In the second of two challenges the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals heard Tuesday to recent rulings by the town’s senior building inspector, Tom Preiato, a group of Amagansett neighbors took on his decision to reinstate a building permit that he himself had rescinded for construction of a woodworking shop on Abraham’s Path.

    A 2008 certificate of occupancy issued by the former chief building inspector, the late Don Sharkey, determined that a barn on the site had been used continuously since 1957 as a business. Even though such a use would not be allowed under current residential zoning, he decided it pre-existed those regulations and could continue in its nonconforming status.

    In November 2010, Mr. Preiato issued a building permit to construct a woodworking shop on the property in place of the barn, but last August, he rescinded that permit after John L. Ciarelli, a lawyer for several neighbors, argued that the building was not entitled to pre-existing nonconforming status, as there was no evidence that it had actually been used continuously as a business.

    In his letter rescinding the permit, however, Mr. Preiato did not refer to continuous usage. Instead, he said that the site is not entitled to dual usage, answering an argument that no one had made. Then on Nov. 3, Mr. Preiato reversed that decision after an attorney for Ronald Webb, who has an option to buy the property, argued that dual usage should be allowed.

    “We feel very clearly that this is a mistake in fact, or misrepresentation,” Mr. Ciarelli of Ciarelli and Dempsey said, telling the board that there was no history of continuous use of the barn for business purposes. He pointed out to the board that it had referred to the building in a 1972 decision as a barn. He argued that the town code required the head building inspector to revoke a certificate of occupancy when it is issued in error, no matter when the error is discovered. The 2008 certificate of occupancy was the basis for allowing the 2010 building permit.

    “I don’t know why they got this building permit. I don’t know why they got this certificate of occupancy. The building inspector needs to correct it,” Mr. Ciarelli said.

    Several of the neighbors spoke as well.

    Marion Suter, a neighbor seeking to overturn the building permit, told the board she had purchased her adjacent property on Schellinger Road 19 years ago and had known the previous owner. “Mrs. Ryan was always very friendly to me,” she said, adding that she had been on the property many times, and that the barn had always been dilapidated and unused, except for occasional storage.

    Randy Hudson, another neighbor, said that there was no electricity in the barn.

    When Don Cirillo, a board member, asked him, “To the best of your knowledge, was there ever a woodworking shop there?” Mr. Hudson answered, “Well, if you want to work with hand tools, but I never saw any activity of any type.”

    Ms. Schoen’s partner Jonathan Tarbet, also of Tarbet, Lester, and Schoen, represented Mr. Webb and presented the board with 13 affidavits from various individuals, including two who, according to Mr. Tarbet, lived next door to the property, stating that the barn had been in continuous use since 1957 as a work space.

    He told the board that it must abide by the 60-day rule, that is, an appeal must be filed within 60 days of a determination, and that the 2010 building permit had not been challenged. The appeal of the certificate of occupancy didn’t occur for 37 months, he said, meaning that the neighbors had lost their right to appeal.

    The board questioned Mr. Tarbet, seeking examples showing the barn being used as a business. Mr. Tarbet told the board that Mark Ryan, the owner, had repaired engines, including cars and lawn mowers.

    “Is there any evidence that they transacted business there?” Mr. Cirillo asked him. “Is there an actual exchange of payments? We don’t have evidence of that. A tax ID? Anything?”

    Mr. Tarbet referred the board to several of the affidavits.

    Mr. Ciarelli then returned to the podium and said, “There is no business ID. There is no commercial transaction taking place on a regular basis. If I fix lawn mowers in my backyard, that doesn’t convert my property to commercial use. The standard you’re being asked to adopt is an unworkable standard and is not supported in the law. What we’re hearing here is an angle to get around what the zoning board said in 1972 when they looked at this parcel.”

    The board voted to keep the hearing open for two weeks to allow both sides to respond to written documents introduced Tuesday.

    The board ended the session by voting on and approving three requests for variances it had heard in public hearings the previous week, all by 5-to-0 votes.

    Amedeo and Antonella Gabrielli were granted a variance to build a 280-square-foot swimming pool at a new house on Montauk Highway in Montauk. Vincent and Christine Sama will be able to tear down an old house on Runnymeade Drive in Springs and build a new 1,169-square-foot one, and Northwest Bungalow L.L.C. got permission to replace a one-story, 986-square-foot house on Northwest Landing Road with a two-story, 1,470-square-foot house.

    With the season looming for places like the Surf Lodge on Montauk’s Fort Pond, the company that owns the controversial and popular night spot, which has been in and out of court on almost 700 alleged zoning code violations, is seeking a ruling from the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals that would allow it to get up and running. On Tuesday night, the Surf Lodge deliberations were on one of two appeals before the panel challenging decisions by the town’s senior building inspector, Tom Preiato.

    The Surf Lodge property is zoned for residential use, but because a bar or motel has been at the site since before the zoning code was written, it is allowed to continue in business but is not allowed to expand. Mr. Preiato had refused to give the Surf Lodge a certificate of occupancy because, in his opinion, a portable station on the club’s deck, where drinks are made and cutlery handled, constituted an expansion. Edgemere Montauk L.L.C., the club’s owner, was represented before the board by Eric Bregman, an attorney with Gilmartin and Bregman of Southampton.

    Before opening the hearing, Alex Walter, Z.B.A. chairman, cautioned the 20 or so in the audience that the appeal was narrow. “We’re not going to talk about the parking. We’re not going to talk about the noise. We’re going to talk about this unit only,” he said.

    Mr. Bregman argued that the station did not constitute an expansion of the floor space or an enlargement of the building, but rather, he said, a contraction of the space. “I think Mr. Preiato is terrific at his job, but I think he was dead wrong about this,” Mr. Bregman said. In answer to a question, he said the owners were free to move what is called a wait station from one area to another as long as they did not expand the gross floor area.

    “We’re not increasing the capacity of the Surf Lodge. You could put tables on that deck. You could come in and wheel out a barbecue, have a barbecue. You’re using the use that is permitted,” he said.

    “So you’re saying this is just an accessory to the main bar that is already there?” Mr. Walter asked. Mr. Bregman answered yes. 

    However, Jeremy Samuelson, representing the Concerned Citizens of Montauk and the  Group for the East End, which support Mr. Preiato’s determination, argued that the station did constitute an expansion. He cited words in the code to the effect that pre-existing buildings shall not be enlarged “or added to.”

    Under the code, he said, the station was a structure, and, as such, not permitted without a variance regardless of whether it was temporary. The owner was not seeking a variance, however.

    “There’s a well-worn path here when somebody wants to expand a pre-existing condition. It involves the planning board; it involves the zoning board,” Mr. Samuelson said.

    Edgemere Montauk also has an application  before the East Hampton Town Planning Board seeking site plan approval. The application was triggered by the addition of the portable station and several other alterations on the property.

    The board voted 4-0 to close the hearing and has 62 days to make a decision. Brian Gosman, who is a member of the Gosman restaurant family in Montauk, had recused himself.

    The East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals held a busy but brisk session on Tuesday evening at Town Hall with four applications for variances on the agenda, in addition to a discussion about the Wainscott Wombles project on Montauk Highway in Wainscott (covered separately). Only one of the four applications drew opposition at the meeting.

    The application that drew an objection came from the owners of 2034 and 2036 Montauk Highway on Napeague, Mindy Nam and Mark Dhenert, who plan to merge two lots into one large, 31/3-acre parcel on property that runs from the highway all the way to the beach. The only thing they want from the Z.B.A. is a natural resources permit.

    Merging the lots would allow the applicants to cover a much larger area, with a 6,050-square-foot tennis court, a 640-square-foot pavilion, 831 square feet of decking with parking, and a 100-square-foot shed.

    The objection was to their proposed installation of a 2,300-square-foot lawn.

    Alex Walter, the Z.B.A. chairman, asked Billy Hajek of Land Marks, a planning firm representing the owners, why they wanted a lawn as opposed to natural vegetation. “Is it because the patio is away from the dwelling, and you want to walk across the lawn to get to the patio? Did they just want a lawn? Give me the rationale for the lawn,” Mr. Walter said. “They wanted something light on the feet,” Mr. Hajek responded.

    Mr. Hajek then referenced an application from the past in which the board granted an applicant something that would not ordinarily be permitted in exchange for a reduction in density. Making two lots one would meet that criterion.

    George Stankevich, however, the neighbor to the immediate west, argued that a reduction in density by folding together the two lots might not protect the property if it were sold. He urged the board to consider restrictions on future use. “You have the opportunity to lay down conditions,” he told the board.

    “This is an area of extraordinary beauty and fragility. We are concerned about anything that may imperil these qualities in the future,” he said.

    Tyler Borsack, who reviewed the application for the Town Planning Department, agreed with Mr. Stankevich about the quality of the property, saying the department was concerned by the impact of a lawn on the fragile dune eco-system, which, he said, was one of the rarest in New York State.

    Although Mr. Hajek said the owners would be willing to accept a restriction on the type of fertilizer that could be used on the lawn, Mr. Borsack had previously cautioned that such covenants were difficult to enforce.

    Dismissing these concerns, Don Cirillo, a member of the Z.B.A., said, “You’re only asking for a natural resources permit, so I think you should be allowed to do what you have to do.”

    The first hearing of the evening was for a proposed teardown and a new house at 95 Northwest Landing Road. An existing 986-square-foot, one-story house would be replaced with a two-story, 1,470-square-foot house with an additional 300 feet of deck on each floor. The application was for variances to allow wetland setbacks of 81.6, 64, and 31.3 feet when normally 100 feet is required. The 81.6-foot variance would put the new structure less than 20 feet from the wetlands. Additionally, a new septic system would be put in 22 feet from the wetlands when 150 feet is required.

    Joel Halsey of the Planning Department pointed out that while the numbers sound extreme, the existing house was built before the town zoning code was written and is two feet closer to the wetlands than the proposed new house would be. No one spoke in opposition.

    Another application involved tearing down an existing house. Vincent and Christine Sama want to put up a new 1,169-square-foot structure at 116 Runnymeade Drive on Gardiner’s Bay in Springs. Mr. Borsack, noted that the new building, even with the addition of a swimming pool, would be seven feet farther inland and would have minimal environmental impact. He expressed concern, however, that the applicants had refused to revegetate the property with indigenous plants.

     The fourth application was from Amedeo and Antonella Gabrielli, as represented by Richard Hammer, to build a 280-square-foot swimming pool at a new house at 589 Montauk Highway in Montauk. The Gabriellis need a five-foot variance for the pool.

    The board has up to 62 days to make a determination on all four applications.

    Denise Schoen of Tarbet, Lester, and Schoen, the attorney for Michael Davis, who owns the Wainscott Wombles property at 411 Montauk Highway in Wainscott, received a two-week extension of time on Tuesday to respond to the Concerned Citizens of Wainscott, as represented by David Eagan, who is challenging a ruling by the town building inspector that a residence on the lot, which has a commercial use, would be legal.

Alex Walter, the Z.B.A. chairman, reported that the two sides were in negotiation toward a possible settlement, and the extension was approved unanimously.

“We’re trying to settle the matter between my client and Mr. Eagan’s multiple clients. I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to reach an amicable settlement,” Ms. Schoen said yesterday.

“We stand by our legal analysis as correct,” Mr. Eagan said at the meeting. “We have been approached by counsel of Wainscott Wombles if they could come up with a different plan. Our goal all along is for that property to be redeveloped in accordance with law,” Mr. Eagan said

    “This was just woods,” Maureen Murphy, the executive director of the East Hampton Housing Authority, said. She was referring to the Accabonac Apartments, a 50-unit project that opened in 1999, a year after Ms. Murphy joined the agency. Now, Ms. Murphy is retiring from the post. “It’s enough,” she said. “It’s time.”

    When Ms. Murphy left her teaching position at Brooklyn College’s School of Education and headed east to Montauk, she was appointed to the authority. “There was just Avallone then,” she said, of the Avallone Apartments in Montauk, a 17-unit complex that was opened by the town in 1993.

    Ms. Murphy served as the chairwoman of the housing board from 1998 to 2000, and then became the executive director. In that time, available subsidized housing has grown from the original 17 units to include the 50 units at Accabonac and an additional 24 at the most recently opened Springs Fireplace Apartments. For the most part, the apartments are intended for older citizens and some families in the middle income range.

    The East Hampton Housing Authority works with East Hampton Town, but is a separate entity. The group receives federal subsidies, but Ms. Murphy said, “It’s very difficult to buy land. We don’t have that much money.”

    Ms. Murphy expressed her gratitude to others on the housing board, mentioning Helen Fitzgerald, who died last month. “I’ll miss Helen,” she said. She also reminisced about some tenants “who have been with us from the beginning,” recalling one woman — who recently left the complex to live with her daughter — “driving around here and looking when this was nothing but dirt.”

    “We work hard,” she said with a bit of pride in her voice. “This could easily turn into a slum, but we do whatever it takes to keep the property looking clean and landscaped.”

    When asked about her retirement, Ms. Murphy smiled. “I’m of a certain age,” she said. If she could wave a magic wand, Ms. Murphy would love to see some land donated to the authority so it could increase available housing.

    “There are still people here who need housing,” she said. “It would be so nice if someone donated a sizable piece of property that we could develop.”

    The East Hampton Town Board split along party lines last Thursday in a vote on reorganizing the Human Resources Department. As reported last week, the measure, approved by the Republican majority, 3 to 2, abolishes the position of Pat Breen, the town personnel officer, who served as the department head. The board also moved two other staffers to different departments, one to the town clerk’s office and the other to the tax receiver’s office, leaving just one in human resources.

    The change assigns the former personnel assistant in the department to a payroll unit under Len Bernard, the town budget officer. Any other functions formerly performed by the Human Resources Department will now be handled by the budget office or supervisor’s office.

    The resolution offered by Mr. Wilkinson notes that the town’s full-time work force has decreased from more than 400 positions in the 2008 budget to 311 as of the beginning of last month. Savings from the reorganization of the Human Resources function, it says, are projected to be approximately $170,000 a year.

    The measure was also described as “an effort to create operating and financial efficiencies.” Mr. Wilkinson noted that the town’s financial operations are being monitored by the state comptroller “because of past administration misdeeds.” He was referring to the prior, Democratic administration. Under the terms of a state law allowing East Hampton to issue bonds to cover an accumulated budget deficit, the comptroller is to review all budgets during the life of the bonds. “We lost a lot of our ability to have the looseness you’re requesting,” he told Democratic Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, who voted against the changes.

    In explaining her no vote, Ms. Overby noted that the budget officer is appointed by and serves at the pleasure of the supervisor. “There are just no checks,” she said. “From purchasing to auditing to [information technology] and grants — [all] are reporting directly to the budget officer, who is reporting directly to you,” she told Mr. Wilkinson. Town  Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc, the other Democrat on the board, also voted no.    

    “Employees need to have a place where they feel safe,” Ms. Overby said. Under the reorganization, they would have to bring their issues or complaints to Mr. Bernard, she said. “They deserve to have someone in their court, that watches their back.”

    The reorganization also creates a new audit and accounting unit, to be headed by Charlene Kagel, the chief auditor, and assigns a grants analyst under her supervision.

    Bill Babinski, a farmer who owns 20 acres of land on Beach Lane in Wainscott, will be able to build the second barn he needs after the East Hampton Town Planning Board okayed his application at an April 4 meeting. The 1,380-square-foot barn, to be erected next to one already standing, is a little less than half its size.

    A neighboring couple, Tom and Shelly Gilbert, expressed strong opposition to the application at a hearing on March 7, saying that the new barn would obliterate their ocean view if it were sited as proposed.

    The development rights to Mr. Babinski’s land are jointly held by the Town of East Hampton and the Peconic Land Trust, meaning it will be a farm in perpetuity. The Gilberts had contributed to the fund that purchased the rights, and felt that as such, they should be given some voice in the placement of the barn.

    Ian Calder-Piedmonte, a board member who is himself a farmer, spoke first.      “There is no question that this would be obtrusive to their view,” he said, adding, however, that “a lot of this issue is, we’re late in the game. This should have been settled when the development rights were [acquired].”

    The Gilberts had proposed alternative locations for the new barn, but Mr. Calder-Piedmonte, drawing on his experience as a farmer, found them wanting. “I wish there was a solution that would please everybody,” he said. “I don’t think there is one here. We have to allow the structure to be placed where the applicant wants.”

    The board members J.P. Foster, Patrick Schutte, and Nancy Keeshan agreed, as did Diana Weir, the vice chairwoman. “We’re within our legal boundaries that we have to comply with,” she noted. “We can’t leave the town open to any kind of litigation if we violate the town code.”

    The board’s chairman, Reed Jones, speaking last, found himself alone in seeking a different solution.

    “It’s remarkable that a barn would create so much excitement,” he began, adding that a compromise between the neighbors should have been sought. “It shouldn’t be 100 percent one person and zero percent for someone else. I think there should be a tradeoff.”

    The board then voted to approve Mr. Babinski’s site plan, 5-1, with Mr. Jones the sole dissenter.

    Shelly Gilbert, sitting in the audience with her attorney, left the hall  dejected. “I don’t understand. Community should be about compromise,” she said, stepping out into the early spring night.

    At the same meeting, the board held two public hearings on site plan applications. The first was from East Hampton Indoor Tennis, which wants to replace its inflatable bubble with a metal one and add two adjacent small utility buildings. The second was from Riverhead Building Supply for its outlet on Industrial Road in Montauk, to install a 4-by-8-foot propane tank. Neither application met with opposition.

    The board will hold a public hearing on Wednesday to consider a proposal from Verizon Wireless to upgrade its facility in Montauk, near the town recycling center. Verizon wants to remove the three antennas currently on the tower and replace them with nine, in order to improve service in the area.

    The planning board’s March 21 meeting ended in a closed executive session with a town attorney, Kathryn Santiago, to discuss two lawsuits brought against the board earlier that week by David Eagan, attorney for the Concerned Citizens of Wainscott. One of the suits involves a property at 411 Montauk Highway in Wainscott, at the corner of Montauk Highway and Sayre’s Path. Concerned Citizens is challenging the board’s action of Jan. 25 granting approval for the construction of housing there.

    The second lawsuit involves a site permit granted to the owner of 55 Wainscott Hollow, Jeffrey Colle. This suit contests a point seemingly settled in State Supreme Court, in which the court ordered the board to reverse an earlier finding against Mr. Colle.

    Peter Kirsch, an attorney serving as East Hampton Town’s consultant on airport matters, will speak to the town board at a 10 a.m. work session on Tuesday at Town Hall.

    Mr. Kirsch has been asked to discuss information provided by the Federal Aviation Administration in response to questions that Representative Tim Bishop submitted to the agency.

    In its memo, the F.A.A. for the first time directly addressed the agency’s stance and likely response should the town decide to reject further federal grants in order to obtain more local control over the airport, such as the ability to limit its use in order to reduce noise.

    At a board work session on Tuesday, Kathy Cunningham, who was chairwoman of the town’s airport noise abatement advisory committee before it was disbanded last year and is now the head of the Quiet Skies Coalition, asked the board to consider several things before committing to a course of action.

    Ms. Cunningham said that should the board accept federal airport grants but choose to pursue the F.A.A.’s permission to enact noise-related airport restrictions through a process laid out by the agency, several elements should be considered.

    The F.A.A. has granted a municipality the authority to enact its own restrictions at only one airport in the country, she said — in Naples, Fla., and only after being ordered to do so by the court.

    In order to make a case to the F.A.A. for localized restrictions, the town must first prove to the agency that there is a noise problem. But, Ms. Cunningham said, the F.A.A. uses a “flawed measuring tool” to determine whether there is enough noise to warrant restrictions. Instead of tallying individual events in which noise exceeds a particular standard, the F.A.A. averages noise events that occur day or night over a year. Only if they exceed an average of 65 decibels would the F.A.A. agree that there is a noise problem; however, that level is greater than the maximum noise level allowed in East Hampton Town Code, Ms. Cunningham pointed out.

    By that standard, and with seasonal differences in use of the airport, the only place the F.A.A. would acknowledge a noise problem “would be on the airport footprint,” she said.

    “This is one of the reasons that I would strongly recommend you not go in that direction,” she said of seeking F.A.A. approval for local airport use restrictions.

    Another, she said, is that the F.A.A.-required noise study and standards is not applicable to all the types of aircraft, such as seaplanes, that cause noise problems here.

    Once the small group at the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee’s meeting on Monday evening had dispensed with minutes and reports from the committee’s zoning and planning board liaisons, summer 2012 seemed uppermost in everyone’s minds.

    The chairman, Kent Miller, recalled walking on Indian Wells Beach last summer with his wife, Elaine, and being taken aback by the throngs of 20-somethings, some 200-plus people, milling about, drinking beer, playing loud music, and taking up a lot of space. So as to be able to drink and not have to worry about beach stickers, many of those in the crowd had taken taxis to get there.

    That picture resonated with several others at the meeting, who described watching garbage being left on the sand, the dunes being used inappropriately, and generally noisy behavior that disrupted the quiet relaxation of the beach experience for families and other regulars.

    There are more and more improperly extinguished  beach fires every summer as well, a phenomenon that has been in the news for two or three years at least. Wondering how the town might help to reduce the numbers of tipsy beachgoers and dangerous fires, Mr. Miller asked members whether inviting the town police liaison as well as the fire marshal to next month’s meeting might be a good idea. Everyone agreed.

    Mr. Miller also reported hand-delivering two letters to Supervisor Bill Wilkinson and other town board members. One, written with Jeanne Frankl, responded to an e-mail sent by Mr. Wilkinson last Thursday to all the citizens advisory committees. The other was about the possible lease of the Abraham’s Path public tennis and basketball courts to a private entity.

    As of Monday, neither letter had been answered.

    On Monday afternoon in East Hampton, Daniel G. Rogers, an attorney for Paul and Kelly Lester, announced that he had asked Gov. Andrew Cuomo to instruct the state’s inspector general to investigate the actions of the State Department of Environmental Conservation before and after its raid on the Lester property on Abraham’s Path in July.

    Mr. Rogers met with the press at the scene of the raid on Abraham’s Path. He was joined there by Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., who shared Mr. Rogers’s concern that fishermen charged with violations of fishery law were not being afforded due process, nor were they being compensated for fish seized, even when charges against them are dismissed, as in the Lesters’ case.

    Mr. Thiele has introduced legislation aimed at preventing conservation officers from conducting warrantless searches, and State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle has agreed to sponsor a companion bill in the Senate, according to Mr. Thiele.

    “The questions being raised need to be answered,” Mr. Thiele said. “I’m going to make sure we get an answer. The Lesters are not the first to come to me about fisheries enforcement.”

    Stuart Vorpahl of East Hampton, as well as Sidney Smith, owner of the fishing vessel Merritt out of Greenport, and Sue and John Berglin, owner-operators of the Mary Elizabeth from Hampton Bays, were on hand to share stories of alleged abuse by D.E.C. enforcement protocols.

    Mr. Rogers told reporters that other fishermen from UpIsland who had offered to join the gathering had backed out following a raid on a fisherman’s house in Freeport a week and a half ago. “I don’t know if it was a coincidence,” Mr. Rogers said.

    A bench trial conducted by East Hampton Town Justice Lisa R. Rana last summer resulted in the dismissal of charges against Paul Lester for possession of untagged fluke and porgies and possession of fluke over the daily catch limit. The charge against Paul Lester’s sister, Kelly Lester, for not having the proper permit to sell shellfish from a roadside stand, was dropped.

    During the trial, Mr. Rogers claimed that D.E.C. officers entered the Lester property without a warrant, seized fish, and sold the fish (including some that Kelly Lester had set aside for dinner) at nearby Stuart’s Seafood Market over the objections of Paul Lester.

    “Not only does the D.E.C. feel justified in taking a fisherman’s property without warning or notice, or due process, but also without any measure of just compensation,” Mr. Rogers wrote in a release handed out on Monday. He added that a forensic investigation into “where the money went” might find that the proceeds from the sale of the seized fish were used to pay the salaries of enforcement officers, an obvious conflict.

    A federal investigation of National Marine Fisheries Service enforcement two years ago found that federal officers had overstepped their authority in seizing fish, had imposed excessive fines, and had misspent the proceeds from its sale.

    Mr. Rogers said the Lesters had requested restitution, $202.25, on several occasions. The requests have gone unanswered. Lisa King, a D.E.C. spokeswoman, said yesterday that money received by the agency was deposited “into the specific account required by law. In cases where seized funds or assets are requested to be returned, we review each case on an individual basis, as we are with the Lester case. That review is ongoing.”

    The Lesters’ attorney said his clients had considered a lawsuit, but “that’s not something we’d like to do right now. It shouldn’t have to come to that. They just want to be paid.”