In a split vote last Thursday, the East Hampton Town Board declined to join forces with other municipalities bordering the Peconic Estuary in an effort to pursue ecosystem and water quality protection goals.

    An intermunicipal agreement calls for each entity to contribute to the costs of achieving the goals of a comprehensive conservation and management plan developed by the Peconic Estuary Protection Committee — goals such as restoring and enhancing tidal wetlands, controlling and reducing pollution, and complying with federal, state, and local coastal regulations.

    Joining forces, according to the failed resolution, would “save personnel, time, and money, and lead to a better level of coordination” in East Hampton’s pending efforts to meet state stormwater management requirements.

    Councilwoman Theresa Quigley, who was originally slated to sponsor the resolution to enter into the agreement, not only refused to support it, but expressed outrage over an issue of protocol — that Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc, upon learning that Ms. Quigley had asked to have the resolution removed from last Thursday’s agenda, had himself brought it to the table for a vote.

    “I don’t understand it to agree with it or disagree with it,” Ms. Quigley said, adding that the board had not “properly vetted” the agreement.

    But Mr. Van Scoyoc said that the matter had been discussed in detail at  “at least two” previous meetings, and raised again at a meeting earlier in the week from which Ms. Quigley was absent.

    “I know nothing about it,” Ms. Quigley said, demanding that Mr. Van Scoyoc provide the date of the earlier meetings. “I want discussion on it, and it’s my right.”

    According to the resolution, the Towns of Brookhaven, Riverhead, Shelter Island, Southold, and Southampton, along with Suffolk County, the Villages of Greenport, North Haven, Sag Harbor, and Dering Harbor, and the State Department of Transportation, “recognize the importance of the Peconic Esturary as a vital coastal ecosystem essential to the environmental and economic well-being of the people in the areas surrounding the Peconic Estuary,” and therefore have entered into the agreement.

    Mr. Van Scoyoc said it was important to join them “to protect our Peconic Bay region, its economy, [and] its resources,” and that it would put the towns on a better footing to obtain grants to support the work.

    Councilwoman Sylvia Overby voted with Mr. Van Scoyoc in support of the resolution, while Supervisor Bill Wilkinson voted against it, siding with Ms. Quigley.

    Councilman Dominick Stanzione, who would have been the swing vote, abstained. Mr. Stanzione said that though he had “every intention of supporting the proposal,” he would honor Ms. Quigley’s request for further discussion. “I’m extending a courtesy to a colleague . . . who has requested it,” he said. “But I expect us to act on this expeditiously.”

    “I feel fully versed on this,” said Ms. Overby, noting that the town’s natural resources director, Kim Shaw, had made a presentation about the matter to the board.

    “I am liaison to natural resources, and I asked to have it removed,” said Ms. Quigley of the resolution. “How did it get put back on under Peter’s name?” She looked to John Jilnicki, the town attorney, for an opinion about the procedure.

    “As I understand, Theresa Quigley thinks, as liaison, she can prevent something from being voted on,” said Mr. Van Scoyoc. “I can understand if she doesn’t support it,” and would decline to sponsor the resolution, he said. But, he added, “a single councilperson, because they’re the liaison to a particular department, should not be the gatekeeper to doing the town’s business.”

    If a board member has questions about a proposal regarding an area for which they serve as liaison, Mr. Wilkinson said, they should be able to “pull it back and have the board discuss it at a work session.”

    “Again, this has been discussed at several work sessions,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said.

    “I don’t remember it myself,” said Mr. Wilkinson.

    “It has to do with secret meetings, Peter,” Ms. Quigley charged. She did not elaborate.

East Hampton Town

Eyeing Cemetery Expansion

    The East Hampton Town Board is pondering a land purchase that would allow for expansion of the Oak Lane Cemetery in Amagansett. Board members said Tuesday that, before deciding to proceed, they will first examine the status of other cemeteries in the town to see if additional space will be needed, review the costs, including purchase price and ongoing maintenance costs of the expansion, tally the potential proceeds from gravesite sales, and discuss who would be able to purchase the cemetery plots.

No to Wave Monitoring

    A Rutgers University representative was sent packing on Tuesday when town board members advised him to look to New York State rather than town beaches for a place to put an antenna for a wave-monitoring system.

    Ethan Handel of the Coastal Ocean Observation lab at the university’s Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences had originally asked for permission to install a 35-foot transmission antenna and a smaller receiver antenna, anchored by thin guy wires in a 20-foot radius on dunes near the bathroom at Ditch Plain Beach in Montauk.

    When Councilwoman Theresa Quigley objected vehemently, Mr. Handel worked with the town’s Planning Department to identify alternate sites for the radar equipment, which collects data on ocean currents and waves that are used by the Coast Guard and can provide information about coastal erosion.

    On Tuesday, when he said Atlantic Avenue Beach in Amagansett seemed to be a “great location,” Ms. Quigley said that she would not approve the installation at any of the town’s public, lifeguarded beaches.

Considering LTV’s Contract

    On Tuesday the town board discussed a new contract with LTV, the cable television station that is East Hampton Town’s public access provider. The station receives a portion of the franchise fees that Cablevision pays to the town, which are based on a percentage of what customers pay for Cablevision’s service.

    In recent negotiations, Councilwoman Theresa Quigley said, LTV representatives appeared to agree to a new formula by which the station would receive a “base” amount from the town ($550,000 has been suggested) to cover basic services, and then would have to make a case proving the need for any additional requested money. Almost 90 percent of the budget for LTV, a nonprofit organization, is provided by the town, Ms. Quigley said. The town’s previous contract with LTV expired in November of last year.

    A hearing will be held at Town Hall tonight at 7 regarding the town’s agreement with LTV to provide coverage of government meetings and educational programming. Members of the public can weigh in regarding the station’s performance.   

    On July 16, Representative Tim Bishop introduced a bill that would prevent further development on Plum Island by decoupling its sale from the construction of the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility in Kansas.

    Mr. Bishop announced his “Save, Don’t Sell, Plum Island” legislation at a press conference in Orient, the 843-acre, federally owned island in the background. The legislation, which has the backing of the Long Island and Connecticut Congressional delegations, would eliminate the current legal requirement that the island be sold at public auction. Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut has introduced companion legislation in the Senate.

    Congress passed legislation in 2008 mandating the island’s sale, the proceeds intending to offset the cost of the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility’s construction. Mr. Bishop, arguing for continuation of the island’s use as an animal disease research facility and wildlife conservation area, said that such a sale makes no sense.

    The Kansas facility, Mr. Bishop told The Star, was originally slated to cost approximately $300 million. “The way the project was sold to Congress by the Bush administration was it would be a fully funded operation, that is to say, the sale of Plum Island would fully fund construction. As of this moment, it is now projected to cost north of $1 billion. There is absolutely no chance that Plum Island is going to be sold for anything approaching that money.”

    From a practical standpoint, he said, “the idea that you would have to sell Plum Island is off the table. You would need several Plum Islands. But from a more important point of view, a preservation-of-natural-habitat point of view, selling Plum Island would be a bad idea.”

    The federal General Services Administration released a Final Environmental Impact Statement on the sale in June, citing the potential for as many as 500 houses that could be built on the island. The G.S.A. continues to prepare for a public auction of the island. Along with Mr. Bishop, Southold Town officials and environmental advocates including the Group for the East End, Citizens Campaign for the Environment, the Sierra Club’s Long Island Group, the Nature Conservancy, the South Shore Audubon Society, Save the Sound, and the North Shore Land Alliance have united to oppose the sale.

    The Southold Town Board has endorsed an “adaptive reuse” plan for the island that would preclude any future development. Under the plan, the 100-plus acres currently devoted to research would be zoned for academic and other forms of research, and approximately two-thirds of the island, some 700 acres, would be preserved for plant and wildlife conservation.

    “Scott Russell and his board should be commended for what they are doing,” Mr. Bishop said, referring to the Southold Town supervisor.

    Plum Island has a long history as both a research and military facility. From the time of the Spanish-American War, it was used for the defense of Long Island Sound. Late in the 19th century, an investor sought to develop a summer resort on the island, but the federal War Department bought 150 acres at the island’s east end in 1897 and the remaining territory four years later.

    In 1954, 25 years after the eradication of foot-and-mouth disease in the United States but closely following outbreaks in Mexico and Canada, the Army transferred the property to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service. Concurrently, construction of a laboratory building was taking place on the island.

    Mr. Bishop conceded that his bill is “a tough sell, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.” He complained about the tendency of many of his colleagues “to put economic issues at the forefront over and above environmental issues,” and “to put preservation of the environment as antithetical to economic growth. That is a false choice,” he said, citing the South Fork’s environment and natural resources as its primary allure.

    “I believe most people in East Hampton care about preservation of open space, of habitat, of our natural resources,” Mr. Bishop told The Star. “The people of East Hampton should care about the preservation of Plum Island in the same way people of Southold care about preservation of the Napeague strip.”

    Establishing an East Hampton Town rental registry, and requiring landlords to inform the town about their plans, would not solve housing code violations, nor even give town officials the clout that had been hoped for when the idea was first broached. So said Patrick Gunn, a town attorney and head of East Hampton’s Division of Public Safety, on Tuesday.

    Furthermore, Mr. Gunn said, requiring property owners to submit to inspections would be unconstitutional, and without authority to conduct inspections, town Ordinance Enforcement Department officers would not gain much even were a registry instituted.

    John Jilnicki, the town attorney, agreed. “The courts have ruled that owners have “a right to rent their property [and] a municipality can’t interfere with that right by requiring an inspection,” he said during the town board’s work session on Tuesday. Although Southampton, among other Long Island towns, has a rental registry, Mr. Gunn called them problematic. “It’s not something we can play with,” he said.

    Board members had hoped that keeping tabs on rentals would not only help to ensure that houses do not become overcrowded, but would also help with deterrence and enforcement of housing laws by prescribing penalties for landlords who did not register.

    Although a registry would not necessarily provide officers with the kind of enforcement teeth that had been hoped for, Mr. Gunn nevertheless suggested that the town board might still consider one for its limited benefits. For instance, Councilman Dominick Stanzione said, other municipalities that have rental registries have provisions that hold real estate agents accountable for compliance with the law.

    Earlier at Tuesday’s meeting, several Amagansett residents, complaining of illegal summer share houses in their neighborhood, had pointed fingers at the brokers involved, suggesting they either looked the other way when arranging a lease for multiple tenants or failed to inform prospective renters of the laws.

    Board members have also recently discussed a lack of information on some properties’ certificates of occupancy about the number of legal bedrooms in a house; having that information on file would allow enforcement officers to more easily establish if a house is overcrowded.  Perhaps, suggested Councilwoman Sylvia Overby on Tuesday, the town could require landlords who wish to register their rentals to provide an updated C of O that includes that information.

    But Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson wondered how that would help enforcement, and Mr. Stanzione said he would oppose such a requirement “because that would make everyone’s C of O invalid if they were to rent.”

    The labor required of town staff, such as those in the Building Department, who would be charged with issuing new certificates of occupancy, must be weighed against the potential benefits, Councilwoman Theresa Quigley warned. “I can see benefits, but minimal benefits,” she said. She suggested an online registry, which town staff would not have to process. And as a penalty for failure to register, she suggested that landlords could be stripped of their right to pursue tenants in court for unpaid rent.

    Mr. Stanzione suggested that the board continue to discuss a registry, and formulate a proposal that could be brought up for a public hearing. “We might take a stab at this,” he said of trying to balance the administrative requirements with “the need of the community to have greater accountability on the part of agents and landlords, and renters who continually abuse our code.”

    Mr. Stanzione distributed a draft law for discussion at a future meeting. “At least it gets us started,” he said.

    In addition to a proposal that East Hampton Town establish a rental registry, which is covered separately, two other regulations to address problems in residential neighborhoods were discussed this week by the town board. One involves trucks parked on house lots; the other whether permits should be required for backyard sporting events.

    While commercial activities are outlawed in residential neighborhoods, “light trucks” are allowed to park at residences, as well as commercially registered cars. Complaints have proliferated about businesses being run out of houses, with residences as a home base for heavy equipment and trucks. Patrick Gunn, a town attorney who is head of the Division of Public Safety, has told the board that because the code does not specifically define the term light truck, the Ordinance Enforcement Department has difficulty successfully citing alleged violators.

    Mr. Gunn has been asking the board to draft legislation defining the term for months. A discussion Tuesday of that definition — likely to be based on gross vehicle weight — bogged down, as it has before, on the question of what impact enforcement would have on those now using their residential lots as a home base for commercial vehicles.

    Suggesting that it would create an unacceptable hardship, Councilwoman Theresa Quigley asked the Planning Department to give her a list of all the properties in the town where zoning would permit those businesses to relocate, and their current status.

    Councilwoman Sylvia Overby noted that some years ago a new zoning category called “service commercial” was established to provide locations where businesses often based at owners’ residences, such as landscaping, plumbing, or other contractors’ trades, could be established legally.

    The question, Ms. Quigley said, is whether “we will have a town that accommodates local businesses or whether we’re looking to have a sanitized community where nobody’s bothering anyone else.” She decried an opinion she said she had heard expressed, that East Hampton is a town for second-homeowners.

    “It has to do with neighborhoods,” Ms. Overby said. She went on to say there had been specific reasons for placing businesses in proper zoning districts, including the ability to enforce safety standards regarding, for instance, the storage of pool chemicals. “When a business grows, they’re supposed not be in a neighborhood any more,” she said.

    “To me, sanitizing our neighborhoods . . . amounts to getting rid of the ability of one to earn a living,” Ms. Quigley said. “I’m against that.”

    “This is already legislated; it just hasn’t been enforceable,” Mr. Gunn said. The town code, he reminded the board, “already prohibits the carrying on of business” in a residential area, outside of a few activities deemed “home occupations.”

    Specifically defining a light truck would not set new, more restrictive rules but only address an omission that makes it difficult for ordinance officers to cite people who park commercial vehicles where they are not allowed.

    If the town is going to say that business owners can’t park large trucks in their backyards, Ms. Quigley said, “then we have to be prepared to, either seeing to it that there is a spot, or that those businesses are not going to be in our municipality anymore. I’m not suggesting that the board provide [new locations for the businesses],” she said. “Just that the board understand the ramifications of our decision.”

    “We could take the first step or we could sit on our hands until we deal with the big planning issues,” Councilman Dominick Stanzione said. He suggested moving forward with “giving code enforcement tools to enforce the code,” by adopting a light truck definition. 

    Another potential law, designed to rein in repeated group athletic activities in backyards, such as volleyball games, is to be discussed by the board at an upcoming meeting. But this week John Jilnicki, the town attorney, distributed for review a law that would limit gatherings of more than 15 people to no more than three per month.

    It was designed, he explained on Tuesday, to “recognize that residents sometimes go beyond ‘reasonable use’ of a property, impacting the neighborhood.” While the town requires a mass gathering permit for get-togethers of more than 50 people at houses, where parking will be along the street, nothing limits smaller parties. A Springs resident recently complained to the board of weekly sporting events at a house in her neighborhood.

    “So I can’t have 20 people to the Book of the Month Club?” Supervisor Wilkinson quipped Tuesday. He expressed concern that any new restriction might be unevenly applied to different groups, based on complaints.

    “I’m responding to a constituent’s complaint,” Ms. Quigley said. She had asked Mr. Jilnicki to come up with a draft ordinance. She had also asked town staff for information about existing public sporting facilities, or where new ones could be placed.

    The East Hampton Town Republican Committee, which did not nominate a town supervisor candidate through the usual channels this year, has instead turned the selection process over to rank-and-file Republicans by successfully petitioning for a write-in primary on Sept. 10.

    “If there’s somebody out there that’s looking to challenge for supervisor and we didn’t find them, we’re giving them the opportunity,” said Joe Bloecker of Montauk, a Republican town trustee who is running this year for town assessor. “Some people that are capable and very smart still don’t know the politics of how you get nominated. This gives them until September.”

    When G.O.P. voters go to the polls on Primary Day in East Hampton, they will choose a candidate for Suffolk district attorney and will be able to write in anyone’s name for the supervisor’s spot. District Attorney Thomas Spota, the three-term incumbent who is backed by county Republicans and Democrats, is facing a challenge from Raymond Perini, who at one time headed his office’s narcotics squad.

    With no Republicans publically declaring their interest in the seat, however, Larry Cantwell, the Democratic and Independence Party candidate, could end up with the G.O.P. ballot line as well, if his name gets the most write-ins and he chooses to accept the nomination.

    Mr. Cantwell has said from the start that he wants to face an opponent rather than consider a three-way endorsement, despite considerable support from across the political spectrum.

    “I have been preparing to campaign, and I’ve been campaigning because I intend to earn the support of the voters regardless of who the Republican candidate is,” Mr. Cantwell said on Monday.

    “I am not aware that anybody is saying they want to do it,” Thomas Knobel, the vice chairman of the East Hampton Town Republican Committee, said on Monday. As for the possibility of Mr. Cantwell’s nomination on primary day, Mr. Knobel said, “If your fellow citizens vote, it’s no longer a party handing out the nomination, it’s the people.”

    “If the Republicans want Larry to run and he’s going to win anyway, then he’s got the chance to be everybody’s supervisor,” Mr. Bloecker said. “I like Larry. I’m going to vote for him.”

    Although hopeful candidates have attempted in the past to force a primary through what is known as an “opportunity to ballot” petition, Mr. Knobel, who works for the Suffolk Board of Elections, said he did not recall a time in East Hampton’s recent history when someone had used the opportunity to ballot process to force a write-in primary.

    “It’s a grassroots thing,” Mr. Knobel said, crediting Beverly Bond of East Hampton with pushing the matter and “doing a lot of the carrying.” In letters to the editor of this paper, Ms. Bond has praised Mr. Cantwell and supported his candidacy, but also expressed hopes that his name could also appear on the Republican ticket so G.O.P. voters wouldn’t have to stray to the Democratic or Independence lines to cast their ballots for him in November.

    “There’s a feeling by a lot of folks that they wanted the opportunity to have something holding Larry’s feet to the fire,” Mr. Knobel said.

    The petition, which had just over 200 signatures, was filed a few weeks ago. The time to challenge it has elapsed so the primary will go forward, Mr. Knobel said.

    “They might as well write a letter to Santa Claus,” John Behan, a prominent Montauk Republican, said Tuesday of the write-in primary. Mr. Behan said Mr. Cantwell discussed his candidacy with him and that he offered his support. “I thought he was the best man in town to do the job.”

    “I don’t understand it,” said Carole Campolo of Springs, a member of the Republican committee. “I find it very unfortunate that we don’t have a good candidate. I think elections are all about choices, and when voters do not have a choice it does not speak well of the electoral system.”

    Ms. Campolo and her husband, Don Cirillo, the vice chairman of the town zoning board of appeals, have been strong supporters of Republican Supervisor Bill Wilkinson. “What Bill has accomplished has been just absolutely amazing,” she said. “I would have liked to see him run for a third term. Larry’s got big shoes to fill.”

    The fact that Mr. Cantwell is running unopposed for now “puts the expectation level of him extremely high,” Ms. Campolo said.

    The last candidate to run unopposed for town supervisor was Edward Ecker Sr. of Montauk.

    Regardless of the pressure, Mr. Cantwell seems prepared. This is not his first time on the town ballot. Before his 31-year tenure with East Hampton Village, where he retired from his post as village administrator earlier this summer, he was an elected bay constable and a town councilman. He also ran unsuccessfully for town supervisor on the Democratic ticket.

    “I am going to campaign vigorously,” he said. “I don’t know any way to do things other than to do them with 100-percent commitment.”

    Approval of an agreement through which East Hampton Town would join forces with other East End municipalities to work together on water-quality protection issues, including those mandated by federal and state agencies, got put off for the second time at an East Hampton Town Board meeting on Tuesday.

    An initiative by Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc to have the board pass a resolution and become a participant in the group sparked a spat at a recent meeting after Councilwoman Theresa Quigley said the idea had not been properly vetted, and complained that Mr. Van Scoyoc had stepped into an area — natural resources — for which she is the board’s liaison. Mr. Van Scoyoc countered that the concept has long been on the board’s agenda and should no longer be put off.

    On Tuesday, the parameters of the proposal were described by several visitors asked to provide details, but not before Ms. Quigley revived the political tete-a-tete.

    Both she and Supervisor Bill Wilkinson said they had gone through records of board meetings and ascertained that the agreement had not been talked over by the board. “I went through — copiously — what would amount to two years of e-mails and meetings. . . .” Mr. Wilkinson said. Ms. Quigley said she listened to tapes online and scoured agendas from over three years to prove that she was right.

    She said that she had just received a copy of the six-page draft inter-municipal agreement, and “there is not a single meeting where we reviewed this document.”

    Mr. Van Scoyoc was absent from the meeting, but Councilwoman Sylvia Overby expressed frustration that the board had not embraced the inter-municipal effort.

    “I don’t understand the pushback,” Ms. Overby said. “In 2011, you were told of an inter-municipal agreement” in the works, she said to Ms. Quigley and Mr. Wilkinson, who were in office then, before Ms. Overby took a seat on the board.

    Ms. Quigley said she could agree in concept with the idea, and allow the town’s attorneys and other staff professionals to ensure that the details were acceptable. “I want the policy in front of me,” she said. “I don’t need to have the exact language.”

    Both Eileen Keenan, a program manager for the New York Sea Grant NEMO (Nonpoint Education for Municipal Officials) program, and Alison Branco, a program director at the Peconic Estuary Program, were on hand. The NEMO program assists Long Island town officials with the federal and state requirements known as Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems, or MS4, and with natural resource protection. The Peconic Estuary Program has been coordinating the effort to have the towns and villages surrounding the estuary band together.

    To introduce the topic, Ms. Quigley gave her own overview of the town’s obligation under MS4.

    Ms. Keenan interjected. Besides Ms. Quigley’s misstating the name of the program, which Ms. Keenan did not mention, “there’s a basic very factual error in your presentation,” Ms. Keenan told Ms. Quigley. The MS4 requirements “are far more comprehensive and complex than was presented.”

    However, Ms. Quigley said, for the town board’s purposes, the gist of it is that because four water bodies within the town have been deemed “impaired” under state and federal guidelines, East Hampton must ensure that pollutants no longer enter those waters, and they must be “cleaned up.” The areas are Lake Montauk, Accabonac Harbor, Northwest Creek, and Georgica Pond.

    Ms. Branco said the proposed agreement between the municipalities calls for coordinated efforts not just for MS4 compliance, but on other water quality protection efforts.

    Annual dues would cover salary and administrative costs for a part-time coordinator. It is estimated that East Hampton’s share would be between $5,000 and $7,000. If the towns as a group apply for grants for agreed-upon projects, and matching funds are required, that amount would be added to the dues as well. Kim Shaw, East Hampton’s natural resources director, said that a grant could be available to cover that cost.

    A committee with representatives from each party that has signed on to the agreement would develop an annual scope of work, Ms. Branco said, and each municipality would have the opportunity to opt in or out for the year.

    So far, she said, the towns of Southold and Brookhaven have signed on. As in East Hampton, the agreement is still being discussed by legislative decisionmakers for Suffolk County, for Riverhead, Shelter Island, and Southampton Towns, the Villages of Greenport, North Haven, Sag Harbor, and Dering Harbor, and the State Department of Transportation.

    Similar joint efforts are underway by several groups of other municipalities across Long Island, she said. After Ms. Quigley expressed fears about a loss of local control, Ms. Branco said that once the group is set up, the only actions undertaken will be those agreed upon by the group.

    “The estuary program saw an opportunity to help the East End municipalities and waters,” said Ms. Branco, “by bringing municipalities to work together on stormwater.” In addition, she said, “There has been interest in expanding to other water quality issues . . . that are important to everyone,” such as wastewater, setbacks, etc., “because all share the same waters.”

    “I wish,” said Nathaniel Miller, “that whoever it is would be a man and come and talk to me, or yell at me, or something.”

    In recent months, multiple acts of vandalism have targeted the boat, mooring line, nets, and truck belonging to Mr. Miller, a 13th-generation bayman and, since his election in 2011, an East Hampton Town Trustee. Last winter, windows were broken at the Lamb Building in Amagansett, where the trustees meet. Floodlights were cracked, a fence rail was broken, and a tire iron was found on the floor of the meeting room.

Mr. Miller, and Diane McNally, the trustees’ clerk, firmly believe that the ancient governing body’s enforcement of existing laws is behind the vandalism. “I think because Nat is a bayman and people know where his equipment is kept, it makes him an easier target,” Ms. McNally said.

    This year, the trustees moved to improve and enforce the mooring grid system in Three Mile Harbor, in an effort to tighten regulations from which boaters had drifted. The action, Mr. Miller said, was taken to preclude the State Department of Environmental Conservation from closing the entire harbor to shellfishing should the agency decide the water was polluted.

    The grid, Mr. Miller explained, was established in the 1980s. “If you put the boats in a mooring grid, if the D.E.C. feels there’s too much pollution, they just shut off the mooring grid instead of the whole harbor. We were afraid that with boats being all over the place, they would close down the harbor. We’re just bringing back the mooring grid.”

    In October, Mr. Miller had expressed concern at a trustees’ meeting about scallop poaching in protected sanctuaries or prior to the season’s opening. Another activity, the powering of softshell clams (using an outboard motor to churn the seabed), is in some circumstances “a wonderful thing,” he said. “But when you start powering clams in eelgrass beds or when there’s planted oysters, that application doesn’t do good. There’s the possibility of a lot of bug scallops in Napeague, and we don’t want to affect them. There’s a right time and a wrong time for everything. Just going and doing it is not the answer.”

    Taking the long view, Mr. Miller said, is consistent with the trustees’ responsibility to manage the town’s common lands. “A lot of people were so used to doing what they want,” he said. “A lot of people like to go and make that initial dollar now, and they’re not thinking about the ten dollars down the road, of the future.”

      If he has learned one thing as a trustee, he said, it is that “you’re never going to make everyone happy. Everyone that pays taxes in this town has a right to go get a mess of clams or scallops to eat, but to have one greedy person, whether it’s somebody who wants those small clams for that night’s pasta, or a commercial guy, or somebody from out of town, it doesn’t matter. It’s a resource, and you’re fighting all the pollutants that are in the water.”

    “I’m trying to do my best,” he concluded.

    Ms. McNally denounced the vandalism at the trustees’ July 2 meeting, calling on the “cowards” responsible to speak with the trustees if they were unhappy with the body’s decisions, which she emphasized were made collectively. “It’s odd that occasionally people will take it upon themselves to do this,” she said Tuesday. “It’s as though you somehow are allowed to harass a public official if you disagree with them.”

    The recent vandalism is occurring against a backdrop of the annual influx of summer visitors, putting greater strain on both the environment and those charged with enforcing the law and maintaining order. Hurricane Sandy and the extreme weather events that followed last fall also made for an especially heavy workload for trustees as owners of waterfront property urgently sought to repair and bolster manmade and natural barriers against the sea.

    For the trustees, all of this means more applications to scrutinize and approve or disapprove: for bulkhead and staircase construction and repair, the installation of shoreline fencing, and mass-gathering permits, for example. The group monitors water quality and vector-control spraying, and routinely fields requests and complaints from individuals and businesses that utilize the beaches and waterways under trustee jurisdiction.

    “We have not made one new law,” said Mr. Miller. “We have just tried to reinforce every old law. Everything that we, and the other trustees, have done has been laws that are on the books, that were put there for a reason and a purpose. For so long, people did whatever they wanted to. There are so many people around, we just can’t do that anymore. If you do, the resource is going to be gone. My personal thing is just to try to keep what’s left.”

    Town harbormasters, said Ms. McNally, “have the boating rules to do, they’re patrolling our nature preserves, now they have beaches as well. Their responsibilities have increased, compared to their numbers going down and the population going up.”

    Ms. McNally worried about the chilling effect harassment of public officials might have. “It’s quite a conundrum here in this town,” she said. “It’s hard enough to get local people to want to seek public office, because you put your name out there. If it’s not just your name people can drag through the mud but your livelihood and family, we’re going to have a harder time finding competent people to do that.”

    At a meeting of the trustees last month, Mr. Miller acknowledged that in light of the vandalism to his property he had considered quitting his position. But, he told his colleagues, the anything-goes attitude of some commercial fishermen, contractors, and homeowners were behind his decision to run for office in the first place.

    “I’m not going to give up,” he said last week. “I think if there’s one person angry at me, there’s 100 that are happy with what I’m doing.”

    At press time, calls to the East Hampton Town Police Department seeking comment on its investigation of the van

East Hampton Town

A Poxabogue Sale Go-Ahead

    State legislation needed for East Hampton Town to move forward with the sale of its share of the Poxabogue Golf Center in Sagaponack to Southampton Town, the joint owner, has been passed and signed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. The sale had previously been held up when the town discovered it needed state permission, through the “alienation of parkland” provision of the law, to divest its ownership in the recreational facility. While East Hampton purchased its share using municipal funds, Southampton Town used money from its community preservation fund; consequently the property will be preserved into the future. The second state legislative act was needed to clarify the metes and bounds of the property, which had been inaccurately described in the first law.

Hearing on ‘Light Trucks’

    The town board will hold a hearing next Thursday night on an amendment to the zoning code designed to help ordinance enforcement officers prosecute those who use residential properties as a base for commercial activities.

    While the code prohibits the establishment, in neighborhoods, of businesses, and the parking at houses of commercially registered vehicles, it allows business owners to park “light trucks” at their residences. However, because there is no specific definition in the law of what a light truck is, the board has been told by Patrick Gunn, the chief public safety officer, that it is difficult to cite people who, for example, park numerous large trucks, landscaping equipment, and the like at their houses, using them as a home base for businesses.

    The proposal under discussion would define a light truck as a commercially registered motor vehicle of not more than 25 feet in length and with a gross vehicle weight rating, as specified by the manufacturer, of 10,000 pounds or less. While the code change will not enact a new ban on businesses in residential areas, it would allow for increased enforcement of the law. Councilwoman Theresa Quigley has expressed concern about its impact on business owners. The hearing will begin at 7 p.m.

LTV Contract Talks

    East Hampton Town is poised to renew a contract with LTV, the cable station that is the town’s public access provider, after a hearing last Thursday at which numerous LTV producers spoke about the nonprofit organization’s value. The station receives an annual grant from the town, a percentage of the franchise fees paid by Cablevision, and provides coverage of education and local government on Channels 20 and 22.

    Town board members agreed Tuesday to provide a total of $682,000 to the station this year, and then to set a base amount of $550,000 annually. The need for any budgetary requests beyond that would have to be proven by LTV, under a “zero-based budgeting” model.

Ping-Pong Donation

    The Amagansett Youth Park will get an outdoor Ping-Pong table, thanks to a donation by Khanh Ngo of Khanh Sports in Amagansett, Councilwoman Sylvia Overby announced Tuesday. The donation was set in motion by a constituent who inquired about adding the equipment to that already provided for youngsters at the park, Ms. Overby said.    J.P.

New York State

Thiele on the 2013 Session

    The League of Women Voters of the Hamptons has invited Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. to speak to the public Monday evening in Bridgehampton about the “highlights of the 2013 legislative session.” Mr. Thiele, a member of the Independence Party after having switched from the Republican Party in 2009, has represented the East End for the past 18 years and serves on the State Assembly’s Education, Election Law, Environmental Conservation, Transportation, Ways and Means, and Oversight, Analysis, and Investigation Committees. What’s more, he was recently appointed chairman of the Assembly Task Force on University-Industry Cooperation.

    Mr. Thiele, a native of Sag Harbor, will speak at the Hampton Library at 7 p.m. Refreshments will be served at the beginning of the talk, and there will be a question-and-answer session afterward.

‘Pets in Cars’ Bill Gains Ground

    Fines for those who leave companion animals in cars during extreme hot or cold weather conditions would be increased, and police officers authorized to remove endangered animals, under a bill being sponsored by Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. in the State Legislature. In a release, Mr. Thiele noted that during the heat wave in July, a number of cases of animals confined in vehicles were reported to his office, and that “many local governments are taking steps to educate the public about the danger of such confinement.”

    Several citizen activists have recently petitioned East End governments for permission to purchase and install signs to be erected in parking lots warning of the dangers of leaving animals in cars, and of the penalties for doing so. The East Hampton Town Board, in the face of opposition to the idea by Councilwoman Theresa Quigley, took no action after hearing the appeal several weeks ago.

    If adopted, the assemblyman’s bill would increase the fine for a first offense from between $50 and $100 to $250 to $500; the fine for a second offense could rise to $1,000. In addition to authorizing officials to remove an endangered animal, the bill would amend the current law to provide that a prosecutor need not prove that the driver of the vehicle had knowledge of the dangerous confinement — only that the animal was confined in dangerous conditions.

    Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. welcomed the members of the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals at the board’s meeting on Friday, saying that zoning “probably is the core issue with respect to the governance of a municipality,” and suggesting that they “be mindful that as the zoning code evolves and is applied and manifests itself, that’s how your community maintains its personality and aura of cooperation and embracement.”

    The new roster starts with Frank Newbold as chairman. He had been the vice chairman and a member since 2004. Lysbeth Marigold is now vice chairwoman. Craig Humphrey, previously an alternate, is now a full member, and Ray Harden has begun a five-year term as an alternate.

    “I thank you on behalf of the board for all your efforts and energy,” the mayor said.

    The meeting was otherwise brief and uneventful. An application from Katherine J. Rayner to lower a floor under part of her house at 85 West End Road, for which the board heard a lengthy and technically complex presentation on June 28, was adjourned until the board’s meeting next Friday, at the applicant’s request.