Voters in Sag Harbor Village will have some decisions to make on Tuesday, but choosing a mayor is not one of them. While Mayor Sandra Schroeder is running unopposed, three candidates are vying for two open seats on the village board.

Ken O’Donnell, the incumbent, his running mate, Thomas Gardella, and H. Aidan Corish gathered at the John Jermain Memorial Library on Saturday for a friendly debate moderated by Stephen J. Kotz, the Sag Harbor Express news editor.

The candidates’ views on the importance of supporting affordable housing efforts, the rebuilding of the Sag Harbor Cinema, extending the historic district to include the Sag Harbor Hills, Ninevah, and Azurest neighborhoods, and improving traffic and pedestrian safety did not differ much. Their backgrounds and their focuses, however, did.

This is the first foray into politics for Mr. Gardella, who owns a plumbing business and has lived in the village for 30 years, and for Mr. Corish, the founder of Tangram, a brand design firm.

Mr. Corish, a village homeowner since 1995, said he would bring a new perspective to the village board. He considers himself a preservationist, and said he believes in preservation, communication, participation, and planning.  

Meanwhile, Mr. Gardella just finished serving as the chief of the Sag Harbor Fire Department. He has been a volunteer for over 20 years. “It didn’t get any more real for me than it did on Dec. 16 with that fire on Main Street,” he said. “I would like to serve further as a trustee of this village.”

Mr. O’Donnell, who owns La Superica restaurant, has served on the board for the last four years and is seeking is second term. He said he recently found a flier from his campaign in 2013 and was reminded that many of the issues he sought to tackle had been addresssed. The Civil Service Employees Association and Sag Harbor Village Police Benevolence Association contracts were resolved — the latter twice, and it is good through 2021. The C.S.E.A., he said, agreed to change health care providers, resulting in significant savings for the village. Among his strengths, he said, “I like to think I’m more of a businessman than a politician.”

Parking, always at a premium in the small village, was a focus for the candidates. Asked if they support a traffic study, especially because of the lack of parking provided by the Sag Harbor School District, Mr. Gardella said he supports any study as long as the village can afford it.

Mr. O’Donnell said he is dedicated to keeping an open dialogue between the village and the school district — the board was recently criticized for its decision to prohibit parking on streets around the schools. A meeting with all the stakeholders is slated for next Thursday. “Win, lose, or draw, I’ll be there.” He pointed out that the school district has a much larger budget than the village.

Mr. Corish said a lot of people were “blindsided” when the board decided after a public hearing to prohibit parking around the school. He has some ideas that would offer the village an alternative source of revenue. “I have no problem with charges for parking in the village,” he said, adding that it would be in a parking lot, not on Main Street. He would like to explore the use of parking apps, such as ones used in Oyster Bay and White Plains.

Mr. Gardella said he was against a paid parking system. He wants to focus on looking at where new spots can be added. 

The three candidates said they believe the restrictions placed on residential floor area — legislation passed last year which yielded several lawsuits — were a step in the right direction. Mr. O’Donnell said it would help put a stop to “oversized boxes being dropped on village lots,” but admitted the legislation is a work in progress. “By no means do I think it’s a perfect document.”

Mr. Corish said he supported where the law ended up. “The process left a lot to be desired,” he said. One of the byproducts of the legislation, however, is a plethora of what he called the “Greek Revival revival” houses. “I don’t think that was the intention,” he said, adding that the boards need to communicate more so that the streetscapes are varied.

As someone who renovated a historic house from the ground up, he thinks it would be useful for the village to provide a small pamphlet that real estate brokers can give clients about what to expect during the building process to manage homeowners’ expectations and also reduce “friction between future community members and our boards.”

Mr. Gardella agreed. “Communication is key,” but he said every lot and every house is different. “One pamphlet won’t cover everything.”

Mr. O’Donnell suggested that homeowners be provided with a historic pallet so that certain processes, which may end up taking time before the architectural review board, can be expedited.

One thing everyone agreed on was supporting a ballot measure to increase a pension-like incentive for fire department volunteers. A length of service award program, the state-approved benefit program known as LOSAP, allows volunteers to receive a financial incentive based on the number of years they have served once they hit retirement age.

Under the proposal, volunteers would increase the amount they receive at age  65 by $10 to $30 per month for each year of service credit earned under the point system. It will cost an additional $86,000 a year to fund the amendment, an average cost of $521 per firefighter. The change would go into effect on Jan. 1, 2018.

While funding comes from the village budget, the village also receives money from the Towns of East Hampton and Southampton, as well as North Haven Village, as it is contracted with those municipalities to provide fire and ambulance services to those areas outside the village.

Three days after closing Georgica Pond because a bloom of cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, had been confirmed, a long-simmering disagreement among the East Hampton Town Trustees over the recognition of state and federal jurisdiction came to a boil at their meeting Monday, with angry accusations and occasional pounding on the table at which they sat. In the end, a majority agreed to request emergency permits to open the pond to the ocean.

Researchers from the State University at Stony Brook reported detecting cyanobacteria in Georgica, as well as at Maratooka Pond in Mattituck, last week. The bloom has shown up in Georgica for the past several summers, and the Suffolk Health Department has advised the public not to swim or wade in the water and to keep pets and children away until the levels drop and warnings are lifted.

Cyanobacteria can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, skin and eye irritation, allergic reactions, and breathing problems. In the case of accidental contact, the county advises that people rinse themselves off with clean water immediately and seek medical attention if symptoms arise.

On Monday, Sara Davison, the executive director of the Friends of Georgica Pond Foundation, a group of property owners that is working to improve the pond’s health, repeated a request she had made at a meeting last month, that the trustees seek emergency permits from the Army Corps of Engineers, the State Department of Environmental Conservation, and the federal Fish and Wildlife Service to open the pond to the Atlantic. Such openings flush the pond, improve circulation, and increase salinity.

Because weather and pond conditions prevented the traditional spring opening, or letting, by the trustees, the pond was a foot higher than a year ago, Ms. Davison said. Its temperature was rising, salinity levels were low, and chlorophyll very high.

  The trustees, however, are negotiating with the Army Corps for a 10-year permit to dredge certain sections within the pond and are concerned that opening it would jeopardize that effort.

“It’s a changed situation,” Ms. Davison said on Monday, “and of course Friends of Georgica Pond Foundation is very concerned . . . with such high water and toxic conditions.” She asked the trustees to “at least ask the D.E.C. if going parallel with an emergency opening request would or not jeopardize the larger permit.”

 Complicating the matter are endangered and federally protected piping plovers, which are nesting on the beach between the pond and the ocean. Digging a six-foot-wide trough would result in a violent surge of water, the direction of which is difficult to predict and impossible to control, and pose a danger to the shorebirds. The presence of nesting plovers would require the Fish and Wildlife Service to sign off on an emergency permit.

The Southampton Town Trustees, Ms. Davison noted last month, had obtained emergency permits for Mecox Bay and Sagaponack Pond, where there also are nesting plovers. Both water bodies were subsequently opened to the ocean, although the shorebirds’ nests there are significantly farther from public property than the roughly 50 feet between the nests and the East Hampton trustees’ land.

“What about hand-digging the pond to minimize disturbance to the plovers?” Ms. Davison asked. She offered the foundation’s assistance in engaging people to monitor the nesting sites during a letting.

 Before the meeting, the trustees had discussed going through land owned by the Georgica Association, a private enclave to the west that maintains a bathing house on the beach, to let the pond. “Perhaps that’s something that’s workable,” Jim Grimes told Ms. Davison. “It would be really nice if we could get this done, because now we truly have an emergency for the D.E.C. to react to.”

At this point, Diane McNally, the trustees’ former presiding officer, said, “You’ve got to recognize there’s no controlling that thing. Once you let it . . . there’s a chance you lose the plovers or the beach house.”

The discussion then veered into argument. Ms. McNally, who opposes any recognition of state or federal jurisdiction, criticized a memo from a Manhattan law firm the Friends of Georgica Pond Foundation had commissioned, which Ms. Davison said was “to understand the environmental laws that protect the ecology of the pond” and “how they would mesh or interact with the Endangered Species Act.” Ms. McNally argued that the trustees should “let Mother Nature take its course right now.”

“But do you understand there is an emergency?” Rick Drew, a trustee, asked, referring to the algal bloom. “What about all the homeowners that are nearby that have families, that have children, that have pets? We just let that go so that you can have your position of not recognizing anyone else, and you have your autonomy, and you ignore the needs of the community? That’s maddening, Diane. That is irresponsible.”

Ms. McNally disagreed. “We need to remember that we’re here to represent the public and the public lands that we manage on behalf of them, for perpetuity.”

“It’s polluted, the baymen can’t use it,” Mr. Drew responded. “We want to help the baymen to have a healthy pond. I’m a bayman, I work on the bay, I work on the waters, so please don’t insult me.”

“I’m not even going to bother to talk anymore, Rick,” was Ms. McNally’s exasperated reply. “Okay?”

“That would be great,” Mr. Drew said. “Now we can make some progress.”

“Thank you very much,” Ms. McNally exclaimed, slamming her fist on the table. “I’ve only sat here for 20 years for nothing.”

Over the objections of Ms. McNally and Tim Bock, who said he would not seek re-election this year, a majority of the trustees recognizes the state and federal agencies’ authority, and agrees that they should seek emergency permits from them.

 Tyler Armstrong said, “This is going to be the year that we step up and do something immediately to get rid of this thing.”

The trustees must balance short and long-term goals, said Bill Taylor. “We’re moving with all deliberate speed, but our goal is the health of the pond in 10 years, more than what’s going to happen in the next 10 days or 10 weeks

People arrested over Memorial Day weekend received something no defendant here has ever before been given: A guarantee of legal representation from the moment they are taken in to East Hampton Justice Court to be arraigned.

In a program financed by the office of the Suffolk County District Attorney, either Brian DeSesa of the Adam Miller Group or Carl Irace of Carl Andrew Irace & Associates, both experienced in the field of criminal law, will now be in court on weekends and holidays. The program, years in the making, began on May 27.

It was Mr. DeSesa’s turn that weekend. “It is definitely necessary, both for the defendant and for the court,” to have a defense lawyer present, he said after a busy morning of arraignments. Without an attorney in the room, he said, it falls to the presiding justice to explain the law where necessary, and defendants, left to fend for themselves, may fail to understand.

It has not been unusual, for example, that someone charged with driving while intoxicated, after the court has read out the charges, will blurt out, “I’m guilty.” In weekends past, the town justices, Steven Tekulsky and Lisa R. Rana, would frequently have to warn people without lawyers not to speak to the facts of their case, because arraignments are recorded and anything they say could and would be used against them.

On the holiday weekend, before Justice Rana took the bench, Mr. DeSesa spoke in private with each of the three men charged with drunken driving, and the subsequent proceedings, court observers agreed, went much more smoothly than before. A key question the court asks of every defendant is, “Do you want to be heard in respect to bail?” If the facts warrant, an attorney may then point out that the person has local ties and is therefore not a flight risk, that he or she is employed, or that this is a first arrest.

“You’re there to offer comfort,” Mr. DeSesa said. Defendants, particularly women who have never been in trouble with the law, are frequently in tears.

Both Mr. DeSesa and Mr. Irace have been on both sides of the aisle. Mr. DeSesa has worked in the county D.A.’s office and Mr. Irace for the Bronx D.A. Mr. DeSesa went on to work for Edward Burke & Associates for eight years before joining his current firm. Mr. Irace, who lost a bid for town justice in 2013, heads his own law firm.

“Driving-while-intoxicated cases are the most technical cases in the criminal justice system, other than murder,” Mr. Irace said on Sunday, after representing the weekend’s one arraignment. Having a lawyer to deal with the technical aspects of a D.W.I. arrest — challenging a traffic stop, for instance, or a breath test reading — may give a defendant a stronger case,

Mr. Irace is already familiar with the program, which was launched in Southampton last July. He recalled a case involving an accident on Sunrise Highway in which his client faced charges of drunken driving. The prosecution had asked for high bail, but, said Mr. Irace, after he reviewed her history and argued that she was not a flight risk, the court set bail at an amount her family was able to post. (The woman, Ulyana Yaremko, was ultimately indicted on multiple felony charges stemming from the incident, in which an East Hampton couple were seriously injured, and the case is now in State Supreme Court.)

No matter how good a job they do at arraignment, Mr. Irace and Mr. DeSesa will not be representing the defendant afterward. The county program, formally known as the Assigned Counsel Defender Plan, specifically prohibits the attorneys’ further involvement in a case, unless they have represented the person before.

The program has been 10 years in the making. It stems from a class action launched by the New York Civil Liberties Union in 2007 (Hurrell-Harring v. the State of New York). The suit singled out five counties: Suffolk, Ontario, Onondaga (Syracuse), Schuyler, and Washington, accusing them, among other things, of failure to provide defendants with counsel during critical stages of a case and of creating caseloads for court-appointed attorneys that were so onerous that proper defense was impossible to provide.

The case was in the courts for years, reaching the appellate level before it was settled, on Oct. 21, 2014, the day before it was to go to trial. The weekend lawyer program was an important part of the settlement, which also provided the Legal Aid Society with funding to send staff members to all weekday arraignments.

Daniel A. Russo, who administers the Suffolk County plan, stressed on Tuesday that his nonprofit organization thoroughly vets attorneys for the weekend responsibilities. Experience is an important qualification; an inexperienced lawyer can make a crucial mistake at the start of the process and doom a client’s case.

Where a lawyer lives is also important, said Dennis Brown, who runs the program, because of the distances on the East End between courthouses. The lawyers are on call all weekend long, and all day on holidays. They are paid $30,000 a year.

Not only can renters find a house on Airbnb, they can book a stay on the water now, too.

The Sag Harbor Village Board approved a request Tuesday to allow a boat owner, renting dock space from the village on West Water Street, to periodically rent her 42-foot powerboat, which she has listed on Airbnb.

Airbnb, an online hospitality service that helps homeowners lease to short-term tenants, has become popular among homeowners on the East End. “Airbnb is a hot phenomenon,” Ed Deyermond, a village board member, said. “It’s happening with houses, on what I presume to be a good scale in Sag Harbor, but this is the first time I’ve heard of it being used with boats.”

Although Airbnb is an ongoing discussion nationwide because of code enforcement, tax, and transparency concerns to neighbors and municipalities alike, Bob Bori, the Sag Harbor Village harbormaster, put the issue before the board after finding a listing for the Ali Nash on the website. He recommended that the board allow Hilary Offenberg to rent out her boat on a short-term basis, for a trial period.

The request was granted, though Mr. Deyermond, who is stepping down from the board later this month, was opposed. “The boat is docked in a location that is mostly residential boating slips, and now we are commercializing it,” he said. “It needs to be vetted.”

Allowing the Ali Nash to remain at the municipal dock, known as the B-Dock, while being rented may have implications. “B-Dock is quiet and sleepy,” Mr. Deyermond said. “It’s very residential. I would like to hear from other boat owners.”

Not only might neighboring boaters be disturbed, but James Larocca, another board member, brought up a liability factor. “If a renter were to fall off the boat, then we would be a part of the lawsuit,” Mr. Larocca said.

Louis Grignon, the owner of a private marina at 53 Bay Street, is against rentals because of just such concerns. At his Sag Harbor Yacht Yard, a boat owner, family member, or crew member can sleep aboard overnight, but they cannot rent out the boat and allow others to sleep on it. “I do it for insurance purposes,” Mr. Grignon said, “because my contract is for the owner of the boat. That is what my insurance would cover if something happened.”

Prior to the board meeting, Ms. Offenberg took precautionary steps to ensure safety. She said her insurance for the boat also covers people getting to and from the dock, and promised to give the village board a copy of the forms.

While Ms. Offenberg does rent her boat, she reserves it for half the summer for personal use. “We didn’t realize it was considered commercial use when we thought of this,” she said. “We did it because it subsidizes a little bit of the price it is to live in Sag Harbor.”

The Ali Nash is listed at $450 per night, with a security deposit of $500, a cleaning fee of $100, and a two-night minimum stay required. Weekly and monthly discounts are available. The listing touts the boat as close to beaches, nightlife, public transportation, and  restaurants on Sag Harbor’s Main Street. “It’s great for couples, solo adventurers, business travelers, and families with kids,” it says.

A Post Marine yacht with a 16-foot beam, the Ali Nash is described as being very comfortable. It sleeps up to four, with two “bedrooms” and one bathroom. Pets under 20 pounds are allowed. Overnight trips to neighboring harbors can be arranged with a licensed captain, but parties and events aboard are prohibited.

The boat has already been rented out at least once; it was given a positive review online in May.

Although nothing was said about it at the board meeting, a search of Airbnb turned up at least five other boats for rent in Sag Harbor, with nightly fees ranging from $347 to $2,379. Mr. Bori, the harbormaster, said by phone on Tuesday that he first became aware of the phenomenon last summer, but said nothing about it because the boat, a sailboat, was moored outside village jurisdiction.

While the village code does not address renting boats at public docks, it  does prohibit people living on the water, aboard a vessel at anchor, between April 1 and Oct. 31. Mr. Bori said he had no problem with people staying on a boat for a weekend.

In East Hampton Town, “floating homes,” or houseboats, defined as not having an engine or sails, are prohibited. In Southampton Town, a permit is required for a houseboat.

Decisions made now about the look and function of the business areas of East Hampton Town could gradually shape the hamlet centers and how residents shop, work, and live here in the future, consultants said during five recent presentations.

A team of consultants studied the town’s economy and business makeup and then homed in on the downtown and dock areas of Montauk; the center of Amagansett and the businesses at the hamlet’s eastern edge; neighborhood businesses, waterfront, and commercial-industrial areas in Springs; North Main Street and Pantigo Road in East Hampton, and Wainscott.

Each hamlet plan was intended to dovetail with the recommendations in the town’s comprehensive plan as well as with adopted plans and policies covering wastewater management, housing, water quality, coastal management, energy, and the like.

After a series of public discussions, site tours, and workshops at which possibilities were described and recommendations outlined, the draft plans were not “a specific blueprint, but an overall guide depicting how changes can be managed to complement rather than detract from our rural and small-town character,” Marguerite Wolffsohn, the town’s planning director, said in an information sheet.

Once the community reaches agreement on long-term goals, strategies could be employed to gradually work toward them, Lisa Liquori of Fine Arts and Sciences, a former town planning director, said at one of the recent presentations.

Peter Flinker of Dodson and Flinker, a Massachusetts engineering firm, another consultant, said the plans would help residents “determine how best we might change the rules to get what we want — how can you put better regulations in place to guide it to where you want it to be.”

Over all, Ms. Liquori said, the goals for all of the business areas are to “maintain, improve, and enhance” their unique characters, including their visual quality, and create integrated and walkable centers while safeguarding the environment.

The recommendations are designed to improve traffic flow and pedestrian and bicyclist safety, access to parking, and to encourage affordable housing among a variety of other uses.

While the goals align with those of the town comprehensive plan, the hamlet center plans will provide “a little more fine detail,” she said. Zoning would largely remain unchanged, but the plans will focus on how to integrate “business development into the existing hamlet centers,” Ms. Liquori said. Strategies could include establishing so-called overlay districts, where particular design guidelines would govern “key areas of concern,” she said, including architecture, landscapes, streetscapes, parking areas, and environmental standards.

Town regulations could create seasonal workforce housing districts that would allow motels to modify units to make them “livable and safe”; modify parking requirements for businesses to encourage shared parking areas, and possibly create new municipal lots. The town could offer incentives or establish programs, such as the transfer of development rights, to spur the relocation of businesses or other goals. The town would have to work with property owners, and ask them to coordinate with one another, to move toward desired outcomes.

Detailed first-draft plans for each hamlet center are posted on the town’s website, ehamptonny.gov/367/ Hamlet-Study-2016. They will be revised based on public opinion expressed in the recent meetings, and then resubmitted to the town board, which will hold hearings at which the public will once again have opportunities to comment before the plans are finalized. The finished products would be formally adopted by the board and become part of the comprehensive plan.

All of the concentrated development proposed for the hamlet centers is predicated on effective centralized wastewater treatment systems, the consultants said. Such systems are already under discussion as a result of the town’s wastewater treatment plan.

The presentations were all taped by LTV and can be viewed online at ltveh.org. Comments may be submitted to the consultants by sending an email to [email protected].

Wainscott

“The town’s “biggest single development opportunity is located” at the former sand pit site in Wainscott, which, Mr. Flinker said, “could reshape and expand the town center.” The plan suggests encouraging some businesses to move from the Montauk Highway to land north, in the former pit, where a “home improvement services district” could be created by concentrating related businesses. The acreage could also accommodate continued commercial-industrial use and open space, and, possibly, with Long Island Rail Road cooperation, a train station.

The draft plan for Wainscott also sets a goal of connecting the stores and commercial areas along the highway with shared parking and walkways to create a “pedestrian district” that has a downtown feel, Mr. Flinker said. The area is  “uniquely positioned to meet the year-round needs of East Hampton residents,” he said.

At the Wainscott presentation on May 27, Kathy Cunningham, an East Hampton resident and member of the town planning board, urged fellow citizens to seize the moment and take action to shape the future East Hampton Town.

“This is an opportunity for our community,” she said. “The implementation of this, of course, is the big challenge. It’s time for us to come together and get this thing done.”

Montauk

The challenges in downtown Montauk are framed by sea level rise. The consultants suggested a phased plan, moving some buildings and businesses out of the flood plain and concentrating them on higher ground around the village green and up Essex Street.

Shorefront motels could be relocated to other downtown streets where there is room for more development, the plan suggests. “Reclaim the first row as a reconstructed dune system — and that protects the whole downtown,” Mr. Flinker said. “Infill” development, he said, creates an “opportunity for continued economic success for those businesses, “and also, he says, a more attractive, usable downtown.

At the Montauk dock area, maintaining a “working waterfront” is “vitally important, economically and culturally,” Mr. Flinker said.  The plan includes a

“mixed-use fishing village” along the waterfront with a continuous walking path, and a commons area at the entrance to the harbor area.  The northern loop of Flamingo Road could be closed off, according to the plan, creating a natural waterfront area that would not only be scenic but could protect against storm surges. Plantings would be added to the Gosman’s parking lot.

At the Montauk train station, there could be a small hamlet center, as a result of the redesign of parking and the creation of taxi queuing areas to create “an attractive transportation hub,” Ray DeBiase, the transportation specialist on the consulting team suggested.

Amagansett

In Amagansett, the consultants said, there is the potential for more commercial development. Suggestions included reconfiguring the intersection at Montauk Highway, Abram’s Landing Road, and Old Stone Highway at the railroad crossing, creating room for more parking at the train station, and creating a greenbelt along the highway near the I.G.A. supermarket and another area where additional shops might be located.

Springs 

In Springs, the consultants looked at areas zoned for “neighborhood business” at the eastern and western ends of Fort Pond Boulevard and suggested encouraging landscaping along the street, sidewalks, fewer separate entrances and exits, and parking behind the buildings. “Connectivity,” by developing pedestrian and bike paths, and the area’s trails system, is a key theme.  There is an opportunity, Mr. Flinker said, to create a “recreational crossroads” at the head of Three Mile Harbor, “to expand the town dock area to really turn that into a park where people could come enjoy the waterfront,” and to connect the area to adjoining and nearby marinas and other waterfront areas.

East Hampton

In East Hampton, businesses along Pantigo Road could be connected not only with each other but with nearby Town Hall and the proposed Southampton Hospital satellite emergency room by a back road, avoiding the need to go out onto Montauk Highway to access the various sites, the draft plan suggests.

Another sand pit, along Springs-Fireplace Road, could see extensive development under existing zoning, the consultants noted. With a bakery already operating in a commercial area there, the site could be envisioned as a food business incubator, after mining operations have ceased. Parkland and housing could be accommodated as well.

Befitting the genteel nature of East Hampton Village and its government, Philip O’Connell and Arthur Graham, the two candidates for the village board in the June 20 election, have spoken highly of each other and of the present board. Though their backgrounds differ, their views on most issues are largely in sync.

They are vying for a one-year term.

Mr. O’Connell, who grew up in East Hampton, was appointed to the board in November to serve the remainder of Elbert Edwards’s term following the village trustee’s death in October. He is an attorney and a senior managing director of Corcoran Group Real Estate. A former chairman of the planning board, he is on the village’s planning and zoning committee and is the village’s liaison to the Town of East Hampton’s community preservation fund advisory board.

Mr. Graham, who is known as Tiger, worked in the financial sector in New York City. He bought a house in East Hampton in 1983 and became a year-round resident in 2003. He is a member of the village’s planning board and the East Hampton Historical Society and secretary of the Thomas Moran Trust.

“I feel that I am an able individual,” Mr. Graham, who said he had always hoped to succeed Mr. Edwards upon his retirement, said during an interview with The East Hampton Star’s editorial staff last Thursday. “I think I have good ideas. I think I did a good job as president of the historical society. I think I’ve done a pretty good job as chairman and now secretary of the Thomas Moran Trust.”

For Mr. O’Connell, becoming involved in village government “was all about public service.”

“East Hampton has been very good to me. I absolutely love it here, and I want to give back.” His service on elected and appointed boards “has been a good experience, I’ve learned a lot,” he said. He cited the village board’s recent moves to acquire the property at 8 Osborne Lane for additional parking and a state grant to install an electric-vehicle charging station as two recent accomplishments.

“Phil has done an excellent job,” Mr. Graham said. “But I am running for the seat because I think I also can do an excellent job.”

Asked how they differ, Mr. O’Connell said that both he and Mr. Graham “have what we feel is the village’s best interests at heart. . . . How we differ is, I have more experience in village government at this point.”

“One way I would say we differ is that we come from different work backgrounds, which probably gives us a different way that we look at solving problems,” Mr. Graham said, who thinks of himself “as more market-driven.” 

In a discussion about the village board’s adoption of graduated formulas for coverage and gross floor area on lots larger than one acre, which prompted litigation by several property owners, Mr. Graham said he noticed “a lot of negative pushback” including from a neighbor who is part of the lawsuit. “I understand what the board is trying to address here, which is density,” he said, but “I think they went about it the wrong way.” His neighbor, he said, had been issued a building permit that was invalidated by the code changes. “I get it, but it all happened pretty quickly.”

Mr. O’Connell was sitting on the planning and zoning committee during its study and subsequent recommendation of new formulas to the board. “It went on for probably 12 or 18 months, and there were many iterations,” he said. “I can see both sides of the coin. . . . But something did need to be done, and I think they did it in a manner that addressed the issue and was the least restrictive way to go about it.”

In a wide-ranging discussion about water quality and efforts to mitigate its degradation, Mr. Graham, who sat on a committee that studied Hook and Town Ponds, said that septic systems that sharply reduce nitrogen seepage, which were recently approved by the county, should be required for all new construction, and replacement of aging systems encouraged with financial incentives.

“I wouldn’t be opposed to that,” Mr. O’Connell said of a requirement to install a state-of-the-art septic system in new construction and to replace systems in ecologically sensitive areas. He also endorsed an incentive program to retrofit existing systems.

Both candidates spoke positively about the concept of a sanitary district with specific restrictions, akin to a harbor protection overlay district. “That might be something that planning and zoning may take a look at for around Hook Pond, Town Pond, Georgica,” Mr. O’Connell suggested.

The committee on which Mr. Graham sat discussed creation of such a district, he said. “The houses on Collins, on Accabonac, on Egypt Lane, they all have their septics sitting in the groundwater,” he said. Taxpayers would have to shoulder some financial responsibility, “especially the people in that district, who would be getting a benefit. But there are other sources,” he said, such as the county and, perhaps, the community preservation fund.

The candidates agreed that private property owners should be encouraged to curtail use of chemical fertilizers and to limit excessive fertilizing that contributes to nitrogen loading, but they were wary of legislation mandating that. 

Restrictions on the hours in which construction and landscaping can take place, which the board added to the code in recent years, are adequate, both candidates said, and landscaping companies should not be prohibited from using leaf blowers, which some residents have complained are both noisy and polluting.

“I have a real hard time legislating against somebody’s right to make a living,” Mr. O’Connell said. “They’re local people. To take that efficiency away from them, I have a difficult time with that. . . . I think the village has done a good job there and I’d be hesitant to go further.

“I 100 percent agree,” Mr. Graham said, adding that he had suggested the creation of zones in which landscaping work would be conducted on particular days. “At least that concentrates the noise, it concentrates the landscaping trailers, at one particular time. It would be like herding cats to get these guys to do this, but I still think it’s a good idea.”

With respect to the scarcity of affordable housing, both candidates endorsed creating it, but offered no solutions. “It would be great if we could have affordable housing in the village,” Mr. Graham said. “Unfortunately, the value of property in the village is so high, the density. . . . Where would you put it that you don’t have to tear down somebody’s house?”

The village board, Mr. O’Connell said, “has the responsibility to ask the question, but to Tiger’s point, where do you put it?” He pointed to efforts to create housing in Wainscott and Amagansett, and the resulting community opposition. In the village’s commercial district, “Let’s say we’re in favor of letting people put up three stories,” he said. “It’s going to change the flavor, the look, what everybody likes about the village. Then you have another problem: the effluent that flows out from apartments.”

A member of the village board, Mr. O’Connell said, has “a responsibility to balance preservation with development. You take in all the information, digest it. It’s a fine line to walk, and you hope you’re making the right decision.”

A board member has to be flexible, Mr. Graham said, “because things change every day. And you have to be ready to say the decision we thought was so great last year is not looking so good now. Let’s revisit it and make it better.”

Voting will be held on June 20 between noon and 9 p.m. at the Emergency Services Building at 1 Cedar Street.

Helen S. Rattray, the publisher of The East Hampton Star and its former editor, was inducted Wednesday evening into the Long Island Journalism Hall of Fame along with Jimmy Breslin of the New York Daily News.

The Press Club of Long Island celebrated the inductees and honored journalists from across the Island in a range of media outlets and categories during an awards dinner at Woodbury Country Club.

Carl Corry’s name was added to the contributors wing of the press club's hall of fame for his work with the club and with the Society of Professional Journalists.

The press club named The Suffolk Times as the best community weekly and the Northforker Winepress magazine as best magazine. Newsday won the press club’s Robert W. Greene Public Service Award “for its investigative series on the systemic flaws in Long Island’s judicial system that have allowed hundreds of cases to be sealed from public view despite regulations designed to make the courts more transparent,” according to a release.

Ms. Rattray was introduced on Wednesday by Jack Graves, The Star’s sports editor and a colleague of hers throughout her tenure at the paper. “Journalistically, she’s the tops, given her keen mind, infallible bullshit detector, tenacity, fairness, passionate allegiance to justice and the rule of law, and to her attention to grammatical detail,” Mr. Graves said. He drew a laugh when he said, “She will argue with you over a comma till you may be rendered comatose.” Her instincts, he said, “have always been sure.”

He recalled an instance many years ago when four severed calves heads were found on the beach in Springs. “We were all scratching our heads,” he said, with all sorts of explanations being bandied about. “Had they been ritually slaughtered by drug-crazed hippies? Then as we had more or less given up, Helen asked, ‘Doesn’t Craig Claiborne live near here?’ Well he did, but what did that have do to with anything? Plenty, as it turned out. . . . He and Pierre Franey has been trying to make tete de veau vinaigrette, and in a martini-fueled pique flung the unshorn calves heads over the dunes as good riddance.”

Ms. Rattray became editor and publisher of The Star 37 years ago, upon the death of her husband, Everett T. Rattray, but she had worked alongside him since the summer of 1960, shortly after they were married. “When I became editor, a lot of people were surprised that I could handle it,” she said Thursday. “I wasn’t surprised because I’d been at it for years, with Everett.” She is proud of the innovations she has brought to the paper over the years, including establishing an arts section and a weekly column called “Guestwords,” penned by outside writers, many of them well-known in their fields. She prides herself as well on the paper’s forward-thinking attitude. “We used ‘Ms.’ before The Times did,” she said, and ran announcements of same-sex unions long before same-sex marriage became legal in New York State.

She has always had a special regard for The Star’s letters pages. “Ev used to call it Freedom Hall,” she said Thursday. The Star’s policy is to publish all letters that are exclusive to the paper, provided they are not libelous or obscene. And over the years, “there were often really offensive letters,” Ms. Rattray said. While she may have disagreed with their content, she argued for and defended their publication as a First Amendment right, saying that "you don’t need a law to protect speech that everybody likes.”

Ms. Rattray continued as editor for 21 years before turning that job over to her son David E. Rattray.

The East Hampton Town Trustees ordered Georgica Pond closed on Friday after getting a report of toxic blue-green algae there from Suffolk officials.

According to a statement issued Friday afternoon by the Suffolk Department of Health Services, researchers from the State University of New York Stony Brook detected the presence of cyanobacteria in Georgica and at Maratooka Pond in Mattituck.

Cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, skin and eye irritation, allergic reactions, and breathing problems. The Health Department has advised the public not to or swim or wade in contaminated waters and to keep pets and children away until the warnings are lifted. In the case of accidental contact, the county advises that people rinse themselves off with clean water immediately and seek medical attention if symptoms arise.

"Though blue-green algae are naturally present in lakes and streams in low numbers, they can become abundant, forming blooms in shades of green, blue-green, yellow, brown or red. They may produce floating scums on the surface of the water or may cause the water to take on paint-like appearance," the county said.

Georgica Pond has frequently been closed due to cyanobacteria in recent years. A private group got permission in 2016 to remove algae from the pond in an effort to improve its water quality and reduce the chances of more toxic blooms.

In May, a number of Georgica area homeowners asked the town trustees to open the pond to the ocean temporarily because they believed the conditions were right for a cyanobacteria bloom. Their request was not acted on due to the presence of nesting piping plovers, a protected species, and a longstanding jurisdictional conflict between the trustees and state authorities.

A list of affected water bodies is available at the New York Department of Environmental Conservation's harmful algal bloom notification page at http://www.dec.ny.gov/chemical/83310.html

Georgica will remain closed until algae levels drop.

In volunteer fire departments in small towns everywhere, generations of families are not difficult to find on the rolls, past and present. Sons follow fathers into the same fire company, learning the ropes and working on hose lines together. More unusual is a son becoming a chief while his old man is still an active member, and rarer still, particularly here on the South Fork, is finding such a duo of African-American descent.

In April of last year, Jamalia Hayes became the first black chief in the East Hampton Fire Department when he was elected to the position of second assistant chief. His father, Dudley Hayes, who joined the department in 2002, three years before his son, could not be prouder to serve under him.

The Hayes family has strong roots in East Hampton Town. The elder Mr. Hayes said his ancestors were among the first black families to live in the area, on Promised Land in Amagansett. He grew up here and has always had a deep appreciation for East Hampton, but as he got older, he said, he felt something was missing in his life. He wanted to give back to the community.

A co-worker at Riverhead Building Supply finally convinced him. He then remembered Ken Brown, a former police officer he has known since he was a child attending Boy Scout meetings in the old firehouse on Newtown Lane, telling him, “ ‘You’re going to be surprised how many people you know in there.’ He was telling the truth.”

He may have known everyone, but he was only the department’s second black firefighter, Ernie Vorpahl, the first, having joined in 1998.

At 46 — older than most firefighters when they start out — Dudley Hayes joined Company 3 as an exterior firefighter, responsible for pumping water during fires. His fellow volunteers embraced him, taking him into blazes to get a feel for them, although, he said, he understood quickly that interior firefighting was not for him. He is quiet, does not like much attention, and has a steady hand, perfect for the meticulous work of running the truck.

His son watched as his father got more involved, quickly becoming a lieutenant and then a captain. Jamalia Hayes joined Company 3 in 2005.

His father graduated from East Hampton High School in the class of 1976 with Ken Wessberg, the head chief, who serves ahead of Chief Hayes with Gerry Turza, the first assistant chief.

“Dudley and I go back to kindergarten,” said Chief Wessberg, a 40-year member. He was glad when his friend finally joined the department, he said, and saw that he worked hard to train and become a good firefighter.

“I always thought Dudley would be the first black chief,” he said. “He could have been,” he added. Chief Wessberg said he knows his friend can be hard on himself. “As big as he is, he gets a little shy.”

Dudley Hayes, now 59, said he had a feeling he was being groomed to become a chief, but he preferred being “a black hat,” as opposed to a white hat, as chiefs are known. The chiefs and officers answer the majority of the calls, mostly automatic fire alarms. When he was an officer, he would sleep with his socks on so he could get out of the house faster in the middle of the night.

His son is better suited to the position of chief, more outgoing. “He’s got his mother’s genes,” Chief Wessberg said with a laugh.

Chief Wessberg said Jamalia Hayes becoming the first black chief in the department’s history was one of his proudest moments, and he is sure the 36-year-old will rise through the ranks to the head chief position. “He’s going to be a young great chief.”

It must not be easy, Chief Wessberg said, to join a fraternal organization and see that “every picture on the wall from 1899 on is white.” But, like his father before him, Chief Hayes has not skipped a beat.

Richard Osterberg Jr., who was chief until April 2016, called him “one of the most humble and hard-working men I know. His smile is just as contagious as his father’s laugh is.”

His disposition helps keep morale up. While other volunteer organizations struggle to retain and recruit new members, “We’re fortunate that we still have applications coming in,” Chief Wessberg said. Some companies are full. Having an influx of minority members over the last decade, including Latinos and Asians, has been a welcome change, he said.

“I’m proud,” the elder Mr. Hayes said of his son’s new position. “My whole family is proud.”

“I feel it’s an honor,” his son said, adding that he has never felt race was an issue in the department. He just wants to do a good job and serve the community well, he said.

Being a chief is no easy task, of course. The department answers about 1,000 calls a year. It involves a lot of time away from his family, which includes a 15-year-old son, Jordon, and a 2-year-old daughter, Jay'La. This on top of working full time for Mike Forst Construction.

“Jamalia was raised with good values, and it shows in his work,” Chief Turza said.

Asked if it was difficult taking orders from his son, Mr. Hayes said, “To tell you the truth, he doesn’t give me any,” which elicited a laugh from both father and son. They have a running joke that if the chief ever wants to suspend his father for stepping out of line, he would be happy to take the 30 days.

But in seriousness, Chief Hayes said his father knows what he is doing and does not need instruction. “We’re just here to put out the fire at the end of the day.”

The elder Mr. Hayes said all three of his sons go out of their way to make sure he does less the older he gets, whether around the house or on his side job.

“It’s how we were brought up,” Chief Hayes explained. His father and his mother, Gail Hayes, “brought us up well.”

And that, his father said, is what makes him proudest of all.

Fred Havemeyer, who served as a Southampton Town trustee for more than 10 years, announced this week that he plans to challenge Supervisor Jay Schneiderman for the Democratic line in a September primary. Mr. Schneiderman is an Independence Party member who has been endorsed by the Democrats.

While he left the trustees in 2013, Mr. Havemeyer, a Bridgehampton resident, has not stayed out of Town Hall completely, speaking out in recent years against various planned development districts, including the Bridgehampton Gateway and the Tuckahoe Center. But it is the Hills at Southampton, a pending application for a subdivision and golf course in East Quogue, that led to his decision to run.

He did not screen with the Democrats this spring, but decided to run at the behest of the Long Island Environmental Voters Forum, a group opposed to the Hills. Mr. Havemeyer and the group share the concern that the project, proposed over a sole-source aquifer, would be a danger to the environment. He believes Mr. Schneiderman has postponed making difficult decisions.

“Jay, where are you, my friend?” Mr. Havemeyer said by phone on Tuesday. “You can’t govern by dithering, because what happens is the community is still in turmoil.”

Mr. Schneiderman took exception to that. “I don’t dither. I’m just careful. I do my homework,” he said by phone yesterday. “People who rush things, they unravel later on.”

The town board is awaiting an environmental impact statement, and there are statutory guidelines in place, Mr. Schneiderman said. “Fred wants to take advantage of the fact that I can’t ethically take a position on the Hills until the process concludes, otherwise it would be seen as bias.”

Mr. Schneiderman, a Southampton Village resident who owns residential and commercial property in Montauk, said his three-decade record as a county legislator and East Hampton Town supervisor proves that the environment has been, and will continue to be, his top consideration. In his recent state of the town address, he pledged to promote and protect the town’s natural resources.

“Jay is an outstanding steward of our environment and to suggest otherwise is not warranted,” said Gordon Herr, the chairman of the Southampton Town Democratic Committee.

“He’s a one-issue candidate. He wants to kill the Hills,” Mr. Schneiderman said of Mr. Havemeyer. “I’m not a single-issue candidate. . . . I’ve never just been about the environment,” he said, adding that his focus ranges from affordable housing to public transportation and traffic.

While both men agree that planned development districts — legislation that has been under review for the past year during a moratorium on new P.D.D. applications — need to go, Mr. Havemeyer took a shot at Mr. Schneiderman for not moving more quickly to repeal the law. The supervisor recently proposed a repeal, which is coming up for public hearing at the end of the month.

Again, Mr. Schneiderman said it was important to study the law first. “I make merit-based decisions, not emotional decisions.”

As a trustee, Mr. Havemeyer, a former sportfishing captain and fashion photographer, said he was committed to preserving the waterways, plagued by cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae. But no one is addressing overdevelopment, which is at the root of the problem, he said.

If elected, “I would do a nationwide search to find a really good planner who has experience with this type of situation and sit down and really work on it, really chew on the bone, to find out what we can do to bring Southampton Town back into balance,” he said.

Mr. Havemeyer has to collect 500 signatures to force a primary, which would be held on Sept. 12.

Correction: The primary is Sept. 12, not Sept. 18 as originally reported.