East End Notebook: Local Offers $5k Reward for Info on Fatal Hit-&-Run

SOUTHAMPTON

Shinnecocks Reaffirm Decision to Remove Leaders

Members of the Shinnecock Indian Nation voted Tuesday to reaffirm the tribe's July 31 decision to remove two tribal trustees from office, as well as two gaming authority officials. Additionally, a former tribal council member was barred from acting as a Representative of the tribe.

The day-long vote allowed tribal members to decide on each of the five men individually, rather than as one bloc, according to a statement the tribe issued Wednesday afternoon. Ultimately, the majority of voters decided to uphold the sanctions against all five.

In August, Newsday reported that Gateway Casino Resorts, the Detroit-based developer that has an agreement with the tribe to establish a Shinnecock casino, learned that some tribal officials were violating the contract by working with an outside businessman toward a gaming facility in Manhattan or Nassau County.

An investigation committee, composed of five former tribal trustees, probed the allegations and presented their findings prior to the vote, the tribe states.

WESTHAMPTON-HAMPTON BAYS

Aerial Photos: Beach Line Thinning or Not?

From Westhampton to Southampton, ocean beaches appeared as though they were starting to signs of erosion last week with the high tide line reaching to protective fences and even the dunes.

However, environmentalist Aram Terchunian, M.Sc., of First Coastal Corporation, said the beaches are actually looking good for this time of year and that the high tide line was caused by an off-shore storm surge.

EAST HAMPTON

Amagansett Resident Appeals To Public in Hit-and-Run Case; Puts Up $5k

When Larry Siedlick spoke to the best friend of the man who was struck and killed while crossing Main Street in Amagansett on Tuesday night, he was moved to try and help bring the driver to justice.

Siedlick is offering his own $5,000 reward for information that leads police to arrest the driver, who fled the scene after the accident. The total reward money has grown to $10,000 in less than 72 hours after the accident; Crime Stoppers of Suffolk County had already posted up to  on Wednesday.

"I was really struck by his pain," Siedlick said of .

RIVERHEAD

Family and friends were devastated to learn that Matthew Taylor Quigley, a 20-year-old graduate ofRiverhead High School, lost his life Saturday in a tragic car accident in South Carolina.

Quigley, said Alexander Tuthill Funeral Home Director Ken Rothwell, had just graduated from the Marine Mechanics Institute in Orlando, Florida, and was heading home to Wading River with his girlfriend, Pakee Ristine, who was pregnant with their child.

"He was in a car accident in Columbia, South Carolina," Rothwell said. "He'd just graduated Friday -- he'd packed up the whole vehicle and was heading back to Long Island. They were on their way home."

NORTH FORK

Metallica Days Revisited in Film About Greenport’s Would-Be Rock Star

To filmmaker and Greenport resident Jim Morrison, his longtime friend Harry Biechele is still as amazingly talented as ever — even though Morrison has watched Biechele’s life deteriorate from would-be rock star guitarist in the mid-1980s to a resident of a tent next to a Greenport cemetery today.

Morrison’s continued appreciation for Biechele’s musical brilliance prompted him to work on a documentary about his friend’s life called “Harry Hellfire,” a project that started about six years ago and something that Morrison has been thinking about since high school, when he met Harry — who locals call “Guy” — in the mid-1980s. The filmmaker will get to show his first full-length documentary at the Hamptons Take 2 Documentary Film Festival on Dec. 2, when “Harry Hellfire” will debut at Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor.