East Hampton Town

A.R.B. on LTV

    Meetings of the East Hampton Town Architectural Review Board have been added to the lineup of programs on LTV,  channel 22. The meetings, at 7 p.m. on the second and fourth Thursdays of the month, will be covered live and will be re-aired on Fridays at 4 p.m. and Saturdays at midnight and 10 p.m. They can also be seen online at the LTV Web site, at ltveh.org.

    LTV also provides live coverage of East Hampton Town Zoning, Planning, and Town Board meetings, including the latter’s work sessions, as well as meetings of the East Hampton Village Board.

Two C.P.F. Purchases

    A hearing will be held by the East Hampton Town Board at 7 p.m. next Thursday on the purchase of 3.7 acres on Duryea Avenue, along Lake Montauk, with $1.6 million from the community preservation fund. The parcel, which is adjacent to a town launching ramp, is owned by the Bistrian Land Corporation.

    Also that night will be a hearing on a smaller purchase of open space — a quarter-acre at 291 Three Mile Harbor Road owned by John and Winifred Dowling, for $45,000. The money also will come from the community preservation fund.

    The hearings will be at East Hampton Town Hall. 

    As discussion of the East Hampton Airport continues — with aircraft noise reduction and whether or not to take Federal Aviation Administration grants shaping up as a key campaign issue in the upcoming town election — Town Councilman Dominick Stanzione last week distributed a 2010 report by the State Department of Transportation and the F.A.A. on the economic impacts of aviation in the state.

    The data in the report, which examined the impacts of various airports in the state, covering the period from September 2009 through August 2010, was compiled through surveys and through estimation and extrapolation of existing data.

    “Study surveys of sponsors and businesses revealed that 65 full and part-time jobs and $8.6 million in expenditures are the direct result of on-airport businesses, including airport sponsor expenditures, and visitor spending at the airport. Including indirect expenditures, the total impact for East Hampton Airport was $12.6 million, supporting 91 jobs,” the report concluded.

    According to the report, “prominent corporate and business users of the airport include NetJets Aviation, Center for Disease Detection, SBL Services International, Bombardier Aerospace, Seneca Foods Corporation, Coastal Wings Inc., Calvin Klein Studio, Auerbach Aeronautic Associates, Sounds Aircraft Flight Enterprises, Sound Aircraft Systems, Myers Aero Fuels, Hertz Corporation, Aviation Resources Inc., Wells Fargo, Cape Air, and Banc of America Leasing and Capital.”

    In a press release, Mr. Stanzione described the data as “important evidence of the economic contribution [of] our airport to every taxpayer in our community.” According to the authors, the report “shows that this sector produces an impact greater than the level of public investment required to maintain the system in a state of good repair.

    The East Hampton Town Board will hold a hearing tonight on a proposal to hand the oversight of buildings on active farmland, such as temporary greenhouses or “hoop houses,” and farmstands, to the town architectural review board, eliminating the need to go through town planning board site plan review before a building permit is issued. The hearing begins at 7 p.m. at Town Hall.

    According to the proposed legislation, “typical zoning regulations are for residential uses” and result in the “unintended regulation of farm operations.”

    The proposal is meant to “respond to the farmers’ concerns while ensuring the ability to have local issues examined while not requiring professional assistance to complete or review the process.”

    No formal survey would be required as part of an application to put up a farmstand, which could be as large as 500 square feet, a temporarty greenhouse, or an agricultural building.

    Instead, the farmer could provide a sketch showing the property’s location and adjacent roadways and properties; the approximate location of water and sewer systems, natural features, and existing structures on the lot or adjacent properties, and information regarding the proposed structure, including dimensions and setbacks from property lines and other buildings.

    The required setbacks, according to the proposals, would be 20 feet from the front yard property line, and 15 feet from the side and rear property lines. Temporary greenhouses could occupy up to 8 percent of the lot area, while other agricultural buildings not used for animals could occupy up to 2 percent, for a total coverage of the lot by buildings of 10 percent.

    The new law would eliminate any potential requirement for screening, such as plantings designed to shield the view of buildings or other structures, and would require the A.R.B. to review any site plan application for active farms within 15 calendar days after its receipt. Earlier this year, the town board vetted a previous proposal to change the site plan requirements for farms, which would have allowed the town Building Department to issue administrative approvals.

    Farmers lauded the idea of making the permit process easier and less expensive, while some suggested that the applicability to farms of the town’s zoning regulations were in fact precluded by state agricultural laws.

    Other speakers at a hearing on the previous proposal said that eliminating planning board review of farm structures could mean that buildings or farmstands could go up that would negatively impact neighbors or the neighborhood.

    The Stony Hill Stables subdivision was approved at the East Hampton Town Planning Board meeting on Sept. 28. Passed by five votes, with two members absent, the application allows the property owner, Elizabeth Hotchkiss, to turn the 50-year-old riding academy in Amagansett into a horse farm with three building lots and an agricultural reserve.

    There was community support at the public hearing on Aug. 10 to save the academy, and a petition was submitted to request that East Hampton Town and the Peconic Land Trust work together to purchase the development rights to the property on Town Lane. While Ms. Hotchkiss remains open to this possibility, she is moving along with the subdivision plan as a means to provide for her future financial stability, she said.

    JoAnne Pahwul, the town’s assistant planning director, explained that land preservation is not within the board’s jurisdiction. She also said that the project meets town code requirements.

    “The academy has been in operation for 50 years, and it’s part of the community,” said Peter Van Scoyoc, a board member. “People supported the idea for the riding academy use to continue through town funds, C.P.F. [community preservation] funds. That’s not our purview. Those comments were directed to us, but we don’t have any influence over purchase of property.” According to Mr. Van Scoyoc, the plan preserves 70 percent of the land for agriculture. “It all meets code, and no variances are required. I support the application. The density for horses is actually being reduced,” he said.

    The plan calls for dividing the nearly 10.3-acre parcel into three building lots of about a half acre each with a 7.8-acre agricultural reserve. The reserve is to contain three stables, a shed, an office, and an 8,996-square-foot indoor riding arena.

    Some concerns were raised by neighbors at the hearing about lot size, increased truck traffic, and impact on groundwater. Patrick Schutte, a board member, inspected the driveway prior to the meeting. “The layout is appropriate. I drove in and there is room to turn around, but it isn’t being utilized. We’re ready for approval here,” he said.

    “I agree with the comments. I thought that was really a special public hearing we had,” said Reed Jones, the board’s chairman. “There were all different age groups. Some people were for it; some against it. I think it’s a benefit for the community, I support the application.”

    The planning board’s approval is pending written approval from the Suffolk County Health Department.

    Marked by a humble demeanor, a passion for Montauk’s wild beauty, and a local lineage that dates back to the 1700s, Peter Van Scoyoc is making his first serious bid for elected office as a town board candidate on the Democratic ticket.

    Although Mr. Van Scoyoc ran for a trustee position in 1991 and has served a combined 11 years on the East Hampton Town Zoning and Planning Boards, he said, “I’ve always checked politics at the door. During all the time, I’ve never really been politically involved other than a political appointment so to speak. I’ve never run for office other than as a trustee.”

    He was asked to run again in 1993, but his second child, Thomas, had just been born, joining his daughter, Amy, who was 2 at the time. He had just built a new house and was still running his residential construction business. His plate was decidedly full.

    Eighteen years later, Mr. Van Scoyoc, who has now been on the planning board for six years, said that he felt compelled to run in this election because there were a number of choices and directions taken by the current Republican administration that he feels do not align with the public’s agenda. “My take on the pulse of the community is that things were getting done that people didn’t want, and they weren’t being listened to.”

    He has been surprised by the amount of positive support he has received. Campaigning, which he often does door to door on bicycle, has been “fun and stimulating,” he said.

    “I’m not a big self-promoter, but I just have stepped out of myself in terms of standing out in front of the post office and talking to people I don’t know at all,” he said. “It’s kind of exciting.”

    One of the most rewarding parts of these impromptu dialogues with strangers are the new perspectives he gains with each conversation, he said.

    “It may be something you never thought of before and that’s a real asset that gets overlooked by the group we have now,” he said, speaking of the town board’s Republican majority.

    Mr. Van Scoyoc’s family’s historic East Hampton connections were a catalyst in his interest in local affairs and politics. A Virginia native and one of four sons of an Episcopal minister, he had always been aware that he had family ties to East Hampton — his grandfather had published a three-volume genealogy — but it was a strange coincidence involving a certain house on Northwest Road that raised his family fascination to a fever pitch.

    He and his wife, Marilyn Van Scoyoc, who grew up in the Stony Brook area, had been living in Rhode Island, where Mr. Van Scoyoc ran a construction business and she was a music professor at the University of Rhode Island. When the market crashed in 1989, Ms. Van Scoyoc lost her job.

    “We stayed in Rhode Island for another year and struggled with the building business, but everything had shut down in terms of building. It was tough economic times.” His wife interviewed to be a band director at East Hampton High School during the regular director’s yearlong leave of absence.

    When the couple came to East Hampton for her interview, they decided to grab a few sandwiches from Bucket’s Deli and take a drive “to nowhere in particular,” he said. Their drive led them to Northwest Road, where they spotted a little ranch house, the only one on the road in the middle of the woods, he recalled.

    His wife got the job, and when the man she was replacing temporarily decided to retire, she stayed on, and still teaches music and manages the jazz, concert, and marching bands.

    “When we got back to town, I said, ‘That ranch would have been a cool place to rent,’ ” Mr. Van Scoyoc said. And when they actually rented it, “the people said, ‘Well, out of curiosity, are you related to the Van Scoyocs buried in the backyard?’ ”

    It turns out that Mr. Van Scoyoc’s ancestors had farmed more than 180 acres throughout the Northwest Woods area. The house he built in 1993 and still lives in today is on land that was part of the Van Scoyocs’ original homestead.    

    “There is so much early history and those traditions are still alive,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said this week. “The first European families to settle here are still well represented and that’s very special. The heart and soul of the area are still intact and it’s a big part of who we are as a community. I think people cherish that whether they have a direct connection to it or not.”

    Mr. Van Scoyoc said that East Hampton, where 13th-generation farming and fishing families live beside billionaires, artists, and writers, has some of the most socioeconomically diverse population he can imagine anywhere.

    A self-described lapsed fisherman, Mr. Van Scoyoc has had a captain’s license for 25 years and and takes charter clients out on two of his boats, a “traditional down-easter” he keeps in Montauk called Dreamcatcher, and an anonymous 25-footer in Sag Harbor “that caters to the sheltered waters” of that area.

    “For the faint of heart and for small children, Sag Harbor is better, but for the sea-hearty there is Montauk. I have to say, that’s where my heart is,” he said. “The first fish I ever caught was a bluegill in a farm pond when I was 3 years old. Fishing allows a connection to another universe underwater. Suddenly it becomes tangible, emerging from the unknown, and I think that intrigued me. You never know what you’ll find.”

    Back to talk of the campaign and the position he hopes to win in November, Mr. Van Scoyoc counted his time as an appointed member of the planning and zoning boards as an asset. “I have a lot of experience sitting and listening to people’s proposals and ideas and weighing them against the needs of the community,” he said.

    If the current administration “took the ideas and presented them in a way that people could explore them, they could find out exactly what the support is on any particular issue,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said, adding that the Democrats “have a very different approach. You either push down or you lift up. And we’re lifting.”

    The East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals heard an application on Tuesday evening that challenged a certificate of occupancy granted for the property at 148 North Main Street, East Hampton, adjacent to an Empire gas station, where a convenience store has been approved.

    Tom Preiato, senior building inspector, determined that the buildings on the property are pre-existing and nonconforming in August 2009, and issued the C of O this past March. The planning board approved the proposed convenience store in a unanimous vote in October 2010.

    But Jeffrey Slonim, who lives next door at 152 North Main Street, said in a letter to the Z.B.A. that “we were not notified when Empire first presented their plan to build a convenience store . . . though we have a North Main address. Nor was the Hoff family, who then lived beside Empire, on the other side of our small access road.”

    When Mr. Slonim discovered that a site plan had been filed, he had his attorney, Michael Walsh, take action. “We filed an appeal,” Mr. Walsh told the Z.B.A. “It went to the Supreme Court in Riverhead, and they granted an injunction and said, maintain status quo. They had us come to your board, you’re the proper appellate.”

    Mr. Walsh told the board the town code does not allow a supermarket, delicatessen, convenience establishment, or other retail store on the same lot as a filling station. The two buildings on the property now, a barbershop and an abandoned car rental agency, are “service businesses,” a different use, not retail stores. In its application to the planning board, Empire proposed to take [the two business uses] and convert them into a “mercantile” use. Empire would then be in compliance with the state building code, the lawyer noted, as mercantile use allows for the retail sale of goods. (Empire’s lawyer, however, said later that town law, not state, controls here.)

    In 2008, Mr. Walsh told the board, Don Sharkey, then chief building inspector, received complaints of a retail operation at the site, and that use, a convenience store, was removed. “There’s no way the building inspector could’ve taken the position that there was a retail position at the site” when Empire went before the planning board two years later, he said.

    Many nearby residents who have opposed the convenience store attended the hearing. Some said they had been unable to express themselves before, and they wanted their voices heard now. “I’m here to support the neighbors,” said Nancy LaGarenne. “A convenience store? We don’t need it. Damark’s is open late, I.G.A. is open late, that area is a problem. With the traffic into Nick and Toni’s, the cleaners, we really have to fight to keep a neighborhood. Otherwise it’s going to look like UpIsland, and I don’t think anybody wants that.”

    Another neighbor who lives close to Empire was concerned with the future. “We are talking about the traffic because we didn’t have the opportunity last time around when it was passed through. This is our chance, this gas station is part of our community, it’s our responsibility, mine and yours,” said Molly Clevenger.

    “If it happens here, why not another empty place, and then another?” Maybe they’ll want to put a Kmart there?” asked Jim Lagarenne.

    In response to the protests, Alex Walter, a board member, said, “It’s up to us as to whether that C of O issued in 2011 was right or not. I don’t want people in the audience to think that whatever decision we make about the C of O has anything to do with whether or not we want a convenience store. That’s our job.” Don Cirillo, vice-chairman of the board, who was chairing the meeting in Philip Gamble’s absence, concurred, adding, ‘It’s an emotional issue, there’s only certain things we can do.’ ”

    Mr. Walsh also reminded the board that Mr. Sharkey had found the barbershop and car rental agency in violation of the code in 2002, and had noted that retail uses could not be commenced on the site. “We submit to you that there is no fair reading of this code where you can conclude that a retail store or convenience store can be commenced at a filling station site,” he said.

    Mr. Walter asked what type of violations. Mr. Walsh said they were for having no site plan for those uses.

    Mr. Slonim stressed that “there are a number of businesses at this site. They park taxis there, it’s difficult for us to get out of our driveway, there’s a limousine parked there. Empire causes traffic already. This is a bottleneck. The traffic on North Main Street, all summer long, it can take 20 minutes to get out of our little access road. It’s like playing chicken to get out. I don’t know how another business could be there.”

    Mr. Cirillo told Mr. Slonim that this hearing was about the certificate of occupancy, and the Z.B.A. was not in a position to rule about traffic.

    According to Tiffany Scarlatto, counsel for Ali Yuzbasioglu and S&A Petroleum Group Inc., there is no mention of the property as a filling station in town records. In April 1957, the owner was issued a permit to construct a “service building,” which went up before the zoning code was enacted later that year.

    “The uses [over the years] were conforming uses, both in a central business district and a neighbor business district. The uses are conforming with zoning as it exists today,” said Ms. Scarlatto.

    “The nonconformities consist of the number of uses on the property. You’re limited to two; currently there are three. The proposal was to eliminate one of the uses and bring it down to two.” In 1987, she said, a C of O was issued for one service station and two businesses, adding that the definition of a filling station was changed in 1994 — apparently to language that would benefit the applicant.

    Mr. Cirillo said that the certificate of occupancy in 2003 does not say “filling station,” but “motor vehicle repair garage with accessory gasoline dispensing pump island.”

    A member of the audience, J.B. D’Santo, offered his take on the somewhat complex semantics involved. “You can dress a pig any way you want, but it’s still a pig,” he said.

    Mr. Preiato stood up toward the end of the hearing. “Unfortunately, a lot of inaccuracies were displayed here this evening,” he began. “As far as someone coming up and saying there was never a retail store, that’s absolutely false. In 1975 there was a retail store. It’s a neighborhood business. This is water under the bridge. It’s too late for an attack on neighborhood business.”

    Of the property, he said, “It has two uses. A neighborhood use doesn’t get abandoned. It does not. I stand with my C of O. It’s pretty straightforward. Mr. Walsh feels that some of the uses were abandoned. It’s not what I want, it’s what you’re gonna get, it’s what the code is gonna give. The facts are stated.”    

    Both the barbershop and car rental uses are permitted in the neighborhood business zone, he added. “That’s why I made the clarification on the C of O, for that reason. In 1987, for central business uses, that should’ve carried on through. I don’t know why Mr. Sharkey [put it differently]. The beauty of this property is that retail is allowed.”

    At the conclusion of the hearing, Mr. Walsh told the board that Empire is referred to as a filling station numerous times on town records, including a notice of violation that was filed by the building inspector in 2008. “You can’t have retail where there is a filling station,” he insisted. “Clearly, a retail store is prohibited.”

    The board must now determine if the certificate of occupancy was made in error, and whether Empire is a filling station or not.

    The record will be kept open for the next 30 days so that Ms. Scarlatto can submit a written response to Mr. Walsh’s argument. He will be allowed to submit a rebuttal in that same time frame.

    Eileen Raffo’s cottage at 252 Shore Road in Amagansett’s Lazy Point community squats low in the dunes, a zig-zag array of sand-catching fences its only defense against eroding storm surge.

    Ms. Raffo wants to “levitate” her house, as Diane McNally, clerk of the East Hampton Town Trustees, quipped during the board’s regular September meeting last week. Although her request to raise her house on pilings may be okay with the trustees, the height of the levitation is the question.

    The land at Lazy Point is owned by the trustees on behalf of the East Hampton public. The houses are privately owned.

    Ms. Raffo’s application asks the trustees to allow her to raise her house so that the subfloor is 14 feet above sea level. Richard Whelan, her attorney from the Land Marks group, told the trustees that her engineer advised a seven-foot height, but “I’m not sure the D.E.C. [State Department of Environmental Conservation] will allow less than 14 feet. We would like to go to 14 feet.”

    Joe Bloecker, a trustee, said he had studied the application and determined that the rise should be more in the order of four feet, which would put the subfloor at six feet above sea level, according to the Town Building Department.

    Tom Preiato is East Hampton’s senior building inspector and also the town’s flood plain administrator. He said on Tuesday that if repairs or renovations are made to over 50 percent of a building located in the flood plain as it exists at Lazy Point, or if a building’s value is increased by over 50 percent, regulations and maps set forth by the Federal Emergency Management Agency require them to be elevated so that the subfloor is 10 feet above sea level. To that elevation New York State has added two more feet of “freeboard,” to make for a required elevation of 12 feet.

    Mr. Preiato said that Ms. Raffo’s plan would involve driving four pilings for a total cost of about $45,000, not enough to trigger state and federal elevation requirements.

    Nonetheless, during last week’s trustee meeting, Mr. Whelan seemed to be positioning his client so that she would not run afoul of federal or state regulations in the future. The trustees did not buy it. They voted unanimously to reject Ms. Raffo’s application.

    Reached after the meeting, Ms. McNally repeated what she told the applicant, that the board was not keen on approving any dramatic changes in the absence of a comprehensive policy regarding protection of shore-front houses and the trustee-owned land they are built on.

    Ms. McNally said the trustees had wanted to go slow to discuss the project with the homeowner before a formal application was filed.

    “Now that the application becomes formal, we are concerned that our decision might put homeowners in jeopardy if their projects are not approved according to FEMA regulations. Mr. Preiato says the Raffo project is not a 50-percent improvement, so don’t worry. But, if it’s not in writing, I have no faith in it,” Ms. McNally said.

    On the other hand, she said the board was concerned that the Lazy Point community — “originally little fishing shacks” — has evolved into “permanent homes.”

    “We don’t want to see McMansions. They are already selling for $1 million on a 50-by-100-foot lot [land the homeowner doesn’t own], prime real estate. Raising the Raffo house will not protect it from erosion. What does my successor do if the house becomes an island? We have to have the ability to think long-term. The more we allow improvements, the more responsibility we have to insure the safety. I’m afraid the scales have been tipped without forethought,” Ms. McNally said. “I don’t want to be pushed to make a quick decision. We’re not going to be pushed when we don’t know if it’s in the best interest of the homeowner or the whole area.”

    Mr. Whelan could not be reached for comment.

    Hoping to offer East Hampton voters the opportunity to get to know the candidates for town supervisor and town board in a non-partisan setting, the East Hampton Chamber of Commerce held a mixer at the Hedges Inn on Sept. 13, but despite an attempt to achieve neutral ground, the evening managed to highlight some of the polarization between Democratic and Republican candidates.

    That sharp contrast in perspective represents the overarching atmosphere of the entire election, Sylvia Overby, a Democratic candidate for town board, said at the mixer.

    Both Democrats and Republicans cite budgets, community programs, and the environment as key points where they differ with each other.

    Republican Supervisor Bill Wilkinson, who won by a landslide in the 2009 election, faced a $27 million deficit when he entered the office, and immediately set his sights on dramatically reducing town government’s spending.

    While the town’s financial situation was dire when Mr. Wilkinson came into office in the wake of former Supervisor Bill McGintee’s alleged misuse and misallocation of the community preservation fund among other things, there has been increasing concern surrounding Mr. Wilkinson’s budget balancing methods as well.

    Some of that anxiety stems from what he touted as a $10-million “under-spent” 2011 budget, which reduced town employees and services (including the Highway Department’s fall leaf- pickup program). There is also concern over recently-passed legislation allowing East Hampton to borrow money through long-term bonds for an employee separation program. To critics, this decision begs the question of whether borrowing from the state is a viable solution or simply another debt by a different name.

    Mr. Wilkinson staunchly stands by his methods of righting the “sinking ship” that was East Hampton’s financial situation. “When I began to attend board meetings in 2005 and challenge what the board was saying, they were reporting their expenditures to the state but not to the public,” he said. “Basically they were spending 10 percent more than they were making.” The deficit predicted at the time “was far too small,” he said; he and his running mates predicted correctly that it would be much higher.

    When asked about trimming the budget and eliminating approximately 50 positions throughout East Hampton, Mr. Wilkinson said these were hard decisions that required sacrifice, but that he believes in the possibility of “doing more with less.”

    Ms. Overby said that the current administration’s decision to do away with certain “cherished” programs like the leaf pickup or the East Hampton Homework Club are not necessary or responsible sacrifices. Rather, these cuts are harming some of the community’s most fragile constituents, namely senior citizens and children, she said.

    “The cut of the Homework Club hits low-income working families,” she said. “There is a lot of pride here and people don’t always ask for help. There are still kids in East Hampton who will be the first [in their families] to go to college. The community is generous and helpful, but there are still serious pockets of need.”

    There are also a host of environmental and development issues, such as the town’s decision to sell Fort Pond House in Montauk, that Democratic candidates are seriously questioning. Yes, these are decisions that ostensibly made/saved money, but perhaps have cost the town something far more dear, Democrats say.

    “There is a human element that is missing,” said Ms. Overby. “Bill’s background is in business and that is geared for profit — it targets a small audience. There is a Republican idea that less government is better, but it’s also necessary to help the broadest group of people that you can.”

    Mr. Wilkinson said his résumé, which includes a position as senior vice president of human resources at Disney as well as his own consulting and executive search firm, gives him the credentials that are hallmarks of reliability and promises kept.

    Peter Van Scoyoc, Ms. Overby’s running mate for town board, said that the most poignant element of the upcoming election is the difference of perspectives in making choices about what is the “wise use of money.”

    The supervisor “promised to put the financial house in order,” he said. “But what is the real cost of that process and truly, what is government’s role? There are necessary services that the government provides and it’s easy to lose sight of that. There are some issues that should simply never be put on the table. What makes us different from the rest of the world are the beaches — that’s sacred,” he said. “This election is about the quality of life.”

    As the wife of former East Hampton Town Republican Committee chairman and former State Assemblyman John Behan, Marilyn Behan of Montauk has been in the political sphere for more than 20 years, at her husband’s side at countless fund-raisers, state dinners, and other events. Now, she is entering the political fray on her own as one of the Indepenence Party’s candidates for East Hampton Town Board.

    “I’ve been in the public arena for so long and now the questions are being asked of me and I’m enjoying it,” Ms. Behan said Monday. “I can voice my feelings and my opinions, knowing that somebody is listening to me.”

    Ms. Behan said she decided to run for office when she learned that Julia Prince of Montauk, a Democratic town councilwoman, was not running for reelection. She admires Ms. Prince’s compassion and listening skills, she said. “I thought, ‘I can’t let Montauk fall to the wayside.’ I think John was a little shocked when I told him that I was going to get involved. He said, ‘After all you’ve seen that I’ve had to do?’ ”

    Ever involved in local politics, Mr. Behan has at various times been the local G.O.P.’s biggest supporter and most outspoken critic.

    Ms. Behan remained undaunted, both in the face of potential public service and by the fair amount of early rejection she encountered in the screening process. A registered Democrat for 40 years, she pursued nomination with the Republican, Democratic, and Independence Parties.

    “I thought, ‘If I’m interested in this I can’t let all those faces intimidate me,’ ” she said. “I answered all the screening questions as well as I could. And then they asked me if would I change my politics. I said, ‘For a job? How could you or anyone trust me again?’ I have a little more integrity than that.”

    Ms. Behan said her initial rejection from both the Republican and Democratic parties was neither frustrating nor discouraging, rather it was a chance to flex her independent thinking.

    “You appeal to some people and that’s what politics are all about, whether you appeal to somebody or you don’t,” she said. “I presented myself to those three committees in the same way. The Independence Party saw some good in me and now I have to convince the rest of the public.”

    A resident of East Hampton Town for nearly 44 years, Ms. Behan works for Uihlein’s Marina and Hotel in Montauk, running everything from day-to-day office operations to staff training and billing. Her involvement in Montauk is as varied as it is dedicated. She has served as the executive director of Montauk Chamber of Commerce as well as in slew of volunteer roles, including acting as a den mother for the Boy and Girl Scouts and serving on the PTA and the Montauk Village Association.

    “Serving as the director of the Montauk Chamber of Commerce really taught me what it means to be in business during these times and the trials and the issues that face you,” she said. “I’m an advocate for all of the businesses of Montauk.

   Ms. Behan, who also has a background in advertising and marketing, including a three-year stint working under Gov. George Pataki, said that this experience allowed her to achieve a broader understanding of the entire state, noting that every “little tourist destination,” has its problems.

    “I don’t believe the current administration has taken one issue and brought it to fruition,” she said. “I think they’ve kind of given us a lot of lip service. They haven’t taken something to the end and solved it. And that’s what I would like to bring. I believe we can learn from other towns’ problems. If they’ve solved a problem that we have, we can use them as a model and see how they implemented that solution. It’s all about research.”

    Ms. Behan isn’t afraid of what she calls “black-and-white issues” either — she says she is still “young on the street” in terms of campaigning, but is looking forward to more defining moments where candidates reveal exactly where they stand on salient issues, like the future of East Hampton Airport.

    “We are a service industry out here, we sell a product,” she said. “Tourism puts bread and butter on the tables of a huge amount of the population out here. I’m in favor of the airport going to the Federal Aviation Administration. Not only will they pay about 90 percent of those expenses, but they can also point us in the avenues of getting grants from state officials. It takes a big burden off the taxpayer’s shoulders.”

    Ms. Behan believes she truly understands the “ins and outs of politics,” citing her lifelong political opposition to her husband as an asset — at dinners with their three children, the couple always brought their own set of opinions  to the table.

    “In the end, it’s not about a particular party though,” she said. “It’s about being a conservative and an independent thinker. And that’s what I am.

    The Civil Services Employees Association has announced its endorsement of several Democratic candidates including Zach Cohen for East Hampton Town supervisor and Sylvia Overby and Peter Van Scoyoc for town board, but also for the Republican candidate for highway superintendent, Stephen Lynch.

    Based on their interviews with the association’s political action committee, “these candidates showed the most accurate alignment to what C.S.E.A. membership is concerned with and how we can best work together to service the concerns of the community,” the union’s president, Heath Liebman, said.

    “There are plenty of issues that weighed on a large number of members,” Mr. Liebman said. “But what came up especially was about protecting the aesthetics of this town, the environment and our ability to work and live and survive here.”

    The C.S.E.A. in East Hampton, which represents more than 200 town employees, invited candidates to meet with its political action committee in June and July. Trustee candidates were not interviewed or endorsed.

    Mr. Liebman explained that while the goals for the trustees are of “critical importance,” those running for town board are dealing with the day-to-day issues that closely affect the members of the C.S.E.A., thus their position on certain issues were of vital importance.”

    Mr. Liebman noted that Bill Wilkinson, the incumbent town supervisor, chose not to fill out the C.S.E.A. questionnaire and instead provided his own informational packet.

    “We brought the findings of the PAC interviews of every candidate to our membership,” Mr. Liebman explained. “We allow our membership to be part of the process and weigh what we see as the pros and cons of each candidate. The C.S.E.A. members overwhelmingly supported these candidates.”