ELIZABETHTOWN -- The Adirondack Park Agency has changed its enforcement order against the Lewis Family Farm.

The revision arrived in the hours between a series of lawsuits brought against the Lewis farm by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office in an increasingly complex set of legal maneuvers.

The original APA enforcement order required the farm, owned by Salim B. "Sandy" and Barbara Lewis, to "forego the right to challenge agency jurisdiction."

But that sentence has now been stricken from the original decision, made in late March.

A revised APA enforcement order was filed in Essex County Court recently, with a letter that states the paragraph "never intended to prevent legal challenge to the agency's determination, including jurisdiction or any other question of law, and has been stricken to ensure clarity in that regard."

The letter was signed by APA Chairman Curtis Stiles and Enforcement Committee Chairman Cecil Wray.

The jurisdictional dispute stems from a cluster of farmworker housing units built by the Lewises in the past year.

They maintain that construction of housing on their farmland does not require APA permits because they are "agricultural use" structures under State Agriculture and Markets law.

But in enforcement proceedings, APA ruled two of the houses are under Adirondack Park Agency Act jurisdiction as "single-family dwellings" built on Resource Management land. The third is a replacement structure for a house that was removed.

Even as the enforcement action changed, Cuomo's office filed a lawsuit on behalf of APA restating the enforcement orders.

On the same day, Acting Supreme Court Judge Richard Meyer heard motions to stay the APA orders, filed in an Article 78 brought by Lewis Family Farm attorney John J. Privitera.

The legal papers apparently crossed paths at the court door.

Meyer granted stays in five of seven requests halting APA enforcement action against Lewis Family Farm, not including the order to pay a $50,000 fine.

JUDGE SHOPPING'

Four days later, Cuomo's office requested the case be moved from Meyer's bench to Judge Kevin K. Ryan, claiming Ryan had begun hearing Lewis Farm matters last August, which he dismissed at the time as "not ripe" for review.