June 26, 1992

WITH an uncanny precision that perhaps comes from knowing that no one else is counting, New York City officials can at a moment's notice announce precisely how many gallons of water currently reside in their complex system of regional reservoirs. Having automatic access to that water is essential to the city's well being. And such volume figures are most helpful when necessary to flush guilt through the modern consumer's civic psyche. What have never been tracked so closely, however, are the city's equally vital reservoirs of serenity, those sirenless, automobile-alarm-free areas where urban residents of even modest means can fleetingly flee the city life they are paying so much to endure. In these rural refuges for humans where only visitors lock their cars, city people can pay large sums of money to accommodating local citizens to allow them to sleep, eat, hike, swim, canoe, read, acquire souvenirs and generally relax the way real people do routinely all over this country.

In the latest sign that their 1988 free-trade agreement did not settle all trade disputes between the United States and Canada, a Federal trade agency ruled today that imported Canadian lumber had hurt American producers, a decision that will allow the United States to impose a 6.51 percent import duty next month. Within minutes of the 4-to-2 vote, William A. Dymond, the commercial counselor at the Canadian Embassy, told reporters that Canada would try to overturn the International Trade Commission's ruling by appealing to a binational arbitration panel.

RALPH COOPER 2D's ears hurt. The phones had been going helter-skelter all day. He took a call. "Hi, you're an act?" he said. "When are you going to be in town? . . . Achoo . . . Excuse me, my hay fever. . . . Now, you know there's no cursing? What's the group's name? 'Sounds Funky.' That's cute, real cute. Now, I assume you're going to do an original tune. For this audience, you better be kicking or they don't want to hear it. They'll run you out of there squealing. O.K., I've got to jump off." He pounced on another call, someone feverishly promoting a singer. "Yes, I feel she can be the first video babe of the 90's," Mr. Cooper said. "Now I got to jump. My hay fever is kicking."

The war in Bosnia has come home to Serbia. Though it has not experienced any fighting on its soil or lost a single inch of territory, this largest and most populous part of fragmented Yugoslavia is reeling under United Nations sanctions imposed to punish its leaders for provoking and sustaining fighting across its borders.

METRO DIGEST NEW YORK CITY POLICE TO FACE MORE CIVILIAN SCRUTINY Over the open opposition of his Police Commissioner, Mayor Dinkins took two strong moves to assert more civilian control over the New York City Police Department. Mr. Dinkins appointed a five-member independent panel to investigate corruption and called on the City Council to pass legislation to establish an all-civilian agency to monitor police brutality. A1. Police officer is arrested on a murder charge. B2. Second-guessing the Police Department. News analysis, B2. REPUTED MAFIA SOLDIER COULD FACE DEATH Setting the stage for a possible death sentence, a jury convicted a reputed Mafia soldier of committing six murders in racketeering and narcotics operations. The defendant, Thomas Pitera, is the first person prosecuted in New York State under a 1988 Federal law that provides the death penalty for intentional murders carried out as part of major drug trafficking. B3. MOB THEFT CHARGED AT NEW YORK POST Through control of a newspaper deliverers union, a Mafia family stole more than 10,000 copies of The New York Post a day over the last five years and used the newspaper's loading docks as headquarters for extortions, loan sharking, gun sales and the engineering of narcotics deals, a state indictment charged. B3. Newspaper Guild denounces a proposal to buy The Daily News. B3. Robber breaks into Council President Stein's apartment. B2. REGION COUPLE INDICTED IN KIDNAPPING The New Jersey couple accused of kidnapping Sidney J. Reso were indicted by a Federal grand jury in Newark, while the authorities continued to search for the Exxon executive. B4. SENATE PASSES BUDGET PLAN IN NEW JERSEY The Republican majority in the New Jersey Senate gave overwhelming approval today to a sharply reduced budget that promises to reshape government in the state by cutting or eliminating programs in almost every state agency. B6. MISTRIAL IN CASE OF D'AMATO FUND-RAISER With the jury deadlocked, a mistrial was declared in the case against Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato's chief fund-raiser in Puerto Rico. The case had put a spotlight on the Senator's efforts on behalf of Puerto Rican developers. B5. WELFARE COMPLAINT AGAINST NEW JERSEY The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund will file a civil rights complaint on Monday seeking to block New Jersey from refusing additional benefits to women who have more children while in the welfare program, a lawyer for the fund said. B5. A NEW BIPARTISAN COALITION IN SUFFOLK Faced with what he described as "one of the most dangerous deadlocks in Suffolk County history," County Executive Robert J. Gaffney announced a bipartisan coalition in the County Legislature that immediately approved a plan to help resolve a $100 million budget gap. B5. Our Towns by Andrew H. Malcolm B5 Chronicle B6