Lisa Mulhern-Larsen has joined Nancy Keeshan on the East Hampton Republic Committee's ticket for the November town board race.

The latest candidate replaces Len Czajka, who was selected to run for one of the two councilperson seats up election along with Ms. Keeshan, but dropped out last week due to prior commitments, according to the Republican Committee. As previously announced, Tom Knobel, the party's chairman, is running for town supervisor against Supervisor Larry Cantwell, a Democrat who has received the endorsement of the East Hampton Independence Party.

Ms. Mulhern-Larsen, who is a registered Independence Party member, said the Republican Committee asked her to run. "I never really had any political aspirations," she said by phone on Friday. Being a political unknown is part of what makes her a good candidate, she said, adding that she will approach all the issues with a fresh outlook and with no preconceived notions. "I think I'm middle-of-the-road. I would listen to everyone. I would listen to both sides of the argument. I think I would make decisions based on what I thought was reasonable and acceptable to the public." 

One of the issues facing the town that she is most passionate about is affordable housing. "The younger kids, I don't want to see them leave."

Ms. Mulhern-Larsen, who was raised in Montauk, runs a family security and property management business, Protec Security, in East Hampton. She and her husband, Gerard Larsen, the chief of the East Hampton Village Police Department, are raising six children in East Hampton — five of whom were in college this year and one of of whom is at East Hampton High School. She is also an associate broker with Brown Harris Stevens. She was a substitute teacher for four years and taught religious education for Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church for six years.

Since her children were young, she has been involved in community activities and organizations. She was on the board at Stella Maris Regional School in Sag Harbor as the representative for the Most Holy Trinity parish. She coached and was on the board of the East Hampton Little League for 10 years, including four as the vice president, and was the president of the East Hampton Women's Sofball League for 20 years. She also was on the site-based committee for East Hampton schools. 

Other volunteer work includes sitting on the East Hampton Community Council, an organization that helps those in financial crisis. She is also a provisional member of the Ladies Village Improvement Society and served on the town's recreational advisory committee. 

The Republican Committee's executive board voted on Ms. Mulhern-Larsen's nomination on Wednesday night. 

Ms. Keeshan, also a first-time candidate, and Ms. Mulhern-Larsen will be running against the Democratic incumbents Sylvia Overby and Peter Van Scoyoc. A partner with her father in Keeshan Real Estate in Montauk, Ms. Keeshan has been a town planning board member for five years and has long been active in the Montauk Village Association, a civic group.

A new contract for the Springs School's superintendent makes his position full time and extends his tenure with the district through July of 2018.

The Springs School Board on Monday unanimously approved that new contract for John J. Finello. He first joined the district as a part-time superintendent in September of 2013.

Mr. Finello will earn a base salary of $215,000, will receive a stipend for a cellphone, and will purchase a house in Springs to be able to live in the district, according to a summary of the contract provided by the school board. Mr. Finello had previously been given a monthly stipend of $3,000 for rental housing in East Hampton; he will no longer receive that stipend.

John Grant, the school board vice president, explained during Monday's meeting that it was always the board's intention to negotiate a full-time contract with Mr. Finello.

"Initially we were planning on having Jay full time this year . . . but that did not come to pass. This is just a continuation of our strategy," Mr. Grant said. "There was a search process previously, but that was kind of on hold until Jay could definitely commit to three years and become a resident of the area. This has been an ongoing process. We're trying to keep Jay here."

Prior to coming to Springs in 2013, Mr. Finello was the interim superintendent in East Islip schools for two years. Before that, he spent 39 years in the Huntington School District, where he began as a teacher and rose through the ranks to eventually become its superintendent.

Eric Casale, who is in his tenth year as principal in Springs, said he is excited that Mr. Finello was interested in extending his stay in Springs.

"It's nice to know you're going to have stability at the superintendent level for the next several years," Mr. Casale said. "As a building principal, it's very comforting to have that stability. You build a relationship with somebody and it's rewarding to know that relationship will continue."

Update, 3:30 p.m.: A case of pool chemicals fell off the back of a truck, calling out the East Hampton Fire Department's hazmat team on Tuesday afternoon. 

Ken Wessberg, the first assistant fire chief, said about half a gallon of muriatic acid, used to clean the lining of pools, spilled onto the road at the intersection of Cedar Street and Stephen Hand's Path. He and Gerry Turza, the second assistant chief, responded to the call.

"The road started smoking," Chief Wessberg said, adding that he called the fire marshal, who said the hazmat team could use water on the chemicals. Firefighters hosed down the road. 

The case likely fell off a pool company's truck, but no one claimed the chemicals, Chief Wessberg said. The situation took about 20 minutes to remedy. "Everything is fine," he said. 

Originally, 3 p.m.: Firefighters were called to a chemical spill at the intersection of Cedar Street and Stephen Hand's Path in East Hampton Tuesday afternoon. 

It was unclear what exactly had spilled, but the East Hampton Fire Department was responding with its hazmat team to handle the chemicals. A call was received around 2:40 p.m. An engine, rescue truck, and tanker truck, as well as fire police, were asked to respond. 

Westbound traffic on Cedar Street was being rerouted. 

Check back for more information as it becomes available. 

A spirited re-enactment of the historic events of June 13, 1942, is set for Saturday at 6:30 p.m. at the Amagansett Life Saving and Coast Guard Station and nearby on Atlantic Avenue Beach.

Seventy-three years to the day after four Nazi saboteurs landed on the beach, armed with a plot to destroy New York City’s transportation infrastructure and terrorize Americans at home as World War II raged overseas, Hugh King, East Hampton’s town crier and director of the Home, Sweet Home Museum, will direct the fourth annual re-enactment in which a young coast guardsman intercepted the saboteurs, thereby altering the course of history.

The action will begin and end at the Life Saving and Coast Guard Station, the 1902 structure that has undergone an extensive renovation. Mr. King will direct Sonny Sireci, Carl Irace, Evan Thomas, Ted Hults, and Samantha Ruddock in their portrayal of American coast guardsmen and Nazi saboteurs. This year, the re-enactment will feature musical accompaniment by Rumor Has It, a barbershop quartet that will portray the Andrews Sisters and Patti Page, popular vocalists of the era. The event is free and open to the public. In another first, grandchildren of one of the participants, Carl Jenette, will attend the re-enactment.

Shortly after midnight on June 13, 1942, the trained German saboteurs landed in the fog on the beach near the Coast Guard station. Their U-boat stuck on a sandbar, they had rowed ashore in a collapsible rubber boat filled with explosives, clothing, several thousand dollars in cash, and a two-year plan to blow up aluminum and magnesium plants, canals, bridges, waterways, and locks, according to the Eastern Sea Frontier War Diary, a document held at the National Archives and Records Administration.

A 21-year-old coast guardsman, John Cullen, was patrolling from the Atlantic Avenue station when he encountered the men on the beach to the east of the station. The saboteurs offered him $400 to keep quiet. Mr. Cullen took the money, ran back to the station, and reported the incident to Mr. Jenette. The saboteurs made their way to the Amagansett railroad station and, from there, to New York City, where they were captured.

Mr. Cullen’s interception led to the arrest of four more saboteurs who had landed at Ponte Vedra Beach, south of Jacksonville, Fla., on June 17. On June 27, J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, announced the arrest of all eight saboteurs, and events that would surely have terrorized the U.S. population and impeded the war effort were averted.

In a letter to The Star in 2011, the late Capt. Milton Miller, who served in both the Coast Guard and the Navy before and during World War II, wrote that, “If John Cullen had been killed and his body buried behind a sand dune, or at sea, no one would have ever known what happened to him. New York City would have been destroyed and it would have affected the whole nation.”

Tuesday’s election in Sag Harbor Village features two races, one for mayor and another for justice.

Sandra Schroeder and Robby Stein are vying for the top spot, to replace Brian Gilbride, who is stepping down after 21 years on the board and 6 as mayor. Ms. Schroeder and Mr. Stein are both in the midst of serving two-year terms on the village board. While they agree on many of the issues plaguing Sag Harbor, such as the need for a moratorium on residential building and for long-term infrastructure planning, the two candidates offer different perspectives.

Ms. Schroeder, a lifelong Sag Harbor resident, is a familiar face in village government. She worked for the village for 21 years under eight mayors until her retirement as village administrator in 2010. She won a seat on the board last year and serves as the deputy mayor. This is her second attempt to become mayor. She lost to Mr. Gilbride by just 11 votes in 2013.

She pointed to her experience as setting her apart from Mr. Stein. “My on-the-job training for 20-something years,” she said, has prepared her to lead the village. She said she knows how to get things accomplished and the right people to call. “I’m not afraid to say I don’t know the answer to a particular question, but in an hour I can get it.”

Mr. Stein is a clinical child psychologist with a practice in the village. He was appointed to the board six years ago to fill a vacancy when Mr. Gilbride, then a board member, was elected mayor, and Mr. Stein lost a tight race for a board seat. He later won two elections for full terms.

“I think I understand organizational behavior better than anyone on the board,” Mr. Stein said. Over the course of his career he received training in organizational analytics. “It’s not about on-the-job training. It’s about what you do beyond on-the-job training.”

Mr. Stein said he believes he represents a broader section of the village. He is the village’s representative to the Peconic Estuary Program, and he serves on the boards of Bay Street Theater and Mashashimuet Park.

The two candidates agree the village is in desperate need of long-term planning, particularly for capital improvements. Ms. Schroeder said she wants to immediately assess what is in more dire need of repair, the Municipal Building or Long Wharf, and come up with a schedule and bond for the work. Both have been long discussed and long neglected. “Time to talk is over. Let’s get it done,” she said.

Mr. Stein has his sights on two projects. A green space at the south side of the Marine Lance Cpl. Jordan C. Haerter Memorial Bridge would ultimately connect to Long Wharf to allow for pedestrian paths along the waterfront. He also wants to implement a twofold project in the municipal parking lot behind Main Street for which he is in the process of securing grant money. The project would fix a drainage problem, control water runoff, and create 45 new parking spaces by reconfiguring the lot.

No matter who is elected Tuesday night, there will be a vacancy on the board come July, as both candidates have one year left to their terms.

The two other board members, Ed Deyermond and Ken O’Donnell, are running unopposed to keep their seats for another two years.

The Justice Race

Three attorneys are seeking the position of Sag Harbor Village justice. Lisa R. Rana of Amagansett, a sitting judge, Stephen Grossman of East Hampton, who has a practice in Sag Harbor Village, and Michael S. Bromberg of Sag Harbor are in the running. Special legislation enacted before the court was established allows justices to live outside the village within the confines of the Town of East Hampton or the Town of Southampton.

“I’m the only candidate who is a resident of Sag Harbor Village,” Mr. Bromberg told the crowd at a meet-the-candidates forum at the Old Whalers Church on Sunday. “I would hope that you would vote for a candidate who can vote for himself,” he said with a laugh.

A trial and appellate lawyer for 45 years, he retired about a year and a half ago. While he lacks judicial experience, Mr. Bromberg has presided over arbitrations. He also served on the village zoning board of appeals for 12 years, including as chairman for a time. Having moved to the village in 1981, he joined the Sag Harbor Volunteer Ambulance Corps shortly after, and ultimately became a paramedic.

Mr. Bromberg asserted that as the only candidate without a practice, he is the only candidate who can be readily available for arraignments, of which there were 173 last year.

“I’m about 150 feet from the justice court, so I’m available all the time,” answered Mr. Grossman, who has maintained a practice in the village for 34 years. He has served as a public defender and handles litigation, criminal and civil cases, probate, and real estate work. “I’ve handled more trial cases than anyone at the table,” he said.

Mr. Grossman said that while the current justice, Andrea Schiavoni, who decided not to seek re-election, had done “a remarkable job” setting up the court in 2010, he has ideas for improvements. For one, “There’s no reason people have to take a day off to handle a traffic ticket.”

Rounding out the ballot, Justice Rana is the only candidate with judicial experience. A second-generation East Ender, she is running her fourth campaign to wear the robes (Mr. Grossman ran against her twice in East Hampton). Over 12 years she has been elected three times to East Hampton Town Justice Court — a part-time position that allows her to keep a private practice.

“My judge services come first and will always be my priority,” she said. For the past five years she has been appointed as the acting justice in Sag Harbor, to step in when needed, and worked with Justice Schiavoni to start the court.

 The election will be held at the Sag Harbor Fire Department headquarters on Brick Kiln Road on Tuesday from noon to 9 p.m.

It has long been known that numerous lots in Montauk’s downtown business district have inadequate wastewater systems and lack space to install better ones, but for a centralized system to be viable there, a good number of businesses must opt in, Pio Lombardo told people gathered at a Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee meeting on Monday.

Mr. Lombardo, whose firm Lombardo Associates is working on a townwide wastewater management plan, has suggested such a system for downtown Montauk. It could take up to five years and cost $26 million to build, he said.

Under the proposal, a water quality improvement district would be created and its members taxed to pay for the construction and operation of a system that would collect and transport waste to a centralized, underground treatment area.

Individual business owners could choose whether they want to be included in the district and connect to the new system. For the centralized system to be a go in Montauk, owners of properties representing at least half of the overall wastewater flow generated in the area would have to sign on.

For more than a decade, federal law has banned the use of cesspools on any property that serves more than 20 people a day. However, Mr. Lombardo said, that law is not widely enforced. A cesspool is considered inadequate, he said, if it needs to be pumped out three or more times per year.

The 169 developed properties that are candidates for inclusion in the wastewater district extend from South Eton Street on the west to Essex Street on the east, between Fort Pond and the ocean. Each property owner that connects to the central system would pay a fee depending on the size of the property and its rate of wastewater flow. Dry stores would pay less than wet stores such as restaurants and motels.

Estimated costs based on the particular conditions of each property were provided in outreach letters sent to property owners prior to the meeting, and were calculated according to several scenarios, such as if varying amounts of grant money were to be received for the project. Montauk meets much of the criteria that would make it eligible for grant money, Mr. Lombardo said.

He mentioned several potential sites for the underground system on Monday, but he seemed to favor what he called a “sweet spot” near the Montauk Firehouse. The system, he said, is air and watertight, which would eliminate odors. It would also eliminate nitrogen and could be configured to identify contaminants in the wastewater, such as pharmaceutical drugs that people often flush down toilets when they no longer need them.

Montauk’s dock and Ditch Plain areas would also benefit from a neighborhood wastewater treatment system, Mr. Lombardo said, explaining that bacterial contamination from the Ditch Plain area cannot filter through a heavy clay surface and ends up in Lake Montauk. The properties cannot solve the problems with individual solutions, he said, adding that neighborhood systems would collect and carry liquid waste from septic tanks at individual houses or businesses to a centralized underground treatment area. The treated effluent could be used for irrigation, as it is in many other areas, specifically on golf courses.

Mr. Lombardo has been working closely with Kim Shaw, the town’s natural resources director, on the study. The letter to downtown business owners and Monday’s presentation were first steps to provide information to property owners so that town officials could gauge their interest the project.

Next steps, Mr. Lombardo said, would include the establishment of advisory committees focusing on the downtown, Ditch Plain, and dock areas; development of detailed engineering plans and site studies and analyses, and a study of potential growth and future development of the hamlet both under current zoning and in the case of zoning changes that could be allowed by the enhanced capability to process wastewater. The town board is developing criteria for planning studies of all of the town’s hamlets, which would dovetail with the wastewater planning. Extensive public participation would be key throughout the process, the consultant said.

Some business owners at the meeting this week had not received the letter and asked for more information. “As a business owner I would like to be more involved,” said Bill Mavro of the Montauk Clothing Store on Montauk Highway.

A call was made for a vote on the matter on Monday, but members agreed they didn’t know enough about the project yet to decide on the group’s position. Some in the audience met in the hallway privately to speak in more detail with Mr. Lombardo. All of the data and reports regarding the comprehensive wastewater management plan have been posted at ehwaterrestore.com.

After Mr. Lombardo’s presentation, committee members voiced frustration about the “hundreds” of Uber cabs operating in the hamlet. They also complained about the taxicabs taking up all the parking spaces on both sides of the street near the Chamber of Commerce building. Laraine Creegan, the chamber’s executive director, said she had asked them to move. “I can’t even say what they said to me,” she told the committee. (A larger story on taxicabs appears elsewhere in this issue.)

Members complained about a business that is having its employees park in the Kirk Park parking lot and shuttling them to work. They said that for years they worked with the town to improve beach access to the area and even asked that the parking fee there be abolished so that visitors would use the lot more frequently. Although they did not mention the business by name during the meeting, afterward they named Gurney’s Inn.

On Tuesday, Paul Monte, the senior adviser at Gurney’s, said that some employees had used the lot during the holiday weekend. “We don’t intend to utilize it in the future. Fortunately throughout that period, there were always plenty of vacant spots available to beachgoers.”

With Reporting by Joanne Pilgrim

“You are presently in spaces that aren’t classrooms and that are not regulated as classrooms. The place looks pretty crowded,” the Springs School’s architect, Roger Smith of BBS Architects in Patchogue, told a newly formed facilities committee at its first meeting last week.

Committee members who are teachers or aides at the school, including Colleen McGowan, an art teacher, agreed.

“Not only are there teachers who are teaching out of closets right now, but there are teachers who are teaching off a cart going from room to room, which is very limiting,” Ms. McGowan said. She also pointed out there may be safety issues, for example in the gym, where as many as 98 kids — the entire sixth-grade class — take physical education at the same time.

The 13-member committee officially got to work on May 27 with a discussion of the aging building that is filled to capacity with students.

Mr. Smith said he ultimately envisions proposing a bond referendum that would fund an addition to the school. However, he said, the final recommendation would depend on what other ideas the facilities committee is able to develop.

In that process, though, the committee will likely bump up against the realities of the community, including a taxpayer base that already pays one of the highest tax rates on the South Fork and a student population that’s booming right now but which is expected to level off several years down the line. According to the May 11 enrollment report by Eric Casale, the school principal, Springs has 745 students, but a projection prepared by the Board of Cooperative Educational Services during the 2013-14 school year says enrollment in Springs is expected to drop to about 620 by 2023.

However, in Mr. Smith’s opinion, “there is nothing left for us to cut up” in the school to create more classroom space.

Mr. Smith also brought up a list of other fixes that he said need to be done to simply maintain the current building. That list totals just over $3 million worth of projects, including replacing the flat roof, estimated at $513,600; replacing the floors, estimated at $183,600; upgrading a mechanical fresh air system, estimated at $380,000; installing new electrical wiring and breakers, estimated at $200,000, and more.

Pamela Bicket, a committee member who does not have children in the school, questioned why the district waited so long to publicly discuss those needs.

“It seems like there has been a lag here, both in terms of accommodating students and accommodating the plant,” she said.

Mr. Smith came to the meeting with two new concepts for additions to the school. Both included new classrooms and support spaces because, in his opinion, the school is four to six classrooms short of what is actually needed. One of the new drawings included a new gym to be designated as the middle school gym.

“We were trying to think out how do I get the smallest thing that solves the most problems? If it’s the smallest one, it’s the least expensive,” said Mr. Smith, whose contract with Springs was not available by press time.

That’s when committee members began to chime in with ideas. Consolidation with other districts was mentioned, but is unlikely. One committee member suggested a consolidated middle school just for Springs, Montauk, and Amagansett, and another suggested developing an agreement with the Amagansett School to send some students there, where there may be more readily available space. Another suggestion was to begin sending middle school students directly to East Hampton, effectively shrinking the number of grades offered at Springs, but that would increase the operating budget significantly due to tuition costs.

Another committee member suggested moving the administrative offices to a portable building on school grounds, the school’s basement, or an office space elsewhere in town. However, Mr. Smith said, “the toughest thing to sell” is office space for the administration. “It is easier to sell classrooms,” he said.

Yet another suggestion was to see if the town of East Hampton would be willing to build a gym on town land, since it built a town facility on land belonging to the school district. That facility, the Springs Youth Association building, houses two of the district’s first-grade classes. The Springs Youth Association is currently defunct. A new gym on nearby town land could potentially negate the need to build a middle school gym on the actual campus.

More portable classrooms, Mr. Smith said, wind up costing only 15 to 20 percent less than permanent ones, and could take up to 18 months to put in place.

When the failed capital improvement referendum came up during the meeting, Jeff Miller, a member of the school board, said the board could have done a better job communicating with the public. The plan involved spending all or most of the district’s $2 million capital reserve fund on a parking lot, which would have been built on top of an existing baseball field, as well as widening Ed Hults Lane, reconfiguring the drop-off/pickup loop, and more. About 56 percent of the voters said no to the project.

“I actually feel that we kind of failed, as a board, to convey to the public everything that was going into the project,” Mr. Miller said. “There were too many people who didn’t understand how many facets there were to this work that was proposed. . . . Then there was information out there, in my opinion, that was completely false and that sunk our ship. But if we had done a better job in the first place, and informed the taxpayers as to exactly what was going on in the project, I think it would have gone right through. It’s something that has to be done.”

As the summer heats up, so does the taxi business in East Hampton Town, catering to visitors without cars as well as partying vacationers and locals who, after an alcohol-fueled evening, wisely leave their cars behind and take a cab home.

This year, the mix includes Uber, the nationwide on-call ride-sharing service that fares can summon with a smartphone app. The rapidly expanding company is well known and widely used in many cities, including New York, but has not established a permanent beachhead out here.

The packs of competing cabs have created chaotic situations in areas near nightspots, such as downtown Montauk — a potentially dangerous situation, according to officials. Citizens groups and the town board have debated for years about how to tone things down.

Taxi companies operating here are supposed to adhere to laws designed not only to protect the safety of passengers but also, for local companies, to temper competition from the out-of-town cabs that converge on the town for the hectic summer season. A law adopted several years ago and revised last year requires cab companies to have a business license, licenses for each of their vehicles (requiring an inspection of the car by town ordinance enforcement officers), and licenses for individual drivers, above and beyond the New York State chauffeur’s license they must hold.

As of now, apparently because of foot-dragging by Suffolk County, that last requirement is not being observed. County legislators voted last year to establish a taxi and limousine commission and implement licensing standards parallel to East Hampton’s, which makes fingerprinting and a criminal background check for drivers a prerequisite. All taxi drivers in the county would be required to obtain a Suffolk license.

Michael Sendlenski, a town attorney, explained yesterday that the county legislation would make it unnecessary for East Hampton to also require background checks and fingerprinting for drivers, allowing the town to save the associated administrative costs. However, the county licensing system, which was expected to be in place by the first of this year, has been delayed. A June 1 implementation date was also pushed back — until Jan. 1, 2016, Mr. Sendlenski said. While it is too late now for the town to implement its own driver-licensing provisions, he said, they will be put in place “one way or another,” before next summer, regardless of whether the county acts.

An incident in Southampton Town that Mr. Sendlenski described at a town board meeting underscores the role of taxi-driver background checks. The town, which requires drivers to submit to an examination, denied a license to a man who had recently been convicted of assault, yet in Southampton Village he was able to pilot a cab, and attempted to molest a 16-year-old passenger.

In recent weeks, East Hampton Town ordinance enforcement officers have set their sights on Uber, which has, according to officials, a large number of drivers seeking fares here. The company has reportedly had a big impact on local cab businesses, with some cabbies reporting business down by 40 or 50 percent, Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc said Tuesday.

Until this year, Uber was the largest company holding an annual town taxi business license, Mr. Sendlenski said. But under the revised law, Mr. Van Scoyoc noted, Uber is ineligible for East Hampton licensing. One criteria for a town taxi-company license is that the business must maintain an office at an East Hampton Town address; Uber evidently does not. In addition, Supervisor Larry Cantwell said Tuesday, the law requires that cars used by a taxi business be registered to the business; drivers for Uber use their own cars.

Uber drivers who have been stopped and ticketed have indicated that their company is prepared to pay the associated fines, the supervisor reported. “I think there’s a corporate push to flout the law,” he said. “Uber is saying, ‘We’re not going to comply.’ ”

The supervisor will meet this week with enforcement officers and other staff to discuss how to address the issue. Unlicensed Uber vehicles, said Mr. Van Scoyoc, have been on the receiving end of some 30 summonses since Memorial Day, including a sting-type operation where town personnel summoned the cars themselves.

Uber’s business model, of ride-sharing and cabs that are “e-hailed” through an app, places it in a category that often falls outside established municipal licensing guidelines or taxi and limousine commission regulations, and the company has encountered legal challenges in a number of its markets across the country. In New York, it offers only its so-called Uber Black or Uber Taxi services. Individually owned cars must be driven by licensed taxi drivers or holders of commercial licenses, and have commercial auto insurance.

Councilman Van Scoyoc, the liaison to the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee, reported that committee’s Monday-night discussion of the issue to the town board the next day. Committee members complained of out-of-town cabbies sleeping in their cars, he said, evidently staying in the easternmost hamlet for a weekend’s work. A committee appointed by the town last year to address taxi-related issues will be reconvened, Mr. Van Scoyoc said.

When the town board meets tonight, it is expected to schedule a hearing on increased penalties for violations of the taxi regulations.

“It’s a difficult task; we can’t be everywhere all the time,” Mr. Cantwell said Tuesday. But, he said, “I think the public wants to believe . . . if you break one of these codes, whether it’s operating a cab without a license or littering our beaches, that there’s a price to be paid for all of that.”

According to statistics compiled by Betsy Bambrick, the town’s director of ordinance enforcement, during the week of May 23 to May 30, the ordinance enforcement department issued nine violations to taxi companies for lacking a business license. Also that week, following inspections, officers granted stickers to 74 taxis operated by licensed businesses. After a couple of counterfeit stickers were discovered last year, the procedures have been tightened, Ms. Bambrick said. Over Memorial Day weekend, an Uber driver was arrested for driving while intoxicated.

Taxi businesses based in East Hampton Town are really not the concern, Mr. Cantwell said. “Local cab companies have all been doing the right thing.”

The pipe organ that was in the home of the late Charlotte Rogers Smith, a well-known and esteemed Bridgehampton musician, is now making beautiful music in Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Catholic Church in the same hamlet, thanks to the generosity of her family and the initiative of some of the church’s parishioners.

Mrs. Rogers Smith was the organist at the Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church for many years starting in 1942, and was the founder in 1946 of the Choral Society of the Hamptons, an organization that is a vital part of the South Fork music scene today.

In addition to being a devoted and admired teacher of piano and organ, Mrs. Rogers Smith regularly held informal chamber music gatherings in her home, centered around the organ, said Susan Grun, her daughter. “She knew a lot of musicians, and sometimes twice a week had musicians over for duets, trios, quartets, and so on.” Her husband, Dinwiddie Smith, was also a violinist and violist and would sometimes participate. One of the highlights of her career was performing the 20th-century masterpiece Concerto for Organ, Timpani, and Strings by the French composer Francis Poulenc, Ms. Grun said.

After Mrs. Rogers Smith died in December at the age of 95, Alice Clifton, a member of Queen of the Most Holy Rosary church, contacted Ms. Grun, whom she knew, about the church’s interest in the organ.

After some discussion, Mrs. Rogers Smith’s four children decided, as they were preparing to sell the house, to donate the organ to the church in their mother’s memory, feeling strongly that she would have been happy to have the organ remain in Bridgehampton.

Gay Lynch and Joan Miller, also members of the church, championed the project. “We were flabbergasted and so delighted” that the organ in the church was a possibility, said Ms. Lynch. “We hope that it will reignite the spirit of the church and stimulate the music there.” The church’s older electronic organ was in a state of disrepair and had not been usable for some time. The church was not in a financial position to purchase the organ, and will be raising money to pay for the cost of moving the instrument.

The organ was built by Dobson Pipe Organ Builders of Lake City, Iowa, in 1988 as their Opus 39. The company designed the organ with Paul Rogers, a Water Mill architect and a son of Mrs. Rogers Smith, to make the instrument the centerpiece of the living room of her new house on Quimby Lane.

For the project of disassembling, transporting, reassembling, and retuning the organ, William Ayers of the Dobson company worked with Douglas Mc­Keever and Matthew Sprague of Foley-Baker Inc., a pipe organ firm in Connecticut. Beginning in early May, the many parts were removed, indexed, packed in crates or boxes, moved about two and a half miles, and eventually hoisted into the balcony of the church and carefully set up again piece by piece. In about a week’s time the organ was playing again, retuned, and the facade pipes were polished as a finishing touch.

The wooden case that houses the instrument is made of fumed white oak and measures 131/2 feet high, 71/2 feet deep, and 61/2 feet wide. The church had engaged a structural engineer to be sure that the balcony would support the 3,000 or so pounds of the instrument, as well as an electrician to install the proper wiring for the electric bellows.

The modest-size organ has 376 pipes, each one giving a specific pitch and tone color. The 44 wooden bass pipes are made of poplar, while most of the pipes are made of various alloys of tin and lead, ranging from 20 percent tin to 50 percent tin for the brighter timbres. The many narrow wooden strips, called trackers, that connect each key to air valves under the pipes are made of quarter-sawn cedar. There are wind chests that the pipes sit on, made mostly of wood, and there are also numerous smaller parts of metal and leather.

Christine Cadarette, who is the organist and choir director for the Saturday Mass at the church, played the organ for the first time in public two weeks ago. “It’s beautiful to play, and the key action on the fingers is marvelous. It’s really a lovely instrument,” she said.

“It was wonderful to hear the organ after communion on Sunday morning,” said Ms. Miller.

Ms. Miller also said that the church, which is at 2350 Montauk Highway, is planning a blessing of the organ on June 28 at 2 p.m., to which the public is invited, as well as a later concert to feature the instrument and express appreciation to the family.

Though the instrument was donated, the cost of disassembling, moving, setting up the scaffolding, and reassembling it is about $23,000, and fund-raising programs are being planned to meet that expense. So far the church has raised about $8,000. Contributions can be sent to Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Church, Organ Fund, P.O. Box 3035, Bridgehampton 11932.

Robyn Berger’s question was simple and honest, but perhaps terrifying, and it went unanswered.

“How are you feeling?” Ms. Berger, a director with the Family Service League, asked the group of about 40 who had assembled for a discussion of youth mental health at the Montauk Firehouse last Thursday.

Ms. Berger’s question came just over a year after the death of Tyler Valcich, a 20-year-old volunteer firefighter and Montauk resident who had graduated from East Hampton High School in 2011. His death led to the formation of the Tyler Project, a campaign to improve youth mental health services and end the epidemic of suicide among young people, currently the second leading cause of death among those ages 15 to 24. The Tyler Project and the Family Service League co-sponsored last Thursday’s gathering.

When no one offered a response to her question, Ms. Berger and colleagues from the Family Service League posed some more: “What did you need last year from us? What do you need now?”

Then, the silence slowly yielded to candid conversation, in which a small group of those young people — including a high school senior and a handful of Tyler Valcich’s friends and peers — asked for more mental health education in schools and more safe places in the community for those who are at risk or who are already facing some kind of crisis.

Fallon Bloecker, who knew Mr. Valcich, advocated for schools to do more and compared the need for mental health education to the talks about drunken driving or texting while driving that students periodically see. “You need to incorporate that more than one time a year,” Ms. Bloecker said. “If we started worrying about mental health younger, it would be so much more helpful.”

To those in attendance — many of whom could have been her parents’ age or older — Ms. Bloecker, 20, also called for age-appropriate support. “No offense, but there’s no way I would sit and spill my guts to 75 percent of this room,” she said.

Pat Fallon, 23, who also knew Mr. Valcich, said support systems need to go beyond the traditional idea that merely providing a 24-hour hotline for crisis intervention is helpful.

“That’s not how you talk to people of this age,” Mr. Fallon said. “You have to engage with these people in a way that’s meaningful.”

He laid out his vision for a comfortable, private space — one with a couch, a coffee maker, and a real person trained not only to listen but also to help — that could be available at a community center, church, or other publicly accessible place in town, pretty much anytime of the day or night.

Dr. Larry Weiss, chief program officer of the Family Service League, replied by saying it is called the “living room model” and that it is being talked about as a possibility.

Ms. Berger urged those in attendance to sign up for a program called safeTALK, which trains people — real, everyday folks, not just credentialed mental health professionals — to understand the warning signs that show someone may be suicidal. SafeTALK then shows people how to carefully and properly speak to him or her to be able to get that person through the immediate crisis. By the end of last Thursday’s forum, 25 people had signed up to receive the training. The three-hour program is free and local, with more information available by calling 369-0104.

During the forum, Mr. Weiss announced that a successful family health program in the Springs School District will expand to the Montauk School District beginning in September. Dubbed the Community Behavioral Health Collaborative, the idea behind it is to help parents support their children’s mental health and identify kids who are at risk of related behavioral problems.

“The ideal place for that is schools that have elementary-aged children,” Dr. Weiss said. “If you catch it early and you provide parent support, education, and counseling, we can avoid the more costly and difficult-to-obtain mental health services later on.”

Ronit Reguer, one of the two social workers who run the Springs program, said the Montauk program will be closely modeled after the one in Springs. The biweekly program consists of a parent resource night and a “family strengthening program,” in which families have dinner and do therapeutic activities together. It is an offshoot of the South Fork Behavioral Health Initiative, which recently received an additional $175,000 from New York State.

“It’s the nip-it-in-the-bud mentality,” Ms. Reguer said. “It’s helpful for both the parents and the kids to know there is support.”

After the forum ended last Thursday, Thea Grenci, who was a close friend of Tyler Valcich’s before his death, said she was pleased with the openness of the discussion, but wished that more young people were there to witness it.    “One year later, the feelings are stronger,” Ms. Grenci said. “We want people to be more aware of what’s going on today. . . . You have to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

A walk for awareness of suicide prevention, sponsored by the Tyler Project and the Greater East Hampton Education Foundation, will take place on Sunday. The event begins at 10 a.m. at the Montauk Pavilion and will take participants around Fort Pond.