The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation late Wednesday announced that it would partially lift a temporary ban on shellfish harvest in some East Hampton waters. Several areas remained off-limits, awaiting the results of water tests. The closures were put in place as a precaution following heavy rain on Sept. 3. No specific human health threats have been identified.

As of sunrise on Thursday, harvesters will be able to take shellfish from Accabonac Harbor, Napeague Harbor, and Lake Montauk. Hog Creek, Three Mile Harbor, Northwest Creek, portions of Northwest Harbor, and around Sag Harbor remained off-limits.

In Southampton and Brookhaven Towns, the state will reopen portions of Moriches Bay at dawn Thursday. Closed areas remained Quantuck, Shinnecock Bay, Cold Spring Pond, North Sea Harbor, Noyac Creek, and the Sag Harbor coves and their tributaries.

    Turnout for Tuesday’s Republican primary was low in East Hampton, with just 67 people casting ballots at the polls.

    While the results of the write-in primary for East Hampton Town supervisor will not be known until at least early next week, unofficial tallies in the races for the G.O.P. nomination for district attorney and county sheriff show clear wins for the incumbents, Thomas J. Spota and Vincent De Marco respectively.

    In East Hampton, no one had stepped forward to express interest in challenging Larry Cantwell, who is running for supervisor on the Democratic, Independence, and Working Families lines. In fact, there was a concerted Republican effort to nominate Mr. Cantwell as a write-in. He has informed the Suffolk County Board of Elections that he would decline the nomination if he won it, but he still has some time to think about it.

    The Board of Elections will not begin the recanvassing process until Monday, tallying write-in votes from polling places as well as affidavit and absentee ballots. The candidate with the majority of votes would be considered the winner, but he or she can choose to decline the nomination.   

    Cochlodinium, or rust tide, has been discovered in Three Mile Harbor, Northwest Harbor, and Accabonac Harbor.

    At the meeting of the East Hampton Town Trustees on Tuesday night, Stephanie Forsberg, in the aquaculture report she delivered to her colleagues, reported the recent discovery. Cochlodinium, she said, is algae that can be fatal to shellfish and finfish, but is not harmful to humans when ingested.

    Two weeks ago, as reported in The Star, rust tide had not been seen in waters overseen by the trustees, despite its existence to the west, in Peconic Bay and Shinnecock Bay. “It shows you how quickly things can change in a week,” Ms. Forsberg said. Densities of the rust tide are lower than were found in westerly waters, she said, “but these are higher than we’ve seen in the past.”

    A difficulty in addressing the algal bloom, she said, is that “it can change, from day to day, where it is. It’s not necessarily isolated to one part of a harbor. We can be hopeful for our ecosystem and shellfish that it doesn’t stay in any one place long enough, that tidal flushing will move it.” Tides, wind, and cooler temperatures will eventually resolve the situation, she said.

    The trustees, in cooperation with Dr. Christopher Gobler of Stony Brook University, have funded a comprehensive monitoring of the waters they oversee. Ms. Forsberg told her colleagues that water sampling has been increased to at least once per week. “We’re going to continue to do that now because that’s all we can do,” she said.

    “What’s the leading cause?” Nat Miller, a trustee and bayman, asked.

    “Nitrogen,” Ms. Forsberg answered, “but we don’t know exactly from which source. It can be very site-specific. At least now we have quantification of it.”

    Ms. Forsberg also reported that no blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria, had been discovered in Georgica Pond. Last September, a dog died after apparently drinking water containing a toxin that, she said, may have come from a pond adjacent to Georgica Pond.  

   The formation of a citizens committee charged with collecting information about businesses and their needs appears to be on the horizon, after a plea from a business organization leader that East Hampton Town officials base decisions affecting business owners on actual data, rather than speculation.

    Margaret Turner, the executive director of the East Hampton Business Alliance, spoke to the town board at a meeting last Thursday, highlighting recent discussions about a town code change that would make it easier to cite certain businesses being run in residential areas for illegal operation.

    The proposed code change pertains to the parking of large trucks on residential lots.

    “There are no true statistics,” Ms. Turner told the town board. “You have no idea of the numbers of vehicles that will be displaced.” She said the business community does not dispute that homeowners whose neighbors are illegally operating businesses need relief. “But,” she said, “you need to consider how the problem got started in the first place. We feel it was poor, or lack of, planning.”

    There is a vacuum, Ms. Turner said, where long-term plans for the town’s economy are concerned.

    Councilwoman Theresa Quigley jump­ed on the idea of creating a group to gather information on businesses, similar to one she led that presented the board with information regarding housing.

    “I think it is important that this town come up with data,” Ms. Quigley said at a board work session on Tuesday. “We have no stats for our businesses; it’s time we get the stats. With that, this town will be better able to make decisions that affect businesses in this town.”

    Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc questioned the scope of the committee’s tasks, and its ultimate goal. “Because business, while it’s a major component of our town, and it provides jobs — it’s part of the fabric of our town — it’s got to be balanced,” he said. “So, are we looking to try to improve the business climate?”

    “I want to know what the town provides in terms of zoning; what their needs are . . . in terms of infrastructure,” Ms. Quigley said. “This is about data; somebody else can interpret it. There are no results considered.”

    Ms. Turner said she envisioned a “multi-pronged approach,” beginning with the collection of “basic data” about numbers of businesses, what types, and their locations, as well as their needs. “What do they need in terms of survival, what do they need to grow their businesses?” Ms. Turner asked. “Can all of their needs be met? Probably not,” she said. “But there can certainly be a lot more assistance from the town.”

    The town’s comprehensive plan, last updated in 2005, called for several undertakings that have not been addressed, including planning studies of individual hamlets, an erosion-control plan, and a business-needs study, Mr. Van Scoyoc noted. “There are a number of unfinished items,” he said.

    With building department and assessors’ records, and the like, the town has “a lot of data,” the councilman said. Councilwoman Sylvia Overby agreed.

    “We have garbage,” Supervisor Bill Wilkinson said.

    Ms. Quigley said she envisioned including members of varied professions among the appointed committee members, who could provide information about the numbers of businesses here within their category. She had suggested a similar approach for completion of a planning study on the hamlet of Wainscott, charging its citizens advisory committee members with pulling it together with the help of town staff.

    But Ms. Overby suggested that a professional planning consultant was in order. “This needs to be done professionally,” she said. “The hamlet studies need to be done professionally. We get a better outcome . . . it’s not done just by citizens getting together.” She cited several planning studies commissioned by the town in the past that provided a wide-ranging overview of pertinent issues as well as recommendations.

    Ms. Quigley and Mr. Wilkinson protested. “Every time we need a professional, we go outside,” Mr. Wilkinson complained. “If we don’t have the asset inside, we should get rid of the assets who aren’t doing the job.”

    “We are understaffed,” Ms. Overby said.

    Ms. Turner said she had learned at a recent county-sponsored forum that other East End towns have staff members dedicated to long-term planning and economic development. “They . . . have in-house planners who are working on what they want their town to look like 5 or 10 years down the road,” she said.

    While the topics addressed at an Amagansett “listen in” hosted by Democratic candidates for town supervisor and town board were diverse, the message was unmistakable: Quality of life, for which so many choose to make East Hampton their home, has deteriorated, and something has to be done.

    Like the rising seas and the more violent and destructive storms the scientific community says are upon us, residents asserted that problems caused by summer visitors, in their numbers and their behavior, have become extreme and must be mitigated.

    Larry Cantwell, the Democrats’ candidate for supervisor, and Job Potter and Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, candidates for the town board, fielded questions from a sizable group of residents on topics including affordable housing, pedestrian safety, climate change and sustainability, air traffic, litter, services for the disabled and mentally ill, alcohol consumption on beaches, deer, taxes, open vistas, and bicycle lanes. It was their third such forum. The others were in Springs and Montauk.

    Among the many phenomena that come along with summer visitors, said Dell Cullum, “is the trash buildup at our local beaches. The reason I get so sad about this topic is because I grew up on these beaches. . . . I don’t see anything being done about it; I see it getting worse as the summer progresses. . . . Is there hope, is there something that can be done, not just at beaches but at the Nature Trail?”

    “I’m insulted by the litter I see in places, and the condition of our beaches after a Saturday night is deplorable,” Mr. Cantwell said. “There are a lot of elements to it, certainly education and enforcement. But I think the village does a reasonably good job, and a much better job than is being done in the Town of East Hampton in terms of overall appearance. That’s a question of utilizing your resources to meet the problem.”

    “I agree with Larry,” said Ms. Burke-Gonzalez, “but it goes beyond beaches. In Springs, people feel if they don’t need a couch or a dresser anymore they’ll just put it in front of their house and wait for someone to take it. When did that become acceptable?” Mr. Potter said that he and his colleagues were committed to reopening the household exchange at the town’s recycling center, a remark that drew applause.

    The town’s code enforcement, said Mr. Cantwell, is inadequate, an observation the entire room seemed to agree with. “Everywhere we go, we hear the same thing over and over: ‘You’ve got to do something about overflow parking, noisy nightclubs waking residents at 3 a.m., wild parties on beaches, overcrowding in Springs.’ People have had it up to here on the negative impact on quality of life. We live here for quality of life, and the town has a responsibility to stand up and do something about it.”

    Like a school’s budget, said Ms. Burke-Gonzalez, a town’s budget “is a reflection of what the community’s goals are. You’re going to see us allocating things differently to get a fully-staffed code enforcement department. We need a chief building inspector. We need a fully engaged and staffed legal department. We’re sending a lot of legal work to outside firms, and that’s costly.”

    Mr. Cantwell was asked if the village allows alcoholic drinks on its beaches, to which he replied that it does not. “Then, based on what’s happening at Indian Wells beach in the last two years, do you expect to extend that ban to the town?” he was asked.

    Alcohol consumption, Mr. Cantwell said, “is part of the problem. . . . In terms of the town of East Hampton, it’s something I would certainly consider. . . . There are a lot of ways to do this that are not a complete ban, but we could wrestle with the issue of huge beer parties on public beaches that are not designed and not traditionally used for anything like that.”

    Mr. Potter said that he had counted a group of approximately 350 young adults at Indian Wells Beach the previous Saturday afternoon. “There were beer cans everywhere, red cups, rum and vodka bottles. They weren’t actually doing any harm, and controlling traffic has only helped, but it really looked strange and out of place to me. . . . I think we have to deal with this. We have to target that particular area.”

    On the same day, Ms. Burke-Gonzalez said, she had picked up her daughter at the same beach and found “an accident waiting to happen,” given the crowded parking lot and abundance of young adults who had been drinking.

    “If you’re there at 3 or 4 p.m.,” said the questioner, “you’ll find kids urinating on the beach, vomiting on the beach. . . .”

    “They’re not bad people, as such,” said Mr. Potter, “but they’re not Amagansett kids. I don’t think Indian Wells needs to be that place.”

    Excessive consumption of alcohol is a problem beyond Indian Wells Beach, said Susan Jaxheimer. “I walk my dog in the morning at 7:30,” she said, “and on weekends Amagansett looks like a hamlet with a hangover.” She cited litter including bottles, cans, cups, pizza boxes, and paper plates, as well as merchants’ signs demolished and split-rail fences broken in half.

    The candidates were asked to address share houses. “These mammoth houses that are being built,” one person in the audience said, “would make tremendous share houses.”

    “It gets back to the code enforcement,” said Mr. Cantwell. “This is a fundamental issue that is pervasive, whether you live in Montauk, Springs, Amagansett, or Northwest, whether it’s an overcrowded house in Springs or someone who’s rented a house on Miankoma Lane to 30 people. It’s a question of the town having the will to enforce the code that is well established and the community supports. Right now, I don’t think the town’s current administration has the will to enforce these laws, and the public is getting fed up with it.” The room erupted in applause.

    Discussion also turned to affordable housing, pedestrian safety, and preparedness for natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy.

    Responding to a question from Hope Mulholland about climate change, Mr. Cantwell said, “We need to prepare for it. . . . There are a number of things we need to do better,” emergency planning among them. “I’ve talked about the need for a hazard mitigation and recovery plan. . . . We need to examine the coastline with the natural protections we have. Much of our coastline has been preserved, yet we have areas in Napeague that are very vulnerable where we have development.”

    Advance planning is critical, he said. “We don’t want to be making it up as we go along. The modeling today to predict storm surge and damage is available. We can put together a plan for exact steps we need to take.”

    Mr. Cantwell, who recently retired as the East Hampton Village administrator, listed actions the village government took, such as securing a $400,000 grant to install solar panels on public buildings and the recent transition to natural gas for heating. “Not only are we doing something for the environment, but we’re lowering operating costs,” he said.

    Milford Crandall, who has lived in Amagansett since 1957 and who Mr. Cantwell said had been his fifth-grade teacher, recalled a long-ago traffic accident in which a colleague’s grandchild was killed by a drunk driver on Atlantic Avenue. “If you look at the lanes of Amagansett, you will not find one sidewalk that goes from Main Street to Bluff Road. . . . I have not seen any change in safety of our roads in the 56 years I have been here. . . . Something has to change. We’ve got to protect our pedestrians.”

    Vehicular and pedestrian traffic have increased tremendously, Mr. Potter said. The sidewalk along Bluff Road improved pedestrian safety there, but he said that to do more, both the town board and the highway superintendent will have to work together.

    “The way you begin to address an issue like this is by looking at the most important places you want to move people to and from,” Mr. Cantwell said. “School is an obvious one.”

    In Springs, said Ms. Burke-Gonzalez, who serves on that hamlet’s school board, “we got $554,000 for safe routes to school,” referring to a grant from the state. “They actually gave us more money than we requested. We worked closely with the police, the Planning Department, the Highway Department.”

    With many senior citizens in attendance at the meeting, which was held in the community room of the St. Michael’s senior citizens affordable apartment complex, much of the discussion addressed the shortage of affordable housing. In his opening remarks, Mr. Potter, a former town board member, said that East Hampton “used to do a lot of affordable housing for seniors and working families. There’s nothing in the pipeline and hasn’t been for several years.” He pledged to work for the creation of more affordable housing if elected.

    Indeed, the need is great, said Brian Byrnes, citing a waiting list of more than 200 people for affordable senior citizen housing, not to mention the needs of younger people who grow up here and want to continue living here.

    The town “needs to be active in trying to find suitable locations where partnerships can be put together, as was done here,” Mr. Cantwell said, commending the partnership that came together to create the housing complex at St. Michael’s, calling it “a model development for affordable housing in the community” and one that should be used in the future.

    The East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals had applications before it in recent weeks on properties facing Gardiner’s Bay, delaying decision on one — which Tom Preiato, the town’s head building inspector called “an insult,” and saying no by a split vote to two others for a concrete revetment. A few mixed decisions and yeses were also handed out on less controversial proposals.

    The application that Mr. Preiato objected to was for property at 57 Waters Edge in the Barnes Landing neighborhood of Springs. Because coastal bluffs and wetlands were involved, the owners sought a natural resources permit. They also asked for a variance to allow them to build 43 feet from a bluff crest when 100 feet is the required setback. The hearing was on Aug. 6.

    An 1,196-square-foot-house with a 500-square-foot deck had been constructed on the site before the town zoning code was adopted, so it was a legal pre-existing, nonconforming use. The owners had come before the Z.B.A. in early 2012, requesting variances to construct a 549-square-foot second story, along with a terrace and a 480-square-foot swimming pool. These requests were granted. At the same time, however, the board denied a request for an additional 1,136-square-foot second-story expansion, which members found would violate the pyramid law regulating the height of buildings in relation to property lines. Then, in Nov. 2012, the board approved a modification of the previous approvals, granting permission to replace the existing deck. So far, so good.

    But on April 30, Mr. Preiato issued a stop-work order after learning that not only had the deck been removed, but the house itself. By removing the house, Mr. Preiato, and subsequently the Town Planning Department, agreed that the house had lost its pre-existing, nonconforming status. This was significant because the rules for new houses on vacant lots take the environment into consideration.

     Lisa D’Andrea, a member of the Planning Department staff, sent the board a memo before the hearing noting that the property is in the Peconic Estuary critical environmental area as well as the Accabonac Harbor scenic area, a state designation. A new house would have to be sited, the memo said, in an area less harmful to the environment on the property, which is well over an acre.

    “I made it clear from day one that this house was not to be removed,” Mr. Preiato told the board at the hearing. He also addressed what he indicated had become a questionable practice: rebuilding a nonconforming structure by taking it down one wall at a time. He called the practice “an unwritten code.”

    Not only had the whole house been removed, but the foundation itself had apparently been moved. He called what was done an insult. “I was born at night, but not last night,” he said.

    Jonathan Tarbet, an attorney, did his best to defend the owners. One of them, Matt Rutigliano, also spoke at the hearing. Mr. Tarbet said Mr. Rutigliano thought he was complying with law. Mr. Rutigliano said he had taken the house apart in pieces, with the goal being to reconstruct it as it was. “I made a mistake,” he said.

     Alex Walter, the board’s chairman, commented that it had been a 1960s-style house and asked, “Once you take it apart, how are you going to put it back together?”

    “. . . You must have known this wasn’t going to work,” Don Cirillo, a board member, said. “You want the best of both worlds. Every homeowner is going to say, ‘What a great idea.’ Just accidentally tear the house down.” The board is expected to rule in the next few weeks.

    Two no votes were on applications from the owners of 235 and 237 King’s Point Road, facing Gardiner’s Bay in Springs. Virginia Schmidt and David Wagner wanted to build a single 180-foot concrete structure, ribbed with rebar, and held in place with helical wall anchors to protect both lots. Each lot is slightly under 30,000 square feet. A natural resources permit was needed. It was unclear whether the East Hampton Town Trustees would also have to approve the project. The board voted 4-to-1 against the applications, with Don Cirillo casting the only yes vote.

    At a June 4 public hearing, David Lys, a board member, said the applicants had not demonstrated that they had sufficiently explored softer alternatives to the concrete structure. He warned of the impact such a bulkhead would have on neighboring coastline. Another member agreed. “The bulkheads have a large scouring effect,” Lee White said. Brian Gosman, who is also a member of the board, said he sympathized with the owners, but added, “The way the code is written, it doesn’t meet the code.”

    Mr. Cirillo disagreed. “All the houses to the west have hard structures. It is not fair to say to the applicant that they are the last ones in, and they are not allowed to build. They are not going beyond what the neighbors have done,” he said.

    However, Mr. Walter pointed out that the neighboring bulkheads were made of wood. In its review, the Planning Department had warned of negative implications of approval.

    In other action, an application was recently approved  for a 10-by-55-foot solar panel to be built on a Montauk bluff by Nejma and Peter Beard of Old Montauk Highway. The well-known naturalist and photographer and his wife had come to the board before. At that time, the panels were to be placed just one foot, rather than the required 15 feet, from neighboring state parkland. The board had voted it down, 4-to-1. The proposal had subsequently been modified, moving the panel six more feet from the sideline. After a brief discussion following a July 23 hearing, the board approved the amended application unanimously.

    In two other appeals, the board gave each applicant both a yes and a no. Sean MacPherson, the owner of the Crow’s Nest restaurant in Montauk, wanted to build a 432-square-foot second-story addition on his house on Miller Avenue in Montauk, along with legalizing a shower and a deck, which had been built before he bought the property.

    He also asked for approval to build a new 600-square-foot garage for his vintage cars. The board went for the second-story addition, but not the garage. Mr. Gosman said it would have “too big of a footprint” on the environmentally sensitive property. And Mr. Cirillo agreed. “It looks more like a barn than a garage,” Mr. Cirillo said.    The board voted 4-to-0, with Mr. Lys abstaining.

    Another yes and no were given to a second Montauk applicant who wanted to build an addition along with a garage that would have dwarfed Mr. MacPherson’s.

    Donna Gilbert had applied for a 400-square-foot, two-story addition for her Madison Drive house in Montauk and a new 971-square-foot detached garage. The board voted unanimously to approve the addition to the house, but gave the garage a resounding 5-to-0 no.

    Income from a real estate transfer tax into the Peconic Bay Region Community Preservation Fund continued to rise this year in all five East End towns, providing money for the public purchase of land for open space, historic preservation, and farmland protection.

    In East Hampton, the fund has swelled to about $42 million, Scott Wilson, the town’s director of land acquisition and management, said Tuesday. Of that, $2.7 million will be spent this year on debt from previous land purchases.

    The town closed just last week on five open space lots totaling 1.8 acres on Copeces Lane in Springs, for $1.8 million, and it has money earmarked for another five acquisitions. They include almost three acres off Old Stone Highway, along Accabonac Harbor in Springs, a wetland lot in Montauk, as well as money for the purchase of development rights, with the Peconic Land Trust, on almost 10 acres of Stony Hill Farm in Amagansett. The aquifer at Stony Hill is understood to supply drinking water to the surrounding hamlets.

    Only a handful of large parcels, including woods and farmland, remain in the town’s sights, Mr. Wilson said, as many large tracts of open land have already been preserved.    

    Between 15 and 20 appraisals have been ordered by the town this year on potential purchases, and another 15 to 18 are expected to be ordered before the end of 2013, Mr. Wilson said. The town has offered to buy about half a dozen other properties, he said, although community preservation money can only be used to buy land for which there is a willing seller.

    In 2012, East Hampton Town purchased 16 parcels of land using the community preservation account. This year, Mr. Wilson said, the total is expected to be 13. During the first seven months of this year, the real estate transfer tax earned East Hampton $16.8 million, compared to $10.4 million during the same period last year.

    In all five towns, this year’s January through July total reached $52 million from a total of 4,840 real estate transactions, versus $34.5 million last year stemming from 3,533 sales. Since its inception in 1999, the Peconic Bay Regional Community Preservation Fund has generated $841.9 million. According to Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., an author of the legislation establishing the fund, this year’s  revenues are on track to be the highest annual total since 2007, at more than $90 million.

    The fund’s revenue for the first seven months of this year grew by more than 119 percent on Shelter Island, with $1.3 million coming in, and by approximately 50 percent in both Riverhead and Southampton Towns, with revenues, respectively, of $1.3 million and $30.8 million. In Southold, this year’s revenues so far are up 10 percent, to $2.2 million.

    Demonstrators were at East Hampton Airport on Friday afternoon to call attention to the noise generated there and its effect on South Fork residents.

    More than 30 residents and members of the Quiet Skies Coalition from Sag Harbor, Springs, East Hampton, Wainscott, and Noyac, carried signs and stood along the road and at the tarmac edge, hoping to raise the awareness of passengers and pilots that the noise from helicopters, jets, and seaplanes disturbs those living near and under flight paths.

    Among the protestors were residents of the Sag Harbor Hills neighborhood, which is experiencing increased air traffic due to a new departure route being used to relieve air traffic over Noyac. In a Quiet Skies Coalition press release, Becky Young said, “The air traffic over our neighborhood has increased so much that it has negatively impacted our quality of life. We’d consider selling the house, but this air traffic has decreased the value of our home,” she said.

     “Route distribution is a losing strategy, as the basic choice is to decide into which of your neighbors’ yards you’re going to throw your trash,” Kathleen Cunningham, the chairwoman of the Quiet Skies Coalition, said in the release.

    “The only effective noise mitigation plan is to limit access to East Hampton Airport,” she said. “Without meaningful access limits, someone is always going to be victimized by uncontrolled aircraft noise.”

    The organization has been pressing the East Hampton Town Board to stop accepting Federal Aviation Administration money and to allow existing agreements with the agency over airport operation to expire. Then, they have said, the town would be able to impose use limits, including curfews, and even be able to ban the noisiest aircraft. The degree to which federal regulations would allow local autonomy over such decisions has been a matter of debate.

    A survey of the candidates for East Hampton Town Board regarding airport noise will be released soon, the Quiet Skies Coalition has announced.

   The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation has invited bidders to submit their proposals for operating a tennis concession at Montauk Downs State Park. According to a release, the state is looking for a “creative and visionary business entrepreneur” to manage the lessons, pro shop, and maintain the courts.

    The contract would be for four years with an option to extend for up to two more. According to a request for proposals, the average annual income for the last five years has been $77,400. Interested parties can request details from [email protected], with R.F.P. X001140 in the subject line. Bids are due by 2 p.m. on Sept. 25.

    Responding to a move by some East Hampton Republicans to get him on their ticket for town supervisor via a write-in G.O.P. primary, Larry Cantwell said this week that he was not interested.

    “I am filing a candidate declination form with the Suffolk County Board of Elections for the Republican primary on Sept. 10 in order to make clear that I am not a candidate in this primary election,” Mr. Cantwell said in a statement issued on Tuesday, adding that he did not want “Republican voters who may cast a vote in the primary to be misled.”

    “The effort to promote my candidacy has not been authorized by me; in fact no one even asked me if I would agree to accept,” he wrote.

    Republican leaders had asked the former village administrator, who is already running on the Democratic, Independence, and Working Families Party lines, to screen with them in the spring after Jay Schneiderman announced that he would seek a final term as county legislator rather than run for town supervisor as the G.O.P. had hoped. “I politely declined because I honestly believed the voters of East Hampton deserve a choice in the election for supervisor,” Mr. Cantwell said in the release.

    With no chosen candidate for the spot, Republican Party members mounted a successful petition drive to force a write-in primary in hopes that Mr. Cantwell would accept the nomination of the Republican rank and file, if not the leadership. Republicans will already be going to the polls that day to select district attorney and sheriff candidates. The person with the most votes — even if that is just one — can win the nomination, but he or she does not have to accept it.

    “I don’t know of any politician who honestly seeks to have an opponent to discuss the issues. . . . That’s clearly not the case here,” said Thomas Knobel, the vice chairman of the East Hampton G.O.P., who has urged Republicans to support Mr. Cantwell on primary day. 

    “The real issue is the unity campaign that he has propounded in the past, contrasted with his refusal to work with the Republicans,” Mr. Knobel said yesterday. “A pre-emptive declination clearly says that’s not so,” and it may have no legal bearing. “Republicans can test Larry out on this, and say, ‘Hey do you really mean it when you say you’re going to be supervisor for all of us?’ ”

    “The Democrats claimed Carole Brennan [town clerk] and Steve Lynch [highway superintendent] after our nomination without a blink of the eye,” said Mr. Knobel.

    Mr. Cantwell said that appearing on the Republican ticket along with the town board candidates Fred Overton and Dominick Stanzione might also call into question his “enthusiastic support” for his running mates, Kathee Burke-Gonzalez and Job Potter. He is sharing the Independence ticket with Mr. Overton and Mr. Stanzione.

    Those who might not want to vote for him on the Democratic line have two other options, Mr. Cantwell noted. “I hope the participants in the write-in primary for supervisor will choose a candidate so an honest debate of the serious issues our town faces can occur.”

    With or without an opponent in November, Mr. Cantwell promised that “my style of governing, of building consensus, and seeking compromise that leaves everyone well-served will be the same.”