Part of a story about the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee’s Nov. 14 meeting was inadvertently omitted from last week’s Star.

    Before the arrival of Councilman Dominic Stanzione, the advisory committee’s town board liaison, Bill Di Scipio (William J. Di Scipio, Ph.D.), the group’s secretary, launched into a presentation of what he called “a system to enhance the workings and prestige of the committee.”

    Dr. Di Scipio had clearly put a lot of time and toil into his speech, which was accompanied by slides and charts. He was hoping for the committee to adopt a long list of procedures he had drawn up, along the lines of Robert’s Rules of Order, dealing with and defining “ordinary motions” (to adjourn, to recess, to amend, etc.) and “special motions” (point of order, to appeal, to rescind, etc.). His 20-minute discourse had a few in the audience of about 30 muttering, though most listened politely.

    “We are not just advisers,” Dr. Di Scipio maintained at one point. “We are a professional committee.”

    After Mr. Stanzione spoke, as reported last week, about more parking in the hamlet and deer fencing at East Hampton Airport, Dr. Di Scipio stood up to continue his spiel, though this time there was scattered vocal opposition.

    “We don’t need these hard-and-fast rules,” said Tom Field. “They limit discussion. The chairman takes care of it.”

    “We have 34 [committee members] with different ideas,” Dr. Di Scipio responded. “I don’t want to put all the power in the chairman’s position.”

    “No one does this,” protested Sheila Okin. “If we have all these rules we’ll never get anything done. We’re all here for the same reasons — we’re here for Amagansett.”

    Dr. Di Scipio pressed valiantly on. “There has to be a quorum,” he said. “And this brings in the issue of proxies. The federal government and the state government —” But here, the muted groans became more audible.

    “Part of your right to vote is your punishment to be here,” said Joan Tulp. “I am absolutely against proxies.”

    “I’d like to make a motion that everyone in favor of proxies raise their hand,” said Elaine Miller.

    “I move to rescind that motion,” said Dr. Di Scipio.

    “He hasn’t got a second for that,” Mr. Field observed, and Kent Miller, the chairman of the committee, declared the meeting over.

    “Okay,” said Dr. Di Scipio. “I’ll still be your secretary.”

    The East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals considered an application on Nov. 29 to construct stairs and a walkway to the ocean beach from a house at 241 Marine Boulevard in Amagansett. The applicant, Brian Maher, is appealing a decision by Tom Preiato, the senior building inspector for East Hampton Town, denying the project. In addition to a reversal of the decision, Mr. Maher is seeking a natural resources permit, but argues that he does not need a variance for the construction.

    Brian Matthews, counsel for Mr. Maher, spoke on his behalf. His client had initially applied in May 2010 for an elevated walkway two feet above ground as well as stairs from his oceanfront house. At the time, according to Mr. Matthews, the East Hampton Town Planning Department would not review the application because a similar application, involving an easement, had been denied in 2000.

    A neighbor subsequently received a certificate of occupancy for similar construction, which prompted Mr. Maher to resubmit his application, Mr. Matthews said. Following correspondence in March, the applicant was informed that he would need a variance because stairs and walkways are not exempt from prohibitions on coastal structures.

    “The Planning Department and my office went to the building inspector to discuss the stairs with him. All they do is access the walkway,” Mr. Matthews said. He said they were told the stairs needed to meet zoning setbacks and if the stairs were connected to a deck on the house, a natural resources permit would not be needed.

    The result would have been a 12-foot-high walkway. His client opted instead to apply for a variance.

    “The application for the stairs meets the relevant variance criteria,” Mr. Matthews said, adding that the application had already received State Department of Environmental Conservation approval. “It’s less than four feet wide, and we eliminated the platform at the southern end,” he said. There is a public walkway nearby, but Mr. Matthews said, “You purchase oceanfront property, you have the right to access the ocean.” He also said connecting to the public walkway would cause a greater disturbance.

    Mr. Matthews said there would be no negative environmental impacts and that it would not affect adjacent properties, which all have similar walkways.

    Tyler Borsack, an environmental technician for the Planning Department, told the board that reversing Mr. Preiato’s decision would set a precedent. “The stairs are not part of coastal structures” as identified in the town code, he said. Connecting to the public walkway was a reasonable alternative as would be connecting a new walkway to the deck, added Mr. Borsack.

    The board will come to a decision in the next few weeks.

    A four-foot-wide mahogany boardwalk running through the Atlantic Double Dunes in Amagansett brought the Nature Conservancy before the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals on Tuesday night.

    The conservancy, which owns the property off Further Lane that the boardwalk passes through, has applied for a natural resources special permit to sanction the 620-foot walkway, which has already been built. However, there are lingering questions about whether the boardwalk should be allowed at all on the property, which contains primary dunes, freshwater wetlands, and beach vegetation and extends all the way to the beach.

    The boardwalk serves two adjoining parcels — one to the north, owned by Windsor Digital Studio, and one to the east, owned by the art dealer Larry Gagosian, according to Richard Whalen, the Nature Conservancy’s attorney. The Nature Conservancy gave permission for its neighbors to reconstruct the boardwalk, but did not secure the building permit.

    According to Mr. Whalen, there was a boardwalk and some semblance of a pathway to the ocean in the same location for more than 70 years. Aerial photographs from 1938 onward “show the same path, however it is not possible to say with absolute certainty from any of these photographs whether the bare area shown is (a) just sand without a boardwalk; (b) a boardwalk; or (c) sand covering the boardwalk,” Mr. Whalen wrote in his submission to the zoning board.

    There are five separate lots in the vicinity, he said, and between them, there could be three legal access-ways to the beach. As it stands, all of them  share the boardwalk over Nature Conservancy property.

    Mr. Whalen characterized the reconstructed boardwalk as an “in-kind” replacement of what had been there previously, with “new wooden boards that are the same width as the boards that were replaced.”

    There was controversy over the deeds to the Nature Conservancy parcels, and whether or not they allowed for building on the land. Also, Larry Penny, the town’s director of natural resources, disagreed with Mr. Whalen, saying that aerial photographs he examined from before construction of the current mahogany walkway did not show a boardwalk.

    At the hearing Tuesday night, Mr. Penny said, “I went through the photos, dating back to 1983, and only one photo showed a part of a boardwalk, the others didn’t show anything.” In 2009, Mr. Penny inspected the property for invasive species; he did not see a boardwalk at that time, only a “sandy path,” he said. When he noticed the mahogany boardwalk, he alerted town authorities of an illegal structure, as he could not locate a permit for the reconstruction, he said.

    Jonathan Sobel, the owner of a parcel west of the property in question, said that deeds granting the land to the Nature Conservancy state that the parcels should “be kept forever in their natural state without any disturbance of habitat or plant whatsoever.” There is an easement for the northern property owner, Windsor, for beach access; however, Mr. Sobel said it is only over the first of the parcels donated to the conservancy, which is not part of this application and allows for a boardwalk “only within its easternmost 10 feet.”

    Under town code, a coastal structure may be placed at any location on a lot if the structure and its associated uses are not detrimental to any natural resource. Mr. Sobel asserted that the boardwalk is ineligible for a natural resources permit, as it passes through a protected area of beach vegetation. Additionally, he said that if this application is approved, more boardwalks will be built, and the cumulative results will be devastating to the dunes.

    Brain Frank, a town planner, evaluated the boardwalk in question and did not find any negative impact to the dunes. “I’ve been to the property, looking for signs of degradation that would affect the Planning Department’s recommendation, and there aren’t any visible now,” he said. While Mr. Frank agreed with some of the speakers that “a proliferation of boardwalks would be a concern,” he said this one was not problematic.

    The board closed the hearing, but will continue its discussion of the application at an upcoming work session.

    A meeting of the East Hampton Town Board tonight will include several hearings during which the public can weigh in: on two proposed changes to the town code, on the removal from the list of town nature preserves of three properties that were supposed to have been deeded to the town but apparently were not, and on the town’s updated franchise agreement with Cablevision.

    Supervisor Bill Wilkinson and Councilwoman Theresa Quigley, in conjunction with business owners, have revamped the town code section regarding licensing for home improvement contractors.

    According to the proposal, “the present town licensing system for home improvement contractors is inadequate in the protection it affords to town homeowners against shoddy, incompetent work or deceptive practices involving improvement work.”

    The revised code, the proposal says, is intended “to more fully protect homeowners and responsible home improvement contractors alike.”

    The license requirement for home improvement contractors doing business in East Hampton has been on the books since 1977 and was amended in 2005 and 2006. In order to obtain a license, contractors must show proof of adequate liability insurance and provide information about any previous business names, liens, bankruptcies, criminal convictions, and litigation arising out of home improvement work, as well as pay a fee set by the town board.

    A law now on the books exempts from the license requirement landscapers doing “grounds maintenance” or gardening, those doing simple repair or maintenance jobs, and those earning less than $500 for a job.

    The law, if adopted, would apply to those doing any kind of “home maintenance” work, including gardening, but would exclude those whose gross income from their home maintenance business does not exceed $10,000 annually.

    The proposal under discussion would eliminate a 2006 addition that required contractors to attend at least five hours of applicable continuing education courses each year. Instead, only first-time licensees would be required to show proof of the five classroom hours.

    All subcontractors on a job, not just the general contractor, would be required to have and display a town license, under the amended code, on their vehicles.

Fueling at the Docks

    A second hearing will center on proposed regulations pertaining to town docks and the fueling of boats that are tied up to them. The town does not have fueling facilities at its docks, and, rather than go to private marinas to fuel up, the operators of some vessels have fuel trucks come to the town docks to fill them up.

    If adopted, the law would ban that practice at all town recreational docks and at commercial docks in Montauk, while allowing fueling from trucks at the town’s commercial dock in Three Mile Harbor. In Montauk, the town board reasoned, there are numerous private alternatives for boat fueling, but in Three Mile Harbor, larger boats that require deeper water cannot reach private marinas to fuel up.

    Growing out of concerns about the liability and potential environmental damage should a fuel spill occur, enacting a regulation regarding fueling over docks has been discussed by town officials for a number of years, during the current administration and a previous one.

    The town board drafted the current proposal some months ago but decided to hear public comment on it during the winter, when those affected, primarily fishermen, might be less busy and more available to voice their opinions.

Beach Plum Park

    The third hearing centers on three lots in the oceanfront Beach Plum Park subdivision on Napeague, totaling about 16 acres, that were to have been deeded to the town, according to the terms of the subdivision approval.

    When the eight-lot subdivision was approved in the late 1980s, the planning board found it important to preserve public beach access and required the reserved areas to be conveyed to the town and preserved in a natural state. The town recently learned that, because of a mortgage default and foreclosure, title to the properties was uncertain. A title search commissioned in the spring showed that the properties were never deeded to the town. In response, the town board has proposed deleting them from the nature preserve list.

    John Jilnicki, the town attorney, said Tuesday that the town could pursue a “quiet title action” to recover its rights to the properties. The property owners “have the benefit of the approval,” he said, and the approval required that the town receive the reserved lands.

Cablevision Contract

    Also tonight, the board will hear public comments regarding a new 10-year franchise agreement with Cablevision that allows the cable television company to have its communications system equipment, such as cables, within public rights of way.

    In return, the agreement calls for Cablevision to pay the town 5 percent of its annual local gross revenue, and to provide service within the town for residents and, without charge, connections to cable at municipal, school, and library buildings.

    The company must also provide a full-time public access channel and a governmental-educational access channel (now provided on Channels 20 and 22). The agreement calls for a one-time grant from Cablevision to the town of $25,000 to support the town’s cable or telecommunications-related needs, and to provide annual payments of $40,000 to support the governmental-educational (PEG) channel for each of the contract’s 10 years. It also provides for a mandatory 10-percent discount off the monthly Cablevision service charge for senior citizens, under certain conditions.

    East Hampton Town has been dedicating the entirety of its annual franchise fee from Cablevision to LTV, the public access provider here, but may change the terms of the town’s agreement with LTV when a contract with that entity comes up for renewal next year. The town board discussed the parameters of that contract during a recent work session when the results of an audit of LTV were presented.

    The hearings will begin at 7 p.m. at Town Hall.

    Neighbors upset about the reconstruction of an allegedly pre-existing, nonconforming woodworking shop on Abrahams Path in Amagansett have appealed an East Hampton Town building inspector’s decision to reissue a building permit for the property.

    Mark Ryan III, who owns the property, wants to demolish his 1,500-square-foot woodworking shop and build a new 1,500-square-foot shop in its place, with a 1,246-square-foot residence above it. It is to have a 260-square-foot second-floor deck and a 600-square-foot one-story detached garage.

    In an affidavit written on Oct. 20 of this year to Tom Preiato, the town’s senior building inspector, Ronald Webb Jr. claimed that the property “has been in continuous use as a wood shop and wood storage area by me and my employees” since Donald Sharkey, the former chief building inspector, issued a certificate of occupancy for it in October 2008.

    Mr. Ryan received a building permit for the new shop and residence from Mr. Preiato on Nov. 22, 2010, that was set to expire on Nov. 22 of this year.

    When Marion P. Suter, Paul Diamond, and Marc Matthew, all neighbors of the property, discovered that a commercial use was planned in their residential zone — something town code prohibits — they contested the impending construction. In affidavits submitted in May, they claimed that to the best of their knowledge there had never been a woodworking shop or any other similar commercial use on that property. Based on these affidavits, and the fact that town code does not permit two uses on this property, unless they predate rules prohibiting them, Mr. Preiato rescinded the building permit on Aug. 31.

    But after receiving the affidavit from Mr. Webb, he reinstated the building permit three months later. The neighbors are appealing Mr. Preiato’s decision, and requesting that the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals review the situation as soon as possible.

    In a Dec. 16 letter to Mr. Preiato and the East Hampton Town Board, John L. Ciarelli of Ciarelli and Dempsey P.C., the neighbors’ attorney, asked the board to enforce town code and revoke the permit. “The senior building inspector renewed the improperly issued building permit on Nov. 15, 2011, without notice and without sufficient basis,” Mr. Ciarelli wrote. Mr. Ryan has already begun excavating at his property.

    Neighbors have demanded an immediate stop-work order, “but no action has been taken,” Mr. Ciarelli said. If the town fails to respond or act on the neighbors’ request within 10 days, New York State law allows the neighbors to take the matter to court, he said.

    Ground has finally been broken for an affordable housing complex for senior citizens at St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in Amagansett.

    The 40 apartment units, each 600 square feet, will be built adjacent to the church on Montauk Highway, along with a superintendent’s apartment, and a community center room. Residents will be 62 years and older, and will have to have an annual income of $30,000 or less.

    The plan received approval from the East Hampton Town Planning Board in November of 2010, but the housing project has been years in the making. After securing a $5.9 million federal grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, along with a federal rent subsidiary of $891,000, the application began winding its way through the planning process in November 2009.

    The East Hampton Town Board approved a transfer of development rights from a vacant parcel in Springs to the Amagansett property in 2010, which was necessary so that septic system requirements for the housing project could be met.

    According to Tom Preiato, the town’s senior building inspector, the project needed to receive a building permit before Dec. 5 of this year or the HUD grant would expire. A permit was issued on Nov. 30, and work began on Monday.

    Michael DeSario, president of St. Michael’s Windmill housing board, has been an instrumental part of the group that handled this project. In a phone interview Tuesday, he discussed the final pieces of the plan.

    “They started construction yesterday. We took down the parsonage and put up site perimeter fencing. It was a little bit before we were fully ready to go, but we were confident and we were right,” said Mr. DeSario. An official groundbreaking ceremony will take place in mid-January. “Three days ago there were very real possibilities that this wasn’t going to happen.  It did take a lot of people’s cooperation,” he added.

    “Right now I’m at the very end of a two-day closing, with all sorts of people here, including HUD people, state people, and county people. We’re ready to go full speed at this point,” said Mr. DeSario.

    “This is where everything goes official. Approvals, conditions, we spent years getting all of those, and it accumulates right now. Within an hour everything will be signed, sealed, and ready to go forward,” he said, “The actual funds have been transferred as opposed to pieces of paper promising us money. It’s a very exciting time.”

    Mr. DeSario works in the real estate business, and spoke about how there are usually two opposing sides when it comes down to negotiating in this industry. This was not the case with this project.

    “At the closing here, we have a wonderful experience with people working here to make this happen. When it came to the final building approvals and determining how the funds were going to be distributed, we did it in record time. Normally it takes six to eight months; we did it in six to eight weeks. The people at HUD were terrific with us,” he said.

    Mr. DeSario expressed gratitude to the many different groups that played a role in making this project possible. “This was something very needed in our community. We had four different supervisors, each of the councilmen was terrific, and the East Hampton Planning Department was great. They put us through their paces, but they worked to help us, not to stop us,” he added. 

    “I’d like to thank the church for being very receptive and engaged in this project. They were very much a part of this, and cooperative in transferring the land at a good rate. This is a project for the entire community and when it comes down to it, all elderly people. I’m the chairman of four or five corporations involved in this, and I would thank everyone at Windmill II [a senior citizens apartment complex in East Hampton] for working hard to make this happen,” Mr. DeSario said.

    He was optimistic that the housing project would be be completed in approximately 12 months. “It’ll be nice to have 40 apartments ready for Christmas for next year,” Mr. DeSario said. “That’s what we hope.” 

    Pete Hammerle, who began service to the public in 1986 and has served on the East Hampton Town Board for the last 16 years, had a lot to say this week as the year and his official responsibilities were winding down and after being presented with a proclamation for service by Supervisor Bill Wilkinson at a town board meeting last Thursday night.

    “My first campaign, I won by 10 votes, and it took two weeks to find out,” Mr. Hammerle told the supervisor, who had come out ahead by 15 votes in his recent bid for re-election and also had a long wait before the outcome became clear.

    Mr. Hammerle is one of two Democratic town board members who did not run for re-election this year. Julia Prince is the other. In January, they will be replaced by two other Democrats, Peter Van Scoyoc and Sylvia Overby.

    “Open, honest, and fair” was his mantra during his time as a public servant, Mr. Hammerle said at last week’s meeting. “I really feel I lived up to that.”

    Mr. Hammerle served on the East Hampton Town Planning Board, for several years as chairman, before being appointed a town councilman for one year to serve out the term of Tony Bullock, who had been elected to the County Legislature. In the next decade, Mr. Hammerle won four bids for re-election.

    “When I started, I really thought my presence on the board could make a difference in what East Hampton could be, as opposed to what it might have been,” Mr. Hammerle said.

    In the mid-’80s, he explained during a chat at the Star office on Tuesday, the town was in the midst of creating a long-term comprehensive plan, which included rezoning areas to prevent rampant development.

    Mr. Hammerle lived in Montauk and had a landscaping business, Pete Hammerle Gardens. At a contentious public hearing in that hamlet, he said, “I just decided to get up and say how important it was to see wildlife in its natural habitat. I think my quote was, ‘It’s better to see a fox in a field than in a zoo.’ ”

    The next morning, he got a call asking if he would consider running for office as a Democrat. “At first I laughed it off,” he said, but reconsidered. He lost that bid in the 1985 election, but accepted the one-year appointment for Mr. Bullock’s post the following January.

    In the election the next fall he tried but failed to keep that seat, losing to Leroy DeBoard, a Republican.

    “Through the planning board I had to kind of prove myself,” Mr. Hammerle said. After four years on that board, three of them as its head, he became a town board member.

    “I think a lot of it had to do with being an everyday person in the community — raising my kid here, getting to know people. You kind of grow into it, just by being out there, having a sense of community, knowing what your community is, and what it needs,” he said this week.

    Among Mr. Hammerle’s efforts as a councilman was the successful completion of a number of capital projects, such as Lions Field and the Montauk Playhouse Community Center in Montauk, the Springs youth building, the Amagansett indoor roller hockey rink, and the recreational facility at Stephen Hand’s Path in East Hampton. He has also shepherded affordable housing projects, such as the Springs-Fireplace Road apartments and the Green Hollow subdivision in East Hampton.

    “I was really lucky that the board entrusted me with those things. A lot of it was community-driven,” he said, with his role being to weigh “the benefit to the community as a whole . . . being able to get a sense of how it was going to go — and convincing them to support it.”

    Environmental issues, Mr. Hammerle said, have also been a top concern over the years. He described himself as “a mover” who helped to get the town’s first open space plan adopted in the late ’90s, leading to the vote to establish the community preservation land acquisition fund. Other environmental protection initiatives, such as establishing groundwater protection zones, also drew his support.

    However, he said, “What you see after a while is the issues you thought you resolved for the town 10 years ago just constantly come back around for consideration. It grates on me because nothing in this town is ever settled.”

    With his long tenure on the board, he said he had seen issues that were thoroughly vetted through community and legislative procedures — with decisions, in some instances, standing up to challenges, including in court — coming back again into play. Other board members, he said, “didn’t last long enough to have a cumulative historical perspective on these things.”

    The councilman — at least for a few more days — said he is “too young to completely retire,” but has no immediate plans except “not to panic.” He said he has offered to be available to the new and sitting board members, to provide background or other information.

    For some years, he maintained his gardening business, but he gave it up several years ago after being hauled out of Town Hall by emergency medical technicians and undergoing heart surgery for a new aortic valve.

    Over the years, he said, he had “become known for keeping things,” with the help of his longtime secretary, Barbara Claflin. Besides “keeping excellent files,” Ms. Claflin has been by his side as communications have evolved from memos to e-mails, with Mr. Hammerle remaining something of a holdout.

    “There are a few buggy issues that I just hope the new board will be able to resolve,” he said, “such as the problems Montauk residents have encountered as clubs there draw bigger crowds, as well as helicopter noise and “seriously objectionable lighting.”

    When Supervisor Wilkinson presented Mr. Hammerle’s proclamation last Thursday, he said Ms. Prince, who has served one term, also deserved recognition, but that Mr. Hammerle “has spent a considerable amount of time in service to our community.”

    Hy Brodsky, a Montauk resident,  praised both Mr. Hammerle and Ms. Prince during recent town board meetings. “I have been involved in civic affairs for 25 years, and a major portion of those years, Pete has been there, with his shoulder and his hands and his head to help me with some of my wars,” Mr. Brodsky said at a work session in Montauk earlier this month. “He’s been a person who has made a lot of good things happen.”

    Ms. Prince spent a part of the board’s work session on Tuesday summarizing the status of several projects she has been working on. Some final steps, such as landscaping around public toilets in Montauk and completion of a Montauk skate park, are set to go, but must wait until spring. She said she would continue to work on ideas to improve parking in downtown Montauk, and has some new recommendations.

    “Julia, it’s been a delight working with you, and having your voice raised for many, many important issues in Montauk and East Hampton,” Mr. Brodsky told her that day. “I just wanted to go on public record and thank you.”

    Come January, the East Hampton Town Department of Human Services will lose two part-time social workers who work with senior citizens, along with a part-time homemaker and a “community relations assistant.”

    At a meeting on Dec. 8, the town board voted to abolish the positions, and the 2012 Human Services Department budget does not contain salaries for the posts.

    Yvette M. Morouney, one of the two social workers, expressed concern recently about what would happen after the termination. “I’m concerned about the seniors,” she said, “who really are conveying to me how they need these services.” She said she and her colleague each took care of 19 clients, and made $23,000 a year. The employees were notified about their termination at a meeting on Dec. 5 with Diane Patrizio, the head of the Human Services Department.

    A full-time case manager will remain on staff, Ms. Patrizio said last week. “A lot of their work was taken up with data entry,” she said of the two social workers who are leaving.

    The addition of clerical staff who will take up that task will enable the case manager to take care of more clients, she said. “We will still be servicing the same amount of people we did before, just in a different fashion,” Ms. Patrizio said.

    “Our numbers have gone down a bit; this is just a response to that,” she said. “Services will continue, just in a more efficient fashion.”

    In addition, she said, the department also has a full-time Spanish-speaking case manager who will be assigned to work in tandem with the other manager. However, the town board also last week approved a leave of absence for a Spanish-speaking case manager with the department.

    Cuts to the Human Services Department staff have been ongoing. Last year, a free after-school program was cut, and staff were trimmed from the senior nutrition and counseling programs. An agreement with the Family Service League was fostered to have that organization provide some services to town residents in exchange for a low-cost lease on a town building for league offices.

    Eleven positions in the department were vacated last fall when staffers, including the longtime department head, Edna Steck, took advantage of a retirement incentive program.

    After an outside firm hired by the town issued a report criticizing recordkeeping and other procedures followed by the department, Councilman Dominick Stanzione, the board liaison to Human Services, asserted that there was room for improvement at the department, and that, with increased efficiency, it could operate with les

East Hampton Town

North Main Traffic Circle?

    Members of the East Hampton-Sag Harbor Citizens Advisory Committee have asked town officials to revisit an idea for a traffic circle at the foot of Three Mile Harbor and Springs-Fireplace Roads, where they hit North Main Street in East Hampton.

    Potential actions to alleviate traffic back-ups in the area were originally addressed in a 2003 “North Main Street Corridor Study,” which became a part of the 2005 updated town comprehensive plan.

    Supervisor Bill Wilkinson agreed on Tuesday to contact the county, which owns sections of the roads involved, about having a traffic study done.

Trees in Airspace

    Trees surrounding East Hampton Airport have grown into airspace that must be kept clear, the Federal Aviation Administration has informed the town. Fixing the issue will be more complicated, and costly, than just trimming the treetops, the East Hampton Town Board learned Tuesday from Dennis Yap, an airport consultant.

    The area in question encompasses 50 acres, he said, and a survey must be done to identify the problematic trees, and those expected to grow too tall in the coming years.

    In the meantime, the town must seek approval from the F.A.A. for modifications to the angle of takeoff and descent for planes, so as to avoid the offending trees.

    The survey, to be conducted this year, is estimated to cost $35,000 to $40,000, while engineering fees, a federally required environmental review, and an F.A.A. inspection following the work next year would run another $30,000 to $35,000, Mr. Yap told the board. Board members had expressed frustration that a seemingly simple process would be so involved and costly.

Water Skiers Beware

    Dale Petruska, an East Hampton Marine Patrol officer, told the town board on Tuesday that areas of Three Mile Harbor designated for water skiing have become too shallow to safely allow the sport. Dredging of the harbor, he said, has resulted in sand moving along the bottomlands, leaving parts of the water-ski zone only three feet deep.

    However, Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc, a boatman and a longtime water skier, said that the area has always been shallow and that boats used for water skiing do not draw much water. “Certain activities have inherent risks,” he said.

    Councilwoman Theresa Quigley expressed concern about limiting recreational activities. “Having said that,” said Ms. Quigley, whose daughter was injured last summer while swimming in the ocean, “I, of all people, understand the risks of a water accident.” Both she and Councilman Dominick Stanzione said that they were not comfortable making a decision about the skiing area. But Supervisor Wilkinson said that “mine is not to question. They’re making a call that this is unsafe.”

Ocean Currents on Radar

    Radar equipment to collect data on ocean currents and waves could be installed along an East Hampton beach if the town board approves a request from the Coastal Ocean Observation lab at Rutgers University’s Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences.

    Ethan Handel, a research coordinator at the lab, told the board on Tuesday that an East Hampton site is needed to fill a gap in a system of 30 data-collection sites from Cape Cod to Cape Hatteras.

    A 35-foot transmission antenna and a smaller receiver antenna would be set on the dunes, anchored by thin guy wires in a 20-foot radius and wired to a small enclosure with computer equipment. An area near the bathroom at Ditch Plain beach in Montauk has been identified as an ideal site, Mr. Handel said, though other spots, as long as electricity is available, could be considered.

    Mr. Handel said that with the data collected, maps are made of what the ocean is doing, every hour, up to about 100 miles offshore, and that the information is used by the Coast Guard when planning search and rescue missions and can be used in making decisions about coastal erosion and beaches.

No Employee Jackets

    A budget transfer that would have enabled Supervisor Wilkinson to spend $7,000 on jackets for town employees — in what the supervisor described as a reward program — was defeated in a vote last Thursday night.

    Ms. Quigley was the only board member beside Mr. Wilkinson to vote for the measure. Mr. Stanzione abstained from the vote, and Councilwoman Sylvia Overby voted no. She had suggested at an earlier meeting that the town might have other more pressing needs for the funds. Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc was absent from the vote.

    East Hampton Town Trustees-elect were sworn in on Tuesday night at the start of their organizational meeting and wasted no time getting down to business. Diane McNally and Stephanie Talmage were again appointed clerk and assistant clerk of the nine-member board.

    Ms. McNally welcomed the freshman trustees, Deborah Klughers, Nat Miller, and Sean McCaffrey, and then set what she said was the board’s broad agenda: “We’re going to kick butt.” Stephen Lester, also a non-incumbent, has served on the board before.

    Ms. McNally said both she and Ms. Talmage agreed that lack of enforcement of trustee regulations was undermining the trustees’ 300-year-old prerogatives. Trouble is, she said, the trustees do not have enforcement authority per se and must rely on the town’s marine police force, which she described as understaffed.

    Managing the annual placement and removal of boat moorings, duck blinds, and snow fencing, getting derelict boats off the beach at season’s end, safeguarding scallop spawning sanctuaries from shellfish pirates, halting the taking of undersize crabs from Georgica Pond, and more all come with regulations that trustees say are not being enforced.

    “Scallop sanctuaries don’t work. They’re a good idea, but there’s no enforcement,” said Mr. Miller, a bayman by trade. “It works, but we’re swimming against the tide,” he said, the tide being scallopers who were targeting the off-limit sanctuaries that are meant to increase spawning success, “either for personal gain or personal dinner. Something has to be done,” Mr. Miller said.

    “Enforcement has to be a priority even if we have to pay,” Ms. Talmage said, going on to explore the possibility that the board might hire a bay constable specifically to address the trustees’ needs.

    John Courtney, who was again hired to serve as the board’s attorney, advised the trustees to “work with the town board. A lot of this is in the code. You’ve got to get them to do it,” Mr. Courtney said, opening the book of town regulations and citing several that required enforcement of trustee regulations.

    Mr. Courtney explained that language bringing the town’s police powers to bear when trustee regulations are violated could be found throughout the town code. And while the language leaves no doubt that the town backs the trustees, there is no single declaration, as is the case in Southampton’s rulebook.

    “We’ve got to be the squeaky wheel,” Ms. McNally said. And, she told fellow trustees that their meeting schedule might have to be expanded to three per month instead of two because of the ever-increasing workload.

    Trustees passed resolutions to again name The Star as their newspaper of record, to hire Lori Miller-Carr as their secretary, to arrange the opening and closing of Georgica Pond, and to execute leases for trustee-owned land in the Lazy Point community of Amagansett.

    The 2012 fee schedule was also announced. There will be a $60 fee for first-time applications, $40 for renewals. Residents will pay $7.75 per boat-length foot for moorings, nonresidents, $15.50. There will be a $50 inspection fee for large-boat moorings in Three Mile Harbor. Commercial fishermen will get one mooring for free, a second mooring for $15 per boat-length foot. Transient moorings can be rented for $76 per night.

    Private docks on trustee-owned bottomland and walkways over it will cost $2 per linear foot, per year, commercial docks and walkways, $3 per linear foot. The municipal docks will be charged $3 per linear foot per year. There will be a $50 minimum for any dock or walkway.

    Baymen will pay $20 per fish trap. Pilings driven into trustee-owned bottomland will cost $10 each, bottom is available for duck blinds for $20 each, the trustees’ public blinds can be used for $25 per day.

    The trustees will sell dredge material for $7.50 per cubic yard to match the price Southampton is charging, and there will be a $250 minimum purchase. Permits for other structures and staircases will cost $3 per square foot. Non-motorized vessels stored on trustee beaches will require a $150 permit.

    Trustees agreed to raise the $750 lease fee for land at Lazy Point to $1,000 per year. Plus, Lazy Point residents who lease a portion of a second lot will be charged proportionally at that rate. There is a transfer fee of 2 percent of house rentals or sales at Lazy Point.

    Shellfish bags will cost $75 each for commercial fishermen, $1 each for the general public. Shellfish tags are free for the first 100, $10 for each 100 thereafter. There will be at least a $250 charge when an unmotorized boat left on the beach after the Nov. 1 deadline is impounded. That fee may well go up.

    For 2012, the trustee clerk will receive $37,530 from the town budget, and $2,500 per month from the trustee budget. The assistant clerk receives $9,686.26 from the town budget. The other trustees will get an annual remuneration of $7,264.70.