The immediate issue before the East Hampton Town Board at its work session on Tuesday was a suggested $4,000 “quick fix” for the smell emanating from the East Hampton Town scavenger waste treatment plant on Springs Fireplace Road. The long-range issue was the performance of the Trent Severn Environmental Service Company, which operates the facility, and whether its contract with the town should be renewed.

    The pervasive smell and a number of violations issued in the last year by the State Department of Environmental Conservation have been problems for the board. The D.E.C. has given the town until Dec. 23 to submit a remediation plan.

    Members have expressed concern about whether a new bio-filter would prove effective against the smell and questioned its cost-effectiveness. Meanwhile, Trent Severn’s contract will expire at the end of the month.

     Deputy Supervisor Theresa Quigley asked the board to hold off on discussing Trent Severn until it could go into executive session at the close of the open meeting. “We’re talking about an employee. I want the ability to talk about them, where they failed, and what they want, without fear of saying things that I’m not accurate, and it’s not getting out there,” she said.

     According to Councilwoman Julia Prince, the D.E.C. violations stem from its having adopted higher standards. East Hampton did not protest the changes, she said, while other towns on Long Island had done so successfully.

    While there is no guarantee that changing the bio-filter would be a permanent solution, Councilman Dominick Stanzione said the town would “be remiss to not try.”

    “We need to make an attempt to demonstrate we’re making an effort to fix it, but I don’t think it will work,” he said, calling the whole waste system defective, including its underlying system.

    Ms. Prince argued that point. “I can’t say the scientific method has been defective. They’re testing it regularly,” she said.

    “There is a rope around this conversation. We have to deal with how as a corporation we deal with septic waste. We’re suffering from nitrogen pollution, and we may need to take a more professional look at that, and see what other resources are available,” Mr. Stanzione said. 

    Anticipating that the board would have a larger conversation later, Ms. Prince said that she would “never support closing down the facility and losing the permit, simply because you will never get the permit back.”

    “I’ve been talking about this for six years,” said Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson. “It’s an issue of trust.” Someone in the audience then added his opinion, yelling out, “And money!”

    East Hampton Town Democrats have called upon the Town Ethics Committee to investigate Len Bernard, the town’s budget officer, charging that he has engaged in political campaigning from his Town Hall office, using his phone, computer, and taxpayers’ time to conduct political business.

    In the wake of Republican accusations against the Democratic candidate for town supervisor, Zach Cohen, criticizing his involvement in the town’s finances, Jeanne Frankl, chairwoman of the East Hampton Democratic Committee, distributed a release inveighing against Mr. Bernard for sending e-mails to the press cataloging a correspondence with the state comptroller.

    “This is what Zach Cohen has been talking about all during his campaign,” Ms. Frankl wrote. “The budget office is being run by a political operative and not a financial professional with a nonpartisan approach to managing the town’s finances. Mr. Bernard has used the influence of his official role as the town’s budget officer in an attempt to harm Zach Cohen’s campaign.”

    Following allegations made by Mr. Cohen against the outside auditing firm Nawrocki Smith, which was working with the state comptroller as well as several town officials in untangling the town’s finances, Mr. Bernard wrote Ira McCracken, a chief examiner for the office of the State Comptroller, in May, asking if someone from his office had ever sent a letter to Zachary Cohen saying that Mr. Cohen was correct in one of his criticisms of Nawrocki Smith.

     “Apparently he is telling various political party officials that he has a letter from the comptroller acknowledging he was correct in some problem he pointed out to the comptroller’s office,” Mr. Bernard wrote.  “I have many correspondences from Dave Tellier at Nawrocki Smith about Mr. Cohen’s assertions, and none of them say he was correct on anything. . . .”

    Mr. McCracken’s response, which came back on that same day and which lies at the crux of the dispute, stated that the comptroller never sent Mr. Cohen any such correspondence and asked Mr. Bernard to “please keep us updated regarding Mr. Cohen’s assertions.”

    “We weren’t politicizing this,” said Mr. Bernard on Tuesday. “It wasn’t until [Mr. Cohen] sent something out townwide saying he was a ‘financial analyst’ that I sent an e-mail to Mr. McCracken and attached the flier. I said, ‘You wanted to be aware, you asked me to do this, here it is.’ ”

    Mr. Bernard said he had a “fiduciary responsibility” to the town and added that he had been asked personally by Mr. McCracken to keep him abreast of Mr. Cohen’s claims, a request he took “very seriously.”

    “I don’t care if you’re a Democrat or a Republican,” Mr. Bernard said. “My background is, you’re working for the people and the town.

    “If this was a political maneuver or a vendetta, why wouldn’t I have run to somebody with this e-mail before?” he added. “I’m not making allegations. I’m just doing my job and keeping the controller informed like he asked me to do.”

    Ms. Frankl wrote in an e-mail that while East Hampton does not bar town employees from using town facilities or time for political activity (unlike Southampton), she believes in the “common understanding . . . against the misuse of government property for partisan purposes.”

    She noted that New York State has a policy “regarding the need to separate political campaign activities by state employees from the conduct of official state business.”

    Mr. Cohen said it could not be assumed that the exchanges with the comptroller’s office were the only ones Mr. Bernard undertook in connection with local politics. “It wouldn’t be an honest investigation unless they went through all his e-mails, maybe starting from when I was nominated.”

    The Democrat also wants to know what combing through campaign literature has to do with Mr. Bernard’s role as a budget officer.

    “Sending e-mails to the press sure looks like campaigning to me,” he said. “What does keeping the state comptroller informed have to do with sending [the press] e-mails? If Len is acting as a confidant of the comptroller, it is a violation of trust and it’s a political action to send all [the correspondence] to the news media. There is no other interpretation. If he truly was concerned purely for the comptroller’s sake, it would have stayed between them. It was a misunderstanding and we resolved it. And it should have stayed that way.”

    In a town board work session on Tuesday morning, Supervisor Bill Wilkinson weighed in on the controversy, supporting Mr. Bernard, whom he said was acting according to the state comptroller’s instructions. While Councilman Dominick Stanzione expressed concern about burdening the ethics committee with political affairs, Mr. Wilkinson said he was “fine with submitting it.”

    There are “a ton of details that will come out,” he said. “We’ve sheltered a whole bunch of them.”

    Mr. Wilkinson said Mr. Cohen’s characterization of himself as a financial analyst was “a fabrication,” and “now the fabrication is being turned on the person who highlighted the fabrication. I am clearly going to stand up and come to the defense of Len Bernard . . . I welcome any ethics board review.”

With reporting by Heather Dubin

    Three East Hampton Town Highway Department workers have reportedly agreed to withdraw complaints they filed with the New York Division of Human Rights against the department’s superintendent, Scott King.

    According to Steven Stern of the Melville law firm Sokoloff Stern, which was hired by the Town of East Hampton’s insurer to represent Mr. King, one agreement has been signed by a worker and two have not, although one of the two said yesterday he expected to do so soon.

    Meanwhile, a fourth Highway Department employee, Kevin Cobb, a foreman, has filed his own complaint, alleging mistreatment, retaliation, and harassment by Mr. King. That matter is pending.

    Mr. King was unable to provide copies of the agreements. Mr. Stern confirmed their existence but declined to provide them, citing privacy concerns.

    In handwritten filings made in the summer of 2011 with the Division of Human Rights, Luis Bahamondes, Wallace Trotman, and Ursan Bonilla made a range of allegations against Mr. King, citing what they said was racially and ethnically motivated job discrimination and verbal abuse.

    Mr. Bahamondes, a 15-year veteran of the Highway Department, is originally from Chile, Mr. Trotman is African-American, and Mr. Bonilla identified himself on an official form as Spanish.

    In his filed complaint, Mr. Bahamondes said, “Mr. King called me names behind my back.” He said he had been forced to cut grass in the rain and pick up trash and roadkill animals, assignments that were worse than or different from others who had the same employment title.

    Mr. Trotman made similar allegations in his complaint, adding that he was denied a raise and training. He is the employee reported to have already signed the agreement.

    Mr. Bonilla alleged that he was the victim of verbal abuse and that Mr. King told him he would not be allowed to drive a town snowplow for three years, following an incident in which a plow he was driving slid into another.

    In a press release issued Tuesday afternoon, Mr. King, who is running for re-election, said the agreements called for two of the men to receive additional training in exchange for dropping the charges. The third would no longer have to pick up deer carcasses from the roads. He said he did not know which of the men had not signed the agreements. The accuracy of Mr. King’s characterization of what the agreements say could not be verified.

    Mr. Bahamondes, a 15-year employee of the Highway Department, said yesterday he had just received the Human Rights Division paperwork, but that he was likely to sign. He said it was unfortunate that it took so long and required lawyers to get Mr. King to apologize.

    A message left for Mr. Trotman was not returned. Mr. Bonilla could not be reached.

    Mr. King attributed the supposed signing delay to politics. He said the two men who had not completed the agreements, which would result in the complaints being dropped, had declined to do so at the request of Elaine Jones, the head of the East Hampton Independence Party, which backed his opponent.

    In a telephone interview late Tuesday, Ms. Jones rejected that allegation. “Scott King would like to believe that I am responsible for this, but it was the men that then filled out the complaints. I gave them the papers. They filled out the complaints; they sent them to the Human Rights commission.”

    Mr. Bahamondes said Ms. Jones had nothing to do with his not signing the papers yet, and said he expected to do so soon. “Who is Elaine Jones? This is about us, the workers. She was just nice enough to help us get the forms.”

    He said that workers like him were the backbone of the Highway Department and that he did not expect Mr. King to change his behavior, despite the agreements.

    “If he gets re-elected, it’s just two more years of problems. If he doesn’t get re-elected, it will be like an early Christmas present,” he said.

    Ms. Jones is related by marriage to Stephen Lynch, who is running on the Independence and Republican lines in Tuesday’s voting. Mr. King is running as a Democrat.

East Hampton Town

Drawing for Duck Blinds

    The East Hampton Town Trustees will hold a drawing at noon on Friday, Nov. 18, for those hunters who would like to use new public duck-hunting blinds at Fresh Pond, Amagansett, and Scoy’s Pond in Northwest. A daily fee of $25 will be charged. The blinds will be available four days a week from Nov. 24 to Nov. 27 and from Dec. 6 to Jan. 29.

    The drawing will be open to East Hampton Town residents 18 and older who have a valid New York hunting license. Proof of residence will be requested. Applications can be made at the trustee office on Bluff Road in Amagansett from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. today. Hunters whose names are drawn will be entitled to bring up to two guests to share the blinds, provided they too are town residents and licensed hunters.

Oyster Lease Meeting

    Prospective oyster farmers have been invited to an informal meeting next Thursday from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Kermit W. Graf Building at 423 Griffing Avenue in Riverhead. The meeting is for those considering applying to lease underwater plots in Gardiner’s and Peconic Bays, as well as for the holders of private oyster grants who would like to grow other species on their parcels.

    Staff members of the Suffolk Planning Department will describe the application process and answer questions related to the program.

    At Astro’s Pizza around 8:15 on Election night, Marilyn Behan, an East Hampton Independence Party candidate for town board, was “holding down the fort,” flanked by her family, steaming plates of deep-dish pizza, and a barren board waiting for results.

    The room was rife with an anticipatory tension and quiet enough that one could hear her granddaughter, Samantha’s, crayons scratching across the backside of menus while the wall-mounted TV set to News 12 murmured above their heads. Bill Mott, her running mate, had yet to arrive.

    Ms. Behan said she knew the night would be anxiety inducing so she was “low-key today,” dividing her time between fishing and tidying the house. “I don’t think I’ve properly cleaned in eight weeks,” she laughed. “You could have written, ‘Vote for Marilyn’ on my furniture.”

    Her optimism about Election Day revolved closely around the warm weather and the generally high spirits that often accompany a sunny afternoon. “I think everyone will be very surprised at how many people came out to vote,” she said. “It was such a beautiful day; you didn’t need a coat, a hat, or gloves. If people had any errands to do — the grocery store, the post office — you can bet they went and voted, too.”

    Looking back on the campaign experience, Ms. Behan talked about the friendship that had developed between her and Mr. Mott, explaining that a virtual stranger became a focal element of her daily life. “I didn’t know him all that well and now I know him very well,” she said. “We see one another almost seven days a week and talk about four times a day.”

    Mr. Mott burst into the room around 8:45, bringing with him a wave of excitement and frenetic energy. “Hey! I thought we were going to be on the other side of the room and where is the computer?” he asked. He glanced furtively around the room, looking satisfied at the still-blank board, but a little dismayed that there was no laptop  to help tally live results.

    “It’s been a long summer and it all comes down to tonight,” he said with a smile. He apologized for being late to the party, but explained that following a full day of work, he had a town trustee meeting followed by another meeting at the Bridgehampton Fire Department.

    “I gave them till 8 o’clock, came home, splashed some water on my face, ruffled up a little bit, and came down here.” He greeted his son, Brian, and his daughter, Kathleen, with a big hug and headed to the bar for a cocktail and a little mingling.

    Not long after 9 p.m., runners from three election districts — two in Amagansett and one in Montauk — had brought the Independence Party results. The tallying efforts were hampered by both a lack of technology and what Elaine Jones, chairwoman of the Independence Party, called “misinformation.”

    “We didn’t know they were going to be announcing results at the polls,” she said. “Otherwise we would have had runners for each district. The Board of Elections so screwed us up.”

    The Independence supporters were also unable to get wireless Internet access and thus remained about an hour and a half behind in actual numbers, as News 12 was largely covering the bigger races.

    Mr. Mott’s spirits almost immediately started to slump as he surveyed the felt-tip-markered figures slowly growing on the board, which revealed 248 votes for himself and 247 for Ms. Behan, from the three districts combined.

    “I was doing pretty good until I started to see the numbers,” he sighed. Ms. Behan echoed Mr. Mott’s concerns, saying she could really use a drink and a cigarette.

    Mr. Mott could be heard lamenting the fact that both he and his running mate work full time and were at a serious disadvantage throughout the campaigning process. His wife, Mary, told him not to get discouraged. “I’ve been channeling positive energy all night,” he insisted.

    Ms. Jones however, was already a little defeated, but held her head high explaining what a positive experience working with Ms. Behan and Mr. Mott had been. “This is the most fun I’ve ever had in a campaign,” she said. “It was almost impossible to win and they knew that, but it’s a chance they took. If they had been endorsed on the Republican line they both would have won — the Republicans really shot themselves in the foot by not endorsing them. They’ll both be serious contenders in two years.”

    Finally, around 10:30 p.m., Stephanie Talmage-Forsberg, an East Hampton Town trustee endorsed by the Independence Party and also on the Republican ticket, rushed into Astro’s, laptop in hand and her parents in tow. Everyone began gathering around the glowing screen, which revealed Peter Van Scoyoc and Sylvia Overby, the Democratic town board candidates, far in the lead, although only 6 of the 19 districts had been tallied.

    Ms. Talmage-Forsberg, the leading trustee candidate, was brimming with excitement and showed solidarity with the Independence Party; although she was also running on the Republican line, her first stop was with Mr. Mott and Ms. Behan.

    Down the street at Indian Wells Tavern, the Republicans were already celebrating, clinking glasses amid the din and laughter. A large projection screen revealed that all the votes from the 19 districts were in. The writing was on the wall — Ms. Behan was in last place with Mr. Mott second to last.

    Ms. Behan’s husband, John, rolled his wheelchair to her side. “I think it’s time to go home, Marilyn” he said. “It’s up to you, but there is no point in sticking around.”

    The pizza was cold and getting colder.

    When someone said she would cross her fingers that the absentee ballots would help turn the tide in the Independence team’s favor, Mr. Mott said, “You can cross your legs too, but I don’t think it’s going to do any good.”

        With an offer on seven town-owned office condominium units at the Pantigo Place complex in East Hampton, which is close to Town Hall, from a buyer who wants to close the sale immediately, the East Hampton Town Board agreed Tuesday to put the word out publicly that the units are for sale, allowing other potential buyers to match the offer.

    Should a sale occur, the town would have to lease the offices, which house the fire marshals, Building Department, Planning Department, tax assessors and receivers, Department of Natural Resources, Information Technology Department, Ordinance Enforcement, town engineer, and the zoning, planning, and architectural review boards, from the new owner until a new home is found for those employees.

    Councilwoman Theresa Quigley, who outlined the situation for the board earlier this week, said the would-be buyer had asked the board to announce that the units are on the market, in order to avoid any appearance of impropriety or “favor.”

    The amount offered was not announced, but Ms. Quigley said appraisers had set a market value of $3 million for all seven units and that the offer was close to that amount.

    Selling the office condominiums, which cost the town $145,000 annually in maintenance, was part of an overall plan, set in motion by the previous town administration, that included creating a new office complex from repurposed historic buildings on the town hall campus. As a second stage, the board had discussed rehabbing the old Town Hall building to accommodate the departments now on Pantigo Place, and selling those offices.

    “The initial idea came up early last year — what I thought would be a need to consolidate on the campus,” Supervisor Bill Wilkinson said Tuesday. “I had originally thought that we could rehabilitate that building. The purpose was in some way to get cash for the rehabilitation.”

    The condition of the old Town Hall put that plan in question. Mr. Wilkinson said an engineer had estimated that it would cost $500,000 just to make the building structurally sound.

    The board has not discussed an alternate plan to house any of the outlying town departments, which include not only those at the Pantigo Place complex but also offices in Amagansett, at the Lamb Building on Bluff Road.   

    A $65.6 million East Hampton Town budget for 2012, up from almost $64 million last year, was the subject of a hearing before the town board last Thursday night.

    The proposed budget sets property tax rates for town residents at $26.58 per $100 of assessed value, and $11.10 per hundred for village residents. Because of expected revenue from sources other than taxes, it projects a $2.32 savings for owners of a house in the town with a $500,000 market value, and a savings of $8.12 for those with houses valued at $1.8 million. Savings would be higher for village residents, at $46 for a $500,000 value or $161 for a value of $1.8 million.

    Several modifications of the original budget were made, Len Bernard, the town budget officer, said at the hearing. Projected revenues from town recreational programs were dropped by $10,000, for instance, and $10,000 added to the amount expected from permit fees collected by the town clerk, based on this year’s figures. Several oversights, such as the omission of $58,000 for planning board members’ salaries, were corrected. The bottom line remained essentially the same, Mr. Bernard said.

    None of the changes were based on comments submitted to the town by the New York State Comptroller, who must review the town budget according to terms allowing East Hampton to borrow some $27 million to pay back a deficit that had been allowed to accumulate under the previous administration.

    The town is required to explain to the comptroller why budget suggestions have not been followed. At the hearing, Mr. Bernard outlined the comptroller’s concerns and the town’s response.

    In response to the comptroller’s concern that the budget assumed revenues from property sales for which contracts have not yet been signed, Mr. Bernard said that several sales are being negotiated. The board, he said, could adjust the figures pertaining to the sale of East Hampton’s interest in the Poxabogue Golf Center to Southampton Town, its joint owner, but suggested that if members feel confident that the contract approval is imminent it should be left as is.

    Several speakers urged the board to give as much money as possible to Project MOST, an after-school program for youngsters based at Springs School. “I believe Project MOST is a wise investment in the long run,” said Michael Hartner, the Springs School superintendent. “The children that come to Project MOST are the children of the workers of this town,” said Dan Hartnett, a social worker in the East Hampton school district. “For me, the question is the priorities of our town. What better bang for the buck could you get than funding Project MOST?”

    In a letter to the board read at the hearing by Averill Geus, Stephen Grossman, who lost a bid for town justice on Election Day, also supported Project MOST, questioning an expenditure of $80,000 for security at the town court “while underfunding or not funding preschool care.” He also questioned whether the salaries of the justices, who work part time, were justified.

    Sylvia Overby, who will take office in January after winning a seat on the town board last week, questioned the deletion from the budget of money to run the scavenger waste plant, which the board anticipates privatizing, as reported elsewhere in this issue. We haven’t determined what we’re doing,” Councilwoman Theresa Quigley told her. “Should it be deleted from the budget if you haven’t determined,” Ms. Overby asked. The town must correct environmental violations before turning the plant over to a new operator.

    Ms. Overby also suggested that a 20- percent increase in the architectural review board budget be reallocated to the Planning Department, which lost two staff members and will experience a 15- percent cut under the new budget. A planner who resigned would be willing to continue as a part-time worker, she said, and would be an asset to the town.

    Supervisor Bill Wilkinson said that cutting jobs enabled him to trim the budget. “That’s an important dynamic to continue,” he said. “We try to do more with less,” he told David Buda, a speaker who decried a budgetary and staff reduction in the Ordinance Enforcement Department.

    In written comments distributed this week, Zachary Cohen, a Democrat whose bid to unseat the Republican Mr. Wilkinson as supervisor depends upon still-uncounted absentee votes, outlined his own concerns.

    Several amounts included in the budget as one-time revenue will create problems in the future — specifically, a need for a tax increase — he said, and reflect “poor finance.”

    He cited an appropriation of $705,000 from a highway fund surplus, to help pay the annual operating expenses of the Highway Department next year. “A better use for the surplus would be to avoid more borrowing in the future” for road repair and equipment replacement that has been underfunded, he said, in recent years. Similarly, Mr. Cohen said, “The use of $1.1 million of appropriated surplus in the sanitation [solid waste] fund solely to provide a tax reduction is also poor finance.”

    He also suggested that lacking a firm contract, money from the sale of assets such as Poxabogue should not be relied on for next year’s budget.

    “A good general rule of municipal finance is that one-time revenue events, such as the sale of assets or appropriated surplus, should only be used to fund one-time expenses, such as equipment purchases or to lower borrowing needs. Whenever one-time revenue is used as general operating revenue, it builds a tax increase into the next year’s budget equal to the amount of revenue recorded,” Mr. Cohen wrote.

    Like his running mate Ms. Overby, he questioned the budgetary decisions regarding the scavenger waste plant.

    Mr. Cohen also provided an analysis of “chargebacks” from one town fund to another. The proposed budget, prepared by Mr. Wilkinson and Mr. Bernard, includes sums to be paid into the general operating budget by other, stand-alone, town funds: $253,912 from the highway fund, $277,640 from the solid waste fund, and $185,014 from the airport fund.

    The practice, being employed for the first time, provides that payment for particular services being performed for departments with their own funding sources, such as legal work, is paid from that source, rather than from the general fund. The state comptroller approves of the practice, according to notes accompanying the budget, as long as there is documentation.    

    Mr. Cohen commented that the three funds from which money is to be transferred into the operating fund are those with surpluses, a portion of which will be appropriated next year.

    “There is an obvious implication that these chargebacks are a gimmick to artificially reduce taxes in the whole town fund by moving surplus from highway, solid waste, and airport into the whole town fund,” Mr. Cohen wrote.  He also questioned the estimated chargeback amounts.

    According to state law, the town board must adopt a budget for next year by Sunday. A vote is expected to take place at a board meeting tonight, although it was not on an agenda for the meeting reviewed by the board on Tuesday.

    East Hampton voters will have to wait until tomorrow at the earliest and probably longer to find out who their town supervisor will be come January.

    With unofficial results from the Suffolk County Board of Elections in Yaphank showing the Republican incumbent, Bill Wilkinson, just 177 votes ahead of the challenger, Zachary Cohen, on election night, and some 800 absentee ballots still awaiting a count, the race was too close to call.

    On Monday, the Board of Elections was to begin its standard audit of 3 percent of voting machines, but it would not likely begin to open absentee ballots for East Hampton Town until the end of the week, a spokeswoman said last Thursday. In all, 1,044 absentee ballots were sent out, 540 to Democrats, 284 to Republicans, 175 to unaffiliated voters, and a combined 45 to members of the Independence, Working Families, and Conservative Parties.

    To be considered, those ballots had to be postmarked no later than Nov. 7 (not Nov. 1, as stated here last week), or delivered to the Board of Elections in person by the close of polls on Election Day. Mailed ballots were to have been received by Tuesday in order to be part of the count, although those from military personnel will be considered if postmarked appropriately and received by Nov. 21.

    As of Saturday, according to Mr. Cohen, the board had received 799 ballots, with 418 coming in from Democrats, 220 from Republicans, 132 from unaffiliated voters, and 22, 6, and 1 from members of the Independence, Conservative, and Working Families Parties respectively.

    On absentee ballots, unaffiliated voters have tended to break for Democratic candidates, but by any combination of guesses, the race remains quite close.

    “There’s a high probability of a tie,” Mr. Cohen, a mathematician, said on Tuesday. “I’m not nervous one iota. Now, my only job in relation to the election is to make sure we do a really good job with the count.”

    Plans for the immediate future of East Hampton Town’s septic waste treatment plant, developed by consulting engineers and discussed by the town board in executive session, were outlined at a public board meeting on Tuesday.

    The board plans to privatize the facility. It will request proposals to run the plant, which accepts and processes waste from the carters who pump out cesspools and restaurant grease traps. The plant must first, however, be brought into compliance with state environmental regulations.

    The town and Severn Trent, a private contractor paid almost $80,000 a month to run the plant, were cited last spring by the state Department of Environmental Conservation for violations of environmental limits, in what the D.E.C. called an “ongoing problem.” Between February 2008 and March of this year, according to the agency, discharge from the plant contained excessive levels of nitrogen, mercury, iron, and other elements.

     The state has ordered the town to submit a corrective action plan. An August deadline has been extended to next month. State law provides for a maximum penalty of $37,500 for each violation, which can be compounded daily, but town officials hope that a plan that meets with the D.E.C.’s approval will result in a minimal amount of fines.

    In order to assess and resolve the problems at the plant, it must be shut down, Councilwoman Theresa Quigley said at Tuesday’s meeting. Waste will not be treated at the site, she said, but it would continue to be operated as a transfer station, allowing local pump-out companies to empty their trucks of waste that would be trucked to other facilities for processing.

    The town will seek a private company to temporarily operate the transfer station while the plant cleanup is under way. At a meeting tonight, the board is expected to issue a request for proposals for that service.

    Taking waste directly to UpIsland facilities is generally more costly for East Hampton-based septic waste carters. However, Councilman Dominick Stanzione pointed out during the Tuesday discussion that the cost per gallon to dump waste at the plant, currently 11.5 cents, is likely to be increased by whoever operates the transfer station.

    Because of the plan to privatize the waste treatment facility, the board had agreed to terminate a contract with Severn Trent, the plant operator, which expires at the end of the month. However, the company will have to be hired on a month-to-month basis for at least another month, Ms. Quigley said, while the plant is revamped and the D.E.C. issues resolved. Then the town can seek proposals from private companies to take it over and resume wastewater treatment on site.

    The 2012 town budget, to be voted on at the board meeting tonight, contains money for debt payments on the plant but does not contain funds to pay Severn Trent, or to repair or operate the plant.

    Town officials had sought to keep the D.E.C. citations at the plant quiet, insisting a segment of a report prepared by the town budget and finance advisory committee, which touched on the environmental concerns, be presented in private, and holding all pertinent discussions in executive session. Correspondence from the D.E.C. about the citations was released only pursuant to a Freedom of Information law request by Deborah Klughers, a Springs environmentalist.

    Ms. Klughers was an apparent winner last week of a seat on the board of trustees, though absentee ballots could change the outcome.

    A close look at the financial operations at LTV, East Hampton Town’s public-access cable television provider, showed shortcomings in record keeping on purchases of equipment that would belong to the town should LTV cease to exist, Len Bernard, the town’s budget officer, reported Tuesday. LTV receives the lion’s share of its annual budget from the town, $712,000 last year.

    The budget office spent the last few months conducting an “internal audit” of LTV, said Mr. Bernard in a report to the town board. Under a long-term contract that will expire next year, the town funnels 80 percent of the money it receives from Cablevision for operations in the town to LTV. In addition, the town provides $40,000 a year for equipment.

    LTV tapes and airs meetings of town government bodies, including the town board and the planning, zoning, and architectural review boards, on channel 22, which also airs school and educational programs. It also provides an opportunity for community members to create and air programs on its other channel, 20.

    The financial review, Mr. Bernard said, examined whether LTV spent its money from the town on providing public TV access, as required; on whether expenditures were properly approved and documented, and on whether the equipment bought with town funds was properly used and controlled.

    Money is being properly spent at LTV, he reported, but the procurement process does not necessarily ensure that purchases are made at the best possible prices. At least, he said, there is no documentation to prove it.

    One problem, Mr. Bernard said, is that LTV’s records do not distinguish which pieces of equipment were purchased with town money versus other funds. In addition, he said, while LTV requires employees to sign equipment out and back in, control over how and where it is used is lacking.

    “Could LTV employees use equipment for their own business?” Supervisor Bill Wilkinson asked. “That’s something that needs to be looked at,” Mr. Bernard said. “At a minimum, you certainly can go back and determine which fixed assets were bought with town funds,” he told the town board.

    In preparing a new contract with LTV next year, he said, those types of record keeping procedures should be specified.

    Mr. Bernard suggested the organization should follow the purchasing procedures outlined in municipal law, which the town employs. That may be proper, Mr. Wilkinson said, but if so, then the town should hold other organizations for which it provides funding to the same standards.

    Councilman Dominick Stanzione questioned the nature of the agreement with LTV, which guarantees an annual grant regardless of whether that much is needed.

    Although LTV is regularly funded by the town, akin to a town department, he said, the arrangement is unlike the budgeting process for departments, wherein a department head tells the board how much money will be needed in a coming year and board members allocate that specific amount.

    The town first contracted with LTV in 1999, when it was just getting off the ground, Councilman Pete Hammerle explained. Federal Communications Commission rules requiring cable companies to provide public access stations were in place, and Frazier Dougherty, an East Hampton resident, started LTV to fill that requirement. “Everybody wanted LTV to be hugely successful, and we agreed to dedicate the entire franchise fee,” Mr. Hammerle said.

    That scenario could now be revisited as a new contract is prepared, board members suggested. Other towns do not allocate their franchise fees to public access providers, as East Hampton has, Mr. Wilkinson noted.

    The budget office reviewed annual audits of LTV performed by an outside auditor, Mr. Bernard said. The overall revenue at LTV last year was $806,000, he said, including the town’s contribution. Fund-raising, and a grant from East Hampton Village, helped make up the difference.

    LTV’s board of directors has ultimate control over expenditures, including salaries for seven employees, among them a director who makes $75,000 a year.