Councilwoman Bonnie Eisler's admission that she has been negotiating behind closed doors with developers and against her constituents to build 102 residential units on the Underhill property in Jericho is shocking and disgusting.

The scheme would preserve less than half of the property and would pay the landowner for open space he must set aside as part of this high-density development. It is unlikely that Nassau County and New York State will go along with this. Besides, the environmental and civic communities are dead set against the plan.

We're calling on real leaders, from Supervisor Venditto to State Legislative Environmental Conservation Committee Chairmen Senator Carl Marcellino and Assemblyman Thomas DiNapoli, to County Executive Tom Suozzi and to Governor George Pataki, to restore the original $20 million plan to preserve most of Underhill. This will protect drinking water and secure the missing link in a 1,000-acre greenbelt for Central Nassau.

Councilwoman Eisler falsely asserts she involved the community. She did not. And the surreptitious way she handled the whole matter speaks volumes about whose side she favors - the developers love the deal; the environmentalists hate it. In any case, the Eisler sellout is over. Her deal with developers is dead. And what may be the last chapter in the decades-long crusade to preserve Underhill has begun.