Three East Hampton Town employees worked together Tuesday morning to free a dog trapped in a locked, overheated car.

According to Jimmy Jahoda, an East Hampton Town Justice Court officer, he was alerted to the situation by Ed Michels, the town’s harbormaster. He had entered the courthouse, searching for the owner of a 2015 Nissan with Massachusetts plates. The car, parked outside the courthouse, had a young Australian shepherd inside that was clearly distressed, Mr. Jahoda said. The car did not belong to anyone in the building, and Mr. Michels left, running to another government building in the Town Hall complex.

Mr. Jahoda was assigned that day to a civil trial at which East Hampton Town Justice Lisa R. Rana was presiding. She told him to go help the dog, and he returned to the car with another town employee, Nicole Ficeto.

“The dog’s tongue was hanging to the floor,” he said. Mr. Jahoda, a retired East Hampton Town police officer who runs a house-clearing service, Move It Out, when not at the court, took out his baton. While Ms. Ficeto distracted the animal, causing it to look away from Mr. Jahoda, he swung hard, smashing a side window. They removed the dog from the car and took it to the judge’s chambers, to cool it off with water.

About 25 minutes later, he said, the owner of the car, Edward Kernan, 34, of Manhattan, entered the courthouse, upset about his broken window. He was told to register any complaint he had with the police.

This proved to be a problematic move for the owner. After telling his story to the police, he was placed under arrest, booked, and released with an appearance ticket, to be arraigned in East Hampton at a future date.

The dog was turned over to animal control, which took it to a veterinarian

Fourteen years ago on Atlantic Avenue Beach in Amagansett, a near-crisis unfolded when a lifeguard training on a Jet Ski lost control and hit a toddler playing at the water’s edge. Now a teenager, the victim has become a rescuer himself, working as a lifeguard at the very same beach.

Eliot Fisher, now 16, has always loved the water. He remembers nothing of that Sunday morning in August when he was pulled from his grandfather’s grasp as they walked hand in hand along the beach.

John Ryan Jr., chief of the East Hampton Town lifeguards, remembers the incident “like it was yesterday.” He was at nearby Indian Wells Beach overseeing a Jet Ski lifeguard training session with a new “sled device” that had arrived just a day before. The sled attaches to the back of a Jet Ski and allows for easier transportation of a victim. Mr. Ryan had been talking to Job Potter, a town councilman at the time, about the watercrafts’ value at unprotected beaches.

     Training had gone a little late, and Mr. Ryan told the 18-year-old lifeguard piloting the Jet Ski to head back east to Atlantic Avenue. He was carrying two other lifeguards as part of the training exercise. As he got close to shore, a wave broke sooner than anticipated. The Jet Ski hit a sharp incline in shallow water at high tide, and careened about 10 yards before striking the toddler. The pilot tried to jump off and pull the watercraft back, but was  unable to. Coverage of the accident said his leg was pinned.

     Eliot’s father, Dick Fisher, was sitting below the first lifeguard stand with his wife and some friends, watching the training. He recalled seeing the Jet Ski hit the wave too fast and then hit a boy. “I jumped up and saw the bathing suit we had put on Eliot that morning and I felt terror unlike anything ever before experienced,” he said.

     In the moments it took to reach his son, the 800-pound Jet Ski had been lifted off him. “Eliot had been pressed faced down in the sand,” his father said. As a former emergency medical technician, he knew not to twist the child’s neck, and he stabilized it and turned him over to make sure he was breathing.

Michael Sarlo, now the East Hampton Town Police Chief, was an officer back in 2002, off duty and enjoying a beach day with a relative, who happened to be a surgeon doing his residency. He was one of the first to treat the child. “I believe a group of us helped pulled the ski up so the child could be freed,” Chief Sarlo said. “The sound of the Jet Ski hitting the kid in the back is one I won’t forget.”

Chief Ryan drove down from Indian Wells to Atlantic Avenue to find a chaotic scene. Most of the people on the beach thought the lifeguard had run the child over, he said. “It was almost a lynch mob,” he said, recalling that police had put the lifeguard in a marine patrol vehicle to keep him away from the crowds. “The poor lifeguard was a mess,” Chief Sarlo said.

“It was an awful day. It was an absolutely awful day,” Chief Ryan said. He said the Atlantic Avenue lifeguards should have cleared beachgoers from the area, and that all the town lifeguards learned a valuable lesson that day, which fortunately came without a major consequence.

The Amagansett Fire Department ambulance strapped Eliot to a backboard and took him to Southampton Hospital. “And then, after all that drama,” Mr. Fisher said, “a thorough examination showed that he was completely unharmed.” The boy was released from the hospital later that day and went home with a teddy bear given to him by the Fire Department.

The incident never stopped Eliot from loving the water. “I’ve been out here since I was little. I love it,” said the soon-to-be high school junior, who lives in Tucson and summers in Amagansett. Since he was 9, he’s taken part in the town’s junior lifeguard program, and even been rescued from rip currents a few times.

He hasn’t saved anybody — yet, he said — since becoming a certified lifeguard the day after his 16th birthday. He’s even had training as a Jet Ski rescue swimmer. His summer is coming to an end a little earlier than most, however, since Arizona schools begin next week. Chief Ryan said he’s been a great addition to his crew and a “good, good kid” who is yet another testament to the junior lifeguard program.

All the lifeguards at Atlantic Avenue Beach seem to know the story of what happened when Eliot was just a tot, and everyone, the police and lifeguard chief included, is impressed and thankful he’s able to stand watch all these years later. As for Eliot, he said he’s just there to help people, like all the other lifeguards. “I don’t feel any different, because I don’t remember it at all.”

Here in East Hampton, with pop-up shops opening inside of pop-up shops, it is safe to say we’ve officially reached peak pop-up.

“We are a pop-up, and we will de-pop at the end of the summer,” Jared Williams, the sales leader at Aquazzura, said last week.

As with most local pop-ups, the footwear boutique (which sells $495 espadrilles, $675 lace-up flats, and $785 heels at its Main Street location) opened in June, with plans to shutter come September.

“When you’re at the beach for the summer, you want a shoe that you can walk around in,” Mr. Williams said. “Flats are doing really well for us. But if it’s more towards the weekend, shoppers are definitely buying heels for parties.”

The vacation-themed outpost, with its pineapple-festooned heels and flamingo-patterned Matthew William­son wallpaper, also operates a Madison Avenue store. “A lot of our clients are out here for the summer — and we thought we’d join them,” Mr. Williams said.

Though vacationers may love pop-up shops — say, stopping in to peruse high-end merchandise on a cloudy summer day — many in the year-round community find them an increasing nuisance, transforming downtown East Hampton into a veritable ghost town once the temperatures drop.

Robert Rattenni owns six commercial properties in East Hampton Village. In his more than 25 years as a landlord, he said he hasn’t had any vacancies.

“So far, I haven’t had to do any pop-ups. And I certainly try my best to avoid ever putting myself in that position,” Mr. Rattenni said.

J. Crew and Restoration Hardware, both of which operate stores on Main Street, are two of his long-term, year-round tenants. In general, he said that most pop-ups sign six-month leases, though many stay open only a fraction of that time.

“It’s not good for business over all, for both the landlords as well as the village business community,” he said. “There’s no incentive for them to try and integrate within the community. They’re gone as quickly as they come.”

On Main Street, just a few doors down from Aquazzura, Vilebrequin (which sells $295 swim trunks) opened a 315-square-foot pop-up store on June 11, with plans to close in mid-to-late September. Next season, it plans to reopen again in the same location. For 16 years, the company, founded in Saint-Tropez, France (and which sells matching father-and-son swimsuits), has operated a Southampton store.

Nearby, on Newtown Lane, Sweaty Betty, a British line of so-called athleisure clothing (which sells $160 workout leggings), popped up inside of what was formerly Scoop NYC after that shop abruptly closed last month. Sweaty Betty now shares the space with another pop-up store, Tenet, which also has a Southampton location.

Sweaty Betty is rapidly expanding, with three stand-alone stores in New York City, one in Greenwich, Conn., and two in Los Angeles. Its recent foray into East Hampton is the company’s first-ever pop-up experiment. It opened on July 14 and will close after Labor Day.

“From a brand standpoint, the Hamptons have always been an interest,” said Melissa Sgaglione Seganti, Sweaty Betty’s senior public relations manager. In particular, she cited its location near boutique workout studios, including Tracy Anderson and AKT In Motion. “It was a win-win.”

In terms of real estate, Hal Zwick, the director of commercial real estate at Town and Country, said this summer’s proliferation of pop-ups is but the latest sign of a weak retail market.

In recent months, Mr. Zwick said, it wasn’t uncommon for national retailers to suddenly pull out of deals mere hours before signing leases. “They figure they don’t want to spend $200,000 to $250,000, if retail isn’t doing well, for only 10 weeks of business.”

Increasingly, commercial leases lasting three-to-five years are a thing of the past. Just as residential rentals stretching from Memorial Day to Labor Day have been disrupted by shorter-term rentals, the local retail market has followed suit. “June isn’t the month it used to be,” Mr. Zwick said, adding that parking spaces could still be found on Newtown Lane midweek. He predicted that the next five weeks, from now until Labor Day, will be a boom time for local retailers — however short or long their stay.

Mr. Zwick is finding that smaller retailers who may operate one or two stores are stepping in to fill the vacancies. “They don’t have the overhead, the bureaucracy,” he said, citing Anthony Thomas Melillo, or ATM, a clothing store that popped up on Newtown Lane next door to Tesla.

Though many have assumed that the recent addition of a Tesla “gallery,” which opened over Memorial Day weekend, is a pop-up, Sonja Koch, a communications coordinator with the firm, said otherwise. After experimenting with a pop-up last summer in Southampton, the company, based in Palo Alto, Calif., decided to open a brick-and-mortar gallery where customers can learn more about electric vehicles (the Model X starts at $74,000).

“While summer is a great time to capture people visiting from the city and all over, there is a strong year-round community that we’ll be supporting by keeping the store open year round,” Ms. Koch wrote in an email. “This gallery is not a pop-up.”

Last week, inside the Kirna Zabete store on Newtown Lane, which was formerly Gail Rothwell, the atmosphere was high fashion, only with a slightly more laid-back, beach-y aesthetic. The pop-up opened on July 15 and plans to close on Sept. 15.

Beth Buccini, its owner and founder, first opened a SoHo location 17 years ago. “Our goal has always been to have the most important designers of today and tomorrow,” said Ms. Buccini, who has stocked her East Hampton outpost with Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana, and Chloé, but also seasonal items to be worn now, such as $500 maxi-dresses by Lisa Marie Fernandez and $700 caftans by Madeline Weinrib.

With a house in Amagansett, Ms. Buccini is familiar with the South Fork and has long debated opening a pop-up shop. “This space was available and it was the perfect opportunity,” she said, opposite a wall of Céline, Fendi, and Saint Laurent handbags.

“People have a real hunger to shop out here,” Ms. Buccini said. “So far, the response has been tremendous. We’ll consider doing it again next summer.”

Summer is the season. For what, you may ask, and the answer varies widely in East Hampton Town, depending on if you are a vacationer here, a second-home owner, or a year-round resident.

For East Hampton Town’s Ordinance Enforcement Department, which watches to ensure that people are following the town’s zoning and other codes, ’tis the season for vigilance, particularly in checking for group share houses or repeated short-term rentals, which are prohibited. 

It is also the season for capitalizing on the “Hamptons” cachet. An example is the new Bravo TV reality show called “Summer House.” Though East Hampton Town officials denied permits for the show to film in public places, the show has gone on, with filming at different private locations and a house on Napeague where the cast members live.

Betsy Bambrick, the head of the Ordinance Enforcement Department, said the house is properly registered with the town as a rental. But, she said, “we’re keeping an eye on it; we’re going by periodically to see if any town codes are being violated.”

East Hampton, it turns out, was the location for another summer event that was advertised and widely covered in the media, an orgy organized by an elite sex club called Killing Kittens that was founded by a supposed acquaintance of Prince William’s wife, Kate Middleton. The location of the party last month — something of a dud according to a Daily Beast writer who attended — was reported to be a Hand’s Creek Road residence that is for sale for $6.5 million.

It did not come to the attention of code enforcement, Ms. Bambrick said last week, though the property owners could potentially have been cited for commercial use of a residence had officers actually observed the violation. Orgy registrants reportedly paid $250 each, or $400 a couple to attend.

There are plenty of other potential housing code violations for enforcement officers to check on. A search for rental properties in East Hampton on the AirBNB website turns up many available for leases of different durations.

Under the law, property owners may rent for periods of less than two weeks twice in a six-month period; the rental of rooms in a house occupied by its owner is not limited. Tenancy of a rental house by more than four unrelated people is prohibited.

East Hampton’s recently enacted rental registry law requires those renting out residences to register with the town, verifying that properties meet safety codes, etc., and to use the assigned registry number in rental ads.

While the AirBNB site posts a heads-up to property owners that they must comply with local rental laws, there is no place in its online information form specifically for rental registry numbers.

But, said Ms. Bambrick, many of the listings investigated by the department are properly registered. Citing owners who have complied with the law and registered for failure to include the registry number in their online listings is less of a priority, she said, than going after other violators. “If we see the listing, and they don’t have [a rental registry number], then that’s a different story,” Ms. Bambrick said.

Officers also check for registry numbers on signs posted at rental properties. Many times, Ms. Bambrick said, it takes a close look to find the registry number handwritten somewhere on the sign with a permanent marker.

Ms. Bambrick said the registry law has “created a heightened awareness for the property owners that are renting” regarding applicable state and local laws. “Now they have to give it a little more thought,” she said.

Fewer complaints are coming in this summer about properties having excessive turnover.

“All across the board this summer, things seem to be a little calmed down out there,” Ms. Bambrick said.

Nonetheless, a report on the efforts of her department during the first six months of 2016 shows a significant increase in complaints, investigations, and court cases over the same period last year. Between January and the end of June this year, 1,407 cases were opened by the department, and 1,118 of them resolved. In the first half of 2015, 1,076 cases were opened, with 818 of them closed.

By far, the largest number of the cases this year — 382 of them — involved zoning code violations. There were 140 cases involving environmental transgressions, 110 centered on alleged violations of the housing code, 108 having to do with required contractor licenses, and 90 that centered on safety code issues.

Ordinance officers inspect each vehicle for which a taxicab license has been issued before affixing the licensing sticker to the car; they had eyeballed and validated 297 taxis as of the end of June.

After putting property owners on notice about town code violations, ordinance officers were able to achieve voluntary compliance in 587 cases of alleged code violation, with changes made by property owners to adhere to the code.

Court charges were filed in 195 cases. Fifty-eight cases were referred for input to other town departments with jurisdiction, and the allegations in 264 cases were determined to be unfounded.

  Multiple charges are often filed in the cases that the Ordinance Enforcement Department sends to town justice court — 740 charges were filed in the 195 cases that went to court in the first half of this year. During the same six-month period in 2015, there were 132 cases sent to the court, with a total of 372 charges filed.

During the first half of this year, 534 complaints or investigations originated in house at the department, with an additional 318 generated from observations officers made on patrol, and 176 more resulting from online review of rental websites and the like. One hundred twelve cases were referred by other departments; 185 complaints came in by phone; 77 from people who came in to the town office, and five came in by email.

Of the cases opened, most had to do with properties in East Hampton— 587, up from 426 during the first half of 2015.

Cases stemming from situations in Montauk numbered 328, close to 100 more than were opened during the same six months of 2015. There were 299 in Springs, 148 in Amagansett, and 45 in Wainscott in the first half of the year.

Ms. Bambrick’s report can be found at ehamptonny.gov, under the Ordinance Enforcement Department page.

The John Jermain Memorial Library closed the book on its four-year renovation process on Saturday, celebrating its reopening with a book brigade for which nearly 1,000 people turned out to form a human chain that passed a Sag Harbor history book hand-to-hand from the library’s temporary home on Water Street to its permanent location on Main Street.

The book that traveled that half-mile distance was “Sag Harbor: The Story of an American Beauty,” written by Dorothy Ingersoll Zaykowski, a fourth-generation resident. It was symbolically the last book checked out of the temporary library location before Catherine Creedon, the library director, locked the door there for the last time.

After the book arrived at its permanent home, Nicholas Gazzolo, the president of John Jermain’s board of trustees, stood on the steps of the 1910 Classical Revival library and said it was “a great day for Sag Harbor.”

• For more photos with the original story, plus a video, click here. 

“A great community deserves great public spaces, and this library has been one for more than 100 years,” he said. “We just had to close the door for a few years to get ready for the next century. We are so happy to be back home.”

After the ceremonial ribbon was cut by library staff and elected officials, including Sag Harbor Village Mayor Sandra Schroeder and New York State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., community members poured through the doors. Most signed a guest book meant to record the day’s events.

Mr. Thiele recalled the day in 1960 when his father brought him to the library for him to get his own library card and check out his first book, an autobiography of a Civil War general.

“The newly renovated library is now equipped to spur the imaginations of the next generation of Sag Harbor children,” he said. “At the same time, the new library has preserved and protected the very best of Sag Harbor’s history and architecture.”

Mr. Thiele said Ms. Creedon, who many have said was the catalyst for the entire project, “has performed nothing short of a miracle for my hometown.”

The book brigade was planned by Mireille Sturmann, the teen services librarian, based on an idea from David MacMillan, a community member. “It was an adventure for sure,” Ms. Sturmann said after it was over.

Ms. Creedon said the event exceeded her expectations. Officials had hoped that even a few hundred people might participate, but what they happily counted was 982 children, teens, adults, and senior citizens from throughout the community. Ms. Sturmann kept track along the way, using a small mechanical clicker.

In an interview Tuesday, Ms. Creedon said the library had added a tremendous amount of new shelf space for its print collection, a climate-controlled room for its historic archives, a proper children’s library, and a new meeting and event space equipped with top-of-the-line audio and visual capabilities. More programs are on the way for children, teens, and adults alike, though it will take some time to put everything in order. To support the expanded library, two part-time librarians were recently promoted to full-time positions and more custodial hours will be added. The administration is considering whether additional staff will be needed. The building is fully compliant with the Americans With Disabilities Act for the first time in its history.

The reactions were immediately positive. Emily Glass, 12, said she is looking forward to “everything, technically,” about the library. “I haven’t been here since I was like 5,” she said. “It’s beautiful.”

Her friend Caitlin McSweeney, also 12, agreed. “My mind is blown,” she said. “I’ve only ever been to the library by 7-Eleven. Now I’m going to have to memorize this whole building. I’m going to be looking for where the writing club and art club are.”

“It’s a great day,” said William Pickens III, a Sag Harbor resident since 1946. “In a time when you think libraries are going to be defunct, it’s exciting to see that people are still interested in books kept in an edifice that says library — Kindles notwithstanding.”

Indeed, Ms. Creedon said Tuesday, circulation exploded with record numbers this week since the library reopened. Most of that has been children’s books, which she said is particularly exciting. “We are now going to see that pay off in terms of literacy in our community,” she said.

John Jermain Memorial Library moved to its temporary location in July 2011 because the main building had become unsafe, Ms. Creedon said. Construction began after permits were received in March 2012. The final cost of renovating and expanding the library was about $16.5 million, with the hard construction amounting to about $12 million of that.

The bulk of it came by referendum, approved by voters in 2009, which allowed the library to take on a mortgage of just under $10 million. Thanks to a capital campaign that began in 2007, the library had another $2 million from donors. When the cost of the project began to rise, the library eventually raised another $4.5 million from additional donations and fund-raisers. Included in the total were five separate grants from the New York State Legislature adding up to $759,118 between 2012 and 2015. The library received over 3,000 individual donations ranging in size from $1 to more than $300,000 over the course of its capital campaign.

Not only did the costs begin rising, but the construction delays began piling up. Restoring the stained-glass rotunda and installing the foundation for the expansion proved especially challenging, Ms. Creedon said, because of the degree of the rotunda’s deterioration and the insufficient soil density in the back of the building that required the entire foundation to be redesigned.

But not every development was an obstacle. Some, like finding beautiful old flooring underneath some carpets and lovely moldings underneath acoustical tiles, were a delight.

“The biggest discovery was the level of support from the community,” Ms. Creedon said. “Their support through all of the many delays never wavered.”

New York State Comptroller Thomas F. DiNapoli on Wednesday released an audit criticizing the Montauk School District for financial practices that allegedly included overestimating its budget, keeping surpluses that exceed state limits, overfilling some reserve funds, and failing to create long-term financial and capital plans.

According to the comptroller's report, which examined financial records between July 1, 2012, and Dec. 31, 2015, Montauk's unassigned fund balance, or the amount it has left over in its operating budget at the end of a given school year, varied between 4.3 and 6.8 percent of the following year's school budget. State law caps a school district's unassigned fund balance at 4 percent. Auditors added back leftover money from budgeted items that hadn't been spent, and found Montauk's fund balances looked more like 9 to 11 percent.

The report says Montauk overestimated its budget by a cumulative $1.1 million between the 2012-13 and 2014-15 school years, and says Montauk planned to use $2.8 million in fund balance over those three years but did not actually use approximately 94 percent of that sum.

The comptroller also said Montauk has too much money in a reserve fund dedicated to workers compensation costs and kept almost $1 million more than it needed in a capital project fund.

"As a result of these budgeting practices . . . the property tax levy was higher than necessary," the report read. "The board needs to improve its budget process and ensure it adopts reasonable budgets and appropriately maintains restricted funds to effectively manage the district's financial condition."

In an email to The Star, Jack Perna, the Montauk School District superintendent, said the comptroller's report does not recognize the challenges that East End school districts specifically face, such as small school sizes, the tuition system, and populations of students that move in and out of districts frequently due to difficult housing situations.

"I feel the comptroller does not take that into account as much as they can," Mr. Perna said.

In a response letter to the comptroller, Mr. Perna explained why the state arrived at some of its conclusions.

The state had identified $830,000 in Montauk's budget that it said "would not be needed," but Mr. Perna explained it would, in fact, be needed. He said it will be used to replace the portable classroom buildings the district had originally installed in 1973.

"The project became bigger than simply replacing classrooms," Mr. Perna said. "We are still awaiting drawings to be submitted to [the state's Education Department] for approval. That money will be needed and we intend to get this project done as soon as possible."

He said the decision to over-fund the workers compensation reserve was made in anticipation of the district's shift away from the East End Health Plan toward the New York State Health Insurance Plan, a popular health care plan among school districts. The district will need to compensate the East End Health Plan when it withdraws from that plan, which is more expensive than the new health care system, Mr. Perna said. The surplus showed up because the switch has been delayed due to the ongoing contract negotiations with the Montauk Teachers Association, Mr. Perna said.

Other surplus moneys flagged by the state were intended to cover tuition costs, Mr. Perna said. Those costs can shift dramatically if high-school-age students move into the district, which only serves students in kindergarten through eighth grade and sends its older students to East Hampton High School on a per-student tuition basis.

Mr. Perna disagreed that the district lacked a long-term capital plan, and pointed out the district had lowered its tax levy this year by applying leftover money to its budget, therefore reducing the amount of money the taxpayers would have to contribute. He said the district would use excess money to further reduce property taxes again in the future, and said the district would begin using the comptroller's template for financial planning.

Mr. Perna pledged in his response to the state that "we will certainly be sure to keep within the statutory limit" regarding fund balances.

"Our future budgets will not have an unrestricted fund balance which will result in the surpluses far exceeding our needs," he said. "We do and will continue to review our reserve funds annually so that they are in line with what we feel the district will need according to our five-year facility and financial plans."

East Hampton Town police harvested 48 marijuana plants, along with drying and dried, processed plants in a raid at 74 Talmage Farm Lane in Springs on Friday

Police say Christopher Losinske, 42, was growing marijuana in the basement of the house in specially set up grow rooms, utilizing artificial light, climate control, and what they called a "sophisticated ventilation system" to mask the odor of the growing plants.

They said they also found M.D.M.A, known as Ecstasy, during the raid.

The raid was conducted in conjunction with the Suffolk County District Attorney's East End Drug Task Force, which utilized the services of a K-9 unit deployed by the Suffolk County Sheriff's department. A short-term investigation led police to the house, which they entered with a search warrant.

Police said they also seized manuals for cultivating and processing marijuana, heat lamps, humidifiers, scales, growing mediums, fertilizers, packaging materials, and a computer.

Mr. Losinske was charged with marijuana possession as a misdemeanor and a second drug possession charge for the Ecstasy. Mr. Losinske was also charged with violating a public health law, the unlicensed growing of marijuana.

He was arraigned Friday.  

Talk about global warming! Man, we are swimming in it. Monday night’s rain, though much less than an inch, was just enough to keep the broad-leaved trees from beginning to turn pale green. The lushness of the foliage characterized by spring is on the verge of collapse. We’ll see if today and tomorrow bring the rains promised daily by the TV weathermen and weatherwomen. Otherwise, it will be an early fall, and not a very colorful one at that.

You may have noticed that a recent Newsday showed a color photo of a deserted iron mine, long fallow in upstate New York, that has sprung up with grass pink orchids, the same species that we have most years in our cranberry bogs dotting Napeague. It brings to mind the contention between those horticulturists who would recover a forlorn piece of property long desecrated or mummified, say by mining or dumping, by planting native species across it and those with the patience to let it revegetate on its own.

Another recent newspaper article showed how plants making up a well-established natural community don’t stay that way on their own. They rely on a subterranean network of fungal mycelia, i.e., fungal fibers, to communicate between the roots of plant species, relaying messages from one to another in the form of “packets” of nutrients and other chemicals necessary to maintain healthy growth. Our stomachs and intestines rely on similar actions by the flora, bacteria, and the like in our digestive tracts to maintain healthy bodies. Thus, the current popularity of probiotics as a means of reestablishing and maintaining that flora over time.

In other words, there is a good chance that if you take a vacant piece of trashed landscape and plant it with all of the native species you think belong there, fertilize it, water it, and give it your most devoted loving attention, you are still likely end up with a mishmash of natives and invasives cloying in an eternal struggle that carries on for years, not at all to your satisfaction. If the needed microflora and microfauna species aren’t there in a balanced way, your chances of fulfilling your original intentions are likely to go unheeded and you will end up with a new ecotype, one that is new to nature, one we have begun calling a “novel ecotype.” Drive around, bike around, walk around and you will see many of these coming and going.

Karen Blumer, a practiced plant ecologist, and the author of “Long Island Native Plants for Landscaping: A Source Book,” is the second kind of horticulturist. After 30 years of recovering desecrated native plant assemblages on Long Island, she takes the longer view, one that requires a lot of patience, especially when dealing with those of us who want it done overnight. I have come to believe in her methodology and have some examples on which to base my belief.

In the first decade of the 21st century while working for East Hampton Town, I got grants to install a series of ponds, four altogether, in Lake Montauk’s primary watershed. These ponds were dug out of lowlands where surface runoff from roads and other sources was directed into Lake Montauk through a series of culverts. Local contractors dug out disturbed habitats landward of the culverts, the holes filled with water, and the ponds began to be populated by fish, turtles, muskrats, and the like, and their sides became vegetated. Runoff from Montauk ditches landward of the ponds would flow into the ponds, sediments would settle out, nitrates and other chemicals would be captured by the ponds’ algae and other vegetation, and so on and so on.

One pond in particular, the last one created, is situated on East Lake Drive on a piece of land given to the town by a Richard Bond, who has since moved away. It once was used by locals to grow pot and was almost completely covered with phragmites before it was dug out. Phragmites lined the south and west sides of the pond. The phragmites were repeatedly cut and otherwise removed on the north side, but not on the south side. Out of neglect or with respect to Ms. Blumer’s hypothesis, the cleared side grew up on its own. Lo and behold, at least 30 species of native sedges, shrubs, wildflowers, and even alder trees sprang up and took over that side, creating an almost impenetrable thicket, but one that was typically riparian for Long Island. The “propagules” — seeds, root sections, and such — had remained dormant under the phragmites matrix of shoots and runners, but came to life as soon as that matrix was severely weakened.

Contrast such an outcome with three others: the sides of the other three ponds, which were planted with the appropriate native pond-side species, purchased with state grant money from different native plant vendors. They all grew up into mishmashes, some overrun with phragmites, even though we gardened them to the best of our abilities.

The late Stuart Vorpahl, fisherman, town historian, and welder, was cut from the same cloth as Karen. He would tell me time and time again that the seas will take care of themselves given enough time. He cited the return of the bay scallops to local waters on their own after their disappearance in the 1930s and 1940s. Yes, he knew of the various algal blooms and how they could damage stocks, but he believed that stocks would always rebuild if given the opportunity. Modern fishery management is largely based on that premise. When a particular stock dwindles to low numbers, don’t fish it.

On the other hand, the modern hypothesis, that practiced by the large majority of mariculturists, is one based on stocking, stocking, stocking, and more stocking. In a way, it worked for scallops in the first decade of this century, but not for eelgrass. No matter how much we planted it in harbors and creeks where it disappeared in the 1990s, it didn’t come back. Yet, dredging the Shinnecock Inlet a few years back was followed by a surge of eelgrass growth in parts of Shinnecock Bay. The more ocean water flowing in, the more eelgrass covering the bottom, it turns out.

In this day and age, when McMansions spring up almost overnight and expensive extensive landscapes are installed in a day or two, complete with sprinkler systems, it is nigh impossible for us to wait for the bountiful “old days” to return on their own. And if we are successful after using lots of money, equipment, and labor in bringing something back in quick time, we will try to do it again and again, even if we fail. The shortest road is not always the quickest way to get to where we want to go.

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

The booths are set up and preparations are being finalized for the Ladies Village Improvement Society Fair, which opens at 10 a.m. on Saturday with attractions for children and adults alike. The fair will be on the lawn of the Gardiner Brown House at 95 Main Street with some of its activities for children set up in Herrick Park next door.

Magic Jeff the Magician will perform at 11 a.m. and noon. There will be face-painting, balloons, games with prizes for kids, cotton candy, a petting zoo, a giant slide, and an old-fashioned carousel.

For grown-ups, a silent auction with a tremendous range of items will be featured. Among the lots are two tickets to “Hamilton” on Broadway in September and V.I.P. box tickets and dinner at a Barbra Streisand performance at the Barclays Center on Aug. 11. Other attractions include booths filled with hats, vintage clothing, homemade jams and baked goods, flowers and potted plants, needlepoint and other crafts made by L.V.I.S. members, and jewelry.

As always, the Lions Club will serve up barbecued chicken from 3 to 7 p.m., with a clam bar with wine and beer opening at 2 p.m. to whet everyone’s appetites. There will be live music from Mamalee Rose and Friends to accompany those sticking around for the food. Tickets to the barbecue are $20.

Admission to the fair is by donation at the gate.

A scientific analysis of East Hampton Town’s coastal geology is under way and an exploration of what to do in the face of climate change and sea level rise will be launched soon with the help of more than $400,000 in state grants. The East Hampton Town Board voted last Thursday to hire GEI Consultants to oversee the forthcoming efforts and is to appoint a citizens committee to work with the firm.

Under one grant, from the New York State Energy Research Development Authority, a Virginia-based consulting firm, Dewberry, is in the process of updating information on the town’s 114 miles of coastline — for instance, which areas of wetlands and beaches are eroding, and how quickly, and how beach sand or other sediments move along the shoreline, and how quickly. The project will provide a baseline for future plans that GEI will help develop.

Once “we understand the underlying science of it,” Jeremy Samuelson, a member of a town-appointed advisory committee for coastal planning and the director of Concerned Citizens of Montauk, said at a town board work session last week, the goal is to develop a Coastal Assessment Resiliency Plan that will “project the future of our relationship to the shoreline.” It is certain that the shoreline will change in the short term, Mr. Samuelson said, and it is prudent to have a plan as to how the town will react.

“This needs to be a community-led process,” he said, similar to the hamlet studies now under way, which have involved the public in shaping the focus and goals of the planning effort.

Based on the data about the town’s coastal areas and agreed-upon expectations regarding sea level rise or vulnerability to increased storms, models can be developed that will show what could happen in different parts of the shoreline. Then, Mr. Samuelson explained, decisions can be made about protecting or redeveloping infrastructure, what to do about shore-hardening structures, about properties that could be targeted for public purchase, or about areas where the best strategy is to move development away from the shore.

Plans are to be made in conjunction with existing coastal planning policies, such as  the longstanding and state approved Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan.

“It’s really important to get an understanding of the realities that we’re going to face as a community,” East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said at the July 19 meeting, and to have the community “understand what the impacts are likely to be.” You then have the basis for the “more difficult conversation,” he said. “Then and only then we can have a discussion. What are the pros and cons of the strategies that might be on the table?”

 Representation on the committee of a broad spectrum of constituencies in town is key, Mr. Samuelson and Mr. Cantwell agreed, as is an open process in which the public can participate.