As expected, the East Hampton Democratic Committee’s screening committee has recommended that Larry Cantwell, the retiring East Hampton Village administrator, should be the party’s nominee to run for town supervisor in the November election. The choices are in advance of an official nomination convention on Wednesday.

    In a statement issued Monday, Betty Mazur, the screening committee chairwoman, said that it recommended Kathee Burke-Gonzalez and Job Potter as candidates for town board. Ms. Burke-Gonzalez is the president of the Springs School Board. Mr. Potter previously served two terms on the town board.

    Highway Superintendent Stephen Lynch, who ran on the Republican line in winning his first term, earned the committee’s support.

    Also getting the committee’s backing were Eugene DePasquale, an assessor who is an incumbent hoping to remain in the post, Stephen Tekulsky for town justice, and Carole Brennan for town clerk. Mr. Tekulsky unsuccessfully ran for town justice in a previous race.

    In making its selections, the screening committee passed over at least three hopefuls, including Zachary Cohen, who has been seeking the nomination for town supervisor, and Kathleen Cunningham and Peter Wadsworth, who had sought town board nods.

    Mr. Cohen has said that he hoped the entire Democratic Committee would back him after he had a chance to address its members at the convention Wednesday. He lost by an extremely close 15-vote margin to Supervisor Bill Wilkinson in 2011.

    Wednesday’s convention will be held in St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in Amagansett at 7 p.m. and will be open to observers.

    Both houses of the New York State Legislature have passed a measure that would allow the municipalities of East Hampton, Southampton, and Southold to transfer land, at little or no cost, to the trustees of those townships.

    The measure, which awaits Governor Andrew M. Cuomo’s signature, was championed by Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. of Sag Harbor and Senator Kenneth P. LaValle of Port Jefferson.

    Typically, said Mr. Thiele, under the general municipal law, local governments can transfer land to other local governments for public purposes at no cost or reduced cost. However, such transfers may only be made to municipal corporations defined as county, town, village, or fire district.

    The trustees of the freeholders and commonalty of East Hampton, Southampton, and Southold, elected bodies created in the 17th century by the Nicholls and Dongan Patents, are autonomous and are not defined as municipal corporations.

    “They would greatly benefit from the ability to receive land at no cost from the county or other local governments,” Mr. Thiele said.

    The bill also provides that real property received by trustees in this way cannot be sold, transferred, leased, exchanged, or otherwise conveyed unless by an act of the legislature. 

    Although historically, all the East End’s independent town trustees have tried to keep the state at arms’ length so as to maintain their special authorities, Diane McNally, the clerk of the East Hampton trustees, said she saw no drawbacks to her nine-member board becoming a municipal corporation.

    Two proposed houses, in two different neighborhoods, had neighbors seeing red at public hearings during a marathon East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals meeting at Town Hall on April 16.

    In both cases, the board concluded that the wisest path for the property owners might be to break bread with their neighbors, to see if a compromise could be worked out. And in both cases, the applicants offered compromises on Tuesday, although whether they would satisfy the opposition remains to be seen.

    Steven Dubb bought a house at 142 Central Avenue in Beach Hampton in August. It was described by several speakers at the meeting as a dilapidated eyesore, looking more like a haunted house than a beach house, with doors askew, its deck collapsing, and overgrown shrubbery, as shown in photographs taken by Don Cirillo, a board member.

    Mr. Dubb paid a little more than $1 million for the property after eyeing the land for several years. He had thought he would replace the house and then sell it for a profit. His plans changed, however, he said, when he fell in love and got engaged. Mr. Dubb, who was listed in Hamptons magazine as one of the East End’s 50 most eligible bachelors in 2010, is vice president of the Beechwood Organization, a family company that is a developer of houses and communities, both on Long Island and nationwide.

     The property is on the corner of Central Avenue and Cliff Road, which, with Bayberry Lane on its eastern border, forms a large rectangular block lined with small houses, all of which surround a two-and-a-half acre wetland owned by the town.

    The plans presented to the board called for replacing the single-story, 1,024-square-foot house with a two-story house of 3,060 square feet, as well as replacing an existing swimming pool and deck and removing a brick patio. In addition to a natural resources permit, variances would be necessary for the pool, house, decking, and septic system, because they would be closer to the wetlands than allowed by the town code.

    The size of the new house, the placement of the septic system, and a proposed 150-foot-long retaining wall were all targeted by neighbors, with five letters received by the board in opposition and several neighbors showing up in person. The wall, they said, would exacerbate already bad flooding in the area after substantial rainfalls.

    Rona Klopman, the president of the homeowners organization in the area, the Amagansett East Association, said it was constantly flooded, a fact apparently supported by photographs taken after rainstorms, as well as a 2010 e-mail from Scott King, then-town highway superintendent, in which he noted that the roadway directly in front of the property had been impassable for two weeks following a major storm.

    Ms. Klopman also disputed a point made by Mr. Dubb’s attorney, Eric Bregman of Farrell, Fritz of Bridgehampton, that the size of the house was in keeping with the neighborhood.

     “There are 315 homes in Beach Hampton, she said, calling the proposed size of the house totally inappropriate and saying that larger houses Mr. Bregman had referenced were on larger parcels.

    Brian Frank, the East Hampton Town Planning Department’s chief environmental analyst, criticized the linear layout of the septic system, as opposed to the clover-leaf pattern usually installed in East Hampton.

    “How do you answer the neighbors’ objection that this expansion, by almost three times the size of the house, won’t affect the character of the neighborhood?” Alex Walter, the board’s chairman, asked Mr. Bregman. “I disagree with you on a legal basis,” Mr. Bregman responded. “Is it too big? It is not. The legislature has said that it is okay.” He used the term “legal basis” several times, possibly intimating court action if thwarted.

    Furthermore, he said the project would vastly improve the wetlands. He pointed out that the new pool would be farther away from the sensitive area and that the brick patio would be removed.

    Mr. Frank argued that any possible benefits to the wetlands were outweighed by the project’s “aggressive” size and scope.

    “My main concern are the flooding issues,” Louis Ferolito, whose house is diagonally opposite the Dubb property, said. “I can’t afford flood insurance anymore from the two claims I did have from water just penetrating and flooding” my house, he said. “I don’t want to live in Lake Ferolito.”

    The planned retaining wall, which would line the property, would be as tall as three feet in some places. It is necessitated by the need to place the septic tanks above the level of groundwater.

    “Flooding is worsening in Beach Hampton for a couple of reasons,” Mr. Frank explained. “This is an area that is close to sea level,” he said. When owners try to get maximum use of their properties and raise the grade level of the property, they increase the likelihood of flooding, he said.

    “I am building a smaller pool, because we are in the dunes by the ocean,” Reiko Gomez, another neighbor, said. “That is kind of the agreement we have all made.”

    At the end of the session, Mr. Walter suggested that the board could keep the record open for two weeks to allow the applicant and the neighbors to discuss possible changes. On Tuesday, Mr. Dubb turned in modified plans. “We met with three of the neighbors,” he said. “We have drastically reduced the size of the house and have taken it outside of the wetlands.”

    He also said he had agreed to put up substantial screening in front of the retaining wall, although Ms. Klopman warned that the promised screening would be in the town’s right of way. “I feel we have met all reasonable concerns as best we can,” Mr. Dubb said.

On Crooked Highway

    Earlier on April 16, on the other application that brought out a group of opposed neighbors, the board heard from Laurie Wiltshire of Land Planning Services, representing Juan Figueroa, who had initially applied for what appeared to be massive clearing of white pines on his three-and-a-half acre property, at 15 Crooked Highway. He proposed a 12,332-square-foot residence, a 9,500-square-foot reflecting pool, an 1,800-square-foot swimming pool, and over 4,000 square feet of decking and walkways.

    Several neighbors were visibly upset with the proposal. However, Ms. Wiltshire said, the plan had already been radically scaled down. The house was now to be 10,260 square feet. The reflecting pool and decking were gone from the new plan, and the swimming pool was reduced in size.

     Still, the neighbors expressed concern about the planned location of the house, only 35 feet off a common driveway that leads to Crooked Highway, as well as clearing of white pines. The setback of the house had been calculated from Crooked Highway itself rather than the driveway.

    “To us, what we call Crooked Highway is what you call the driveway,” Susan Denenholz, a neighbor, said. “We have to go by how it is zoned,” Mr. Walter responded.

    Ms. Denenholz called the house “wildly out of keeping with the character,” saying it would be more than twice the size of the others in the neighborhood.

    Mr. Figueroa indicated through Ms. Wiltshire that he was aware of his neighbors’ concerns and would like to address them. The board granted Mr. Figueroa two weeks to meet with the neighbors, as it was to do later in the evening with Mr. Dupp.

    Ms. Wiltshire and Mr. Figueroa were seen in the hallway outside the meeting room, blueprints spread out, discussing possible changes with the neighbors, for quite some time.

    Then, on Tuesday, as in the Dubb matter, Ms. Wiltshire filed a plan again modifying the application, with the house being cut down 5,000 square feet and pulled back from the common driveway by over 100 feet.

    The board is expected to rule on the applications within 62 days from Tuesday.

    Three members of the East Hampton Town Board agreed at a work session on Tuesday to move forward on “parallel tracks” to implement both long-term and short-term recommendations made by a town committee on coastal erosion. Town Councilwoman Sylvia Overby and Councilmen Dominick Stanzione and Peter Van Scoyoc outlined the steps to be taken in the absence of Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson and Councilwoman Theresa Quigley, who did not attend.

    Town staff, including the attorneys and Planning Department, will be directed to prepare the materials necessary to obtain permits for immediate solutions, such as adding sand to the Montauk beach and beach “scraping,” or relocating and stockpiling sand that accrues on the beach during the summer months, as well as to enable the board to begin drafting revisions to the town’s Local Waterfront Revitalization Program, which restricts erosion-control efforts on the ocean beaches to the addition of sand.

    According to state law, the town must consult with an engineer on any project costing more than $5,000. 

    The three board members discussed seeking those services in two phases — right away, for sand replenishment, and in a second phase, for expert advice on developing new coastal legislation.    Efforts to chart a course on ameliorating the severe erosion along the Montauk oceanfront, which is threatening beachfront businesses following Superstorm Sandy, had bogged down during several recent board discussions, with Mr. Wilkinson and Ms. Quigley saying the town should accept a hoped-for offer by the Army Corps of Engineers to rebuild the beach even if it included using rocks or other hard structures and the others wanting to wait and see what might be proposed.

    Allocating the money for a one-time piling of sand, to protect the shore from further damage until longer-term solutions are achieved, could also pose a problem for the board, as a super-majority, or four members, must approve any borrowing for the project.

    “I could certainly draft it,” John Jilnicki, the town attorney, said at the meeting of a potential revision to the L.W.R.P., “but I don’t know what the content would be. We need the planning and engineering expertise,” he said.

    While the erosion committee recommended establishing a new coastal zone for the Montauk downtown beach, where anti-erosion measures other than sand could be allowed, the town board would have to determine the parameters of that zone and its regulations.

    “We need to have expertise,” Ms. Overby said. “It’s a time-consuming effort, and I think that, while we need to start that, there are other things we can immediately do,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said. As far as changes to the L.W.R.P., he said, “I think you’ll find that relief will be many months away. Whereas depositions of large quantities of sand is something we can do immediately.”

    Mr. Van Scoyoc noted that any revisions to the L.W.R.P. would have to be sent to the State Department of State for approval — a process that took over a year for the original L.W.R.P.

    Meanwhile, he said, “people will be in a vulnerable position” when fall and winter storms come. “The calendar is not our friend,” Mr. Stanzione commented.

    Also on Tuesday, board members moved toward adoption of a townwide deer management plan. A hearing on the draft plan had been held in December.

    Results of an aerial deer population survey conducted using infrared technology will be available any day, Marguerite Wolffsohn, the town planning director, told the board. It will be analyzed and discussed with state and federal fish and wildlife experts, so that choices can be made about specifics.

    Certain future actions that could be contemplated, such as a targeted kill, or culling, program would be subject to public hearing and separate environmental review. However, the board agreed that the overall draft plan would not require an environmental impact statement.

    East Hampton’s representatives in the State and County Legislatures came out this week in support of creating a town comprehensive wastewater management strategy and plan, an initiative that has drawn strong opposition from East Hampton Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson and Councilwoman Theresa Quigley.

    Over their objections, the majority of the board voted last month to hire a consortium of professional engineers, scientists, and consultants to undertake a study of the issues and draft a plan. Lombardo Associates of Massachusetts, the FPM Group of Ronkonkoma, the Woods Hole Group, and Christopher Gobler, a Stony Brook Southampton professor, will work together to develop a plan for dealing with wastewater that addresses both environmental protection and regulatory mandates. They will try to answer the question of what to do about the town’s aging scavenger waste treatment plant, which is currently nonfunctional and operating only as a waste transfer station, and craft a ground and surface water monitoring program.

    However, the three-member board majority was unable to secure the majority-plus-one votes needed to include the project in the town’s capital budget or to issue a bond to raise the money for it. Ms. Quigley and Mr. Wilkinson have called hiring the professionals a waste of money and have instead advocated handing the scavenger waste plant over to a private operator. Ms. Quigley has said that she fears that a proposed aspect of the plan — to assess the functioning of individual septic systems throughout the town by distributing a questionnaire, and developing an incentive or other program that would lead to private septic upgrades — would result in visits to residents by the “septic police.”

    In a letter sent Monday to the East Hampton Town Board, Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle, and County Legislator Jay Schneiderman, a former town supervisor, offered their “strong support” for the “environmentally significant study,” which they said could “prove to be cost-effective for the town.”

    With a need for “clean, productive groundwater and surface waters” in East Hampton and on the entire East End, the legislators wrote, “identifying, monitoring, and remediating sources of water pollution should be of utmost importance to the town.”

    “Developing a comprehensive wastewater management strategy and plan will put East Hampton Town and East Hampton Village on the right track to assess the purpose and ownership of an aging scavenger waste facility, better understand the impact of septic systems on the town’s vulnerable and sensitive water resources, as well as establish scientific systems for monitoring the quality of these invaluable assets,” the letter states.

    “These are clearly significant advances in environmental management,” the three added. The letter ends by urging the town board to “advance this study by providing the funding it deserves.”

    Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc, a supporter of the long-range planning strategy, along with Councilwoman Sylvia Overby and Councilman Dominick Stanzione, read the letter aloud at a board work session on Tuesday. Neither Mr. Wilkinson nor Ms. Quigley was in attendance.

    Ms. Quigley voted on April 4 against accepting the consultants’ proposal, but the resolution passed, with three assenting votes; Mr. Wilkinson was absent from that vote. However, on April 18, both voted against issuing a bond to pay for the work, which is expected to cost $197,989. A supermajority of the board (or four members) must approve bond issues, so that measure failed.

    The question of how the work will be funded has not been resolved. However, the April 4 resolution notes that the consultants would be paid “from the appropriate operating, surplus, or reserve accounts should funding not be approved as a capital item in the 2013 capital budget.”

    In an e-mail on Tuesday, Councilman Stanzione wrote that “this powerful endorsement of my proposal for a comprehensive wastewater study comes from our most esteemed elected environmental leaders, Senator LaValle, Assemblyman Thiele, and Legislator Schneiderman — stalwarts of progressive environmental leadership. Wow! I’m humbled and grateful because their strong support comes at a pivotal moment. It puts a very bright exclamation point on the public conversation about the merits of the proposal. It’s time to fund the study.”

    Landing fees at East Hampton Airport could rise this year by more than 100 percent for some types of helicopters, according to a proposal discussed Tuesday by the East Hampton Town Board.

    The fees, said Jim Brundige, the airport manager, have not been increased since 2008, but the airport has had “a clearly steady increase” in expenses.

    Mr. Brundige told the board he structured the fees so that, with the traffic expected based on last year’s, they would rise enough to cover operating expenses this year.

    Though the airport had been accumulating surplus revenue since 2006, reaching $200,000 to $300,000, he said that last year operating expenses exceeded income, and some of the surplus funds were used to cover the shortfall. That, he said, was a result of a spike in fees related to the installation of the control tower, and to legal fees stemming from an Article 78 lawsuit against the airport.

    In addition to landing fees, the airport fund gets money from leases on hangars, which are generally long-term and subject to contracts, and from advertising at the terminal, as well as from a town fee on fuel sold at the airport. At 15 cents a gallon, Mr. Brundige said, those fees are already three times the industry standard. They have brought in about $700,000 a year.

    Hangar leases brought in over $411,000 last year. Income to the town from advertisers, who are secured by Luxury Media Partners, which under its contract gets half the advertising dollars, totaled $47,500 last year and $43,000 in 2011, Mr. Brundige said.

    Some revenue from landing fees has been forfeited in the past, he said, “mainly because it was difficult to track down the owners of the aircraft. “ Seventy-five to 80 percent of the planes were identified. 

    With the airport unstaffed at some times of day, aircraft could conceivably land or take off, bypassing landing fees. “I mean, you have to be a detective,” Mr. Brundige said.

    However, he said, that situation has improved since the town hired Vector Airport Solutions, which provides land fee billing and collection services.

    “Is the budgetary goal to break even?” asked Councilman Peter  Van Scoyoc. Covering annual operating expenses does not include raising money for capital expenses, such as runway repair — items for which the town has, in past years, accepted Federal Aviation Administration grants.

    “That’s what the [federal] airport improvement fund is for,” Mr. Brundige said.

    Whether to continue to accept those grants, which come with conditions that limit the town’s authority to restrict access to the airport — the only way, some say, to effectively reduce airport-related noise — has been a matter of some debate, as has whether the airport could be fully self-sustaining or if, without federal money, town taxpayers would have to shoulder the airport’s capital expenses, which could reach into the millions.

    “I don’t see a problem with exceeding our budgetary requirements,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said.

    “We were maintaining a fiscally sustainable budget until last year,” Mr. Brundige said. In fact, said Councilman Dominick Stanzione, Mr. Brundige has managed the airport budget well during his tenure, resulting in the accumulated surpluses.

    F.A.A. guidelines, Mr. Brundige said, say that landing or other airport fees cannot be “discriminatory,” ensuring that general aviation airports are available to flyers, but that airport operators are allowed to set fees so as to “maintain airport revenue in a way as to be self-sustaining.”

     “East Hampton Airport is the most expensive airport on the East Coast, including J.F.K.,” Mr. Brundige said, “so we really have got to be careful, because you’re treading on potential lawsuits.”

    The Downtown Manhattan Heliport, Mr. Brundige said, charges $255 for a particular type of helicopter to land, versus the $215 he has suggested as a new landing fee here, up from $100.

    Since the heliport is where many copters begin a flight to East Hampton, Mr. Van Scoyoc suggested that the town’s fee match the New York City facility’s. Councilwoman Sylvia Overby suggested a seasonal fee scale, with higher fees in the summertime, when the airport has a greater impact on residents.

    Board members and Mr. Brundige agreed to discuss the landing fees further. Meanwhile, the board will proceed with changing the town code, which now includes a schedule of specific landing fees, to allow the board to set fees and amend them from time to time with a simple resolution. A hearing will be scheduled on that change to the code.

East Hampton Town

Barn at Duck Creek Farm

    The condition of the barn at the East Hampton Town-owned historic Duck Creek Farm, which is the former studio of the painter John Little, will be evaluated to see if it can be used for a temporary art installation proposed by the Parrish Art Museum for the month of August.

    Soft sculpture works by Sydney Albertini, a Springs artist, would be displayed, Loring Bolger, the chair of the Springs Citizens Advisory Committee, said at a town board meeting on Tuesday. The committee has endorsed the idea. A number of people are interested in the use of a viable structure for exhibits, she said, suggesting that the town could perhaps seek donations for needed repair work. Several groups have inquired about using the Duck Creek site, Councilwoman Sylvia Overby said.

Peconic Bay Preservation Fund

    First-quarter revenue for the Peconic Bay Community Preservation Fund, at $20.2 million, was more than 92 percent higher than in the first quarter of 2012, according to a release from State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. Total revenue for March in the five towns that participate in the program — a 2 percent real estate transfer tax that raises money for land preservation — was $4.1 million, compared to $3.7 million in the same month last year.

    Real estate transactions in 2013’s first quarter totaled 2,164, compared with 1,459 last year. In East Hampton, $5.7 million flowed into the preservation fund, a 106-percent increase over 2012.

   The East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals ruled on two controversial matters on April 9 with a voting pattern unusual for this board.

    Members voted 4-1 to grant several variances and a natural resources special permit to Morgan Neff, which will allow him to keep, unchanged, two of his seven cottages, known as Millionaires Row, on Fort Pond in Montauk.

    The board’s concern in granting the requested variances, in particular for one small cottage that is close to the water and straddles two different flood zones, was that it might be jeopardizing East Hampton Town residents’ ability to get flood insurance through the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

    JoAnne Pahwul, assistant director of the Planning Department, had cautioned the board in a February memo that FEMA flood insurance is a cooperative program between the agency and local communities, predicated on the idea that the communities themselves will discourage building in areas considered high risk for flooding. Should FEMA find that a town had failed to comply it could take harsh steps against the town, and the residents, up to and including pulling out of its part of the bargain.

    Richard Whalen, arguing on behalf of Mr. Neff, told the board at the February hearing that approving the requested variances and permit would not jeopardize the town’s standing with FEMA. “It’s a tiny variance on a tiny property,” he said, and after a debate on April 9 the board concurred.

    Bryan Gosman, a member, said this was the only time the issue had been raised, and that granting the requests would not set a pattern.

    David Lys, the board’s newest member, noted that Mr. Neff had had a building permit for work done on the small cottage, though the permit was later rescinded. “He built what was approved,” said Mr. Lys. “This is the first time for this. I don’t think it sets a pattern.”

    Alex Walter, the chairman, agreed, but wondered whether the applicant had demonstrated that denying the requests would create undue hardship. “It has to be exceptional hardship,” he said. In concluding that it was not, Mr. Walter was the lone dissenter; Mr. Gosman and Mr. Lys were joined by Don Cirillo and Lee White in approving the application.

    Since Mr. Cirillo became the board’s vice chairman and Mr. Walter its chairman 16 months ago, the Z.B.A. has split 4-1 on several occasions, but Mr. Cirillo, an ardent advocate for landowners’ rights, is usually the odd man out.       Such was not the case with the Neff application, nor was it in a second application, this one involving fenceposts.

    Susan Kwit of 285 Kings Point Road in Springs discovered last year that neighbors were cutting through her property in order to get to the beach. Her solution was to build a 70-foot-long, six-foot high stockade fence, which runs the length of her property, right to the dune. But for the fence to be legal, the homeowner needed a natural resources special permit.

    The fence did not trouble Mr. Lys, who spoke first during deliberations, but the way it got there did. “I don’t care for the reverse order,” he said — meaning building before obtaining approval.  He said that the last fencepost, which was driven into the crest of the bluff, should be removed. Removing it would shorten the fence by about seven feet.

    Mr. Walter, too, was unhappy that Ms. Kwit hadn’t come before the Z.B.A. before erecting the fence, and Mr. Cirillo agreed with the chairman, to a point. At the time of the public hearing on the application he had wondered why Ms. Kwit never sought other remedies, or called the police, before putting up the fence. “This seems to be the last resort being used first,” he said.

    In the end, though, he agreed with Mr. Lys that the fence could stay, provided the last post was taken down. Mr. White also agreed, leaving Mr. Walter as the final speaker.

    “This is a direct violation,” he said. “This is my night to be contrary, if that is the reason they put the fence up. If everyone did that, we wouldn’t have a zoning code.”

    When Mr. Walter finished speaking Mr. White seemed to waver, but in the end he sided with the other three board members against the chairman’s lone dissent.

    “It is just my opinion,” Mr. Walter said. “That is why we have five members.”

   After approving a three-year capital spending plan last Thursday, which includes projects totaling $12.4 million, the East Hampton Town Board decided to issue $2.7 million in bonds to kick-start a number of projects.

    They include the purchase of computer servers, new trucks and a snowplow, mowers, new boilers, videocameras for police vehicles, a wood grinder for the Sanitation Department, and a vault and a generator for Town Hall. The money will also fund road and sidewalk reconstruction, improvements to the town-owned East Hampton RECenter building, the installation of waste treatment pumps at town docks, and an access ramp at the Montauk Playhouse.

    Six other projects, with a combined price tag of $2.2 million, are undergoing environmental review, and the board is expected to approve borrowing for them at an upcoming meeting.

    The bond issues approved did not include a proposed $300,000 bond to pay consultants to prepare a comprehensive town wastewater management plan. A three-member board majority — Councilmen Peter Van Scoyoc and Dominick Stanzione, with Councilwoman Sylvia Overby — recently approved a bid by a consulting firm, over the objections of Supervisor Bill Wilkinson and Councilwoman Theresa Quigley, but four votes are needed before a bond can be issued.

    Ms. Quigley said she objected because the cost of the work was to be $200,000, not $300,000. But both she and Mr. Wilkinson also voted against a subsequent resolution offered by Ms. Overby to borrow $200,000 for the work.

    Ever since the other board members failed to approve a sale of the town’s wastewater treatment plant to a private operator last year, the supervisor and Ms. Quigley have declined to entertain other courses of action, and opposed the creation of a long-range comprehensive wastewater management plan.

    Ms. Overby said Tuesday that she would discuss the situation with Mr. Stanzione, with whom she had worked to craft an action plan for dealing with septic waste issues. Mr. Stanzione said this week that the money for the plan could be taken from a town operating fund surplus, and noted that only three votes are needed to modify the budget so as to place the sum in the proper line.

    Also last Thursday, the board passed a resolution expressing its “desires to entertain options for an engineered beach” in the Montauk downtown area, which suffered severe erosion after recent storms.

    The town is seeking to be included in beach reconstruction projects to be done by the Army Corps of Engineers and paid for with federal funds. During recent discussions about whether rocks or hard structures might be installed along the shore, the board could not reach consensus on Mr. Wilkinson’s request to issue a blanket approval of whatever the Army Corps might propose.

    Instead, Mr. Van Scoyoc offered to draft a resolution that could be supported unanimously, underscoring the town’s commitment to obtaining federal assistance. Some had suggested that lack of accord on beach rebuilding could hurt the town’s bid for federal dollars.

    After some disagreement on the wording of Mr. Van Scoyoc’s resolution, a slightly amended resolution was adopted unanimously. It reads, in part, that “the Town of East Hampton respectfully supports federal funding and attendant coastal engineering resources from the Army Corps of Engineers for an engineered beach.”

    Both Mr. Van Scoyoc and Ms. Overby would like to engage an independent coastal engineer to advise the town on what to do along the shore, as a consortium of environmentalists urged last week. Ms. Overby said Tuesday that “it is distressing to see that other board members think that they are the professionals to tell us what we should do, without professional help.” The supervisor and Ms. Quigley’s stance on both the wastewater plan and on coastal erosion issues show a “lack of leadership,” she said. “To have the town board impose its will without the professional advice to back it up, I think is a dangerous precedent,” said Ms. Overby.

    Also last Thursday, the board approved, for the second time, revised laws regulating taxicabs and their operators. A previous vote pushed through by Ms. Quigley at a work session, after revisions had been made to an earlier draft, had to be rescinded, as it is unlawful to adopt a law without first reviewing a written draft.

    After public hearings at which no one spoke, the board approved the purchase of several properties. Lots on Copeces Lane and Springs-Fireplace Road in Springs, owned by Kenneth Austin, will be purchased for $1.8 million from the community preservation fund, for open space.

    Approximately three acres on Old Stone Highway, also in Springs, will be purchased from Beverly Kassner for $450,000, also from the community preservation fund. It is adjacent to wetlands and almost eight acres of open space owned by the Nature Conservancy and the town.

East Hampton Town

Town Hall’s New Phone System

    A new phone system at East Hampton Town Hall allows callers to use a central number, 324-4141, for transfer to most town departments and employees. It also provides access to citizens’ complaint lines for housing and litter issues.

    Direct numbers to various town offices can still be used. Airport complaints continue to be logged in at a separate number, 800-376-4817, and the East Hampton Town Police Department retains its separate phone number at the Wainscott headquarters, 537-7575. In emergencies, 911 can be used.

Hearing on Historic Buildings

    The East Hampton Town Board will hold a hearing next Thursday on accepting facade easements over two privately owned historic buildings in Amagansett.

    Dr. Huntington Sheldon’s Atlantic Avenue property contains the 1868 Joshua B. Edwards house and a barn built that same year, as well as the former Amagansett schoolhouse, which was built by Samuel Schellinger in 1802. It was moved from the middle of Amagansett’s Main Street, near where the school is now, to the corner of Atlantic Avenue in the 1870s. When a new school was built in 1881, Captain Edwards had it moved to his property.

    According to Robert Hefner, a historian who serves as a consultant to the town, Captain Edwards, who was a whaler, used it to store his whaling equipment. It is “very intact,” Mr. Hefner said.