Inclement weather has forced two postponements of Shoreline Sweep 2014, but the beach cleanup has been rescheduled for Saturday at 9 a.m. Volunteers will meet at five locations between East Hampton and Montauk Point. Bags and gloves will be provided.

      Those interested in participating can sign up at the website of its principal organizer, Dell Cullum, at imaginationnature.com.

      A get-together at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church’s Hoie Hall in East Hampton will follow and feature live music by Job Potter and friends, donated food, and a presentation from representatives of the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation about the marine animals found in local waters and on local beache

       A three-year capital project plan being considered by the East Hampton Town Board includes close to 100 projects for which the town would issue $12 million in bonds.

       It would allow the town to take care of overdue repairs and improvements while keeping annual debt service payments level, at the $15 million range, Len Bernard, the town budget officer, said at a town board meeting on Tuesday.

       Meanwhile, the town’s overall indebtedness will decrease over the next few years from $116 million to $92 million, due to debt being retired. A plan to restructure some existing debt will save the town $300,000 a year beginning next year.

       “Over time, there are infrastructure investments that we really need to make here,” Supervisor Larry Cantwell said. “We’ve got roofs leaking, we’ve got lights out. . . .”

       The proposed capital budget includes $2 million to rebuild the old town hall building, beginning next year, $75,000 to rebuild the roof at the Fort Pond House in Montauk, and close to $375,000 for refurbishing the East Hampton Town Senior Citizens Center in East Hampton and repaving its parking lot.

       According to the proposal, more than $500,000 would be spent at the Terry King park on Abraham’s Path in Amagansett to replace the tennis courts and nonfunctional lighting at the ball field and for repairs to the basketball courts.

       Playing fields at the Terry King and Stephen Hand’s Path facilities in East Hampton and at Lions Field and Camp Hero in Montauk would be repaired for $100,000, and goal posts would be replaced at Stephen Hand’s Path for $80,000. Tennis courts in Springs would be refurbished for $25,000.

       Over the next two years, $50,000 would be spent to replace public garbage cans in Amagansett, and $30,000 for garbage cans in Montauk. Two new buses for transporting senior citizens would be purchased, for $130,000. A $225,000 budget item would cover the digitization of town records, and $60,000 would be borrowed to install a vault for records at Town Hall.

       Doors at town buildings, such as the Montauk Playhouse Community Center, Town Hall, and the Y.M.C.A.-East Hampton RECenter, would be made handicapped-accessible in compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act, at a cost of $30,000, and $85,000 would be budgeted over the three-year period for other projects to make town properties A.D.A.-compliant.

       Repairs would be made to the pier at Navy Road in Montauk, to a number of town buildings, such as the Parsons Blacksmith Shop in Springs and the home base of the Aquaculture Department, and equipment would be purchased for lifeguards and buildings and grounds personnel.

       The proposed capital budget also includes a total of $2.8 million for police vehicles and equipment, and $2.5 million for Highway Department projects, including $300,000 to augment the department’s road reconstruction budget, and $225,000 over the next three years for sidewalk reconstruction. The capital plan also calls for the replacement of several trucks, and the purchase of a new street sweeper.

       Capital projects had been put aside during the previous administration under Supervisor Bill Wilkinson, even after a complicated tangle of financial accounting, a legacy of the prior administration’s mismanagement, was sorted out.

       The 2014 to 2016 capital plan, Mr. Bernard said, is “pretty conservative, but it does get a lot done. There are a lot of projects that need to be done, that are overdue.”

       It does not include capital improvements at the East Hampton Town Airport, which fall under a separate airport plan adopted by the town board late last year.

       Town board members will review the capital plan and discuss it at an upcoming board meeting before voting on its adoption.

       Mr. Cantwell said Tuesday that each individual project, and the bonds to be issued to pay for it, will be discussed separately by the board and voted on before getting under way.

       For the second time in about a year, the owners of a house on Gardiner’s Bay in Amagansett have asked the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals to allow them to demolish it and build a larger one. And, for the second time, the Planning Department has taken a vociferous stance against their proposal. At issue are distances from the wetlands on the property and from the dune crest.

       Carol Sedwick, a retired television director, and Michael Patrick, a New York attorney, own the slightly over 2,000-square-foot house on about an acre at 295 Cranberry Hole Road. They hope to build a 3,100-square-foot, two-story house with decking on both floors. The decking would be between 31 and 27 feet from wetlands when 100 feet is required, and the house and decking would be 85 feet and 72 feet from the dune crest where 100 feet is required. Variances would also be needed for the septic system and the amount of clearing.

       During a public hearing on Feb. 4, William Leeds, the couple’s architect, told the board that the house, built in the late 1980s, had “outlived its usefulness. It does not respond to this site,” he said. “The plan used was a plan that could be purchased from the back of a magazine.” He added that the existing brick chimney was decrepit, because “it was not set up for the kind of winds” it is subjected to on a regular basis, and that the house would have to be raised in order to meet Federal Emergency Management Administration regulations.

       He had made these points previously, on Jan. 29, 2013. Opposing the application at that time was David Rattray, the editor of The Star, whose house  is separated from the parcel in question by a wetlands lot owned by the Peconic Land Trust. He had expressed concern about ongoing dune erosion.

       Brian Frank, the Planning Department’s chief environmental analyst, called the wetlands there significant, much as he had last year. Explaining the Planning Department’s adamant opposition to the application, Mr. Frank said the property has “significant volumes of standing water year round. I have never seen it dry. You have one of the highest diversity of species. This network of wetlands is sweet,” he said. “I have seen waterfowl, raptors, wading birds, marsh hawks, northern harriers, spotted turtles, snakes.”

       Mr. Patrick and Ms. Sedwick were represented by a team headed by Laurie Wiltshire of Land Planning Services, and Rick Whalen, their attorney. Ms. Wiltshire and Mr. Frank argued about whether the house had been built within 25 feet of the wetlands, in keeping with a variance granted when it was constructed, or 30 feet, which Ms. Wiltshire said was the case, with five feet remaining.

       Mr. Whalen challenged Mr. Frank about the effect granting the variances would have on the wetlands. “Brian Frank spoke 35 minutes and did not give you one factual reason how this project would upset the wetlands. No evidence,” he said.

       The board has until April 7 to make its decision. However, since the first hearing on the application, two new members have joined the board. David Lys replaced Sharon McCobb last year, and Cate Rogers replaced Lee White this year. Both former members had voted against the application. It now appears that Mr. Lys and Ms. Rogers may control the decision.

       East Hampton Town’s 30-year-old scavenger waste plant, offline since 2012, is of little value to the town, according to a report by Lombardo Associates, consulting engineers who have completed an in-depth evaluation of the facility and its operations.

       Because of aging equipment that could no longer be operated without substantial repair, the plant on Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton has functioned over the past two years solely as a transfer station, where local septic waste pumping companies can transfer collected waste into holding tanks rather than driving it to facilities in Riverhead or West Babylon for processing.

       Closing the transfer station, Pio Lombardo of Lombardo Associates told the East Hampton Town Board on Tuesday, could save the town $40,000 to $50,000 a month.

       Local carters, he said, could bring the waste they have collected to the other sites, which have ample capacity. Even factoring in transportation costs, because the other facilities charge less per gallon to dump, the cost to the carters would remain the same, Mr. Lombardo said. Because East Hampton can only accept up to 10,000 gallons a day, many are already heading upIsland, he said.

       East Hampton’s facility is “not really competitive in the marketplace,” he said, and would need an annual subsidy of about $500,000 in town tax dollars to become so and continue to be used by carters.

       In 2012, the cost to run the transfer station, he said, was 34 cents per gallon of waste dealt with, while the income was 16 cents per gallon. “So you can see there’s a huge loss,” Mr. Lombardo told the board. “As a transfer station, there’s just no way that that could be financially sustaining.”

       Should the town wish to keep the transfer station open, he said, $18,000 a month could be saved by making simple changes and eliminating wasteful practices. For instance, he said, scavenger waste and groundwater testing has continued, at a cost of $4,000 a month, although it is no longer required by the State Department of Environmental Conservation because waste treatment at the plant was suspended.

       By reducing operations at the transfer site to four hours a day, Mr. Lombardo said, the town could save $8,000 a month.

       But, Mr. Lombardo told the town board, “We frankly see no value in the facility being operational at all. There’s no compelling financial reason to do anything with an East Hampton scavenger waste facility.” 

       Rebuilding the treatment plant, Mr. Lombardo said, could cost more than $5 million initially, with annual operating and maintenance costs another $1 million or more. Emerging technologies could provide more “green” options for the future, he said.

       The location of the wastewater plant is also a concern. “That site is a very sensitive environmental location,” Mr. Lombardo said, atop a groundwater divide. “Anything discharged goes directly, vertically into groundwater, and remains there for decades,” he said. “So any contamination in that area tends to stay in the water for a long time.” The site also includes the former town dump, now a recycling center, where water contamination has taken place. Monitoring wells surrounding the wastewater plant have shown little contamination, Mr. Lombardo said.

       The consultants looked at other possible sites for an East Hampton treatment plant, Mr. Lombardo said, but could find no viable alternatives.

       To ensure that waste from East Hampton would continue to be accepted at the other plants, the town could enter into an agreement with them to “buy capacity,” paying for the ability to dispose of a certain amount of waste.

       An analysis of the wastes being disposed of at the transfer station, Mr. Lombardo said, revealed that the majority, about 67 percent, hails from failing septic systems that must be pumped out regularly and “not from routine maintenance.”

       Mr. Lombardo suggested that the money the town could save by closing the plant could be put to better use. “Our recommendation is those funds could and should be used for wastewater management improvements and water quality improvements. We think that the investment to improve or repair the malfunctioning [septic] systems is going to have a good economic payback,” he said, along with a positive environmental effect.

       Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said that a $50,000 a month cutback in spending on the transfer station would accrue to $6 million in savings over 10 years, savings that could be used in the “broader context” to “confront this problem of this creeping degradation of surface water quality.”

       The board will have to carefully review and discuss Mr. Lombardo’s report, he said, and decide how to proceed.

       The town is “where we are today,” Mr. Cantwell said, because decisions on the scavenger waste plant were delayed. “As a result of that, that operation down there has become very inefficient and very wasteful.”

       “If there were savings, those savings should be reinvested,” Mr. Cantwell said, into, for example, a program to address failing septic systems in sensitive areas near water bodies.

       “This is a wonderful opportunity to redirect funding,” Mr. Lombardo said, from a “black hole” providing little benefit to the town.

       After the town board determines a proposed path to take, Mr. Cantwell suggested, a meeting should be held to solicit public opinion on the ideas.

       The Lombardo Associates report is one portion of a comprehensive wastewater management plan being developed for the town. It will include recommendations not only for scavenger waste management, but also for water quality protection and monitoring. Information and documents related to the project, including a full report on the scavenger waste plant, are posted online at ehwaterrestore.com.

       State and local officials expressed cautious optimism this week about the chances of PSEG Long Island’s changing its mind about its installation of super-size utility poles and high-tension wires in East Hampton Village and Town. Homeowners have objected strongly to the tall poles and wires being put in aboveground, close to their houses.

       To accommodate new, higher-voltage transmission lines designed to guard against widespread outages and impacts from severe storms, PSEG has been installing the poles and wires, at a breakneck pace in the face of controversy, along a six-mile route from a substation at Cove Hollow Road in East Hampton, along narrow village streets, up Accabonac Road to Town Lane, and down Old Stone Highway in Amagansett to another substation.

       At the behest of members of a hastily formed group, Save East Hampton: Safe Responsible Energy, both Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell and Village Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. have written to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, asking him to get involved. Besides aesthetic concerns, residents have raised fears of poles falling in a storm, and about the health effects of both the high-voltage wires and the chemicals used to treat the utility poles.

       State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., who, with State Senator Kenneth J. LaValle, was to discuss the issue yesterday morning with the head of the state Public Service Commission, said Tuesday that the governor’s announcement last week that $730 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds that has been earmarked for improvements to Long Island’s power grid as a hedge against damage from storms, could be a “key part” of a satisfactory solution.

       Homeowners have demanded that the power lines be buried, along an alternate route such as along the railroad line. Mr. Cantwell and Mr. Rickenbach, with a group of concerned residents, are to discuss such options at a meeting in East Hampton next week with PSEG officials.

       Burying the power lines “clearly qualifies,” Mr. Thiele said, as a project eligible for funding with the federal money for energy-grid upgrades. But, he warned, “the fact that construction has started limits options to some degree.”

       In addition to $705 million already promised for post-Sandy utility repairs, the new money brings to $1.4 billion the recovery funding for work designed to prevent future widespread electrical outages. FEMA will provide 90 percent of the money; the remainder will come from federal Department of Housing and Urban Development community development block grants.

       “I think we have the attention of the P.S.C. and of the governor,” said Mr. Thiele.

       The governor’s office, Mr. Cantwell said, has acknowledged receipt of his letter. “To a large extent, the decision is going to be made by the governor’s office,” said the supervisor.

        Based on his discussions with PSEG representatives, Mr. Thiele said that “it comes down to money.” The utility, he said, “wouldn’t mind” burying the lines, but does not believe its entire customer base — all or most of Long Island — should foot the bill.

       The cost of the new lines, as presently being installed above-ground, is $7 million, Mr. Thiele said, while the estimated cost of burying the lines is between $20 million and $24 million.

       The assemblyman pointed out that when the Long Island Power Authority, which handed over control of the electric grid to PSEG on Jan. 1, proposed a similar project some years ago in Southampton, it offered to bear the cost of burying at least some of the lines. Residents took on some of the cost. This time around, he said, neither the town nor the village was presented with that option. 

       One solution, Mr. Thiele suggested, could be to pay for a third of the underground wire costs from the federal storm-mitigation funds, to charge all PSEG Long Island ratepayers for another third, and to raise the rest of the cost through a surcharge on ratepayers in the affected areas.

       Concerned residents spoke at both a meeting of the town board last Thursday night and a village board meeting the next morning, sometimes emotionally. “It’s a travesty,“ Wendy Gehring of McGuirk Street said last Thursday. “We have not slept in three weeks,” said Lynne Brown, also a McGuirk Street resident. McGuirk Street homeowners have spearheaded the bury-the-poles effort.

       Even residents of areas away from the transmission line route should concern themselves with the project, David Buda of Springs said at last week’s town board meeting. “Everyone, even if these poles aren’t on your street, should speak up,” he said. “It’s going to radically change the look and feel of our community.”

       Debra Foster, a former town board and planning board member, said that “this project is the ugliest, most intrusive, stupid project that has ever marked this town — since 1648.” It goes “through the heart of the village,” she said, cutting through a “premier resort community” and past land that “the townspeople taxed themselves to preserve,” as well as “a recreational facility and a house that’s on the National Register of Historic Places.”

       “What the hell happened?” she asked. “I haven’t spent 40 years to see this sliced through the heart of this community. This is an abomination.” She branded the stop-PSEG drive “a David-and-Goliath undertaking.”

       “I can’t believe whoever the gatekeepers are in our government let this happen,” Ms. Brown said. Her husband, Michael Brown, said his involvement has only led him to “more questions” and “more frustration . . . that it slipped by two municipalities.”

       Ms. Foster gave an account of a meeting that took place last fall at Town Hall with then-Supervisor Bill Wilkinson, Highway Superintendent Steve Lynch, and Len Bernard, the town budget officer, in attendance. It ended with Mr. Lynch issuing PSEG the road-opening permit it needed to begin the transmission line work.

       The project was reportedly presented by LIPA representatives as largely an “in-place, in-kind” replacement. However, an environmental assessment provided to both the town and the village provided more details.

       Mayor Rickenbach said yesterday that when LIPA originally got in touch about the project, “I felt there should be a total degree of transparency.” He asked the utility to present the details at an ad hoc public meeting, to be attended by the village board, which was held in early September.

       The plan was presented in detail at that time, he said, and “no major concerns” were raised by those in attendance. Mr. Rickenbach said he did ask LIPA about placing the lines underground, but was told it would be more disruptive than installing the new, taller poles, as well as cost-prohibitive.

       Environmental assessment documents prepared by LIPA, as required under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, were available at that point, the mayor said, “but nobody really questioned . . . wanted to see them at that point.” And, he said, “I did not see any communique from LIPA that said the clock was ticking,” as far as a period in which the town or village could raise questions. That period has now passed.

       Assemblyman Thiele has been collecting all the legal and procedural documentation on the project and the process the utility followed.        

       “It certainly would be inaccurate to say that the village and the town didn’t have some information on this,” he said.  But, he added, “I have serious questions” about whether the municipalities were given the full picture.

       “We’re just kind of growing impatient because of the feverish pace” at which the PSEG poles and lines are being erected, Mr. Brown said Monday. Trucks from the utility were working their way up Accabonac Road

       The owners of a run-down house on Abraham's Path near Three Mile Harbor agreed today to demolish the structure, which East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell called "a blight on the community," after the owners were served a notice earlier this week that they were in violation of a conditional discharge they had agreed to last September in East Hampton Justice Court.

       "They came in today and picked up the demolition permit," Colleen Reynolds, a secretary to Mr. Cantwell, said Friday afternoon. The exact timeline for the demolition was not clear, but it will be soon.

       As part of a settlement between the town and the property owners, the house, at 29 Abraham's Path, was supposed to have been torn down last October. The property is owned by May Six, a limited liability company. The owners had agreed to pay a $1,000 fine after pleading guilty to two counts of violating New York State property maintenance regulations, with the stipulation that the house be torn down by Oct. 10, 2013.

    In a press release issued Friday morning, Mr. Cantwell described the house as "abandoned" and "ramshackle."

       Mr. Cantwell has promised stepped up enforcement of so-called quality of life issues, under which this matter falls. Earlier this month, the town charged Sydney S. Griffin, the owner of a house on Northwest Landing Road in East Hampton's Northwest Woods, with 29 violations for allegedly having multiple units in a single family house, in violation of the town zoning code.

       The 75-year-old Mr. Griffin was due back in court Monday, but was said to have been hospitalized, forcing a postponement of the court proceedings.

       The East Hampton Town Trustees commenced their first meeting of 2014 on Tuesday night with a swearing-in ceremony and the introduction of the board’s two new members.

       Carole Brennan, the town clerk, presided over the swearing in of the board, which now includes Brian Byrnes and Bill Taylor. John Courtney, the trustees’ attorney, then led a call for nominations for clerk and assistant clerk. The board nominated and unanimously voted for Diane McNally and Stephanie Forsberg to remain in their respective roles.

       Kimberly Barbour, a habitat restoration outreach specialist with the Cornell Cooperative Extension Marine Program in Southold, proposed a marine meadows program in which her group would collaborate with the trustees. The community-based eelgrass restoration program founded in 2011 would take advantage of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Hurricane Sandy Coastal Resiliency Grant.

       Eelgrass shoots prepared by Marine Meadows volunteers over the past two years, and now supplemented by dune and marsh grass, would be planted in areas needing revegetation. Ms. Barbour told the trustees that she is going to all East End towns in search of such sites. “We could supply our own stock and hopefully help out communities,” she said.

       Ms. Barbour asked the trustees for a letter supporting the program. “We would hope that it would be a joint project,” she said, “that some of you would be out helping us or recruiting local groups.”

       Deborah Klughers, a trustee, said that she would like to see the town’s scallop sanctuaries, in Three Mile Harbor and Napeague Harbor, replanted with eelgrass. She and her colleagues also discussed revegetation efforts at Gerard Drive and Louse Point in Springs, and at Lazy Point.

       The trustees voted unanimously to write a letter in support of the program.

       Debate of the board’s annual resolutions, some of which set fees for mooring and other use of waters and bottomlands under trustees’ jurisdiction, dominated the meeting, as did a continuation of the discussion at Friday’s East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals hearing on the Maidstone Club’s proposed irrigation expansion project.

       Ms. Klughers and Timothy Bock had addressed that board on behalf of the trustees to voice their concerns about the project’s potential impact on Hook Pond. (A separate article on that hearing appears elsewhere in this issue.) The board decided to submit its concerns in writing to the Z.B.A. during the 10-day period for public comment, which ends on Monday.

       With a new year and a primary concern — the proposed 555 Amagansett senior citizens housing development — seemingly behind them, members of the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee spent the first meeting of 2014 briefing their new liaison to the East Hampton Town Board, Supervisor Larry Cantwell.

       Mr. Cantwell, an Amagansett native, has succeeded Sylvia Overby, who moved to East Hampton’s citizens committee. With a lighter attendance than at the last several meetings, the committee’s chairman and members brought Mr. Cantwell up to date on their hopes and concerns.

       Mr. Cantwell recounted his roots in the hamlet and demonstrated his familiarity with many of the committee’s concerns. “It’s important to hear directly from you,” he told the gathering, “to be part of the conversation to get things done.”

       Issues of concern to the committee are primarily of the quality-of-life variety, and topics raised included crowds and drinking at Indian Wells Beach, share houses, litter, taxi legislation, and the code enforcement that residents would like to see applied to each.

       Mr. Cantwell noted “some progress and improvements” made at the popular beach last year, where a manned booth at the parking lot’s entrance restricted vehicle access. “I have some of my own ideas that may be helpful,” he said, adding that he has asked his planning staff to gather surveys and aerial depictions to “see if physical adjustments can be made to improve circulation and parking.” There are limits to actions the town can take, he said, but it is “something we should try to look at before summer.”

       Mr. Cantwell, who served as the East Hampton Village administrator for 31 years until his retirement last summer, said he is “very concerned about the size of crowds and drinking behavior” at Indian Wells Beach and, echoing discussion at previous committee meetings, proposed “a discussion about whether or not alcohol should be consumed at a public beach within a certain distance of lifeguarded areas, for example. Such a proposal would have to be looked at on a townwide basis.”

       On village beaches, he said, “We banned consumption quite a few years ago.” He said that he was not suggesting the town enact such a ban, “but that did become an effective way to control under-age drinking, for example, and other activities that were interfering with other people’s peaceful enjoyment of a public beach.”

       Share house overcrowding “is definitely high on our list,” Kieran Brew, the committee’s chairman, told Mr. Cantwell. Members and guests alike, he said, have reported frequent disturbance from all-night parties with their attendant noise and traffic. “We feel like code enforcement isn’t necessarily aligned with violations in terms of time — being out there when violations happen,” Mr. Brew said. Share houses, he said, “seem to be one of the hot-button problems, something we’d really like to see some resolution on.”

       Code enforcement, Mr. Cantwell said, is “a difficult area,” and involves addressing issues of concern to the community, the presence of enforcement officers at the time of a violation, prosecution in court, and “judges willing to step up to the plate and do it.” The town’s Ordinance Enforcement Department, he said, “is essentially five people. Think about what’s going on here 24 hours a day, especially in summer. It’s difficult to conceive those five people are going to be able to control everything.”

       John Broderick of the committee told Mr. Cantwell that he felt the taxi legislation enacted last year was a positive step. “But it’s an evolution. . . . Obviously, a problem is happening if we had to have legislation.” Mr. Broderick, who lives on Oak Lane, complained about taxis speeding on his street as they bypass Route 27 on the way to East Hampton Village. “I’ve seen UpIsland [taxi drivers] sleeping in their cars at the train station,” he added.

       Mr. Cantwell said the town board is looking at existing legislation pertaining to taxis, as well as to noise and mass assembly. “Each board member agreed to accept responsibility to work with town attorneys and citizens groups to see if any improvements can be made in those laws,” he said. “One is the taxi law.”

       Mr. Cantwell raised the committee’s perennial issue of the lack of a public restroom in the hamlet’s commercial district, pledging to help resolve it. “I saw the results in the Village of East Hampton when we built a restroom in Herrick Park,” he said. “It was very well received by all businesses and merchants. It’s what you have to have in a business center like here.”

       A proposal to build a restroom in the parking lot on the north side of Main Street would displace six or seven parking spaces, Mr. Cantwell said. With parking also in short supply, he asked, “Does that make sense?”

       He also recalled the possibility of a public restroom being constructed on Amagansett Square, which Randy Lerner, that property’s owner, had proposed, pledging to absorb a majority of its cost. Would that satisfy the committee? “We need a public bathroom,” said Mr. Brew. “If the private business owner wants to put one there, that’s a phenomenal add-on, but if you talk to the business owners on this side, and the people at the library, they’ve had it,” he said, referring to the crowds, particularly in the summer. The consequent loss of parking spaces, Mr. Brew said, “was the biggest issue. We’re well short of what town studies have found would be adequate. It’s a tradeoff. We would rather not trade off.”

       Britton Bistrian, a member of the committee and a land-use consultant — Mr. Lerner is a client — told the gathering that “the private bathroom, hopefully, will be something you will see in very near future.” However, she said, the hamlet has another big issue that may not be apparent on the surface, affordable housing. “We cannot put more apartments above stores in Amagansett . . . until you put in a public sewer. If we’re looking at a public bathroom, we should have comprehensive wastewater treatment in Amagansett.”

       “We need a point person, a ‘toilet czar,’ ” Mr. Broderick said. “Somebody that is the focal point of this discussion.”

       “The town is doing a comprehensive wastewater treatment study,” Mr. Cantwell said. “You could wade through that process to see whether or not some treatment system would apply and be desirable in Amagansett. All these things delay the process of building a bathroom.” He pledged to look into the matter, to “see what’s on file as to what’s been done to this point.”

       With respect to parking, Tom Field of the committee wondered aloud if long-term parking, presently permitted in the northerly rows of the parking lot, should be prohibited. “I think people are parking for weeks and weeks,” he said. “Why is that car not at home?”

       Strict regulation in East Hampton Village, Mr. Cantwell said, “is a very effective way to turn over parking spaces. But there are consequences to that: It applies to everybody. There are merchants, their employees. Where are they going to park? You could eliminate overnight parking or parking for longer terms. You could put a ban on parking for more than 24 hours or 7 days. Then it becomes an enforcement issue.” He pledged to “get a better picture of what the obstacles are. I’ve got to see the lay of the land before I can focus on what is a good alternative,” he said.

       As for the proposed 555 development, which was at least temporarily derailed last month when the Suffolk County Planning Commission announced its opposition to the required zone change, Mr. Cantwell spoke in general terms about future opportunities for the 24-acre site, including an affordable housing overlay district and “keeping local working families in town.” Or, he said, “that vast open space is something we should try to protect to the extent we can.”

       Suffolk County Legislator Jay Schneiderman of Montauk received a plum assignment in this, his sixth and final term in office, when he was elected deputy presiding officer on Jan. 2. Legislator DuWayne Gregory, a Democrat from Amityville and the legislature’s majority leader, was elected presiding officer.

       Mr. Gregory is the first African-American to assume the legislature’s top leadership position. Mr. Schneiderman is the first representative from the East End to be named to a leadership role since 1986, when Gregory Blass of Jamesport was elected presiding officer.

       A former two-term East Hampton Town supervisor, Mr. Schneiderman is the legislature’s sole Independence Party member. He was elected unanimously to his new post by the legislature’s majority caucus, which includes 10 Democrats and one member of the Working Families Party.

       “There are only two positions that the legislature elects as a body, the presiding officer and the deputy presiding officer, so it’s a real honor,” he said.

       Having served 10 years on the legislature, Mr. Schneiderman is its senior member. His new post is largely honorary, he explained: He will preside over the legislature in Mr. Gregory’s absence and represent him at public events he is unable to attend. He pointed out, however, that “it’s significant for someone from the East End and someone from a minor party . . . in this position I can speak on behalf of the legislature and not just my district.”

       Although he received unanimous support from the majority caucus, Mr. Schneiderman said that was not the case with the six Republican legislators. “Five of the six voted against me and one abstained,” he said, lamenting that their action launched the new session on a “very partisan tone.”

       “I’ve always tried to be bipartisan. I’ve helped Republicans get bills out of committee. I’ve always looked at bills on their merits,” Mr. Schneiderman said.

       This week, Mr. Gregory announced that Mr. Schneiderman had been appointed chairman of the Parks and Recreation Committee and will serve on the Government Operations, Personnel, Housing, Consumer Protection, and Economic Development committees as well.

       Of his decision to appoint Mr. Schneiderman chairman of parks and recreation, Mr. Gregory praised his earlier work as head of the Public Works and Transportation Committee. “He brings 10 years of experience as a legislator to the table,” he said, “and he has a thorough knowledge of the county’s parks . . . I expect him to continue his groundbreaking work as chairman.”

       Besides overseeing the county’s Department of Parks, Recreation, and Conservation, the committee has jurisdiction over 46,000 acres of county parkland, including golf courses, campgrounds, and beaches.

       In his role as chairman of the committee, Mr. Schneiderman said he would like to see, in Montauk, a stewardship arrangement established to protect the Lindley house, which was originally built as a lookout for enemy ships, the restoration of Third House at Theodore Roosevelt County Park so it can be reopened to the public, and the establishment of an observatory at the park.

       The legislator is optimistic that sales tax revenue will continue to increase in the coming year with the improving economy. “I feel like we’ve turned a corner and no longer need to contract,” he said. “Hopefully, we are done with layoffs and cuts to contracted services.”

       This session, Mr. Schneiderman promised to press for initiatives as diverse as the completion of a sidewalk to the Springs School, the enactment of limits on pesticide use, and an effort to “codify” a percentage of sales tax revenue to be earmarked for towns and villages that are not covered by the Suffolk County Police Department.

       “Right now, it’s about 7 percent of what the police district gets and it should be closer to 11 percent,” he said, which would amount to about $3 million a year. “That would be hundreds of thousands of dollars a year” for towns like Southampton and East Hampton, “and it would make it a lot easier to live within the governor’s tax cap.”

       “I’d like to get that done this year, so my successor doesn’t have to struggle with it,” Mr. Schneiderman said.

East Hampton Town

Balasses House Rezoning Hearing

       The East Hampton Town Board will hold a public hearing next Thursday on a request by the owners of the former Balasses House antiques shop, a building on Main Street in Amagansett, to rezone the half-acre site from residential, with a limited-business overlay, to a central business zone.

       The change would allow the building, now housing an art gallery, to be put to a wider variety of possible commercial uses. The hearing will begin at 6:30 p.m. at Town Hall.

Tax Receiver on Medical Leave

       With a resolution passed unanimously on Jan. 21, the East Hampton Town Board granted a leave of absence, under the Family Medical Leave Act, to Monica Rottach, the town tax receiver.

       Neide Valeira, a town accountant, was appointed interim tax receiver earlier this month to replace Ms. Rottach, after issues with delivery of tax bills to residents were uncovered for the second year in a row. Town officials are trying to determine why numerous taxpayers did not receive their bills in the mail, and Supervisor Larry Cantwell said Tuesday that a full report was expected within a few weeks.J.P.

New York State

Bow-and-Arrow Setback Reduction

       In his proposed state budget for 2014, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has included a provision to reduce from 500 feet to 150 feet the setback from buildings and dwellings for bow-and-arrow deer-hunting, according to a release from Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. Mr. Thiele said the measure would “greatly increase the areas available for deer hunting on the East End.”

       The state Department of Environmental Conservation recommended the move in its Deer Management Plan. The change would  be consistent with the setbacks for bow-and-arrow hunting in most adjoining states, Mr. Thiele noted.

       Bow-and-arrow hunters need permission from landowners before they can hunt on their property. The new provision, if enacted as part of the budget, would apply to a neighboring structure.

       Mr. Thiele, who introduced an identical proposal last year at the request of East End government officials, called enactment of the measure “a good first step” in reducing the number of deer on eastern Long Island.