Improvements to septic waste systems in downtown Montauk, in order to limit the release of pollutants that could have a negative effect on ground and surface waters, including Fort Pond, were a topic this week at a meeting of the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee.

The downtown area — along with Montauk’s dock area and Ditch Plain — was targeted for advanced, centralized wastewater treatment in a town comprehensive wastewater management plan prepared by Lombardo Associates, a consulting firm, several years ago.

A letter was sent out in June 2015 to gauge interest and support for the idea among downtown property owners. It outlined the next steps that could be taken by the town, which would be the creation of an engineering map and plan and the establishment of a downtown Montauk water quality improvement district.

Those steps were never taken. However, in 2016, the town embarked on what it called a “hamlet study,” a planning survey of all of East Hampton’s business districts, for which reports are being prepared, and which could provide an underpinning for decisions on septic treatment.

Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc, a liaison to the citizens advisory committee, reported this week that the committee would like the East Hampton Town Board to move forward with establishing a downtown sewer district in Montauk. “Given the fact that many of the systems are obsolete,” he said — and some no longer legal under current standards — “the only real way forward would be with a community system, or several properties grouping together in a system.”

The septic systems on up to 90 percent of the properties in the downtown area need improvement, the Lombardo Associates study found, but 73 percent of those sites lack the space for the installation of an upgraded system.

Lombardo Associates estimated that 57 percent of the properties in downtown Montauk use cesspools. Cesspools are illegal, under federal law, for use on properties that serve more than 20 people a day, and, on any site, are considered inadequate if they need to be pumped out more than a few times a year. Some downtown Montauk business owners reported that they needed to pump out their cesspools almost daily during the busy summer months.

As proposed by Lombardo Associates, the downtown area that could be served by a community wastewater system would comprise 169 developed properties from South Eton Street to Essex Street, between Fort Pond and the ocean.

For a centralized system to be feasible, the owners of properties within that zone, representing at least half of the overall wastewater generated in the area, would have to sign on. Each property owner that connected to the system would pay a fee based on property size and wastewater flow.

Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount was “not pious platitudes but a call for action among his followers to respect those who are persecuted,” the Rev. Denis Brunelle of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church said last Thursday at an East Hampton Village Board meeting. “Or don’t forget the final judgment in Matthew: When I was hungry did you feed me? When I was naked did you clothe me? When I was homeless did you give me a place to stay? When I was a stranger did you welcome me? And when you did, you did it to me.”

These, he said, are religious values that the East Hampton Clericus, which he heads, is bringing to the immigration issue.

Secular matters were briefly sidelined when Mr. Brunelle delivered an impassioned and defiant statement against the federal government’s intention to deport millions of undocumented immigrants.

Mr. Brunelle thanked Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. for his Feb. 24 statement in which he declared that the village government would not allow or authorize its personnel to become federal deputies in order to carry out immigration enforcement activities. His further remarks were akin to a sermon, however, encompassing religious teachings from multiple faiths, local and national history, and allegations of exploitation of laborers in an emphatic refutation of federal immigration policy as conducted by the administration of President Donald Trump.

“The policy is the policy,” said Mr. Brunelle, a first-generation American of French-Canadian descent. “But we as clergy have to deal with the people involved.”

He reminded the assembled that the Puritans came to the New World from England to escape religious intolerance. “Then other religions came over and the Puritans didn’t allow them to practice their faith,” he said. That intolerance returned during the wave of migration from Europe in the late-19th and early-20th centuries, he said, citing discrimination against Irish, Italian, and German immigrants. “Intolerance, unfortunately, has been a consequence of the history of this country in many ways,” he said.

That intolerance played out in East Hampton, as well, Mr. Brunelle said. “This village did not allow another religion to have another church until 1848,” he said. “From 1648 there was only one church allowed, the Presbyterian church — no offense against Presbyterians. It wasn’t until 12 Episcopalians got a little ticked off at always having to go seven miles up the road to Sag Harbor, and they said, ‘Enough of this,’ ” that they obtained the property on which St. Luke’s was built.

The Clericus, he said, seeks to bring people together and end intolerance. He confessed an aversion to the word tolerance, however, “because tolerance means I don’t have to respect you, tolerance says I don’t have to like you in any shape or form. I just will be in your presence. . . . I think it’s about respect, and dignity.”

Mr. Brunelle recalled how Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman of the Jewish Center of the Hamptons, another member of the Clericus, had reminded him and other clergy that it is “a blessing . . . to permit others to live among us in peace and security.” Rabbi Zimmerman, he said, had pointed to a teaching from the Torah: “When strangers reside with you in your land, you shall not wrong them. The strangers who reside with you shall be to you as your citizens; you shall love each one as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

“The premise of the Clericus as we approach the issue is one of respecting the integrity and the dignity of every human being that is in this village and in this town.” Parents should not be taken away in the middle of the night, leaving children behind, “and it has happened,” he said. “We want to respect the dignity and integrity of every human being when we know that there are contractors who go past the railroad station and hire people but don’t give them an opportunity to get lunch.”

The Clericus established a bagged-lunch program in which meals are distributed to the laborers who gather at the Long Island Rail Road station in East Hampton on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. However, Mr. Brunelle said on Tuesday, “we’re seeing a dramatic decrease in numbers” at the train station, as undocumented immigrants are too afraid to appear in public lest they be detained and perhaps deported by immigration authorities.

At the work session, Mr. Brunelle cited a report he said was given to Cantor Debra Stein of the Jewish Center of the Hamptons alleging that a contractor had refused to pay three documented laborers for three days of work.

The Clericus, through the Rev. Gerardo Roma Garcia, who leads a Latino ministry at St. Luke’s, has also implemented a program in which clothing is laundered free of charge on the first Sunday of each month. The program is not just for Latinos, Mr. Brunelle said, but also for “anyone trying to balance between the cost of laundry and food or medicine.”

The Clericus is also “trying to seek a way to provide legal help whenever we can,” and its members have discussed houses of worship that could serve as sanctuaries, although “that in itself does not protect” undocumented immigrants from detention or deportation, he said on Tuesday. Immigration agents, he said, “can still walk into a church and arrest people. They don’t because of the publicity it would render them.”

“We are working together to help address it from our spiritual point of view, from the Gospel mandate point of view, from the Torah point of view,” Mr. Brunelle told the board, “that no one is illegal, because that denies their likeness in the image of God. They may not be documented, and we may not like that, but they still deserve respect and integrity and justice.”

Jefferson Davis Eames, the owner of a Springs house where an East Hampton teen allegedly overdosed on morphine on Jan. 29, was arraigned Friday in East Hampton Town Justice Court on multiple charges relating to under-age gatherings at the house, including one of felony drug dealing. He was unable to post bail, but was released on Tuesday because he had not been indicted on the felony charge within 120 hours of his arrest, as is required under state law.

He is due back in court today to face six sets of charges, the most recent of which are the felony, along with 13 misdeanors: nine counts of endangering the welfare of a minor, three counts of violating the Suffolk County Social Host law, which prohibits adults from knowingly allowing the consumption of alcohol in a residence by minors, and one charge of resisting arrest.

The social host charges relate to three parties that police say Mr. Eames hosted at his Neck Path house, each with between 75 and 100 young people under the legal drinking age in attendance. According to the complaints concerning endangering the welfare of a child, Mr. Eames allowed the youths to be there while “drinking and drug use were taking place in his presence.”

One party began on Dec. 2 and lasted about 30 hours, according to police. Another began New Year’s Eve and ended early the next morning. It appears that the third party, held on Dec. 9, ended after a visit from the police.

The felony charge comes because police say Mr. Eames sold or gave a quarter of a Xanax tablet to a 16-year-old girl.

None of the new charges directly relate to the Jan. 29 drug overdose, East Hampton Town Police Capt. Chris Anderson said Friday, but two of them are connected to that time period. 

In the January incident, which prompted outrage among East Hampton parents, who wondered why police had not held the homeowner responsible, 18-year-old Jordan Johnson was reportedly left untreated for 12 hours after overdosing at Mr. Eames’s residence. Finally, two minors at the house, acting on Mr. Eames’s instructions, called 911 for help, according to police. Mr. Johnson is still recovering after suffering an attack of toxic leukoencephalopathy during the time he was unconscious.

Captain Anderson said that Mr. Johnson, who is 18 and therefore no longer a minor, is not covered by the law against endangering the welfare of a child.

Last Thursday afternoon, when detectives approached Mr. Eames outside of his house, he attempted to elude them by re-entering the house and closing the doors on the police after they told him he was under arrest, they said.

Mr. Eames’s attorney, Eileen Powers, entered a denial to the felony, and a not-guilty plea to the misdemeanors during the Friday arraignment.

Because he is already facing numerous charges stemming from five previous arrests by East Hampton Town police, all within the past six months, bail was set by Justice Steven Tekulsky at $40,000 cash, or Mr. Eames could have posted a $275,000 bond.

Mr. Eames’s attorney told him that her client had entered a drug treatment program and argued for a lower bail amount than the $50,000 requested by the district attorney. Ms. Powers said that Mr. Eames has strong ties to the community. She characterized him as “cooperative,” and said that there is no record of his failing to appear on his many court dockets in East Hampton.

“I would disagree that he is always cooperative, as there is a charge of resisting arrest in this case, as well as in one of the other matters, and in one of the other matters that I initially arraigned him on, he was charged with unlawfully fleeing a police officer, which is some evidence of his unwillingness to cooperate,” Justice Tekulsky said. “I also would point out that the first time I had occasion to arraign him was on Nov. 16. Among the other charges was unlawful operation of a motor vehicle.” Since then, Justice Tekulsky has arraigned Mr. Eames twice more on unlicensed driving charges.

Police have been investigating Mr. Eames since at least early December, when two arrests were made in the vicinity of the house, according to Captain Anderson. The two picked up on Dec. 9, both 18, were charged with possession of Ecstasy, an illegal drug, as well as marijuana. Captain Anderson said those arrests were directly related to complaints the department had been getting from neighbors concerned with what they believed were illegal activities at the house.

“This has been a difficult and protracted case to close given HIPAA privacy laws, good Samaritan laws, and uncooperative witnesses,” East Hampton Town Police Chief Michael Sarlo said in an email Friday afternoon.

Captain Anderson said there are several incidents at the house that police are looking into and asked for the public’s assistance in the ongoing investigation. Detectives can be reached at 631-537-7575.

Mr. Johnson’s mother and father, Christine Moran and Andre Johnson, were in the back of the courtroom on Friday watching Mr. Eames’s arraignment. Their son was released last week from the Rusk Rehabilitation Institute at New York University-Langone Medical Center in Manhattan. He will continue his rehabilitation in an outpatient facility in Port Jefferson, Ms. Moran said. A fund-raiser for him and his family is planned for March 19 at the Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett.

Ms. Moran and Mr. Johnson said they were relieved that Mr. Eames had been arrested. “I’m so happy, because this isn’t going to happen to any other kid,” Ms. Moran said.

“He is being held accountable,” the older Mr. Johnson said.

“This arrest should help parents in the community recognize our department is working diligently to combat drug and alcohol abuse by minors, and will continue to thoroughly investigate any complaints of under-age drinking, or drug use,” Chief Sarlo wrote. “The public should educate themselves with regards to the county social host law as well as the good Samaritan law in overdose cases.” Good Samaritan laws provide immunity from arrest or prosecution for people calling 911 for emergency medical attention for opiate-related overdoses, as well as legal protection for those who administer lifesaving measures.

“We will continue to be proactive in educating parents and youth to the dangers and risks associated with drug and alcohol abuse,” the chief said.

East Hampton Village Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. echoed announcements by the East Hampton and Southampton Town governments in stating that the village government will not allow or authorize its personnel to become federal deputies in order to carry out immigration enforcement activities.

In a statement issued on Friday the mayor said that no such overture has formally been made to the village, nor did he anticipate the request. "Should that instance occur," however, "village government will not allow or authorize that our sworn police personnel become federal deputies," he said.

The statement was issued amidst a backdrop of fear among undocumented immigrants on the South Fork and across the country, as federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents enact the Trump administration's plan to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants. The New York Times reported on Saturday that ICE officers are "newly emboldened, newly empowered, and already getting to work." Earlier this month, an investigation in which ICE officials searched for a repeat felony offender in the Town of East Hampton sparked rumors and fear of a sweep to round up undocumented residents.

"Historically our Police Department has worked in concert with the Department of Homeland Security — ICE — when and where a specific criminal investigation is ongoing and ICE requests assistance from our Police Department," the mayor said. "That has and will continue unabated. The distinction arises with respect to potential of deputizing members of our Police Department to enforce federal statute germane to immigration law."

"We are a nation of law and inclusiveness," the statement concluded. "Let this moment clearly define the majesty of what our country and nation stand for."

A home health aide was arrested Monday and charged with stealing $50,000 worth of jewelry from an elderly Bridgehampton woman in her care.

Marta Berisha, 41, of Sag Harbor was arraigned in Southampton Town Justice Court Tuesday morning, and was released after posting $1,000 bail.

According to the police, the incident was first reported by the victim, who was not immediately identified, on Feb. 16. After an 11-day investigation, detectives charged Ms. Berisha, the victim's home health aide, with two felonies, possession of stolen property and grand larceny. 

The judge presiding over the case of Sean P. Ludwick, who is facing six felony charges including vehicular manslaughter for the 2015 accident in Noyac that killed his passenger, Paul Hansen, has rejected motions made by the defense to dismiss the charges.

In a written decision on Thursday, Justice Fernando Camacho said that the law requires him to view the evidence and the grand jury transcripts “in a light most favorable to the people.” He wrote, “Upon such inspection, the court finds that sufficient legal evidence was advanced to establish the commission by the defendant of each offense charged in the indictment.”

He also denied the defense’s request for a hearing regarding the prosecution’s determination after the fact that Mr. Ludwick’s blood alcohol content was high enough to warrant raised aggravated charges.

Justice Camacho agreed to schedule hearings on the defense’s requests to suppress evidence and statements the prosecution is planning to use during the trial to prove that Mr. Ludwick was drunk and behind the wheel of his 2013 Porsche when he crashed in the early morning hours of Aug. 30, 2015.

Originally freed after posting a $1 million bond, Mr. Ludwick, a Manhattan developer, has been held in county jail in Yaphank since being returned on a warrant issued by Justice Camacho in January 2016 after receiving evidence that Mr. Ludwick was attempting to flee the country.

According to the police, Mr. Ludwick had attempted to leave the crash scene after dragging Mr. Hansen’s body out of the car’s passenger seat and leaving him on the side of the road, just yards from Mr. Hansen’s driveway on Rolling Hills Court East. After driving on four flat tires, Mr. Ludwick was found less than a quarter mile away, where the car had finally died.

Among the evidence Mr. Ludwick’s attorneys, William Keahon and Jonathon B. Manley, are seeking to suppress were statements allegedly made by Mr. Ludwick immediately after the crash. According to the court file, he told the first officer at the scene, who was from the Sag Harbor Police Department, “It was an accident. It was a mistake.” When he was asked if there had been a passenger in the car, he allegedly responded, “Don’t worry about that guy.”

He was initially taken to Sag Harbor police headquarters, then was transferred to Southampton Town police headquarters in Hampton Bays. During the drive to Hampton Bays, hours after the crash, he began asking about Mr. Hansen, the police said. “What happened to the guy?” he reportedly asked. Told Mr. Hansen was seriously injured, police said Mr. Ludwick asked, “How seriously? Is he in the hospital? Is he going to die? Do you think he is going to make it?”

After arriving at Southampton headquarters, he was ordered to remove his clothes, which were covered in blood, according to the prosecutor. “Do you want to see me naked?” he allegedly asked. He is then quoted as saying, “I was with Paul, we had an accident. Paul had some difficulties.”

Mr. Hansen had been declared dead on the scene. His brother, Robert Hansen, was at the courthouse when the decision was announced Thursday. He said his family was looking forward to the resolution of the charges, and for closure.

Mr. Keahon left the courthouse with the printed ruling from Justice Camacho in his hands. “I haven’t had a chance to read it,” he said, but added that he would be prepared to comment on it later on Thursday.

According to Ray Varuolo, assistant district attorney with the vehicular crime bureau, the case will be in court next on March 22, when it is expected that the justice and attorneys involved will begin laying out a schedule for the hearings. 

A proposed expansion of the community oyster garden that was launched in Three Mile Harbor last year took a step forward on Monday when the East Hampton Town Trustees voted unanimously to put in motion a process that would double the size of that garden while establishing another in Hog Creek.

Rick Drew told his colleagues that he, along with Barley Dunne, the director of the town’s shellfish hatchery, and Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc had secured public access to the proposed site at Hog Creek. Mr. Dunne had previously told the trustees that the property at 124 Water Hole Road, which was purchased by the town using community preservation fund money, could serve as the access site.

The oyster garden at Hog Creek would encompass a 30-by-70-foot area and accommodate up to 20 gardeners. Its establishment is contingent on a public notice published in the trustees’ newspaper of record, The Star. Richard Whalen, the trustees’ attorney, will prepare the notice, which will include the site’s location and dimensions, along with other pertinent information, Mr. Drew said.

At the same time, the seven trustees present voted to double the size of the Three Mile Harbor site to 60 by 70 feet, accommodating up to 40 gardeners.

Modeled on what is known as SPAT, a Cornell Cooperative Extension initiative in waters off Southold, the program allows individuals to harvest half of the 1,000 oysters seeded. The cost, approximately $250 per participant, includes gear and instruction in addition to the oysters. Last year, 15 individuals or families took part in the pilot program in Three Mile Harbor, which was seen as successful.

In other matters discussed at the meeting, Bill Taylor told his colleagues that plans to dredge Accabonac Harbor, as well as the culvert under Gerard Drive, should be implemented as soon as possible. Jim Grimes said that a call to a contractor had yet to be returned. The body voted to authorize Francis Bock, the clerk, and his deputies, Mr. Taylor and Mr. Drew, to use their discretion in obtaining a cost estimate from contractors to perform the work.

The trustees debated the merits of a town-owned dredge versus reliance on Suffolk County to complete needed projects. The latter option is clearly untenable, they agreed, as the county lacks a budget commensurate with the town’s needs. But the town’s purchase of an excavator may be no more efficient, they said. A more reasonable approach, Mr. Grimes said, might be an intermunicipal agreement with other East End towns under which a contractor would invest in the equipment with a guarantee of sufficient work to justify the investment.

Municipalities can enter into such agreements and share the expense, Mr. Whalen said. “If we could join up with surrounding towns on the East End, we could do this much more efficiently,” he said.

The trustees agreed upon a plan to draw up a list of needed projects and engage in outreach to other municipalities.

Wilson Fabian Guanga has made his home in Montauk for 23 years. He has been in a detention facility in Bergen County, New Jersey, since being picked up on Jan. 27 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency officers, and on Tuesday a hearing will be held in Manhattan at which a judge will decide whether he can remain in the United States or be deported.

Mr. Guanga, who will turn 40 in July, arrived in Montauk when he was 16. Originally from the Cuenca region of Ecuador, he has worked here as a carpenter, been married for 18 years, and has two children, with a third on the way. He has a government I-9 work permit, and said he pays all relevant taxes. But he has no documentation that would allow him to remain in the United States. And while he has never been convicted of a crime, he has been arrested twice.

“I come from a very poor family,” he said on Friday. “When I was 7 years old, I started to work. I was always told, work, work, work. When I was 12 years old, I was a good student, but I couldn’t go to school because my mother didn’t have support. I wanted to give a better life for my family. That is one of the reasons why I came to this country.” Mr. Guanga spoke by telephone from the Bergen County jail, which holds detainees “who are waiting for their immigration status to be determined,” according to the ICE website.

Mr. Guanga’s first arrest was on Oct. 6, 2015, in Old Westbury on a misdemeanor charge of driving while intoxicated. A breath test reading at police headquarters showed .08 of 1 percent alcohol in his blood, just enough to trigger the charge.

The Nassau County district attorney’s office agreed to drop the D.W.I. charge a few weeks later, with Mr. Guanga instead pleading guilty to driving with ability impaired by alcohol, a violation, and to perform 35 hours of community service. That meant Mr. Guanga could move forward without a criminal record. A reduced plea, however, is apparently irrelevant to ICE, according to several people interviewed for this article.

“The deck is stacked against an alien,” H. Raymond Fasano, Mr. Guanga’s immigration lawyer, said this week, as he commented on the Nassau County legal proceedings. “The prosecutor . . . already made a decision that Wilson’s not a public danger,” Mr. Fasano said, adding had been made to close the 2015 deportation case caused by the arrest. However, it placed Mr. Guanga on ICE’s radar.

Mr. Guanga’s second arrest was the result of a criminal complaint filed in January by a woman identified as a Ms. Sansez in court papers. She alleged that he choked her and grabbed her infant during a visit to her rental unit at Cozy Cottages in Wainscott on Jan. 13. Mr. Guanga denied the allegations after his arrest.

According to Edward Burke Jr., a lawyer who subsequently represented Mr. Guanga in East Hampton Justice Court, Mr. Guanga was headed to a soccer game that day when he stopped by to see her. They argued, Mr. Burke said, and Mr. Guanga left. East Hampton Town police arrested him on Jan. 16, with two misdemeanor charges, one of which was endangering the welfare of a child.

On Jan. 27, Mr. Guanga left his East Lake Drive residence early, headed for work. “They waited for me outside. Six officers. Two cars and a minivan. ‘We have a warrant for you,’ ” Mr. Guanga said he was told by ICE officers. “They pulled my van over on 27.” He has been in detention ever since.

Mr. Burke called the criminal charges against Mr. Guanga flimsy, and said he had worked with the district attorney’s office seeking to have them dismissed. After an investigation by Rudy Migliore Jr., the D.A.’s prosecuting attorney, Mr. Burke said it was agreed that the case against Mr. Guanga was to be adjourned for one year, after which all charges would be dropped.

On Feb. 9, Mr. Guanga was brought from the Bergen County jail to East Hampton Town Justice Court. With Mr. Burke standing by Mr. Guanga’s side, the prosecution announced it was adjourning the case in contemplation of dismissal. “The prosecutor was doing justice,” Mr. Burke said Tuesday.

The burden of proof in deportation proceedings shifts from the prosecutor to the defendant. Defendants must prove they are not a danger to society, and a person’s moral character, and his or her place in the community, are taken into account, according to Mr. Fasano. Whether deportation might create a substantial hardship for those left behind is to be taken into account, he said, as well as the length of time a defendant has been in the country. The charge itself, no matter what the result is during a criminal proceeding, is looked at anew during deportation hearings, however, which are administrative rather than criminal.

One possible character witness for Mr. Guanga is his sister, who also lives in Montauk. Last year, she was struck by a car there. It was Wilson, she told The Star last week, who kept her going, through months of treatment and rehabilitation and bouts of depression. She said he would look in on her daily. “He looked after my kids. He brought food. He pushed me. ‘You are my sister. You are strong. You can do this,’ ” she said he told her.

“Permanent exile from the U.S., that is what could happen to Wilson,” Mr. Fasano said. “Hopefully not, but it is a tough, tough case now.”

Mr. Guanga was picked up a week after Donald Trump became president. Two days before he was detained, President Trump signed an executive order requiring ICE to “detain individuals apprehended on suspicion of violating federal or state law, including federal immigration law, pending further proceedings regarding those violations.” According to Mr. Fasano and others, the order is a broad expansion of power. The president “is making every single arrest a priority, whether they are a public danger or not,” Mr. Fasano said.

In Mr. Guanga’s case, district attorneys’ offices in both Suffolk and Nassau Counties had decided that Mr. Guanga was not a danger to the public when they considered the charges he faced, Mr. Fasano said, adding that he believes the current ICE process oversteps the federal government’s powers, as enumerated in the Constitution, and violates states’ rights. Mr. Fasano also believes a stay of deportation following a hearing will ultimately increase the number of green cards, which provide legal-resident status.

The Star sat down with ICE officers at Federal Plaza in Manhattan on Monday. As far as they are concerned, it is the charge, not the outcome of a case, that can trigger deportation proceedings. They also said undocumented immigrants were in the country illegally, and thus had already committed a crime.

Tuesday’s removal hearing will be held at the Department of Justice’s Varick Street Immigration Court, in front of Judge Thomas Mulligan.

“I’m being held by immigration, but my family is paying the consequences,” Mr. Guanga said.

A search has begun for a part-time superintendent for the Wainscott School District after the resignation, effective yesterday, of Stuart Rachlin, who has been in the position for six years.

David Eagan, the president of the school board, said yesterday that the board had accepted Dr. Rachlin’s resignation at its Feb. 15 meeting. Dr. Rachlin offered no reason for his departure in his letter of resignation, Mr. Eagan said, declining to comment further. “We don’t discuss the specifics of personnel matters,” he said.

Dr. Rachlin, who lives in Hauppauge, offered a different take. He said he was informed by Mr. Eagan before the January board meeting that his contract would not be renewed for the 2017-18 school year, "despite my not having received a negative evaluation and my bringing noteworthy programs and increased grant funding to the district," he said by email on Wednesday. 

He pointed to an additional $18,000 in federal funding through the Rural Schools program, an additional $60,000 in federal funding for special education, and an additional $50,000 in funding for non-English speakers. One-third of the student body learn English as a second language, and Dr. Rachlin, who speaks Spanish fluently, said he had served as a liaison to Latino families. 

He said he was saddened to leave the Wainscott community. "Momentarily, I will retire for the second time; however, due to my dedication to children and their education, I know that I will soon use my skills and knowledge in another district before long that requires these skills," he said. 

“We’re fine. The school’s in good hands,” Mr. Eagan said. He said the small school, which educates students through the third grade, is in a “unique situation in the sense that our part-time superintendent is only there six hours a week.” The day-to-day operations fall to the staff, including two full-time teachers and district clerk. “The board is completely comfortable that that won’t change at all. . . . The people who deliver the services are there everyday.”

Mr. Rachlin said he worked there three and a half to four hours twice a week. 

The district has advertised the opening with the Eastern Suffolk Board of Education, with the salary at around $54,000, Mr. Eagan said. The principal job of the superintendent, he said, is to ensure compliance with state reporting requirements, and Mr. Eagan said the district is up to date in that regard.

While he is hopeful the district can hire a replacement by the end of the school year, he also said the board could wait longer for the right candidate. “This is not a crisis situation,” he said.

This is an updated version of an article that appeared in print on March 2. Correction: Stuart Rachlin was the superintendent of the Wainscott School for six years, not five as originally reported. There are also two full-time teachers, not one. 

Bridgehampton residents want South­­­ampton Town officials to tighten the reins on the owners of a horse farm who are looking for retroactive planning board approval of work done without permission.

The owners of the Campbell Stables, an 18-stall barn and related structures at 6 West Pond Drive, on the corner of Newlight Lane, are seeking to amend the site plan approved in 2011 to include additional structures and a service road, some of which landed them in South­ampton Town Justice Court on alleged violations of the town code.

Campbell Stables is on an approximately 17.8-acre agricultural reserve, which was carved out during the 2000 mapping of a subdivision to the west of Kellis Pond. Horse farms are a permitted use. Campbell Stables, or Campbell Ranch, which it is called on applications to the planning board, is a limited liability corporation known as Bridge A, owned by Robert Campbell, the founder of B.B.C. International, a leading children’s and athletic footwear design and sourcing company, and his wife, Barbara.

The site plan approved by the planning board includes a barn with 14-foot-square stalls and a second-story hayloft, a 15,000-square-foot indoor riding arena, a second-floor observation room, an outdoor riding ring, a two-story building with tack and storage rooms and a second-story apartment, an accessory equipment/storage barn, manure storage areas, paddock areas, and open farmland. The project was not fully completed until 2015.

Peter Zamiska, who lives to the east on Kellis Pond Lane and has been distributing flyers in opposition to the request to modify the site plan and for a special exception permit, said he had not opposed the original application over seven years ago when it was called a family stable. “I saw over the years, a building I consider to be a mega ranch, the size of which is astonishing,” he said at a planning board hearing last Thursday. Though he called the barn a beautiful building, he said it went from being “a noncommercial enterprise . . . for a son or daughter to learn to ride ponies” to something much more. 

The Campbell Stables website has information on private and group lessons with Bobby Ginsberg, a well-known hunter-jumper trainer, as well as on year-round and seasonal boarding for horses. European show horses are listed for sale and lease, and the property is available for private parties.

As approved, the barn is to have up to 24 horses, based on the property’s acreage. The owners are now asking permission to board five additional horses in a temporary tent between June 1 and Sept. 30, the height of the show season on the East End.

Based on the formula in the code, according to the applicants’ attorney at the  hearing last Thursday, the stables can have more horses thanks to an additional 2.6 acres of agricultural reserve her clients own across the street to the south. The town code is silent on whether the acreage has to be contiguous, a town attorney told the planning board. Additional paddocks on the larger agricultural reserve and fencing on the perimeter of the 2.6 acres are also proposed.

According to Kieran Pape Murphree of Burke & Sullivan, who is representing the owners, and a barn manager who spoke at the hearing, the tent had been up during a previous summer. While it is not there now, another structure is. The application also includes a request to retain a circular-roofed building with a horse “walker” inside, taking up about 50 square feet, on the northwest corner of the acreage. Ms. Murphree admitted it was built without a permit. Work completed beyond what was approved, Mr. Zamiska said, is “a very disheartening way to treat our board, our town, our neighbors, and our neighborhood.’

The application asks approval to keep the service road in use along the property line on Newlight Lane, which provides access to a relocated manure Dumpster. “Did it occur to you that you’re moving it closer to the neighboring property?” Dennis Finnerty, the planning board chairman, said, of the Dumpster. Ms. Murphree said her clients wanted to have it well separated from riding activity, and, she added, it conforms to required setbacks.

Tara S. Hakimi, an attorney with the Adam Miller Group, a Bridgehampton firm representing two owners of property on the northwest side of the stables, said her clients object to the location of the new structures. “Why is it they have to go toward the neighbors to the north and the west?” she asked, adding that there is a vacant piece of land to the east that could be used.

One of her clients, Fred Brettschneider, who lives at 143 Newlight Lane, directly to the west, said in a letter to the board that while he was concerned that the additional road and buildings increase the project’s density, he was most focused on the manure Dumpster. “I do not want it located anywhere near our property for several reasons,” he said, mentioning smell, increased traffic, and that it could exacerbate his daughter’s allergies.

Mr. Zamiska shared his concerns with the Bridgehampton Citizens Advisory Committee during its meeting on Monday night. “It’s like Saratoga out in my backyard,” he said, adding that while horse farms are allowed on preserved farmland, he did not feel the use fit “the spirit of the law,” which was intended to preserve land for agriculture. The town has over the last two years been purchasing what are called enhanced development rights, which prevent preserved property from being used for anything other than food production.

Mr. Zamiska encouraged community members to write the planning board or attend the next public hearing to object to the requests. The citizens committee, which fought against a recently proposed mixed commercial and residential project called Bridgehampton Gateway, in part out of concern for Kellis Pond, also voted to send a letter to the planning board in opposition.

The planning board adjourned the hearing until March 23 at 6 p.m., and agreed to accept written comment beyond that. Ms. Murphree, however, objected. “That’s a long time and summer is coming up,” she said.