Midway through the year, East Hampton Town is not only “on budget” for 2014, but is expected to end the year with surpluses in all its major funds, Len Bernard, the town budget officer, reported this week.

“The town’s financial recovery over the last four or five years has been impressive,” Town Supervisor Larry Can­twell commented after Mr. Bernard’s financial report to the board on Tuesday. In 2010, the town had to seek state approval to borrow close to $30 million to cover a deficit that accrued under former Supervisor Bill McGintee, and efforts to straighten out financial accounts took years.

Mortgage tax, a major source of revenue, could reach $4.7 million this year, Mr. Bernard said, but even using a more conservative estimate of $4.1 million, and factoring in spending and other revenues, Mr. Bernard said he expects a surplus in the whole-town general fund of $1.6 million when 2014 ends. In the part-town general fund, which pays for only those services not used by residents of the incorporated villages, a $302,610 surplus is expected.

Mr. Cantwell, who took office in January, credited former Supervisor Bill Wilkinson, Mr. Bernard, who also served in the Wilkinson administration, Charlene Kagel, the chief auditor, and other members of the Finance Department with the turnaround. 

As of June, three of four $160,000 commercial insurance payments had been made, health insurance was covered for the first half of the year, and 72 percent of debt payments were made, with interest, by one of the two main general operating funds, with 89 percent of the payments owed by the other main fund already made, totaling $7.3 million of the $9.8 million owed this year.

Revenue from almost every fee is expected to increase this year, he said. 

Building permit fees are expected to raise more than was budgeted.

Fees for applications to the zoning and architectural review boards and fire alarm fees, are above projections, and so far, according to the budget officer’s report, there has been no need to tap into a $185,000 contingency line.

Mr. Bernard also ran down the funds that are expected to wind up with surpluses. “The highway fund is going to finish the year in good shape,” Mr. Bernard said. “We have a pretty innovative highway superintendent.” A $498,034 surplus at year end is expected. Last year, some of the surplus that remained in the town’s sanitation fund was used to cover other budget items, “so this is sort of a come-back year.”

Fees for dump permits and tipping fees are expected to meet or exceed the revenue projections in the budget, he said, and some of the Sanitation Department’s costs, such as those for health insurance for retirees and motor vehicle repairs, are running below estimates. If Mr. Bernard expressed caution, it was about the weather. Hurricane season or early snow could change the Sanitation Department’s bottom line. At present, the budget officer expects that fund to end the year with a $590,865 surplus.

The town’s scavenger waste fund will be affected by the  waste treatment facility’s closing. A $74,000 surplus is expected, Mr. Bernard said, and there may be additional savings should the plant close before the end of the year, although some of that money might be used for the costs of decommissioning.

Even the airport fund is in good shape, Mr.Bernard said, calling it “very fluid.” It is expected to end the year with a bit extra in the bank — $31,290.

There were 299 full-time town employees on Jan. 1, the budget officer reported, and there are 309 at present. Eight of the 10 positions filled this year were included in the annual budget, and two — a director of public safety and the supervisor’s executive assistant — were added. However, neither Alex Walter, who is working for Mr. Cantwell at a $30,000 annual salary, nor Dave Betts, who was hired as the safety director to replace Patrick Gunn, is availing himself of town-sponsored health insurance.

Mr. Bernard also reported on the town’s overall indebtedness, which he said is expected to continue to decrease through 2017, to about $90.5 million. Of $17 million in bond sales to take place next month, he said, $4.8 million will raise money for new projects initiated by the present administration, while the rest is to restructure debt for previously authorized work.

Also on Tuesday, Ms. Kagel reported on an annual financial report for 2013. The balance in all of the town’s major budgetary funds had increased as of the end of the year, with the exception of the sanitation fund, where surplus was appropriated to cover expenses, and the scavenger waste fund, which began and ended last year with a deficit. That deficit decreased, however.

Ms. Kagel said the town’s “net position” — measured by the value of its assets over its liabilities — improved during 2013, “as cash balances increased and principal debt was decreased.”

A producer for the Showtime series “The Affair,” which filmed in East Hampton Town last fall and again in late May, will have to return to the town board for a second take, as he did not get the full thumbs-up on plans for a late-July shoot.

Town board members concerned about traffic, safety, and the ability of residents and visitors to get around told Andrew Poppoon, an assistant location manager, that they would not approve a daylong shoot at the Montauk train station on July 31, nor would they allow filming of a scene with a car mounted on a trailer to look as if it were driving at the entry to the Lobster Roll restaurant on Napeague.

Board members also grounded the producer’s plans to fly a helicopter 500 feet above residential areas in Montauk to get B-roll shots.

“This is our high season; a lot of residents feel that we are already completely overburdened and that we don’t need to add to that,” said Town Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc. “This is not the time of year to be causing any further hindrance to people’s movements on the roads.”

The board grilled Mr. Poppoon about details but took little issue with certain parts of the Showtime proposal, which includes filming “support footage” from Wednesday through Friday, July 25, with a 20-person crew, and the main shoot from July 28 through 31 at locations including the Deep Hollow Ranch and Inlet Seafood in Montauk and the Art Barge on Napeague.

Only one scene is to be filmed at a house on Marine Boulevard in Amagansett, where a major shoot last fall prompted complaints from numerous residents.

The TV producers have been working with East Hampton Town Police Lt. A.J. McGuire and with members of a committee that vets gathering and film permit requests, which includes Councilman Fred Overton and Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez.

However, Ms. Burke-Gonzelez said Tuesday, that group had reviewed only a portion of the Showtime request.

She said that she was “not comfortable” with the additional Marine Boulevard filming.

Based on a detailed discussion with Lieutenant McGuire and the filmmakers, Mr. Overton said that he would not oppose the use of the train station. Access to it would only be closed off for minutes of the day.

Even if the town were to agree, however, approval would be withdrawn should a looming Metropolitan Transit Authority strike come to pass, as the area would be needed for bus staging. Mr. Overton said the film crew has made “every effort to minimize the impact to the town,” and “to make sure there was very little impact to traffic and our summer visitors.”

“I think it’s a traffic nightmare, and I’m not comfortable agreeing to any part of this permit,” said Councilwoman Sylvia Overby. She asked why the production company could not wait until the fall, when the scenery would look the same but the town would be less crowded. “I feel it impacts a big portion of the community, from Montauk to Amagansett,” she said.

Mr. Poppoon said that the production company must adhere to a schedule imposed by Showtime, and that summertime filming is a must in order to produce the episodes in time. They are due to air this year.

Off season is “a whole other ballgame,” Supervisor Larry Cantwell told the Showtime representative. “This time of year it’s seven days a week of activity that we’re very happy to have, but at the same time, we’re maxed out in terms of safety.”

The Showtime crew has proposed filming from Sept. 8 to 12, in addition to the summertime shoot.

“The later the better,” Mr. Cantwell said.

“The Affair” is a drama that, according to Showtime, explores “the psychological effects of an affair between a married waitress at a Hamptons diner and a teacher who spends the summer at his in-laws’ estate on the island.”

It stars Dominic West and was created by Sarah Treem, whose credits include “House of Cards,” and Hagai Levi, whose credits include the program “In Treatment.” Its pilot was filmed in East Hampton, and scenes from its first season have been filmed in East Hampton Town. Season two of the show, Mr. Poppoon said Tuesday, is set in Manhattan.

The house and studios of the late James Brooks and his wife, Charlotte Park, both artists associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement, were designated as historic landmarks by the East Hampton Town Board last week.

The town purchased the artists’ 11-acre property on Neck Path in Springs last March for $1.1 million, intending to take the buildings down and preserve the parcel as open space, but the efforts of a grassroots group that was formed after neighborhood residents happened upon the site resulted in reconsideration of that plan.

Members of the Brooks Park Heritage Project, organized specifically to preserve the legacy of the two artists and raise money for and oversee future public use of the site, advocated for the landmark designation. It will allow the town to use money from the community preservation fund, which paid for the land purchase, to restore the studios and house.

Helen Harrison, an art historian and director of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center on Accabonac Harbor not far away from the Brooks-Park property, presented a brief history at a town board hearing last Thursday.

Both Mr. Brooks and Ms. Park were “major members of the Abstract Expressionist group,” she said. They had a house and cottage on Fort Pond Bay in Montauk. After the house was washed away by Hurricane Carol in 1954, the couple had the late Jeffrey Potter move the studio to Springs by barge, then trucked it to the Neck Path site.

The old Wainscott post office building was later moved there for Ms. Park’s studio, and Mr. Brooks had a custom-designed studio built.

Scott Wilson, the town’s director of land acquisition, said at last week’s hearing that the town code’s criteria for landmark designation are that buildings or a property possess “special character or historic or aesthetic interest or value as part of the cultural, political, economic, or social history of the town.” They are “identified with historic personages,” embody the “distinguishing characteristics of an architectural style, building type, period or method of construction,” are “the work of an architect, designer or builder of local or regional importance,” or “because of a unique location or singular physical characteristic, represent an established and familiar visual feature” of its neighborhood.

“It has become clear this property and its story” meet all the benchmarks, Mr. Wilson said.

Besides being notable members of a major American art movement, the two “were artists of the Springs,” said Zachary Cohen, a member of the Brooks Park Heritage group.

The site portrays “how they lived and worked, especially their dedication to the environment, and how simply they lived their lives,” he said.

He read from a nature journal kept by Ms. Park where she recorded bird sightings, her observations on visits to various nearby beaches, and other notes. The book was donated after her death to the South Fork Natural History Society.

Jane Martin, a co-chairwoman of the East Hampton Arts Council, voiced the group’s “passionate support” for preserving the house and studios.

“It behooves our community to recognize these historic structures and make them available for the future of our town,” said Ira Barocas, a member of the committee overseeing the use of Duck Creek Farm, another town-owned historic site.

“A significant component of the community preservation fund legislation is that it is also for historic preservation,” said Robert Strada, the executive director of Peconic Historic Preservation, a nonprofit that is taking donations for the Brooks Park Heritage Project.

“There is nothing, really, probably more important in culture that happened in East Hampton than the Abstract Expressionists,” said Job Potter, whose father had moved the cottage for Brooks and Park. And, he said, referring to the group that formed the Brooks Park Heritage Project, now “there is a very strong group of people who are involved in this that I think will succeed in making money.” Though the property was purchased with the preservation fund, and the buildings can be restored using that money, ongoing maintenance or operating costs will have to be covered separately.

In addition to archives or exhibits documenting the lives of the two artists, art exhibits, events, and other public use is anticipated for the site.

Only one speaker at the hearing questioned the landmark designation. Martin Drew, who has often appeared before the board to press for land dedicated to all-terrain vehicle and BMX bike riding, said town officials “seem to be leaning towards exclusive uses and one user group.”

The Surf Lodge, a popular nightlife destination in Montauk, is about to undergo an inventory check, of sorts, from Tom Preiato, East Hampton Town’s chief building inspector, who will be looking for structures there that have never received site plan approval.

He is acting at the behest of the East Hampton Town Planning Board, which received a site plan application on June 25 for a new 500-gallon propane tank, replacing an older model, but in a different location on the property. “It is in place, but not being used,” Richard A. Hammer, Surf Lodge’s attorney, told the board.

The problem, said Eric Schantz of the East Hampton Planning Department, is that several structures on the property — “sheds, platforms, wood benches, an outdoor shower, a Dumpster, etc.” — seem never to have received site plan approval.

Reed Jones, chairman of the planning board, asked Mr. Preiato on July 10 to survey the property. “It appears that additional structures or additions which would require site plan approval and/or a natural resources special permit and/or variances may be present,” he wrote.

Mr. Preiato will now make that determination.

The East Hampton Town Board will hold a public hearing next Thursday at 6:30 p.m. at Town Hall to consider the town’s purchase of the 3.7-acre Gardiner home lot on James Lane, in conjunction with East Hampton Village.

Olney Mairs Gardiner, who is known as Bill, put the property up for sale last fall and has accepted the town’s offer of $9.625 million for the historic property, which the town would buy using money from the Peconic Bay Region Community Preservation Fund. The respective open space plans for both the town and village recommend the property for acquisition.

Claimed by Lion Gardiner in 1648, the Gardiner home lot is adjacent to the South End Cemetery, where many Gardiners are buried, and Town Pond. The parcel contains the historic Gardiner, or Pantigo, Windmill, dating to 1804, and an 18th-century timber-frame mill cottage. Also on the lot are a 2,700-square-foot house built in 1750 and a newer, 3,500-square-foot house.

Earlier this month, the East Hampton Village Board unanimously passed a resolution to request that the town make the purchase. That resolution called the Gardiner home lot one of the most significant historic properties in the village. The windmill was deeded to the village in 1996 and restored. Should the town acquire the property, the mill cottage will be restored and the remainder of the property maintained as an open and agricultural setting.

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.

At a hearing next Thursday night, the East Hampton Town Board will take comments on a change to the town code that would clarify restrictions on the expansion of commercial buildings in limited-business zones.

The zoning district is designed to allow low-intensity uses in places where business areas give way to residential zones. Restrictions on the types of businesses and their size are designed to protect the residential character of the designated areas.

However, when the legislation was updated in 2006 to limit new construction for a limited-business use to a maximum of 2,000 square feet, it did not clearly state that the 2,000-square-foot maximum was to also apply to existing buildings in the limited-business zone, the town board said in a hearing notice. That would have precluded their expansion if they were already at the limit. “This oversight permitted structures in the [limited-business overlay] district to expand with no limitation of size,” the hearing notice says.

The issue came to light during a recent planning board review of an application regarding an East Hampton building.

In addition to clarifying the size restriction, the town board has proposed revising the law to allow for affordable apartments in the zone.

Under the proposed law, a combined maximum of 2,000 square feet of total gross floor area, for all existing structures on a parcel of land in a limited-business zone, could be devoted to a commercial use. Additional space could be used for storage or for an affordable apartment. New construction could not be more than 2,000 square feet.

Also next Thursday, the board will hold a second hearing on the acquisition of the Brooks-Park property in Springs, a site formerly owned by James Brooks and Charlotte Park, who were Abstract Expressionist artists. The property was acquired last spring and recently given town historic landmark status. However, because the original hearing on the land buy described the purchase as being made to preserve open space, a new hearing is being held to revise the objective to include historic preservation. 

Hearings will also be held at next week’s meeting on a number of land buys, all using the community preservation fund. They include the acquisition of a lot just shy of one acre at 54 Fenmarsh Road in Springs owned by Stanley Dalene, for $775,000; 6.3 acres at 577 Lazy Point Road in Amagansett from Dominick D’Alleva, for $805,000; several lots totaling 1.2 acres on South Fairview Avenue in Montauk from Thomas Milne and 70th Street Trading Corporation, for $670,000; a .41-acre lot at 26 South Fairview Avenue, for $145,000, from Maurice Martell and Debra Martell Murray; a .17-acre lot at 23 Flagg Avenue in Montauk from the Eileen Jeanne Karl Revocable Trust, for $270,000; a .92-acre lot at 26 Seaside Avenue, also in Montauk, owned by Thomas Jefferson University, for $350,000; a half-acre at 6 Bowling Green Place in Springs, for $181,500 from Patrick Fallon, Cecelia Pinto, Monica Kortmann, and Lorelle Fallon, and the purchase, for open space, agricultural land preservation, and historic preservation, of 3.7 acres on James Lane in East Hampton Village, which is a portion of the 1648 Lion Gardiner home lot adjacent to the village green, from Olney Mairs Gardiner for $9.6 million.

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

Residents who wish to make a complaint to the town ordinance enforcement department may now do so online, and the complaint will be immediately received electronically by officials and officers on the job, who will call officers on the job via cellphone.

Betsy Bambrick, the head of the department, described the procedure at a town board meeting on Tuesday.

A complainant must provide a valid email address and other information, or the system will not accept the complaint. Once an investigation begins, case files are kept confidential, she said.

Allowing officers to investigate a situation immediately, in “real time,” Ms. Bambrick said, is enormously effective in gathering the evidence needed to take code-breakers to court. In addition to regular hours, officers are on duty during night hours on weekends.

Noise complaints are directed to the Police Department, she said, although a code enforcement officer will respond as well if a complaint involves an overcrowded house or one being illegally rented for short-term stays.

Most of the summonses issued so far this summer, Ms. Bambrick said, have been for “excessive turnover” — renting, for under two weeks, more than three times in a year – rather than for share houses, rentals being shared by more people than allowed.

The online complaint form can be accessed by going to the town website and clicking on the ordinance enforcement department page, or it may be accessed directly by clicking here.

East Hampton Town

Seeking a Truck Law Compromise

A committee comprising homeowners and local contractors who could be affected by proposed limits on the parking of commercial vehicles at one’s house will meet to seek a compromise after both sides spoke passionately at a July 17 hearing on a possible new law.

Homeowners have been complaining to the town board about the proliferation of businesses operating in residential zones, which is largely prohibited, while contractors told the board that the ability to keep at least some of their work equipment or trucks at their residences is key to their economic survival.

Supervisor Larry Cantwell and Councilman Fred Overton will meet with the new group and attempt to broker a consensus.

New York State

State Money Sought for Montauk Beaches

Additional state funding for the Montauk downtown beach rebuilding project, for which the Army Corps of Engineers has proposed spending $6.3 million on dune reconstruction and beach fill, is key for “a project that would substantially increase the level of flood and erosion protection” for the area, Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. wrote in a July 23 letter to the governor.

He requested $3.1 million in state money so that the Army Corps could “create a larger project with a longer life expectancy that would significantly increase the protection of the vulnerable downtown Montauk area.”

State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle also wrote to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and to the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation to ask for supplemental money. “I have great concerns that without an additional contribution from the State of New York, the success of this project will be limited,” Mr. LaValle wrote. The Army Corps’s proposed solution “is going to have limited results,” he said.

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.”