When officials of Deepwater Wind, the Rhode Island company that plans to construct an offshore wind farm 30 miles from Montauk, presented its plans to the community at Clinton Academy in East Hampton on March 9, several commercial fishermen in attendance voiced opposition, fearing a negative impact on their livelihood. That concern resurfaced on Monday night, when the East Hampton Town Trustees heard from several residents.

If all goes according to plan, the wind farm, which would be the second in the United States, could be operational in 2022. Deepwater Wind’s five-turbine Block Island wind farm went online on the electrical grid in December.

Gary Cobb, who lives in Springs and is a member of a Facebook group called Save Our Baymen, told the trustees that a cable to be buried under the sea floor, which will transmit electricity from the wind farm to the land, was worrisome. The cable, which may come ashore at one of two locations on Gardiner’s Bay, will be laid in a trench to be plowed through the seabed. Landing sites at Fresh Pond and the old fish factory at Promised Land are being considered, but no decision has been made.

Mr. Cobb wondered “what jet-plowing is going to do to the bottom of Gardiner’s Bay.” The Air Force veteran, who studied avionics systems technology, also questioned “the proximity of these transmission lines to not just significant coastal wildlife habitat, but essential fish habitat.” An undersea transmission cable, he said, might be akin to “creating a dog fence, if you will, below the bottom that could affect migration patterns of fish species that our local baymen have depended on for the last 300 years for their livelihood.” The lobster fishery, he added, might also be affected.

On Tuesday, Clint Plummer, Deepwater Wind’s vice president of development, said that the method of plowing the sea floor would not be determined until surveys were completed, permit applications approved, and public hearings held. “In the offshore environment, the cable is installed using a form of marine plow that will install it to a target depth around six feet beneath the sea floor,” he said. The plow opens up a temporary trench — “I mean, momentarily,” Mr. Plummer said. “The plow is only creating a very small opening that the cable is laid into. The seabed closes round it immediately following installation.”

With regard to the construction, “the community will have an opportunity to provide input to the regulatory authorities as to what factors should be considered,” Mr. Plummer said. He called the suggestion that an electromagnetic field from the cable could alter fish migration patterns “pseudoscience.” The sea floor has no small amount of cabling now, he said. “There is nothing special about a submarine cable for offshore wind that’s any different than cables for other forms of power transmission.”

Mr. Cobb had asked the trustees whether they had taken a position on the wind farm and whether they could assert jurisdiction over the bottomlands in question.

It appears that the point at which the cable will come ashore “was carefully crafted to stay out of trustee jurisdiction,” said Bill Taylor, one of the trustees’ deputy clerks. “We want to speak with our counsel as to whether we have jurisdiction or not.”

Richard Whalen, the body’s attorney, was not at the meeting, but John Courtney, its former attorney, was. Under the 1686 Dongan Patent, which established the trustees as East Hampton’s original governing body, “you’re protecting the right of hunting, fishing, hawking, and fowling,” said Mr. Courtney, who was not reappointed when Democrats gained a majority on the board after the 2015 election. “If this has an impact on fishing, whether it’s inshore waters, offshore waters, I think you have the right to say something, and you should say something.”

Jim Grimes, a trustee, said that he had put the wind farm on the meeting’s agenda. He was worried, he said, that it would harm fishing at Cox’s Ledge, which “has always been a prime codfishing area.” The transmission cable was also troublesome, he said. “Unfortunately, our town board seems to have embraced this with open arms. Subsequent to that position, I think there’s stuff coming out about this project that certainly should be carefully considered, evaluated, before anybody jumps aboard.”

In what may have been a preview of the Nov. 7 election campaign — all nine seats on the trustee board will be contested — Mr. Grimes, a Republican, chided Tyler Armstrong, a Democrat, for statements the latter has made on social media about the wind farm and fishing. “Part of the reason, Tyler, that this is on the table tonight is the lecture that you proceeded to give the commercial fishing industry over the past week on Facebook,” he said. 

Mr. Armstrong, who in a March 17 post wrote that many fishermen he knows support renewable energy and Deepwater Wind’s efforts to construct offshore wind farms, objected. “That’s not true,” he said. “We had a good discussion about it. . . . I sure did not ‘lecture’ fishermen about it.” The post prompted dozens of additional comments, including from Mr. Cobb.

“Before we took a position that could possibly be antagonistic to our local fishing interests, I would hope each and every one of us would think twice,” Mr. Grimes said.

Mr. Armstrong countered that he was not speaking for the board. He did not, in fact, know the other trustees’ views on the wind farm, he said, as the subject had not been discussed before. “I think it’s a good step forward in the world, and I’m glad that we’re part of it out here,” he said. “I think there’s a lot of precautions to take and a lot of things to consider.”

Also at the meeting, the trustees authorized payment to Bistrian Materials Inc. for dredging and excavation of Accabonac Harbor and the culvert under Gerard Drive in Springs. The project began on March 15, six weeks after several baymen told the trustees that dredging was urgently needed in order for boats to continue to navigate the east channel where the harbor opens to Gardiner’s Bay.

The excavated material, or spoil, was placed on the beach in front of three contiguous properties on Louse Point Road in Springs, whose owners had sought to construct a rock revetment to protect their properties from erosion. For the transport of the spoil to the beach, which is beyond the beach-nourishment site authorized by the State Department of Environmental Conservation, they agreed to pay $20,000 of the project’s overall $41,100 cost. 

Mr. Taylor said that excavation of the culvert had been interrupted by weather conditions. That work was still in progress on Tuesday.

Peter Van Scoyoc, East Hampton Town's deputy supervisor, announced on Monday that he would seek the office of supervisor in the Nov. 7 election. The announcement follows Supervisor Larry Cantwell's January announcement that he would not seek a third two-year term.

Mr. Van Scoyoc, who was elected to the town board in 2011 and re-elected four years later, will face Manny Vilar, who will run for supervisor on the Republican ticket.

In a statement delivered by email, Mr. Van Scoyoc said that he offers a vision for the town's future "that is forever diligent about protecting our natural resources, open space, and environment," a future "that includes more opportunities for our residents who want to live and work here and have a place to live," and in which "we accept our diversity, understand our differences, and work together for the betterment of our community."

The statement notes the councilman's 16 years of experience as a public official, including six years' service on the town's planning board, five years on the zoning board of appeals, and five years on the town board.

The present town board, he said, has "restored dignity and respect to the process of local government." Continuing the openness and cooperation that he said now characterizes the board "is paramount to producing effective government, an important dynamic that was sorely lacking before the current town board took office and that is clearly missing in Washington today."

He cited progress on issues including water quality protection and improvement; open space, environmental restoration, and historic preservation; ensuring continued beach access rights; addressing coastal erosion, and enforcement of quality of life issues including "the Montauk party scene."

He also pointed to airport noise restrictions and energy efficiency and sustainability as issues on which the board has had a positive impact. 

Yancy Victoria Butler, 46, an actress who lives in Winnetka, Calif., was arrested in Sag Harbor early Monday afternoon and charged with aggravated drunken driving and possession of drugs.

Responding to a report that a woman headed south on Main Street in a Subaru had hopped a curb before coming to a stop, Sag Harbor Village police found Ms. Butler slumped over the steering wheel, key in the ignition and engine running.

Police said there was a half-empty bottle of Smirnoff vodka sticking out of her purse, which was on the passenger seat next to her. An officer reached into the car and turned off the ignition. When Ms. Butler came to, police reported, she was "unable to make a complete sentence." A Sag Harbor Volunteer Ambulance crew initially cleared her of any medical issues, but when she stepped out of the car she could not stand without officers supporting her.

At police headquarters, her breath test reportedly produced a reading of .31, almost four times the .08 number that defines intoxication and well over the .18 level that triggers a raised charge of aggravated driving while intoxicated. She is being charged at the misdemeanor level.

The reading was so high that protocol required the police to take her to the hospital to be checked for possible blood-alcohol poisoning. The ambulance crew was called back, and an officer rode with her to Southampton Hospital.

Her condition was assessed, and doctors released her back to police custody. On her second trip with the arresting officer, headed again to Division Street headquarters, she allegedly began spitting in his face.

Back at headquarters, with no female officer on duty, a call was made to East Hampton Village police, who sent a policewoman to Sag Harbor to help process the arrest. When that officer searched Ms. Butler's purse, she found 14 pills in a container, which police suspect are Xanax. The pills were sent to a lab to be tested, and she was charged with possession of a controlled substance as a misdemeanor.

A little before midnight, almost 10 hours after her arrest, she began exhibiting symptoms of alcohol withdrawal, police said, and she was taken again to the hospital. She was eventually released from custody with an appearance ticket, and will be arraigned in Sag Harbor on Friday.

Ms. Butler, a prominent actress in film and television action and horror genres, has a history of alcohol-related brushes with the law. According to published reports, she was arrested in January 2003 after a dispute with her father at an uncle's Long Island home. She was arrested again later that year in Delray Beach, Fla., on a charge of disorderly intoxication; Florida police said they found her wandering in traffic.

In 2007, she was charged in Connecticut with driving under the influence after crashing a 2004 Saab into a guardrail in Sharon. The outcome of that case is unclear.

Montauk’s venerable Keeshan Real Estate will join Compass, an emerging powerhouse in the home-sales market, the companies announced this week. 

“We have been in the business for 40 years. It is great to have the company move up into the modern age,” John Keeshan, who runs the six-person Montauk mainstay with his daughter, Nancy, said on Tuesday. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Mr. Keeshan visited Compass’s New York City office twice and was impressed by its support staff and what he said was cutting-edge technology. “We are going to be able to do a much better job of marketing and selling. It’s the computer age,” he said.

“Underneath all of that, they are really people-oriented,” he said of his new partners at Compass.

Mr. Keeshan said he had a good feeling about the market in 2017, following a rough period last year. “Rentals were a disaster in 2016,” he said. Factors in the drop included bad publicity following the rowdy summer of 2015 and worries about a new East Hampton Town rental registry requirement. Concerns about both have subsided, he said.

By contrast, this season’s rentals have perked up, and Mr. Keeshan said he thought that home sales would follow. 

“Montauk has become the Malibu east,” he said. “New people are coming in, and all the original people are going to remain.”

About 85 percent of listings in Montauk are above $1 million, he said. These are drawing the attention of younger buyers, some millennial professionals interested more in the surfing culture centered on Ditch Plain than in the fishing scene that might have drawn their parents and grandparents.

The Keeshan office at 37 Carl Fisher Plaza will become Compass’s fifth South Fork storefront. The company now has 44 agents on eastern Long Island, with the inclusion of the Keeshan team.

Mr. Keeshan said that he would hold on to the advertising space on the back of the Suffolk Transit S92 buses, where the company’s white-on-red “Still more lobsters than people” slogan has been seen by drivers for years. The message will likely change, he said.

“We are going to continue to flourish under another banner,” Mr. Keeshan said.

James Rosenquist, a progenitor of Pop Art who expanded its scale and developed a painterly language marked by the juxtaposition of fragmented and disjunctive images, died at home in New York City on Friday after a long illness. He was 83.

His best known art, which encapsulated many of his concerns, was “F-111,” an 86-foot-long work he began in 1964 that took as its subject the F-111 fighter plane, parts of which were interspersed with images of a rubber tire, a child beneath a hair dryer, lightbulbs, spaghetti, and more, all rendered with eye-popping colors and cartoon-like imagery.

Describing that painting, he said the plane was “flying through the flak of consumer society to question the collusion between the Vietnam death machine, consumerism, the media, and advertising.” While there is no denying the painting’s political message, he nevertheless responded to a question from the Icelandic painter Erro, saying, “It was more about composition. I’d do anything for composition. I’d tear things up.”

According to Terrie Sultan, director of the Parrish Art Museum, “James Rosenquist’s iconic works definitively heralded a new direction in American painting. Along with his creative colleagues Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, Rosenquist charted the territory of Pop Art beginning in the 1960s and continuing to today. A master technician and inspired thinker, Rosenquist brought his real-world experience as a professional sign painter into the realm of high art.”

Writing about Mr. Rosenquist’s work for The East Hampton Star, the late Robert Long said, “No other painter understands as well as he does the power of juxtaposition; no other painter has used images from popular culture with such extraordinary force.” He also pointed out that the Rosenquist works reproduce easily but deceptively, because, up close, “You can see brushstrokes, and underpainting, and even marks where masking tape has been ripped away from the canvas.”

Born in Grand Forks, N.D., on Nov. 29, 1933, to Louis and Ruth Rosenquist, he moved to New York City in 1955 after three years of art study at the University of Minnesota. He said one of his teachers, Cameron Booth, “told me to get out of the Midwest and go to New York and study with Hans Hofmann. But Hofmann wasn’t there when I got there.”

Instead, he studied for a year with George Grosz and Edwin Dickinson at the Art Students League, and he moved to Coenties Slip in Lower Manhattan, where the artists Jack Youngerman, Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Indiana, and Agnes Martin had studios. During those early years, until 1960, his day job was painting billboards, but he was otherwise an abstract painter.

According to Sarah Bancroft, who organized Mr. Rosenquist’s 2003 retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum, the painting “Zone” (1960-61) was the breakthrough that left abstraction behind and utilized “jarring shifts of scale and content for which the artist is known.”

Some established art critics, however, dismissed his and other Pop artists’ work. One noteworthy dust-up occurred in 1972 between Mr. Rosenquist and the New York Times critic John Canaday. In a letter published in The Times, the artist said, “Mr. Canaday has revealed himself over my work in the past when my ‘F-111’ painting was exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum. He disliked this immensely.” Mr. Canaday was subsequently criticized by Thomas Hoving, then the museum’s director.

Mr. Rosenquist lived in East Hampton from 1964 until the mid-1970s. He also had houses in Bedford, N.Y., Miami, and Aripeka, Fla., where a fire in 2009 destroyed his house, office, and studio and much of his work.

His first marriage, to Mary Lou Adams, ended in divorce. His survivors include Mimi Thompson, his wife since 1987, a son, John Rosenquist, from his first marriage, a daughter, Lily, from his second marriage, and a grandson.

Anthony Ingrao, the principal of an architecture and design firm in New York City who with his partner, Randy Kemper, owns extraordinary properties in East Hampton Village and elsewhere, also owns a slightly over one-acre parcel along Old Montauk Highway in Montauk, east of Deep Hollow Ranch.

The East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals held a hearing on Tuesday on a plan that goes back to 2005, which called for Mr. Ingrao to put up a house based on traditional East End windmills. Work had begun on a 1,640-square-foot house, with a foundation laid, before it was halted. Mr. Ingrao seeks to amend the original proposal.

The 2005 plan called for a large windmill at the center of the house, with two wings, like silos, flanking it. The new plan calls for a windmill off to one side, more like the windmill at Home, Sweet Home in East Hampton Village.

Brian Frank, chief environmentalist for the town’s Planning Department, prepared a memo for the board Tuesday, as he had in 2005. One big change, he said, is that the “bluff has continued to erode, and there is less wetland mitigation for the construction of the residence.”

Mr. Ingrao spoke to the board Tuesday, saying the new proposal was much more attractive, and his attorney, Carl Irace, said the new house had better design.”

How the old foundation will mesh with the new structure, and whether it is still safe, was of concern for board members, however.

Roy Dalene and Cate Rogers said it appeared that the foundation that was built did not match the original survey, and John Whelan, the chairman of the board, said, “What was constructed is not what was approved. It is bizarre.”

“It is very dangerous out there right now,” David Lys said. He had visited the property earlier Tuesday with a fellow board member, Theresa Berger.

The board, aware of the erosion of the environmentally fragile site, was concerned about whether construction might damage it. “Is there a way to mitigate damage?” Ms. Rogers asked.

The board agreed to keep the record open indefinitely, to allow Mr. Ingrao’s team to provide answers to their many questions.

After saying two years ago that he had abandoned plans for a new swimming pool in the dunes at his oceanfront property on Drew Lane, David Zaslav was back before the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals on Friday proposing a major overhaul of his existing pool that looked to some board members almost like an entirely new pool.

Mr. Zaslav, the president of Discovery Communications, and his wife, Pam, want to “take the structure there and basically modify it a little bit,” their attorney, Richard A. Hammer, told the board during a hearing on Friday. The pool would remain where it is, but would have infinity edges on all four sides, giving it a “more modern appearance” and allowing the water level to be higher. Doing so, however, would require excavating around the full perimeter of the pool by hand to allow extra space for the water to flow into an inch-wide gap in the coping and to be recycled back into the pool.

“Isn’t the pool getting bigger?” asked Frank Newbold, the board’s chairman. “You’re modifying all four sides of the pool and displacing 10 cubic yards of fill, which in this case is dune.”

“I do understand that this is the dune, but it’s pretty clear that this isn’t the average dune,” Mr. Hammer said, pointing out that the proposed work area had already been disturbed by the original construction and that the sand encountered by excavation would likely not look like original dune sand, but like compacted fill.

The Zaslavs bought the property from Jerry Della Femina in 2012. When they were first before the board in 2014 for variances for a number of other improvements, they had hoped to build a significantly larger pool. In order to comply with Federal Emergency Management Agency regulations, 40 pilings would have had to be driven into the primary dune, a fact that drew sharp criticism. While that portion of the application was withdrawn, the plan discussed Friday raised similar questions.

“At what point does it really become a new pool, and at what point does FEMA come in?” Mr. Newbold asked. All of the property at 26 Drew Lane is seaward of the coastal erosion hazard line, which triggers FEMA regulations for new construction and reconstruction of a certain size. The pool would need variances from the village’s dune preservation and coastal erosion hazard area regulations.

Mr. Newbold reminded Mr. Zaslav, who was at the hearing, that he had withdrawn his earlier pool application and that other changes the board approved in 2015 were contingent upon the pool “staying the same.”

“I view it as a very significant reduction in the scope of what we were planning to do here,” Mr. Hammer said. He pointed out that the infinity-edge style would also allow for a pool cover that could be automatically deployed, a safety feature important to his clients.

In part because the pool is shallower than average, “The cover is a big issue,” Mr. Zaslav said. He explained that a cousin had drowned in a pool, and that he knew someone who had become paralyzed after diving into one that was too shallow.

When board members asked Mr. Zaslav and his representatives at the hearing about the final footprint of the renovated pool and surrounding patio, his architect and his builder seemed to differ on how much fill would have to be removed. There was also a possibility that the sides of the pool would be raised to make it deeper.

“It would be helpful to have a picture of this before and after” to see “how the outline will change,” said Craig Humphrey, a board member. “Include an idea of what the patio would look like,” added Lys Marigold, another board member. The board asked Mr. Zaslav’s representatives to return with more details. The application will be taken up again at the board’s next meeting, on April 28.

Also on Friday, the board denied a variance requested by the operators of the Service Station restaurant at 100 Montauk Highway, who wanted to use an outdoor patio for dining. Shane Dyckman, an owner of the restaurant, told the board earlier this month that outdoor dining had been offered at the commercial structure, a pre-existing nonconforming use within a residential district, for 30 years. The board was firm in its opposition, however, citing previous determinations and the village code prohibition of the expansion of a pre-existing use in a residential district.

The board granted Howard Schultz, the chief executive officer of the Starbucks coffeehouse chain, and his wife, Sheri Kersch Schultz, variances to relocate a below-ground propane tank and install a brick walkway and bench at 14 Gracie Lane. Some of the construction will be seaward of the coastal erosion hazard area line. The board also approved 493 square feet more lot coverage than the maximum permitted under the code.

Robert and Julie Taubman of 41 Two Mile Hollow Road were granted variances to install a flagpole within the front-yard setback, six outdoor loudspeakers within the required setback from the 20-foot contour line of the ocean dune, and pool fencing. A variance was also granted to legalize a portion of a garage constructed within the setback from the 20-foot contour line. The variances were granted on the condition that the applicants install and maintain landscaping for the section of the property around the swimming pool.

Michael and Joan Hass were denied a variance that would allow them to maintain deer fencing that is taller than the six-foot limit allowed by the code, but they were allowed to maintain wood fencing in excess of six feet elsewhere on the property, at 19 Dunemere Lane.

With Reporting by 

Christopher Walsh

As peculiar as a multi-tool belt may seem — one that can, for example, help you unscrew a light fixture while fashionably holding up your pants — it is not. The anomaly is Jameson Ellis, the man behind the design of Sync multi-tool belt buckles, now owned and sold by Sog Specialty Knives and Tools.

Mr. Ellis, a Sag Harbor resident, often thinks he was born in the wrong era. “No one makes stuff anymore,” Mr. Ellis said, as he sat in his backyard studio surrounded by machines and supplies. “I am a compulsive maker of things. For me, making things is an assertion of one’s competence.”

Mr. Ellis believes in the ability to craft, the laying down of one’s art with rigor, workmanship, and patience. He said it comes from his father, who used to design weaponry for the Army and is brilliant.

Jameson Ellis crafted his first multi-tool belt buckle 10 years ago after realizing that despite owning an array of Swiss Army knives and Leatherman multi-tools, he never seemed to have what he most needed.

As an undergraduate at the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts), Mr. Ellis had designed belt buckles simply to “look cool,” he said. After college, he designed furniture, worked on movie sets, and made props.

In 2005, with a love for working with metal and a newly acquired milling machine, he began experimenting with belt buckles that would morph into a tool kit. He worked on the design compulsively for three months until he was satisfied he had something that not only looked cool but functioned well and would sell.

“I was naive, though, about the marketing part,” Mr. Ellis said. “Once I had a working multi-tool belt buckle, I thought it wouldn’t be difficult to produce and sell it, and for me to profit from it. But everything takes a million years.” It took 10. In 2015, at a trade show in Las Vegas, Mr. Ellis walked into the Sog Specialty Knives and Tools booth wearing his belt, and made his pitch.

“I walked out with a handshake deal,” he said. Eight months later, and after many rounds with lawyers, he received his first royalty check.

Versatility is key in the multi-tool world, he said. Today’s versions of his belt buckle are called Sync I and Sync II and have 12 functions: a straight blade, a bolt or nut gripper, a bottle opener, crimpers, a three-sided file, two flat screwdrivers, one Phillips head screwdriver, pliers, a ruler, scissors, and a wire cutter.

The Sync II is approximately three inches wide for reasonably thick belts, while the smaller Sync I is suitable for thin ones. They are designed to be easily worn as a belt buckle or clipped onto a strap or boot and come on a detachable base. “That way,” reads its description on the Sog website, “anywhere you go, your multi-tool is there with you.”

The first time Mr. Ellis’s multi-tool buckle actually saved the day was about eight years ago when he was on a bus from Manhattan to Sag Harbor. The bus was late leaving the city and people on board were grumbling, he said, when he noticed that the bus driver could not close the door.

Mr. Ellis got up and, seeing that a piece of metal was causing the obstruction, swiftly removed his buckle and with its pliers in hand, bent back the protruding piece of metal. Mr. Ellis received a round of applause from his fellow passengers and vouchers for free rides in the future.

While originally Mr. Ellis laboriously cut out his buckles from tool steel in his studio, the Syncs today are manufactured in China from stainless steel, using a process called investment casting, similar to lost-wax casting. 

An initial run of 75,000 Syncs were produced, and in two weeks 4,000 sold. On the Sog Knives website, the Sync I retails for $67 and Sync II for $80. When fully extended they look like a cross between the film character Edward Scissorhands’s fingers and a Japanese Transformer toy.

Last summer, Mr. Ellis added to his handmade inventory with what he calls a Picnic Table Briefcase, offering enthusiasts the ability to pack supplies inside a case that converts into a 24-inch wooden table. To date, he has sold about 35.

What’s next for the Sag Harbor craftsman inventor is top secret. “It taps into my dark side,” he said.

That a dark side exists seems to be another anomaly. In his back garden, which can be described as enchanted, chickens cluck and come when called and an angora bunny sits in a hatch looking like a forgotten sweater. Mr. Ellis’s wife, Jill Musnicki, a painter, photographer, seamstress, and kindred spirit, has a studio at one end of the garden, where their young daughter often sits honing her whittling skills.

Neighbors on Newlight Lane and West Pond Drive in Bridgehampton, backed by the hamlet’s citizens advisory committee, are bucking an attempt by the owners of a private horse farm to use part of an agricultural reserve for summer stabling.

Since its certificate of occupancy was issued in 2015, Campbell Stables has added a 50-square-foot circular-roof  building with a horse “walker” inside on the northwest corner of its 17.8-acre property, and a service road. A tent with temporary stalls to house more horses popped up, landing the owners in Southampton Town Justice Court, though it has since been taken down.

The owners are seeking approval for the horse walker and the service road, as well as permission for a temporary tent to house five additional horses between June 1 and Sept. 30, prime show season on the South Fork. The tent would be erected on 2.6 acres of agricultural reserve they own to the south, on the corner of Newlight Lane and West Pond Drive. The agricultural reserve parcel would be used only as turnout pasture, with no other structures.

Several neighbors have objected because that property is not contiguous to the ranch’s 17.8 acres. The town code is silent on the matter.

“I think this is absurd,” said Marie Christodoulou, who lives on the corner of Kellis Pond Lane and Newlight Lane, right next to the 2.6-acre parcel. Using the same reasoning, she told the Southampton Town Planning Board last Thursday, someone could buy a parcel five blocks from their house and add it on to their total acreage. She was dismayed, she said, at the idea of having “horses right on top of us,” and concerned about the effect on her well water.

Larry Penny, the former director of the East Hampton’s Natural Resources Department, said he was worried about the impact on the health of Kellis Pond and Mecox Bay. He spoke on behalf of Bridgehampton Action Now, a community group. Mr. Penny, this newspaper’s nature columnist, is engaged in a study of freshwater ponds for the Southampton Town Trustees.

“I know horses are not potty-trained and they urinate on the ground, and one horse can urinate as much as 10 humans in a day, depending on how much it drinks and eats and so forth,” he said.

Mecox Bay and Kellis Pond are on the State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Impaired Water Body lists, due to elevated levels of blue-green algae. Heavy amounts of nitrogenous waste are making their way into the pond and into Mecox Bay by way of Calf Creek, Mr. Penny said, cautioning against bringing in more horses to add to the problem.

Neighbors have also complained that a manure pile was moved too close to the property line, though Kieran Pape Murphree, the applicants’ attorney, told the board they have agreed to move it back to its approved location. Robert Campbell, the founder of B.B.C. International, a leading children’s and athletic footwear and design and sourcing company, and his wife, Barbara, are the owners of Campbell Stables.

Harry Wagner, who lives on West Pond Drive east of the ranch, said the manure pit is by his property. He estimated each horse produced 18,000 pounds of manure per year, and wanted to know how the additional manure would be taken care of. Ms. Murphree replied, citing a covenant in the ranch’s 2011 site plan approval requiring that manure be shipped out at least once a week, and said it would be carted out more often if necessary.

Ms. Christodoulou asked how this would be accomplished on the property across the street, and again raised concern about smells. Dennis Finnerty, the chairman of the planning board, replied that agriculture does involve smells, odors, and noises, but noted that “the real estate listings place a premium on agricultural reserve.”

Those who spoke not only opposed the requests before the planning board, but objected as well to the scale of the operation at Campbell Stables.

“The enterprise that has grown up there is very far from what I expect to my trip to the Hamptons,” said Joan Shumaker, who lives on West Pond Drive. People and deliveries are coming and going, including catering trucks for events that have music playing past midnight, she said. “All of us have made investments out here, and we are entitled to protect our investments as well.”

  Aris Christodoulou said he felt the owners had misrepresented how the facility would be used — as a family stable with low impact to the neighborhood — when it was first proposed in 2010. The use has grown to be more commercial, he said.

   Mr. Finnerty said an agricultural use, such as a horse farm, is considered commercial either way, and that those representations seven years ago had had no bearing on the planning board’s approval of the 18-stall barn. In 2011, the board approved, in addition to the barn, a 15,000-square-foot indoor riding arena, outdoor riding ring, two-story building with tack and storage rooms and second-story apartment, an accessory equipment/storage barn, manure storage areas, and paddocks. The approval stipulated that only people boarding their horses be able to ride there.

What now also seems at question is whether the horses are being made available to the general public for lessons. Ms. Murphree agreed that hourly leasing of horses is prohibited by covenant, but mentioned that the stable was within its right to do other things which it has not done, such as hold a horse show for up to nine days.

   What about the property being rented out for weddings, Philip Keith, a board member, wanted to know, after a printout of the stable’s website revealed that the facility hosts special events. Ms. Murphree agreed that should not be happening and that it would require a special permit. She said she had not always represented the owners.

   “It’s particularly disheartening when a website that still, two days before this hearing, is advertising illegal activity,” Mr. Finnerty said.

Pamela Harwood, the chairwoman of the Bridgehampton Citizens Advisory Committee, told planning board members that the advisory committee was against their approving the application.

The public hearing was closed, but the record will be kept open for 30 days for written comments.

Forming a tiny circle between her forefinger and thumb, Elizabeth Reveiz indicated the size of her department’s budget within the East Hampton School District.

“It’s very small,” said Ms. Reveiz, who is director of ELL/Bilingual Programs. Yet, in a school district with 326 students classified as English Language Learners, the department’s impact is substantial.

At last week’s school board budget workshop, Ms. Reveiz presented her department’s 2017-18 budget as $45,000, out of an overall budget of more than $66 million. The largest piece of that relatively small pie goes to the John M. Marshall Elementary School, where one-third of the students — 161 children — do not speak English as a first language.

“Do you have enough funds in your budget to handle this?” asked Jacqueline Lowey, a board member.

“Yes,” replied Ms. Reveiz, adding that her department employs such cost-effective strategies as co-teaching between regular classes and English as a New Language (ENL) classes. She requested no increase in her budget from last year.

Such strategies are now, in fact, required by the New York State Education Department, which implemented a new set of regulations in 2015 for public schools with ENL/ELL students, covering everything from how those students are identified to how classrooms should be structured. Most notably, schools with ENL students are required to have an English language teacher present in a general education classroom, replacing the previous system of “full immersion.” Under the new regulations, “It is not permissible to assume that unsupported immersion of ELLs into an English-speaking environment will enable them to succeed academically.”

The regulations are a broad effort to improve the academic standing and progress of English learners, who are far behind their peers. Statewide, only 34 percent of the segment graduate on time, less than half the rate for native English-language speakers.

For Ms. Reveiz, who has worked in East Hampton for four years, one of the biggest challenges comes from another group of ENL students, known as SIFE: Students With Interrupted Formal Education. As required by law, the high school regularly admits students under the age of 21 who have not received a formal education for several years. Recently, a 17-year-old student arrived at the school speaking no English and having not attended school since fifth grade.

“It’s always a challenge to provide them the best opportunities that will yield the best results,” she said. “We want them to leave East Hampton High School feeling as though they have some tools in their repertoire that will enable them to succeed outside of these walls.”

Within the school’s walls is another department, Pupil Personnel Services, described by its director, Cindy Allentuck, as responsible for the “social, emotional well-being of students.”

At last week’s board meeting, Ms. Allentuck announced that “the need for psychological therapeutic services in our school district has increased,” although, like Ms. Reveiz, she reported no increase in her department’s overall budget of $2.1 million, despite an increase in services for students with emotional disabilities.

She too was asked if her department’s funds were sufficient. “I can do it,” Ms. Allentuck told the board. “We can make it work.”

For Ms. Allentuck, who was a social worker before becoming a school administrator, the well-being of students has always been a high priority. In the East Hampton School District there are approximately 20 students who receive therapeutic services funded by her department, she said, adding that her focus should never be about money. “But services cost money,” she said.

There has been an increase in students with learning disabilities in all three schools, she said, a diagnosis that can ultimately affect their emotional health. She also pointed to a “slow and steady increase of general education kids who require psychological evaluation, especially in the high school,” citing factors such as substance abuse problems, pressure to succeed, and life in a small town with little for teenagers to do as possible reasons for the spike.

But Ms. Allentuck was quick to point out that the district is well equipped to face these challenges, with three full-time psychologists, one in each school, and “hyper-aware principals.”

Her department is also responsible for children classified as special education students and those deemed emotionally fragile. For this group, the schools receive funds from the state’s Boards of Cooperative Educational Services. Until June 2015, East Hampton paid the Child Development Center of the Hamptons for 15 to 20 students classified within the special education category. After C.D.C.H. closed last year, the district absorbed the students but saved the money it had been paying for them, keeping the bottom line unchanged.