The next phase in hamlet studies underway for the Town of East Hampton will see two presentations by the consultants engaged to conduct the studies. 

Councilwoman Sylvia Overby said at the town board’s work session on Tuesday that consultants would present updated drafts of plans for the future of the hamlets’ commercial centers at its Feb. 6 work session. The updated drafts are based on information gathered from reports by the hamlets’ respective citizens advisory committees and comments sent to a dedicated email address, [email protected]. 

“They’re looking at putting them into buckets of ‘Here are issues that can be addressed now, here are the longer-term issues that may need a steering committee’ ” to move forward, Ms. Overby said of the consultants. She is the town board’s new liaison to Montauk’s citizens advisory committee.

That evening from 6 to 8, the presentation will be repeated at LTV’s studios in Wainscott. 

The plans for East Hampton, Amagansett, Wainscott, Montauk, and Springs, along with a business and economic study report, can be viewed in their present form on the town’s website, ehamptonny.gov, by searching for “hamlet study.” 

The public will be able to digest the updated plans, Ms. Overby said, and she encouraged continued engagement through attending the presentations and submitting comments via mail or email. A final draft and public hearing will follow, probably in the spring, she said.

The Springs Fire Department and its members have raised nearly $30,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in an effort launched in memory of David M. King, an ex-chief who died of acute lymphoblastic leukemia last February.

The department had hoped to raise $5,000 for the society through Sunday pancake breakfasts at the firehouse through the fall. Had it fallen short in breakfast proceeds, department members agreed they would make up the difference. That proved unnecessary.

Last week, the department’s newly elected chief, Ryan Balnis, presented a check for $10,000 to Michael Davis, captain of Team DMK for a Cure, a Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Team in Training that is running races to raise money for the society in memory of Mr. King. In addition to the support from the department as a whole, four individual firefighters and two exempt members of the department raised nearly $20,000 more for the team. As of yesterday, Team DMK for a Cure had collected nearly $69,000 toward its $100,000 fund-raising goal. 

Team members have been training since August to run in 5K, 10K, half-marathon, and full-marathon events at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., last week and the Bridgehampton Half Marathon in May. 

Those interested in donating can do so by clicking “donate” at the teamintraining.org homepage and entering “Team DMK for a Cure” in the search field. Those wishing to train and run with the team can email Mr. Davis at [email protected].

East Hampton

A Jonathan Drive couple told police Dec. 28 that they had been visited by a trespasser the previous evening. The intruder appeared to have entered a screened-in porch around 5:30 and remained there for about an hour. He or she did not ring the doorbell or knock on the door and seemed to have left without taking or disturbing anything, according to the report. 

East Hampton Village

Laurie Tomasino, a manager at the Maidstone Hotel restaurant, told police on Jan. 3 that at some point on New Year’s Eve, 400 rented white cloth napkins were stolen from an unlocked storage building on the property. The napkins were embroidered with a diamond pattern along the edges. An employee of the restaurant’s linen service had placed four plastic bags, each containing 100 napkins, in the storage area that morning. The complaint has been turned over to the department’s detective squad. 

Montauk

Police were called to a Fairview Avenue house at 3:30 a.m. on New Year’s Day. A fight had broken out as guests were leaving the house, and one guest from North Bergen, N.J., was aided by Montauk emergency medical technicians. He was eventually taken to Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, having suffered lacerations to his nose and under an eye, but he declined to press charges. The other man had a cut on his nose and scratches on his cheek, but did not require medical attention. 

At about the same time, police received a report of criminal mischief regarding an incident in the parking lot outside the Point Bar and Grill. Nicole Klepper of Montvale, N.Y., reported that a male customer who had to be escorted out of the establishment got into his car, drove it around to the parking lot behind the Point, then got out and smashed a rear taillight on Ms. Klepper’s 2014 Jeep Compass. He then drove off. Ms. Klepper said she would not press charges as long as the perpetrator paid to have the taillight repaired. 

Sag Harbor

Police were called to a Main Street house Saturday. Hilary Hamann suspected that someone was trying to log in to her computer after seeing moving letters and digits in the log-in icon. She said she had gotten the computer back from GeekHampton two weeks ago and wanted the incident documented. 

During the snowstorm last Thursday, Carla Gargano called police to report what appeared to be septic overflow on Glover Street. When police arrived, they determined that the flooding was actually caused by the high tide. Motorcyclists riding over frozen Round Pond off Middle Lane Highway caused a concerned Kenneth Dorph to contact police. When officers arrived, however, the riders were gone.

Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. and the East Hampton Village Board used their first work session of the new year on Tuesday to discuss two highly impactful issues: regulating the use of leaf blowers and possibly lifting a ban on the playing of live music in village restaurants.

With a roomful of landscapers in attendance, Arthur Graham, a member of the board, jumped into the leaf-blower debate by summing up the machines as “something that drive residents of this village crazy” and calling the controversy “a self-created problem by the landscaping community.” Mr. Graham offered an example of the type of scenario that angers constituents, saying, “Very often a van and trailer roll up on a quarter-acre property [with] a five-man crew. So you might have three blowers going on a quarter-acre property. Very often they will blow the driveway. That creates huge clouds of dust that gets all over everybody’s cars.”

The main concern about leaf blowers, of course, is the noise they create. “Right now, it’s too noisy,” Mr. Graham said. “And there’s a fair amount of sentiment in the village to ban them outright.” He said that he would instead prefer to work with landscapers to find a mutually beneficial way forward, such as encouraging an industry changeover from the use of extremely noisy gas-powered blowers to quieter electric versions, or perhaps limiting the number of leaf blowers used on a property. “I think we need to strike a balance between unfettered leaf-blower operation and a more sane approach,” he said.

Acknowledging the need for landscapers to use leaf blowers — particularly for lawn cleanup in the fall — board members made clear that whatever restrictions they consider would be focused mainly on the weeks between Memorial Day and Labor Day. “We’re not looking to reduce your productivity,” Mr. Graham told those in attendance. “We’re not looking to create roadblocks for you keeping this village as beautiful as it is.”

Although it was a work session and not a public hearing, Mayor Rickenbach opened the discussion so that some of the landscapers in the audience could express their views. 

Donald Mahoney, the president of Mahoney Associates, a landscaping company, took the opportunity to make clear his objection to an outright ban. “I would ask the board to not take any action,” said Mr. Mahoney, suggesting a dialogue between the board and the landscaping community would lead to a more amicable resolution. “If there is an outright ban, then our association would definitely seek litigation, which we obviously don’t want to do.” 

Mr. Mahoney went on to point out the potential ramifications of phasing out the more powerful gas-powered leaf blowers. “Yes,” he said, “we have the electric-battery-powered option. My company has started to go that route. They definitely are quieter; they don’t have the same velocity, which means the jobs would take longer, and there’s a cost to that.” 

Furthermore, Mr. Mahoney wondered aloud, would the landscaping companies be reimbursed for the overhead cost — which he claimed would be “massive” — involved in transitioning from gas-powered to electric-powered leaf blowers? “Are there going to be rebates?” he asked. “Otherwise, it’s going to get passed right on to the taxpayers.”

Mayor Rickenbach welcomed the feedback from landscapers, calling it a good conversation. “We’re here to work with you, folks,” he said, but added that “quite frankly, the handwriting is on the wall.”

Likening the leaf-blower debate to the environmental concerns that led to the institution of the countywide fee on disposable bags on Jan. 1 of this year, Mr. Rickenbach said, “This is a changing psyche. It’s a quality-of-life issue for the residents we represent. And sometimes there have to be adaptations.”

On the subject of lifting the ban on live music in restaurants in the village, the board seemed to be unanimously in favor of it, with one major caveat: There should be no use of amplifiers. 

“I have no problem with a piano player or an acoustic guitar player or a singer,” said Barbara Borsack. “But when you amplify it in a residential neighborhood, then it’s going to affect the residents, and our residents have to take priority.” 

Richard Lawler also brought up the possibility of limiting the time frame in which live music could be played, and he highlighted the need to examine all the repercussions that could follow allowing live music at restaurants. “In addition to possible noise that might be generated, it could attract more customers, which is more traffic, which is more parking issues, all of which is disruptive to the residents that surround these potential venues.” 

  Mayor Rickenbach floated the notion that perhaps the board should limit the number of people that would constitute a musical ensemble — a string quartet might pass muster, but would a six-person band be going too far? 

Although the details of the proposed legislation still need to be worked out, Mayor Rickenbach said, one thing was set in stone: “We all agree that we don’t want to see amplification, period.”

The East Hampton Town Trustees held their first meeting of 2018 on Monday night, two months after an election increased the Democratic Party’s majority from a 6-to-3 to a 7-to-2 advantage. 

Four new members sit on the nine-member governing body, established by the Dongan Patent of 1686 and granting the trustees jurisdiction over the town’s common lands on behalf of the public. Dell Cullum, Susan McGraw Keber, and John Aldred are the board’s new Democrats. Susan Vorpahl, whose late father, Stuart Vorpahl, was a longtime trustee and bayman, was the lone Republican elected to the trustee board last year. 

Monday’s organizational meeting saw the trustees voting to re-elect Francis Bock as their clerk, or presiding officer. Likewise, Rick Drew and Bill Taylor were re-elected as the board’s deputy clerks. 

Rick Whalen, who has served as the trustees’ attorney for the last two years, has decided to step down, Mr. Bock announced. A committee comprising members of the previous board researched potential candidates to replace Mr. Whalen, Mr. Drew said. Three candidates — Chris Carillo, Carl Irace, and Andrew Strong — were interviewed. 

“After getting a lot of feedback from different members of the community, different organizations that work with different attorneys, we came to the recommendation that the best candidate would be Chris Carillo,” Mr. Drew said. 

Some members of the board asked that the full board be allowed to review each of the candidates before voting on the committee’s recommendation. “Although I am sure Chris is a fine gentleman and probably well suited for the position,” Mr. Cullum said, it was “difficult for me to put my vote on something I heard about four or five hours ago in an email. . . . I would feel much better putting my vote behind something I have more knowledge in.”

Mr. Whalen agreed to remain until the trustees select his successor, which it was decided would happen at their next meeting, scheduled for Jan. 22.

Diane McNally, a longtime trustee who did not win re-election in November, attended the meeting with Ms. Vorpahl’s mother and son. She addressed the board several times with suggestions as to how it might modify language in some of the 2018 resolutions they were to vote on. Ms. McNally, who was the board’s longtime clerk, asked that the wording of one, authorizing the clerk “to arrange for the historical opening and closing of Georgica Pond,” be expanded. 

“I would just . . . ask you at this point to be a little more specific as to what you are referring to as ‘historical’ opening of the pond,” she said. “I would spell out your April and October dates,” when the pond is traditionally opened to the Atlantic Ocean, “that it’s for the fish migration, because that pond is a natural nursery, based on past history.” 

Given the trustees’ sometimes contentious relationship with the State Department of Environmental Conservation with respect to permitting for projects like dredging, she said, it was important to safeguard the board against challenges to its jurisdiction. 

Mr. Whalen agreed. “For a relatively important resolution,” he said, “this a very bare-bones resolution.” Adding clauses and historical context “would probably be a good idea,” he said, and pledged to work with the board on modified language.

Suffolk County legislation signed into law by County Executive Steve Bellone on Dec. 21 will ban the installation of cesspools that contribute to nitrogen pollution in ground and surface waters and move businesses toward nitrogen-removing septic systems. 

While traditional cesspools have been prohibited in the county since 1973, replacing them in kind has until now been allowed. The new law will prohibit that as of July 2019.

Businesses at commercial properties where a change of use, expansion, or reconstruction is proposed will no longer be allowed to retain “grandfathered” permits allowing wastewater flow that exceeds current limits. In most instances, businesses will be required to install new septic systems that strip effluent of nitrogen. 

Under the new law, beginning on July 1, 2018, contractors must notify the Suffolk Department of Health Services of all pumping and replacements or retrofits of septic tanks, innovative/alternative onsite wastewater treatment systems, cesspools, grease traps, and leaching structures.

Beginning in July 2019, a Health Department permit will be required to replace or retrofit an existing cesspool or individual sewage system. 

According to a press release, more than 360,000 residences in Suffolk have “outdated cesspools and septic systems that do not properly treat waste or remove nitrogen.”

The changes, along with another code revision placing the regulation of onsite wastewater treatment systems under the health department, and the establishment of a county grant and loan program for septic system improvements, are part of the county executive’s wide-ranging Reclaim Our Water initiative, designed to reduce nitrogen in groundwater, bays, and estuaries. 

The legislation is a result of a year’s work and discussion by a group that included several Suffolk County legislators, including Bridget Fleming, who represents the East End, as well as representatives of the building industry, environmental groups, and the health department. 

The final bill was co-sponsored by County Executive Bellone, Legislator Fleming, and Legislator Kara Hahn.

  In a press release, officials noted that Great South Bay once produced more than half the clams eaten in the United States. The clam harvest there has fallen by 93 percent over the past several decades, destroying an industry. At the same time, brown tide and algal blooms have negatively impacted the Peconic Bay and its scallops, and nitrogen from sewage systems and cesspools has been identified as “the primary culprit,” according to the release.

“Unless we get a handle on the pollution that’s coming from the woefully outdated septic systems throughout our communities, we will see continuing and increasing devastating effects on the health, property values, and the economy that supports Suffolk County families,” Ms. Fleming said in the release.

“It is a rare occurrence when the business and environmental communities agree on a proposal to amend any regulation, but that is exactly what happened in this instance. As I have said many times, nitrogen is public water quality-enemy number one. This legislation is another important step forward in the battle to reverse decades of nitrogen pollution,” Mr. Bellone said in the release.

East Hampton Town has joined a lawsuit brought by a citizens group in 2014 against the Long Island Power Authority and PSEG-Long Island over the installation of high-voltage transmission lines and poles along a six-mile route from East Hampton Village to an Amagansett substation.

The lawsuit seeks to have the utility companies remove the poles and bury the electric lines underground.

The 33-kilovolt lines, attached to 267 wooden poles that are thicker and taller than standard utility poles, run from an East Hampton Village substation along village streets and east along Town Lane to an Old Stone Highway, Amagansett, electric substation.

Concern about the proximity of the lines to residences, and about the potential for soil and water contamination by the chemical pentachlorophenol, called penta, which was used to treat the wooden poles, prompted outcry and discussion when PSEG, the electricity provider for LIPA, began the project. The chemical is banned in many places worldwide.

East Hampton Village and town officials got involved, but PSEG refused to bury the lines underground unless the municipalities, or their ratepayers, shouldered the entire cost. The project went forward to completion.

Among some 20 original plaintiffs in the lawsuit are members of a local group called Long Island Businesses for Responsible Energy, or LIBFRE. 

“We hope the town’s decision to join this fight will help convince PSEG-LI and LIPA to stop poisoning our land and water resources,” Helene Forst of East Hampton, the chairwoman of LIBFRE, said in a recent press release. 

The lawsuit claims that the potential impacts to the environment of the project were not properly considered, according to law, and seeks to have the utilities clean up soil contaminated by leaching penta. 

“I’m pleased that the town has decided to join with us in the fight . . . to protect the residents of the town,” Stephen Mintz of Mintz and Gold, the chief counsel for the plaintiffs and a part-time East Hampton resident, said yesterday. 

Information-gathering, in the discovery phase of the suit, is ongoing, he said. In August 2015, Acting Supreme Court Justice Andrew G. Tarantino Jr. refused a motion by the defendants to dismiss the case. 

He dismissed several of the plaintiffs’ claims, including one based on alleged negative impacts to property values, but upheld those regarding the environmental assessment process and others based on potential leaching of penta into the soil and air, and possible negative impacts of electromagnetic transmissions from the high-voltage lines. 

According to a resolution passed by the town board on Dec. 21, Mintz and Gold will represent the town in the lawsuit on a contingency basis, with no fees due from the town unless an award is made as a result of the litigation.

Two men are facing felony charges after being arrested by East Hampton Town police between Christmas and New Year’s Day. 

A 32-year-old Southampton man, Cristian V. Villa-Peralta, was sitting behind the wheel of a 2005 Nissan Maxima on Boxing Day in the Indian Wells Beach parking lot in Amagansett when he was approached by an officer. The sun was setting, the car was in park, and the engine was running, according to the police. Mr. Villa-Peralta allegedly had an open bottle of Zhumir by his side. Zhumir is an Ecuadorian brand of liquor made from sugar cane.  

He smelled of alcohol and appeared intoxicated, according to the officer, who reported that Mr. Villa-Peralta performed poorly on sobriety tests. After being arrested, he was taken to headquarters, where a breath test produced a reading of .24 of 1 percent alcohol in the blood, three times the .08 percentage that defines intoxication and well over the .18 number that raises the charge to the aggravated level. 

While the aggravated drunken driving charge is a misdemeanor, the aggravated unlicensed driving charge Mr. Villa-Peralta was hit with is a felony, because his license was suspended in April of 2017 after he was arrested in Quogue on a misdemeanor driving while intoxicated charge. That case is still pending in Southampton Town Justice Court.

Mr. Villa-Peralta was arraigned on the new charges in East Hampton Town Justice Court on Dec. 27. Justice Lisa R. Rana said that it appeared that United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had issued a detainment request for the defendant, for possible deportation. The request form was not provided in the court file.

The district attorney’s office asked that bail be set at $2,500. Given the high blood alcohol reading, the fact that Mr. Villa-Peralta already had an open drunken driving charge, and was now facing a felony, Justice Rana deemed him a flight risk, however, and doubled the bail to $5,000. Unable initially to make bail, he was taken to county jail, where he was held for a couple of days before bail was eventually posted, and he was released. Suffolk County sheriffs do currently honor ICE detainer requests, which ask that the agency be given 48 hours’ notice before a prisoner is released. That form, if it exists, apparently never made it to the sheriff’s office, however. 

An arrest on a felony drunken driving charge late New Year’s Day led to a very bittersweet reunion in East Hampton Town Justice Court on Tuesday.

Kyle A. Booth was doing 51 miles per hour in a 40 m.p.h. zone on Flamingo Avenue, headed away from Montauk’s commercial dock area, according to police, who pulled Mr. Booth over in his 2012 four-door Chevrolet and, ultimately, arrested him. 

“I had one-and-a-half Long Island iced teas,” he allegedly told the officer, who reported that Mr. Booth failed sobriety tests. 

At headquarters, police said, his breath test produced a reading of .14. The D.W.I. charges Mr. Booth is facing are felonies, because he pleaded guilty to the same charge at the misdemeanor level in 2009 in East Hampton. A D.W.I. charge becomes a felony if the driver has been convicted of the same charge within 10 years of the latest arrest. 

Mr. Booth, 29, lives in Carmel, N.Y., but also from time to time on his boat docked in Montauk, he told Justice Lisa R. Rana during his arraignment on Tuesday.

It was before Justice Rana that Mr. Booth had pleaded guilty in 2009. Out of the hundreds of drunken driving cases she has adjudicated in more than 14 years on the bench, she said on Tuesday, Mr. Booth’s stood out to her: “You were doing so well,” she said. Now, she said, he was likely to be indicted. “A .14 reading. You’re going to be in county court.” 

“It was a long time before disposition,” she said, recalling Mr. Booth’s 2009 guilty plea. He entered that plea about a year after his arrest, being allowed time by the court to pull himself together, Justice Rana said. He told the court on Tuesday that he was about to take a job in law enforcement in a Connecticut jurisdiction. 

She asked him if spending time on his boat in Montauk, and working on other boats, was the best place for him to be. “There is too much drugs and alcohol,” she said. “You were going to be a law enforcement officer.” That possibility, Justice Rana said, is likely gone. She told him his next appearance in front of her would be on Jan. 25. “You’re gong to be with me for a very short period of time.”

Tased on New Year’s Eve

There were also four arrests on misdemeanor charges of drunken driving between late New Year’s Eve and early New Year’s Day.

Minutes before midnight, East Hampton Village police arrested Carlos Andres Yara-Gonzalez, 29, of Springs, on multiple misdemeanor charges, including drunken driving, resisting arrest, unlicensed driving, and obstructing governmental administration. He was also charged with several moving violations. 

Police said they had to use a Taser on Mr. Yara-Gonzalez before they were able to handcuff him. As he stood in East Hampton Town Justice Court for arraignment on the first day of 2018, the prong marks and burn mark from the Taser were visible on the back of Mr. Yara-Gonzalez’s shirt.

According to police, an eastbound officer had clocked the westbound 2001 Toyota Mr. Yara-Gonzalez was driving at 70 miles per hour in a 40 m.p.h. zone on Pantigo Road in East Hampton. The officer, police said, did a U-turn and began following the Toyota, now moving at 50 m.p.h., into the area near the intersection with Accabonac Road, where the speed limit drops to 30 m.p.h. After the Toyota turned onto Accabonac Road, the officer made the traffic stop.

The police said that after the officer put on his emergency lights, Mr. Yara-Gonzalez pulled into a driveway of a residence and fled, running into nearby woods. According to the police report, the officer in pursuit “ordered him numerous times to stop, as well as show his hands.” The report continues, “The conditions were extremely snowy and icy, and the subject jumped over a metal barb[ed]-wire fence, continuing to flee.” Mr. Yara-Gonzalez was running toward the Long Island Railroad tracks when the officer warned him to “stop or he would be [T]ased.” 

The report says that the officer could not effect an arrest, as Mr. Yara-Gonzalez refused to be handcuffed. “The Taser was deployed with one five-second cycle of the Taser,” the report reads. Additional officers arrived, and the defendant was handcuffed and placed into a patrol car. An E.M.T. team removed the Taser barbs from Mr. Yara-Gonzalez’s back, and an ambulance was brought to the scene. 

The police said Mr. Yara-Gonzalez appeared drunk and failed field sobriety tests, refusing to take a breath test at the side of the road. An East Hampton Ambulance Association vehicle transported Mr. Yara-Gonzalez to Stony Brook Southampton Hospital. There, while being treated, he agreed to have blood drawn to test the level of alcohol in his system. At that point, past midnight, emergency room doctors cleared him to be released to the police, and he spent the rest of New Year’s morning in a holding cell at the Cedar Street headquarters. He allegedly told police there was a party going on at his house, and he was trying to get back before midnight, when he was arrested. 

During his arraignment, Carl Irace, an attorney supplied by the county for weekend arraignments, told East Hampton Town Justice Lisa R. Rana, that Mr. Yara-Gonzalez lives with his wife and has a child in Springs School: “He is not a flight risk. He was scared. He apologized.” A translator was used to interpret what was being said by Mr. Yara-Gonzalez in court. Justice Rana agreed to release him without bail. 

An accident on Stephen Hand’s Path in Northwest Woods less than an hour into the New Year led to the arrest of a Montauk woman, Katherine Louise Knetzer, 31, on two misdemeanor charges, drunken driving and resisting arrest. 

According to town police, they were called at 12:41 a.m. to Stephen Hand’s Path, near Marion Lane, where a 2003 eastbound Honda had run off the road, crashing into the woods. 

“I was driving down the road and I hit something, causing me to lose control of the car,” Ms. Knetzer allegedly told the arresting officer. Police reported that she was not hurt but failed sobriety tests. 

According to the police, when the officer told her she was under arrest, she refused to be handcuffed, continuously pulled both hands apart, tried to pull away, “and attempted to head-butt” both the arresting officer and a second officer called to the scene. 

At headquarters, she refused not only to take the breath test, but to even sign the document indicating that she was refusing, according to the police, who quoted her as saying, “I’m not signing anything.” 

During Ms. Knetzer’s arraignment later on New Year’s morning, East Hampton Town Justice Lisa R. Rana said, “Because it is a refusal, you are not going to be eligible for a hardship license until New Year’s Day next year, no matter what happens in court with the case.” That yearlong suspension can be reversed only by the Department of Motor Vehicles, in a process that is separate from Ms. Knetzer’s court proceedings. 

She was released without having to post bail.

At almost the same moment as police were arresting Ms. Knetzer in Northwest Woods, Franklin Patricio Campoverde Pauta, 29, was being arrested on driving while intoxicated charges in Springs, where he lives. Police said he had been driving a 2016 Honda east on Fort Pond Boulevard while swerving across lane lines. 

“I had one glass of Champagne,” he reportedly told the arresting officer, after performing poorly on sobriety tests.

His breath test at headquarters allegedly produced a .13 of 1 percent reading. Any reading of .08 or more is defined as intoxicated, under state law. 

He, too, was released later on New Year’s Day without having to post bail. 

The driver of a 2018 Porsche was pulled over after blowing through the stop sign at Bay Street and Main Street in Sag Harbor, Sag Harbor Village police reported, two hours into the New Year. Paul R. Geenty, 55, of Water Mill, failed sobriety tests and was placed under arrest. His breath test at headquarters produced a reading of .12 of 1 percent. 

He was released later that morning without having to post bail.

Fred Overton is as local as they come and is staying put in his beloved East Hampton, even with his new freedom from a set daily commitment after retiring from public service after 30 years, he said last week. 

 “I worked too hard and too long to have what I have here, and I’m not going to give it up. This is my town, and my community,” said Mr. Overton, a man as dedicated to his community as can be found.

The community, in turn, has supported him: He was victorious in nine elections over his three decades in public service. He was elected an East Hampton Town Trustee in 1988, served as town assessor through the 1990s, as town clerk from 2000 through 2013, and as an East Hampton Town councilman from 2014 until the close of 2017.

On Dec. 21, at his final town board meeting, he was given a proclamation by Peter Van Scoyoc, a fellow councilman who took office this week as the new town supervisor. It expressed the public’s “overwhelming gratitude” and congratulations for Mr. Overton’s “exemplary service to the community.” 

Over the years, Mr. Overton has run for office on both the Republican and the Democratic tickets, as an independent, has been cross-endorsed, and changed his political affiliation to “blank.” He won his 2013 race for town councilman — as an independent running on the Republican ticket — by 150 votes. 

Mr. Overton has had broad, bipartisan support, and has been unopposed on the ballot in several of his bids for office. “I was very fortunate,” he said. “I had good people working with me, and for me.” 

But politics, for Mr. Overton, has not been the point. As a public servant he has considered his role, no matter what office he has held, as being always accessible to his fellow residents of East Hampton, “whether I was at the dump, or having dinner.” 

His wide-ranging connections and friendships, he said — whether through his membership in the Lions Club, where he was president, the American Legion, for which he served as commander, or the Springs Fire Department — “trickled down,” he said, keeping him in contact with those whose interests he has served. 

After several years as a trustee, he was asked to run for assessor when Bobby Dordelman, who held the post, decided to put his hat in the ring for highway superintendent. Mr. Overton won the election, and served as an assessor for a decade. 

In the fall of 1999, when Fred Yardley, who was town clerk, resigned, Mr. Overton was elected to that post, and headed the clerk’s office for 14 years. 

“Thank you to the voters of East Hampton,” said Mr. Overton at the recent town board meeting, after receiving his proclamation. “Thank you for trusting me to do the right job.” He said he appreciated the camaraderie of his colleagues in “accomplishing good things,” pointing out Carole Brennan in particular, who succeeded him as town clerk after serving as his deputy, as “a driving force” behind keeping both the town, and him, going.

On the personal side, he also acknowledged his wife, Lynn. The couple live in Springs, where Mr. Overton was raised. Several family members lived alongside one another on Old Stone Highway, in the heart of the hamlet.

He is a founding member of the Springs Fire Department, where he has served as a commissioner and is still an active member after 52 years. 

After a year of college, Mr. Overton enlisted in the Navy in 1965 after receiving a draft notice, and served stateside through ’69 as an aviation electrician. 

“My father was probably the biggest influence,” Mr. Overton said. A veteran of the Army Air Corps during World War II, in the European theater, his father taught him the value of community, by example, he said. 

“I grew up in the ’50s; that’s when people helped each other,” Mr. Overton said. Neighbors banded together, he said, to accomplish whatever had to be done. “It was so rewarding. I got this feeling — I’m not here just to be an onlooker.”

“I always wanted to be in a position to help people. I always wanted to be available for my community and for my town.” 

As younger East Hamptoners leave to find opportunity elsewhere, “we’re losing some of that,” he said. But, he said, the community still turns out to help those in need, so “it’s still there.”

“I like to think I was part of that,” Mr. Overton said. “Every day I enjoyed going to work,” he said, whether as an assessor, the town clerk, or a councilman. “If somebody had a problem, and if I couldn’t solve it, then I knew where to go.” 

Taking the fifth seat on the most recent town board, the only one not a member of the Democratic Party, gave him no pause. “I knew that I could work with Peter [Van Scoyoc], Sylvia [Overby], and Larry [Cantwell],” he said. With Carole Brennan, who had been his deputy town clerk, taking over as town clerk, he said, “I knew the clerk’s office was in good hands. It was just a natural transition.” 

The grandson of a fisherman, who fished with his father, keeping pound traps in Gardiner’s Bay and scalloping (“just to make a few extra dollars”) in the fall, and being a clammer of such renown that his friends joke that he could catch clams anywhere, Mr. Overton is looking forward to having the time to enjoy his environs.

He’s been digging clams “since I was old enough to hold a clam rake,” he said. “It’s a form of therapy; it’s peaceful.” And then there’s the result of all that clamming: Mr. Overton’s famous Bonac clam chowder, which is served every year at the town trustees’ Largest Clam Contest. 

With all that East Hampton has to offer, along with “a lot of little projects around the house that I’ve been putting off,” Mr. Overton said, “the winter and spring will take care of itself.”

“Don’t be a stranger at Town Hall,” Mr. Van Scoyoc told him at the Dec. 21 meeting. “I know you’ll be in at least once a year for your clamming license.”

When The Star reported, in October, that members of the Devon Yacht Club in Amagansett and residents who live along Gardiner’s Bay were unhappy about the appearance on the horizon of 10-acre offshore oyster farms, Suffolk County’s director of sustainability noted that the yacht club had “expressed concern.” 

Action has followed that expression of concern.

On Wednesday, an attorney for the yacht club, founded in 1908 and incorporated in 1916, filed a lawsuit in State Supreme Court seeking to bar the holders of leases for bottomland near the club from undertaking or continuing any action related to oyster farming at lease sites granted by the county’s aquaculture lease board in July, or engaging in any other activity that would interfere with sailing on Gardiner’s Bay. 

Along with the aquaculture lease board, the lawsuit names the county’s Planning Department and its director, the Amagansett Oyster Company, individual leaseholders, the Town of East Hampton, and the State Department of Environmental Conservation. 

After many years of planning, the county is implementing its Shellfish Aquaculture Lease Program in Peconic Bay and Gardiner’s Bay. The parcels are leased for private, commercial shellfish cultivation under a program established after New York State ceded title to approximately 100,000 acres of bottomland to Suffolk County, in 2004, and authorized the county to offer the acreage up for aquaculture. 

There are two active leases in proximity to the club, Dorian Dale, the county’s director of sustainability, who sits on the aquaculture lease program’s board, said in October. But, he said, they did not appear to be impeding club members’ ingress and egress. One of the leases, he added, has been active for four years. “It wasn’t until a more recent lease activated this summer in closer proximity, and the leaseholder informed the club as a courtesy, that they took notice,” he said last fall. 

Linda Margolin, representing the yacht club, corroborated Mr. Dale’s timeline, saying on Tuesday that the club was “totally unaware of this until one of the lessees, awarded last year, told them that they were going to be building out a lease site 1,000 feet from the end of Devon’s pier. That didn’t happen until August. At that point, they started investigating.”

Ms. Margolin disagreed with respect to navigability. “Our complaint, if you will, is that the lease sites approved by the county aquaculture lease board in July are a concentrated, mostly contiguous set of 20-acre parcels — 10 acres plus a 10-acre buffer — which make off limits roughly a couple hundred acres of water.” Roughly 120 acres, she said, “are in the heart of the area used for Devon’s members and the kids it teaches at sailing camp.” The club has 326 member families.

Written concerns were conveyed from the club to the county in August, Mr. Dale said in October. “We have assured them that we are giving the matter prompt attention, and it is being considered by our law department,” he said at the time. 

On Tuesday, Mr. Dale said that, given the lawsuit, he could no longer comment. “At the initial meeting we had, they expressed interest in maintaining a dialogue,” he said of the club. “Pursuant legal actions precluded that continuing conversation.” 

The club cites vested property rights, historical access, and navigability, among other issues. “Our principal thrust here is that the county pledged to operate this program in conformity with the environmental review they’d already done, and such other further review that would be necessary,” Ms. Margolin said. “When you look at the environmental reviews that are done under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, you consider things . . . more than just water quality or air quality: things like interference with recreational resources. The effect of what the county has done here, unfortunately, is interfere with a very significant and heavily used recreational resource. Devon is a principal user, but certainly not the only user.” 

The county issues leases within a delineated shellfish cultivation zone. The zone includes State Department of Environmental Conservation-issued Temporary Marine Area Use Assignment locations; historical, private oyster grants, and other contiguous areas where any impacts or conflicts arising from aquaculture activity have been deemed minimal, according to the program’s overview. 

Lease applicants must obtain permits from government agencies for conducting aquaculture on their sites, including a shellfish culture permit from the D.E.C. once a lease has been issued. Leases are open to those planning to develop a commercial shellfish aquaculture operation. The program requires an initial $100 application fee and an annual lease fee of $200 plus $5 per acre, and $200 for private oyster grants. 

Public meetings were held on June 30 and July 26 in Hauppauge to review and consider lease applications for 55 sites submitted under the 2017 application cycle. Applicants in 2016 included Promised Land Mariculture Co., Empire State Shellfish Co., SeaJay Oyster Farming, and Winter Harbor Oyster Co., as well as individuals. 

The program is expected to grow. New shellfish aquaculture leases will be limited to a total of 60 additional acres per year, for a total of 600 acres by the tenth year of the program’s implementation. The program also provides municipalities, researchers, and not-for-profit groups with noncommercial shellfish cultivation leases for experimental, educational, and shellfish resource restoration purposes.

Bivalves such as oysters, hard clams, and scallops filter the water as they feed, which helps to mitigate an overabundance of nutrients that promote algal blooms such as brown tide, which can kill shellfish and finfish. According to the county, dense shellfish populations on farm sites would also augment the spawning potential of native populations. 

The aquaculture lease program “holds great promise in terms of improved water quality and revival of a shellfish industry that once provided considerable economic benefits, not to mention very tasty appetizers,” Mr. Dale said last fall. 

But not everyone believes commercial shellfish mariculture of this type — which favors some species above others — is always an unmitigated plus for the environment. In California, the National Park Service, concerned that oyster waste would damage eelgrass, among other things, tried to limit the activities of the Drakes Bay Oyster Company; the National Audubon Society took another oyster company to court over concerns about its impact on the habitat of birds, plants, and invertebrates. And various studies have explored the positives and negatives of off-bottom cultivation of shellfish (the sort approved for Gardiner’s Bay), which throws shade on the bottomland and seagrasses below.

The program’s overview states that the shellfish farms will increase private investment in shellfish aquaculture businesses, and will not present conflicts with commercial fishermen and other user groups.

But, the club complains, the aquaculture lease board did not consider its user group, the recreational boaters of Devon, before it granted leases in July.