Representative Lee Zeldin has taken strong exception to the characterization of Stephen Bannon, the White House's former chief strategist, as anti-Semitic.

Mr. Bannon is to headline a fund-raiser for the congressman's re-election campaign in Manhattan on Thursday.

Mr. Bannon's appearance there is to be the first in a planned series of fundraisers he will attend in support of Republican members of the House and Senate. It remains to be seen if these fund-raisers will be impacted by the defeat of Roy Moore, the Republican Senate candidate in Alabama, for whom Mr. Bannon went to bat.

Mr. Zeldin's communications director responded to emails seeking comment about Mr. Bannon on Friday. The day before, The Star had published an article about the upcoming fund-raiser. Mr. Bannon's participation in the benefit has spurred a petition, organized by a group called Bend the Arc Jewish Action, demanding that Mr. Zeldin disinvite him, as well as a protest outside the congressman's district office in Patchogue.

The Star had sought comment on Mr. Zeldin's embrace of Mr. Bannon, who is seen as an ally of the so-called "altright," a loose coalition of far-right conservatives who reject a traditional Republican platform. Some members of the alt-right unabashedly express neo- Nazi, white-supremacist, and anti-Semitic views, and some of those views have been aired on Breitbart News, to which Mr. Bannon returned as executive chairman after his firing from the Trump administration in August.

Mr. Zeldin, who is Jewish, was also asked about allegations that Mr. Bannon has himself made anti-Semitic statements.

In his reply, Mr. Zeldin pointed to Mr. Bannon's pro-Israeli policy positions.

For example, he said, Mr. Bannon is opposed to the "boycott, divest, sanctions" (B.D.S.) strategy, which is aimed at ending the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and which some consider anti- Semitic. Mr. Bannon, he said, was "the most passionate advocate I spoke to in the White House for combating the growing B.D.S. movement on college campuses and around the world."

Mr. Bannon, Mr. Zeldin said, is also an advocate for passage of the Taylor Force Act, which would stop most American aid, humanitarian and otherwise, to the Palestinian Authority, unless the Palestinian Authority took specific steps to counter violence against American and Israeli citizens by individuals under its control - specifically, by stopping support payments to the widows and children of individuals killed in a terrorist act or imprisoned by the Israeli authorities following such an act. (Opponents of the Taylor Force Act contend that Israel's definition of a terrorist act is problematic.)

Mr. Bannon also supports moving the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a policy President Trump announced last week, and decertification of the Iran nuclear deal, Mr. Zeldin said.

"I've witnessed countless people shamefully trying to smear him not only as anti-Semitic, but also calling him a Nazi, which truly is an absolutely disgusting character assassination," Mr. Zeldin said of Mr. Bannon.

While he was not defending Breitbart News, Mr. Zeldin said, "the sum total of content used to call them anti-Jewish was one story written by a Jewish author that called Bill Kristol a 'renegade Jew.' That's it." Mr. Kristol, the founder and editor-at-large of The Weekly Standard, is a vocal opponent of President Trump.

A hearing officer appointed to make recommendations to the town board has found William Taylor, the Town of East Hampton’s waterways management supervisor and a town trustee, not guilty on each of 14 charges of misconduct and incompetence levied against him last year after he was injured while securing an aquatic weed harvester in Georgica Pond. 

The town board is reviewing those findings, Supervisor Larry Cantwell said on Tuesday, and will make a determination as to whether or not to accept them at its meeting next Thursday. “We will take into consideration the findings and recommendations and the board will adopt a resolution,” he said. 

The town board had voted in November 2016 to suspend Mr. Taylor for 30 days without pay for actions taken without authorization two months earlier. Mr. Taylor denied all charges and vowed a vigorous defense. 

“I could never understand why these charges were brought in the first place,” Mr. Taylor said on Tuesday. “I didn’t do anything except try and help people.”

Disciplinary charges had been detailed in a document signed by Kim Shaw, the town’s director of natural resources, stating that Mr. Taylor “punched in to work for the Town, took a Town vehicle, and drove the Town vehicle to the area of Georgica Pond” on Sept. 4, 2016, a day he was not scheduled to work, all of which constitute engaging in unauthorized work and misconduct. As waterways management supervisor, Mr. Taylor is employed by the Natural Resources Department. 

Mr. Taylor had indeed gone to the pond. As Tropical Storm Hermine moved up the East Coast, Sara Davison, the executive director of the Friends of Georgica Pond Foundation, contacted Francis Bock, the trustees’ clerk, to voice her concern that the aquatic weed harvester the foundation had leased to remove macroalgae from the pond was not secured and could break free of its mooring during the storm. Mr. Bock relayed that message to Mr. Taylor, who offered to inspect the harvester. He had already planned to go to the pond to remove fencing that had been erected to protect piping-plover and least-tern nesting sites. 

The trustees, who manage many of the town’s waterways and bottomlands on behalf of the public, had just approved an opening of Georgica Pond to the Atlantic Ocean, which they typically do biannually. The weed harvester had to be moved to deeper water, Mr. Taylor said last year, “because the pond was to be opened, the water level was up a couple of feet, and if this thing was tied up where it was normally tied up, it would go aground.” He had moved it for the Friends of Georgica Pond Foundation on previous occasions, he said. 

While wading in the pond, Mr. Taylor suffered a severe cut on his foot, which required several days’ hospitalization. Two months after the incident, he was notified of the suspension and charges against him. 

The harvester was neither owned nor within the town’s control, and the town had not performed a hazard assessment and did not possess safety instructions, according to the document signed by Ms. Shaw. Mr. Taylor, it continued, was not wearing proper protective clothing, and his conduct was reckless. Moreover, the Natural Resources Department had taken the position that the pond should not be opened to the ocean before October, contrary to the trustees’ position. 

In a recommendation to the town dated Nov. 9, Eileen Powers, the hearing officer, wrote that she did not find sufficient evidence of the allegations. Moreover, Ms. Powers wrote, “Mr. Taylor’s decision to assist Sara Davison at Georgica Pond after he punched in to work for the town on Sept. 4, 2016, was, in my opinion, at worst an error of judgment and not an act in bad faith.” Mr. Taylor’s overlapping duties as waterways management supervisor and trustee, she added, muddied the waters and made the charges “difficult.” 

While Mr. Taylor did assist Ms. Davison without clocking out for the town, as he should have, Ms. Powers wrote, “I simply do not agree that the testimony presented indicated any willful misconduct or incompetence by Mr. Taylor in diverting from his intended plan to remove fencing by responding to, and checking on, the harvester in Georgica Pond. . . . Mr. Taylor checked in to work intending to remove fencing for the town but was then diverted by Ms. Davison’s request for help at the pond.”

Mr. Taylor said that the suspension and charges against him have taken a toll on both his finances and his health. The town, he said, should look upon his roles as waterways management supervisor and trustee as complementary, and not conflicting. “If I’m doing something to clean up a beach or the water,” he said, “it benefits everybody.”

The proposed merger of two lots on Isle of Wight Road in the Lion Head Beach area of Springs and the expansion an existing residence on one of the lots drew a crowd of 15 or 20 neighbors who argued against it at an East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals public hearing on Dec. 5. 

John and Patricia Dankowitz have an existing 2,600-square-foot house on the southern of the lots they want to merge, while the northern lot is undeveloped. They would like to expand the existing residence by 1,600 square feet after the lots are merged and to construct a 375-square-foot swimming pool, a 200-square-foot pool house, a slate patio, and a walkway to the beach at Hog Creek. They also plan to install a new septic system.

To complete this project on what would be a new 52,570-square-foot parcel, the Dankowitzes need a permit to build in an area containing tidal wetlands and bluffs, and eight variances for the pool, pool house, and the house itself. Some of the variances are minor. For example, they would like the house to be built 95 feet from tidal wetlands when the town code calls for 100 feet. The variances for the distance of the pool, pool house, and pool equipment from the bluff crest are slightly larger, ranging from 12.4 percent to 15.5 of the 100-foot setback required by code. The largest variances sought are a 25-percent reduction from wetlands for the pool house’s sanitary system and a 21.5-percent reduction from the required side-yard setback for the expanded residence.

David Kirst of Matthews, Kirst, & Cooley represented the Dankowitz family. He argued that the trade-offs for the town were a new septic system and that merging the lots would reduce density. In 1994 and again in 2009, the Z.B.A. had granted previous owners of the northern lot variances to construct a house there, although it was never built. His clients could build on it, he said, thereby increasing density. 

Tyler Borsack, a town planner, seemed to agree. Variances granted in the past for the undeveloped lot were far more substential than those now being requested, he reasoned. “The Planning Department also believes that the project as a whole would have less of an impact, when taken in conjunction with the mitigation measures, compared to having the northern lot improved with what was approved in 2009,” he said.

The neighbors were not mollified. Alex Miller, who lives at 19 Thanet Way and is the president of the Lion Head Beach Association, though he said he was not speaking in that capacity, said that, if approved, it “would be the largest structure on the western side of Hog Creek, totally out of character with the neighborhood, an affront to current environmental law, and damaging to the future health and safety of Hog Creek and neighboring residents.”

David Buda echoed a point made by several other speakers, that the addition, because of the topography, would, in effect, create a third floor, which is prohibited by the code.

The size of the proposed expanded house also came under scrutiny from the board. “This is a large house for the neighborhood,” Cate Rogers said.  She also said there had been extensive clearing on the properties. There were several issues the board wanted clarified, such as the construction protocol, and whether a proposed 24-inch roof overhang would require an additional variance. Mr. Kirst was given 30 days to provide the board with answers

One of the drivers involved in a collision between two commercial vehicles on Route 114 in East Hampton last Thursday remains at Stony Brook University Hospital, his condition upgraded yesterday from critical to stable. The other driver, who was less seriously injured, was taken to Stony Brook Southampton Hospital after his dump truck was rear-ended around 7:30 in the morning, according to the East Hampton Town Police Department.

According to police, Joseph Lambiase, a 59-year-old East Hampton man, had come to a stop in his 1996 dump truck in order to make a left turn into his driveway when the truck was struck from behind by a 2013 Ford Transit Connect cargo van driven by Michael J. Oblein of East Hampton, 34.

A heavy-rescue team from the East Hampton Fire Department had to extract Mr. Oblein from the crushed cargo van. 

Mr. Oblein was said to have been conscious but in shock when rescuers reached him and to be bleeding severely from what may have been a compound fracture. He was taken to East Hampton Airport, where the ambulance was met by a waiting helicopter that flew him to Stony Brook University Hospital, a level-one trauma center. 

Mr. Lambiase said Monday that he had been waiting to turn when he looked into the rearview mirror and saw the cargo van, which was at first a few hundred yards away, approaching. The van never slowed down, Mr. Lambiase said, making up hundreds of yards in seconds before slamming into his dump truck’s rear end. 

Mr. Lambiase said that despite his steering column and seat having been shifted by the impact of the crash he was able to get out of his vehicle, and that when he did he found the bed of the dump truck on top of the front of Mr. Oblein’s van. 

“I was petrified,” Mr. Lambiase said. “I could hear him in there.”

  Mr. Lambiase told emergency medical responders at the scene that he had spine and torso pain. 

 It was Mr. Lambiase’s understanding that Mr. Oblein underwent surgery at Stony Brook. He has been monitoring Mr. Oblein’s condition, and said that he is praying for his full recovery. 

Route 114 was closed to traffic after the accident, but was reopened by about 9 a.m.

“The big issue is, we need to slow that road down,” Mr. Lambiase said.

With the gift-giving season upon us, South Fork artists and crafts-makers are showing their work in a variety of settings.

MuvStrong fitness studio at 289 Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton in the One-Stop Market complex will open its doors for an annual holiday sale on Friday with a range of craftspeople, healthy food makers, and trainers from 3 to 6 p.m. Fourteen vendors are expected to take part, including the Georgica Bag Co., Girl Tauk boutique, Hamptons Hand-Poured candles, and the Wampum skate shop.

Fitness program memberships will be available at a discount. A nutritionist will be there to talk about specialized diet plans. Everyone walking through the door will be eligible for a winner-take-all raffle with items donated by the vendors.

Also in East Hampton, Susan Nieland, a maker of jewelry that incorporates stones she finds on the beaches here, leather, and metal, will host a makers market Friday and Saturday at her 21 Gould Street studio. Shoppers will have an opportunity to meet the artists and craftspeople showing clothing, ceramics, jewelry, leather goods, and paintings.

Taking part are Anna Clejan, Gretchen Comly, Jameson Ellis, Janet Goleas, Anne Kothari, Sarah Lazar, Hilary Leff, Jill Musnicki, and Stanley & Sons, an accessories and clothing line run by the owners of S&S Corner Shop in Springs. Ms. Nieland will show examples of her work as well. Hours Friday are from 5 to 8 p.m. and on Saturday from 1 to 5 p.m.

A "ladies lounge" shopping evening will take place Tuesday night from 6 to 8 at the Maidstone Hotel in East Hampton. Happy hour drinks are half price, and there will be a selection of light food available. Susan Verde, a yoga instructor and author, will sign copies of her recent children's books. Others taking part are Karin Yapalater, who is a holistic health counselor, Tathiana Teixeira of Plain-T in Southampton, Mickey Beyer Clausen, who is a Danish expert on happiness, and Stefanie Sacks, the author of "What the Fork Are you Eating?" R.S.V.P.s can be emailed to [email protected].

Lululemon will host a dozen vendors this Saturday and next from 1 to 4 p.m. for a holiday shopping bazaar. Artisans will have healing and skin care products, jewelry, ceramics, hats, and baked goods laid out for browsing. There will be a drawing each day for product giveaways. The sale is up a flight of stairs in the 35 Main Street East Hampton shop's Loft35 yoga space.

Locally made crafts and gifts will be for sale Sunday morning at a Jewish Center of the Hamptons on Woods Lane in East Hampton's Hanukkah fair. There will be children's activities, hot latkes, and a chance to make one's own applesauce. Hours are 9:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.

The Amagansett Presbyterian Church will hold a Christmas fair on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Scoville Hall, across Meeting House Lane from the church. A bake sale, craft table, deacons' silver tea, and offerings from vendors and artisans have been promised.

Also from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, the community room at the senior citizens housing complex at St. Michael's  in Amagansett will host a "winter wonderland" featuring jams and jellies, holiday cookies and cupcakes, jewelry, candles, scrubs, bath salts, clothing, natural cleaners, and lotions, among other items.

In Home on Sag Harbor Main Street will have a pop-up sale of work by Patricia Feiwel, a Sag Harbor textile designer and collage artist, on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. The sale will include necklaces in a variety of metals and scarves handmade from silk and French jacquard fabric.

The Greek Orthodox Church of the Hamptons on St. Andrew's Road in Southampton will continue its pastry and gift sale through Christmas Eve. Greek delicacies, Christmas decorations, stocking stuffers, jewelry, and handbags are for sale Fridays through Sundays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. An order form can be found on the church's website, dormitionhamptons.org.

Three South Fork women are in the running for Miss Latina Tristate, and online voters could help send one of them to the final competition on Dec. 17.

Miss East Hampton, Paula Viviana Lozano, a 2015 graduate of East Hampton High School, won first place in the fantasy dress competition on Oct. 17 at the Space at the Westbury Theater and now has her sights set on taking the 2017 title. Last year’s title, then known as Miss Latina Long Island, was held by Miss Montauk, Roxannie Rodriguez. 

Ms. Lozano, who is known by her middle name, Viviana, lives in Springs and works at the Maidstone Hotel in East Hampton. She is studying communications at Suffolk Community College. The organizers of the competition found her through Facebook and sent her a message inviting her to take part.

“I couldn’t believe it at first, because who does this on Facebook?” she said on Friday. Still, she was interested, and after a little research proved that the contest was legitimate, she sent off head shots and information about her Latino roots. She is Colombian and moved to Springs six years ago. 

Joining her among the top three contestants as of Friday were Miss Sag Harbor, Valentina Esmerelda Sanchez, who is originally from the Dominican Republic and is studying to be a medical assistant, and Miss Huntington, Marisol Lino, who hails from El Salvador. 

Another South Fork contestant is Miss Southampton, Belkis Chamale, who is from Honduras. 

For the participants, the competition is a chance to represent their Long Island hometowns and also their countries of origin. 

Taking part in the pageant can be expensive, Ms. Lozano said, and it is time consuming. “We have practice every week. . . . We do choreography.” So on top of driving to school from East Hampton, she is also driving to practice, but if she wins, there are benefits beyond the recognition that comes with the title, among them a two-year lease on a car. Plus, Ms. Lozano said on the Miss Latina website, she believes the experience is a door to other opportunities and gives her a chance to put into practice some of what she is learning as a communications major.

Of the six women who will have a shot at the crown, one will be selected based on online votes. As of this week, fans can vote for their favorite as many times as they like at misslatinali.com.

Deepwater Wind, which is planning to construct 15 offshore wind turbines 30 miles east of Montauk, has selected Beach Lane in Wainscott as the best spot for its power cable to come ashore, a representative told the East Hampton Town Board Tuesday. It is offering cash grants for environmental projects, among other sweeteners for the town.

The company examined five potential landing sites and cable routes to carry energy from the turbines to a Long Island Power Authority substation off Cove Hollow Road in East Hampton before identifying Beach Lane as the preferred location. 

The cable would travel up Beach Lane and along Wainscott Main Street to reach Wainscott Stone Road and continue north across Montauk Highway to run along the Long Island Rail Road right of way. Installation along that route would minimize traffic and other disruptions, Clint Plummer, Deepwater Wind’s vice president for development, said at a board meeting. 

In order to proceed with applications to a host of agencies for needed permits, Deepwater first must forge an agreement with East Hampton Town to install the line in the public road right of way, and with the East Hampton Town Trustees to lay the line, as it comes in from undersea, beneath the ocean beach at Beach Lane

In return, and in addition to payments for the needed easements, Deepwater is offering a “community benefits package,” Mr. Plummer said. 

The company would pay to have overhead utility lines in Wainscott along the cable route buried underground — on Beach Lane and a portion of Wainscott Main Street, in an area designated by the town and state as scenic. The work would be completed by utility companies and likely take several years; Mr. Plummer said Deepwater would commit to covering the entire cost.

Deepwater has offered  $1 million to East Hampton Town for water infrastructure improvements in Wainscott; $500,000 to the trustees for a marine environment improvement fund, with an additional $100,000 fisheries habitat fund, also to be administered by the trustees; and $200,000 more to the town for sustainable energy and resiliency projects, as identified by the town’s energy sustainability committee. 

Offices for Deepwater Wind will be maintained in Montauk for the entire 25-year anticipated life span of the turbines, Mr. Plummer said. The number of jobs that would create has not yet been estimated, he said, in answer to a question from Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc, the supervisor-elect, but Deepwater’s Block Island project, with five wind turbines, for example, requires a permanent, year-round staff of six, with additional employees added intermittently throughout the year. 

The company will also continually employ a liaison to the fishing community in Montauk; that role is presently filled by Julia Prince, a former town councilwoman. A local fisherman will be appointed as a representative, as well, Mr. Plummer said, with a name to be announced within a month.

Deepwater will provide periodic reports to the town board and town trustees during the project’s construction phase and afterward, the company representative promised — as often as weekly during the on-land cable installation. 

Project design and construction details — a deep dive into some of the facts and logistics surrounding the project’s science and engineering — will be presented by the company’s president and a technical team at an East Hampton Town Trustees meeting on Monday, Mr. Plummer said. 

The cable under the beach would be at all times at least 10 feet under the hardpan layer beneath the sand and sediment, the depth of which varies.  There would be no construction activity on the beach; a cable vault would be installed about 250 feet from the beach on the Beach Lane roadside. 

Cable installation would take place only between Labor Day and Memorial Day, Mr. Plummer said, with drilling for the landing cable at the beach confined to November through March. He proposed a 12-hour workday, with the potential to drill 24 hours a day during January, February, and March. Measures would be taken to contain noise, and the town given the authority to shut down day-and-night work if there are noise complaints. The work at Beach Lane is estimated to take between 10 and 14 weeks, total, and cable installation along the four miles from Wainscott to the LIPA substation to take between 8 and 18 weeks. Both segments of the project could go on simultaneously and be accomplished during one winter season, said Mr. Plummer, but final road repaving would likely take place during a second off-season. 

East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell asked if the company was discussing accommodations for fishermen who might be dislocated from the offshore turbine site during installation. “We don’t believe that we will be disrupting fishing activity,” Mr. Plummer said. 

The wind turbine project has been in the works since 2013, when Deepwater Wind, which developed the wind-farm concept in response to a 2015 request for proposals by the Long Island Power Authority, acquired a lease from the federal government for the offshore bottomland 30 miles east of Montauk. It finalized a contract with LIPA for the project last January.

Applications for all the required federal, state, county, and town permits will be submitted in the first quarter of 2018, Mr. Plummer said, and review and public comment are expected to take two years. Construction could begin in early 2021, with the turbines producing energy by late 2022. The wind farm is expected to produce power equivalent to that used by 50,000 residences

According to Autism Speaks, an advocacy group, 25 private schools east of Medford and west of Hauppauge offer specialized education for autistic children — but there are none on the East End. 

Still, superintendents from East Hampton, Bridgehampton, Montauk, Springs, and Sag Harbor have insisted that a proposed school for children on the autism spectrum, which Kevin Gersh seeks to open in the vacant Child Development Center of the Hamptons building in Wainscott, is not needed.

“We do not have a need,” Debra Winter, the Springs School superintendent, said this week. “Our children are being taken care of.” 

Ms. Winter and her fellow superintendents had delivered the message during an East Hampton Town Board meeting in November that the existing special-education services provided by their districts meet or exceed all standards, and Mr. Gersh is not wanted or needed here.  

Parents of autistic children who live between Southampton and Montauk largely beg to differ. And it is the “we” in the superintendent’s remarks that particularly irks them.

“When investigating whether a service is being provided adequately,” Julian Barrowcliffe, the father of a 3-year-old autistic boy in Sag Harbor, told the East Hampton Town Board at Tuesday’s work session, “the person to ask is never the service provider, but the service consumers.”

Erica Remkus of Sag Harbor has a 9-year-old autistic son. Although he is extremely low-functioning, he has attended the Pierson School since the 2015-16 school year, when it revamped its special-education program and hired Lisa Macaluso, a licensed applied-behavior analyst. “I called her the autism whisperer,” Ms. Remkus said. “She’s a phenomenal teacher.” Unfortunately, according to the mother, financial issues arose and Ms. Macaluso resigned and was replaced by a teacher she considered much less experienced.

“My son functions at the level of someone between 8 months and 2 years. But he no longer receives crucial applied behavior analysis work that he did with Lisa. The school says they use A.B.A. methods, but that’s not enough. Not for him. To hear the superintendents tooting their own horns is disgusting,” Ms. Remkus said.

J’Aime Schiavoni is 26 and suffers from autism and other disorders on the spectrum, according to her mother, Gail Schiavoni, also of Sag Harbor. 

The younger Ms. Schiavoni is quite high-functioning and attended Pierson throughout her academic life. “You know the story of Galileo?” she asked over the phone on Monday. “It was kind of like that for me at Pierson. Teachers needed a scapegoat, kids needing a verbal punching bag, and I was it.” She was taunted and bullied to the extent, said her mother, that it is still too traumatic for her to even drive past the school. 

After her daughter graduated with an individualized education plan at the age of 18, Ms. Schiavoni sued the school district for failing to provide adequate services. The Schiavonis won, and because schools are required to provide an education for special-needs students until they are 21, Pierson had to pay for J’Aime to attend the Westbrook Preparatory School, a residential New York State Regents junior and senior high school for students with high-functioning autism and related conditions. The life skills she learned there, said her mother, were crucial. After three years at Westbrook, J’Aime was granted housing in Hampton Bays, where she now lives and works. She said she hopes to become a writer. 

If school districts between Southampton to Montauk are so uniquely successful in their ways of educating autistic children that they are the only ones on Long Island that do not require outside help, Mr. Barrowcliffe told the town board on Tuesday, “then they should roll their uniqueness westward and do away with the superfluous establishments that exist.”

Superintendents maintain that after the closure of the state-approved C.D.C.H. in 2016, adequate specialized services have been offered at the Suffolk County Board of Cooperative Educational Services learning center in Westhampton Beach. As there is no prekindergarten program at BOCES, children under 5 can attend Alternatives for Children in Southampton, a special-education center that offers an array of services, including day care, nursery, and prekindergarten programs, counseling, and music, speech, occupational, visual, and physical therapy.

Alex Kolevzon, M.D., the clinical director at the Seaver Autism Center at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital, offered his opinion via email with The Star, writing that the number of services offered is not the crux of the matter, but that the training of the educators is. “Autistic children have unique behavioral and learning needs,” he said, “and are most appropriately served in specialized education settings where staff and teachers are specifically trained to address their complex needs.” He does not endorse any particular school: “Applied behavorial analysis techniques have significant evidence to support their use and require specialized training to implement,” he wrote. Neither Alternatives nor BOCES offer ABA certified therapists, which is something the Gersh Academy does.

In the midst of this debate, Mr. Gersh, speaking from Seattle, where he is working with a school district to open an academy, asked, “We work with 55 districts on Long Island. How come the East End doesn’t want me? If I can help one autistic child there, why not let me?”

Ms. Winter replied, “He’s a private school. He’s out to make money.”

Mr. Gersh has told town officials that he is willing to personally fund the first $250,000 in school fees, which will be approximately $55,000 per year, per student, plus additional charges for various services. 

Several parents have pointed out that they are not pro Gersh Academy, per se, but feel it necessary to advocate for the creation of some specialized school option nearby. For easternmost families, a daily trip to BOCES in Westhampton Beach can mean a bus ride of almost two hours each way, or three to four hours round trip.

“Two hours on a bus when they could be receiving valuable services and therapy,” said Annmarie Zanchelli, a certified special education teacher who works with preschool special-needs children in the area.

Because of the lack of specialized services on the eastern end of the South Fork, Debora Oppenheimer, a Sagapponack mother of two adopted children with disabilities, said she has been cautioned against adopting another special-needs child. “It’s infuriating and offensive to hear the superintendents’ remarks,” she said.

The Supreme Court of Colorado ruled earlier this year in favor of the parents of an autistic teenager who claimed their son was not adequately educated by their public school system; the parents were reimbursed for the cost of his private education. On a federal level, the Colorado case is said to help clarify the scope of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act by determining that it is not enough for school districts to get by with minimal instruction for special-needs children.

Genie Egerton-Warburton, the mother of a severely autistic 5-year-old boy, read a statement to the East Hampton Town Board at the Tuesday session. “It is every mother’s dream that her child is mainstreamed at some point in life,” she said. “But the reality is that proper special-needs education must be implemented from the beginning. I urge all the superintendents to search their souls and ask whether there is a societal, moral, and ethical imperative that we educate children on the spectrum in as complete a way as we educate typical children.”

A year after being placed on an administrative leave with pay, following disciplinary charges, Arthur Bloom, an East Hampton Town ordinance enforcement officer, was fired Tuesday by a vote of the town board. He had held the position since January 2015. The termination was based on a hearing officer’s recommendation and findings that Mr. Bloom was guilty of 14 disciplinary charges, which he had denied. 

During the same session on Tuesday, the board accepted the retirement of Betsy Bambrick, the head of the Ordinance Enforcement Department, effective Friday, Dec. 15.

According to a resolution, she will remain on administrative leave until then. Ms. Bambrick has worked for the town since 1989, and served as director of the Ordinance Enforcement Department since 2010. 

Mr. Bloom was charged with improperly destroying copies of a written warning he had issued to a Montauk contractor, Scott Braddick, who allegedly was operating a business out of a residence; the destruction of paperwork was said to be in violation of town policies as well as record-retention laws. 

In a written decision dated Nov. 6, Eileen Powers, the hearing officer, contended that Mr. Bloom then lied about whether he had issued a written or only an oral warning. A copy of the written warning was obtained from the property owner, according to the report. 

Mr. Bloom was additionally found guilty of tampering with public records, of failing to perform his duties, of “conduct which brings discredit upon the town,” and of incompetence and insubordination, among other related charges. 

He has been working as a part-time fire marshal for the Town of Shelter Island since June. 

In testimony summarized in the hearing officer’s decision, the ordinance officer said that he had consulted with a colleague and with Ms. Bambrick, his supervisor, about the case. 

Those who testified about the situation included Kelly Kampf, the town’s assistant director of public safety, and Ms. Bambrick, who was criticized in the report by the hearing officer, who said she had tried to “inject confusion” with her testimony. 

There have been signs for some time of discord within the town’s Public Safety Division, which oversees the Ordinance Enforcement Department, and in that department itself. 

Last year, employees who said they feared retribution and therefore wished to remain anonymous sent emails alleging a hostile work environment in the division, which is headed by David Betts, and challenging Ms. Kampf’s qualifications to do her job. 

There was rising tension, the employees said, after Ms. Bambrick took a civil-Service test to qualify for the job title held by Mr. Betts. 

Ms. Bambrick was initially Ms. Kampf’s supervisor. But in September 2016, Ms. Kampf was promoted to the newly created position of assistant public safety director, becoming Ms. Bambrick’s supervisor; the Ordinance Enforcement Department, as well as the fire marshals, and the animal-control and building departments, all fall under the umbrella of the Public Safety Division.

Some employees also sent a letter and went to Alex Walters, the executive assistant to Supervisor Larry Cantwell,  as well as to union representatives, but no official action has been taken on their complaints.

Correction: The original version of this story stated incorrectly that the East Hampton Town Board accepted  the resignation of Betsy Bambrick, who served as head of the Ordinance Enforcement Department. The board accepted Ms. Bambrick's notice to retire and not a resignation. 

Last year, Matt Lauer, the host of NBC’s “Today Show,” appeared in the gossip columns after he was spotted enjoying breakfast at Joni’s in Montauk with Bill O’Reilly, the Fox News ratings king. Last week, as he was being hounded by reporters chasing the unfolding sexual-harassment scandal, Mr. Lauer was photographed near the Long Island Rail Road station in East Hampton in apparent consultation with Edward Burke Jr., a Sag Harbor attorney who had also represented Harvey Weinstein in August, when the beleaguered movie mogul was involved in a parking-lot altercation.

Mr. Lauer, Mr. O’Reilly, and Mr. Weinstein are not the only celebrities accused of sexual misconduct or assault who have houses on the East End; there is also Louis C.K., and Russell Simmons. Another, Charlie Rose, has a place in Bellport, about an hour west of here.

The G-force fall of these powerful men brings to mind a slightly botched Plutarch quote about Alexander the Great: “When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer,” spoken by the on-screen German villain in “Die Hard,” one movie not produced by the Weinstein Company.

In cinematic terms, these words conjure epic imagery. There he is, Harvey, or Matt, or Bill the Great, standing atop his balcony like a modern-day Alexander — robe-clad instead of toga-clad — overlooking his vast domain, staring off to the Atlantic’s horizon and considering his life’s achievements. As the gentle wind whips his thinning hair, he weeps for the realization that he has done all a human can do, when an errant gust flings open his robe and . . . oh dear, the pretty young landscaper pruning the roses down below has caught an eyeful.

The East End has always been a sandbox of scandal; that part is nothing new. In 1998, Steven Gaines, a resident of Wainscott, wrote an unapologetically voyeuristic nonfiction book called “Philistines at the Hedgerow: Passion and Property in the Hamptons,” documenting the lowbrow that descended on this once-historical stronghold of blue bloods.  

Despite the seeming congregation of the accused here, Mr. Gaines does not believe that the East End is necessarily a nexus of sexual miscreants. “[B]ecause we live in such a wealthy community,” he says, “it just seems that we have a higher concentration, but we don’t. There are sexual predators everywhere, in all towns, in offices, and businesses, we just never hear about them.”

Jim Rutenberg, a media columnist for The New York Times who has written copiously on the subject, also cautioned that there is no need for a celebrity fatwa in the Hamptons. “Sexual harassment is not the province of the wealthy,” he said.

James Gunn, an actor and director, echoed these sentiments in a Facebook post in October, when he wrote that sexual predation is a global problem. “It’s rife EVERYWHERE,” he wrote. “[S]ome men — probably a much larger percentage than any of us want to be true — try to coerce women (or children or other men) sexually. . . . They are movie stars and network heads and world-famous bloggers, but they are also fast food restaurant managers and used car salesmen.”

Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network, the nation’s largest organization combating sexual violence, states that someone in America is sexually assaulted every 98 seconds. Most commonly it is women and men working in far less glamorous occupations who bear the brunt of lechery and assault: the housekeepers, the gardeners, the caterers, the waitresses, and the receptionists. 

Still, it isn’t by mere happenstance that so many of the celebrities who have been accused spend time on the East End. The men in question probably come here, according to  Mary Bromley, an East Hampton psychotherapist specializing in the treatment of sexual-assault victims, to be with others like themselves — not just others who are rich and powerful, but, she says, perhaps specifically others whose “money and power mask deep insecurity and hostility.”

“It is interesting,” Mr. Gaines said in a phone conversation this week, “that they do come out here to be under the radar.” 

What worries Ms. Bromley most are the powerless in this community —women who might be domestic workers, for instance, or children who might be marginalized — who may have been victims of sexual harassment and abuse but are too fearful to speak up. Not only is it true, she emphasized, that “if you have money and a good lawyer, you can get off, but also that we never hear the stories of female victims who are not celebrities.” 

Indeed, as a place where billionaires live side-by-side with needy immigrants and blue-collar service workers, the idea of the Hamptons could be read as grim allegory. It is, after all, as Ms. Bromley and others point out, a power imbalance that most often facilitates abuse. And here, where the streets aren’t actually paved in gold — but paved by an underclass dreaming of it — that imbalance is greatly exaggerated, leaving a swath of the population potentially vulnerable.

“It stands to reason,” said Mr. Rutenberg, of the constellation of disgraced stars. “Sexual harassment is all about power and the abuse of power, and the Hamptons is about the powerful, the ultra-wealthy — a crowd of invincibles.”