East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell has suggested a countywide ban on disposable plastic shopping bags.

Mr. Cantwell said he had proposed the idea at a recent meeting of the East End Supervisors and Mayors Association. “That is a more comprehensive way to do it,” he said. “I’m hoping that the supervisors are going to support that request to the county.”

The East Hampton Village Board voted in 2011 to outlaw the bags, which are blamed for wildlife deaths, require petroleum to manufacture, and release toxins into soil and waterways as they decompose. Southampton Village prohibited them in 2013.

The East Hampton Town Litter Committee is preparing to launch a lobbying effort in support of a ban, East Hampton Town Trustee Debbie Klughers, a member of the committee, said.

Mr. Cantwell this week also called the quantity of roadside litter “troubling” in East Hampton Town.

The town’s Highway Department, he said, “does a very respectable job. The state and county do a much poorer job of keeping the sides of their roads clean.”

A result of budget cuts to the county roads program and the state’s Department of Transportation, “those efforts are deplorable compared to 20 years ago,” he said. “The burden falls on everyone else.”

On LTV

“Cleaning the Sands of Time,” a film depicting the Feb. 22 beach cleanup organized by Dell Cullum, a nature photographer and wildlife specialist, is airing on LTV. The 28-minute film chronicles the day on which 84 volunteers collected and removed 3,510 pounds of mixed debris from the ocean shoreline from Montauk Point to Georgica Beach in East Hampton Village.

“It’s a really good message,” Mr. Cullum said. “We’re anxious to get it out there so the summer people can see how hard we worked prior to the summer, and give them an idea of what we’re trying to do here and how they can help — by not littering, bringing out what they bring in, picking up after their dogs. The simple things that everybody is neglecting.”

It will be broadcast tonight at 6:30 and 11 more times through July 7. It will appear with Mr. Cullum’s “Imagination Nature,” a program that recently debuted on LTV in which he discusses wildlife and nature. Each episode features “Trash Talk,” a segment in which an individual or group delivers a message about keeping the town free of litter.

“Dell is raising awareness to get people to stop littering,” Mr. Cantwell said. He is also raising the awareness of government to stay on top of garbage removal from receptacles, he said.

Mr. Cantwell “has done a lot for the cause,” Mr. Cullum said. “Even though there’s more to do, if he can do it, he’s going to do it.”

“Every single person is responsible to not litter,” Ms. Klughers said. “It’s so simple: Bring it home with you, find a garbage can.” One of her concerns is road-end dumping, people leaving household garbage in or around receptacles at the roadway endings at public beaches.

“Dell sees the same people every morning. The rest of the residents are paying for their trash removal,” she said.

The town, Mr. Cantwell said, “has got to keep doing a better and better job of providing the facilities and doing all it can to pick up the trash that is left, in some cases left legitimately. Maybe we’re not picking it up as frequently as we should, although this year we’ve increased our schedule of pickups,” he said.

It isn’t usual for the East Hampton Town Planning Board to actually welcome an application for site plan review of commercial construction, but that was the reaction on June 11 when a proposal for a two-story building in the downtown area of Montauk came up. Two other site plan applications also were on the agenda, and in those cases the board called for more narrative.

The Montauk application was submitted by Peter A. Kazura, who plans a two-story building with a single business on the first floor and a two-bedroom affordable apartment on the second. The property is one of five undeveloped  rectangular lots on the north side of South Euclid Avenue. The lots are on one of the last undeveloped commercial blocks in the hamlet. The lot in question is 4,100 square feet. The building would be constructed in Tudor style, something Nancy Keeshan, a member of the board who has a real estate business in downtown Montauk, applauded.

The plan, including the apartment, which would require a special permit, was welcomed by the board, although there was a hitch when they heard a report about the plan for parking from JoAnne Pahwul, assistant town planning director. The problem, she said, is that an adjacent property already has site plan approval with a totally different configuration for parking. She suggested that the sidewalks between the parcels  be better aligned and the parking spaces on the Kazura lot pulled farther back into the right of way. The board agreed that the parking plans needed to be modified before Mr. Kazura’s next go-round in front of the board.The review of East Hampton property at 79 Spring Close Highway, which is the title of the limited liability company that owns it, brought up groundwater questions. Slightly under an acre, the property is the site of Spring Close Antiques and Restorations, which is seeking a 245-square-foot greenhouse, concrete slabs around its workshop, and to add parking. Access is via a long strip of land running parallel to the Long Island Rail Road tracks, with the entrance on Spring Close Highway. The site is unique in being zoned for commercial-industrial use, whereas all the other properties in the area are residential. The owner’s representative, Britton Bistrian, told the board that the workshop had been there over 100 years.

In a memo to the board, Thomas D. Talmage, the town engineer, expressed skepticism about elements of the initial plan. One question was about groundwater, which is apparently only 2.3 feet beneath the surface. This would hamper any effort to put in a septic system, he noted. “I do not find the engineering elements to be satisfactory,” Mr. Talmage wrote.

Ms. Bistrian countered that Mr. Talmage was referring to water trapped between the surface and a thick clay deposit. Pat Schutte, a board member, agreed. Mr. Schutte, a builder, said he had worked on a nearby house. “The first two feet were muck. The next eight feet were real pottery clay. You couldn’t drive a truck on it. It was like ten feet down. When you got through it, it was fine. Sand. But it is fine. It is just trap?ped water.”

Overall, the board expressed a desire to see a narrative on the uses of the site, and one that would address Mr. Talmage’s concerns about parking and other issues as well as groundwater. Diana Weir, a board member, said nearby wetlands needed to be reflagged, and another member, Reed Jones, noted that no additional landscaping would be needed. “It is really tucked away back there.”

The second initial site plan review that night was for a storage shed on land also zoned for commercial industrial use, 14 Plank Road in a water recharge area. The site is home to Paul Consiglio Contracting. According to a memo from Eric Schantz of the East Hampton Town Planning Department, the company wants to legalize an existing 275-square-foot shed on a 6,480-square-foot parcel. In this case, however, surrounding properties are similarly zoned. Nevertheless, Mr. Schantz noted that the applicants had “not stated the nature of the intended use of the storage shed.” The board agreed, asking the owners to produce a narrative that explains the use.

The board also discussed changes to the town code regarding exterior lighting, which have been proposed by the town board. A public hearing on it had been held on June 5, and board members expressed some confusion about why they were being asked to weigh in on the matter after the hearing had been held. In the end, the board agreed to support most of the proposed legislation except a clause that calls for a range of color temperatures. They expressed the belief that 3,000 Kelvins should be the maximum.

The Town of Southampton earned the highest rating possible from Standard and Poor’s Rating Services on Tuesday, when it was upgraded from AA+ to AAA. Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst said the new rating was the result of fiscal discipline at Town Hall over the past four years.

According to a statement from S&P, the rating reflects the agency’s view of the town’s economy, management, budgetary flexibility, liquidity, budgetary performance, debt and contingent liabilities, and institutional framework, which were identified as being “strong” or “very strong.”

The Republican Party’s primary election to determine the candidate who will face the incumbent, Representative Tim Bishop, will take place on June 24. The primary pits Lee Zeldin, a two-term state senator from Shirley, against George Demos, an attorney formerly  with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission who lives in Stony Brook.

Mr. Bishop, who is seeking a seventh term in what is expected to be a closely contested election, does not face a primary challenger.

Mr. Zeldin is a graduate of the State University at Albany and earned a law degree from Albany Law School. He spent four years on active duty with the Army and served in Iraq. At present he serves as a major in the Army Reserves. He is backed by the Republican and Conservative Parties.

Mr. Demos, the grandson of Greek immigrants, served on the team that prosecuted Bernard Madoff, the investment adviser convicted in what is considered to be the largest financial fraud in U.S. history. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Gov. George Pataki have endorsed him.

Both candidates point to the economy as the top issue facing the district. Mr. Zeldin, who ran unsuccessfully against Mr. Bishop in 2008, criticized the congressman for what he called an ineffective effort to obtain funding for Hurricane Sandy recovery. “By the first Memorial Day, Jones Beach had new dunes, new roads, and money was flowing into Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island,” he said in an interview. “Yet the Fire Island to Montauk Point plan is still loaded with projects that haven’t seen a dime. It’s important for our local representative to be our strongest and most effective advocate to get those projects started.”

Mr. Zeldin was also critical of the implementation of the Common Core academic standards, the Affordable Care Act, and the state of veterans’ health care.

Mr. Demos, who is also critical of the Affordable Care Act, has positioned himself as a political outsider not beholden to his party’s establishment. “The defining issues of this campaign are Obamacare and taxes,” he said. “On both issues, Lee Zeldin went to Albany and voted for Obamacare and higher taxes, and I would not have done that.”

Voters, Mr. Demos said, “want someone who’s going to stand up and defend conservative principles regardless of what the establishment says. The problem in Washington is we have too many go-along-to-get-along politicians who take their marching orders from the Republican bosses.”

A hearing in State Supreme Court in Riverhead this week may have been the beginning of the end of an ongoing battle between East Hampton Town and the owners of Cyril’s Fish House, the popular eatery and bar on Napeague, but the case is not over yet. The town is seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent the owners, Michael Dioguardi and Cyril Fitzsimons, from operating a business in any other form than existed in 1984, when it was a small roadside cafe. They, in turn, have brought suit against the town for what they say is malicious prosecution and abuse of process.

Friday’s hearing on the request for a preliminary injunction cuts to the heart of a controversial issue: how to regulate businesses that predate zoning and are grandfathered as legal in areas where they are no longer permitted. Both sides agree that Cyril’s is a business on a site zoned for residences. The dispute is whether it has been expanded, which would be a violation of the zoning code. The owners contend the bar and restaurant was always there in some form, while the town argues the use was expanded in 1990. The owners’ suit is being held in abeyance until the current matter is settled.

The hearing got off to a rocky start when the attorneys for the owners, Dianne K. Le Verrier and Conrad Jordan, were not present at 10 a.m., as scheduled. Mr. Jordan explained he had been involved in two trials in Queens, but Acting Supreme Court Justice Joseph Farneti was clearly unhappy. He scolded Mr. Jordan,  saying that because there was no jury involved, he would have been able to be flexible in handling the case. “You denied me that flexibility by not being here at 10 a.m.,” he said.

 Joseph W. Prokop, representing the town, told the court that he had subpoenaed several witnesses for that morning. Because the hearing did not get underway until after the lunch break, he had time to call only one: William J. Walsh, who surveyed the property several times, beginning in 1984. The other witnesses were to have been a former owner of the site, a representative of the State Liquor Authority, and an aerial photographer. Also present as potential witnesses was Tom Preiato, the town’s chief building inspector, and other officials. 

Mr. Walsh told the court that, according to his survey as well as original notes, there was no exterior bar or awning there in 1984. When asked if there was anything different when he revised the survey in 1990, his answer was, “Yes. The deck and the bar, and a walking ramp to step up to the deck level.” Mr. Jordan’s cross-examination quickly became adversarial. He pressed Mr. Walsh about whether an exterior counter might have been there in 1984. “If there was a counter, it would have been in the survey,” Mr. Walsh answered.

Mr. Jordan then questioned Mr. Walsh about a phone conversation he had with Debra Choron, another attorney with the Le Verrier firm, asking whether Mr. Walsh had expressed concern that he could be legally liable if he had left anything off the original survey. “I returned a phone call. I didn’t expect to be interrogated,” Mr. Walsh responded, saying the call upset him, and he didn’t recall all the details of the conversation.

Justice Farneti told Mr. Walsh that he should not take any of Mr. Jordan’s questions personally, saying it was just part of the process. That process will continue either on Tuesday or July 7, depending on the status of Mr. Jordan’s Queens trials. 

The chairman of the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee easily withstood a challenge when the group re-elected officers on Monday. Of the 21 members who cast ballots, 17 voted for Kieran Brew to remain as chairman, with 4 votes for Rona Klopman, a former chairwoman and vice chairwoman. Michael Diesenhaus and Susan Bratton were unanimously re-elected vice chairman and secretary.

In recent months, certain issues before the committee have proven divisive. The group has argued over “555,” the now defunct proposal for senior citizens housing, legislation concerning chain stores, historic districts, and a ban on alcohol at two of the hamlet’s ocean beaches.

Mr. Brew angered some committee members in December by accusing them of creating hysteria and using scare tactics in opposing the 555 development, which would have required the creation of a new zoning district. At the time, Ms. Klopman criticized Mr. Brew, saying he was “so defiant and angry about something he feels didn’t go his way.”

Before Monday’s vote, Mr. Brew made brief remarks in which he thanked the committee for support. “The job that I see is to make sure that everybody gets a chance to express their opinions. I think I’ve done that pretty fairly. I’ve expressed my own opinions when appropriate, but not at the expense of anybody else’s.” Ms. Klopman, however, decried “hostile reactions to neighbors’ comments” and criticized Mr. Brew for withholding agendas until hours before monthly meetings. A chairman or chairwoman, she said, “remains bipartisan and a moderator. That hasn’t happened for the past two years.” The dialogue must be civil,” she said, “and everybody must be allowed to express opinions without being yelled at.”

When the committee got down to business, it welcomed John Botos of the town’s Natural Resources Department, who spoke on the goal of meeting 100 percent of the town’s electricity consumption with renewable energy sources by 2020 and the equivalent of 100 percent of the energy consumption for heating and transportation as well as electricity with renewable sources by 2030.

“We are approaching a point of no return as far as climate change is concerned,” Mr. Botos said. The town, he said, has taken an important first step in forming the energy sustainability committee, which came up with the goals. Solar “farms” on municipal property, Mr. Botos said, would reduce the need to develop energy using fossil fuels and generate revenue for the town. Town officials are also exploring a charging station for electric vehicles, he said, taking advantage of a funding opportunity that would cover 85 percent of the cost, with the remainder financed by an award the town could receive for implementing a renewable-energy project. “It won’t cost the taxpayer a dime,” he said.

Mr. Botos noted that the town’s renewable-energy goals, adopted on May 20, closely reflect President Obama’s June 2 proposal to cut carbon pollution from power plants 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. “Now it’s a matter of us working together to accomplish these goals,” he said.

East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell, the town board’s liaison to the committee, spoke of Indian Wells Beach, reporting that renovations to the restrooms were complete and the parking lot stripes have been repainted. Additional parking spaces are to be added on the west side of Indian Wells Highway, and new garbage cans will soon be in place as well as new signs, he said.

Mr. Cantwell reminded the group that a public hearing on the proposed ban of alcoholic beverages for a distance of 1,500 feet from the roadway endings during lifeguard-protected hours at Indian Wells and Atlantic Avenue Beaches will be held next Thursday. A hearing on formula-store legislation is scheduled for July 17.

East Hampton Town’s scavenger waste treatment plant, which has been operating since 2012 solely as a transfer station for waste trucked elsewhere to be treated, will be decommissioned and closed for good by the end of November, according to a resolution passed by the town board last Thursday.

The board acted following a February report from Lombardo Associates, a consultant, which said the plant has been operating at a financial loss and that significant improvements would be needed to restore it to full function. Lombardo was hired to review the plant’s status and operations as well as to develop an overall town wastewater management plan.

Discontinuing operation of the transfer station, which is used by only a few of the town’s septic waste carters, will save approximately $50,000 a month, according to the resolution. After absorbing the cost of decommissioning the site and paying off related debt, the town will save more than $800,000 a year, said Supervisor Larry Cantwell. Costs will be reduced by half in the first year, he said, predicting that “this will have a material impact on the town’s finances and budget.”

The supervisor said he had received inquires from several septic companies about taking over the site and operating the transfer station privately. A proposal would be considered, Mr. Cantwell said, as long as the town could still achieve the savings.

The Army Corps of Engineers has agreed to adjust its estimated value of the benefits of rebuilding a stretch of downtown Montauk beach — and thus the potential extent of a beach reconstruction project it will undertake, at federal expense — by half again as much as its original $103.8 million estimate, Aram Terchunian of First Coastal Corporation told the East Hampton Town Board this week.

Additional revisions may be forthcoming, said Mr. Terchunian, based on further analysis.

At the town’s request, Mr. Terchunian undertook an independent review of the factors considered by the Corps in determining the cost-benefit ratio of its projects.

Overall, First Coastal set the value of protecting downtown Montauk from the effects of devastating storms at more than $238 million, but several factors the consultants included are not among the Corps’s relevant components.

On several fronts, Mr. Terchunian said at a meeting on Tuesday, his more in-depth, “boots on the ground” analysis resulted in a higher economic benefit than what the Army Corps tallied, and, after discussions with Corps representatives, he said, the federal agency has agreed.

For instance, Mr. Terchunian said, First Coastal’s inventory of properties — infrastructure and buildings — within the Corps’s identified potential “damage zone” in downtown Montauk, an area extending about 80 feet shoreward along 3,100 feet of coastline, resulted in more square footage and a higher value to the real estate and associated services.

The Corps used information compiled in its examination of the entire 84-mile stretch of coastline from Fire Island to Montauk that it has been considering for beach reconstruction under its decades-long Fire Island to Montauk Point reformulation study, Mr. Terchunian said.

By pointing out some local details, the consultant said, such as higher prices here for the construction materials that would be needed to replace buildings lost in a storm, versus those in Riverhead, the locale on which the Corps based its estimates, Mr. Terchunian was able to convince the agency to make the changes.

However, he said, the Corps will not include in its economic analysis the value of land lost in a storm, or potential income loss — a big factor for owners of seasonal, tourist-based businesses in Montauk that could be threatened by storm damage.

Mr. Terchunian said that discussions with the federal agency are ongoing, and that the goal is to agree to a final economic analysis for submission for Corps review next week, along with recommendations as to what sort of project should be built and how.

“It’s always better for the local entity to be intimately involved in the investigation,” Mr. Terchunian said. “Because local knowledge always trumps what somebody’s doing on 84 miles of shoreline.”

Bureaucratic policies and decision-making procedures limit the area under consideration by the Corps to the downtown beach, he said, in answer to a question about including the Ditch Plain area in a beach-rebuilding project.

However, he advised the board that it would be a good idea to have an economic benefit analysis ready to submit for the Corps’s review when the Ditch area is considered under a broader authorization for non-emergency beach repair. The town already has an excellent engineering study of the flood-prone area, done years ago, the consultant said.

While some suggested that it is only logical to look at the Montauk shoreline in its entirety when developing a beach protection and reconstruction plan, Mr. Terchunian said that the Corps is constrained by its myriad regulations.

The agency “wants to do the right thing,” he said, “but they are so hemmed in by their process that they have zero flexibility.”

A hearing last week on revisions to East Hampton Town’s 2006 “smart-lighting” law, designed to reduce nighttime sky glare, centered on the Kelvin level of outdoor lighting, a measure of the light color spectrum of a particular bulb.

Blue light, speakers agreed, creates more glare, interrupts night vision, and is less desirable. Speakers disagreed, however, on where the line should be drawn: a provision in the legislation sets a “goal” of lights at no more than 3,000 Kelvin, but would allow the planning board to approve Kelvin levels up to 3,500.

“The East End of Long Island is one of the last places where the Milky Way is visible in the northeast corridor, and it is worth preserving,” said Susan Harder of Springs, a lighting consultant, dark-sky advocate, and the New York section leader of the International Dark Sky Association.

Allowing more blue light into the atmosphere, she said, would “erode our view of the night sky” by creating “more glare, more skyglow, and adaptation problems at night.”

Ms. Harder, who submitted a detailed memo to the board, said the primary problem with the blue light produced at higher Kelvin levels is the impairment of night vision and increased glare.

Blue wavelengths entering the eye may not only hasten age-related macular degeneration, according to Ms. Harder’s memo, but also reduce melatonin levels in the body, which are tied to healing processes.

Ms. Harder pointed out that the lighting engineer consulted by the town in drafting the 2006 code had recommended prohibiting outdoor light sources rated more than 3,000 Kelvin. The difference between the 3,000 and 3,500 rating is “significant,” she said. Most outdoor lighting in the town, she said, falls between 2,000 and 2,800 Kelvin.

Margaret Turner, executive director of the East Hampton Business Alliance, argued that levels of blue light are not an issue until they reach the 4,000 Kelvin range. She submitted information sheets created by lighting industry experts, making that assertion.

Lights at higher Kelvin levels are more energy-efficient, she said, and that should be a consideration, given the town’s recently adopted goal of achieving 100-percent renewable energy use.

Ms. Turner was a member of a committee appointed by former Town Councilwoman Theresa Quigley that met for two years to rework the lighting law based on the concerns of business owners and others who felt the regulations were difficult to understand and comply with. The current proposal, which Councilwoman Sylvia Overby worked with town staff to develop, hews close to the original law but seeks to incorporate the committee’s suggestions and address the issues raised.

“We wanted a new law, which we didn’t get,” Ms. Turner said. “We wanted the same law for businesses and homeowners, which we didn’t get. We wanted a grandfathering clause, which we didn’t get.” The committee’s proposal would have allowed businesses, in some cases, to continue to use lights that did not comply with the smart-lighting law.

“Nine years of a grace period is enough,” Jim MacMillan of Amagansett told the board.

 “We’ve got to protect it; it’s so unique,” said Alexander Peters of Amagansett, speaking of the night sky view.

“I’m here to support the notion of dark skies,” said Janet Van Sickle. Night lighting can have a negative impact on migrating and resident birds, she said, and “Blue light is very unpleasant.” It is hard to regain night vision after encountering blue light, she argued.

Dava Sobel, a Springs resident and science writer whose books include “Galileo’s Daughter” and “The Planets,” said she had come to the meeting expecting to feel like the “lunatic fringe” while speaking against excessive night lighting and skyglow. She said she was happy to hear so many people address the importance of “our great natural resource of the night sky.

Ms. Harder submitted a packet containing fact sheets and research paper abstracts. She also submitted a letter to the board from Leo Smith, the International Dark Sky Association’s Northeast regional director, who recommended a 3,000 Kelvin limit. Increasing the rating to 3,500 Kelvin, he said, “would open the door to problems associated with increased glare, skyglow, misuse of energy, and unintended consequences to human health and the environment.”

Also submitted to the board was a letter from the Montauk Observatory board of directors, which echoed that recommendation. The East End, wrote Terry Bienstock, president of the board, has “a unique resource within the Eastern Seaboard, a view of the night sky relatively free of ‘light pollution.’”  East Hampton’s 2006 code, he wrote, set an example that was followed by other Long Island towns.

“Every single town in Suffolk County — there are 10 of them — and now Suffolk County, is adopting 3,000 Kelvin,” said Debra Foster, a former town councilwoman who was on the board when the 2006 smart lighting law was adopted.

Allowing the planning board the discretion to permit variances from lighting standards could be a “slippery slope,” she warned, noting that grant­ing variances is normally the job of the zoning board of appeals. 

Others also said that the language allowing lights of more than 3,000 Kelvin should be removed from the law before its adoption. “There is a substantial difference between 3,000 and 3,500 Kelvin,” said John Broderick of Amagansett, a lighting and production designer for large musical acts.

Ms. Harder recommended that the board establish a lighting advisory committee with members qualified and experienced in dark sky lighting technology. Public education and information on how to choose appropriate light fixtures is key, she said. “I think we should acknowledge that a standard has been set in our region.”

“I don’t think anyone has made a compelling case that we need to exceed that standard,” said Jeremy Samuelson, executive director of Concerned Citizens of Montauk. He called the proposal under discussion “a compromise,” but said that the Kelvin limit should be adjusted to the lower limit.

 Ed Geus agreed, telling the board that the town should not allow light levels, as measured in Kelvin, more than what the county allows.

“Blue lighting,” Stuart Vorpahl said, “is first cousin to the light of welding arc . . . totally contrary to how our eyes, over eons and eons, evolved. Because they were developed to the orange light of a wood fire.”

The town board took no action on the proposed law following the hearing.

East Hampton Town

Hearing on Beach Drinking

The East Hampton Town Board will hold a hearing next Thursday on a law that would ban drinking at Indian Wells and Atlantic Avenue Beaches in Amagansett during the hours that lifeguards are on duty, on the beach within 1,500 feet of the road endings.

The town trustees, who own the ocean beaches in the town, outside of Montauk, on behalf of the public, have opposed enacting the ban at both beaches, saying it is needed at Indian Wells only, and had suggested limiting the ban to weekends and holidays, within a smaller swath of beach. In response, town board members whittled the affected beach area from 2,500 feet on either side of the road end to the 1,500-foot boundary, after holding a hearing in April on the original proposal.

The proposed new law is in response to a growing number of complaints about summertime drinking, crowds, and behavior at Indian Wells Beach. Changes have been made to the configuration of the beach parking lot entry in order to address some of the safety and crowding issues. The hearing will begin at 6:30 p.m. at Town Hall.

Three C.P.F. Purchases a Go

Several property purchases using the community preservation fund were approved by the East Hampton Town Board after hearings were held last Thursday.

The town will buy 2.9 acres at 85 Bull Path in East Hampton from John Conran for $1.1 million, 3.6 acres on Fentwood Road in Montauk from Celia and Costas Paleologos for $870,000, and 7.2 acres of land at La Foret Lane and Stony Hill Road in Amagansett from Sasfox Associates for $3.6 million.

The latter purchase drew some criticism from one speaker at the hearing, David Buda, who said that it was incorrectly described as contiguous to other preserved lands and that as part of a residential subdivision it would primarily benefit the adjacent homeowners, including Alexander Peters, the seller.

Jeremy Samuelson of the Concerned Citizens of Montauk supported the purchase, on behalf of his organization and the Group for the East End, calling the woodland above a drinking water aquifer “a critical resource for our community,” and the aquifer protection a “pressing environmental issue.”