East Hampton Town

Reconsidering Mass Gatherings

The town board will hold a hearing tonight on revisions to the town laws regarding mass gatherings. The law requires permits for assemblies of more than 50 people on residential properties, for organized gatherings of five or more people on public properties, and for gatherings on commercial sites if they involve outdoor areas, use of a tent, off-site parking, or sales of goods or refreshments on a property, or in an area of a property, not already approved for such sales.

The revised law would require permit applications for events involving 250 or more people to be submitted 60 days in advance; applications for gatherings of groups of 100 or fewer must be filed at least 15 days in advance.

The code would allow the town board to deny permits for events deemed unsuitable for their proposed location, for those that would conflict with other events, causing traffic congestion or a strain on public services, if the frequency of events on a particular site is too great, or if a property owner has been convicted of violating the terms of a mass gathering permit within the last three years. Assemblies on public property could be denied if they conflict with “ordinary public use of the land.”

The hearing will begin at 6:30 p.m. at Town Hall.

Trash Cleanup

East Hampton Town will provide trash bags and gloves to volunteers pitching in on Saturday for the Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup Day. Individuals and groups will be asked to fill out the Ocean Conservancy’s data collection form, which the town will provide, to record the type of debris found. The information will be used to identify debris “hot spots” or issues, raise awareness, and help communities adopt policies that will contribute to cleaner oceans.

Gloves, bags, and forms may be picked up during business hours at the town board office at East Hampton Town Hall through tomorrow. Filled trash bags may be left at garbage cans at beaches for pickup. Participants also have been asked to document their efforts with photos and to e-mail them to Councilwoman Sylvia Overby at [email protected].

Meanwhile, a post-season weigh-in of summertime trash came up with a grand tally of 741,000 pounds collected by the Parks and Recreation Department staff from all of the collection points at public parks, beaches, and facilities.

Ms. Overby reported Tuesday that 65,000 pounds of trash had been collected at beaches. Construction debris that was illegally deposited at road ends or on public lands totaled 37,000 pounds, she said. The board will compare the figures to last year’s.

Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell also said that a “data-driven” discussion of how things went this summer, will be held soon, with reports from those heading various town departments.

Wastewater Sessions

A recently released draft of a comprehensive wastewater management plan for East Hampton Town will be the subject of a public information meeting on Tuesday at 10 a.m. at the East Hampton Village Emergency Services Building on Cedar Street. Prepared by a consultant, the plan includes an examination of ground and surface waters and suggestions for how to prevent wastewater pollution, including a lot-by-lot analysis and specific neighborhood-based solutions.

A second session on the wastewater plan will take place at the Montauk Firehouse on Oct. 14. Each meeting will feature a detailed discussion of the recommendations relating to the hamlet in which the meeting is held.

On Army Corps Plans

The Army Corps of Engineers will present the final details of its downtown Montauk beach stabilization plan at a meeting next Thursday at noon at the Montauk Firehouse. The agency has proposed an $8.9 million project that would create a 161/2-foot tall dune along 3,100 feet of shoreline, with a core of 14,000 geotextile bags filled with sand.

Representatives from the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation, the Suffolk County Department of Public Works, and the town will be on hand.

Inspector Suspended

At a work session on Tuesday, the East Hampton Town Board voted to suspend Robert Fisher, a town building inspector, without pay for 30 days, pending a determination on disciplinary charges. According to the board resolution, Thomas Preiato, the chief building inspector, had charged Mr. Fisher with alleged misconduct and incompetence.

Mr. Fisher is entitled to a hearing in the case under New York Civil Service law provisions. Eileen Powers, an attorney, has been appointed as the hearing officer, and she is to prepare findings and recommendations for the board.

Airport Noise Reduction Vote

A commitment by the town board to have policies in place by next summer that would reduce bothersome aircraft noise from helicopters and planes using East Hampton Airport is outlined in a resolution to be voted on at a board meeting tonight.

Following a recent meeting on airport noise attended by close to 400 people from across the East End, the board has outlined its plans to enact airport use restrictions by compiling and submitting data about the noise problems to the Federal Aviation Administration. A presentation by a consultant compiling the noise data will be scheduled for an upcoming board meeting.

Napeague Parking

The East Hampton Town Board has agreed to hold a public hearing on the creation of a no-parking zone along Dolphin Drive on Napeague, which had been prohibited until recently although the town code apparently had been changed years ago to allow residents to park there in order to access the beach.

Residents along the road had complained to the board after no-parking signs there were removed and replaced with others indicating those with town resident permits could park there.The road is narrow, Supervisor Cant?well said at a board meeting on Tuesday, and it is bordered on the east by town property that is likely to become a nature preserve. Clearing of vegetation along that side, or of plantings in front of residences on the west side of the street, would be required to provide spaces suitable for parking, and Mr. Cantwell suggested that the board ratify a no-parking zone on both sides of the street.

Councilman Fred Overton, however, said that barring the public from parking along the road would essentially create a private beach usable only by nearby residents. Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc agreed, and said some parking should be considered. The hearing will allow the board to solicit the public’s opinion on what should be done. A second hearing, on designating the nearby town property as a nature preserve, will be held at the same meeting, on a date to be determined.

Pentachlorophenol, a chemical preservative on the utility poles PSEG Long Island recently erected in East Hampton Town to support a 6.2-mile high-voltage electric line, has been found in significant levels in the water from a well at the East Hampton Village Firehouse on Cedar Street, Rebecca Singer, a co-chair of Long Island Businesses for Responsible Energy, which has sued PSEG over the installation, told the East Hampton Town Board on Tuesday.

Concern about the effects of the chemical, called penta, also prompted the group to hire a hydrogeologist to determine if it had seeped into groundwater. It would like to do additional testing, she said, of water in the ground three feet from poles near the firehouse. If penta is found there, she said, the consultant believes a toxic spill clean-up would be warranted.

Ms. Singer and Helene Forst, a LIBFRE co-chairwoman, asked East Hampton officials to require warning signs on the poles, advising against contact and exposure to the chemical. The limited use of penta is allowed in the United States, although it has been banned in other countries around the world.

The Town of North Hempstead, where PSEG recently did a similar project, prompting similar protests based on health, safety, and aesthetic concerns, has adopted a resolution requiring PSEG to post warning signs on its poles, the LIBFRE representatives told the town board. East Hampton should do the same, they said, although they think they should be required on every pole, rather than every fourth one, as in North Hempstead. They suggested that the signs should be yellow and black to indicate danger, with warnings written in English and in Spanish.

Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said the East Hampton town attorney would advise the board after reviewing the North Hempstead resolution.

East Hampton Town is considering banning thin-ply plastic bags, and is seeking input from the business sector as well as from members of the town’s litter and energy sustainability committees.

Supervisor Larry Cantwell said Tuesday that the supervisors and mayors of the eastern Suffolk towns have been discussing a regional ban, and that a rough draft of legislation is being circulated.

 “This is the kind of issue that really should be done on a regional, county, or even state level,” Mr. Cantwell said at a town board work session. East Hampton Village adopted a ban on single-use plastic bags in 2011; the village of Southampton also has enacted a ban.

Nationwide, 133 municipalities have adopted such bans, said Dieter von Lehsten, the co-chair of the Sustainable Southampton Green Advisory Committee, a Southampton Town group, who attended Tuesday’s session. He urged the East Hampton board to take the lead in this area. “It’s a domino effect; everyone else will fall in line,” he said.

The Town of Southold hosted a recent forum on the issue, and Councilwoman Sylvia Overby suggested holding a similar event here. A film, “Bag It,” which illustrates the environmental impacts of the extensive use of plastic bags, could be shown at a forum or board work session, Mr. Cantwell suggested.

“When you look at what’s happening globally with plastic products in the environment . . . it’s having a devastating impact,” he said.

The bag ban in the village, where Mr. Cantwell served as administrator before running for town office, “worked well,” he said. “Whether it would work well on a townwide basis, given the number of retailers who would be impacted, it’s hard to say.”

Both Frank Dalene, chairman of the town’s energy sustainability committee, and Kathleen Kirkwood of the litter committee expressed support for a ban at Tuesday’s meeting. The town board will ask retailers and other business owners for their comments after the busy summer season is over, through groups such as the East Hampton Business Alliance and the Montauk Chamber of Commerce.

Members of the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee want to have a say in determining the future use of Amagansett Farm, the 19-acre parcel purchased by East Hampton Town. The town is considering various proposals for use.

In a sparsely attended meeting on Monday, the group debated the most appropriate use, if any, of the property, which was purchased in the spring using the community preservation fund.

Kieran Brew, the committee’s chairman, read aloud an email from Scott Wilson, the town’s director of land acquisition and management, which detailed the process of awarding use of the land. Sealed proposals were due July 31. Members of the C.P.F. advisory committee are now charged with reviewing and evaluating them. The committee will discuss the evaluations on Aug. 25, after which members will submit their findings to the town board, narrowing the field of applicants for the board to interview.

A public discussion of the top applicants, at a town board work session, is the likely next step, Mr. Wilson wrote. The board, however, reserves the right to dismiss all applications and begin the process again.

As reported last week in The Star, agricultural, recreational, and equestrian uses are among the six proposals submitted.

Many ACAC members spoke in favor of agricultural use.  But Elaine Jones, an owner of the Vicki’s Veggies farm stand, who is not a member of the committee, objected to the idea of a commercial venture on land that cost the town $10.1 million to preserve, and worried aloud about deer fencing and hoop houses should the parcel be used for agriculture. “That land is the most beautiful piece of land in Amagansett,” she said. “I don’t want to see it ruined. You may as well bring in a 7-Eleven.”

Ms. Jones was not happy about a proposal from the Bunker Hill Corner Farm Collaborative, made up of Balsam Farms, Amber Waves Farm, and Britton Bistrian, an Amagansett land use planner who is a member of the committee but was not present, to rent most of the parcel and its barn for $6,000 a year. “If it’s true that one proposal was $6,000,” she said, “I would pay $10,000 to leave it open space. It’s not worth destroying it for $6,000.”

Ian Calder-Piedmonte, an owner of Balsam Farms who is not a committee member, defended the Bunker Hill proposal. Leasing the property, he said, “affords us an opportunity to keep doing what we love. And I think it’s reasonable.”

Another concern raised was the state of the soil. Rona Klopman of the committee quoted Herbert Field, also of the committee, who told her that the property had been a potato field. Until the 1930s, arsenic was applied to potato fields as a pesticide. “Whatever proposal goes there, we should have an idea of the quality and contents of the soil,” she said.

In other news from the meeting, the town has chosen an architectural firm to design the public restroom that is to be built in the parking lot north of Main Street. “Their proposal was around $15,000, which is very reasonable,” East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said. “They’ll put sketches together, we’ll communicate with the citizens advisory committee and decide what kind of building we want.”

Some members of the committee conveyed their neighbors’ concerns about vehicles speeding on Bluff Road and nearby lanes and their wish for an all-way stop at the intersection of Bluff Road and Atlantic Avenue. The “wonderful August people” with their “fast cars and bad attitudes” were responsible, Mr. Brew said. Mr. Cantwell suggested that members reach a consensus and send a letter to the town board. “We’ll have the Police Department and Highway Department look to see if it makes sense from a traffic point of view,” he said.

East Hampton Town

For a Town Farm Museum

Monetary donations are being sought for East Hampton Town’s farm museum, which is taking shape on the corner of North Main and Cedar Streets in East Hampton on the former Selah Lester property, now owned by the town. The museum will illuminate the lives of farmers in East Hampton and the importance of the town’s farms to its prosperity and history.

A volunteer group has been collecting artifacts through donations or loans, and they must now be inventoried and cataloged. The cost of a digital camera, computer, printer, and bar code equipment to accomplish that task has been estimated at $2,500. Checks payable to East Hampton Town Farm Museum may be sent to the East Hampton Historical Society, to the attention of the society’s director, Richard Barons, at 101 Main Street, East Hampton 11937.

New Push for Adopt-a-Road

East Hampton Town’s Highway Department, along with the town recycling and litter committee, are attempting to re-energize the town’s Adopt-a-Road program, urging community members, businesses, and guests to help remove roadside litter in Montauk, Amagansett, East Hampton, Springs, and Wainscott.

Highway Superintendent Steve Lynch will assist volunteers in choosing a section of road to “adopt,” and will place a sign, at no charge, with the adopter’s name, business name, or message on the road chosen for adoption. In return, the road must be cleaned at least eight times a year.

An Adopt-a-Road agreement can be downloaded from the Highway Department’s page on the town website, town.east-hampton.ny.us.

Construction Debris Okayed

After a short suspension last week, the town recycling center is once again accepting construction and demolition debris. Because of a buildup of the debris at the UpIsland facilities to which it is trucked from East Hampton, the repository here got overfilled and the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation ordered East Hampton to take no more.

Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc said Tuesday that East Hampton will soon pen an agreement with the Town of Brookhaven regarding taking extra construction debris, as needed, so that future backups can be avoided.

Nature Preserve on Napeague

The future of three town-owned parcels on Napeague, with frontage on the ocean, was discussed at a town board meeting on Tuesday. The previous administration had considered opening a new public bathing beach in the area and building a parking lot and bathroom facilities on one of the lots.

The town’s nature preserve committee recommends designating the majority, if not all, of the acreage as a nature preserve to protect undisturbed duneland and plants, Zachary Cohen of that committee told the board.

Several board members agreed. Should a new bathing beach be needed, Supervisor Larry Cantwell said, several adjacent miles of beachfront owned by New York State could present an “opportunity.”

John W. Templeman pleaded guilty Monday in East Hampton Town Justice Court to six charges stemming from allegedly rolling over a house he owns in Montauk for excessive short-term rentals. He was fined $7,500 and received a stern warning from East Hampton Town Justice Lisa R. Rana: “If I see anything like this in front of me again, it is not going to be a good situation.”

Mr. Templeman, 32, an attorney who heads up the international arbitration wing of White and Case in New York, spoke softly as he said “guilty” three times to Justice Rana.

Originally charged with six unclassified misdemeanors, including violating the town’s code regarding “excessive turnover,” he instead pleaded guilty to the lesser non-criminal charges of noise violations. He also was originally cited for using his house at 5 South Federal Street in Montauk as a two-family residence, lacking a certificate of occupancy, advertising his short-term rentals on a website, Airbnb.com, and draining his swimming pool onto public property. All are violations of the town’s zoning code.

“Our goal in settling,” Michael Sendlenski, the town’s prosecuting attorney said Monday, “is to bring the owner into compliance.”

The $7,500 he was fined was less than one week’s rental income from the Montauk house. An UpIsland man, Giancarlo Negovetti, told investigators he paid $10,000 for one week’s stay. Mr. Templeman also rented the house out on several occasions for three-day stays, according to the court files.

Mr. Templeman’s advertisement on Airbnb.com promised five bedrooms, plus a pullout couch in the living room, a large in-ground pool, and an eight-person hot tub.

His attorney, Brian Lester of Tarbet and Lester, said that Mr. Templeman was unaware of the prohibition against short-term rentals in the town’s code. “He would never have done it if he had known,” Mr. Lester said outside the courthouse Monday.

Mr. Templeman declined to comment, other than to say he has been in Montauk for the past four years. According to court papers, he lives year round in Greenwich Village.

According to David Betts, East Hampton Town’s director of public safety, Mr. Templeman has cancelled all remaining short-term rentals he had booked for the rest of the year. “I don’t expect any more trouble,” Mr. Betts said.

East Hampton Town’s airport manager, Jim Brundige, will step down from his post in the fall, after his replacement is hired and has some on-the-job time to work with his predecessor.

Mr. Brundige confirmed Tuesday that he had informed the town board early this month of his intent to retire just as he reaches the decade mark in his position as manager of the airport, which has been a perennial flashpoint in community discussions about aircraft noise as well as airport repairs and finances.

Just last night, the town board held a meeting to hear noise complaints from across the region, and a large crowd was expected, including residents of both the North and South Forks angry about noise and a contingent of airport supporters who fear a secret agenda of shutting the airport down.

Mr. Brundige said that his decision was a personal one. Before coming to work in East Hampton, he said, “I already had a long aviation career.” He retired at age 60 as an airline pilot, as was then required, before taking the job with the town.

He began his career as a pilot in the Air Force, flying fighter jets and air-sea rescue helicopters. He then flew jets for a major worldwide corporation before signing on with United Airlines, where he spent 20 years flying and in a management post in the airline’s chief pilot’s office at Kennedy Airport.

Not too much rest is on the horizon for Mr. Brundige upon his retirement from the town airport.

In addition to assisting his wife, Barbara Brundige, a broker with the Sag Harbor office of Douglas Elliman, with her business, he will work as an aviation consultant, he said, with a couple of firms — though not on any matters involving East Hampton.

“It’s been a long haul,” Mr. Brundige said Tuesday. “The town’s been very good to me. It’s been a very interesting, challenging job, but no job that’s worth anything wouldn’t be that way.”

Managing the East Hampton Airport in an often-charged atmosphere has been a “great learning experience,” the manager said, that will provide perspective in his future work as a consultant. Over his tenure, an airport master plan was updated, lawsuits ensued, and heated public and political debate continued over whether the town should continue to take federal airport grants, and how more local control could be gained over the airport traffic that creates problematic noise.

The town board is expected to announce its choice for the next airport manager soon, “perhaps by the next regular town board meeting,” Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said in an email on Tuesday.

Mr. Brundige, he said, “is a gentleman who acted professionally representing the town in the face of tumultuous issues during a period of significant change at the airport.”

East Hampton Town

151 Signs

Signs illegally placed on the public rights-of-way have been removed by East Hampton ordinance enforcement officers and other personnel, Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell reported last week. Mr. Cantwell said that to date, 151 signs have been removed.

Leber on A.R.B.

Patti Leber was appointed to the town’s architectural review board by a unanimous vote of the town board on July 17. Ms. Leber, a Montauk resident and one-time candidate for town board, will fill the term vacated by Ruth Vered, who resigned. It extends through 2016.

Plastic Bags Survey

The East Hampton Town Litter Committee is asking residents and business owners to complete a survey regarding the use of disposable plastic bags. Bans on the thin bags, designed for a single use, have been proposed or enacted in other communities, including East Hampton Village.

The survey, which can be completed online at surveymonkey.com/s/CHMQVY7, inquires about one’s use of plastic bags, and seeks opinions regarding a plastic bag ban, a fee on single-use bags of plastic and paper, and a possible credit for bringing one’s own reusable bag to a store.

Plastics do not biodegrade and never completely disappear from the environment, the survey says. The number of plastic bags used annually by Americans has been estimated at 100 billion.

The results of the survey will be discussed by the committee on Aug. 14. The group is hoping that more business owners will provide input between now and then.

Airport Matters

The East Hampton Town Board met on Tuesday in executive session with the town’s outside counsel on airport and aviation matters, Peter Kirsch, to discuss a legal matter, according to Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell.

The board’s steps toward enacting airport use restrictions to reduce aircraft noise — particularly that of helicopters — after agreements with the Federal Aviation Administration expire in January have recently prompted a campaign by the aviation industry, including the Eastern Region Helicopter Council and its executive director, Jeff Smith, to raise concerns about the airport’s future. In interviews in several publications, he has questioned the town’s strategy, implying that the ultimate goal is to close the airport, and asserting that it will have a devastating economic impact.

Town officials have said that the goal is not closing the facility, but rather the autonomy to make decisions about operating the airport, in order to assist residents beleaguered by noise.

The East Hampton Town Trustees will likely extend the closure of Georgica Pond in East Hampton to the harvesting of crabs and fish, as microcystin toxin, a product of the blue-green algal bloom known as cyanobacteria that can cause liver damage in humans and animals, has now been measured in the water body. Georgica is closed to the taking of shellfish other than crabs year round.

At the same time, algal blooms known as cochlodinium, or rust tide, have been detected in isolated sections of Three Mile Harbor, Accabonac Harbor, and waterways around Sag Harbor, a trustee said.

Microcystin, produced during algal blooms such as the cyanobacteria detected in Georgica Pond two weeks ago, is present at low levels, Christopher Gobler of Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences wrote in an email. Dr. Gobler has been monitoring water quality, in conjunction with the trustees, in waterways the trustees oversee on behalf of the public, since last year. The measurement of heightened levels of cyanobacteria prompted the trustees to hold a special meeting on July 24 at which they passed a resolution prohibiting the taking of crabs and other shellfish and marine life from Georgica Pond.

Cyanobacterial blooms can deplete oxygen in waterways, threatening marine life and drinking and irrigation water supplies. Such blooms can form in waterways during warm weather, particularly when elevated levels of nitrogen or phosphorus are present.

“The levels of blue-green algae in the pond have remained at a moderate level during the past 10 days,” Dr. Gobler wrote. At .5 micrograms per liter, the level of microcystin measured is low, representing one-half the drinking-water standard set by the World Health Organization.

The same algal bloom growing in Lake Erie and detected at a water treatment plant serving Toledo, Ohio, is behind the recent loss of drinking water for half a million people. Georgica Pond is not used for drinking water, Dr. Gobler wrote, “and thus these levels are not a serious threat, even for recreational use.”

However, “winds can create surface scums of algae, concentrating them and potentially creating a ‘high probability threat.’ ” According to the World Health Organization, scums can represent thousandfold concentrations of microcystin. People and pets, Dr. Gobler wrote, “should always avoid dense aggregations of thick, green material on the shoreline.”

“Our board will likely have to extend the resolution to keep Georgica Pond closed to crabbing until these levels of toxins subside,” Stephanie Forsberg, the trustees’ assistant clerk, wrote in an email, “since the chance for these toxins to reside in marine life is possible, but we do not know for certain.” The trustees will discuss the matter when they meet on Tuesday, Dr. Forsberg wrote.

Dr. Forsberg said that rust tide is not toxic to humans but in high densities can be toxic to fish and shellfish. “The good thing about rust tide is that it tends to be patchy and could leave as quickly as it appeared, so we are hoping for the best case scenario and for that to occur,” she wrote of the blooms in Accabonac and Three Mile Harbors, “but unfortunately only time will tell.”

East Hampton Town

Helicopter Traffic Soars

Traffic at the East Hampton Airport has increased this year, Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez reported recently. In particular, the number of helicopters landing and taking off from the airport went up sharply, according to end-of-July figures — a 40-percent increase over year-to-date figures last year. The airport had logged 12,677 “operations” overall — takeoffs or landings — in 2014 as of two weeks ago, the councilwoman reported, versus a total of 10,577 during the same period last year. Both the town and airport noise abatement groups have been urging residents affected by aircraft noise to make reports to an airport noise hotline, particularly important this summer as consultants are compiling noise data the town could use to seek airport use restrictions. Ms. Burke-Gonzalez said an online noise complaint form can now be found on the home page of the town’s website, town.east-hampton.ny.us. Noise complaints this year totaled 10,158 at the end of July, compared to 2,798 last year. They came from 373 diffent households, while last year 174 households called in complaints.

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Long-Range PSEG Plan to Be Aired Here

An information session and hearing on PSEG Long Island’s long-range plan to meet energy needs, called Utility 2.0, will be held at East Hampton Village’s Emergency Services Building on Cedar Street on Aug. 26. It will begin with a presentation at 5 p.m., followed by an opportunity for the public to comment beginning at 6. East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell and East Hampton Village Mayor Paul Rickenbach had asked the utility, which held its required public session on the future plan in Stony Brook, to schedule a local session. A negative public response to PSEG’s installation of high-voltage lines along a six-mile route from the village to a substation in Amagansett has led to concern over what other projects the company may have planned. Mr. Cantwell, along with New York State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., has criticized the Utility 2.0 plan for a lack of specifics.

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Affordable Apartments Rule Expanded

In response to comments at a public hearing last week, the town board agreed Tuesday that the town code should allow two affordable apartments in buildings located in the town’s limited business districts rather than one, provided other criteria are met. A proposed change to the existing law, providing the ability to create an apartment in that zoning district, had limited it to one.

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Taxi Drivers Cited for Violations

Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell announced this week that enforcement of East Hampton’s taxi regulations, which require all drivers to be fingerprinted and undergo a background check, has resulted so far in the issuance of 115 summonses. Fifty-five of those were for violations of the town code, and 60 were for Vehicle and Traffic Law violations.