Dan's Papers -February 13, 2009 - Noose in the Woods

Last Sunday, some hikers walking in the woods north of the Montauk Highway near Widow Gavits Road came upon a noose hanging from a tree. It was alongside the wide path where the high-tension electric lines come through overhead, a favorite path for motocross bikers these days. Immediately, the thought went through the minds of the hikers that there must be a bigot about. So one of them called the East Hampton Town Police on his cell phone.

A bigot hanging nooses about in the town of East Hampton was an alarming thought to the police department. They dispatched two officers in one of their four-wheel drive vehicles who, in short order, arrived at the offending location where the hikers were waiting.

After talking with them for a bit, one of the officers, messing with his police radio, had a conversation with headquarters which led them to believe that, according to a GPS system the police have, that the tree and its noose may not in fact be in East Hampton at all, but in Southampton Town. It appeared that it was about ten feet over the line. After talking a bit further, they became sure of it. It was a Southampton matter.

And so, a four-wheel vehicle from the Southampton Town Police Department was dispatched to the scene.

It never occurred to anybody there that this noose would only have been in the Town of Southampton until two years ago. It was two years ago that the 600 residents of Sagaponack, concerned about their future, had formally incorporated themselves as an entity separate from the Town of Southampton, and in fact the ground upon which they were now standing was in fact in the Village of Sagaponack. The failure to realize that fact might have been because the information about the jurisdictional update had not yet been entered into the GPS systems. Or it just might have been due to habit. Since Colonial times, if there was trouble in Southampton, you called Southampton.

In any case, the officers from the Southampton Town Police force soon arrived to look at the noose, and they decided that this was a hate crime investigation. As of one month ago, hate crimes in the Town of Southampton are no longer handled by the Southampton Town Police. Due to the passage of a new ordinance, they are automatically turned over to the Suffolk County Sheriff. No other town nor village on the East End, not Sagaponack nor East Hampton nor Quogue nor Southold, has even considered such a law. They all take care of hate crimes themselves. But not Southampton.

As everybody waited for the arrival of the sheriff's deputies, there was some conversation about the wisdom of Southampton's decision to turn everything over to the County. Three weeks ago, the State of New York, unhappy with reports by citizens of Suffolk County that hate crimes reported to them are frequently just put in the round file, opened an investigation into their practices. (Suffolk County says there was only one hate crime in the whole county in 2008.)

Of course, after a fashion, the sheriff's deputies did arrive in a four wheel, and, true to form, they looked at the noose and announced as far as they were concerned, there had been no hate crime committed there.

"To have a hate crime," one of them said, "you have to have a victim. There doesn't seem to be a victim."

Everyone looked around. Indeed, there seemed to be no victim. So then everybody went home.

By the way, you might wonder what would have happened if Sagaponack had been called. The answer is that Sagaponack does not have a police force yet. They've temporarily contracted for police services with the Town of Southampton. So it all would have wound up with the sheriff's deputies anyway.

The next day, a Monday, there was a public work session of the town supervisor, the town board, the town comptroller and any other interested citizens who wanted to sit in, about the Poxabogue Golf Course on the Montauk Highway in the Village of Sagaponack.

The reason for the meeting was for the Town to discuss whether it wanted to pony up $750,000 to improve the golf course by adding a putting green and a chipping apron where the pros might give golf lessons. More golf lessons means more golfers means more revenue.

The Poxabogue Golf Club was, four years ago, purchased jointly by the Town of East Hampton and the Town of Southampton. This was before the formation of the Village of Sagaponack.

What happened four years ago was that Southampton Town decided it should purchase the club, a public nine-hole golf course, to keep it from the clutches of developers. But they couldn't afford it. What they could afford was to ask East Hampton Town to help them. The course was located just 100 yards or so on the Southampton side of the town line, and so it would be used by people from both towns. East Hampton Town, to its credit - Jay Schneiderman was the Town Supervisor at the time - decided to go half with Southampton. They formed a corporation, and each town would own half. All monies needed by the golf club would be paid equally by Southampton and East Hampton.

So there was this meeting. Oddly, just before the meeting, the Mayor of the Village of Sagaponack, Donald Louchheim, called the Town of Southampton, livid that Sagaponack was not being included in all this. This was also a Sagaponack matter now. He, the Sagaponack mayor, wanted to be there. But Southampton turned him down. They owned it with East Hampton through this corporation. It was just a private business now that happened to be in Sagaponack. There would be too many cooks.

The meeting to discuss Southampton's half of the cost for the improvements now began. The improvements were described. The estimated costs of each were stated. A few private citizens spoke up in favor of the $1.5 million cost, of which Southampton would pay half. A few private citizens, who lived near the golf course, spoke in opposition. There would be more activity, more noise, more golf balls falling from the skies.

And then, one of the board members spoke and said he wondered if they should be taking on any new expenses in these hard times. And then this exchange happened.

"It is of concern to me that the $35 million posted in the Town's Capital Account does not match the $16 million of actual cash that the town has on hand."

This was said by Southampton's new Town Supervisor, Linda Kabot.

Anna Throne-Holst, another new member of the Town Board, then said, "That's news to me. When did that happen?"

And then Councilman Chris Nuzzi said, "Why are we just finding out about this?"

"We're supposed to be talking about the golf course," somebody said. "That's what's on the agenda."

But a discrepancy of $19 million unaccounted for, at a town meeting where the total budget for the town for the year is just $80 million, could not be denied.

"I need real numbers," said Throne-Holst, turning to the Deputy Supervisor Richard Blowes.

"I've been working on getting a report," he said, looking at the new Town Comptroller, Steve Brautigan. "I should be able to get you a report on the capital budget and where everything went by April."

"April?" Councilman Nuzzi asked. "That's not soon enough."

People had in their minds a big ledger, with the numbers on it, and just adding them or subtracting them as necessary, and then presenting such a report about it.

Was somebody hiding something?

"This has been something that's been a problem for six years," said Supervisor Kabot, suggesting that she had just stepped up to the plate here 80 days ago and now look at what she had found.

"I think some of this lands at the feet of our prior Town Comptroller, Charlene Kagel," said Blowes.

Where did the $19 million go? Reporters and TV people covering this meeting now began scurrying around. The next day, they got to talk to Charlene Kagel.

"I tried to tell them some of these things about the budget," she said. "They didn't want to hear it. There's supposed to be a transition from comptroller to comptroller. They didn't want it. They threw me out."

The reporters scurried over later that day to talk to Blowes.

"She walked out," he said.

"They insulted me," Kagel said when the reporters scurried back to her.

"We'd take her back to help us," Blowes retorted. "But we wouldn't let her look at the books anymore. She's just a private citizen now."

It's $19 million smackeroonies. Where did it go?

Lurking in the background of all of this was the knowledge that in neighboring East Hampton Town, it had been found just six months ago that the newly re-elected Town Supervisor Bill McGintee, had used $8 million in funds set aside specifically for parks and preservation to patch up a severe budget shortfall he'd built up during his first term. When it was reported that there was no shortfall and he'd balanced the budget, he won his re-election. Then he reported the shortfall.

So there you are. The noose hangs in the woods. And some politicians are chasing each other's tails around Southampton Town Hall looking for $19 million.

"It's all there in the spreadsheets," Kagel said. "They just don't know how to read them. They wouldn't let me tell them. They probably haven't made any entries in the capital budget since they took office. They probably don't even know where it is."

AS WE GO TO PRESS we've learned that by reading the existing accounting records correctly, the town board has determined that the missing funds are not $19 million, but $250.000. Whew! Well that's okay I guess. A buck here, a buck there.