Ask anyone how to identify those who have lived in East Hampton the longest and there will no doubt be a variety of answers. But it’s a pretty sure bet that someone whose landline phone number starts with a 324 exchange (after the now-obligatory 631 area code, of course) has been a resident here for a while, leaving aside those who have moved in and taken over reassigned numbers.

Either way, the 324 exchange, long augmented by a newer 329 prefix, and then 907, carries some prestige.

When Chuck Hitchcock and David Wilt of Springs decided recently to pick up and move, friends suggested to them that their phone number, 324-2468, had intrinsic value.

The number — the way to get him on the line for 49 years, Mr. Hitchcock said on Tuesday — not only had a 324 beginning but also an easy-to-remember set of numbers following, if you know how to count by twos, that is.

They placed a classified ad in The Star putting the number up for sale — “easily rememberable,” it said. “Excellent for business or residence.”

“We were told that such things hapen . . . that 324 is a desirable prefix,” Mr. Hitchcock said by phone while belongings were being delivered to the couple’s new house outside Philadelphia.

Though they were willing to hand the number over for the best price offered, no one, so far, had called. Should a buyer emerge, Mr. Hitchcock said, it would be simply a matter of informing Vonage, the phone carrier, of 324-2468’s new owner.

In the meantime, Mr. Hitchcock is taking calls on his cellphone. There is a landline at the new place, but he said he cannot remember the number.

A ruling on numerous motions filed in Suffolk District Court in Central Islip by attorneys for Sean P. Ludwick, the Manhattan developer accused of vehicular homicide in an early morning crash in Noyac in 2015, is expected from Justice Fernando Camacho on Feb. 16. The motions are part of a 40-page document filed with the court in December by one of the attorneys, Jonathan B. Manley. He asks the court to dismiss the 13 charges, including 6 felonies, his client is facing. Should the court fail to do so, he asks that the evidence the prosecution intends to put forward during trial be suppressed or that separate hearings be held to judge on admissibility. Raymond Varuolo, an assistant Suffolk County district attorney, has filed a 22-page response.

As a result of an accident that caused the death of Paul Hansen, Mr. Ludwick has been accused of being drunk behind the wheel of his 2013 Porsche convertible on Aug. 30, 2015. The men apparently had been drinking in Southampton and were returning home. Mr. Ludwick allegedly was driving at an inappropriately high speed and having trouble finding the driveway at Mr. Hansen’s house, on Rolling Hills Court, where Mr. Ludwick’s son was on a sleepover. The car crashed just yards away. 

The prosecution alleges that Mr. Hansen’s body was partially ejected from the car upon impact and that Mr. Ludwick dragged him out, leaving him on the side of the road, and then attempting drive to his own house, in Bridgehampton. The prosecution has also said that the car had four flat tires and did not go far. A Sag Harbor police officer found Mr. Ludwick standing beside his disabled vehicle.

The defense has presented the court with a series of arguments, called an omnibus motion, pointing out what they perceive as flaws in the prosecution’s case. They attack the grand jury proceedings that resulted in Mr. Ludwick’s indictment as inadequate, with the jurors reaching the wrong conclusion.

The prosecution has countered that Mr. Ludwick could have testified himself but chose not to. According to the prosecution, seven witnesses testified and 55 pieces of evidence were presented. “Taken together, the grand jury could have reasonable cause to believe the defendant operated the vehicle recklessly and in a manner that caused the death of Paul Hansen while intoxicated.”

The defense has argued against each of the charges. One, for example, was leaving the scene of an accident in which there was an injury without reporting it to the police. The defense says Mr. Ludwick was dazed, and was found by police standing by the side of his car about a quarter of a mile from the accident. “When Southampton Town police found the defendant,” the prosecution replied, Mr. Ludwick “was seen throwing the victim’s property out of the vehicle,” which shows he was “trying to evade criminal consequences.”

The defense is also asking the court to reject the method used to determine Mr. Ludwick’s blood alcohol percentage at the time of the accident. It is alleged to have been .18 of 1 percent, high enough to trigger a raised charge of aggravated drunken driving. But the defense said the prosecution was incorrectly working backward from the alcohol percentage at the time of a test at police headquarters to determine the level at the time of the crash. The defense has also called the arrest “unlawful” and claimed Mr. Ludwick was denied his right to speak to an attorney during processing.

Mr. Ludwick, a managing partner in BlackHouse Development, which is based in his Sutton Place address in Manhattan, is now represented by third and fourth law firms. He was represented in Southampton Town Justice Court during his arraignment by Daniel J. Ollen. Bond, which was posted the next day, was set at $1 million. Within weeks, Mr. Ludwick had retained Benjamin Brafman, a New York attorney, but that relationship ended when Mr. Ludwick was allegedly getting ready to flee the country while in Puerto Rico, where prosecutors said he was taking sailing lessons and looking to buy a $500,000 boat. In addition, he allegedly was doing online research about nations that do not have strong extradition relationships with the United States.

Justice Camacho issued a warrant for Mr. Ludwick’s arrest based on these allegations, and he was remanded to jail on Jan. 21, 2016, with no possibility of bail. Since then, Mr. Ludwick has been represented by Mr. Manley’s eponymous legal firm as well as Keahon, Fleischer & Ferrane.

Monday’s northeaster was not the only hazard facing Fran Figueroa, a Springs School bus driver. At a school board meeting that evening, Ms. Figueroa took to the podium to raise the issue of overcrowded school buses and potential safety hazards posed by unruly children on her bus. Due to weather-related cancellations of after-school programs that day, Ms. Figueroa had 63 students on board.

The bus driver, employed by the district for the past eight years, has seen an increase in the number of students traveling on the school’s bus fleet, which serves kindergarten through eighth-grade students. (This coincided with an announcement by John Finello, the superintendent, at Monday’s meeting that school enrollment had increased by 15 students from last year and 26 students from two years ago.) Four years ago, Ms. Figueroa said, she had fewer than 40 children on her route. Today, she has “anywhere from 50 to 60.”

While the bus is outfitted to hold 66 students, Ms. Figueroa has 73 students assigned to her route, though not everyone takes the bus and she has never exceeded maximum capacity.

Of major concern is that her route, along with one other, has several rowdy students who need to be constantly supervised and policed. “It’s very difficult for me to concentrate on driving . . . while having to keep an eye on the ones misbehaving. It’s very stressful,” she told the board on Monday.

Carl Fraser, the interim business administrator, was quick to respond, informing the board and the handful of community members present that he had met with Ms. Figueroa to discuss the issue.

Mr. Fraser said that Ms. Figueroa’s request to place an aide on the problem buses was financially impossible. Instead, the school was investigating the installation of a video surveillance camera in Ms. Figueroa’s bus. The first quote received from a camera surveillance company was approximately $2,000 for each bus. The school is waiting to hear back from two other companies before making a decision.

On the phone afterward, Mr. Fraser added, “In conjunction with pricing out a school bus surveillance system we are conducting a five-day count of students on each of our seven bus routes. This will help us identify if any of the buses are regularly carrying 60 or more students. If we find this to be the case, the school will try to re-allocate students to less crowded buses.”

Mr. Fraser acknowledged that video surveillance will not solve the issue of overcrowded buses, although he believes the two are related. “My hope is that if we do find there is overcrowding on certain buses and we are able to move students onto a less crowded one, the activity of misbehaving will decrease simply because we’d have fewer children on that bus. And, if we still find a student who is repeatedly misbehaving, then the camera will be very helpful.”

According to the National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services’ website, video surveillance cameras are recommended on school buses as part of the association’s goal to provide safe and secure transportation to school children. School administrators across the country seem to agree that when used effectively a bus camera can help put a stop to driver distractions from unruly student behavior, which can interfere with the bus driver’s duties and the operation of the school bus.

Barbara Dayton, president of the school board, echoed the sentiment. “I think the use of cameras on school buses is great,” she said. “Ridership is a privilege and anyone who is caught disrespecting this, especially if it’s causing safety issues, will have their privilege revoked.”

Mr. Fraser added that the advantages of capturing a student’s unruly behavior on camera is that it offers hard evidence in helping parents when a school must suspend their child’s right to ride the bus. During the board meeting, Mr. Fraser explained that today’s camera technology allows the school to obscure other faces on the bus, only identifying the offending student.

A school bus is not unlike a classroom on wheels. However, school buses often have more students than a classroom does and have only one supervisor, who happens to be at the wheel and facing the other way. Ms. Figueroa’s frustrations were clear on Monday night as she spoke of the added time it took her to drop off all 63 students, not only because there were so many but because she “had to keep stopping to get them to behave.”

--

Correction: This article has been updated to reflect the correct spelling of Fran Figueroa's last name. 

The East Hampton Town Police Department has named its annual “Cop of the Year” for 2016. “The senior staff and I have selected Police Officer Ken Alversa as this year’s recipient,” Chief Michael D. Sarlo said yesterday.

The officer is the police liaison with East Hampton High School. “Ken is an eight-year veteran of the department, who took over as full-time School Resource Officer during 2016. The work that Kenny has done for our agency is truly professional and exemplary,” Chief Sarlo said.

The chief listed some of Officer Alversa’s initiatives in the school, including new educational programs, panel presentations, and classroom discussions. Among the tough issues he has tackled are opioid and alcohol abuse and dependency, cybersecurity and cyberbullying, date rape, and sexual-assault awareness.

The school resource officer balances the need for education and outreach with that of law enforcement when necessary. “He made 16 arrests and assisted on 23 others during 2016. Kenny has taken community policing to another level,” the chief said.

A versatile officer who maintains a strong relationship with the student body, Officer Alversa is also a trainer for the department, instructing on defensive tactics, the use of firearms, and the application of the lifesaving Narcan, used to rescue victims of a drug overdose. An emergency medical technician for the Montauk Fire Department, he also trains others in C.P.R. and the use of defibrillators, and assists the detective division in reconstructing accident scenes involving serious injuries or fatalities.

“Kenny has demonstrated a tireless, dedicated, professional, and committed approach to every aspect of his police career, and the citizens of the Town of East Hampton, as well as our department, are lucky to have him,” Chief Sarlo said.

Information about the state of Long Island’s groundwater and on the quality of the treated drinking water provided to residents by various suppliers, including the Suffolk County Water Authority, can be found on WaterTraq, a new interactive website developed by the Long Island Commission for Aquifer Protection.

The website was a highlight last week of a talk at the East Hampton Library by representatives of the water authority, the first in a series of “WaterTalk” sessions that will focus on groundwater quality and conservation, and give the public a chance to ask experts about issues of concern.

The water authority’s chief executive officer, Jeffrey W. Szabo; its lead hydrogeologist and director of strategic initiatives, Ty Fuller; its laboratory manager, Tom Schneider, and its workforce technology manager, Larry Anderson, were on hand for the discussion.

On the WaterTraq site, visitors can click on a map to see data about the water in a particular area, or search for information by putting in an address. In addition, one can check to see whether certain chemicals or compounds — among those that the public water supplier tests for — are present in the water.

The county takes samples from its wells weekly, monthly, or quarterly, Mr. Schneider said, and tests them for more than 400 compounds, both naturally occurring or man-made pollutants. They include pesticides, herbicides, pharmaceuticals, and the active ingredients in household products.

The level of scrutiny exceeds that mandated by New York State, he said, which requires testing water for the presence of 150 compounds.

Should pollutants be found, the water is treated so that it falls within, or exceeds, state and federal drinking water standards.

“There is a big difference between what’s in the groundwater and what’s finished and treated and provided to you” by the S.C.W.A. for drinking water, Mr. Fuller stressed.

Besides the new WaterTraq online system, the water authority posts on its own website annual water quality reports covering five years. Its system has a number of distinct “pressure zones,” Mr. Schneider said, from which water is pumped, and they do not generally intermix. “Your water is coming from within about two miles of your house,” he said.

There are about 25 S.C.W.A. wells in East Hampton Town. The water is treated for contaminants with the use of granular-activated carbon filters, and also treated with chlorine and with lime, to maintain a balanced pH level. Groundwater on Long Island is naturally acidic, Mr. Fuller said, and iron in it, which can result in pinhole leaks in pipes, is often a concern.

Many people in East Hampton living outside areas in which county water mains have been extended get water from their own private wells. Mains can be extended once a certain percentage of neighborhood residents agree to sign on. The “tapping fee” for hooking up to a water main is $1,650 at present, the S.C.W.A. representatives said, bringing the overall individual cost here, with other fees, of obtaining “public water” to about $7,000. That can be paid over time, and the speakers said that state funds earmarked for clean water initiatives may also be authorized to offset the cost.

What does the water authority do regarding notification of neighbors with private wells when contaminants are found in tested groundwater, someone asked.

“The water quality could be quite different” in neighboring wells, Mr. Schneider said, explaining that the authority’s wells are much deeper than the typical private well. But, he said, when alarming water test results are found in the lab, they are shared with the water authority staff, and if the source of pollution is clear, action is taken.

For instance, said Mr. Fuller, when methyl tertiary butyl ether, or M.T.B.E., a gasoline additive, was detected in Long Island water, the authority pursued legal action against its manufacturers, and its efforts resulted in state legislation establishing, for the first time, a standard for the compound in drinking water.

“We’re very concerned about saltwater intrusion,” said Mr. Schneider in answer to a question about how the authority might be taking sea level rise, and increased development and demand for water, into account. There is a 10-year plan, he said, to address the issue of protecting wells in coastal communities from saltwater intrusion.

Water conservation is a key element, the spokesmen said. While an average customer uses about 160,000 gallons a year, the largest users on the East End consume 22 million gallons annually.  Much of the water used by all customers is for irrigation.

Tips provided to conserve water include watering the garden only on odd or even days, running sprinkler systems at night, outside peak demand hours, reducing shower time by five minutes, which can save 1,000 gallons of water per month, fixing leaky faucets (one drip per second wastes 1,661 gallons a year), and using faucet aerators and low-flow showerheads and faucets.

A discussion of an adjusted rate schedule for those who use greater amounts of water will take place later this year.

Meter reading is now done using advanced wireless technology that allows data to be collected from meters simply by driving past a residence.

Through an entertaining short film and a talk by Mr. Anderson, those at last week’s meeting were informed about the history of meter reading and how practices and technology have changed since the early 1900s.

President Donald Trump’s pledge to deport undocumented immigrants and deny federal funding to so-called sanctuary cities, those where local officials have said they will not cooperate with federal immigration authorities, has unnerved many South Fork residents. Those lacking legal status and their advocates are further concerned by the recent reversal of policy regarding immigrants by Suffolk County Sheriff Vincent DeMarco, who announced that he would no longer ask for a warrant before detaining immigrant inmates who may be subject to deportation.

Under the sheriff’s new policy, county correctional facilities will hold immigrants who have been detained on other charges, and for whom federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement have issued “hold” notices, for up to 48 hours, allowing that agency time to take them into custody.

 On the other hand, last week Eric Schneiderman, the New York State attorney general, announced that he is going to issue guidelines to local governments explaining how to resist federal immigration enforcement. In addition, earlier this month in the first of six state-of-the-state addresses, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo proposed a fund that would provide legal representation for immigrants.

These conflicts between governing bodies have sown confusion among undocumented residents and their advocates. “There’s a lot of fear,” Minerva Perez, the executive director of Organización Latino-Americana of Eastern Long Island, said on Tuesday. “Some is well founded, but some might be able to be alleviated a bit if we can get more information.”

Uncertainty, she said, promotes fear, “which is only doing unhealthy things to the community, both the undocumented and the documented.” She said immigrants charged with minor crimes, such as housing or automotive violations, and even victims of domestic violence, are worried about being labeled criminals and targeted for deportation.

“No one in the Latino community wants violence, criminals, or bad people on the street. We just want to make sure we’re not over-criminalizing groups and tacking on deportation,” she said.

East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said such fears were understandable but called them unfounded. “Some people are concerned that the sheriff’s decision is going to result in po ice departments going out and chasing people out of houses and deporting them. There’s a lot of misinformation caused by some heightened rhetoric. Some of it is not justified by the facts,” he said.

“There’s been a lot of rhetoric about building a wall and having people deported, and people are scared,” Mr. Cantwell said. “We should do what we can to reassure people that that’s not going to happen in this community. There is no policy in the Town of East Hampton to barge into people’s homes and deport them.”

Chief Michael Sarlo of the East Hampton Town Police Department also sought to assuage undocumented residents’ anxiety. “The only time our agency would be concerned with a subject’s immigration status is if they were arrested and charged with a crime and if during the processing of that arrest, we received an ICE hold hit and the subject would be wanted for removal,” he wrote in an email Tuesday.

 He also said ICE places holds only on those in the country illegally who have been convicted of a crime or face “serious criminal charges for which they have failed to appear in court.” The chief said such individuals are rarely encountered in East Hampton, “and when we do there are actually occasions wherein federal officials will tell our department that they will not be able to get out here within the 48 hours, so we process them and either present them for arraignment or release them on bail or appearance ticket for the charges for which they are in custody with our agency, as we would any other defendant.”

Despite positive discussions with law enforcement officials in East Hampton and Southampton, the Latino community remains fearful, Ms. Perez said. “Who’s not going to the hospital, who’s not calling 911, who’s not reporting a crime?” she asked. “The urgency is not letting law enforcement and public safety break down at the expense of fear.”

 Chief Sarlo further sought to relieve anxiety by reiterating that the ICE hold procedure applies only to those both in the country illegally and who have committed or been convicted of a serious crime. “Reporting a crime, being involved in an accident, being the victim of theft, etc., does not trigger our agency checking immigration status or running a person through the federal database.”

Mr. Cantwell said on Tuesday that he had not received word from the state attorney general about interaction with federal immigration authorities. “We certainly would want that before we came to conclusions as to how the town would deal with this,” he said.

Ms. Perez is continuing to follow what is being said about undocumented residents, “so we can put out there what is a reasonable request, so the most vulnerable on the East End are not dealing across the board with unnamable fear.” Undocumented immigrants, she said, “are working, getting their kids to school, and are part of our community.”

A career criminal already behind bars has now been charged with six more felony counts after an investigation by Southampton Town detectives into a string of burglaries between March and May.

Richard Ambrose, 40, of Shirley was taken to Southampton Town Justice Court from the county jail in Riverside on Jan. 12 and arraigned on the new charges.

Southampton Village police had arrested him on Sept. 16 on a burglary charge, and a grand jury indicted him four days later. On Sept. 26, he was arraigned in county court, with New York State Justice John B. Collins setting bail at $300,000 based on Mr. Ambrose's recidivist nature, according to court records. He had been held in the county jail ever since. Details of that burglary, said to have occurred on April 20 of last year, were not immediately available.

Since 2004, Mr. Ambrose has spent most of his time behind bars. That year he was convicted on a number of charges, including burglary and possession of stolen property, and served three and a half years in state prison. One year after his release, he was convicted of burglary and was returned to prison. After serving two more years, he was released but was soon arrested again on another burglary charge. After serving more time, he was released, only to be arrested and convicted yet again in 2014.

Almost immediately after being released from prison early last year, he apparently returned to his criminal ways. According to Lt. Susan Ralph of the Southampton Town police, he would break into businesses that were closed for the night and rummage through drawers, searching for cash and cigarettes. The six stores he targeted in the town's jurisdiction were in Noyac (the Whalebone General Store), Southampton (the Blue Collar Bar), and Water Mill, and included a gas station.

"It's sad. They just keep going back to the same old thing, instead of improving their lives," Lieutenant Ralph said of repeat offenders.

The Champagne began to flow at 12:45 Wednesday afternoon, moments after the Long Island Power Authority's board of directors voted unanimously to approve a proposal for a 15-turbine, 90-megawatt South Fork Wind Farm in federally leased waters 30 miles off Montauk. The formal approval of the installation, which is expected to be operational by December 2022, comes just one month after the five-turbine, 30-megawatt Block Island Wind Farm, the nation's first such offshore facility, went online.

Jeffrey Grybowski, the chief executive officer of Deepwater Wind, which built the Block Island Wind Farm and proposed the South Fork Wind Farm to LIPA, told The Star Wednesday that LIPA had authorized its chief executive officer, Thomas Falcone, to ink a 20-year contract to buy the energy generated by the wind farm from his company. The agreement, which includes a five-year extension option, is expected to produce energy sufficient to power more than 50,000 residences.

"This is a big day for clean energy in New York and our nation," Mr. Grybowski said later in a press release. "Governor Cuomo has set a bold vision for a clean-energy future, and this project is a significant step toward making that a reality. . . . There is a huge clean-energy resource blowing off of our coastline just over the horizon, and it is time to tap into this unlimited resource to power our communities."

The wind farm will be connected to an East Hampton substation via a cable. "We are in the process now of exploring options, but have not settled on a land location or route," Mr. Grybowski said Wednesday. "That is something we need to work with the town and community on."

The vote came two weeks after the governor, in a regional State of the State address delivered at Farmingdale State College, called on LIPA to approve the wind farm, and announced a commitment to develop up to 2.4 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030. The 2.4-gigawatt target, which could power 1.25 million residences, is to date the largest commitment to offshore wind energy in the United States.

Wednesday's vote came six months after LIPA postponed an expected approval of the project at the behest of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, which had asked the authority's board of directors to delay a vote so the wind farm could be examined in the broader context of its Offshore Wind Master Plan. A draft blueprint of the master plan, which is expected by the end this year, was released in September.

"This was the least-cost option for meeting the South Fork's energy needs and peak demand needs, as well as their renewable-energy needs," Gordian Raacke, executive director of East Hampton-based Renewable Energy Long Island, who attended Wednesday's meeting, said of LIPA. "Amongst the 25 proposals that they reviewed in combination with each other and various packages, this was the most cost-effective."

The proposal includes two battery-storage facilities, which were discussed Wednesday but require local approval before their inclusion can be confirmed. The wind farm will be able to deliver power without those storage facilities, "but of course, wind, as with some other renewable sources, is intermittent by nature," Mr. Raacke said. Those facilities "would help smooth out those times when there isn't as much wind" and are important, he said, "because we will have a shortfall in capacity this summer and in summer 2018. My hope is that approvals for the battery storage will come on time to still have that operational before summer 2018."

Demand for electricity on the South Fork has outpaced the rest of Long Island, with particularly high usage in the summer and on weekends and holidays. Electricity demand has also vastly outpaced population growth, with the megawatt peak growing by 44 percent while residential accounts grew by just 4 percent and commercial accounts by 12.3 percent over a decade, according to statistics issued in 2015 by PSEG Long Island, which manages the island's electrical grid on behalf of LIPA.

"When we looked at the options and alternatives to meet the growing need in East Hampton and Southampton, it turns out this is the lowest-cost proposal," Mr. Falcone said of the South Fork Wind Farm in July. "It makes sense to bring this generation in while also meeting some renewable energy goals our board has established. It's not just good for East Hampton and Southampton, it's good for everybody on Long Island, a very good place to deliver the energy."

The commercial fishing industry is opposed to offshore wind installations, its representatives citing disruption to habitat and the potential to alter migratory patterns. Mr. Grybowski said Wednesday that he hoped to allay those concerns. "We are absolutely committed to working very closely with the commercial fishing industry," he said. "We have already sent a representative to Montauk a number of times to meet with fishermen. We will continue to do that in the coming months and years. We are convinced that offshore wind and commercial fishing will co-exist in the ocean."

Deepwater Wind, a Rhode Island company, has proposed an additional 210-megawatt installation in the same lease area in which the just-approved wind farm will be situated, Mr. Grybowski said Wednesday.

Mr. Raacke, a member of East Hampton Town's energy sustainability advisory committee, noted that Mr. Falcone had said Wednesday that "this will not be last offshore wind project."

"This really is, I think, a historic moment and will be remembered as the point when Long Island made the switch from fossil fuels to clean, renewable, and local power sources," Mr. Raacke said.

I frequently ask myself why there are so many artists plying their trade on the East End of Long Island. Yes, it’s close to the museums and major galleries in New York, but I think the main reason they are here is the setting. In other words they find the pastoral spaces, ocean and bays, bluffs and woodlands both provocative and attractive. And others I have queried said this area’s most important attribute is its ambient light.

In view of the above, one would think there would be more landscape and seascape artists, but art and artists evolve and a good many of them are into painting abstracts, sculpting, weaving, and other forms of artistic creation. And let us not omit the photographers; there are many those here as well. One can immediately understand why the environment and ambience are so important to their work.

That being said, why do we let the utility contractors, namely, PSEG and its governing body, the Long Island Power Authority, but also cellphone companies, continue to uglify a scenic scape from which our artists and citizens draw so much inspiration? Take the rural and scenic Amagansett road called Town Lane. There are farms, woods, and other attractive landscape features along most of its length. Yet, PSEG comes along and in less than two weeks’ time two years ago, erects the most unattractive, but also very toxic, string of utility poles along its entire length, even though the town’s scenic areas study six years back listed the Town Lane road area among its most scenic spots. 

Then, the same utility makes a hideous monument out of a pre-existing grid nexus next to the Amagansett train station in plain sight of the tracks and Old Stone and Montauk Highways, and tries to hide it with equally unattractive landscaping. 

Well, the same utility is at it again. Under the auspices of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, they are about to improve — that is, “bolster” against future storms — the local electrical grid in parts of Sag Harbor, Quogue, Shelter Island, Noyac, and North Haven, among other places, to the tune of more than $350 million.

One of those areas to be “hardened” against storms is right around the corner from the modest house where I have lived for the last 37 years: Long Beach, a wonderful little isthmus between Sag Harbor Cove and Noyac Bay that is a gathering point not only for bathers, but also for exercisers, artists, nature lovers, shell collectors, and dog walkers.

Now, one would think that with $350 million, some of it could be used to bury electrical lines rather than string them up high on new, sturdier, treated utility poles. Burying electrical trunk lines has already paid off with respect to visiting northeasters and tropical storms. 

The electrical high tension lines that supplied Montauk for ages from that same, but smaller, substation in Amagansett and which ran high above Napeague’s marsh north of the L.I.R.R. to supply Montauk’s power needs were frequently knocked out of service by large coastal cyclones, the last of which was Hurricane Bob in 1991. The Long Island Lighting Company simply got fed up with repairing those lines and decided to bury them. In 1993 they did. 

They now run under the north shoulder of Route 27 for the many miles to Montauk and have yet to fail, even though there have been many, many severe storms since then.

Thankfully, one local governmental voice, North Haven Village Mayor Jeffrey Sander, spoke up before the work gets started, asking why PSEG hasn’t considered burying the lines along Long Beach. 

According to Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele’s office, FEMA will not pay to bury the lines. 

According to The Southampton Press, the “multimillion dollar upgrades are intended to limit the number of people affected by power outages resulting from significant storms.” When is the last time someone lost his or her electricity because the wind blew down a buried power line? I bet a first grader could answer that one in a jiffy.

Every once in a while a hero in the form of a local leader, be it a mayor, supervisor, or assemblyman, appears as if from nowhere and questions an old habit or custom with a few common- sense words of wisdom. In this case it was the mayor of North Haven. Local government is still the most important form of government there is. Never let it be taken away. 

Larry Penny can be reached via email at [email protected].

The Southampton Town Police Department’s new chief will not report for full duty until mid-March, two months later than initially expected.

Supervisor Jay Schneiderman said that as town officials were finalizing arrangements with the Civil Service it came to light that Steven E. Skrynecki would have to use up his accrued vacation time as chief of the Nassau County Police Department before starting in his new position in Southampton, or forfeit it.

“He had a lot of accrued time, so he’s still technically on the books there,” Mr. Schneiderman said. He retired on Thursday and received a big sendoff from Nassau County police. 

In the meantime, Chief Skrynecki is working two days a week in Southampton as a consultant and being paid no more than $10,000. Chief Robert Pearce retired at the end of September, and although Mr. Skrynecki was named chief then, he was not due to start until Jan. 16. Capt. Lawrence Schurek was named acting chief and has been running the department in his absence.

Mr. Schneiderman said the predicament actually saves the town money that it can use toward Police Department equipment. The town has saved roughly $100,000 by not having replaced Chief Pearce immediately and by hiring a chief who will not receive a pension or health benefits from the town, he said.

“It’s really not hampering the department’s abilities in any way,” the supervisor said, referring to the slower pace this time of year. “I’m happy he’s coming on full time in March. If that were pushed until July or August, I’d have a real problem with that.”

“Captain Schurek is doing an excellent job heading the department,” Mr. Schneiderman said. “They are working very close together.”

During the northeaster earlier this week, the department’s two leaders instituted a policy to update the supervisor every two hours on storm-related activity. Chief Skrynecki has also been attending community meetings, such as the Flanders-Riverside-Northampton Community Association’s and one on planning for the 2018 U.S. Open golf tournament at Shinnecock Hills.

The Bridgehampton Citizens Advisory Committee took notice of the chief’s delayed start at a meeting on Monday night. “It doesn’t bode well,” Pamela Harwood, the chairwoman, said.

The committee has been complaining for many months about what members have said is a lack of police presence and traffic enforcement in the hamlet. The group said it would ask Chief Skrynecki to attend a meeting and discuss the issue further when he comes on full time.