Representative Lee Zeldin, a first-term Republican seeking re-election in New York’s First Congressional District, holds a wide lead over his opponent, former Southampton Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst, according to a Newsday/Siena College poll of likely voters. But the race is likely to tighten in the final weeks before the Nov. 8 election, one elected official predicted yesterday, and a politically damaging 2005 recording of Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for president, released after the poll was conducted could affect turnout in the district. 

Mr. Zeldin leads Ms. Throne-Holst 53 to 38 percent, according to the poll conducted between Sept. 28 and 29 and Oct. 2 and 4. Nine percent of the 661 likely voters were undecided or had no opinion, and Ms. Throne-Holst was unknown to 40 percent of voters, according to the poll. 

Mr. Zeldin has the backing of 84 percent of Republicans and leads among independents by 17 percent, poll results say. He leads Ms. Throne-Holst among men by 27 points, while women favor his re-election by 5 percent. 

“With one month to go until Election Day, there is very good reason why Congressman Zeldin’s campaign has all of the momentum,” Erin McTiernan, Mr. Zeldin’s campaign manager, said in a statement issued on Saturday. “Throughout his first term in Congress, Lee Zeldin has stood out as a leader on so many of our district’s highest priorities, getting several victories across the finish line in only 20 months in office.” 

“With more than four weeks to go, Throne-Holst’s campaign has its work cut out,” Steven Greenberg, a Siena College pollster, said in a press release announcing the results. “She needs to become more known to voters and she has to convince enough voters to support her over an incumbent who is well liked.” The First District comprises East Hampton, Southampton, Shelter Island, Riverhead, Southold, Brookhaven, and most of Smithtown.

Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., who has endorsed Ms. Throne-Holst, said yesterday that she has time to close the gap, but “a lot of things have to break her way” in the campaign’s final weeks. “In the public’s mind, the race hasn’t really been joined yet,” Mr. Thiele said, citing voters’ low recognition of Ms. Throne-Holst. “Clearly, the race will narrow as more people focus and get to know the challenger.” 

Nonetheless, Mr. Thiele pointed to a worrisome statistic in the poll, Mr. Zeldin’s 53-percent support. “Anytime the incumbent is above 50 percent, it’s very hard for the challenger, because not only are you trying to get undecided votes, you have to take votes away from the incumbent,” he said. 

The poll results also indicated a 3-percentage-point lead for Mr. Trump over Hillary Clinton in the First Congressional District. In the Newsday/Sienna College poll, Mr. Trump, whom Mr. Zeldin has endorsed, led by 21 points among men and 23 points among voters without a college degree, while Mrs. Clinton led by 13 points among women and 14 points among college graduates. 

The poll, however, was conducted before revelation of the 2005 recording, in which Mr. Trump boasted about kissing and grabbing women. Since the recording’s release, dozens of Republican leaders, including House Speaker Paul Ryan, have either withdrawn their support for the Republican nominee or said they will no longer campaign for him. 

Ms. Throne-Holst’s campaign moved quickly to tie Mr. Zeldin to his party’s presidential candidate. “While Republicans across the country are abandoning Donald Trump after seeing a video of Trump bragging about committing sexual assault, Lee Zeldin continues to be one of Donald Trump’s biggest supporters,” Andrew Grunwald, Ms. Throne-Holst’s campaign manager, wrote in an email yesterday. “First District voters know bragging about sexual violence is disgusting and disqualifying, and Lee Zeldin should, too. Voters will hold Lee Zeldin accountable for his unwavering support for Trump.” 

Jennifer DiSiena, Mr. Zeldin’s communications director, wrote in an email yesterday that Mr. Zeldin has said that Mr. Trump’s comments on the recording were “indefensible, lewd, and wrong,” but Mr. Zeldin continues to endorse Mr. Trump, she said.

Mr. Thiele, who is chairman of the Southampton Town Independence Party, said that the effect of Mr. Trump’s candidacy on down-ballot races is difficult to predict, and pointed out that the poll showing a slim lead over Mrs. Clinton in the district came before release of the recording and the second presidential debate, on Sunday, which may have further damaged Mr. Trump’s standing among voters. “Listen, this is a year like no other,” he said. “A big factor in a presidential election year is the level of turnout. If you look at the First District in previous years, Tim Bishop” — the six-term Democrat whom Mr. Zeldin defeated in 2014 — “always did much better in presidential election years. Obama generated a high turnout.” 

  “Will Hillary generate the same kind of turnout?” Mr. Thiele asked. “If Trump continues to crater, will that depress the Republican turnout? There’s a month to go, but the current state of the Trump campaign, I think, should give hope to Anna’s campaign that there’s a possibility that Republican turnout may not be that great if Trump continues to slide in the polls.” 

The poll indicated that Senator Charles Schumer, an incumbent Democrat, held a 20-point lead over his opponent, Wendy Long, in the district.

Voters were also polled on issues including climate change and gun policy. Seventy-two percent of those polled said that climate change is a real and significant threat; 22 percent disagreed. Sixty-one percent said that undocumented immigrants should be offered a pathway to citizenship; 32 percent did not agree. 

Fifty-five percent of responders support a repeal of the Affordable Care Act, 43 percent do not, with 82 percent of Republicans siding with a repeal and the same percentage of Democrats favoring its continuation.

Respondents were evenly split as to their support of measures to control access to guns or a broad interpretation of the Second Amendment to the Constitution, and were split as to whether the federal government should increase or decrease its role in stimulating the economy.

Not too many people know that a short spur of road in East Hampton’s Northwest Woods, perpendicular to Jason’s Lane but on the other side of Old Northwest Road, is named Main Street — and that is a problem for those who live there. The East Hampton Town Board discussed changing the name during Tuesday’s work session, when Alex Walter, Supervisor Larry Cantwell’s executive assistant, told the board that Woodlot Lane had been chosen as a potential new name.

According to Mr. Walter, the residents of the Northwest Woods Main Street had requested that the name be changed for obvious reasons, such as police, ambulance, and fire department services, but also because visitors and deliveries are inconvenienced by accidentally going to Main Street in East Hampton Village.

Mr. Walter said Woodlot Lane had been selected from a list of possibilities after discussion with Averill Geus, East Hampton’s town historian, and Hugh King, the East Hampton Village town crier.

Mr. Cantwell and other town board members were amenable to the change, and a public hearing is expected on it within the next few weeks.

“Some people remember that ‘wood lots’ were a historic term used because a lot of the land in the Northwest Woods area, the wooded area predominantly, were sold, leased, or rented out in wood lots, so that people could cut trees and provide wood for their heating needs down in the village,” Mr. Cantwell said.

Whether the residents of adjoining streets with names that duplicate others in town — Mulford and Dayton Avenues, for example, will want to follow suit remains to be seen.

With the Nov. 8 election looming, Concerned Citizens of Montauk will host its 46th annual meet the candidates forum on Sunday at 1 p.m. in the Montauk School gymnasium. Peter Lowenstein of the group’s board will moderate the forum, which is free and open to the public. 

Representative Lee Zeldin, a Republican seeking re-election in New York’s First Congressional District, and his opponent, former Southampton Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst, will appear in the event’s first hour. Mr. Lowenstein will question the candidates, with a focus on environmental issues. The forum will then be opened to audience members, who can question the candidates on any topic. 

Ms. Throne-Holst will appear on the Democratic and Working Families ballot lines. In addition to the Republican ballot line, Mr. Zeldin will appear on the Conservative, Independence, and Reform Party lines. 

The second hour will feature State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle, the incumbent in the Senate’s District 1, and his Democratic opponent, Greg Fischer, as well as Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., who is seeking re-election in District 1 on the Democratic, Independence, Working Families, and Women’s Equality Party tickets. Mr. Thiele’s Republican opponent, Heather Collins, will not attend. Mr. Thiele defeated Ms. Collins and Brian DeSesa, who ran on the Conservative Party ticket, in 2014.

Mr. Zeldin and Ms. Throne-Holst will face off again on Tuesday from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at Suffolk Community College’s Culinary Arts and Hospitality Center in Riverhead. The event is an environmental forum co-hosted by the New York League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, the Citizens Campaign for the Environment, Defend H2O, and Save the Sound.  

Hunters for Deer, a not-for-­pro­fit based in East Quogue that arranges ­for insured and proficiency-tested bowhunters to hunt deer on private ­property, challenged a Sag Harbor Village law that prohibits hunting within the ­village limits after a member of the group was caught bowhunting in the woods behind houses near Oakland Cemetery. 

Christian Killoran, a Westhampton Beach attorney who is the vice president of Hunters for Deer and an avid bowhunter, filed the order in State Supreme Court in Riverhead on Friday afternoon. The group believes that the Village of Sag Harbor has no authority to regulate hunting on private property, calling it unconstitutional, and is prepared to challenge such laws in other villages on Long Island, including East Hampton and North Haven. 

Mr. Killoran initially raised concerns about Sag Harbor’s law prohibiting bowhunting soon after it was passed in December. The group was operating under the assumption that the law was not going to be enforced because of a state pre-emption and that the matter was being reviewed based on a letter from a previous village attorney. The State Department of Environmental Conservation regulates deer hunting. 

With a new hunting season underway on Oct. 1, a member of the group, Derrick L. Ring of Bohemia, was hunting on private property that Hunters for Deer had been given consent to hunt on, according to Michael Tessitore, the organization’s president. While Mr. Ring was not given a summons, the group felt it needed to take the matter to the courts to avoid any arrests, Mr. Killoran said on Tuesday. Judge Gerard Asher declined a request for a preliminary injunction and adjourned the hearing on Friday to give the village time to respond and justify the law.

Just one day after the adjournment, Mr. Ring went hunting on private property and was again confronted by village police. According to a village police report, an officer saw Mr. Ring hunting in the woods behind 148 Suffolk Street, a wooded area to the south of Oakland Cemetery, just before 7 a.m. Mr. Ring was in a tree stand, wearing camouflage pants, and next to him was a camouflaged compound bow with an arrow notched and ready, police said. Several extra arrows were also with him in the stand. He had a state hunter’s license and a state deer-harvesting card.

Having previously been issued a warning, police arrested him, this time on a charge of hunting within the village, a violation of the village code. He was temporarily detained and his bow and personal belongings held until he was released with a summons. He must answer the charge in Sag Harbor Village Justice Court on Nov. 4. 

“I wanted to avert what happened,” Mr. Killoran said, adding that he is now going to file a civil suit alleging wrongful arrest, while also fighting the local law. 

Hunters for Deer provides a free service called Need-a-Hunter through a certified bowhunter program it formed that puts archers through a training program and proficiency course and pairs them with participating property owners to target nuisance deer. The group believes hunting is the only effective method of controlling the deer population. 

Last year, Mayor Sandra Schroeder received complaints from residents about hunting in the village — despite the law that has been on the books since 1932 prohibiting such hunting. In recent years, the D.E.C. amended its own regulations on bowhunting. The State Legislature changed the law, reducing the setback for the discharge of a long bow from 500 to 150 feet from a house whose owner does not consent to the hunt. Coupled with the fact that the old village law did not specifically include bow-and-arrow hunting, the village board decided it needed to write a new law.

In the week after its passage, Mr. Killoran contacted Fred W. Thiele Jr., the village attorney at the time, on behalf of Hunters for Deer. In a conversation on Tuesday, Mr. Thiele said Mr. Killoran had said the group was going to file a lawsuit based on the state regulations. At that point, the village’s new local law was not in effect, as it had not yet been filed with the secretary of state, and the hunting season was drawing to a close. Mr. Thiele wrote Mr. Killoran a letter stating that the village would not enforce the law and that they would revisit the issue in the new year. Mr. Killoran agreed not to file a suit while the issue was being reviewed. 

Mr. Thiele, who is also a state assemblyman, said that after giving the situation more thought over the holidays, he realized he had a potential conflict of interest if the argument being raised was state pre-emption. He recused himself from the matter and asked Denise Schoen, an attorney who represents the planning and zoning boards, to take over. In an email Mr. Thiele wrote to Ms. Schoen on Jan. 6, which he provided to The Star, he wrote, “It strikes me that I might have a conflict here, since I wrote the law that changed the setbacks for bowhunting of deer.” He asked Ms. Schoen to render an opinion on whether the village is pre-empted. 

Other villages, like Port Jefferson, have outlawed bow-and-arrow hunting, Mr. Thiele pointed out to Ms. Schoen in the email. “Nonetheless, it strikes me that this argument is not frivolous,” he wrote. “I’ve told the police not to issue any tickets under this law until I can review the issue.” 

Ms. Schoen said she would look into it. Mr. Killoran said he never knew she was involved in the matter. Mr. Thiele resigned as village attorney in the spring.

“Given the ever-expanding deer populations on Long Island and the public health emergency created by the proliferation of these animals,” Mr. Tessitore said, the group “will continue to fight for property owners wanting to reduce deer conflicts on their property.” 

“I think it’s extremely dangerous. . . . You know how close our houses are here,” Ms. Schroeder said when asked about the challenges to the village law on Tuesday. She used to live in the area in question. “My kids used to play in the woods, and so do a lot of other kids.” 

She said she has no intention of rescinding the law until she is advised by the village attorney, now David J. Gilmartin Jr., that she has to. “I wonder if these hunters would want someone this close to their house where their children are,” she said. 

Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, begins Tuesday evening. The Jewish Center of the Hamptons, Chabad of the Hamptons, Temple Adas Israel, and the Conservative Synagogue of the Hamptons will hold services that evening and the next day.

At the Jewish Center, the Yom Kippur fast will begin with a Kol Nidre service at 8 p.m. on Tuesday. Morning services will begin at 9:30 on Wednesday. Opportunities for learning with Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman will be offered between 1 and 2 p.m. that day. There will be a healing service and meditation with Cantor-Rabbi Debra Stein at 2, one for young families at 3, and then a Yizkor service at 4.

Tickets to High Holy Days observances are included for members of the center. Those who are not members can purchase tickets at jcoh.org or by calling 631-324-9858.

Tuesday observances at Chabad of the Hamptons in East Hampton begin with candle-lighting at 5:56 p.m., when the fast also begins. The Kol Nidre service will start at 6:15. On Wednesday morning, observances start at 9, the Torah reading is at 10:45, and the Rabbi’s sermon and Yizkor will be offered at 11:30. There will be a children’s service from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., and others at 5 and 6 p.m. The day of fasting will end with a buffet breaking of the fast at 7:25 p.m.

At Temple Adas Israel in Sag Harbor, the Yom Kippur fast will begin on Tuesday at 5:55 p.m., followed at 7 by the Kol Nidre service for temple members and nonmembers. On Wednesday there will be a morning service at 10, one for families at 2 p.m., an afternoon service at 3:30, a Yizkor memorial observance at 5:15, and a concluding service at 6. The final shofar blast will happen at 6:45, followed by the breaking of the fast.

The Conservative Synagogue of the Hamptons’ Yom Kippur observances will be held at the Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church. The Yom Kippur Kol Nidre service will begin at 6:15 p.m. on Tuesday. Wednesday’s will be at 9 a.m., followed by Yizkor at 10:45. The afternoon service will start at 4, followed by closing services, and the final blowing of the shofar at 6:50. A catered breaking of the fast will follow.

Before government and police officials from across the East End met at Southampton Town Hall last Thursday, the town board voted to make Steven E. Skrynecki the town’s next police chief just one day ahead of Chief Robert Pearce’s retirement.

“I want to assure you that I will bring everything I have to the table here and try to follow in the great example that Chief Pearce has set and the level of performance he has set in the past years in this department,” Chief Skrynecki told the board.

Supervisor Jay Schneiderman pointed to Chief Skrynecki’s “decorated history in law enforcement” and his experience over a 40-year period with the Nassau County Police Department as the reasons for the selection. “You might say Nassau County isn’t Southampton Town,” Mr. Schneiderman said. The other finalists in the three-month search to replace Chief Pearce were from surrounding departments or from within the Southampton Town police. “Chief Skrynecki has a long history of being a part-time resident of this area, and he will bring that familiarity, plus the many, many years in service as a law enforcement officer, to our town.”

Chief Pearce retired after nearly 35 years with the department. He became chief in 2012. “I don’t know how to say thank you enough to this individual who has served our town so well,” Mr. Schneiderman said. “He’s one of the good guys. He’s brought the department to another level. He’s brought everybody together.” After presenting him with a proclamation, the supervisor said, “For us it’s a great loss.”

Mr. Schneiderman announced two weeks ago that Mr. Skrynecki had accepted an offer. Last Thursday’s resolution was for the board to make the selection official. It was met with a unanimous vote.

The board also voted to authorize the supervisor to execute the chief’s contract. Mr. Schneiderman’s proposed 2017 budget shows a salary of $185,856, about what Chief Pearce was making. With benefits, the total compensation is $253,603. Chief Skrynecki's actual salary has not yet been released because the contract has not yet been fully executed, according to Russell Kratoville, the town's management services administrator. 

Chief Skrynecki will not be officially appointed nor will he take command until next year, as he wraps up his duties as second in command in Nassau, behind the county police commissioner. His expected start date is Jan. 16.

In the meantime, Capt. Lawrence Schurek of the town police will lead the department.

“I have an interest in this community,” Chief Skrynecki said. He and Marianne Hassan, his longtime partner, who attended the meeting with him, plan on splitting their time between their house in Southampton Town and Dix Hills, where their elderly parents live.

He said the timing was right for him to seek a new position. His first order of business, he said, was to get to know the men and women in the department and the neighboring departments’ chiefs, most of whom were in attendance. He said he was “humbled by the turnout of law enforcement” and remains “very, very impressed with the department and the level of dedication and commitment” within it.

Kevin Gwinn pledged the support of the Southampton Town Patrolman’s Benevolent Association. Mr. Gwinn, the group’s president, said the selection of Chief Skrynecki was “consistent with the level of professionalism and character our department reflects” and likened him to the retiring chief.

“After 30 years, it’s hard to get excited about things, but I’m very excited for the young people on this job to have the experience to work with Chief Skrynecki the time he will be here,” Mr. Gwinn said. “We give him 100 percent of our support.”

The Sag Harbor School Board is still eyeing a Dec. 14 date for a vote on using money from the district’s capital reserve fund to supplement what officials say is needed for an artificial turf field at Pierson Middle and High School, but it postponed actually setting the date during Tuesday’s meeting after new possibilities emerged.

The board had voted 4-to-3 on Sept. 12 to pursue artificial turf instead of a natural grass field, despite having leaned toward natural grass previously. The debate has been ongoing since March, when a group of parents asserted artificial turf would be harmful to their children’s health and petitioned the district to abandon it. The school board then rejected two bids from businesses interested in building the field, explaining they were hundreds of thousands of dollars over budget.

On Tuesday, Jennifer Buscemi, the district business administrator, introduced the possibility of modifying the plans to install turf with crumb rubber components and instead use a product called cool fill, which is crumb rubber coated with a chemical that keeps the temperature cooler on hot days. Ms. Buscemi said the school’s architects had projected cool fill would be $65,625 more expensive than regular crumb rubber, and some board members seemed interested.

Shortly afterward, Susan Lamontagne, a school board member, asked why $300,000 had been left in the budget for baseball and softball equipment. A field for these sports had been abandoned along the way, but money apparently was left in the budget for a related backstop, fencing, and sideline player benches.

While Eric Bramoff, the athletic director, said some sort of backstop would be needed to prevent balls from flying into neighbors’ yards, suggesting a backstop alone would be less expensive. Chris Tice and Stephanie Bitis, who are board members, suggested the difference could then be used to pay for cool fill, reducing the amount needed from the capital reserve fund, and bringing back some items involving concrete that had been eliminated. They included concrete for mounting bleachers, for a plaza outside the school cafeteria, and for a staircase leading to the middle school gym.

“I would hate to think we’re going to put something out that we don’t think is the right thing,” Ms. Tice said. “I challenge us to make sure if we’re putting out an artificial turf option, let it be the best option available.”

The board ultimately tabled the resolution that would have designated Dec. 14 for the vote on using $300,000 from the district’s capital reserve fund to supplement the $1.62 million originally approved by referendum in 2013. Factoring in the costs of design and engineering and construction contingencies, the total estimated cost of the field is now at about $1.74 million, which is why the reserve money comes into play. The board is not asking the community for new funding; rather, it needs the voters’ permission to spend money it has tucked away in the reserve, which stands at $2.1 million.

The district hopes to break ground on the field next summer. Board members do not expect tabling the referendum until the next meeting, on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m., will have a major impact.

The school board did vote Tuesday on a resolution that designates the Sag Harbor School District as the lead agency on the environmental review required under the State Environmental Quality Review Act. Ms. Buscemi said because turf was initially in the SEQRA process, which the district went through in late 2013 and 2014, a new review is not needed. The board’s 5-to-1 vote came with a “no” from Ms. Lamontagne, who asserted there were serious problems with the environmental review. According to Ms. Lamontagne and Helen Roussel, a community member, the environmental review apparently states there are no nearby commercial fishing or wetland areas, which they said was inaccurate.

“The knowledge has changed, we have new information, and there is a lot of public interest. . . . The public has the right to know about a SEQRA report that was not done to the standards. . . . I really want to ask you, please have that process restarted, Ms. Roussel said.

The Southampton Town Police Department, working in conjunction with OLA, the Organizacion Latino-Americana of Long Island, is bringing back its civilian police academy next spring, in large part to improve relations and communication between the police and the Latino community. The idea came to the forefront during the recent search for a new chief to replace Robert Pearce, who retired last month.

Lt. Susan Ralph, the department’s public information officer, was among those interviewed for the chief’s job. Minerva Perez of OLA was on the committee. During her interview, Lieutenant Ralph suggested resuming the 12-week program, which was discontinued several years ago, she said, when money was in short supply.

The committee eventually chose Steven E. Skrynecki, Nassau County’s current chief, for the job, but Lieutenant Ralph’s suggestion struck a chord. “It’s really important,” Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman said yesterday. He cited the investigation earlier this year into the death of Lilia Aucapina of Sagaponack, which was ruled a suicide, a determination that was questioned by several family members as well as many in the Latino community.

The supervisor had police bring him the evidence they relied on to draw their conclusion. “I never doubted the police did an excellent job,” he said, but it became clear that there was a disconnect between the force and the Latino community, and that it had to be bridged.

The civilian police academy program, one three-hour class each week, will begin in March. It is designed to familiarize the Latino community with police training and methods and to improve police communication with the community. “Actions like these give more information to both sides,” Ms. Perez said.

“I’m already getting great responses,” she added, saying she has begun reaching out to people of different ages and professions.

The program could also be a first step to recruit potential Latino officers, Lieutenant Ralph said, a goal that Mr. Schneiderman also embraces. “We have a large Latino population,” he said. “In Hampton Bays, kindergarten and first grade are more than 50 percent Latino.”

Lieutenant Ralph called the program “hands-on training . . . how to do a car stop, defensive tactics of the Suffolk County police.” Some classes will put students into interactive sessions; for example in a dark hallway or in a sudden confrontation with a highly intoxicated subject. The student’s reactions will shape the narrative.

Police will begin accepting applications in December and participants will be selected in January. There will be a minimal background check, required because the classes will be held inside police headquarters in Hampton Bays. “Latino members of Southampton Town are eager to contribute to a positive dialogue with law enforcement, and this training will allow the insight and perspective needed,” Ms. Perez said.

“We want the public to understand our jobs. What goes on behind the scene. An in-depth look at what we do daily,” Lieutenant Ralph said.

Ms. Perez will also lead a diversity training program for police officers beginning early next year. “I look forward to interacting in this capacity with our Police Department again,” she said. “The domestic violence training that I did a couple of years ago was a great experience.” Ms. Perez served for six years as the executive director of the Retreat, the East End organization that assists victims of domestic violence.

Those interested in the civilian academy program can call Lieutenant Ralph’s office, 631-702-2247, or email her at [email protected]. They can also contact OLA at 631-899-3441.

A plan to cut down sections of the woods near the East Hampton Airport, removing trees that have grown tall enough to intrude on a runway clear zone, has some environmentalists and airport watchdogs up in arms.

The East Hampton Environmental Coalition said this week that its members are “deeply concerned about the serious disruption of the vegetative cover of our single-source aquifer. . . .” The ecological impact of the clearing, they said, should be examined before any work goes ahead.

The Federal Aviation Administration put East Hampton Town, which owns the airport, on notice after a flyover inspection in 2013 showed that trees had grown into a required clear zone.    The agency mandates a clear zone within a three-dimensional space running  from the edge of the runway pavement up, at an angle. For a time, with the tall trees intruding into that zone, the F.A.A. suspended authorization for nighttime landings here using an instrument-only approach, citing safety concerns.

The town had its airport engineers investigate, and a plan was created to do the work. The plan would eliminate trees at both ends of runway 10-28, across Daniel’s Hole Road from the airport and at the runway’s other end, as well as in a small area alongside an airport taxiway.

Removing the trees entirely, rather than trimming only their tops to a height below the clear zone, will in the long run create less disturbance to the forest, Marguerite Wolffsohn, the town’s planning director, said yesterday. The understory vegetation would remain, and eventually the oaks and pitch pines that predominate in the area will sprout again.

“Topping” the trees instead, Ms. Wolffsohn said, would have to be done repeatedly, and going in to do the work would compact soil and damage understory plants each time. Her assessment was based, she said, on “assuming that we need this for safety — are we doing this in the right way?”

There are about 1,000 acres of woodland, she said, that had been preserved with an emphasis on protecting the rarer and more ecologically valuable interior forest rather than its edges.

Concerns about the tree removal plan  arose not just over its environmental impact but whether its scope — removing trees above a certain imaginary slope line rising from the edge of the runway — is larger than it need be. David Gruber, an East Hampton attorney long involved in airport matters, has argued that the clear zone that would be created is beyond that required by the F.A.A.

The amount of tree clearing proposed meets design standards for runways serving more planes, and larger ones, than those classified for East Hampton Airport, according to Mr. Gruber, who is a member of the town’s airport management committee and chairman of an independent airport noise committee.

But the standard is set, Jemille Charlton, the airport manager, said Tuesday, based on what kind of aircraft are using the airport, which is everything from turboprop planes to Gulfstream jets.

“Our membership is uniformly opposed to this alteration of our woodlands without a scientific analysis of the consequences of this deforestation, without a frank assessment of the presumed benefits to the safety and efficiency of the operation of the airport, and without a balanced assessment of the interests of our citizens in preservation of our natural woodlands versus the expansion of aviation operations at our airport,” the East Hampton Environmental Coalition said in a release.

The town board has put a vote on issuing a bond for the work, originally scheduled for tonight, on hold so the project can be more fully vetted, Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, the liaison for airport matters, said yesterday. The deadline for the submission of bids to do the clearing has been extended to Oct. 20. An environmental assessement is being don on the impact of the proposed work, which will be discussed at an upcoming airport management advisery committee meeting on Oct. 28. That meeting, to begin at 9 a.m. at Town Hall, will be open to the public.

The first national marine monument in the Atlantic, designated last month by President Obama under the 1906 Antiquities Act, has been criticized by commercial fishermen who say it will harm their livelihoods while failing to achieve its intended purposes.

The Sept. 15 proclamation of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, a nearly 5,000-square-mile area 130 miles southeast of Cape Cod, was said to be based on threats to the ocean from “various uses, climate change, and related impacts.” 

Recreational fishing will not be affected, but the designation bans commercial fishing 60 days after the proclamation and also prohibits drilling and mining.

The area is home to tuna, marlin, and sharks, as well as whales, sea turtles, and plankton. The harvesting of American lobster and red crab will be allowed to continue, although it is to be phased out over seven years.

Fishermen believe a monument in the Mid-Atlantic is unnecessary and allege it was not based on science but pressure from nongovernmental environmental groups, including the Pew Charitable Trusts and the National Resources Defense Council. To exclude commercial fishermen while allowing recreational fishing makes no sense, fishermen contend. They also claim the monument will not only fail to prevent harm to non-target species such as pilot whales, but will increase interactions with them.

The proclamation states that the designation was designed in part to protect the deep-sea corals, found at depths of more than 3,900 meters, which provide spawning areas, nurseries, and shelter from predators. Bonnie Brady of Montauk, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, called that rationale “completely bogus” because the commercial fishing gear used  for highly migratory species never touches bottom. Those who fish for migratory species, she said, “are absolutely the hardest hit, losing all the canyons and the seamounts within the water column.”

David Schalit, who fishes primarily for such species from the Zerlina, based in Shinnecock Bay, said the only recreational boats that can get to the area “are the larger, or much more expensive, sportfishing vessels that cost between $1 and $4 million. They have to carry so much fuel to get there and back, it would be impossible for a smaller vessel. They’ve created an exclusive country club. . . . I don’t know that they even realize they’ve done that.”

Mr. Schalit is vice president of the American Bluefin Tuna Association. “These tuna, inhabit the top 15 percent of the water column. From a point of view of protection of deep-sea coral, it’s a nonissue. In fact, our commercial fishermen use exactly the same gear as recreational fishermen. If we allow recreational fishing, why wouldn’t we allow our form of commercial fishing?”

He called the monument area very important for commercial fishing “because all of these fish appear at different times of the year in the Northeast Canyon region. . . . We see ourselves as innocent victims of someone else’s agenda.”

“It’s a huge blow,” Hank Lackner of the Jason and Danielle, a trawler based in Montauk, said. “And there was no need for it.” Mr. Lackner cited a draft Deep Sea Corals Amendment to the Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish Fishery Management Plan, an ongoing effort by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, one of eight regional councils created by the Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976. The amendment would protect corals by restricting fishing in select areas and restrict expansion into areas where corals are known or likely to be present. The Mid-Atlantic’s New England counterpart is drafting similar regulations.

“If we were towing there already,” Mr. Lackner said, referring to bottomlands from which commercial fishing would be banned, “it’s most likely there were no coral there unless it’s something we already go around. . . . There’s no reason to protect mud. The council truly protected coral, with a buffer zone.”

Mark Phillips, who fishes for fluke, squid, and haddock from the Greenport-based Illusion, agreed. “The funny thing, there is no coral there. It’s all sand and mud, and I’ve dragged all of that bottom. A handful of boats out of Montauk have dragged it all. There is no coral, period,” he said. Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration agree that many of the areas in which trawlers fish are devoid of coral, according to Ms. Brady.

Marty Scanlon of Hauppauge, a pelagic longline fisherman who owns the Provider II, said that, contrary to federal opinion, “all indicators are that stocks are booming. We’re ahead of the rebuilding model they presented originally,” he said, but “there’s no way of applying that in the regulatory process at the time. It’s a mess.”

“Those grounds are way offshore to the east,” Mr. Lackner said of the monument area. “That’s where you want the bigger boats. You don’t want us guys sitting right south of Montauk. We go far offshore, we don’t add to any depletion going on locally. We work on stocks that are rich and vibrant, most of the time 150, 200 miles from the land. That’s part of what’s troubling — if they close that off, it will lump us into one area. If the council was able to do its process, we could remain spread out.”

Mr. Scanlon serves on the board of directors of the Blue Water Fishermen’s Association, and is a member of NOAA’s Atlantic Highly Migratory Species advisory panel and its pelagic longline take reduction team, the latter charged with addressing incidental mortality and injury of pilot whales. He shared Mr. Schalit’s criticism of the prohibition on commercial but not recreational fishing. “Their carbon footprint,” he said of recreational fishing,”is probably 10,000 times more negative than the pelagic longline vessels that are excluded from this area.”

He estimated that 30 vessels are in the area only three to four months a year, “as opposed to thousands of recreational boats. On top of that, those sport boats anchor at times, and that will have a direct negative impact.” “I don’t understand the logic behind closing something,” Mr. Phillips said, “and then they gave lobstermen seven years to get out of there.” The Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen’s Association opposed the monument in a statement last month. “We find it deplorable that the government is kicking the domestic fishing fleet out of an area where they sustainably harvest healthy fish stocks,” the statement read.

Nongovernmental organizations are wrong, the statement said. “There is little place for these fishermen to go that will maintain the productivity that they have worked so hard to achieve, while avoiding gear conflict, bycatch, and protected resources.”

“The more you inhibit that ability to move,” Mr. Scanlon agreed, “it hinders our ability to do what they’re asking us to do,” such as avoid interaction with protected species like whales.

Mr. Lackner called the ban “disheartening,” and pointed to environmental groups. “For them, it’s never enough. Their goal is to totally stop fishing, from what I can see. We’re the most regulated fishing fleet in the world, and all our stocks are rebuilt.

What are we trying to stop?”

The press office at the White House had not responded to an email seeking comment by noon Wednesday.