Just months since a moratorium on building expired, Sag Harbor Village officials, worried that development is threatening the character of the village, seem to be determined to institute another temporary freeze.

The moratorium, proposed by Sandra Schroeder, the deputy mayor, who is running for election as mayor next week, would affect residences throughout the village. It seeks to suspend most new construction of single-family houses and improvements on existing ones for three to six months. The move, as Mayor Brian Gilbride put it during a meeting on Tuesday night, “is an attempt to catch our breath.”

The village has been a hotbed of development and redevelopment recently, and several projects in the historic district have come under particular scrutiny. Officials say they have discovered holes in the code that allow projects couched as renovations to result in what are essentially new houses.

“Many of these dwellings are at a size and scale that are inconsistent with the historic and rural character of the village,” the proposal said. During the moratorium the board and its consultants would reconsider existing regulations for the maximum floor area of single-family houses.

“If there’s an assumption that there will be no building permits issued, that’s not true,” the mayor  said. Certain exclusions would be permissible for new construction based on floor area and lot sizes or if a renovation was not considered a “substantial improvement.” Additions, for instance, that comply with current zoning would not be a problem, the mayor said. “It’s really for small lots where somebody is trying to do a knock-down and a major renovation.” 

Robby Stein, a village board member who is running against Ms. Schroeder in next week’s election, supports the moratorium she has proposed. “We need clarity on what’s in the code and not in the code, like the definition of demolition,” he said. However, he believes the language in the proposal needs to be clarified, and commented that another month may be needed before it could be adopted.

“This is so important to the village,” Ms. Schroeder said. “This has nothing to do with being mayor. People are buying houses in our historic district and knocking them down. It’s taking the value away from our historic district,” she said.

While a public hearing won’t be held until July 14, village residents came out to address the idea on Tuesday night.

Adam Miller, a Bridgehampton attorney, was dismayed to find out the moratorium would affect the entire village. He said he has several clients on much larger lots in Redwood who have already been held up waiting to see the outcome of the wetlands moratorium. Now, they will have to apply for exemptions from a new stopgap, he said. “It’s really putting a damper on their excitement of being in this village.” 

“We’ve been judicious with trying to give relief, even with those people who have started construction without the benefit of a permit,” Ed Deyermond, a board member, told Mr. Miller.

Stephen Barr of Madison Street strongly came out against any new  hiatus. “To just institute a moratorium and the impact it’s going to have on so many people, I just think it’s creepy. It’s unAmerican,” Mr. Barr said, likening a certain village contingent to the Taliban.

The moratorium, he said, was an insult to the members of the various appointed village boards who do a good job — a comment which drew some laughter from the audience. Mr. Barr said the board was “listening to a cabal of a minority in this village,” apparently referring to the citizens group Save Sag Harbor, and that they will now be hearing from the “reasonable middle.”

Carol Olejnik, whose Main Street house is in the shadow of a construction project many said went awry, told the board she hoped the moratorium would help “prevent future homes from becoming what’s next door to me.”

Some residents and officials in East Hampton Town were angered by Wednesday's aerial spraying of methoprene, a mosquito larvicide, over Accabonac Harbor in East Hampton. The Suffolk County Department of Public Works’ division of vector control conducted the application by helicopter Wednesday starting around 6 a.m., after wind conditions forced its postponement from Tuesday. Spraying was also scheduled for areas near Meadow Lane and in North Sea in Southampton Town.

At a meeting of the East Hampton Town Trustees on Tuesday night, Deborah Klughers, who has been a vocal opponent of the county’s vector control methods, told her colleagues of the “outcry on social media” in response to the county’s announcement. Ms. Klughers holds a bachelor’s degree in marine science and sustainability studies and a master’s degree in marine conservation and policy from Stony Brook University. She has been engaged in an effort to determine if insecticide residue reaches and remains in the sediment at the bottom of water bodies. Metabolites in sediment, she believes, can harbor unintended consequences of vector-control efforts. “It’s the gift that keeps on giving,” she said, citing lobster die-offs in recent years. “Where’s all the baitfish this year?” she asked.

Dominick Ninivaggi, superintendent of the county’s vector control division, said Wednesday that there is no indication of methoprene persisting in sediments. “You do find it in the marsh itself where we put it, of course, but not outside,” he said. “We have not seen any scientific evidence of significant adverse impacts that would lead us to have concerns about the product.”

Along with methoprene, the county was also spraying Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis, known as Bti. 

Methoprene is moderately toxic to some fish and highly toxic to others, according to the National Pesticide Information Center, a cooperative venture of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and Oregon State University. It can accumulate in fish tissues, according to the center. It is “moderately toxic” to crustaceans such as shrimp, lobsters, and crayfish, the center says, and “very highly toxic” to freshwater invertebrates.

Ms. Klughers told her colleagues that she has contacted several laboratories in search of one that studies pesticides in sediments. “No one that I could find does it,” she said, although a researcher at Cornell Cooperative Extension is aiding in her search. Vector control officials teadfastly believe that aerial spraying of methoprene is safe, she said, but “I’m wondering what the breakdown products could be doing to our clams, larval fish, dragonflies.” Fishermen, she said, are complaining about spraying taking place overhead. Further, if the county’s vector control program is so successful, she asked, “Why do we still have this problem?”

The East Hampton Town Board adopted a resolution in 2007 opposing the use of methoprene and requesting that the county cease its use. Last year, citing the importance of commercial and recreational fishing to the local economy, the board reiterated that opposition, stating that methoprene “has not been adequately tested and found to be safe in aquatic and marine invertebrates, fish, and zooplankton.”

“That said, we really haven’t gotten anywhere,” Ms. Klughers said on Tuesday. “I find it interesting that the county says they spray when they find larval mosquitoes. They find larvae everywhere they spray? I find that a little too convenient. They declared a public health threat. I say it’s a nuisance. . . . Suffolk County says ‘There’s a public health threat,’ so off they go.”

Crews survey areas known to produce mosquitoes and look for evidence of larvae on a weekly basis, Mr. Ninivaggi said. If evidence is found in abundance, the county takes action. “We also look at the weather, temperature conditions, and what stage of development the larvae are at to determine what product to use,” he said.

In recent years, the county has tried to control mosquitoes, which can carry West Nile virus, eastern equine encephalitis, and other viruses, at the larval stage, reducing the need for spraying later in the season when the mosquitoes have matured. While a press release from the vector control division said that “no precautions are recommended” to prepare for Wednesday’s action as the helicopter would fly at a very low level and take precautions to control drift into inhabited areas, its website does recommend that children and pregnant women avoid exposure. Residents of areas being sprayed should “remain inside or avoid the area whenever spraying takes place and for about 30 minutes after spraying,” and close windows and doors and the vents of window air-conditioning units or turn them off before spraying begins.

While Mr. Ninivaggi did say that the East End towns have relatively low incidence of West Nile virus, mosquito-borne disease remains a concern. “Especially,” he said, “we don’t know what the picture would look like if we stopped controlling these mosquitoes and allowed them to become abundant.”

Indications of climate change are all around us and civilization must adopt an aggressive timetable to “net-zero” energy in order to avert devastating environmental changes, according to panelists at the first of a planned series of events at the South Fork Natural History Museum in Bridgehampton, held on Saturday.

But with the crisis comes opportunity, they said. The path to net-zero energy — a term often used in the context of construction, meaning that energy consumed by a building is equal to the amount of renewable energy created on site — holds considerable upside in the form of government-issued rebates and other financial incentives.

“You can make money by taking advantage of what is going on,” said Jack Rivkin of Idealab, which invests in pioneering technologies including solar power and electric cars.

In response to audience questions, they also advised the gathering to retain and reuse water on their property, insulate their houses, eat less meat, fly less, abandon sport utility vehicles, support reform of federal flood insurance policy, divest from fossil-fuel interests, and “support rationality.”

Panelists, of varying backgrounds but united in their focus, repeated, with some irritation, that carbon-dioxide emissions trap heat in the atmosphere. This is scientific fact, they said. Mr. Rivkin was equally irritable in criticizing the “I’m not a scientist” mantra of Republican legislators in Congress and on the campaign trail who question or deny climate science. “It’s based on data, on scientists looking at data,” he said of climate-change predictions and evidence. “If we don’t do something about it, it could be very bad.”

Carl Safina, an ecologist and educator, asked, “If the climate were changing, what would be the evidence?” Melting glaciers, rising sea level, animals shifting their geographic range, intensified storms, and the acidification of the oceans was the answer. “In fact, we see all of those things,” he said. Mr. Safina pointed to oyster and scallop die-offs in the Pacific Northwest, which he blamed on rising ocean acidity, as well as the appearance of seaweeds in Antarctica, signs of marine life disappearing from their southern range, and eroded beaches.

Climate-change models predict large areas either under water or so drought-stricken that they are uninhabitable, said Michael Gerrard, an attorney and director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. Sea level across Long Island may rise by 6 to 10 inches by the 2020s, and 15 to 30 inches by the 2050s, he said. Consequently, storm surges will be considerably higher, with far more serious flooding in storm events. “Past experience doesn’t fill me with optimism,” he said. “But the stakes are very high.”

The nonbinding agreement that emerged from the 2009 United Nations Climate Conference, in Copenhagen, to attempt to limit temperature increases to 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels was inadequate at best, Mr. Gerrard said, given that “we are now on a trajectory of 5 or 6 degrees by 2100.” The U.N. climate conference to be held in December, in Paris, will produce similarly nonbinding, unenforceable agreements, he predicted.

“We’re looking at the possibility of pretty difficult changes, starting on the East End,” said Assemblyman Steve Englebright of New York’s Fourth District. Changes to agriculture, the water table, the coastline’s position, wildlife, and the frequency of extreme weather are in store, he said, adding that the Long Island Pine Barrens is threatened by the southern pine beetle.

Mr. Englebright told the gathering that all species would be impacted by long summers marked by extreme heat. “This is the model, and it’s playing out before us,” he said. “We’re going to need an informed public.”

While the discussion largely focused on dire forecasts, “solutions are the economic opportunity of our time,” said Peter Boyd, senior adviser and climate lead for the B Team, an organization that seeks to catalyze businesses to influence environmental, economic, and social change.

Mr. Boyd, who was launch director of the Carbon War Room, a nonprofit organization that works to advance a low-carbon economy, pointed to that group’s shipping efficiency initiative, which established a rating system for a majority of the world’s tankers, ferries, and container, cargo, and cruise ships — collectively, a huge emitter of fossil fuels — to enable anyone to discern between ­fuel-efficient and inefficient ships. The use of the latter is consequently declining, precluding significant CO2 emissions, he said.

“It’s not an impossible task,” Robby Stein, a member of the Sag Harbor Village Board and candidate for mayor, said of climate-change mitigation. “It’s very important that we start acting now.” On a local and individual level, “we have the ability to zero out and be a model” for other municipalities. Everyone, he said, should “communicate what we know through action.”

The announcement last week by the nationwide ride-sharing service Uber that it could no longer offer its service here due to town taxi licensing regulations set the wheels in motion for a confrontation.

On one side are Uber users, who see the ability to hail an Uber car as a key element of their summer weekends, and on the other are town officials, who have enacted and fine-tuned taxi licensing laws in an effort to address what they see as chaotic and potentially dangerous situations created by a large number of out-of-town cabbies who show up to capitalize on the fares to be made on busy nights.

Uber cars, which are owned and operated by independent drivers affiliated with the company, are summoned with a smartphone app. The company’s drivers descended upon East Hampton roads over the first weekends of the summer season. They have operated here for the last several summers, but a change last year to East Hampton Town regulations regarding taxi company licensing made it impossible for Uber drivers to obtain the required town license.

The law requires companies to have a business office in East Hampton, and cabs, which are also licensed by the town, to be registered under a licensed company. Uber complies with neither of those provisions.

Eighteen Uber drivers who were cited by the town for driving here without the required town licenses are due to appear in East Hampton Town Justice Court on Monday. According to their attorney, Daniel G. Rodgers of Southampton, all will plead not guilty.

“The town will not tolerate any vehicles not complying with our regulations, nor will we allow drivers to be sleeping in vehicles for hire, obstructing traffic, and taking up limited parking spaces in hamlet centers that should be available for residents and visitors,” East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said last week in a press release.

After its drivers were targeted and cited, Uber contacted Mr. Cantwell last Thursday to ask for a meeting as soon as possible; a sit-down was scheduled for the next day.

The company sent half a dozen representatives to the meeting, including Josh Mohrer, an Uber general manager. Mr. Cantwell attended with Michael Sendlenski, a town attorney.

Following the meeting, Uber sent out a mass email announcing that its riders “will be unable to get reliable, safe rides in any part of East Hampton out to Montauk — effective immediately,” and urging its customers to register complaints with the town.

On Monday, the supervisor said he had received close to 1,000 emails and about 100 phone calls about the Uber issue. Most, but not all, he said, were complaints about not having access to the service in East Hampton Town.

The standoff got the attention of numerous news outlets and engendered comments and posts on Twitter and Facebook. The combination of summer-in-the-Hamptons news and a controversy involving a well-known and popular service like Uber resulted in stories with headlines such as “Uber Hits Roadblock in Ritzy N.Y. Vacation Spot,” on CBS News.

“A small town in the Hamptons today succeeded where the entire yellow cab industry has failed,” said an article in the New York Business Journal, which reported on actions by taxicab medallion owners against Uber, and other legal challenges to the company’s right to do business in New York City. One correspondent who is a summer resident here and uses Uber sent an original poem on the issue to a reporter covering the story.

Several people posting on Twitter and Facebook claimed that Supervisor Cantwell has or had a financial stake in a local taxi company. On Monday, he said that his late brother, John Cantwell, owned Amagansett Taxi “40 years ago,” and that he did not have an interest in that company.

The situation also prompted many to predict that the lack of Uber cars here will be responsible for a spike in drunken-driving accidents and deaths. The company itself credits its service in California and in Seattle with a reduction in D.W.I. accidents and arrests.

Though news accounts and Uber have painted the town’s taxi licensing requirements as an attempt to ban Uber from East Hampton, Mr. Cantwell said that is not the case. “The town looked at the taxi law over a year ago and adopted changes to it,” he said. “The goal was to create some order out of a totally chaotic situation [that was] creating parking, congestion, and safety issues.”

There had been a growing number of complaints over the last several years from taxi business owners, customers, and town residents about a situation that, especially in Montauk, was becoming “untenable,” Mr. Cantwell said.

The adoption of the taxi licensing rules, Mr. Cantwell said, is an action “that I think is well founded. . . .” Taxi licensing was first enacted by the town in 2010, with revisions to the code in 2013 and again last year, when the East Hampton office requirement was added.

“The fact that Uber chose to make this a confrontation. . . . No one banned them,” Mr. Cantwell said. At last week’s meeting with company officials, he said, there was discussion of how the company might structure its agreement with car owner-operators to comply with the town law provision that cabs are registered to a licensed business. But, he said, “Uber refuses to cooperate to accomplish that.”

“If they want to take their marbles and go home, that’s their choice,” he said. The company could “be flexible,” Mr. Cantwell said, and develop a way to comply. But, he said, “I think that’s a problem that Uber has to solve, not the Town of East Hampton. I really feel that the town is trying to do the right thing in bringing some order to a local issue. I also think that Uber has to find a way to cooperate.”

Yesterday, Paul Hudson, a Montauk resident whose technology investment firm is a large investor in Uber and who works with senior officials of the company, said that he believes there is room for negotiation to find a way to keep the company operating in East Hampton. He said he would work to help broker a solution.

He believes the service is crucial here to avoid drunken driving incidents, and suggested that should injuries or deaths occur while Uber is not operating in East Hampton, the town officials that enacted the taxi licensing law would pay a political price.

According to the town clerk’s office, there are 35 licensed taxi companies and approximately 225 vehicles that have been given town cab licenses through those businesses. Those companies, Mr. Cantwell said, can fulfill passengers’ needs.

But according to Uber in a statement issued last week, “there is an unquestionable need and demand for Uber in the Hamptons because taxi service has been historically unreliable.”

Any taxi may pick up or drop off a fare at an East Hampton address, regardless of whether they have an East Hampton license — as long as the trip originates or ends outside of town limits. However only those with a town license may provide service solely within the town.

James Hirtenstein, the owner of Main Street Drivers, a Sag Harbor service offering drivers for passengers using their own cars, took issue yesterday with “Uber’s ridiculous claims that there’s no safe and reliable transportation services — alternatives to their behemoth.”

His company, he said, gives back to the community by supporting local causes and employs local drivers. “They’re not making money in the community, and then bolting out of town.” Last weekend, when Uber was off the road, said Mr. Hirtenstein, his business “increased 300 percent.”

Nick Kraus, an owner and manager of the Stephen Talkhouse nightclub in Amagansett, where cabs often gather to pick up late-night fares, applauded the town this week for taking action.

As a manager of the club, he said, “I’ve been standing in front of the Talkhouse for over 20 years on busy nights.” While years ago there were practically no cabs at all, “six or seven years ago, it got out of control,” with many cabs coming from out of town, he said. Once the town taxi licensing laws were in place, the situation eased, said Mr. Kraus.

Mr. Kraus said he believes that, on recent weekends, Uber made a concerted effort to send drivers to East Hampton and take over the market. There were so many, he said, that Uber drivers who were not being hailed through the Uber app system were taking fares for cash.

Some cab drivers “have no regard for safety, whatsoever,” Mr. Kraus said, “for their passengers, or drivers passing by, or people crossing the street. It is complete disregard for any kind of safety rules,” with double parking and “letting people load in the middle of the highway. The whole thing is a mess.”

Mr. Kraus acknowledged that there could be improvements in the level of service and fair pricing by local cab companies. But, he said, “There are absolutely enough taxis to take care of the demand.”

“It’s not unreasonable or unfair to ask someone to wait a few minutes,” he said.

Uber’s “surge pricing” here during busy periods over recent weekends led to hikes in fares. Mr. Kraus said he knew of someone who paid an Uber driver $50 to be picked up on Three Mile Harbor Road in East Hampton and taken to the Talkhouse. On the way home, at a busier time of night, the fare was $120, he said.

Mr. Kraus, who uses Uber when he is elsewhere, said he “is not opposed to Uber as an idea. But we need a fair and safe equal playing field.”

A car overturned on Montauk Highway in Bridgehampton on Saturday morning, closing a portion of the highway just east of the Bridgehampton Commons. 

The single-car accident occurred at about 6:10 a.m., across from the Bridgehampton National Bank, near Snake Hollow Road. The two-door Audi convertible appeared to have hit a utility pole and a tree before it came to rest on its roof. The the driver, a woman, reportedly walked away from the accident, according to a passerby. She was taken to Southampton Hospital by the Bridgehampton Fire Department.

The department's fire police closed the road between Hildreth and Butter Lanes. It was expected to be reopen by about 7:30 a.m.

Southampton Town police are investigating the cause of the crash. No further information was available. 

Happen to photograph breaking news? Send an email to [email protected]. 

A man was seriously injured when the Jeep he was driving flipped into the air and rolled onto its roof in Amagansett on Saturday afternoon.

Amagansett Fire Department Second Assistant Chief Bill Beckert said that the man was thrown from the vehicle. The Jeep had just crossed the Long Island Rail Road bridge on Cranberry Hole Road and landed several dozen feet beyond it. The accident was reported at about 4:50 p.m. Mr. Beckert said that the vehicle had been heading north on Cranberry Hole Road, having just turned off Montauk Highway.

The driver was the sole occupant of the vehicle. Mr. Beckert said that the department initially asked for a medevac helicopter to take him to the hospital. A Suffolk Police helicopter landed in a town-owned field not far from the crash site. However, the man was taken by ambulance instead to Brookhaven Memorial Hospital Medical Center. No explanation was given; the helicopter was seen leaving Amagansett at about 5:25 p.m.

East Hampton Town police remained at the scene of the accident for at least an hour, keeping the bridge closed and diverting traffic onto nearby roads. Police Chief Michael Sarlo said that detectives had been sent to investigate and make a report, as is the case with motor vehicle accidents with serious injuries. 

Police have not issued a formal statement and have yet to release the name of the driver. 

In 1947, after a string of commercially unsuccessful plays, Arthur Miller vowed to “find another line of work” if his next one did not find an audience.  That next play was “All My Sons,” which proceeded to run for 328 performances.  It won that year’s New York Drama Critics Circle Award (chosen above Eugene O’Neill’s “The Iceman Cometh”) and was made into a film starring Edward G. Robinson and Burt Lancaster. No plan B was necessary.



A revival of “All My Sons,” starring Alec Baldwin and Laurie Metcalf, is now running through June 28 at East Hampton’s Guild Hall. Let me state unequivocally that it is regional theater of the highest quality, and that fans of serious drama should not hesitate to try and secure a ticket before the show’s run is finished.



The setting is a small industrial town near Cleveland in 1947, and the plot is intricately engineered. Mr. Baldwin plays Joe Keller, the operator of a wartime parts factory. He has recently been exonerated of shipping damaged cylinder heads for fighter planes, resulting in the deaths of 21 soldiers. Ms. Metcalf plays Joe’s wife, Kate, who refuses to believe that their son Larry was killed in the war, though he has been missing for over three years. Complicating things is their surviving son, Chris, who wants to marry Ann Deever, to whom his brother Larry was previously engaged. Mrs. Keller likes Ann, but she is against the marriage, since she is convinced Larry will one day return. 



You can occasionally find the 1948 film version of “All My Sons” listed as a film noir, and one of the miracles of Miller’s play is how a work this plot-driven can carry such an emotional wallop. The director, Stephen Hamilton, is successful in wrenching every last emotion from the script, and for this Mr. Baldwin can certainly take his share of credit. His performance as Joe Keller takes a little time to get rolling — there is a moment or two in the first half where the actor’s projection seems muted — but as the plot unfolds and Joe’s innocence begins to be questioned, Mr. Baldwin (apart from comedy, an actor who always seems most comfortable working in intense registers) puffs out his chest and delivers both truculence and a surprising dose of tenderness. He makes Joe Keller exactly what he must be: both likably human and tragically flawed.



As fine as Mr. Baldwin is, it is Ms. Metcalfe who turns in the show’s singular performance. Her Kate is a livewire of pain; her lines come rattling forth in a kind of panic, as if giving herself a second to think might allow her to see the truth about her son. Her perpetually sour mask of a face, however, belies her knowledge of what she instinctively knows but cannot admit. Kate Keller is a beautifully written character, of course: a clenched fist of denial, yet capable of odd humor. But Ms. Metcalf adds to Kate a scalding hurt that brings electricity to every scene she’s in. The play is most alive when she’s on stage.



This intensity is offset by Ryan Eggold as Chris Keller, an actor so relaxed that at the beginning of Act 1 you think he can’t possibly summon the moral outrage required by the play’s climax. But he gets there, incrementally turning up the heat as the play progresses and his worst fears about his father are confirmed.  



The supporting cast is all excellent, with a special nod to Caitlin McGee as Ann Deever. She embodies Ann with just enough sass to convince us she is a Midwestern girl who’s just spent a few years in New York. And Bethany Caputo does a nice turn as a nosy neighbor who tries to bully Ann into leaving so that her wandering-eyed husband will have less distraction.



There is a terrific set by Michael Carnahan that allows the audience to see both the facade of the Keller family’s home and also the action unfolding inside it.



Like the play that came just after it, the towering masterpiece “Death of a Salesman,” this is a tragedy firmly in the Greek tradition. And this production’s ending is both paradoxically painful to watch and beautifully acted. Ironically, it was this ending that got Arthur Miller in hot water with the House Un-American Activities Committee during the Red Scare of the 1950s.  With its dark take on American business, it was seen as promoting a “socialist” agenda.



Of course, that seems pure madness now. At its heart, “All My Sons” is a play about fathers and sons, lost idealism, and the horror of war. And this sterling, flawlessly acted new production at Guild Hall does its writer and his grand themes proud. It is the can’t-miss cultural event of the Hamptons season.

 

The standoff between the Town of East Hampton and Uber over the car-for-hire company’s lack of a business license in the town moved into the East Hampton Justice Court on Monday, with six drivers being arraigned on charges of operating a taxi business without a license, a misdemeanor.

According to Daniel G. Rodgers, a Southampton lawyer retained by Uber to defend the drivers, the town has not offered a deal to the more than 20 drivers charged so far. The rest of the arraignments will take place July 20, though all but two of the defendants were present in court Monday. “Plead guilty as charged, serve 30 days in jail, and receive a permanent criminal record,” is the only plea the town has thus far offered, Mr. Rodgers said on Tuesday at the courthouse before the arraignments began.

“That is not a negotiation,” Mr. Rodgers said. “This does not rise to the level of criminal conduct.”

Michael Sendlenski, the prosecutor for the town, would not comment on the process.

The six men arraigned were Sadikov Parviz of Brooklyn, Erkin Alver of West New York, N.J., Gain Guresci of New York, James Kelleher of Brooklyn, Cengiz Yildrim of Cliffside Park, and Cemal Pehliva of Brookhaven.

Alix Anfang, an Uber representative, said that the town had changed the rules for licensing just as the season began. However, Mr. Sendlenski had pointed out in a previous interview, the new law was actually passed more than 13 months ago, too late to be implemented for the 2014 summer season, but with more than enough time for Uber to comply for 2015.

East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said Monday that there were three possible resolutions that Uber could pursue to allow it to station cars in East Hampton and still comply with the law. The first possibility, he said, was for the company to open a home office in East Hampton, and have the drivers who want to work in the town register their vehicles using the office address. Since Uber car operators either own or lease the cars, they each operate as a separate business for hire, and each would apply for their own business license.

The second possibility would be for Uber to form an alliance with a company already licensed and headquartered in the town. The third option would have the company recruit local residents as owner/drivers. Mr. Cantwell pointed out that the regulations governing cars for hire specifically allow an owner of one or two cars to run the business using his or her home address, as long as it is in the town.

Mr. Rodgers stressed that while he had been retained by Uber, he was there to represent each driver individually. He directed all questions regarding Uber’s handling of its East Hampton business back to Uber’s representatives, Ms. Anfang and Josh Mohrer, the general manager of Uber NYC. Both representatives were reluctant to say anything on the record, past the fact that they were there to support the drivers involved.

While Mr. Rodgers would not comment on Uber policy questions, he said described the law passed last year as “a moving target” that made compliance difficult. He also said he was willing to take each and every case to trial, if no deal is reached.

One of those arraigned, Mr. Guresci, who said he had been an Uber driver for three years, had a town-issued license last year. This year, he said, “the law changed. Nobody knew what was going on.”

Two Montauk taxi company owners, Mike Heather of Moko Taxi, a company with several cars on the road, and Mark Ripolone, owner of a two-car company, Ditch Plains Taxi, were in the courtroom Monday, observing the proceedings.

Mr. Heather complained that the Uber drivers, who he said flooded Montauk on Memorial Day weekend with everything from the high-end S.U.V.s to the lower-end uberX cars, were openly cruising for fares when they were not on a call and were price-gouging, charging several hundred dollars for rides that normally cost $20 to $30.

“They came early Friday,” he said of the Uber drivers. Because of the high price of a room in Montauk, the drivers “sleep in their cars for a few hours each morning. How safe and reliable is an Uber car, when the driver has been in the car for 72 straight hours?”

Mr. Ripolone said that Montauk taxi companies were working on an app of their own to allow customers to order taxis, with a pre-paid set price, from their smartphones.

 The East Hampton Village Board plans to adopt its proposed 2015-16 $20.53 million budget at a meeting on Friday, June 19, after having held a public hearing on it last Thursday at which no member of the public spoke. Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. and Becky Molinaro, the village administrator, had offered a few comments before the hearing was closed. 

The spending plan represents an increase of 1.1 percent. The tax rate, at $28 per $100 of assessed value, will not change, and the village will collect nearly $12.36 million in taxes in the next fiscal year, an increase of $87,232, or .7 percent.

The budget includes money to extend paid emergency medical services so that a “first responder” can be on hand around the clock seven days a week. Next year, ambulance expenses would jump from $315,000 to $443,000.

The budget also includes money to match a Suffolk County grant for a stormwater abatement project in the Hook Pond watershed, details of which were unveiled at a May 30 meeting. Other proposed capital projects include the purchase of equipment for the Department of Public Works and roof repair at the Sea Spray Cottages at Main Beach, which are a significant source of income for the village. The village is also to the set aside additional reserves for future Fire Department and ambulance purchases.

Mayor Rickenbach’s salary of $25,000, and the $15,500 salary of the deputy mayor, Barbara Borsack, are unchanged in the fiscal plan. “But included in this operating budget,” the mayor said, are “certain salary increases for personnel, some by contractual agreement, others by way of internal discussion. We feel we’re taking care of all our infrastructure requirements, as related to the Police Department, highway, beaches and trying to put as much money as we achieve by way of taxation and ancillary sources back into the operation of our village.”

The board also discussed the May 30 presentation by Pio Lombardo of Lombardo Associates, the firm conducting water quality studies for the town and village. Mr. Lombardo’s report, Ms. Molinaro said, laid out recommended actions to improve the water quality of Hook Pond as well as Town Pond, both of which it characterized as poor.

Rain gardens, which can be engineered to maximize nitrogen and phosphorus removal, are recommended in five locations at a cumulative cost of almost $1.4 million. A stormwater pumping and treatment demonstration project proposed for the Gardiner home lot on James Lane, which the town acquired last year, would cost $162,400.

These projects potentially qualify for a grant of up to 90 percent from the New York State Environmental Facilities Corporation’s Green Innovation Grant Program. The village is expected to submit a letter of intent by Monday in order to apply for the grant.

    Studies to determine the feasibility of sediment removal from Town Pond, and wastewater management systems for properties near North Main and Cedar Streets, and along Egypt Lane between Dunemere and Hither Lanes, are also planned. The design and construction of these systems would be eligible for 50 to 60-percent grants from the county and/or state.

A pair of identical eight-bedroom houses being built by the same builder in two different Springs neighborhoods have alarmed residents, who say they have been told that the structures will house boarding students attending the Ross School.

A handful of Manor Lane South neighbors, where a house is going up at number 49, have received anonymous letters to that effect. The other house in question is at 50 Cedar Ridge Drive, where David Buda, who lives nearby, cited “some astute and inquisitive neighbors” as the source of his claim that the two houses are being built as dormitories.

Kristen Hyland, a Ross School spokeswoman, would neither confirm nor deny the allegations. “We do not discuss the specifics of our day-to-day operations for the privacy and security of our school community,” she said.

Monroe Bloch, whose property abuts the Manor Lane South construction site, said he had had two conversations with the builder, who initially told him, he said, that a single family would occupy it. After the anonymous letters came to some of his neighbors, however, he asked the builder whether the intended use was actually for boarding students. He said he got an affirmative response and has not spoken with the builder since. That was about two weeks ago.

“I guess the town doesn’t care about the septic area, and there are all sorts of safety issues,” Mr. Bloch said. “This whole block is single-family dwellings. It’s a quiet block . . . this is crazy. It’s going to change the neighborhood, and it’s going to change the other neighborhood, too.”

According to East Hampton Town Building Department permits, each house measures just over 3,000 square feet on the first and second floors together, with a 1,130-square-foot lower level containing two of the structure’s eight bedrooms, with the required exits. Each house will have a kitchen and a 42-square-foot covered porch.

Another resident of Manor Lane South, Dave Milne, said in an email to The Star that even if the houses were not intended for boarding students, “the number of bedrooms (8) is still kind of alarming for a single-family house on Manor Lane (or anywhere else in Springs).”

If in fact the houses are what they are said to be, Mr. Milne wrote, “I think anyone you talk to would say what is going on here? If in fact the building is to be used as a dormitory for Ross School, neighbors can’t believe the town would let it happen.”

While it is the job of the East Hampton Town Building Department to make sure buildings conform to town code, people who apply for construction permits are not required to furnish explanations of intended use. According to the Building Departments permits issued for these two houses, the contractor is Dunn Development, bas­ed in Hampton Bays. The company had not responded to two requests for comment by press time yesterday.

Mr. Buda, who emailed a large number of Springs residents asserting that houses were being built in the hamlet as dormitories, suggested in the email that based on square footage, each house had space for more than 20 students. He blamed “two deficiencies on the part of the town,” namely, “the failure to ask the pertinent questions” and a “deliberate, but unofficial, refusal to enforce the current zoning prohibition against bedrooms being located in cellars or basements.”

Under town code, only four unrelated people may live together in a house located in a residential zone.

Yesterday, Loring Bolger, chairwoman of the Springs Citizens Advisory Committee, said she too has heard the houses are being built for Ross School boarding students to live in. It is “mostly hearsay” at this point, Ms. Bolger said, but it will be a topic of discussion at the committee’s next meeting, at 7 p.m. on June 22 in Ashawagh Hall.

“There is certainly a lot of talk, and the houses seem strangely large for single-family homes with, as I understand it, bedrooms in the basement, which are usually not condoned by the Building Department,” Ms. Bolger said.

According to its website, the Ross School has about 250 boarding students, who account for 67 percent of the total enrollment in grades 7 through 12. “Students live in intimate boarding houses with house parents,” the site says. “Each house has a common room that students can gather in to relax and watch television or movies. There are also quiet areas dedicated to studying.” Boarders have all their meals at the school.

The Ross School has come under fire before for its housing practices. In 2011, a parent of a student who briefly attended Ross was outraged that her son’s bedroom was in the basement of a house in Sag Harbor, and called Southampton Town to complain. The town inspected the house and did not find any beds in the basement, but did cite the school for several minor violations.

In 2009, an acting East Hampton Town chief building inspector said it was legal for as many as 12 unrelated people to live in single-family houses under the Ross School’s boarding program. While the town tries to enforce the code to prohibit large numbers of unrelated people — transient workers or seasonal renters, for example — from occupying single-family houses, the 2009 opinion ruled that “house parents supervise the activities of the students when not attending school and act in a capacity equivalent to their parents for the duration of the school year. . . . This occupancy is not seasonal or transient under the code.”

Michael Sendlenski, an assistant East Hampton Town attorney, said yesterday that the 2009 decision was still valid, as long as the occupants constitute “the functional equivalent of a family.”

“Both of those houses are single-family houses, not necessarily dormitories, although that may be what the intended use is,” Mr. Sendlenski said, adding, however, that that did not mean complaints of overcrowding would not be investigated.

“We investigate complaints around town all the time,” he said. “Overcrowding and safety issues can still be addressed, even if it is the functional equivalent of a family.”