The East Hampton and Bridgehampton High School boys basketball teams won league titles in games played Tuesday night.

By beating Elwood-John Glenn 76-56, the Bonackers won the League VI title outright, with an 11-1 record, and the 10-2 Killer Bees, who had crushed their league rival, Stony Brook, 100-39 at the Beehive on Saturday, won a share of the League VIII championship as the result of a 45-35 win at Pierson High School in Sag Harbor.

Tylik Furman, who had tweaked an ankle in Saturday's game, sat out Tuesday's regular-season finale at Pierson. "Had it been a championship game, he would have played," said the Bees' coach, Carl Johnson, who, because of his point guard's absence from the lineup and Elijah Harding's early foul trouble, had to make some adjustments.

Nykell Dean played the point for the Bees, who were guarded man-for-man by the Whalers, and "didn't turn the ball over once," his coach said.

East Hampton's senior guards, Brandon Kennedy-Gay and Kyle McKee, ran rings around Glenn's defenders once Bonac found its rhythm after falling behind by 10 points midway through the second quarter.

"I've never seen the two of them go to the basket as effectively as they did tonight," Bob Vacca, Bill McKee's assistant, said following the 20-point victory, "and, of course, that opened things up for us outside."

Kennedy-Gay, who wheeled and dealed dazzlingly on frequent forays to the hoop, finished with 35 points; McKee, who mixed in six 3-pointers with his slashing drives, wound up with 24. It was the first league championship for East Hampton in five years.

The Bonackers, who were apparently seeded second among the county's Class A teams (behind 12-0 Harborfields, the League V champion), are to again face Glenn in a first-round playoff game here on Friday at 6 p.m. That winner is to face the three seed-six seed winner on Tuesday at the site of the higher-seeded team at a time to be announced. The county Class A championship game is to be played on Friday, Feb. 19, at Suffolk Community College-Selden at 5:30 p.m.

There is another new nature book in town. This time the town is the Village of Sag Harbor and the nature in the book is Sag Harbor’s birds in photographs, poetry, prose, and other jits and jots. The author-photographer is also local, Terry Sullivan, known more, perhaps, for his Irish ditties, poems and short stories, and his many years’ singing with Pete Seeger, while lately he is in a local American folk song group.

 Terry has joined the ranks of other recent self-made Long Island naturalists, including Dell Cullum of Amagansett, who recently put out a wonderful book of photographs on the wildlife and history of East Hampton Village’s Nature Trail.

 Terry’s appreciation of birds stems from his many years as a freshwater trout and saltwater striped bass fisherman. Early on, he was with another local nature writer and fisherman, Al Daniels, when an osprey kept diving at a popping lure until it finally hooked itself and had to be reeled in, soaking wet and unable to fly, and be rescued by Al and Terry along with other casting fishermen.

 The feeder outside Terry’s small house in northeast Sag Harbor has provided many hours of rapt attention to avian detail as well as a wonderful stage for his photography. That’s how a lot of people get deeply into the lives and souls of birds, by quietly observing them for hours on end. 

 (As I write this column on Monday afternoon I am trying not to be distracted by the juncos, white-throated sparrows, blue jays, and the tufted titmouse plucking seeds from the snow on a little shelf outside my bedroom window. But how can I not be distracted by these wonderful little creatures who take turns at the trough, fly away, come back, feed some more, fly away again, and so forth?)

One of the ways in which Terry became such an excellent photographer of birds both stationary and flying was by switching from an older camera to a Canon Rebel EOS T2i. I can’t help but think back on how the late Long Island naturalist and environmental activist Paul Stoutenburgh was able to sharpen his bird pictures by switching to a Leica.

The photos in “My Sag Harbor Bird Notebook” are as fine as any I have ever come across. They are displayed side by side with pithy anecdotes, poems, and apothegms, giving them contextual backgrounds. The word “Notebook” in the title is apt, because the book is spiral bound so the pages can lie flat, rather than partly curled at the inner edges as they can be in books with hard spines.

 There are lots of photos of crows, but what makes them extra appealing is a memory about the late Stuart Vorpahl’s preoccupation with crows, which started as a child in grade school and didn’t end until late in life. Stuart, it seems, once brought four pet crows to school and taught them how to peck at the windows from outside to the disconcertion of his teacher. He taught them how to speak — in basic Bonac, of course — and when with them Stuart became as much a crow as they became humans.

Several of the photos in Terry’s book are birds in flight. Ospreys diving, hawks chasing flying prey, great egrets taking off with massive white wings, and the like. Photographing a bird in flight is a bit of an art. As in hunting pheasants or ducks, for example, one has to lead them a bit, or you’ll only catch the tail end.

“My Sag Harbor Bird Notebook” is also a kind of primer, beginning with Terry’s first attraction to birds as a fisherman, how he got hooked, and how he is more likely to be seen today with a camera in his hand than a fishing pole. It is also proof of an adage that every human is a book in the making. Not an ebook, mind you, but one that you can hold fondly in your hands and go to sleep with at night.

We cannot leave out the publisher, Empire Science Resources, which did such a wonderful job. Where can you get this book? I already have one, but am told they will be available at Canio’s in Sag Harbor and the South Fork Natural History Museum and Nature Center (SoFo) in Bridgehampton as of the publication of this review.

There wouldn’t be such a wonderful new book in print without the everyday support and hands-on oversight from the missus, Jeanelle Myers, who is also deeply involved with nature. Pretty good for a plumber by trade, don’t you think?

Larry Penny can be reached via email at Larrypenny9@gmail.com.

Members of the Shinnecock Indian Nation voted last weekend to pursue growing medical marijuana and open processing and dispensary facilities for patients on their Southampton reservation.

According to news reports, the Shinnecocks hope to have the venture up and running by the end of the year, though the plan is subject to state approval. A majority also voted to hire Conor Green Consulting, a Chicago firm specializing in the medical cannabis industry, to help get the project underway.

Kelly Bennis, a tribal attorney, confirmed the vote, reporting that of 117 members who voted, 83 were in favor of the plan, while 34 voted against it. Neither Bryan Polite, the Shinnecock tribal chairman, nor their director of communications could be reached this week for comment.

The cultivation and distribution by prescription of medical marijuana products became legal in New York State at the start of 2016 under a new Compassionate Care Law. The law allows specially licensed physicians to certify patients with particular serious medical conditions as eligible for medical marijuana, which is provided in non-smokable forms. The drug has been shown to provide relief from pain, seizures, and anxiety.

Five companies have been issued state licenses allowing them to grow, process, and dispense marijuana. The Shinnecock medical marijuana operation, should it come to fruition, would join two others on Long Island, which have dispensaries in Riverhead and in Lake Success.

Under the state law, patients who have one of the designated “severe debilitating, or life-threatening conditions,” such as cancer, AIDS, epilepsy, and Parkinson’s disease, must be certified and registered with the state’s Department of Health in order to obtain a marijuana prescription.

The Sag Harbor Village Board took a break from proposed code revisions Tuesday night and instead discussed snow clearing and a law that would set appropriate times for leaf blowers and construction work.

The board proposed limiting the commercial use of leaf blowers and construction activity to between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. Monday through Friday. On Saturdays, construction would be allowed from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Nothing would be allowed on public holidays. As it now stands, all such activity is allowed seven days a week between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.

The proposal is intended, Mayor Sandra Schroeder said yesterday, to limit landscapers and builders but allow homeowners to get their chores done.

It was met with some confusion. Jennifer Hauser, who had complained to the board in December about roof work and leaf blowing being done at a neighbor’s house on Thanksgiving, thanked the board for looking at the noise ordinance, but asked that members take more time over it, as she didn’t see much difference. She also asked that the times be further restricted. “I wish there were no people working on their lawns or construction on Saturday or Sunday,” she said.

The proposal does not specifically say that commercial leaf blowers or construction would be banned on Sundays, or that residential use would be allowed. Ken O’Donnell, a village board member, agreed there was a bit of a gray area, but said the village needed to let residents work on their properties on weekends, even though “it definitely seems to be a village where a lot of professional landscapers are doing the work.”

While the board agreed to table the proposal and re-evaluate, Ed Deyermond, another board member, said, “I can’t see supporting the prohibition on Saturdays. It’s too much.”

“I do agree we should have Sundays off,” Mayor Schroeder said yesterday. She is going to re-examine the proposal with legal counsel and bring it back to the board next month.

Mia Grosjean, a Henry Street resident, asked that the board remember that weekends are a chance for a respite, despite Sag Harbor having become a resort community. “It would just be great to say, ‘Ah, we don’t have all of this going on around us over the weekends.’ ”

Carol Olejnik, who lives on Main Street, introduced the discussion about the snow. Second-home owners, she said, manage to have their lawns cut every weekend, but their sidewalks are packed with snow. “I cannot walk all the way to the corner. I cannot walk to the pond because they can’t shovel the walk. My dog has to go out,” she said. “I’m 73 years old; I’m out there shoveling. I don’t understand why they can’t do it.”

Mayor Schroeder said this winter had been better than last when it came to compliance with a village law that makes it the responsibility of property owners to clear snow and ice from the sidewalks in front of their buildings. Snow and ice cannot impede traffic for longer than 24 hours after snowfall has stopped. The village took out an ad in The Sag Harbor Express again this year to make the point, she said. Enforcement has ramped up, too. Violators can be fined up to $250 or jailed for up to 15 days.

Still, “We can’t go door to door and drag people out and hand them a shovel,” the mayor told Ms. Olejnik.

Margaret Bromberg gave what has become her annual February report on the snow-covered sidewalks on her Hampton Street block. Concerned that students would be unable to walk up the block to the school, she reached out to each of her neighbors on the street to let them know of the law. They all got together and got the entire street shoveled.

She is still hopeful that the village will accept more responsibility in clearing the snow. “I’m hoping to age in place,” she said, pointing out that Sag Harbor is a walkable village most of the year. “This year’s better, I agree with the mayor . . . I think we have to keep talking about it.”

Ms. Bromberg also raised some issues with village snowplows leaving snow piled in crosswalks.

A small residential greenhouse at Lazy Point in Amagansett was destroyed in a blaze that spread to the attached shed late Thursday morning. 

Amagansett Fire Chief Allen Bennett Jr. said a heater in the greenhouse on Shore Road started the fire around 11 a.m. The homeowner, whose residence is just 15 feet away, heard something and looked out the window to find the greenhouse ablaze, Chief Bennett said. The homeowner and neighbors tried to extinguish the fire before the fire department arrived. The chief said he heard that smoke could be seen from the Napeague stretch. 

Firefighters were able to save the shed that the greenhouse was attached to, with only minor damage to its roof. With winds at 23 miles per hour, according to the National Weather Service, the fire could have spread even farther. Chief Bennett said there were no fertilizers or chemicals inside the greenhouse. About 25 firefighters and emergency medical personnel in total responded, and they finished up at about 11:45 a.m.

Reports by The New York Times and CBS News alleging that the Wounded Warrior Project, the country’s largest veteran-care organization, spends an inordinate amount of its donations on travel, hotels, and meals have been angrily challenged by some East Hampton residents who have devoted their time and effort to the charity.

Other residents who have donated time and money to the group, however, privately criticized the organization’s spending and alleged emphasis on fund-raising, while the platoon commander of Lance Cpl. Jordan Haerter, a Sag Harbor resident who was killed in Iraq in 2008, ceased donating to the group and participating in its events amid what he called a lack of financial transparency and disrespectful behavior toward veterans and volunteers.

Citing interviews with more than 48 current and former employees, the Jan. 27 article in The Times called the organization’s spending “more lavish than appropriate” and questioned its “aggressive styles of fund-raising, marketing, and personnel management.”

CBS News, which broadcast its report on Jan. 26 and 27, also claimed that more than 40 former employees of Wounded Warrior Project accused the charity of “wasting millions of donated dollars on luxury hotels, lavish conferences, and expensive meals for staff.” It cited Charity Navigator, a rating organization claiming that Wounded Warrior Project spent 40 percent of its donations on overhead in 2014. Charity Watch, another group, assigned Wounded Warrior Project a C rating, also citing high spending on overhead.

A consolidated financial statement on the organization’s website shows just over $400 million in contributions, which it says come primarily from individuals, in its fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2014. Expenses totaled $300 million, according to the statement, with $43.5 million devoted to fund-raising and another $14.5 million to management and general expenses.

Soldier Ride, which benefits the Wounded Warrior Project, was conceived and carried out by Chris Carney of East Hampton in 2004 when he cycled across the country to raise money for wounded veterans. The event has grown into multiple fund-raising events in cities around the world. Mr. Carney was among several founding members when the Wounded Warrior Project organized as a not-for-profit corporation in 2005.

Mr. Carney, who is no longer affiliated with Wounded Warrior Project, defended the organization and its chief executive, Steven Nardizzi, who was paid $473,000 in 2014. “He is managing $500 million annually, and he steered the ship and brought that organization to where it is,” he said on Tuesday. The organization’s board of directors, several of whom are wounded veterans, provide oversight, he said, and “set a standard of criteria for the administrative staff to achieve on an annual basis, and the staff has done that.”

“They are very, very aggressive,” Mr. Carney said of the organization’s fund-raising, “and that sometimes leaves a bad taste. But they get things done. I don’t know if it’s better to spend 20 percent on administration and fund-raising and raise $500 million, or 10 percent and raise $1 million. That’s for someone else to decide, but they’ve gotten stuff done. They are the most successful veterans advocacy group in the history of the world.”

The CBS News report was “completely wrong,” said Peter Honerkamp, an owner of the Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett and another founder of Soldier Ride and the Wounded Warrior Project. “I talked to different analysts who say our numbers are between 76 and 80 percent that go to programs” helping veterans, Mr. Honerkamp said, which range from physical therapy, mental health care, and job training to long-term support for families and caregivers of those with post traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury.

None of the annual conferences he has attended are lavish, Mr. Honerkamp said. “All were work-oriented. From the moment they start to the moment they end it’s all business.” Hotel stays were midweek, at Best Western rates, he said. “I’ve never traveled first class in my life, and I’m one of the founding members.” He also criticized Charity Navigator, whose methodologies he said provide no measurement of Wounded Warrior Project’s effectiveness.

Nick Kraus, a Talkhouse employee and also a founder of Soldier Ride and the Wounded Warrior Project, agreed. “I wouldn’t be involved to this day if I believed it,” Mr. Kraus, who organizes and participates in Soldier Ride events, said of the reports. The numbers cited by The Times are inaccurate, he said. “I don’t see gross waste whatsoever. Everything has always been done with the best of intentions.”

But Dan Runzheimer, Corporal Haerter’s platoon commander, who participated in several Soldier Ride events in East Hampton, pointed to a slowly unraveling relationship between veterans and the organization’s staff. After what he called “generally positive” experiences at East Hampton’s Soldier Ride beginning around 2009, “over the years, a number of guys quit participating.” The problems began, he said, when posters for a Soldier Ride misspelled Corporal Haerter’s rank. A request to correct the spelling, he said, was dismissed, which he said was unprofessional and caused Corporal Haerter’s family emotional distress. The situation continued to deteriorate with further disrespectful behavior toward volunteers and veterans’ families.

Mr. Runzheimer posed questions about contracts for food and alcoholic beverages at post-Soldier Ride Rock the Farm concerts, at the 555 Montauk Highway property in Amagansett, and at the Wounded Warrior Project’s annual gala in Manhattan, to Al Giordano, the organization’s chief operating officer. These were also ignored, he said. In a 2014 email to Mr. Giordano, which Mr. Runzheimer provided to The Star, he itemized complaints that included mandatory minimum fund-raising figures for Soldier Ride participants, which he said excluded many willing participants on the South Fork; the misspelling of Corporal Haerter’s rank on the poster, and insensitive disregard for volunteers, which he said were based on numerous individual comments made to him.

Mr. Giordano’s email reply called Mr. Runzheimer’s message “ignorant, childish, and unprofessional vitriol” and said that given someone of Mr. Runzheimer’s credentials, “the only logical conclusion I can come up with is your system is hacked.” After Mr. Runzheimer was blocked from sending additional emails, he called a telephone number listed in the email, which he said went to the voicemail of an employee who had been terminated. A subsequent call to Mr. Giordano’s cellphone, he said, “resulted in his comment that I had no right to know” about any payments or stipends Wounded Warrior Project made to food and alcohol vendors.

JoAnn Lyles, Corporal Haerter’s mother, reserved judgment on the allegations against Wounded Warrior Project, but said on Monday that “it feels bad, because I know on the local level — as Soldier Ride — it is all-volunteer. Everybody is all for the good of the warriors.”

Mr. Honerkamp and Mr. Kraus insisted that both CBS and The Times ignored current and former employees’ positive assessments of the Wounded Warrior Project. In an email circulated last week, Mr. Honerkamp said that the author of the Times article, Dave Philipps, “was told by our staff how proud they were of their organization” and that the organization heard from a former employee “who told us that when they spoke positively of W.W.P., the interview quickly concluded.” Worse, he said, Mr. Philipps “failed to speak to the 80,000 soldiers we have helped, including the 10,000 last year, 94.5 percent of whom spoke positively about our events and service.”

Fifty-three Soldier Rides will take place in 2016, Mr. Honerkamp said. In addition to raising money for the Wounded Warrior Project, they serve as rehabilitative events for wounded veterans. He also pointed to the Warrior Care Network, a partnership with four academic medical centers to provide mental health care to veterans, to which the organization has pledged $100 million.

Unfazed by the allegations made by CBS News and The Times, Mr. Carney, Mr. Honerkamp, and Mr. Kraus are nonetheless concerned about the fallout. “No one is perfect,” Mr. Carney conceded. “When you bring in $500 million a year, I’m sure you’re going to find where money was wasted, but I defy anyone to say they haven’t done more for veterans. And that’s going to be lost now. That will be sacrificed.”

A nearly 3,700 square foot house proposed for constrained property facing Accabonac Harbor on Gerard Drive in Springs was greeted with strong opposition from neighbors and the East Hampton Town Planning Department at a hearing Tuesday night, as well as skepticism from the members of the town’s zoning board of appeals. “This would be our first McMansion,” one of those neighbors, Marcia Englehardt, said.

The property is a little over an acre, but much of it is wetlands, constraining where a new house could be. There is an 842-square-foot house on the land, built long before zoning. It is right on the harbor and in the wetlands. The applicant, Barry Rugg, would tear down the old house and remove a shed and a trailer. In addition to the new house, he proposes about 1,700 square feet of decking and porches.

 The house would be built on the other side of the property, away from the harbor and toward Gerard Drive. Besides a permit to build near wetlands, the three setback variances to build closer to the wetlands, of about 39 feet each, would be required, as well as a setback variance for the septic system, which is proposed to be 122 feet from the wetlands where 200 feet is the requirement.

Laurie Wiltshire of Land Planning Services explained to the board that Mr. Rugg’s family has grown since he bought the property. She said the new house proposed was comparable to two neighboring ones. She also said that variances and a wetlands permit would be needed regardless of the size of the house.

Brian Frank, chief environmental analyst for the town, said that the comparable houses Ms. Wiltshire’s cited were not in keeping with the neighborhood as a whole. While he applauded putting  a new house away from the wetland, he wrote in his memorandum to the board that “the proposed residence exceeds the constraints of the property.” In conclusion, he wrote, “The proposed redevelopment of the property does not appear to satisfy the standards, and does not appear to meet any of the variance criteria.”

Gerard Drive is, in Mr. Frank’s words, a “fragile peninsula” separating Accabonac Harbor from Gardiner’s Bay. He spoke of the wetlands, or salt marshes. “This is one of the most heavily regulated areas in the town,” he wrote, and he called the application “a non-starter.”

Neighbors echoed his concern about placing a large house only 30 feet from Gerard Drive. “The size and proximity to Gerard Drive does not fit in with the character of the neighborhood,” Claudia Jensen said.

“This is the best separation you’re going to get on this property,” Ms. Wiltshire responded. “This is a quandary for us. We’re not asking for any dimensional relief.”

Among the board members who expressed concern about the project was David Lys. “The footprint could be smaller,” he said. “You’re starting with an 842-square-foot house,” John Whelan, chairman, said. “Did you consider doubling the size, or tripling the size?” It appeared to Roy Dalene that the applicant was essentially saying, “Let’s max this thing out.”

 Ms. Wiltshire asked the board to keep the public hearing open for her response for a month. “I need to speak to my clients and the architect on how they want to proceed,” she said. The board agreed.

On Monday, just three hours into the very first shift on the first day of the Springs Fire District’s new paid emergency medical service provider program, it had its first success when the department received a call for an elderly woman with chest pains. The paid paramedic on duty arrived on scene with an ambulance within six minutes.

By comparison, just 24 hours earlier, an ambulance staffed only with a basic life support crew arrived 12 minutes after a cardiac arrest call. Six minutes into that call, when an advanced life support provider failed to sign on, the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association sent its paid first responder to its neighbor, on what is known as a mutual aid.

“Our goal is to provide a fast, professional response with the ambulance. Today the driver was here very quickly, and we got out very quickly, and that’s the goal,” David Baumrind, a paramedic who was hired to lead the program, said after he got back to the firehouse on Monday afternoon.

The Springs Fire District, the last holdout on the South Fork, agreed in October to put aside $100,000 in its 2016 budget to fund a paid E.M.S. program to supplement its volunteer department. The district was resistant due to the department’s low call volume — only about 430 a year — and concern about increasing taxes in an area that already struggles with the highest school taxes in East Hampton Town. While all other districts made the shift over the past three years, Springs was struggling to answer alarms and officials in neighboring districts raised concerns over the number of E.M.S. calls Springs needed help with over the last year, a reported 26 percent.

“We really had no choice. . . . We don’t have enough providers,” said Pat Glennon, chairman of the board of fire commissioners. Mr. Glennon is one of two advanced life support providers who shouldered the responsibility of responding to critical calls like heart attacks or strokes. There are also severn volunteer emergency medical technicians. “At first I was resistant,” Mr. Glennon admitted, but he is content with the type of system being implemented.

The program is laid out differently than in most neighboring districts. In Springs, the paid provider may be an E.M.T. or advanced life support provider — a paramedic or a critical care technician who has more advanced training than basic E.M.T.s. The sole provider on duty will respond in the ambulance — with someone else, a volunteer in most cases, behind the wheel — and volunteer E.M.T.s will respond as additional help. The paid personnel will be on duty every day from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., with the day split into two shifts; 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. All-volunteer squads currently in place will handle calls on their own between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m.

In Montauk, East Hampton, Amagansett, and Bridgehampton, paid providers certified in advanced life support are on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week and act as first responders, going to calls in a vehicle equipped with a cardiac monitor, drugs, and other medical tools to begin patient care before the ambulance arrives. Providers work in 12-hour or 24-hour shifts, depending on the district.

The $100,000 Springs put into its 2016 budget for the program only covers salary for the providers. Mr. Baumrind will be paid $50,000 a year. In the coming weeks, the district will hire four to five other providers, who will make $18 an hour — a bit less than in surrounding districts, which pay $22 to $25 an hour. Buying a first-responder vehicle and outfitting it with all the necessary equipment would cost about $110,000, Mr. Glennon said, and the district decided not to do that at this point.

“I think different is okay,” Mr. Baumrind said. “Every community out here is not the same. So to me, it doesn’t seem like every program should be the same. It’s designed to fit the needs of the Springs community, and I think that’s how it should be,” he said. He does not see the lack of a first-responder vehicle as “any sort of handicap.”

“You’ve got to remember, we’re very centralized right here where we are. That’s one of the reasons why we really didn’t bother to look for another site for our tower,” he said, referring to district’s ongoing legal battle over the communications tower it erected behind the firehouse last year. “Where we’re located here,” on Fort Pond Boulevard, “we can get to almost any part of our district in four or five minutes.” The department’s coverage area is only 4.5 square miles.

If an E.M.S. call is time sensitive, for example when a patient is in cardiac arrest or experiencing chest pains or having a stroke, the paid provider can have the houseman drive him or her to the call in the ambulance. The houseman only works from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Mr. Glennon said he is not worried about the gap because the department has “a good handful of retired or close to retired” volunteers who show up to drive.

Mr. Baumrind will work seven of the 14 shifts each week. However, if there is a call when he is off duty and only an E.M.T. is working or it is the district’s second call and the A.L.S. provider is out on the first, Mr. Baumrind may respond and will be paid for his time. He lives in Springs. In fact, he was a volunteer with the department for about a year, but had to resign to take the position due to a federal law, the Fair Labor Standards Act, that prohibits an individual from being paid and volunteering in the same agency in the same capacity.

While the commissioners had planned to seek the advice of a consultant who specializes in setting up such programs, Mr. Glennon said that never panned out. With the company being located upstate, it became clear to the district, he said, that it was not going to be financially beneficial. At about the same time, Mr. Baumrind expressed an interest in running the program.

“I’m invested in making this work,” Mr. Baumrind said. “I’m passionate about taking care of the community and providing the best care we can . . . grow[ing] a system to provide the type of patient care I would want my family to receive, which is sincere, because my family lives in Springs.”

A group of Napeague residents who have been fighting against beach driving on the shore near their neighborhood and the summertime gathering of vehicles at what has become known as Truck Beach stepped up its campaign this week with the release on its website, safebeach.org, of a video showing the area clogged with cars.

In a press release, the Safe Access for Everyone group says the video demonstrates “atrocities” related to beach driving, saying the beach is “being used by drivers as a toilet, for boozy tailgating, and a parking lot by more than 100 S.U.V.s on summer weekends.”

The move comes after a recent East Hampton Town Board vote authorizing a $320,000 bond to pay for appraisal, planning, and other services by consultants as the town moves forward to condemn the land in question, approximately 4,000 feet of oceanfront.

Ownership of that property is at issue in two lawsuits brought by Seaview at Amagansett Ltd. et al. and White Sands Motel Holding Corp. A trial is scheduled to begin in June.

Notwithstanding the legal action, the town moved in 2014 to begin the eminent domain process to acquire the disputed property, in order, officials have said, to assure continued public access to the beach.

According to SAFE, the condemnation will “waste millions of tax dollars.”

The East Hampton Town Trustees, who are co-defendants in the lawsuits, have agreed to shoulder half the condemnation costs.

Should the condemnation proceed, the cost to purchase the land would be set by a judge; estimates of that cost by the town and the members of SAFE differ widely.

A claim by plaintiffs that some of the Napeague property owners own the beach to the high-tide line was upheld by a court decision in June. But the town and the trustees claim that public access was still guaranteed under the terms of the deed.

The lawsuits and condemnation pit the members of SAFE against those of another local organization founded specifically in response to the Napeague beach situation, Citizens for Access Rights, or CfAR.

Its members are among those who frequently drive to and gather at the Napeague beach.

According to SAFE, “S.U.V.s are decimating dunes that protect East Hampton residents from storms, and are destroying the habitat of the piping plover, an endangered bird species.”

Another concern, according to Cindi Crain, a SAFE founder and spokeswoman, is the safety of children and other pedestrians on the beach where cars are parked and traversing.

The group has suggested moving truck access to the beach to a state beach nearby, or to a stretch of Napeague oceanfront near the town’s South Flora nature preserve.

The Child Development Center of the Hamptons, the South Fork’s only charter school, and Kevin Gersh, who operates several private schools for autistic children on Long Island and in Puerto Rico, are moving toward his taking over the school’s management following a financially difficult year in which it lost about $350,000. A management change could occur as early as July 1, pending approval by the State University of New York’s Charter School Institute.

Mr. Gersh is a philanthropist and the founder of the Gersh Academy schools, summer camp, and after-school programs, as well the Gersh Experience, an independent living program for autistic young adults. He is also a co-founder of the West Hills Montessori School. Marilyn Zaretsky, the chairwoman of the C.D.C.H. board of directors, confirmed Friday that talks were underway. “The programs that they create are extraordinary,” she said. Mr. Gersh said the school was still a few weeks away from making a formal announcement and holding an open house.

Schools within a radius of 50 miles may send students to C.D.C.H., with  tuition coming from the home districts’ operating budgets. Ms. Zaretsky said those districts’ budgetary constraints had had an impact on C.D.C.H. “They are doing as much as possible to keep children in-district,” she said, because of the cost of tuition.

The relationship with Mr. Gersh came to light just after C.D.C.H., which is on Stephen Hand’s Path in East Hampton, said it had stabilized its finances. Ms. Zaretsky said the school had been able to “level out” its financial woes by handing over some of its expenses to the current management firm, Family Residences and Essential Enterprises, a nonprofit based in Old Bethpage, which is known as FREE. Ms. Zaretsky said the school had trimmed expenses by eliminating the position of assistant head of school and “streamlined some of our programs and the auxiliary staff.”

Reached by phone yesterday, Mr. Gersh said the teaching and support staffs would be retained if the management change were approved by the state. He would also “utilize our own resources to enhance the program,” he said, and continue to integrate general and special education students, as its original New York State charter mandates.

According to C.D.C.H.’s February 2015 board meeting minutes, the school lost at least $350,000 between July and December 2014, or about 18 percent of its approximately $2 million budget. “The school is experiencing financial difficulty due to the lower number of special-needs children in attendance,” the minutes read. “Cash flow is also a problem, as expenses exceed revenue.”

By June 2015, the deficit had grown slightly, to about $355,000. The June 2015 minutes, which note lower attendance, were the most recent available on the school’s website, although the board met three more times in 2015. Although C.D.C.H. does not have a publicly elected board like school districts do, its meetings are open to the public and the board functions almost exactly like public school boards. C.D.C.H.’s board meets approximately every other month; its next meeting, according to its website, is March 28.

Financial problems brought on by declining enrollment were “what led us to believe that FREE as an organization had brought C.D.C.H. as far as we could bring it,” Gerard Cairns, vice president of education and youth services with FREE, said in an interview Tuesday. When the former head of C.D.C.H., Patricia Loewe, who had been with the school since the fall of 2012, stepped down in August, Mr. Cairns took over as interim leader.

Mr. Cairns said FREE had conducted a national search for someone to take over C.D.C.H. Among those contacted was Eva Moskowitz of Success Academy, the New York City network of 34 charter schools that has attracted national attention and controversy. Mr. Cairns said a Success Academy representative declined to discuss a relationship with C.D.C.H.

“We kept our ear to the ground and then Kevin Gersh reached out,” Mr. Cairns said. “We actually sat with him, visited his school in West Hempstead, and we came away very impressed. . . . His caring for kids is so evident when you go into that school environment.” Ms. Zaretsky also lauded Mr. Gersch. He had been a student in the South Huntington School District, she said, when she was a superintendent there, and her own children attended his summer camp.

In November 2013, C.D.C.H. had 80 students in kindergarten through fifth grade. That figure was 57 this year, with 40 general education students and 17 special education students. The school had about a 50-50 ratio of general to special education students in the past. C.D.C.H.’s private, tuition-based preschool, on the other hand, is “faring very well,” Mr. Cairns said, with 28 students in a full-day program. Tuition does not come from any of the local school districts.

A significant portion of the student body comes from the Springs School District, which sends 26 students. Wainscott and Montauk have one student each at C.D.C.H. East Hampton has three special education students there and seven in general education. Of the three students Amagansett sends to C.D.C.H., two are preparing to transfer out. Citing privacy concerns, Sag Harbor School District officials declined to say whether any of its students attend the charter school. Bridgehampton and Sagaponack School do not have any students there.

According to Mr. Cairns, tuition rates are based on what students’ home school districts spend per student. For instance, tuition for general education students would be $25,075 for a Sag Harbor student, $21,775 for Springs, $57,998 for Amagansett, $23,764 for Southampton, and $16,426 for Riverhead. For special education, the tuition rates are the per pupil rate plus the expenses for specialized services such as therapies and aides, which often increases tuition to more than $60,000 per student.

Ms. Zaretsky said the school is now “focusing a great deal on recruitment. It’s very much needed on the East End, this type of program. There is not a real centralized Board of Cooperative Educational Services to provide what we can provide, whether for a child with special needs or not. We’ve been able to make headway with all types of children with a very personalized program.”

After beginning in 1997 as a program for a small group of toddlers in the house of Dawn Zimmerman Hummel, its founder, C.D.C.H. opened as an authorized public charter school in January of 2001, serving students in kindergarten through third grade. By the 2005-6 school year, it had expanded to fifth grade.

The SUNY Charter School Institute found C.D.C.H. to be in good academic standing during the 2014-15 school year as it had in several earlier years.  In February 2015, the institute recommended five-year renewal of C.D.C.H.’s charter. But the school has had financial challenges despite its academic standing. In February 2013, an audit by the office of New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli found a weakness in its financial practices due to the lack of certain reports from FREE.

“The board’s failure to rigorously review the school’s finances, particularly in view of the management corporation’s complete control of its financial activities, significantly increases the risk that school assets could be lost or misappropriated,” the audit stated. “We also found that the two-month budget-to-actual revenue and expenditure reports that FREE presented to the board did not contain information to ensure school funds are effectively and efficiently used.”

Also among the audit’s findings was that for two years, C.D.C.H.’s regular school program operated at a surplus, masking the fact that its summer program operated at a deficit. The school board said in a subsequent letter to the comptroller that it had resolved the deficiencies.

As recently as Jan. 1, the C.D.C.H. Foundation for Special Children, a nonprofit organization that supports the charter school, was collecting donations via the crowd-funding website gofundme.com. As of Friday, about $3,500 of its $500,000 goal had been raised over 10 months. The campaign’s page reads, “The shifting educational landscape has presented us with some short-term financial hurdles, and we would greatly appreciate your help.”