A recent playdate in the park has inspired a communitywide effort to help local kids in need get new clothing for school this year.

During that playdate, when her daughter's friend became upset at the thought of not having anything new to wear to school, Kathryn Bermudez got emotional herself and decided to launch a communitywide clothing drive.

Ms. Bermudez, whose family owns VIP Hamptons Cleaning, has put out a call via social media and word-of-mouth for new or gently used clothing for school-age children. She is looking for pants in sizes 4T to 16 and shirts in sizes extra small to extra large.

"I was trying to help these two families at the park," Ms. Bermudez said. "It started off as something small and it got really huge. It's a big blessing."

Her goal is to help at least 100 families. She has reached out to churches, shelters, and social workers at the Family Service League, who have provided the ages and sizes of boys and girls who could benefit from the clothing drive. Ms. Bermudez plans to wash all the clothes, then wrap them in beautiful packaging for the kids to open.

"I went through a tough time once with my daughter," she said. "There's nothing wrong with a hand-me-down. It's very important to give back. I take children to heart because I have one of my own."

Ms. Bermudez will be collecting donations until Friday. Clothing can be dropped off at the Salty Canvas, at 94 Newtown Lane in East Hampton, which is owned by Nikki Payne, a friend whom Ms. Bermudez has known since her days at East Hampton High School. Contributors can also arrange for donations to be picked up by calling VIP Hamptons Cleaning at 631-324-1201.

Funeral arrangements for Paul Hansen, who was killed in a car accident near his home on Rolling Hills Court East in Noyac early Sunday morning, have been finalized. 

A wake will be held at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in Sag Harbor Village on Wednesday from 5 to 8 p.m., according to Ken Yardley, the funeral director. A Mass will be said on Thursday morning at St. Andrew's Catholic Church, also in the village, at 10:30 a.m. Burial will be private. 

Mr. Hansen, a 53-year-old real estate salesman and father of two boys, was the passenger in a 2013 Porsche convertible that crashed into a utility pole at about 2 a.m. on Sunday. Southampton Town police said the driver, Sean P. Ludwick, was driving drunk and fled the scene. He is being held on $500,000 cash or $1 million bond in Suffolk County jail. 

A crash involving a pool company pickup truck on the Napeague stretch of Montauk Highway Wednesday morning briefly closed the road while pool chemicals were removed.

The accident occurred in front of the Clam Bar restaurant at about 10:30 a.m. While it was unclear how the accident happened, a Range Rover and the pickup, belonging to Sea Crystal Pools of Islandia, smashed into each other, sending the Range Rover into the bushes at the Clam Bar. A woman, the driver of the Range Rover, was taken to Southampton Hospital by the Amagansett Fire Department's ambulance, but she didn't appear to be seriously injured, according to witnesses.

Chlorine from the truck spilled onto the highway and was quickly removed. By 10:50 a.m., the road was reopened. 

No further information was available.

When shoppers at the East Hampton Farmers Market spend $40 or more tomorrow, they will be offered a ripstop poly-nylon reusable bag. When they look inside it, they will find a postcard explaining their good fortune.

With the town’s ban on plastic bags set to take effect on Sept. 22, the second batch of 250 reusable bags — they were introduced at the farmers market on Friday — will contain a postcard advertising theONswitch, a marketing firm owned and operated by Nancy Shenker.

“I was at the market at the beginning of the season,” Ms. Shenker, a resident of East Hampton and Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., said, “and one of the farmers was saying, ‘What are we going to do when plastic bags are outlawed?’ I started talking to Kate Plumb,” the market’s manager, “and said it’s about changing behavior now. My whole philosophy is, you can’t sit around complaining, you have to jump in and change it.”

Ms. Shenker, who has served in senior marketing positions at companies including Citibank, MasterCard International, and Reed Exhibitions, founded theONswitch 12 years ago. For a time, Horman’s Best Pickles, a vendor at the East Hampton Farmers Market, was a client, and theONswitch has helped other South Fork businesses establish and maintain a social media presence.

“A lot of people view marketing as something crass and obnoxious, whereas if you do it in the right way it’s a win for everybody,” Ms. Shenker said. The reusable-bag campaign, she said, is illustrative of the marketing professional’s work. “Think of it like the department store cosmetics model: ‘You could spend $30, but if you spend $10 more — if you bought these great tomatoes, or two more jars of this jelly — you get this great bag and help save the planet.’ This can help farmers get through the winter, and help the planet because people aren’t using plastic bags.”

Replacing single-use plastic bags, which are manufactured with petroleum and often end up as litter both on land and in the seas, with an environmentally friendly substitute represents the win-win model to which she referred. “It’s a matter of training people to behave differently,” Ms. Shenker said, “and also training the farmers themselves to market in a way that, in the long run, will benefit them.”

Her gift to the farmers market, and by extension its vendors and customers, as well as the environment, is also representative of marketing’s purpose. “I did start the business to make a living,” Ms. Shenker said of theONswitch, “but also saw a tremendous need among small-business owners who had great products and services, are great people, and just didn’t know how to take their businesses to the next level. I prefer working with small businesses — you’re working directly with the owner, who is passionate. The biggest mistake a lot of small-business owners make is that they don’t think of marketing as an investment.”

“Maybe,” Ms. Shenker said of her own investment, “one will be picked up by someone that needs marketing help.”

A public hearing Monday night at the Springs Firehouse, slated to discuss an environmental assessment of the new cell tower there, turned instead into a heated dispute over the tower’s aesthetics versus its utility. Supporters argued that it would allow emergency medical technicians in so-called dead areas to receive calls.

East Hampton Town approved a permit for the tower, which was built earlier this year but has not yet been used, after the town attorney concluded that construction of a tower by a fire district was not subject to planning board review. David Kelly, a Talmage Farm attorney, has challenged the permit before the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals.

The project does require review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, which was not undertaken until after the pole was put up.

Mr. Kelley wrote to the board of fire commissioners last Thursday implying that they had called the hearing to validate the construction of the pole; alleging that the district is performing its own SEQRA review without involving the town or other agencies, and concluding that a finding of negative environmental impact was predetermined. Mr. Kelley was not at Monday’s meeting.

Patrick Glennon, chairman of the board of fire commissioners, told the audience of about 30 that the district had not realized a SEQRA finding was in order until after the tower was in place, and is now trying to rectify the situation.

“We are at fault for that,” he said.

The meeting began, however, not about the SEQRA review, but with statements from Springs E.M.T.s and firefighters, who said they often hear the radio beep for an incoming emergency call but then hear only static. (If that happens, the commissioners said, East Hampton Village dispatchers ping other fire departments to answer the call.)

“In defense of the tower, it’s a necessary evil,” said James Gledhill, a former crash firefighter.

The fire commissioners cited a story in last week’s Star about Springs having a relatively high number of emergency mutual aid calls answered by other districts to back up the district’s need for the cell tower. If Springs can answer more of its own calls, said the officials, it will obviate the need for paid E.M.T.s. The district has said it does not want to hire paid emergency care providers.

The commissioners brought in an engineer, who performed an analysis of the current service map compared to one that would use the 150-foot tower. He concluded that at the tower’s current height, service could not reach the entire hamlet. With a 150-foot tower, heaid, there would be service to almost all of Springs.

After his presentation, several members of the audience wanted to change the subject to the SEQRA review, and to speak specifically about why options other than the tower had not been considered. Someone called it the “ugliest thing I’ve ever seen,” to which an emergency worker shot back, “No, a burning child is the ugliest thing you’ve ever seen.”

One woman, who worried that the tower would fall on her house, was answered with an “Oh, please” from the audience.

“I think it’s a shame people think of an aesthetic thing over people’s lives,” said Pam Gledhill, James Gledhill’s wife.

Mary Spitzer stood up and told the fire district commissioners that “I don’t want anything to happen to you. This is a SEQRA review. This is about the environmental impact. The residents who are in the shadow of this are a part of the environment.” She too said the tower could fall.

The anti-tower faction also wanted to know whether heights lower than 150 feet had been considered. In response, the commissioners pointed to the engineer’s maps. If 150 feet did not even provide all of Springs with service, they said, then 120 feet would clearly not have sufficed.

“We’re not that stupid,” said Larry Mayer, another Talmage Farm Lane resident. “We’re being treated like fools.”

Helen Harrison, director of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, a National Historic Landmark, said no one had come to inspect the site and the tower could be seen from the house. “What are the alternatives that could have been considered?” she asked.

The commissioners said they knew of no alternatives, and encouraged the audience to return to them with suggestions.

The zoning board will hear Mr. Kelly’s appeal on Oct. 6.

Dozens of men, women, and families gathered at Guild Hall on Aug. 19 for a screening of “The Hunting Ground,” a provocative documentary about sexual assault on college campuses and the blind eye university presidents turn toward the epidemic.

The film, directed by Kirby Dick, an Academy Award nominee, and produced by Amy Ziering, Regina Scully, and Maria Cuomo Cole, begins with a collection of YouTube videos of teenagers jumping, sobbing, screaming, and shaking with nerves as they find out they were accepted into their dream schools. The scene is set to the “Graduation March,” and is a tearjerker for the swelling joy it produces, but the rape stories and statistics that immediately follow are sobering. Through­out the film, viewers clucked in disbelief and heaved deep sighs. One person swore.

Woven into the main narrative about Andrea Pino and Annie Clark, two women sexually assaulted at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who band together to take on the institution that would not investigate their cases or support their claims, is a deep look inside the corrupt industries of colleges where alumni associations, college athletics, and fraternity life drive donations and brand perception and where administrations disregard claims in order to keep rape case statistics low.

The filmmakers last collaborated for a documentary investigating rape in the military called “The Invisible War,” which won 13 awards, changed legislation, and from which “The Hunting Ground” stemmed. Ms. Ziering said many victims stepped forward after seeing “The Invisible War” and alleged they were experiencing the same issues on college campuses. Emails flooded in for three months, and eventually Ms. Ziering felt they needed to make these stories into a film.

Despite dozens of interviews with survivors, experts, and footage on college campuses, gaining access proved challenging in some respects. In a panel following the screening Wednesday, Ms. Ziering said it was easier to persuade top-level Pentagon officials to talk for “The Invisible War” than it was to get high-level administrators at colleges to speak on the record for this documentary.

“Tackling higher education, that culture has been infinitely harder,” said Ms. Scully at the panel discussion.

The release of “The Hunting Ground” comes at a time when victims are speaking out against sexual assault on campuses and receiving national attention. Emma Sulkowicz carried her mattress around Columbia University this past year because she wanted the man she alleged had raped her to be expelled or leave the school. Owen Labrie, 19, of St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire is currently on trial for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl following a school ritual.

Ms. Pino and Ms. Clark launched the Courage Project, and their work for it is documented in “The Hunting Ground.” They road-tripped across the country to speak with other survivors and educate them about Title IX, a federal law that states that students shall not be discriminated against on the basis of gender. Advocates against sexual violence argue that assault denies victims equal access to education. If schools are found not in compliance with Title IX, their federal funding can be pulled.

Staggering statistics in the film stated that in 2012, 45 percent of colleges reported no cases of sexual assault. Elite schools like Stanford University had almost 300 cases and only 1 expulsion, according to the documentary. Some teachers who spoke out against sexual violence were denied tenure or fired.

 The documentary has traveled to 635 campuses and counting and will be broadcast on CNN in the fall. The screening last week was co-sponsored by the Retreat, which offers services in East Hampton for victims of domestic violence.

Ms. Ziering said since the release, some colleges are taking action, such as the new campus climate survey at Yale. However, she said, “A lot of them are lawyering up and PR-ing up.”

“I’m stunned at the lack of interest or curiosity, the shame and fear,” she said about administrators failing to show up at the screenings. In May and June this year, the crew held 100 screenings on campuses.

Ms. Ziering said the film has resonated with viewers. Fraternity brothers came forward at the University of Delaware and she recalled that one said to her, “ ‘We had no idea, we just thought girls lied.’ ”

For the first time ever, beachgoers at Two Mile Hollow and Georgica might have the chance to grab a hot dog, an ice cream bar, or a drink from food trucks in the parking lots there.

The East Hampton Village Board is considering allowing vendors to sell food and beverages in the parking areas at the two beaches between March 16 and Dec. 1. A hearing on the change was held on Friday and was left open for two weeks to solicit written comments from the public.

When Ann Roberts, a village resident, asked the board Friday to explain the reason for the proposal, Barbara Borsack, the deputy mayor, said the idea was hers. “We were trying to think of ways to maximize the use of Two Mile Hollow,” she said, adding that it, and its large parking lot, are lightly used. “Perhaps if there was food available, like at Main Beach, it might be more used by families,” she said. The Chowder Bowl snack bar serves food and drinks at the Main Beach Pavilion.

“It’s an idea we’re exploring,” Ms. Borsack said. “It’s not necessarily going to happen: there are a lot of things we have to talk about, but to go to the next step we have to do this.”

Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. said that one email opposing the proposed amendment, from Susan Gilmer of East Hampton, had been received, along with another seconding Ms. Gilmer’s opposition. “It’s a work in progress,” the mayor said. “There is a lot of information we’d like to receive from the public and other interested parties.”

In her email, Ms. Gilmer expressed concern about further intensification of the beaches’ use, including traffic on beach access roads and “a great increase in trash at the beaches, which is already an issue for the village.” Though village officials say they have received no complaints about litter on the beaches, some members of the town trustees, along with Dell Cullum, a wildlife photographer and president of the East Hampton Group for Wildlife, have called for the garbage receptacles to be moved from the sand to the parking lots, feeling that their placement on the beaches results in more litter dispersed over a wider area.

Village officials had received no other correspondence about the beach vending proposal as of Monday afternoon.

In other news from the meeting, the board approved the expenditure of $191,000 for paving improvements and asphalt repair projects on Amy’s Lane, Pleasant Lane, Apaquogue Road, Fredericka Lane, and Pudding Hill Lane. The board also voted to accept the $53,500 proposal from DJJ Technologies of Islandia to upgrade the telephone system at the Emergency Services Building.

The board will hold two public hearings at its meeting on Sept. 18. One is to consider a proposed amendment to the village’s zoning code that would prohibit detached residential garages in front yards. The other would require that all trash receptacles be covered at night “with covers that are sufficiently secure to prevent their contents from blowing out of the receptacle.”

The annual fireworks show at Main Beach in East Hampton, once a Fourth of July tradition and more recently a way to mark the end of summer on Labor Day weekend, now has a new date on the calendar. This Saturday evening — Sunday if it rains — the display will light up the August sky before a crowd that Fire Department officials hope will not only be larger, but more willing to reach into their pockets and help fund the show.

East Hampton Fire Department Chief Richard Osterberg Jr. said the department, which first organized the fireworks over 90 years ago, decided to move the date of the show due to low turnout. He thinks fewer people are willing to spend that weekend at a community event. “The problem with Labor Day, people are moving out, tenants are moving out, homeowners are getting ready to move back in. It’s the last hurrah of the summer,” he said.

Firefighters are stationed at the entrances to the village beaches with donation jars, but fewer people showing up to see the show meant fewer dollars and cents dropped in the bucket. Typically, the department was always ahead by one year. “The fireworks are done solely through donations that are made specifically for the fireworks,” Chief Osterberg said. (Other donations that are made to the fire department are not used for this unless they are marked “fireworks.”)

The East Hampton Fire Department is not alone. The Montauk Chamber of Commerce has struggled year after year to drum up donations for its Fourth of July show. The Shelter Island Chamber of Commerce canceled its annual July show at Crescent Beach, but a group of residents took over fund-raising and saved the show this summer.

In East Hampton, donations had already been dropping off since the annual show was moved from the Fourth of July, to the ire of some. Federally protected nesting piping plovers meant the show had to be postponed year after year, and eventually the decision was made to move it permanently, which caused the move to the holiday that unofficially marks the end of summer on the East End.

Also, over the years, the fireworks show itself has gotten smaller due to falling donations. “It used to be $50,000 to $60,000 on average. Now, we’re down to $30,000,” he said.

The bulk of the donations are received after a mailing that goes out after the show. “Can you imagine summer without our spectacular annual fireworks?” the mailer asks.

But, there was a contingent that was so angry about not seeing fireworks over East Hampton on the nation’s birthday that they sent in angry letters. “Some people mailed a penny” with a note, the chief said, “You’ll get the rest when you bring it back to Fourth of July.” But, the chief said, “Our hands are tied.”

Bay Fireworks puts on the show from behind the Sea Spray Cottages. It starts after dark at about 8:30 p.m.

The department is asking that anyone who enjoys the show donate what they can. “If you can send us $5, send us $5. We’ll take it,” he said.

Chief Osterberg is hopeful that the change to the last weekend in August, before Labor Day weekend, will bring an influx of people. “We would like to get it back to what it used to be when we used to have big crowds and the beaches were full and families were enjoying it,” he said.

Officials from East Hampton Village and the Amagansett Fire District had a sit-down two weeks ago with the chairman of the Springs Board of Fire Commissioners to express their concerns about how often other agencies have to respond to emergency calls in Springs.

The Springs Fire Department is the only agency on the South Fork without a paid provider on duty at least during the day — and there are no plans to add one, despite the difficulty the district faces in getting a volunteer crew to answer calls, especially during the workweek.

From July 1, 2014, to July 1 of this year, Springs needed help about 26 percent of the time from outside the district to answer 441 calls for service, including 89 calls to assist other districts.

Compared to the four other ambulance districts dispatched by East Hampton Village, Springs fared the worst. Sag Harbor needed the least help, about 3 percent of calls, Montauk less than 4 percent, East Hampton  about 5 percent, and Amagansett less than 8 percent.

Springs had the fewest calls.

East Hampton, meanwhile, received 1,427 total calls, 1,186 in its own district. Its ambulances answered 65 calls in Springs. Amagansett, which had the second fewest calls, received 486 over that 12-month period, including 312 in its own district.

Rebecca Molinaro, the East Hampton Village administrator, called the meeting with Patrick Glennon, the Springs chairman, after it became apparent that the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association was answering a larger number of calls in Springs. “It’s taxing on our volunteers,” she said in an interview last week.

“We’re constantly going there, and so is Amagansett,” said Barbara Borsack, the village deputy mayor and a longtime emergency medical technician in East Hampton. “I would say my main concern is the burnout of our members. At the same time, we can’t let people go without help.”

Officials in neighboring districts would like to see Springs move in the same direction the other agencies have so that patient care starts earlier and ambulances get on the road faster.

Two and a half years ago, all of the agencies serving the areas east of Water Mill were volunteer-only. Despite early resistance, an increased call volume led to a change in philosophy and most de partments began to believe that a paid provider with an advanced level of certification, like a paramedic who responds to a call immediately in a first-responder vehicle, could supplement existing emergency medical services on the South Fork. The Montauk Fire District was the first in the Town of East Hampton to start a paid program in 2013, first having a paid responder on duty 12 hours during the day, and later moving to around-the-clock coverage. The Amagansett Fire District and the East Hampton Village Board followed suit in time for summer 2014, and this summer the Bridgehampton Fire District and the Sag Harbor Volunteer Ambulance Corps got programs up and running.

Earlier this month, the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association’s program moved to 24-hour coverage. The village board, which oversees the association, more than doubled the initial funding for the program to $225,000, just for salaries. “It’s a financial and moral commitment that the village is going to continue,” Ms. Molinaro said.

“Springs is not ready to do any type of paid system,” Mr. Glennon said. “Maybe in a couple of years if we find that is the problem. As of right now, we don’t feel that it’s a major problem.” He denied that there was a major issue with the service the district provides and disputed the figures. In addition to being on the board since 2005, Mr. Glennon has been an ambulance volunteer since 1991 and a critical care technician since 2000.

The district cannot afford a paid service, he said. As it is beginning to look at the budget for 2016, he said the district can only add $6,800 to its current budget of just over $1 million in order to keep increases under the 2-percent tax cap. He acknowledged that the board could pierce the cap if its majority approved it, but he said, “We’re not looking to do that.”

Mr. Glennon believes Springs taxpayers, who are paying the highest taxes in East Hampton Town, mainly due to school taxes and a small business district, do not want any increases. “I know I’m a taxpayer in Springs and I don’t want my taxes going up.”

David King, who serves as the Springs Fire Department chief, said the volunteers, often working two jobs to survive here, are doing the best they can. He believes the district has to find the money for a paid provider to help take the burden off the volunteers. “In my opinion, we need one, but financially, it’s a hard sell,” he said, adding, “It’s just the cost of doing business. It’s the cost of having a municipality.” The chief said he has spoken to the commissioners at their district meetings at least three times since the first of the year on this topic.

“Whatever they need to do to man it, I’m for it. We’ll do without on the fire side of it to get enough money in the budget, or as much as we can, to fund a first responder,” he said. He feels so strongly that he would give up the vehicle provided to him by the district if it would help.

“Maybe it doesn’t have to be 24 hours, seven days a week. Maybe they can do a 12-hour shift,” Chief King said. A program like that has cost other districts just over $100,000 a year with per diem employees. “Let the residents of Springs decide what to do,” he said.

Mr. Glennon believes his neighbors are “taking the easy way out” by spending hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on the program. “Before we do that we’ll throw money at training,” he said. For the past two years, Mr. Glennon has said that he wants to see money put toward a regional training program to teach advanced level classes on the South Fork (basic life support classes are taught in Sag Harbor annually). “I’m not saying in one year you’re going to solve all the problems of the East End E.M.S. system, but if you do it for several years. . . .”

“For the short term, we’ve just got to talk to our volunteers and tell them to start stepping up a bit — summer is the problem,” he said.

A shortage of volunteers during the day is not unique to Springs, and officials said it is only made worse when the volunteers who can respond are being called so much to answer other agencies’ calls.

Here’s how the system works: When a caller dials 911 from almost anywhere in East Hampton Town, a dispatcher located at the East Hampton Village Emergency Service Building answers. If it is an ambulance or fire-related emergency, the operator will dispatch the appropriate service from the district the caller is located in.

There are two types of ambulance calls: basic life support, like a sprained ankle or general malaise, and advanced life support, required when a patient is having a heart attack or serious allergic reaction, for instance. If a crew has not signed on within two minutes for an advanced life support call or within three minutes for a basic life support call, the call goes out over the paging system again. After the second reactivation — six minutes into an advanced call or nine minutes into an basic call — a neighboring district is called for help. If that neighboring district cannot help form a crew, it is dispatched to the next district, and so on, until a crew is confirmed.

For example, on Aug. 10, a Montauk ambulance responded to a call on Gardiner Avenue in Springs, arriving 42 minutes after the initial call was dispatched at 8:33 a.m. A Springs emergency medical technician eventually got to the patient 15 minutes before the ambulance arrived.

While a patient waits for an ambulance, so does a police officer. Police officers are often the first to arrive and administer basic care, such as oxygen. “Obviously, it is not ideal for our officers to be left with primary care for any prolonged period of time, both from a police operations standpoint and from care and safety concern,” said East Hampton Town Police Chief Michael Sarlo. “Getting the fully equipped and trained personnel to the aided as quickly as possible is the primary goal, and the districts that have gone to the paid service have managed to increase their operational efficiency in those areas,” he said.

From July 1, 2014, to July 1 of this year, East Hampton was called to Springs 118 times, though it only transported 57 patients because Springs either eventually formed crews or another agency answered the call. Meanwhile, Amagansett was called there 57 times and only had to transport 5 times.

Longstanding agreements for what the agencies call “mutual aid” are necessary, all agree, because if there is an accident involving several vehicles, additional ambulances will be needed. Multiple calls at once also require the help of neighbors. Most agencies have just two ambulances, though East Hampton and Montauk have three.

A paid system does not solve all the problems in an E.M.S. system, but it has made a huge difference, Ms. Borsack said. “What it’s done in East Hampton, is it’s enabled you to just handle the call with just a volunteer driver,” she said. Plus, it has cut back on the need for help from other districts. “Mostly now, if we’re mutual aiding it’s because we have all three ambulances out.”

Paid providers have been used a bit differently under the mutual aid agreement. Whereas a volunteer, whether a paramedic or basic emergency medical technician, may respond to any mutual aid request, paid providers have been held back from going to help neighbors. Most districts have agreed they will only send the on-duty personnel when a patient is in cardiac arrest. The idea, Ms. Molinaro said, is that the district paying for that service wants to ensure that provider is available to its taxpayers should an emergency arise.

“It’s that mutuality that we’re looking for,” said Jack Emptage, the chairman of the Amagansett Board of Fire Commissioners, who sat in on the Aug. 5 meeting with Mr. Glennon. “Springs residents have got to realize that they are really losing out. I don’t think, I haven’t read anything anywhere, and I know within Amagansett, there has been no backlash to it.”

However, Springs fire commissioners say the residents cannot afford a program even if the cost is $50 extra on an annual tax bill. “Maybe in Amagansett that doesn’t matter, but here in Springs, raising taxes $50 a house just to have 24/7 A.L.S.?” Mr. Glennon said shaking his head.

Chris Harmon, who is on the Springs Board of Fire Commissioners with Mr. Glennon and three others, said Tuesday that while he is also concerned about the budget, a paid program is something “we should take a look into”  as a group. Mr. Harmon drives the ambulance and said he knows all too well how hard it is to get a full crew together, but he also said he has responded to plenty of calls to help neighboring districts over the years.

Leander Arnold, who was elected to the board in December and volunteers as a driver, said he is also concerned about the situation. “We’re a very low tax base,” he said. “Is it going to be really worth it to have someone sitting around the firehouse all the time or is it going to be cost effective?” he asked.

A reward of up to $5,000 is being offered in exchange for information that leads to the capture of two men who burglarized a Three Mile Harbor restaurant early Sunday morning.

Suffolk County Crime Stoppers, working in conjunction with the East Hampton Town Police Department's detective bureau, offered the reward in connection with the break-in at Bay Kitchen Bar on Gann Road. They also released three images of the duo taken from a surveillance video.

Police promised confidentiality for anybody who supplies information on the two by calling 800-220-TIPS (8477). Police have not disclosed the amount of money stolen.