In East Hampton Village, where wretched excess and gaudy glitz can seem like the norm, sometimes less is more. So says Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr., who has proposed a local law that will limit real estate signs to a modest one and a half square feet as opposed to the seven square feet now allowed.

    The board will hold a public hearing tomorrow at the Emergency Services Building at 11 a.m. to discuss the new limit, which provides enough room for a name, phone number, and a notification of whether the property is for sale or lease.

    “We’re not trying to affect sales,” the mayor said, when he brought up the subject initially back in November. “It’s about the quality of life and the persona of the village.” Several other resort areas — including Shelter Island, New Canaan, Conn., and Palm Beach, Fla. — have already instituted laws requiring smaller signs.

    The larger signs, which not only hang in front of houses but are liberally pasted in commercial property windows throughout the village,  send the wrong message, the mayor said at the time. “It gives the impression that East Hampton is for sale,” he said. “It isn’t.”

    At the meeting in November, there had been talk by the board about limiting the size of contractors’ signs, but those have been left off the local law for now.

    Similar local laws in other municipalities, like that of Willingboro, N.J., in the mid-1970s, have met with legal resistance on the grounds of violation of constitutional rights, in this case free speech, but the law has favored the towns over the plaintiffs. On Martha’s Vineyard, for example, all real estate signs are forbidden.

    Brad Roaman of B.S.R. Construction Services has already blazed a trail for smaller signs. He has offered three of his village properties as exclusives to whichever real estate agent was willing to put up only a 4-by-10-inch sign on the lawn.

    Ed Petrie and Kelly Nelson from Sotheby’s Realty responded in the affirmative, and the house on Maidstone Avenue currently sports the smaller sign. Mayor Rickenbach also lives on Maidstone Avenue.

    Another property of Mr. Roaman’s on Buell Lane, which has boasted the more diminutive marker for two months, is already in contract.

    “I think it’s ridiculous that the entire community has to look at these giant signs all year long because of the egos of a couple of brokers,” Mr. Roaman said yesterday. “You think they don’t sell any houses on Martha’s Vineyard? It’s totally out of control here. Someone needs to reel in the real estate signs.”

    Mr. Roaman also said that he has spoken to many in the real estate business in the Hamptons. “Ninety percent of the brokers will say under their breath that they agree, they hate the signs, but no one wants to be the first to go to their managers. It has to come from the government,” he said.

    In the current day of Internet searches, he added, there is little need for signs anymore. Buyers and renters look at properties online more than on the fly. “You might drive around and look,” he said. “But when you get serious, you’re going to call a broker anyway.”

    Randall Parsons, a former land planner who was once an East Hampton Town councilman, also favors the new law, and has written a letter to the village board supporting it.

    “Various real estate companies are getting so involved in competing with each other that they become focused on the competition rather than the property,” he said yesterday. “We’ve become spectators of the war by the side of the road.”

 

East Hampton Town's ocean beaches took a heavy pounding Thursday and Friday as storm waves and a higher-than-usual tide cycle combined to produce considerable erosion.



As a low-pressure system pushed offshore Thursday, the wind came from the southeast with sustained speeds of 30 miles per hour or more at around daybreak. The highest recorded winds at the Montauk Airport weather station -- more than 35 m.p.h. -- coincided with a rising tide on the ocean.



At high tide in East Hampton Village on Thursday, erosion appeared to be worst at Georgica Beach, which had been severely cut back by waves from Hurricane Irene in August before it was downgraded to tropical storm and made landfall far to the west.



Though the weather system had been forecast, the severity of the blow it delivered to the south-facing beaches was not anticipated.



A controversial, fence-like row of steel pipes, installed for a property owner at Georgica Beach after Hurricane Irene, began to collapse Thursday. In September, East Hampton Village officials had cited the landowner, Molly Zweig, for failing to obtain permits for the pipes. She refused to remove them. The village has been expected to take the matter to the State Supreme Court.



By Friday morning, only a handful of Ms. Zweig's pipes remained standing. The rest appeared to have been swept away by the ocean's onslaught. A message seeking comment from Ms. Zweig was not returned.



Ms. Zwieg's property was not the only Georgica-area estate to suffer damage this week. Staircases to the east of the Georgica parking lot were torn off by the waves or left dangling over the rushing water. No beach could be seen in front of the now-exposed rock sea walls protecting houses along Lily Pond Lane.



Sand that had accumulated during the fall at Ditch Plain in Montauk was gone by Friday morning.



A gale warning remained in effect from the National Weather Service though late Friday with winds on the ocean becoming west with gusts to 45 m.p.h.

    East Hampton Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson delivered his 2012 State of the Town address last Thursday night, calling for unanimity on a bipartisan board that, with three Republicans and two Democrats, mirrors that of the last two years, which he said did “incredible work.”

    “In 2010, we encountered an estimated $30 million deficit, a bloated operating budget, an inefficient government management structure, and a total lack of accountability. We were lacking a moral financial compass,” he said.

    The issues have been addressed, he said, “through appropriate deficit borrowing,” as well as “rightsizing town government” and the adoption of a 2012 budget “that falls well within the newly 2-percent enacted state property tax cap.”

    Beyond dealing with “the financial debacle,” he said, the board rectified problems with the community preservation fund and enacted “aggressive C.P.F. purchasing” of land. 

    The preservation fund was “once a badge of honor for the East End that swiftly became an ornament of embarrassment” after money from the fund was improperly used elsewhere, Mr. Wilkinson said, but, he noted, “all illegally taken money has been returned.”

    The supervisor said that “it is time for all our taxpayers to understand their tax bills,” and the difference between the portions assessed for town taxes and other taxing entities, such as school districts, and Suffolk County, as well as “the impact of decision-making on the money each of us spends for the various services we receive.”

    East Hampton “must demand from federal, state, and county governments our fair share,” said Mr. Wilkinson, citing areas such as fishing quotas, beach replenishment and shoreline stabilization, and the repair and upkeep of state roads.

    There should be information from and accountability on the part of the county as to how much sales tax is raised here so that the town can know “how much money we are sending to the county as compared to the value of the services we are receiving from the county,” he said.

    “We have successfully introduced business practices into town government,” Mr. Wilkinson said, pointing to workplace changes such as “employees working harder with less,” as well as “performance management . . . taking place.”

    Members of the Police Benevolent Association, police dispatchers’ union, and the Civil Service Employees Association “have all sacrificed through their bargaining contracts,” Mr. Wilkinson said, “. . . and have become members of Team East Hampton.”

    “And we must not discourage ideas from surfacing during work sessions,” said the supervisor, who has at times been confronted with waves of public opinion about proposals in preliminary stages of discussion by the board, “regardless of how the press reports them or how undeveloped the thinking is. And we must ensure that competence shapes opinion, not political bias or self-interest.”

     Other initiatives Mr. Wilkinson pointed to in his speech included a unanimous board vote to apply for Federal Aviation Administration funding for East Hampton Airport, the work of the Lake Montauk watershed committee, the approval of permits for two wind turbines, and efforts to ease zoning applications for farmers and to revise the licensing procedures for home improvement contractors.

    The supervisor also mentioned the formation of a business advisory group, which he said is helping “plan the place of business for the next 20 years, whether through the attraction of high-tech, low-density technology ventures or recognizing the hurdles facing nonconforming businesses, many of which are designated as such even though they existed before zoning itself existed.”

    In closing, Mr. Wilkinson thanked the new board for the efforts members will make in the coming year as well as town “management” and employees, and East Hampton residents, “for their efforts in returning our town to the prosperities that you deserve.”

    Scott King, the former East Hampton Town Highway Superintendent who lost his bid for re-election this fall to Stephen Lynch, says that a campaign sign with his name, posted along a road in Montauk in the fall, was run over and then, three days later, a sign in roughly the same spot was removed altogether by an employee of his own department, driving a town truck.

    Mr. King said last week that he pursued disciplinary charges against the Highway Department employee who he says can be identified as the culprit, but that his effort was thwarted by the town board.

    Video taken by cameras positioned along East Lake Drive in Montauk show a driver operating an East Hampton Town Highway Department truck on Oct. 14 pulling across the center line to drive alongside a sign, snatching it up, and then backing up for some distance in the lane of opposite traffic, faced with an oncoming car.

    A series of still photographs from the same cameras several days earlier, on Oct. 11, show, from some distance, a Highway Department truck pulling up toward a sign, which in a later photograph appears to be under the vehicle’s wheel.

    According to a Dec. 19 e-mail exchange between Town Councilwoman Theresa Quigley and John Jilnicki, the town attorney, the employee, Terry Nesbitt, was apparently “interviewed on charges” related to the incident. But  Ms. Quigley wrote in the e-mail that “it was determined not to go forward with the accusations.” Mr. Nesbitt did not return a call for comment this week.

    Mr. Jilnicki responded in an e-mail that Mr. King “was not pleased” that Vince Toomey, the town’s labor attorney, “was not authorized to prepare charges” against Mr. Nesbitt.

    Under state Civil Service law, any department head or employee can seek charges against another by taking their accusation to the town’s Human Resources Department. Those involved, including the employee accused of wrongdoing and potential witnesses, are brought together for a fact-finding meeting, conducted by Human Resources staff or the labor attorney.

    If the accusations are found to have some basis, a hearing on the charges is supposed to be scheduled, with a hearing officer appointed by the town board.  Following the hearing, the hearing officer will issue recommendations to the town board, which can include, in certain cases, termination of employment or other disciplinary action.

    The charges on which a hearing is to be held can be drafted with the help of a labor attorney, as is often the case in East Hampton, or without, by the town attorney, the Human Resources Department, or the complainants themselves.

    Because Mr. Toomey, the labor attorney, is with an outside firm, the town board must authorize payment to him for his work. In this case, based on the text of the e-mail exchange, apparently the board declined to authorize payment to Mr. Toomey to prepare the charges against Mr. Nesbitt.

    A request this week for comment by the supervisor and town board members on the situation went unanswered.

    However, Mr. Jilnicki wrote in his e-mail to Ms. Quigley on Dec. 19 that Mr. King could have commenced the hearing process at that point, but that “the reality is . . . there is no way it could make any significant progress before the beginning of the term for the new highway superintendent.” He writes that he told Mr. King that what would happen to the proceeding then would be “within the control of the new superintendent.”

    Over the last two years, Mr. King, a Democrat, has gone head-to-head with the Republican-majority board on several fronts, including opposing the majority’s decision to have his department end roadside leaf pickup.

    He has also clashed with employees of his department, several of whom charged him with abuse and discrimination, which Mr. King denies.

    In 2010, three employees complained to the town workers’ union of verbal abuse and one instance of physical violence. Two filed police reports, but did not press charges. As a result of a town investigation into the allegations, Mr. King was required to attend anger management classes.    Earlier this year, two workers complained to the New York State Division of Human Rights that Mr. King had discriminated against them based on their ethnicity. An examination of the allegations resulted in a settlement of the charges this fall.

    Mr. Nesbitt was not among those who made the allegations, which Mr. King characterized as a political bid to block his re-election, and a reaction against his attempt, as superintendent, to impose higher work standards.

    The town code does not set forth specific regulations regarding political signs. State law prohibits a municipality from regulating signs based on their content, based on First Amendment rights.

    According to the town code, “temporary signs” may be placed on public property as long as they do not cause a traffic hazard or interfere with the use of the property. The code says they may stay in place for no more than seven days.

    In practice, however, Mr. Jilnicki said this week, campaign signs are allowed to remain in place throughout the election season.

    Penalties for removing temporary signs are also not delineated in the town code, but Mr. Jilnicki said that someone who takes a sign belonging to someone else could presumably be charged with theft, based on the monetary value of the sign. No legal charges stemmed from either Montauk sign incident.

    A 1960s sculpture by Larry Rivers — a 16-foot-tall pair of woman’s legs — must be removed from its owners’ Sag Harbor property, the Village of Sag Harbor has ordered.

    Owned by Janet Lehr and the art dealer Vered, the sculpture stands next to a house in a converted Baptist church at the corner of Madison and Henry Streets. Debate about whether the legs are sculpture, ornament, or structure, temporary or permanent has been ongoing since they were placed there three years ago.

    Early on, the village attorney, Fred W. Thiele Jr., said that the legs were a structure, according to The Sag Harbor Express, and should be subject to the village’s building and zoning requirements. It was his opinion that the couple needed a building permit to erect the legs, and that they should be also be subject to architectural and historic review. There was discussion of variances that Vered and Ms. Lehr could apply for to legalize the sculpture, as well as talk of moving it 34 feet from the property line and shaving 13 inches from the top of it.

    Another debate focused on whether the legs were a permanent or temporary part of the residence, and whether changing the sculpture’s cement base to sand would solve the problem. There were also definition discussions, such as if the sculpture was indeed a structure or an ornamental feature.

    In May, the village zoning board denied the couple’s request for variances that would allow them to keep the sculpture in its current location. They were told to take it down or face continual fines.

    The Dec. 23 letter from the Sag Harbor Building Department seems to signal the end of the couple’s battle to keep the legs standing. The letter directs them to remove the legs by Jan. 22. “Failure to remove the structure will necessitate the issuance of an appearance ticket,” it says.

    “I think it adds character to the town. It doesn’t hurt anyone,” said Vered, adding that the village should be proud to have a prominent display of work by Rivers, who lived in Southampton and is buried in Sag Harbor.

    Christine Bellini, a neighbor, said yesterday that she understands that the sculpture violated village zoning code, but “I think an exception in this situation is warranted.” As she sees it, people come to Sag Harbor to experience part of the history of the modern art that was prevalent there in the 1950s and ’60s. “I know the village is trying to follow the letter of the law . . . but as a neighbor, and historian of the area, I feel the Hamptons would not have the prowess it does as a cultural destination without the artwork.”

    Having lived around the block for four years, she said she appreciates all the work Vered and Ms. Lehr have put into their property. Before they restored the old church, it was “derelict,” she said.

    Vered agreed, saying that even her partner, who is never one to back away from challenges, was hesitant to take on the restoration project.

    As for “Legs,” she believes that for every one who has complained “there are a hundred who love the artwork.”

    Ms. Lehr, who calls the legs a “landmark,” is upset with the decision, saying so in a letter to The Star: “We want our legs. The legs must stay.”

    The couple is not sure what they will do. They have contacted their lawyer and reached out to the estate of Larry Rivers, but they may wind up considering offers for the piece.

 

    East Hampton Town’s proposed sale of its seven office condominium units at 300 Pantigo Place is moving forward, with yesterday marking the deadline for bidders.

    Specifications called for a minimum bid price of $3 million for all seven units, though an appraiser set the value of them, as a bulk sale, at $3.7 million. Sold individually, the units should fetch $4.4 million, according to a letter included in the bid packet from the appraisers, Givens Associates. However, the town board announced last month that a potential buyer had indicated interest in buying all of the units, provided a closing could take place immediately.

    An additional discount for a quick sale, within 60 to 90 days, results in an estimated price of $3.4 to $3.6 million, according to the appraisal. The price offered by the interested buyer was not disclosed, but Councilwoman Theresa Quigley said he or she had requested that the board seek other bids to avoid the appearance of impropriety.

    A legal notice to bidders was published in the Dec. 8 issue of The East Hampton Star. The board also approved issuing the bid for the sale in a resolution passed last Thursday night. It gave bidders until yesterday to make an offer.

    According to the town Purchasing Department, the response time for bidders, which is set by the town board, can vary, but is normally two to four weeks. 

    The space is currently occupied by the Planning, Natural Resources, Information Technology, and Building Departments, fire marshals, tax assessors and receivers, town engineer, and zoning, planning, and architectural review board offices. All would need new quarters after a year. The proposed sale terms call for allowing the town to occupy the office condos for a year from the closing, rent free, but where they would be housed after that has not been publicly discussed.

    In planning the reconstruction of historic buildings on the main Town Hall campus to house some town offices, a previous town board had discussed selling the condominium units and rebuilding the old Town Hall to accommodate the displaced departments.

    In discussing the potential sale last month, Supervisor Bill Wilkinson noted that “the purpose was in some way to get cash for the rehabilitation.” However, he added, an engineer had estimated it would cost $500,000 just to make the old building structurally sound.

    A judge last Wednesday declined to issue a temporary restraining order that would have prevented East Hampton Town officials from seeking and accepting money from the Federal Aviation Administration for a deer fencing project at East Hampton Airport.

    But opponents of that action are continuing to press the issue. They say that the resulting 20-year obligation for the town to run the airport according to certain F.A.A. standards, or “grant assurances,” will prevent East Hampton from enacting restrictions that may be the only way to effectively control the aircraft noise bothering residents.

    Jeffrey Bragman, an attorney for a group of airport noise-control advocates, said Tuesday that though the emergency request for a restraining order had been denied by Justice John J.J. Jones Jr. at State Supreme Court in Riverhead, the court is still to rule on a request for a preliminary injunction stopping the town from signing a new grant assurance agreement with the F.A.A. Information is due to be submitted to the court on that action in early January.

    Meanwhile, Susan McGraw Keber, a member of the Quiet Skies Coalition, a newly formed East Hampton civic group with over 350 members concerned about aircraft noise and pollution, had gathered more than 177 signatures as of yesterday on a petition calling on the town board not to accept F.A.A. funding.

    “I want the community and media to see how the people really feel,” Ms. McGraw Keber said in a press release.

    After holding a hearing on Dec. 1 on the deer fencing proposal, the East Hampton Town Board voted on Dec. 6 to proceed with a grant application to the F.A.A. for fencing design and repair. The application was submitted immediately.

    Thirty-six of 51 speakers at the hearing spoke in favor of accepting federal money for the airport, citing needed maintenance and repairs, and a desire to avoid burdening taxpayers with the full cost.

    Of that 36, at least 28 were pilots or aviation businesspeople, many of whom said they believed that closing the airport, and not noise control, was the goal of those opposing F.A.A. funding. No speaker asserted that was his or her goal.

    A number of residents who tried to attend the hearing were unable to get seats or find room to stand in the crowded Town Hall meeting room, but town officials declined to adjourn the hearing to a larger space.

    A press release from town officials said that the court decision last week following the vote “clears the way for the town to end the 22-year controversy on how to properly maintain a safe and quiet airport for the benefit of East Hampton.”

    “The court’s support for our bipartisan, unanimous town board decision advances the prospects for comprehensive management strategies that place a high value on safety, fiscal responsibility, and a much quieter airport,” Town Councilman Dominick Stanzione said in the release. “We are a step closer to really reducing the impact of aviation noise.”

    Town officials have hired Peter Kirsch, an aviation attorney, to advise them and create a multi-faceted approach to mitigating airport noise. Last week, he presented the board with a template of actions that could be taken, even while accepting money from the F.A.A.

    Whether the town will be able to go far enough in enacting airport regulations — a nighttime curfew, for instance, or limits on landings by certain planes — under its obligations to the F.A.A., and just how far it could go without those obligations, given other federal transportation system guidelines that apply to general aviation airports, is the subject of debate.

    In its press release earlier this week the Quiet Skies Coalition said that “Given the chorus of voices and the legal history indicating the town has a better chance to achieve meaningful noise abatement by allowing key grant assurances to expire in 2014, waiting until then seems the most logical course of action.”

    “We know it’s not about the deer fence,” Mr. Bragman said this week. “They’re just making a hundred-yard dash to try to cement F.A.A. funding.”

    Mr. Bragman represents the Committee to Stop Airport Expansion and several individual plaintiffs (including David Gruber, an East Hampton resident long active in airport noise abatement effort) in a lawsuit brought last year against the town, seeking to overturn the board’s approval of an updated airport master plan.

    The town board, that suit alleges, fell short in fulfilling State Environmental Quality Review Act, or SEQRA, requirements for a full review of possible environmental impacts, by not considering all the possible alternatives open to the town — including the effect of gaining more local control over the airport by spurning F.A.A. funds.

    The lawsuit claims that the true impact of aircraft noise was not properly analyzed or taken into account.

    Allowing the town to accept federal funding for the deer fence project, Mr. Bragman has argued in his request for an injunction, “will render moot the core issues under review” in the Article 78 lawsuit.

    In the court action before Justice Jones last week, the town was represented by Eric Bregman, a former town attorney now in private practice, who worked on a number of controversial airport matters during his tenure in East Hampton. Save East Hampton Airport, a local association of which numerous pilots are members, was named as an “intervenor,” and represented by Anthony C. Pasca of Esseks, Hefter, and Angel of Riverhead.

    A brief written by both attorneys pointed out that, in order to prove a restraining order or injunction is warranted, a plaintiff must demonstrate that they will suffer irreparable injury if the injunction is not issued and that their arguments on the underlying merits of the case are likely to prevail when later evaluated by the court.

    The brief said that “there is no irreparable harm to [the] petitioners regarding F.A.A. funding because their alleged injury is speculative.”

    There are a number of hypotheticals, the lawyers wrote: whether the F.A.A. will issue a grant to the town; whether even without grant obligations to the F.A.A., a future town board would make the policy decisions to limit helicopter access to the airport that the plaintiffs hope will be employed, and whether those actions would survive challenges by the F.A.A. or other lawsuits are all questions.

    “If they go ahead and sign another grant agreement, and then the court looks at our SEQRA challenge and says, ‘by God, you’re right,’ that means they’re ending a remedy that we would have,” Mr. Bragman said Tuesday. Once the town is beholden to the F.A.A., after taking its money, there is no way to reverse that situation, he explained. “The real issue is local control, and we should be looking at that.”

    The town argued last week that if an injunction is issued it could result in “irreparable financial harm,” should the town miss out on available F.A.A. funding, and that delaying the fencing project could compromise airport safety.

    Since 1992, there have been 10 collisions with deer at the airport, none resulting in fatalities.

    In an affidavit to the court submitted last week, Mr. Gruber questioned the urgency of the fence project. A cursory examination shows that most of the existing fence is fine, he said, though there are a number of small holes. “If deer are currently a problem,” he said, “a first step would be to close the gates in the existing fence and keep them closed.”

    The real intent of applying for F.A.A. money for the fence, he claimed, is to undercut the Article 78 lawsuit.

    The town has conducted “no survey of the condition of its deer fence, nor considered the possibility of making repairs to maintain the existing fence in serviceable condition as one would expect if its purpose were to secure the deer fence and not simply to obtain F.A.A. money and moot this proceeding,” Mr. Gruber said in the affidavit.

East Hampton Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson has narrowly won a second term in a race that came down to absentee ballots, claiming victory by a margin of 15 votes, the smallest in modern East Hampton Town history.



The final tally was 3,403 votes for Mr. Wilkinson and 3,388 for Zachary Cohen.



Mr. Cohen, a Democrat from Springs, was a first-time candidate. He phoned the supervisor to congratulate him on Wednesday when the results became clear. "We had a nice chat about various things. I wished him well for the next two years. I did get in a comment about the town's finances," he said.



The Suffolk County Board of Elections still must certify the results, but Mr. Cohen said he did not expect any further challenges. The review of absentee ballots had involved representatives of both the Democratic and Republican parties reviewing envelopes and asking to have those they considered invalid thrown out.    



Mr. Cohen said that one incident during the campaign may have swayed the eventual results: his loss of the Independence line to Mr. Wilkinson, despite Mr. Cohen's having secured support from the local Independence Party committee this summer. Mr. Wilkinson, going over the heads of that committee,  was able to get the state chairman to hand him the nomination, instead.    



Mr. Cohen said it was possible that he had picked up votes from some of local voters who felt deceived by that backroom decision. But, he said, there were 13 Independence Party absentee ballots with no choice for supervisor marked on them; those ballots could have gone his way. He speculated that Republicans and others who may have been unwilling to vote for him on the Democratic line might have voted for him on the Independence line.    



Trace Duryea, the East Hampton Republican Committee chairwoman, deferred a request for comment to Mr. Wilkinson, who did not respond.   



Later, in an e-mail, Ms. Duryea dismissed "theories" and "rumors" and said, " In this community it is evident that other than the basic 2100 or so Democrats who vote a straight party line, most of the people -- for whatever reason -- think for themselves. It is also apparent to me that the voter is needy; whomever they think will fulfill those needs the best will get the job for the upcoming term. Fortunately there were 15 people with a long term memory of how dire things were before Bill Wilkinson and they and others voted him back in to finish the outstanding job he is doing."



As to his future in town politics, Mr. Cohen said he would consider running again for supervisor in two years. "Some people assume already that I am doing it," he said. "Some of it has to do with who runs, what the state of the town might be."  



 "If I could really try to bring some people together . . . it would be really interesting," he said. "It would be harder to do if I am seen as the opposition; it would have been easier if I had been the leadership role."    



Mr. Cohen said he liked seeing a new generation of people getting involved in town politics, mentioning Debbie Klughers and John Chimples, who ran for town trustee, among younger candidates who impressed him.    



In 2009, Mr. Wilkinson had a far larger margin over the Democratic candidate, winning by 2,308 votes, or 66 percent, against Ben Zwirn. In that election, the breakdown was Mr. Wilkinson, 4,713; Mr. Zwirn, 2,405.    



The Suffolk County Board of Elections put Mr. Wilkinson's 2011 winning margin at 50.11 percent. He had 2,600 votes on the Republican line, 321 on the Conservative, and 482 on the Independence.



Note:

An earlier version of this story did not include an e-mail comment from Trace Duryea, which came shortly after the story was first posted.

 

    An acrid pall hung in the air surrounding the busy corner of Race and Gingerbread Lanes in East Hampton yesterday morning, a bitter remnant of the fire that gutted the Hampton Market Place food shop the night before.

    The fire sent five firefighters to the hospital. They were released after being treated for minor injuries and smoke inhalation.

    East Hampton Fire Chief Ray Harden said in a release that about 100 fire volunteers in all responded and that the blaze was quickly brought under control. Mutual-aid calls went to the Amagansett, Sag Harbor, and Springs Fire Departments.

    The cause of the fire, which appeared to have started in the store’s kitchen, was being investigated by the East Hampton Village fire marshal, Ken Collum.

    Yesterday morning the parking lot at the market was closed off with yellow caution tape. Scorch marks were visible along the building’s metal siding, and a large sign in the front window appeared to have been partially burned. Other windows in the one-story structure were boarded up with plywood.

    Light poured through a jagged hole above the food counter where firefighters had chopped through the roof. The driver of a produce delivery truck was on his cellphone in the usually crowded parking lot informing his boss that his order was canceled.

    The popular grocery with its colorful flower display, sushi stand, and hot-lunch takeout counter — all reduced to ash or blackened by soot — employed more than a dozen people, a number of them related.

    “The financial impact will be staggering,” said one of the store managers, who said she had helped oversee the business for the past six or seven years from the time George and Nina Bowden transformed it. It was previously known as Schmidt’s, and before that the G&T Dairy.

    Hampton Market Place combined fresh fruit and vegetables with locally produced items such as candy, cookies, and specialty foods. The market’s owner, Ronen O’Dwyer of East Hampton, could not be reached for comment.

    Mr. Collum said that he was “still digging through it. I have a couple of scenarios, but it’s still under investigation.”

    A fire that heavily damaged the Hampton Market Place on Race Lane in East Hampton Tuesday evening sent five firefighters to the hospital. All were released after being treated for minor injuries.

    East Hampton Fire Chief Ray Harden said in a press release that about 100 fire volunteers in all responded and that the fire was quickly brought under control. Mutual aid calls went to the Amagansett, Sag Harbor, and Springs fire departments.

    Wednesday morning, the parking lot at the market was closed off with yellow caution tape. Scorch marks were visible along the building’s metal siding, and a large sign in the front window appeared to have been partially burned. Other windows in the one-story structure were boarded up with plywood.

    The cause of the blaze was under investigation by the East Hampton Village fire marshal.