plenty of bluefish and bass around for last weekend's tournament. The weights were impressive.

   Paul Melnyk of Montauk took top honors in the striped bass competition with a 29-pound, 8-ounce fish. The second-place winner, Jeff Chu, caught one weighing just under 28 pounds. Brian Jones took third with a 27-pound bass. In the bluefish division, 11-year-old Eugene Ross Jr. was lucky he wasn't pulled in. His blue weighed 15 pounds, one ounce. The heaviest bluefish weighed 15 pounds, six ounces, the second heaviest, four ounces less.

   Mr. Beasley reported unbridled fly-fishing excitement close to shore in Montauk early this week. False albacore inundated the coves from Turtle Cove to Caswell's. "We started at Shagwong [on the north side of Montauk] and worked our way around to the south side - all albacore," he said.

"Monstrous Runs"

   Harvey Bennett, too, was bubbling about the "falsies." Taking a break from the rigors of getting his new shop in shape on Montauk Highway, East Hampton, on Tuesday, Mr. Bennett said he first took his boat off of Napeague in search of the lightning fast falsies. He found them farther east at Quince Tree near Hither Hills.

   "They weren't in deep water, maybe eight feet. They were so close to shore chasing bait, I pulled the boat up and caught them from the beach. I caught three on a fly rod, three more on a spinning reel. The terminal gear, in the latter case, consisted of a Crazy Charlie fly kept on the surface by way of a small float."

   "After a while, they get finicky so you have to change. I changed to a little tin with no tube," Mr. Bennett said, going on to describe "monstrous runs" by the albacore.

   "When they're in shallow water they run far, not deep. One spooled me so bad, I had to chase it with a boat. I barbecued and ate it. People say you can't eat them. The secret is to use the belly meat, marinate it, and put it on the grill. The next day, it makes the best tuna salad."

Today it's almost inevitable that when a group of gardeners gets together the conversation will turn, at one point or another, to deer and how to keep them out of the garden. Quail Hill, the cooperative farm in Amagansett, has resorted to an electric fence. It works, but would not be suitable for most home gardeners or residential areas.

So my ears perked up when I recently overheard Edwina von Gal, a landscape designer and the author of "Fresh Cuts: Arrangements with Flowers, Leaves, Buds and Branches" (Artisan, 1997), say that no deer have come into her cutting garden in a large meadow in Sagaponack since she installed a double four-foot-high fence four years ago. At the time she created the garden, the meadow was host to many deer.

I was particularly interested, because friends who live on a corner lot in Springs have been driven to distraction trying to resolve their dilemma. They learned that any fencing in front of the house extending along both streets could be no higher than four feet.

Most gardeners are aware that deer can leap as high as 10 feet, and sometimes even higher. A four-foot fence would accomplish nothing. Unhappily and begrudgingly, my friends have been wrapping vulnerable trees and shrubs in unsightly chicken wire cages.

It is only recently that I've begun to hear people talk about town regulations on fences. They've been on the books since before 1984, according to the Town Building Department. But it may be that changes in 1996 to the town code regulating berms, fences, and walls, as well as the increased population of deer, have made it an issue of concern for many.

Tangle Of Bureaucracy

Expressed in simple terms, fences extending from the house to the sides of the property can be six feet high. Fences along the side and rear can also be six feet, but in front of the house facing the street, the fences can be no higher than four feet. The regulations for corner lots are more complicated, prohibiting any fencing of a sizable triangular slice of land near the corner.

Any fence over six feet along the sides and rear and over four feet in the front must be approved by the architectural review board. Applications can be obtained from the Building Department. The completed application should be returned with six copies, an application fee of $25, two copies of a survey or site plan showing the location of the proposed fence, existing buildings on or near your property, proposed landscaping, if any, and photographs of the fence, if already erected. This is enough to make a gardener weep, scream with frustration and fury, or take to one's bed.

All of which makes Ms. von Gal's fence something of more than passing interest. Ever optimistic and creative, she did not come up with the idea herself, but can't remember where she read about it.

While her herb and cutting garden has been carved out of a large field, the concept can easily be adapted to almost any residential plot. Ms. von Gal insists that metal rabbit or turkey wire should be used; in her experience deer push through plastic.

Adirondack Style Fence

General guidelines call for the double row of fencing to be four feet high, snugly touching the ground, with the two rows four to six feet apart. You will need at least one set of gates. Whether it is true or not, common knowledge has it that deer have bad depth perception and that is what makes the double rows effective. The deer are confused and won't risk the jump.

Now for Ms. von Gal's touches of creativity and charm: The fence supports are of unpeeled Virginia cedar trunks, as are the gates, in the Adirondack style. At the main entrance, the outer gate is topped by an arch, planted with fragrant honeysuckle and clematis. In another section three compartments for compost in varying stages of ripeness are built into the fence. Nearby, inside the garden is an Adirondack-style work and potting area with a seating area behind it.

The four-to-six-foot area between the two rows of fence is planted with shrubs, most of which are deciduous. At the main gate are fragrant plants, including a winter-flowering shrub honeysuckle (Lonicera fragrantissima), some fragrant Rugosa roses, and deciduous viburnum. On another side are shrub willows, some with winter stems of bright yellow, orange, and deep burgundy. A good many of the young shrubs were wearing the familiar yellow labels printed in green of Forestfarm, a mail-order nursery in Oregon (www.forestfarm.com) that is an indispensable resource for many of the best gardeners I have met.

Once the shrubs mature, it is hard to anticipate how effective the fence will be during the summer. But deer are said to be creatures of habit. Time will tell, and meanwhile you can adapt these ideas for your own deer-free garden.

   A Federal District Court judge has dismissed two suits stemming from Jerry Della Femina's display of pumpkins three years ago outside his Red Horse Market - and his ensuing arrest on East Hampton Village zoning charges.

   The dismissal does not spell victory for either side. In fact, rather than base his decision on the merits of the cases, Judge Arthur D. Spatt dismissed the suits last Thursday because they were so confusing.

   "The Court, which is . . . frequently involved with litigation of a far more complex nature than the present two actions, is frankly confused by the plethora of criss-crossing and sometimes undelineated papers," Judge Spatt wrote.

Will Forge Ahead

   New legal papers are already in the works, according to William Esseks, Mr. Della Femina's attorney. Mr. Esseks said yesterday he expected them to be ready to file by early next week. They will have to conform to very specific instructions detailed in Judge Spatt's decision.

   He was not considering dropping the suits, Mr. Della Femina said yesterday. "They owe me money for my legal fees," he said.

   Mr. Della Femina has lodged two Federal suits against East Hampton Village. One challenges the constitutionality of its sign law, which prohibits advertising outside an establishment without a Design Review Board permit. The village contended unsuccessfully in local court that the pumpkin display constituted such advertising.

Jury Trial?

   In that suit he is joined by Della Femina's Red Horse Food Co., Bernhard G. Kiembock, the owner of Village Hardware, The East Hampton Independent News Company Inc., and Dan's Papers Inc.

   The second, a civil rights suit, pursued solely by Mr. Della Femina, seeks half a million dollars in damages for what the Manhattan ad man, local entrepreneur, and unsuccessful Village Board candidate claims was a false arrest and malicious prosecution. He has asked for a jury to decide his case.

   After being accused of 27 violations of the village zoning code for a pumpkin display in front of Jerry and David's Red Horse Market in October 1993, Mr. Della Femina and his partner in the Red Horse Market, David Silver, were arrested, handcuffed, and eventually prosecuted for the alleged violations.

First, The Federal

   Retired East Hampton Town Justice James R. Ketcham dismissed 23 of those charges, and the remaining four were thrown out by Southampton Town Justice Edward Burke after a change of venue.

   Mr. Silver is a former alternate member of the Village Zoning Board of Appeals. He was not reappointed in July 1995, Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. said at the time, because of his business relationship with Mr. Della Femina. Mr. Silver is not a party to the lawsuits.

   A separate case brought by Mr. Della Femina in State Supreme Court was discontinued in February of 1995, so that Mr. Della Femina and Mr. Esseks, of the Water Mill and Riverhead firm Esseks, Hefter & Angel, could concentrate on the Federal suits.

   Both Federal cases are being reviewed by Judge Spatt together, since his decision on the question of the sign law's constitutionality may decide the outcome of the civil rights suit.

   Arguments and affidavits crossing over from one legal motion to another seem to be what confused the judge. Nearly four pages of his 10-page decision are spent reviewing the history of the various motions made by both sides.

   "At this point this tangled procedural morass gets worse," Judge Spatt wrote at one point, before continuing his history of the cases' paperwork.

   "The parties have intermingled the papers and the arguments presented in their respective motions to a degree that undermines the clarity of the issues and frustrates resolution by the court," he wrote.

Not Over Yet

   "[T]he court will not exhaust any additional time or resources to attempt to discern the arguments in support of and in opposition to the issues presented in the various motions," Judge Spatt concluded. "In this Court's view, this burden should be borne by the parties."

   Mr. Esseks stressed yesterday that Judge Spatt's decision last week did not dismiss the suits themselves. "He's saying resubmit the papers," Mr. Esseks said, adding that they will be "the same papers, just put in different piles."

   Mr. Esseks also said the confusing paperwork was an "indication of the conduct of the attorney representing the village," Jeannine Bloomhall of the East Meadow firm Ciovacco & Campanella, who through her secretary yesterday said she would not speak to the news media on the matter. The judge's written decision seems to indicate he felt the confusion was both parties' fault, however.

   Johanna Caleca, the village attorney, declined to comment as well, citing pending litigation.

Village Stands Firm

   In a related issue, Mr. Esseks said yesterday that he and his client "still haven't gotten" transcripts of executive sessions in which board members discussed Mr. Della Femina. A Federal magistrate in June ordered the Village Board to turn them over.

   "I think they'll be coming in due time," Mr. Esseks added, however. "No one's going to resist this judge." The village has appealed the magistrate's ruling, and that matter is still pending as well.

   And is the village considering rewording its sign law, in light of Mr. Della Femina's lawsuits? No, according to Ms. Caleca, who did say yesterday, "We have reviewed it. At this point, we don't see anything glaring that needs to be amended."

   Mr. Esseks thinks the village should change it, however. "I've told them that before, in 1993, in 1994, in 1995," he said.

   When he dismissed the remaining charges against Messrs. Della Femina and Silver in December 1994, Justice Burke agreed. The village's sign law was lacking in "definition and standards" to such an extent that it was "subject to discriminatory enforcement," Justice Burke wrote in his ruling.

   Mr. Della Femina has claimed all along that he was singled out as an example. "There's been no other instance of anyone being prosecuted for vegetables," Mr. Esseks offered yesterday.

Not Again!

   An autumn display of pumpkins set up in front of the Red Horse Market last Thursday, when Judge Spatt's decision was dated, was pure "coincidence," Mr. Della Femina said.

   "I've had a display of pumpkins every year since that year," Mr. Della Femina said yesterday, acknowledging that he had not asked for permits, nor had he been charged with violating the zoning code.

   The East Hampton Town Trustees have fired the first shot in a revolution to win back some of the authority the ancient body had when it governed the town in colonial times.

   A one-and-a-half-page resolution passed last week seeks to place the Town Harbors and Docks Department under the control of the Trustees rather than the Town Board. It is so far the only action to come out of a 21-page draft "manifesto," which is being circulated among the Trustees.

   The manifesto, which amplifies a four-page draft manifesto presented to the Trustees almost a year ago by Town Councilman Tom Knobel, seeks to give the Trustees authority to regulate all kinds of activity on the waterfront rather than the Town Board or Zoning Board of Appeals. Mr. Knobel is a former Trustee.

Test Case

    The resolution, delivered to the Town Board on Monday by the Trustees' Clerk, Diane Mamay, was sent on as a test of what the Trustees hope to do in the future, observers said.

   The resolution is expected to widen an existing breach between the Trustees and Supervisor Cathy Lester, herself a former Trustee. Ms. Lester said this week she thought it had been illegal, several years ago, when town law was amended to require Trustee approval over any changes the Town Board contemplated for public lands the Trustees owned.

   She said she also would oppose the Trustees' expected attempt to take the lead away from the Town Zoning Board of Appeals in regulating waterfront and natural resource permits.

Referendum Needed

    "I know it's in the wings," she said, adding that "any move to reduce the Town Board's authority cannot be done without a public referendum." John Jilnicki, a deputy town attorney, agreed.

   Neither the current proposal nor the greater powers the Trustees are expected to seek before long were advisable, said Ms. Lester, because Trustees were elected officials, while members of the municipal agencies were appointed.

   "Trustees would be subject to political pressure," she said.

   The resolution, approved on Sept. 24, asks the Town Board to accept a major change: to allow harbors and docks jurisdiction to "become a division of the Trustees . . . with a separate budget under the control of the Trustees."

Called Common Sense

    The four harbormasters and two bay constables operate under Town Board supervision, reporting to Supervisor Cathy Lester and the other board members. The issue is expected to come up when the board holds budget hearings, beginning on Monday.

   Trustee Gordon Vorpahl, who drafted the resolution, said last week that the Trustees were not dissatisfied with the harbormasters or bay constables.

   "Ninety percent of what they do now is on Trustee-controlled places," he said, adding that it was "common sense" that the Trustees should oversee their work. "I don't want to sit on the dock and tell Bill Taylor [senior harbormaster] what to do. I have no problem with what they do, but sometimes their priorities may not be the same as ours," Mr. Vorpahl said.

History Traced

    John Courtney, the Trustees' attorney, said the legal basis for the Trustees' request was found in the Dongan Patent of 1686. It gave the Trustees royal authority to govern, and to create constables to enforce the law. Ms. Mamay agreed, saying that "a document that gives you regulatory authority gives you enforcement authority too."

   It was understood that Mr. Courtney had prepared the 21-page manifesto now under consideration.

   Mr. Courtney traced the history of the town bay constables from their status as independently elected officials to appointed ones, asserting that the "Trustees were left armless" when they began to function under the direction of the Town Board. Had the Trustees been more aggressive at the time, he said, they might have avoided the change.

Southampton Example

   While the constables and harbormasters enforced Trustee regulations now, Mr. Courtney said, the Trustees wanted to assure there would be no conflicts in the future.

   "It's history repeating itself," the head of the Southampton Town Trustees, Scott Strough, commented. In 1993, then Supervisor Fred W. Thiele Jr. made that town's bay constables a part of the Police Department. Although the Trustees sued, they lost.

   Mr. Strough said the situations in the towns were not totally analogous, however.

   "We have certain control anyway. All our policies [regarding shellfish grounds, docks, bulkheads, fish traps, et cetera] rest with the Trustees." This is not the case in East Hampton, where Trustees share oversight with town agencies such as the Zoning Board of Appeals.

Divided Duties

    Mr. Strough said having the bay constables (Southampton does not have harbormasters) under the police was an uncomfortable situation. The Trustees had made a concerted effort to stay in close communication, he added, but the bay constables "find themselves in a position of wondering who to answer to."

   Were the East Hampton harbormasters and constables to work under Trustee jurisdiction, they would be involved in a host of regulations, from those dealing with channel markers to speed limits, from shellfish laws to pump-out stations, dock inspections, and testing for water quality.

   On Tuesday, Ms. Mamay, noting that the East Hampton Town Police have a marine police division, suggested that enforcement duties might be divided. The marine police could, she suggested, enforce boating safety and state navigation laws.

Montauk Matter

    Mr. Taylor, the senior harbormaster, said this week that jurisdiction over the Montauk waterfront would be the biggest impediment to the Trustees' initiative. The Trustees do not own the public harbors or beaches in Montauk as they do elsewhere in town.

   "Half my budget and half our people go to Montauk. How is it going to work with Montauk?" Mr. Taylor asked.

   Ms. Mamay said she hoped the Town Board, which now controls what goes on in Lake Montauk and the rest of the Montauk waterfront, would adopt the same regulations the Trustees use in the rest of East Hampton Town.

   As to a referendum to transfer authority, she said, "That's fine. . . . I'm not afraid of a referendum of the public. We're doing it for them."

   Florence Jansson lives in Montauk. One afternoon last spring, a contractor knocked on her door. He said he had just finished a paving job up the street and could pave her grass driveway with asphalt and bluestone, re-tar her flat roof, and replace a cracked concrete walkway, all in a day.

   Mrs. Jansson told her story last Thursday to members of the Town Licensing Review Board who were holding a hearing on whether to revoke Arrow Asphalt of Riverhead's town license. Police said similar stories were reported to them by Lois Landauer of East Hampton and Rebekah Fuchs of Springs. All of the women are over 80.

   Mrs. Jansson showed the board a canceled $2,300 check with which she had paid for the work and photos of the results: tar streaked along the side of her house under the roof, water damage in the kitchen during the last northeast storm, weeds through the gravel on the driveway, and cracks in the walkway, which, she said, had been whitewashed rather than replaced.

   According to Mrs. Landauer's statement to police, Nick Stanko of Arrow claimed to have material left from a recent job for the East Hampton Town Highway Department. Officials later said he never worked for the town. She said she had given him $9,010 in cash to pave her driveway, fix a subsequent drainage problem, and replace Bilko doors and some shingles damaged in the process.

   Mrs. Fuchs's statement said that Mr. Stanko had "confused" and "tricked" her. It stated that he had filled out several of her checks himself for various small amounts, saying that would save him taxes, and that he took her to the bank to cash them. Altogether, she paid him more than $11,400.