While the votes for the two candidates for Sagaponack Village trustee were close in number on Friday, the race was not.

    Joy Sieger and William Barbour were each re-elected for two-year terms. Ms. Sieger got 47 votes; Mr. Barbour 46.

    The village board holds public meetings on the third Monday of each month and meets on planning issues on the second Monday of each month. A monthly calendar and legal notices are posted on the village’s Web site, sagaponackvillage.org.

    In a near-unanimous vote last Thursday, the East Hampton Town Board adopted a deer management plan for the town, after hearing the results of a March survey that identified only 877 deer living here, far fewer than is generally believed.

    The plan contains a number of possible actions and alternatives to further assess the deer population and monitor the herd, measures that could be used to reduce it, and other long-term management options.

    Councilwoman Theresa Quigley voted against adopting the plan. “I’m in favor of having a deer management plan,” she said, but “I don’t approve of this plan. I think it’s too sloppy, and contains misstatements, based on what I’ve heard.”

    The plan was developed by a “deer management working group” organized over a year ago by Councilman Dominick Stanzione. The group included state and county legislators, town planning and environmental staff, and members of organizations such as the Peconic Land Trust, the Nature Conservancy, and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

    In a press release this week, Mr. Stanzione thanked the participants and said the plan “blazes a new trail in local public policy” and “addresses a critical public health and safety need of our community.” Its development, he said, was “an important demonstration that town government can work for our community, if we work together. ”

     The new approach, said the councilman, “sets environmental and safety goals for [the] deer population” and includes plans for expanding hunting areas, using non-lethal methods to control the size of the herd, streamlining the issuance of hunting permits, and creating a deer management advisory board, among other initiatives. It provides for budgeting over the next several years to fund the efforts.

    The full text of the plan can be found on the town Web site at town.east-hampton.ny.us.

    A small building lot on an acre of waterfront property on Fort Pond in Montauk brought out a large group of neighbors at an East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals hearing on June 11.

    Timothy and Noell Twiggs, who own the undeveloped acre at 85 South Edgemere Street, had obtained several setback variances as well as a natural resources special permit in previous applications to the board. At their first hearing, in early 2012, no member of the public attended, a fact not lost on the board members.

    The Twiggs were granted the variances needed to build a 2,437-square-foot house with a 410-square-foot carport and 1,195 square feet of decking. Subsequently they sought to modify the original proposal by incorporating the carport into the house, creating more living space, which was okayed without a public hearing in October.

    “We have a lot of people here tonight; we had nobody at the first public hearing,” said Alex Walter, the Z.B.A. chairman, in explaining why the board had allowed the modifications without holding a hearing.

    The Twiggs had to return to the zoning board yet again because both town planners and their surveyor had not recognized that two more setback variances were needed. The overlooked variances are for a sideyard setback of 15 feet and a setback from the rear yard, which faces Fort Pond, of 11.6 feet.

    In the time between the granting of the carport modification and the realization that the setback variances were necessary, a neighbor, Laura Michaels, took legal action against the town, saying among other things that the earlier hearings had not been properly noticed to the public.

    Richard Hammer of Biondo and Hammer, representing the Twiggs, told board members they should consider only the specific variances now being requested.

    “This proposal has been before the board twice already,” he said. “It is sensitive to the community. If all the properties on Fort Pond had the same characteristics as the current proposal,” he said, the pond itself would be in better health. He was referring to the septic systems at neighboring houses, which he said were quite old and outdated.

    Neighbors, numbering about 25 — an unusually high number for recent Z.B.A. hearings — disagreed.

    Christopher D. Kelly of Twomey, Latham, Shea, Kelly, Dubin and Quartararo, Ms. Michaels’s attorney, asked the board to consider the entire range of the project, and to take into account the fact that the town board had offered $500,000 to purchase the land from its previous owners. Mr. Kelly, a past chairman of the zoning board, encouraged the board to reject the application.

     “We’re reviewing only two requests for variances,” Don Cirillo, a member, told him. “Are you implying that we are supposed to review the entire proposal?”

    Mr. Kelly’s answer, emphatically, was yes.

    The board’s attorney, Susana M. Roxbury, did not agree that the board should weigh the town’s attempt to buy the property in its deliberations, warning that the Z.B.A. could put itself in legal jeopardy if it did so.

    Christopher Poli of Edgemere Street said the survey the applicant was using appeared to be incorrect, that the decking was larger than stated and closer to the wetlands. Initially, Brian Frank, the planning department’s chief environmental analyst, disagreed, but he changed his position after examining the survey with Mr. Kelly.

    Mr. Poli also pointed out that the plans for the house had gone from two bedrooms and two bathrooms to five bedrooms and five baths.

    Jeremy Samuelson, executive director of the Concerned Citizens of Montauk, in answer to Mr. Walter’s observation that no one had attended the first public hearing, agreed that the project had been growing incrementally since then. If the applicants had planned a five-bedroom house in the first place, he said, the reaction would have been quite different at that hearing. “This process has led us down a convoluted road,” said Mr. Samuelson. “Over time, this has grown big and has become something else. People have had the time to look around.”

    “There is no reason that this has to be a 3,000-square-foot house. There is a building envelope on this property and the applicant hasn’t demonstrated the hardship needed. The house as proposed is too large for this lot,” he concluded.

    With so many pieces of the puzzle not yet in place, the board agreed to keep the record open for another month, which will give Mr. Hammer time to obtain an updated survey and Mr. Kelly time to respond.

    Sean McPherson, the owner of the Crow’s Nest restaurant and motel in Montauk and a collector of exotic cars, wants to build a new, 600-square-foot garage on his Miller Avenue property in Montauk’s Ditch Plain neighborhood. His application was discussed at a June 25 public hearing before the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals.

    The property, a little under an acre, contains an 864-square-foot single-story house with a built-in, below-ground-level, 288-square-foot garage. Its 184-square-foot deck and 35-square-foot shower were both built by a previous owner without a building permit.

    Mr. McPherson, represented by Britton Bistrian, needs a wetlands variance for the garage. He also seeks to legalize the shower and the deck, and to get the needed variances for a 432-square-foot second-story addition.

    All the structures, either existing or proposed, are or would be between 18 feet and 38 feet from wetlands, where 100 feet is normally required. A natural resources special permit is needed as well, because of the proximity of the wetlands to the house.

    Ms. Bistrian told the board that the current garage, being below grade, floods whenever it rains, rendering it useless for storage.

    Flooding was also a concern of the Town Planning Department. Brian Frank, the department’s chief environmental analyst, told the board that Ditch Plain runoff water drains and feeds into Lake Montauk, explaining why the department opposes, in particular, the proposed garage. “Wetlands are nature’s kidneys,” he explained — wetlands hold water, releasing it slowly, helping to purify it before it enters a larger body such as Lake Montauk.

    He pointed out that 600 square feet is the largest size the town allows for an accessory building. “This is just too wet of an area to put a structure of that size in,” said Mr. Frank. The garage, as proposed, would be about 30 feet from the wetlands.

    The department did not oppose the second-story addition, although the planner had some questions about the size of the deck. Ms. Bistrian explained that the decking had been extended at some point since the early ’70s, when the house was built.

    A neighbor spoke in opposition, not to the garage itself but to its location, asking that the proposed structure be moved from east of the property to the western side. Ms. Bistrian said Mr. McPherson was very much agreeable.

    The board voted 4-0 to close the public hearing, and now has until late August to make its decision. David Lys, a board member, was not present for the meeting.

    The board did render one decision that night, voting 4-0 to reject a series of variances requested by the owner of a Central Avenue, Amagansett, property, after receiving a strongly worded memo from Steven Lynch, the town’s highway superintendent.

    The 1,024-square-foot, single-story house currently on the site is in dilapidated condition, a point agreed upon by both the owner, Steven Dubb, and the several neighbors who showed up at an April 16 hearing on the proposal.

    The lot, like a number of others nearby, is small, 12,760 square feet. The original size of the proposed new house was large for the neighborhood, according to Rona Klopman, president of the local homeowners association.

    But it was concerns about flooding that did the application in. Mr. Dubb’s plan included building a retaining wall onto the public right of way.

    Several neighbors testified that flooding is already an issue on that block and expressed deep concern that the problem would only worsen if the Dubb house was built as proposed. Mr. Lynch agreed, telling the board that nothing should be built or planted on the public right of way.

    Don Cirillo voted with the other board members to reject the application, but stressed that his vote did not indicate opposition to the overall plan, but was based on the narrow question of the right-of-way flooding issue as expressed by Mr. Lynch.

    It is not the first time East Hampton Town Trustees have been victimized by vandalism, Diane McNally, the trustees’ clerk, said, by way of explaining the absence of Nat Miller, a trustee, from the group’s meeting Tuesday evening.

    Mr. Miller, she said, was meeting with police regarding multiple recent incidents, including water poured into the gas tank of his boat, causing extensive damage, a tow line cut, and tampering with the distributor cap of his truck.

    Visibly angry, Ms. McNally urged all present to spread the word that “We are members of the community as everyone else is. There are no I’s in ‘trustee.’ Nat knows we all stand behind him.” Every decision the trustees make is made collectively, as a group, she said. The person or persons who are “putting his livelihood and ability to support his family in jeopardy . . . are cowards,” she said. “If people are not happy with the decisions of this board, I invite them to come and speak with us.”

    Ms. McNally noted that the Lamb Building on Bluff Road, where the trustees hold their meetings, was vandalized several months ago. As reported in The Star, windows were broken, floodlights were cracked, a fence rail was broken, and a chrome tire iron was found on the floor of the trustee meeting room.

    Once the meeting was under way, the trustees considered a number of issues and fielded comments from owners of waterfront property. Kevin Mulvey, who lives near Georgica Pond, told the trustees of the consequences of a deluge during a tropical storm on June 7. A flooded basement and extensive damage, he said, were the result. The storm, he said, “in a matter of hours put over three feet of water in the pond. Just get it back to a manageable level,” he said.

    The pond’s high level at this point in the year, he said, is very unusual. “This is waiting for disaster. . . . The pond is going to open,” he said, but if the trustees wait for nature to take its course, many more properties will be damaged by flooding. “Do it before we have unnecessary damage,” he implored.

    The trustees had a different opinion. “It’s been a lot higher,” Sean McCaffrey said. “If you open that pond, it’s going to empty. It’s higher than the ocean.”

    “I don’t want to be responsible for destroying the ecology of the pond,” said Stephen Lester.

    “Sean, I will beg to differ with you,” Mr. Mulvey answered. “If it gets higher, it’s going to go over. It will open within a month or so. You’re going to have a hue and cry from people with two to three feet of water in their basement.”

    “All I’m saying is, we seem to wait until imminent disaster,” he added.

    Ms. McNally said that anyone acting to open the pond to the ocean would be subject to a sizable fine by the State Department of Environmental Conservation.

    With respect to mosquitoes and Suffolk County’s use of insecticides to control West Nile virus, Debbie Klughers, a trustee, reported that Connecticut has banned the use of the larvicide methoprene and the adulticide resmethrin within 1,000 feet of Long Island Sound shoreline. Last year, that state’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection detected residues of the insecticides in lobsters harvested from the Sound.

    Ms. Klughers told the trustees that the D.E.C. and Dominick Ninivaggi, the county’s superintendent of the Division of Vector Control, “are comfortable with using fathead minnows” — a freshwater fish — “to eat larvae.” She proposed a trustee-funded and administered program in which the fish would be given to the public to stock ponds, pools, and other bodies of standing water.

    There was some debate about the potential for unintended consequences from such a program, but Ms. Klughers asserted that it would reduce mosquitoes and simultaneously educate the public about the health hazards of both mosquitoes and insecticide. “It’s something to think about.” Suffolk, she said, lags far behind other counties and states in implementing safer and more effective solutions to vector control.

    Ms. Klughers also asked that the trustees draft a letter to the town board in support of waiving parking permits for personnel of the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation. In 2012, the nonprofit organization responded to 35 events involving pinnipeds (such as seals), turtles, and dolphins and other cetaceans, alive or dead, on town beaches. Some members of the organization have received parking tickets while responding to such events.

    The foundation’s federal funding was eliminated and grant funding is minimal, Ms. Klughers said. She and Lynn Mendelman, a trustee, agreed to work on a letter to the town board in support of a waiver.

    Shark Attack Sounds, a party for 3,900 beginning tomorrow night at the Montauk Yacht Club and slated to continue into the wee hours of Saturday, will go on, thanks to a last-minute approval by the East Hampton Town Board. The board’s Republican majority agreed yesterday morning with a hastily compiled plan to have partygoers park at a field on Montauk Highway in Amagansett, formerly the Principi farm, rather than at a Montauk field.

     Seventeen buses, each with a 52-passenger capacity (and four extra, if necessary), will shuttle back and forth between Amagansett and the yacht club.

    Town police traffic control officers will have to be posted from 4:30 or 5 p.m. tomorrow until 3 a.m. Saturday, East Hampton Town Police Lt. Chris Hatch told the town board at yesterday’s special meeting, at a cost of about $4,000.

    Although the town’s policy is to charge event organizers for the costs to taxpayers of such services, the town will not be able to recoup the money in this case, Lieutenant Hatch told the board, under State Liquor Authority rules. Among the event organizers — who include the promoter Ben Watts, who has hosted the event at Rick’s Crabby Cowboy Cafe in Montauk for the last several years — is the yacht club, which holds a state liquor license. Municipalities are not permitted to charge license holders for the cost of municipal services, Lieutenant Hatch reported after consulting with the state authority.

    The cost of the police services, said Supervisor Bill Wilkinson, who offered the resolution to issue the party permit, must be weighed against “the economic benefit to the town.”

    Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc and Councilwoman Sylvia Overby voted against issuing a permit for the event, as they had on June 20, when the majority approved an initial Shark Attack plan calling for parking 800 cars on the pastureland at Rita’s Stables in Montauk. Rita Foster, the stable owner, withdrew from her agreement with the party promoters earlier this week.

    Mr. Van Scoyoc said his opposition was “due to the scale and commercial nature of the event on July Fourth weekend.” Ms. Overby said the new parking plan had not “improved the nature of the event.” Now, she said, it will involve Amagansett as well as Montauk, and will more likely affect the side streets around the yacht club as ticketholders seek parking spots. Both noted the increased population and traffic expected over the long holiday weekend. Mr. Van Scoyoc said that “though there are some who will benefit . . . the detriment will be on the community at large.”

    Organizers expect only “a certain percentage” of the ticketholders, who will be informed of the location of the parking lot by e-mail or text message, to stop in Amagansett, admitting that “human nature” would drive some to bypass the shuttle bus and head straight to Montauk. Shuttle buses will also pick up partygoers throughout Montauk.

    Only a limited amount of V.I.P. parking will be allowed on Star Island, near the yacht club. Lieutenant Hatch said others will not be allowed onto Star Island Drive, but will be turned away there and sent back to the parking lot in Amagansett. Whether they will make that drive or search for places to park in Montauk is a question.    

    “It’s going to result in people trying to park in neighborhoods in the area, people trying to park in other businesses in the area,” the lieutenant said. “The danger goes up after dark, particularly in the 2 a.m. range. We have to be concerned about the safety of the residents in the area.”

    Last year’s Shark Attack party at Rick’s, on East Lake Drive, was shut down early when some 2,500 participants, well more than the 800 specified in the permit, clogged the road, preventing access by emergency vehicles.

    Councilwoman Theresa Quigley pressed Lloyd Van Horn, a Montauk Yacht Club manager who attended yesterday’s “emergency” town board meeting, to find a way to require that those with tickets coming to the party from the west, stop and park in Amagansett. She suggested distributing a final ticket, only at that site, allowing entrance to the event, and said at first that she would not support the revised plan, and the new permit, without that element in place.

    After several minutes spent investigating that possibility, Mr. Van Horn, through Lawrence Kelley, his attorney, reported that “technologically, it’s not feasible.”

    However, he said, they would explore “options that would incentivize them,” such as “prizes at the Montauk site if you stop at the Amagansett site . . . to raise those percentages up.” Ms. Quigley seconded Mr. Wilkinson’s motion to issue the permit, and Councilman Dominick Stanzione placed the third ‘yes’ vote to override the minority.

    “My concern is that Friday, coming out from the west, traffic will back up for miles and miles and there will be gridlock,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said.

    Before the original 3-to-2 vote on June 20 to issue the first party permit, no board member mentioned that in 2004, the town had paid over $2 million from its community preservation fund to purchase the development rights on Ms. Foster’s 17 acres. That agreement, according to John Jilnicki, the town attorney, and Scott Wilson, the town’s director of land acquisition and management, limits activities on the land to those that are agriculture-related.

    “Everything else is precluded,” Mr. Wilson said Tuesday. “Every time we buy development rights we basically exclude any commercial activities outside of agriculture. There is no provision to allow for special events.”

    Mr. Jilnicki said Tuesday that he and Mr. Wilson had reviewed the legal documents pertaining to the development rights purchase at the end of last week and provided information to the town board.

    Interviewed by phone on Tuesday, Ms. Foster said she had raised the question of the development rights purchase and had been assured by Mr. Van Horn that it would be addressed when the permit application was made. Ms. Foster said he had indicated that town officials were aware of the land’s status, and had nonetheless voted to approve the permit.

    Mr. Van Horn did not return a call for comment this week. But, said Mr. Wilkinson during the meeting yesterday, at the time of the vote “the board wasn’t even aware that we had a development rights issue.”

    Had the town allowed the party parking on the protected farmland, the matter would have fallen under the jurisdiction of a regional committee that oversees the East End towns’ compliance with rules governing the Peconic Bay Region Community Preservation Fund, according to State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., an author of the legislation creating that fund.

    Ms. Foster said she had understood that valets would be parking cars in selected areas of her pasture. She became concerned, she said, when she learned there would be parking attendants, but not valets. “They would have destroyed my property,” she said Tuesday. “My pasture that I spent 30 years on.” With partygoers free to enter and exit the property without escort, she said she feared the liability that might ensue from falls on uneven ground and the like.

    In remarks opening yesterday’s special town board meeting, scheduled the day before, Mr. Wilkinson said a board review of the original party permit was necessary because of Ms. Foster’s change of mind.

    “Do we know why Rita’s Stables is no longer being used?” Ms. Overby asked. “Would it be because it’s C.P.F. purchase property?”

    “We didn’t make that determination — this board didn’t,” Mr. Wilkinson said. That fact, Ms. Quigley said, and that it had not arisen during a review of the party permit application by various town departments, was “the elephant in the room.” But, she said, it pointed to a failure by staffers, and not to a fault of the board. “It isn’t the board’s responsibility to discover that,” she said.

    Mr. Jilnicki said early this week that procedures for vetting mass gathering permit applications were being revised to make sure that any protected status of a proposed event location would be determined.

    “What we have is a well-planned party,” Mr. Kelley told the board of the July 4 weekend throwdown. Quoting John Adams, he said that the patriot had expressed hope that “every American would have the opportunity to celebrate the commemorative date of the signing of the Declaration of Independence for years to come.”

    The Amagansett site has been used successfully for several years for the Soldier Ride “Rock the Farm” event, he said.

    According to Mr. Kelly, the party organizers will make a donation to the Amagansett Fire Department in lieu of paying Ms. Foster for the use of her land. “The only problem is that it’s going to be the Montauk Fire Department that’s standing by,” Mr. Wilkinson said.

    Though initial documents had indicated that Shark Attack, an event widely touted by the metropolitan media as a “Hamptons” summer event not to miss, would serve as a fund-raiser for the Montauk Playhouse, Mr. Wilkinson said before the first vote on the permit that he was unsure how that reference got in, and Playhouse representatives were unaware of the event.  No mention was made at yesterday’s meeting of a donation to the Playhouse.

    But the partygoers, Mr. Kelley said yesterday, “are 3,900 with national and international connections,” who will “bring Montauk into their sphere of understanding.” The Montauk Yacht Club, he said, believes “that Montauk generally and the Montauk Yacht Club specifically benefits from the event.”

    As an “outreach” effort, Mr. Kelley said, members of the Coast Guard posted at the Montauk station at the end of Star Island near the yacht club have been invited to attend the party.

    “My question this morning,” he said to the board later in the meeting, “is how many Portuguese man-of-war land on the beaches of Montauk and devastate the economy, while you have the opportunity to make money for Montauk.”

East Hampton Town

Wildlife Group Does Not Endorse Deer Plan

    Bill Crain, the president of the East Hampton Group for Wildlife, appeared before the East Hampton Town Board on Tuesday to request the removal of his organization’s name from a recently adopted town deer-management plan, which it does not endorse.

    Among the management strategies included in the plan are increased hunting and a deer-culling program. Although members of the Group for Wildlife participated initially in development of the plan, “We want no part of this cruel plan,” Mr. Crain told the board.

    The wildlife group recently issued a pamphlet titled “Deer and You: Learn to Appreciate and Live in Harmony With White-Tailed Deer,” which contains facts about deer, Lyme disease, and preventing vehicle-deer collisions, as well as suggestions of deer-resistant plants.    

Nonprofit Grant Applications

    Nonprofit organizations that provide services to residents of East Hampton Town may apply through Aug. 16 for 2014 grants issued through the Department of Human Services.

    Applications can be downloaded from the department’s section of the town Web site, at town.east-hampton.ny.us, or picked up at the department’s offices at the senior citizen’s center at 128 Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton, where they must be submitted.

    Those with questions can contact Liliana Rodriguez at the Human Services Department.

    In a report to the East Hampton Town Board on Tuesday, Jim Brundige, the East Hampton Airport manager, said that the number of planes landing at or departing from the airport during the Fourth of July holiday period, from June 28 through July 8, were notably fewer than the number using the airport during the same period last year. The “total operations” over the recent holiday week numbered 921, he said; last year there were 1,913 operations — takeoffs or landings — during the June 29 to July 9 holiday period.

    He attributed at least some of the difference to the rainy weather preceding July 4 this year.

    Of the 921 takeoffs or landings this year, 13 of them violated an 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew that pilots are asked to voluntarily follow. Nine of the 13 takeoffs or landings outside curfew hours took place within 30 minutes of the curfew. Those “grossly violating curfew,” Mr. Brundige detailed in a printed report to the board, included a plane landing at 1:16 a.m. on Saturday, a takeoff just after midnight on Sunday, and an arrival at 5:44 a.m. on Monday.

    In 2012, 38 pilots ignored the requested curfew hours over the holiday week, with 26 of them classified as “grossly violating curfew.”

    At the meeting on Tuesday, Town Councilman Dominick Stanzione credited the increased compliance to Mr. Brundige’s efforts to contact the owners and operators of planes that land during East Hampton’s curfew hours with a written request that they respect the town’s wishes.

    Also at the meeting Tuesday, Mr. Brundige and Mr. Stanzione presented data showing that complaints logged into an automated complaint system over the holiday weekend, from July 3 to 8, this year were notably lower than the number from last year.

    Forty-two complaints were received in 2012 from households outside of East Hampton; this year there were 26 complaints.

    Complaints called in from households within East Hampton over the July Fourth holiday weekend numbered only 9 this year; last year there were 30.

    Diane McNally, clerk of the East Hampton Town trustees, reported at their meeting on Tuesday that the trustees were copied on a letter from Suffolk County to Supervisor Bill Wilkinson regarding the 2013-14 dredging season. The county, she said, seeks an up-to-date condition assessment of waterways affected by shoaling, including a map of soundings, by July 27.

    The trustees considered locations in several waterways, including Hog Creek, Napeague Bay, Accabonac Harbor, Three Mile Harbor, and Northwest Harbor. They will meet again before the deadline, by which time they will have prioritized waterways requiring dredging.

    Stephanie Forsberg, a trustee, delivered an aquaculture report, which she described as positive. “The good news is we don’t have any harmful algal blooms,” she said. “We’re looking actively. We don’t have anything of concern.”

    Waterways will be monitored for brown tide, she said, referring to the bloom of algae that nearly eliminated the bay scallop population from the Peconic Estuary in 1985. Soon, she said, given higher-than-average water temperatures, waterways will also be monitored for red tide, the harmful algal bloom that kills fish and makes shellfish dangerous to consume.

    Nat Miller, a trustee, had opened Tuesday’s meeting by thanking his colleagues for their support. In brief remarks, Mr. Miller, whose boat, fishing equipment, and truck have been vandalized in recent weeks, reaffirmed his commitment to the trustees’ stewardship of the town’s common lands.

    Over his lifetime, he said, “I watched commercial fishermen, contractors, homeowners just do what they want. The cheating, the poaching — it never worked. It was for greed, whether it was for five bucks or five million. It destroys the town. It got to me, to the point where I decided to run for trustee.”

    “I don’t believe we enforced or started any new things,” he said of his two years as a trustee. “We’ve tried to reinforce codes that have been on the books for 30 years, 40 years.” Mr. Miller considered quitting his post, he told his colleagues. “Ultimately, I had to provide for my family. I want to thank the board. I think the community thinks I’m doing a good job,” he said, to applause.

    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.