A resident of Hamilton Street in Sag Harbor told police there on Friday that many thousands of dollars’ worth of jewelry, last seen on April 13, was gone a month later, stolen from an upstairs bedroom dresser.
Tanya Zaben gave police a long list of missing items, with a total value of more than $10,000. She said she had had workers in the house from several contractors during that time period. An investigation is continuing.
Despite President Trump’s efforts to roll back many of the former first lady Michelle Obama’s healthy eating rules for schools, Beth Doyle, the principal of the John M. Marshall Elementary School, believes schools need to do more, not less, to help students develop healthy attitudes toward food and lifestyle.
Ms. Doyle is hoping that parents will attend her presentation on Friday, June 9, at 9:15 a.m., as it will unveil the school’s new health and wellness policies as of September. Before setting the guidelines in stone, she wants to receive as much feedback from residents as possible and wants parents to be involved in these decisions so they can be deliberate about championing healthy living at home as well as school.
The idea for a lifestyle overhaul germinated during the Shadow a Student Challenge back in February. Ms. Doyle and Russell Morgan, the school’s assistant principal, each spent a day following a student in the hope that by seeing the school through students’ eyes they might identify ways to improve the John Marshall experience.
One startling discovery that surfaced that day was the amount of sugar being ingested by her young charges on a daily basis. She also made note of the endless food-related celebrations such as birthdays and Valentine’s Day and Halloween parties that took place in classrooms, as well as the long stretches during the day when kids remained sedentary, with no outlet for physical activity.
Ms. Doyle decided that her job as an educator should include being a role model for better health. “School shouldn’t just be about learning English or math,” she said, “it should also be about encouraging good habits.”
She and Mr. Morgan brainstormed with staff members. They asked for feedback from residents and conducted a food survey of fourth and fifth graders and their parents. The school set up a wellness committee, and the PTA wholeheartedly signed on.
In a document to school parents, the committee’s goals were defined as “looking for ways to improve several aspects of wellness at J.M.M.E.S., including nutrition education for students, parents, and faculty; increasing opportunities for physical activity; reducing junk food in school, and connecting the school garden to wellness efforts.”
Ms. Doyle next contacted the Wellness Foundation in Sag Harbor, and with the help of Michele Sacconaghi, its president and chief executive officer, she came up with a plan. “The first thing Michele helped me do was write a set of guidelines, because that’s the greatest equalizer. Here’s what you can do, here’s what you cannot,” Ms. Doyle explained.
She foresees that the biggest hurdle in the new guidelines will involve cupcakes. “Kids will absolutely still be celebrating their birthdays in the classroom, but for kindergarten through second grade, these will no longer involve food. In third to fifth grades, students will be asked to bring healthy food items only,” she said.
She knows there will be disappointment among the youngsters and even parents, but she pointed out that food-focused birthday celebrations were already problematic, causing inequalities in some classrooms. She told of how a child brought in cupcakes for everyone recently, while another child also celebrating a birthday could not afford to do so.
“It was heartbreaking,” she said. “This will help level the field.”
Ms. Doyle stressed the fact that birthdays at school will remain fun and joyful occasions, but she would like to teach children to celebrate in more meaningful ways than devouring a cupcake. One recent example of alternative celebrations involved every child in a classroom writing something positive about the birthday boy and then placing all the notes in a box, which was given to him as a present.
“That’s something this student will keep for the rest of his life,” she said. “A cupcake is gone in a minute.”
Increased physical activity during the day will also be implemented throughout the elementary school come September — more outdoor time, Ms. Doyle promised, as well as more work in the backyard garden. The school will continue its practice with “brain breaks,” in which students get a 10 to 15-minute break in their classrooms to move around, stretch, meditate, and hit the reset button.
Ms. Doyle’s desire to see that healthy living is put into practice comes from a personal place. Her father died of complications of diabetes when he was 53. “Who knows, if he had been exposed to healthy living habits from an early age and exercised more regularly, maybe he would have lived longer.”
With so much going on around us on the East End every summer, some might forget to look up. But to the founders of the Montauk Observatory, the heavens, and our unobstructed view of stars, planets, and the Milky Way are worthy of attention — and a decade of effort.
With an observatory building nearing completion on the campus of the Ross School in East Hampton, which donated a space, it will not be long before scientists and amateur astronomers will be able to book a slot online and remotely command the observatory roof to slide open, allowing a professional-grade telescope to home in and transmit a view of the night sky to a user’s computer screen. The eventual addition of a camera will allow people using the telescope to photograph celestial images.
“As a kid I was an amateur astronomer,” Terry Bienstock, the president of the Montauk Observatory’s executive board, said this week. For decades, he said, “life got in the way.” Now semiretired (he was an executive vice president and general counsel for Comcast Cable Communications), he decided he wanted to provide opportunities for youngsters who shared his interest and help to advance science studies on the East End.
Ten years ago, after reading about an effort by former East Hampton Town Supervisor and County Legislator Jay Schneiderman (now the Southampton supervisor) to have a telescope installed at the Montauk County Park, Mr. Bienstock got on board.
Mr. Schneiderman had found a large telescope available for sale at the Biosphere II earth sciences research facility in Arizona and had gotten the county to approve its purchase for $250,000. When the county executive vetoed the expenditure, Mr. Bienstock and several others formed a private group to raise the money.
After two astronomers they flew out to Arizona gave the Biosphere telescope the thumbs-up, the group — which included Susan Harder, the founder of the Dark Sky Society in East Hampton; Sean Tvelia, a Suffolk County Community College physical science professor and a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society; Matthew Putnam, a Columbia University professor and researcher with a doctorate in applied physics, and David Larkin, a businessman — set to work to raise some $400,000 to cover both the telescope and a building to enclose it at the park. Years of wrangling to secure an agreement for a permanent home base ensued. The county park was abandoned and the Ross School stepped up.
In the meantime, however, the astronomy group had a stroke of luck. Perusing an astronomy magazine, Mr. Bienstock learned about plans by Meade Instruments, a leading telescope manufacturer, to mass-produce professional-grade telescopes for the first time at a $35,000 sale price. “That changed everything,” Mr. Bienstock said.
With a call to Meade’s C.E.O., he secured a promise for the chance to purchase the first one off the assembly line.
A motorized ramp allowed users to roll the telescope in and out of a storage shed at the Montauk County Park, and “we started having star parties and events and lectures,” Mr. Bienstock said.
Through a partnership with the American Museum of Natural History’s Rose Planetarium, speakers — about one a month throughout the year — have included astrophysicists and other scientists as well as authors of nonfiction science works such as Dava Sobel. The group also bought a portable StarLab planetarium, which has been set up for shows at schools and other sites. A collection of small telescopes allows for stargazing programs at a variety of locations and customized “star parties” led by astronomers.
“Our goal was to make everything we do available to the public for free,” Mr. Bienstock said. A prefabricated 15-by-15-foot observatory building was donated by the Custer Institute in Southold, another astronomy group, and setup is being completed at the Ross School with the help of Tom Frey Construction. Ongoing fund-raising is conducted for the construction and for educational programs.
“We have a fantastic summer program,” Mr. Bienstock said this week. It begins on June 21, the summer solstice, with a program at the Montauk Library at which William Francis Taylor, a NASA Solar System Ambassador, will discuss the nature and history of the solstice. Sky observations, weather permitting, will follow. In August there will be programs leading up to and observing the Aug. 21 solar eclipse. Complete information can be found at montaukobservatory.com, or those interested may sign up for email alerts by contacting Donna McCormack, the observatory’s director, at [email protected].
Ms. McCormack was involved in the Custer Institute before taking the reins here, and was a researcher in parapsychology at the American Society for Psychical Research in New York City. With a research faculty that included scientists, psychologists, and engineering professors from Princeton, Harvard, and Yale, the institute, Ms. McCormack said, was “investigating various states of consciousness,” and doing lab work “trying to get at the nature of the phenomena.”
“It was a fascination of mine for many years,” said Ms. McCormack, who studied psychology, education, and was in nonprofit administration and development. “I was always curious about human nature . . . our experience on Earth . . . things that are less understood.”
She and the others involved hope that, once completed, the Montauk Observatory telescope and building will help to pique curiosity and spur scientific and other inquiry.
Dina Merrill, the actress and philanthropist whose own life story was at least as engaging as those of the women she portrayed in more than 25 Hollywood films, died on Monday at her oceanfront house on Highway Behind the Pond in East Hampton. In declining health with a form of dementia for a number of years, she had returned last Thursday to the place she was said to love the most. She was 93.
Nedenia Marjorie Hutton was born on Dec. 9, 1923, the only daughter of E.F. Hutton, an investment broker, and Marjorie Merriweather Post, an heiress whose winter residence, Mar-a-Lago, was purchased in 1985 and converted to a private club by Donald J. Trump.
Having enrolled at George Washington University, she dropped out to attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, dreaming of becoming an actress. Her father did not approve, and she chose to use the last name Merrill, as in Merrill Lynch — a competing Wall Street firm — at the beginning of her career.
As a young woman, Ms. Merrill, a blue-eyed blonde, modeled for Vogue magazine and had a small role in the 1945 production of “The Mermaids Singing” on Broadway. She gave up acting after marrying Stanley M. Rumbough Jr. in 1946. Years later, in a press interview, Ms. Merrill said she had turned down a seven-year film contract and a picture with Clark Gable.
According to their daughter, Nina Rumbough Roosenburg, who also spends time in East Hampton, her parents were drawn here by the lifestyle and facilities at the Maidstone Club. In 1957, they built the house her mother was to love for the next 60 years, a one-story California contemporary that was not in keeping with local tradition. Although she had not played sports as a child, Ms. Merrill excelled as an adult at tennis, golf, and skiing, her daughter said. She won the women’s Drew Cup at the Maidstone, while her husband won the men’s Herrick Cup, and they played mixed doubles at the French Open.
“Yes, she was glamorous, and beautiful, and social, but she did not live a fancy life,” Ms. Roosenburg said. “The strongest thing that I have taken away from her is her incredible work ethic.” With hard work and dedication, her mother accomplished many things, she said, from leading Hollywood roles to a fine cutting garden in East Hampton.
The couple split in 1963, after a tragic boating accident in Gardiner’s Bay that claimed the life of their son, David Post Rumbough, at the age of 23. Ms. Merrill’s second marriage, to the actor Cliff Robertson in 1966, lasted for 19 years.
Among the films for which she was noted are “Butterfield 8,” “Operation Petticoat,” “Caddyshack II,” and “The Sundowners.” She finally starred on Broadway, in “Angel Street,” in 1975 and later in Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest.” She starred on TV in “What Made Sunny Run,” hosted a 1987 series called “Décor,” and appeared on television some 100 times.
Ms. Merrill and Ted Hartley, who survives, were married in 1989. As C.E.O. of the RKO Corporation, he produced the film “Milk and Honey,” in which she had the leading role. It premiered at the Hamptons International Film Festival in 1996.
Most notably in East Hampton, Ms. Merrill was committed to Guild Hall, which presented her with a Lifetime Achievement in the Arts award in 2011 and recognized her dedication by naming its lobby, theater, and other theatrical areas the Dina Merrill Pavilion.
Among the charitable organizations Ms. Merrill worked with were the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, which she founded after her son David was diagnosed with the disease at 13; the New York Mission Society, and Southampton Hospital, whose summer fund-raising gala she chaired in 1976. She was a founding board member of ORBIS, an international organization dedicated to saving sight worldwide, and served on the boards of the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, the Paley Media Center, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. With Mr. Hartley, she created the international Hartley-Merrill Prize for Screenwriting and the Story Project. A liberal Republican, she also served as president of the Republican Pro-Choice Coalition.
In addition to her husband and daughter, Ms. Merrill is survived by a son, Stanley M. Rumbough of Greenwich, Conn., a stepson, Philippe Hartley, who lives in California, six grandchildren, four step-grandchildren, and two step-great-grandchildren. Her daughter with Mr. Robertson, Heather, died of cancer in 2007.
The stage may have been set last week for primary bids for East Hampton Town Board nominations in advance of the November election.
The East Hampton Democratic Committee formally nominated its candidates for townwide offices on May 17. On Friday, the East Hampton Independence Party endorsed three Democrats in the races for town supervisor and town board, passing over Jerry Larsen, an Independence Party member who is running for town board on the Republican ticket, and his G.O.P. running mates.
The Independence Party will back Peter Van Scoyoc, a councilman who is running for supervisor, and the town board candidates, Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, an incumbent councilwoman, and Jeffrey Bragman, an attorney who has represented the town’s architectural review board, zoning board of appeals, and planning board, as well as applicants before various planning and zoning boards.
Mr. Larsen is expected to try to force a primary for the nomination. Zachary Cohen, a Democrat who has vowed to do the same for his party’s nomination, was among the candidates interviewed by the Independence Party, but did not win its support.
“It was a very difficult decision,” Elaine Jones, the Independence Party chairwoman, said yesterday of the endorsements for town board. “It was a matter of one vote. The majority of the committee wanted to vote for Kathee” over Mr. Larsen, she said. But until the nominating petitions are sent to Frank McKay, the party’s state chairman, “we can change our mind.”
Manny Vilar, the Republican Party’s candidate for supervisor, was interviewed but did not get her party’s endorsement, nor did Paul Giardina, a Republican candidate for town board who was also interviewed.
Candidates seeking to force a primary election must file a petition with the requisite number of signatures from people registered with that party, according to the Suffolk County Board of Elections. For a Democratic Party primary in East Hampton Town, a minimum of 353 signatures is required; for an Independence Party primary, the minimum number is 55. Candidates can begin collecting signatures on June 6. Petitions are due between July 10 and 13. The primary elections are on Sept. 12 this year.
For the nine seats on the East Hampton Town Trustees, the Independence Party chose five Republicans and four Democrats. On the Republican side are Diane McNally, an incumbent and the trustees’ former longtime clerk; Joe Bloecker, a former trustee; and Susan Vorpahl, Lyndsey Hayes, and Gary Cobb, all making their first bid. Jim Grimes, an incumbent who was interviewed, did not receive the party’s backing.
The Independence Party endorsed Rick Drew and Bill Taylor, both Democratic incumbents and the trustees’ two deputy clerks, as well as John Aldred, a new candidate, and Rona Klopman. Ms. Klopman is a former candidate and was added to the Democratic ticket after Tyler Armstrong, a first-term trustee, announced this month that he would not seek re-election.
The Independence Party endorsed Eugene DePasquale, the incumbent assessor and a Democrat; East Hampton Town Justice Steven Tekulsky, a Democrat; Steven Lynch, the incumbent highway superintendent and a Republican, and Carole Brennan, the incumbent town clerk, who is not affiliated with a party.
“It was a difficult decision to choose from the many qualified candidates that screened,” Ms. Jones and Pat Mansir, the Independence Party vice chairwoman, wrote in a statement, “but we believe that we chose those who would work to keep East Hampton the beautiful town that it is.”
The Democrats unanimously nominated Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc for supervisor and Kathee Burke-Gonzalez and Jeffrey Bragman for town board. Ms. Burke-Gonzalez is an incumbent seeking a second term. Mr. Bragman, an attorney, is a first-time candidate.
In his acceptance speech, Mr. Van Scoyoc, the deputy supervisor who is serving his second four-year term on the town board, discussed the need to work together in the upcoming campaign and the contrast with the local Republican candidates, according to a statement issued by the party this week. Before being elected as a councilman, he served six years on the town’s planning board and five on its zoning board of appeals.
“My vision for the future of East Hampton is one that is forever vigilant in protecting our water quality and natural resources, a future that respects our history, traditions, and diversity, a future that sustains us and provides greater opportunities for our citizens,” he said.
Ms. Burke-Gonzalez discussed the demands of working on the town board. “I love our community,” she said. “East Hampton is an extraordinary place to live, work, and raise a family. And I, like all of you, want to see it preserved and protected.” She also spoke of diversity as strength, something that creates acceptance and compassion.
Mr. Bragman spoke about living and working as a lawyer in East Hampton for 30 years, and raising his son here. East Hampton, he said, “is not a reality TV show, a brand name, or the Hamptons.”
For town trustee, the Democrats endorsed Francis Bock, Mr. Drew, Mr. Taylor, and Brian Byrnes, all incumbents. Ms. Klopman, Mr. Aldred, Dell Cullum, Susan McGraw Keber, and Francesca Rheannon round out the slate of trustee candidates.
The Democrats also endorsed Justice Steven Tekulsky, Mr. DePasquale for assessor, Ms. Brennan for town clerk, and Mr. Lynch for highway superintendent.
The Democrats will launch their campaign with a party on June 11 from 4 to 6 p.m. at Harbor Bistro in East Hampton. Election Day is Nov. 7.
A couple getting their Springs house ready for the summer rental season lost everything on Saturday night to a fire that presented challenges for firefighters, not the least of which were radio communications in a known problem area.
The fire started on the roof of 99 Talmage Farm Lane, according to Tom Baker, an East Hampton Town fire marshal who looked into its cause. He said a wood-burning fireplace was in use, and it appeared that “a piece of paper flew up and landed on the roof,” sparking a blaze on the “old, dry cedar roof.”
Mr. Baker said there was no spark-arrestor on the chimney, a device that prevents the emission of flammable debris. He said all chimneys should have them.
When firefighters responded to the 9:40 p.m. alarm, they found the roof engulfed in flames. Fire personnel responded quickly, Mr. Baker said, because many were already en route to a dryer fire elsewhere in the district. That blaze was put out by the first arriving officers; others were able to detour to Talmage Farm Lane.
“It was visible from Springs-Fireplace Road,” said Springs Fire Department Chief Peter Grimes.
The homeowners, Suzanne and Jeff Hines, made it out safely with their pets. Ms. Hines told the fire marshal she discovered the fire after seeing a glow outside and stepping out to see what it was. The smoke detectors in the house did not go off. There was no smoke on the first floor and only light smoke upstairs, Chief Grimes said.
Firefighters had to pull out a ceiling between the attic and the second floor to get to the fire, which had spread to the attic, the chief said. The fire destroyed the roof, the attic, and the second floor, Mr. Baker said. The rest of the four-bedroom, three-bath house had water damage. Firefighters also used a foam fire suppressant.
It was a “tough fight,” said Mr. Baker. The only water sources were 1,000 feet in either direction from the house, and firefighters had to rely solely on tanker trucks shuttling water to a dump tank.
Chief Grimes said the firefighters had “nonstop communication problems.” The Springs Fire District had a 150-foot-tall communications tower built behind the Fort Pond Boulevard firehouse and equipped it with devices that would enhance radio and pager communications for fire and ambulance personnel, as well as cellular communications. The tower was paid for by a company that leased space on the antenna to cellphone service providers.
After it was built, however, neighbors — many of them on Talmage Farm Lane, which abuts the fire district property to the north — complained. The East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals found that the fire district had to seek site plan approval, even though the Building Department had granted a permit.
The tower is currently not being utilized. The fire district is suing the zoning board, challenging its determination that building inspectors acted incorrectly in allowing its construction.
“It’s frustrating. I could hit the tower with a rock, but we can’t use it,” Chief Grimes said. When he or the fire coordinator needed to communicate with public safety dispatchers, he said, they only heard “every other word of it.” Communications at the scene were also difficult. Firefighters had to run from one place to another to relay orders — if, for example, a ladder was wanted — rather than use radio communication. “It burns up usable manpower,” the chief said. “It was extremely aggravating.”
The volunteers did what they could, with help from the East Hampton, Amagansett, and Springs departments.
While some items on the first floor may be salvageable, Mr. Baker said the Hineses, who are year-round residents, lost most of their belongings.
According to a listing on Zillow, the 2,500-square-foot house with a pool could be rented from Memorial Day through Labor Day for $55,000. “The fact that they had renters means they had someplace to go,” the fire marshal said. The homeowners could not be reached for comment.
As residents and elected officials ponder the Town of East Hampton’s present, in which some waterways are compromised and closed to the harvesting of shellfish, and a future amid projections of sea level rise, more storms of greater intensity, and resulting erosion, Concerned Citizens of Montauk, an environmental advocate for the easternmost hamlet, is poised to protect its natural resources as it has for almost 50 years.
Laura Tooman assumed the presidency of the group on May 1, just as the town embarked on a monumental effort to protect groundwater, a coastal assessment resiliency plan is developed, hamlet studies proceed, and the summer visitors arrive.
Ms. Tooman comes prepared. For the last six years, she served as executive assistant to Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. Previously, she worked for the State Department of Environmental Conservation and the Peconic Estuary Program. She holds a master’s degree in environmental policy.
Mr. Thiele, she said, “is a champion for the environment, and that’s one of the things that attracted me toward him — he was so passionate, he really did care, and he did so many great things.” Hands-on work to allow up to 20 percent of the community preservation fund to be appropriated for water initiatives, which voters resoundingly approved in November, was among her accomplishments with Mr. Thiele, she said. “It was an amazing experience.”
But C.C.O.M. “had, over the last couple of years, grown into a very well respected organization,” she said. “It seemed like a really good fit, what the organization had grown to and where they want to go. It fits very well with my strengths, and with wanting to take the helm and see what we could do.”
Ms. Tooman “presents a unique blend of environmental policy, community organizing, and strategic thinking that will serve both C.C.O.M. and the Montauk community very well,” said Jeremy Samuelson, her immediate predecessor. Between the water-quality improvement effort, coastal resiliency planning, and the hamlet studies that will produce a roadmap for the town’s future, “it takes a very experienced hand to navigate all those simultaneously, and keep an eye on the planning and zoning applications that are coming in,” said Mr. Samuelson, who is now director of the Nature Conservancy’s Mashomack Preserve on Shelter Island. “Laura is in for a very busy summer, but she is also the right person to handle this very diverse position.”
Concerned Citizens of Montauk and Mr. Thiele’s office had worked closely on Army Corps of Engineers projects, including the controversial downtown beach replenishment effort. “The Army Corps has had to come back multiple times since the project was finished, simply because Mother Nature has a different path for us,” she said of the 2016 placement of a 3,100-foot-long sandbag seawall. “That indicates to us that what was done was not sufficient.”
C.C.O.M., she said, supports sand-only replenishment, opposing additional sandbags or revetments. “That’s why we’re working with the Army Corps and Congressman Lee Zeldin right now.” She hoped that the Fire Island to Montauk Point shoreline project, or FIMP, which has not been finalized, would provide for as many as 700,000 cubic yards of sand every four years. “We’re not sure what we will see for downtown,” she said, “but we are pushing sand-only projects.”
What FIMP ultimately delivers may not be enough, Ms. Tooman said. “At least in Montauk, we need to start thinking about a longer-term solution,” be it a retreat from the ocean, continued beach renourishment, or both. “I think we’re going to see a longer-term strategy identified when that coastal assessment resiliency plan is done.”
Ms. Tooman, who lives in Sag Harbor with her husband, Damien, and their daughter, Rylee, who is 3 months old, said that along with C.C.O.M.’s outreach to the town and state and federal agencies, getting individuals involved is key to water-quality improvement. C.C.O.M.’s Save the Lake, Save the Pond initiative is a program aimed at reducing nitrogen loading in Lake Montauk and Fort Pond. Those taking part receive an assessment of better practices on their property, such as septic system inspection, repair, or upgrade; ways to slow, store, and filter stormwater, and toxin-free landscaping.
“There’s only so much we can do on our own,” Ms. Tooman said. “It’s private property owners who really need to do their part, too.”
Residential and commercial property owners alike have been encouraged to participate. Concerned Citizens of Montauk will hold a cocktail party at Gosman’s restaurant on June 16 from 5 to 7 p.m., serving as both a member appreciation party and an invitation to new participants.
“We’re hoping to get 100 people signed up for the program,” Ms. Tooman said. “That is a really good thing that people should contact us about if they’re interested. We’d be happy to set up a site visit and go from there.”
C.C.O.M., she said, will help the hamlet’s residents take advantage of incentives to replace aging septic systems and those in environmentally sensitive areas once the town finalizes a plan and incorporates the up-to 20 percent of C.P.F. money allocated to water quality. The town board will hold a public hearing on proposed legislation allowing up to $15,000 in subsidies to replace such systems on June 15.
Town officials, Ms. Tooman said, “clearly recognize that it’s important. I don’t think the program is going to be perfect, but no one’s ever done it. It’s going to be a learning process. I think it’s going to be a great program townwide, but in Montauk especially — there are many of us who can’t even afford maintenance on our system, let alone a new system that is going to reduce the nitrogen that we’re putting in the water.”
Decades after its formation in 1970 to prevent the construction of 1,400 houses near Big Reed Pond, the mission of Concerned Citizens of Montauk continues. As the hamlet absorbs ever more visitors, sustainable practices and the preservation of its natural beauty become both more important and more challenging.
“People want to be here because it’s beautiful,” Ms. Tooman said, “but we need to make sure when people come out here and build or redo their home, they’re doing it in a sustainable manner that is not going to impact the environment or our groundwater.”
As restaurateurs gear up for Memorial Day weekend and the start of the moneymaking season, some are criticizing a proposed new law that they say would affect patrons waiting to be seated.
Under the present code, restaurants are allowed to move up to 30 percent of their approved indoor seating capacity outdoors, a popular option during the balmy months. Under the proposed regulation, described as “intended to clarify when a restaurant may devote a percentage of its indoor seating capacity to outdoor seating for dining,” restaurants could add even more seats outdoors, beyond the 30-percent limit, without reducing indoor seats by the same amount, provided the planning board approves.
But the new provision, in describing the intent of the code (“Outdoor dining is limited to tables and chairs for the service of restaurant food and beverages incidental to the service of food”), also uses language that makes it, according to a group calling itself the Concerned Businesses of East Hampton and Montauk, “a no-fun code.”
An outdoor dining area, says the draft law, “does not allow for a waiting area, a standing area, or an area for the service of beverages (alcoholic or otherwise) prior to being seated for dining, after dining, or an area only to participate in entertainment (music) provided by the restaurant.”
That, according to an ad placed in today’s Star by the business group, amounts to an “absurd town government power grab” and an “ill-timed and poorly considered change” that will put businesses at risk of failure.
“The new greeting in East Hampton and Montauk will be, ‘Go back on the street and we will call you when you can come on our property to sit at a table for dinner.’ You are no longer permitted to have a beer in our outdoor area, nor are you allowed to order a soft drink for your child while waiting for your table. This government bill makes no provision for the prospective customer,” says the ad by the group, which is represented by Lawrence Kelly, an attorney who has gone head-to-head with the town on numerous related issues.
“Businesses are being directed by government to eliminate any form of customer ambiance, service or regard for a prospective customer. We are also being directed to manhandle a customer off the property who wants to stay on our property after dinner,” the ad says.
As more restaurants become places not only to dine but to hang out and socialize with drinks and light fare, or listen to music, many have added outdoor lounge furniture, daybeds, and other amenities such as fire pits.
According to Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, who as liaison to the Town Planning Department is a sponsor of the legislation, such amenities push the boundaries of the outdoor dining option, constituting an expansion of business, with accompanying increases in traffic, parking, and demand on sanitary facilities. “We want to open the door for outdoor dining, but don’t start bringing everything outside with it, because it’s going to affect parking, septic, and other things,” Ms. Overby said Tuesday.
The business group charges in its ad that “the town has failed to identify any problem required to be solved by the change.” But Ms. Overby said that the proposed law was drawn up with input from the various town departments involved in code enforcement and quality-of-life complaints.
Problems arise when businesses host more people, for longer periods of time, than had been anticipated, Ms. Overby said, and increase the intensity of use without the benefit of site-plan review, through which the planning board may impose conditions addressing potential problems.
The town board will hold a hearing next Thursday on the proposed changes, beginning at 6:30 p.m. at Town Hall. The board voted earlier this month to schedule the hearing with little discussion of the particulars, and the draft law, which was drawn up by Nancylynn Thiele, a town attorney, was not circulated to the town’s business advisory committee for comment. That group is now examining it, Ms. Overby said, and all comments on the proposal will be taken into account. The town board “will have the decision to delay it, to change it, to go to other boards,” she said.
Meanwhile, the opposition business group charges in its ad that the new provision, “created by government employees with no background in hospitality and virtually no input from local businesses or residents, would doom many East Hampton Town businesses before the July 4th holiday. There are dozens of resorts and restaurants in Montauk alone at risk.”
If enacted, the ad says, “the change will force enormous expenditures by many establishments (both big and small) to fight this absurd legislation.”
Jefferson Davis Eames, 48, accused of hosting parties at which there was under-age drinking and drug use, pleaded guilty in East Hampton Town Justice Court Thursday to five misdemeanor charges and one violation.
In exchange for that plea, dozens of other charges, including one felony, were dropped. The deal, worked out between Rudy Migliore Jr., an assistant district attorney, and Mr. Eames’s legal team of Eileen Powers and Michael Griffith, will result in an eight-month sentence, East Hampton Town Justice Lisa R. Rana said, which will be meted out on July 27. Mr. Eames will be free until then. Before she hands down that sentence, however, the probation department will perform a pre-sentencing investigation for her to consider.
The prosecution had sought a one-year sentence, Mr. Migliore said. An additional misdemeanor charge in a case scheduled to be adjudicated in Riverhead Town Justice Court will be reduced to a violation in satisfaction for the East Hampton pleas, Ms. Powers said.
The deal does not affect a felony charge Mr. Eames is facing in county court. He was indicted in late March for allegedly cashing a check for $24,200 that he was not authorized to cash. He is due back in court in Central Islip on Tuesday on that matter.
The plea deal followed a string of eight arrests on various charges, the oldest dating back to 2013, though most occurred within the past year. On Thursday, Mr. Eames pleaded guilty to two counts of endangering the welfare of a child, one count of driving with ability impaired by drugs, one charge of hosting a party at which minors were consuming alcohol, and one charge of unlawfully fleeing a police officer, all misdemeanors. He also pleaded guilty to a harassment charge that is a simple violation.
Part of the process of entering a guilty plea is the allocution phase, in which the defendant is required to answer a series of questions from the prosecutor, related to the crimes in question. “Between Sept. 23 and Jan. 2, 2017, did you give a quarter Xanax to a 16-year-old female?” Mr. Migliore asked Thursday. Mr. Eames answered, “Yes.”
He admitted in court to allowing a 15-year-old to consume alcohol and to have knowingly allowed a party with under-age drinking at his house on New Year’s Day. He was asked if, on Nov. 15, 2016, on Abraham’s Path, he had been driving while under the influence of drugs. Mr. Eames hesitated, then quietly said, “Yes.” When asked what drug he had taken, he named the prescription Xanax.
He also replied in the affirmative when asked if he had fled in a Mini Cooper “at speeds in excess of 90 miles per hour in a 30-mile-per-hour zone” from a police officer who had activated her emergency lights, also on New Year’s Day.
Mr. Eames has, in effect, already served more than 30 days of his sentence during two occasions when he was unable to post bail. That, combined with the standard one-third time off for good behavior in county jail, means he will likely serve a little over four more months.
Mr. Eames has previously complained that he was being targeted by East Hampton Town police, saying that Chief Michael Sarlo had a vendetta against him for personal reasons. He launched a federal lawsuit against the chief, as well as former Chief Edward Ecker and several officers, claiming his constitutional rights had been violated. There has been no activity logged on that lawsuit since last year.
On Thursday, as he left the court, he said that after he serves his time, he will likely sell his house and move to a different town, something he said he feels he has been forced to do. He said that he has been in a treatment program at Phoenix House. His attorneys indicated that he would enroll in Stop-D.W.I., a drug and alcohol abuse program provided in county jail.
Mr. Eames had been accused of hosting several parties at which drug and alcohol were consumed by minors. On Jan. 29, Jordan Johnson of East Hampton, 18, passed out and was left unattended for several hours at Mr. Eames’s house before someone eventually called 911 the next morning. The matter brought wide news coverage and intense scrutiny to Mr. Eames’s Neck Path residence. None of the charges he pleaded to on Thursday were related to that incident.
Last week, Michael Sarlo, the chief of police in East Hampton, took a field trip.
Accompanying 233 juniors from East Hampton High School, he returned to the site where almost 16 years ago he arrived with other police officers from the East End to help with the devastation of Sept. 11, which killed almost 3,000 people.
The trip to the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in Lower Manhattan was the first of what will become an annual outing for junior classes at the high school, thanks to one mother who nurtured a simple wish to fruition.
Jen Wilson of East Hampton, an alumna of the school and a mother of an 11th grader there, was watching a TV show on the anniversary of Sept. 11 and heard a generation of youngsters speak about how little they knew of the real details of that day’s atrocities, except that they had happened.
“I thought this was a real shame, especially since we live so close to Manhattan and so many of our lives were impacted by the tragedy,” Ms. Wilson said. “I knew I had to do something, not just for my daughter but for her entire grade — all the kids who are only learning about the event because they’re studying it in a U.S. history class.”
Ms. Wilson single-handedly launched a fund-raising campaign that resulted in a reoccurring annual grant awarded by the Greater East Hampton Education Foundation, the Kendall Madison Foundation, as well as reoccurring donations from three local fire departments.
On May 15 and 16, almost three years to the day that the museum opened, the 11th graders — divided into groups of 40, plus chaperones — left East Hampton at 6 a.m. for Ground Zero. For many of the teens, it was their first visit to the museum and memorial. It was also a first for the adults who accompanied them: Ken Alversa, the police officer assigned to the high school; Laura Molinari, a board member of the Greater East Hampton Education Foundation; Adam Fine, the high school principal; Bill Barbour, a social studies teacher, Chief Sarlo, and Ms. Wilson.
The museum includes two main exhibitions: “In Memoriam,” which pays tribute to the 2,983 people killed on Sept. 11, 2001, and in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and a historical exhibition telling the story of what happened during and after the attacks. This history is conveyed through monumental and personal artifacts, photographs, audio and video footage, first-person testimonials, and personal possessions and memorabilia.
Visitors have likened it to a portal to an emotional underworld and the trauma that is so engraved into a few city blocks. For those on the field trip, the effects were profound.
“Suddenly, everything wasn’t just stories,” said Eros Elizondo, a junior at the school. “There were actual visuals of what happened, images of the planes; it all became so real.”
“Hearing about the Sept. 11 attacks definitely hits you, but when you’re there, the impact is much, much greater,” said Hunter Medler, a classmate who hails from a family of New York City Police Department officers and first responders who helped in the days following the attack.
Their teacher, Mr. Barbour, said every student handled the experience differently. Some students chose to sit in a room for a while and listen to commentary about the event. Others, he said, picked out names from the overwhelming tapestry of faces on display, depicting grief, loss, and life, and tried to make connections.
“What I noticed,” he said, “was that kids were really participating at every stage of the museum. Every kid took away something different. Each one made their own connection. We even spotted the name of a woman from Sag Harbor who was on one of the flights.”
For Mr. Sarlo, the police chief, the field trip forced him to return to the site, something he confessed he was not sure he was ready to do even so many years later.
“It was emotionally draining to relive the experience, but after 16 years it also was the right time for me to be able to do so, and I hope it helped the students understand the enormity of 9/11. Visiting the museum was such a powerful experience I had to sit down for a while. Some kids sat next to me and they asked me a few questions about it. It was cathartic to share the experience with them.”
According to Ms. Wilson, the depiction of the events is so realistic, she felt the students got to experience the force of the tragedy that her generation experienced at the time of the attacks. “I don’t want our students just to read about it in a textbook. I want them to really experience it and learn about it by visiting the site.”
In an email, the police chief commended Ms. Wilson “for making this experience happen,” he said. “The fund-raising effort and coordination of putting the trip together took a tremendous amount of energy, time, and effort.”
At Tuesday’s town board meeting, Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, an East Hampton Town councilwoman, praised Ms. Wilson and described the field trip as an important lesson for future high school students.
Ms. Wilson acknowledges that despite the grants promised by local organizations, more fund-raising will be needed as future class sizes increase. Next year, she said, there will be almost 40 more students in the junior class, which means more money will be needed to cover the cost for extra admission tickets and the bus ride.
It is a challenge she accepts and will take on because in the words of New York’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, delivered during a speech, “The 9/11 Memorial Museum is for all of us. It is for those of us who witnessed the events. It is for future generations who will first encounter 9/11 as history, but who must come to understand it as something real and terrible, something that must never happen again.”