The candidates for East Hampton Town Justice, perhaps the most hotly contested race in town this year, were interviewed at The Star last Thursday.

    Both Carl Irace, who is running on the Republican ticket, and Steven Tekulsky, the Democrat, expressed dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs at the courthouse, but their solutions frequently differed. The discussion ran for well over an hour.

    Mr.  Irace began by proposing that arraignments be conducted by video conferencing. “Police resources are needed to bring the defendant into court,” he said. “This would keep police on the streets where we need them.”

    Mr. Tekulsky responded that video conferencing “costs money, which the town does not have.”

     State law prohibits the use of video where felony charges are involved.

    The candidates were asked about the many defendants who are arraigned here without an attorney present. Legal Aid provides an attorney to the court only one day a week.

    “If you have arraignments at a regular time,” Mr. Tekulsky said, “it will be very easy to get attorneys to stand in. That is an easy fix.”

    “On our most serious cases,” Mr. Irace said, “many are automatically remanded and there isn’t an opportunity for bail, so the worst-case scenario is already provided for with the criminal procedure law as far as anything in the middle, people have the right to make a phone call when they are in the police station, and if they can’t afford an attorney one will be provided for them.”

    Both men promised to be on the bench every morning at 9:30 sharp, the listed time on the court calendars. Currently, attorneys are given time to conference before court starts, usually at about 10:15 a.m.

    “When all the parties know that [9:30] is what happens, habits will change,” Mr. Tekulsky said. “What we have now is citizens just sitting there waiting, and they don’t know what’s going on.”    

    “Starting whenever the court gets around to it breeds alienation and resentment,” Mr. Irace said. “A set time would be more efficient.”

    Further in the interest of efficiency, Mr. Irace suggested dividing the court calendar on Mondays, the day when zoning and parking cases are heard, into separate time slots. People challenging routine parking tickets, he said, should not have to sit next to those accused of zoning violations. “A lot of those building violations are crimes” he said. “People with routine parking tickets don’t want to be lumped in with that. There is an important administrative benefit to having people go at different times.”

    Mr. Tekulsky disagreed. “Frankly, I’m not sure that anybody with a parking ticket is upset about sitting there with somebody who doesn’t have a C of O. I think the way the calendar is set up now is fine, as long as the judge gets up there on time. Those parking tickets will be gone in 10 minutes.”

    Mr. Irace also took issue with the order in which cases are heard. “Most of the courts that I practice in have an age-based calendar,” he said. “The first case on the calendar is the oldest. In East Hampton, they are alphabetical. The problem with that is, then people don’t have a sense of urgency. Nobody knows how to prioritize the cases.”

    “The problem with an age-based calendar is, you’ve got to have a hammer at the end of it. We need to have more trials out here,” Mr. Tekulsky said, adding, however, that most cases in all courts, not just East Hampton’s, are settled by negotiation or plea-bargaining. If too many cases were to go to trial, he said, it could create a huge backlog.

    The town has a second courtroom, a smaller one, which has fallen into disuse, and Mr. Irace called for it to be reopened. It could be used for trials and conferences, he said, to speed up the process and cut waiting time while the main courtroom proceeds with regular business.

    Mr. Tekulsky agreed, with a caveat: “We have a second courtroom which is, unfortunately, unusable right now because it has mold in it. That room is now locked. It can’t be used until that is remediated.”

    Both men were asked at what point they would recuse themselves from a case, based on possible conflict of interest.  Mr. Tekulsky answered that “if I’d represented a defendant before, I’d certainly disclose any interest:  ‘Look, I represented this guy’s father . . . I don’t have a problem, but I must disclose it to you. If you feel more comfortable being in front of another judge, that is fine.’ ”

    “I have a lot of professional contacts, but I don’t have any significant obligations to anyone in particular,” said Mr. Irace. “I’m not coming to the job with years and years of close personal ties.”

    When the discussion turned to a justice’s role in the negotiation process, the candidates engaged in the liveliest exchange of the day. “I think it is a bad habit in our court for a judge to set fines on dispositions that are negotiated to lower counts,” Mr. Irace said. “The judge has the ability to set the fine on a plea to the top count.”

    “I don’t agree that the judge only has the ability to set the fine when there is a plea to the top count,” Mr. Tekulsky said.

    “It’s in the C.P.L. [Criminal Procedures Law],” Mr. Irace responded. “I didn’t make it up. I don’t think it is proper.”

    “Why?” Mr. Tekulsky asked.

    “I don’t think that is allowed. That is not the way criminal cases are handled.”

    “Are you saying that in a criminal case, if the prosecutor agrees to a plea to a lesser charge, the judge can’t determine the sentence? It happens all the time.”

    “I think it is a bad habit,” Mr. Irace answered.

    In an e-mail to The Star on Saturday, Mr. Tekulsky wrote that “where a prosecutor agrees to a plea to less than the top count, but doesn’t care about the sentence, the sentence is completely up to the court.  I stand by that as a common practice.” Mr. Tekulsky wanted to know what law Mr. Irace had cited.

    Mr. Irace said after last Thursday’s interview that of all the courts he has practiced in, East Hampton’s is the only one where the justice wields such discretionary sentencing power.

    The Amagansett Fire District will follow the lead of Montauk’s district by hiring a paid advanced life support provider to assist in responding to ambulance calls.

    At its annual meeting on Oct. 15, the hamlet’s board of fire commissioners voted to include $103,000, earmarked for paid advanced life support personnel, in its proposed 2014 budget. The fire commissioners will hold a public meeting tonight at 7 at the firehouse to discuss details of the plan.

    Total appropriations in the Amagansett district’s proposed budget are $1.45 million. Less $365,000 in estimated revenues, $1.085 million would be raised for the district’s operations through property taxes.

    The Amagansett district’s plan comes amid increasing demand, particularly in the summer months, and a stagnant or dwindling pool from which to draw volunteers. According to its Web site, the Amagansett Fire Department had logged 337 emergency medical service incidents through July. From 2007 through 2012, it responded to an average of 556 such incidents per year. The department recently erected signs outside the firehouse and on Main Street appealing for volunteers.

    “We’re down to one E.M.T. in the district,” said Daniel Shields II, chairman of the Amagansett Board of Fire Commissioners, referring to Tom Field, a volunteer and the district’s sole A.L.S. provider. “To protect the community, we felt it was in our best interest to go this route. We’re running out of people. . . . We need somebody that’s going to be around year round.”

    “We’ve got to be partially paid, and at some point we’ve got to be fully paid,” Mr. Field said on Tuesday. “The rationale is that we do not have people available in the daytime — it’s as simple as that, and has been for quite a number of years.” He started agitating for membership drives at least 15 years ago, he said, after realizing that “it’s just by accident that we’re getting by. The frustration to me was that we weren’t getting new members in.”

    Another frustration, Mr. Field said, is the burden one overextended district inflicts on the others. “So what happened in Montauk was a godsend,” he said.

    In the Amagansett district, the plan for a paid A.L.S. technician calls for a full-time schedule in the summer months and part time in the off-season, Mr. Shields said, similar to the Montauk district’s pilot program enacted last summer. That program is widely viewed as a success. “We’re going to try to do what Montauk is doing,” Mr. Shields said, “and go from there.”

    Since early this year, East Hampton Town departments have been exploring the addition of paid emergency medical technicians, both to accommodate demand and reduce the need for mutual aid assistance calls, under which emergency units from outside fire districts are required to respond.

    Such a townwide program is not imminent, said Barbara Borsack, the deputy mayor of East Hampton Village. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take,” Ms. Borsack, a longtime emergency medical volunteer who serves on an informal committee exploring the addition of paid positions, said. “At this point, that’s why [districts] are going out on their own, because we have to start planning for next summer.”

    Ms. Borsack predicted that all districts would “move toward some level of paid service, just because we have no choice. There’s a limit to what the volunteers can do.”

    While demand surges in the summer, year-round residents find it difficult to commit to volunteer service, Ms. Borsack said. “It’s the cost of living here that’s the problem,” she said. “We have fewer and fewer kids staying in town, and younger people having to work two and three jobs to live here. The calls keep going up and your supply [of volunteers] doesn’t — you have pretty much the same number of year-round people living here.”

    East Hampton Town will ask the Army Corps of Engineers, which is analyzing the options for a federally funded beach restoration project in Montauk,  to examine the use of sand-filled geotextile tubes to stabilize the beach in addition to the options that the Corps had presented last month, such as using sand alone or installing a buried seawall. A split, 4-to-1, vote on a resolution introduced by Councilwoman Theresa Quigley took place at the tail end of a lengthy meeting last Thursday night.

    The resolution ignores a request from the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee that the town ask the Corps to consider including the Ditch Plain beach in the project, which would be paid for with federal funding. Some board members had previously suggested that the town borrow money for sand restoration at Ditch, and Councilman Dominick Stanzione has asked that the project be included in a draft capital budget being prepared by the town budget officer, Len Bernard.

    The resolution also ignores a request by Councilwoman Sylvia Overby and Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc that shoreline retreat — by acquiring the hotels on the threatened stretch of downtown beach through purchase or eminent domain — also be seriously considered.

    Mr. Van Scoyoc cast the no vote against the resolution, objecting “to the late hour” and what he said was dealing with “probably the most important topic that we will address in our tenure” in a “cavalier” manner. He noted that the board had, at a work session two days earlier, discussed sending a letter to the Corps but could not agree on doing so.

    “I had a change of heart and spoke to Bill about it,” Ms. Quigley said, referring to Supervisor Bill Wilkinson. “I thank you,” Councilman Dominick Stanzione told Mr. Wilkinson. “Excellent option.”

    Councilwoman Overby voted for the resolution, but said she was upset that it did not include a request that work at Ditch Plain be considered. She noted that the resolution “wasn’t in the packet for the public to see” and criticized what she called the “continuing negotiation behind closed doors that’s going on.”

    “This is not a new topic,” Ms. Quigley replied. “But if it had been in the packet there might have been public comment on it,” Ms. Overby said. “There has been plenty of public comment on it,” Ms. Quigley responded.

    Mr. Van Scoyoc said he would like to have the Army Corps complete its analysis of all the options it had presented, excluding the installation of groins, but including the possibility of rebuilding the beach, with a dune built where some hotels are now located.

    “The Corps told us relocation was not a viable option,” Supervisor Wilkinson said. “Actually, I didn’t hear that,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said. They were referring to a  Sept. 26 briefing by Steve Couch of the Corps, who had said that, though the initial cost of acquiring and relocating the hotels, which would be covered by federal funds, would be high, later beach maintenance costs would be lower, offsetting the investment.

    That strategy, Mr. Couch told the board, is being used on Fire Island and is being considered by Brookhaven Town. However, he said, he was unsure if such a project would meet the cost-benefit ratio analysis applied by the Corps.

    “Relocation should absolutely not be focused on,” Ms. Quigley said last week. “It’s a completely unviable option.”

    “So we can’t even make the assessment based on what the actual cost would be?” questioned Mr. Van Scoyoc. “Relocation is the least likely option,” Ms. Overby said, and “not palatable . . . at least to me.”

    “But,” she said, “if we are going to be given the opportunity to get some data” that might be valuable to the town in making future decisions, she said, the town should have the Army Corps analyze that option.

    “Data is critical,” Ms. Quigley agreed. But, she said, that particular information “is completely irrelevant.”

    Mr. Van Scoyoc disagreed, saying it would “inform us all about whether that is a viable option.” He moved to have the request to the Corps include analysis of the land-purchase option. Ms. Overby seconded the motion, but the other three board members voted it down.

    At the work session two days earlier, the board had argued over how to respond to the calls from the Montauk community, which were presented on Oct. 8 and repeated to the board by a resident, Christopher Poli, last week. Ms. Quigley had objected vehemently to writing to the Army Corps at all.

    “At this point we are not a unanimous board,” Ms. Overby had said at that meeting. “We are a board where one member submitted something that the rest of the board didn’t see,” she said of Mr. Wilkinson’s seawall plan. “Thank God he did,” Ms. Quigley said. They were referring to a plan Mr. Wilkinson had prepared by First Coastal, an engineering firm, and submitted to the Army Corps in January, without consulting or informing the board.

    “It’s called democracy,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said, chiding Mr. Wilkinson about his actions. “No, it’s called boring,” Mr. Wilkinson said. “We had an opportunity to get something accomplished in this town; we seized the damn ring,” he said. “I completed what I could deliver to this town. I completed my delivery.”

    “I implore the town board to show leadership,” Mr. Poli had said. “If you show leadership, consensus, you can guide the process, rather than having the Army Corps come to you. In Westhampton Beach, the Army Corps did more harm than good; in Culloden, the Army Corps did more harm than good,” he warned.

    Ms. Overby and Mr. Van Scoyoc continued their criticism during telephone interviews this week of the overall procedure as the board grappled with the Montauk project. “I think the process has been tainted from day one,” Ms. Overby said. “Now everything is under suspicion, as far as I’m concerned.” She added that the board majority’s refusal to ask the Army Corps to consider extending its project to the Ditch Plain beach,  “actually says to the people of Ditch Plain that you don’t matter.”

    The potential for the purchase of shorefront real estate, so as to move buildings out of harm’s way, “was one of the options they brought to us,” Mr. Van Scoyoc reiterated. “And I know that wasn’t in Bill’s plan,” he said. But, since the Army Corps “is doing a cost-benefit analysis. Why shouldn’t we have that information?”

    “First they tried to get me to agree with whatever the Army Corps would propose,” the councilman said. “Now,” he said, “they’re trying to close down the options. Maybe because some of the options aren’t ones they like.” Mr. Van Scoyoc said he supported having the Corps look into the use of geotextile tubes, as the resolution requests, but cast a no vote “against the way the process happened.” When Ms. Quigley presented the resolution for a vote last Thursday, he said, “It wasn’t even typed up in town format. . . . It was like pulled out of her purse or something — with no discussion whatsoever.”

Justin T. Bennett, a 35-year-old Springs man who told police he had been addicted to heroin for two years, was arraigned in East Hampton Town Justice Court last Thursday on charges of having burglarized 14 houses in East Hampton. He is a suspect in another 13 break-ins in Southampton Town and Sag Harbor Village over the course of many months. He entered a plea of not guilty.

He was arrested on Wednesday after a months-long investigation involving the New York City Police Department as well as those in East Hampton, Southampton, and Sag Harbor. The investigation zeroed in on Mr. Bennett, police said, based on descriptions of an alleged thief, as well a large amount of jewelry recovered by New York City detectives.

The value of stolen jewelry and cash from East Hampton alone is about $126,000, according to the police. Thousands of dollars in cash is long gone, given to a heroin dealer in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, a neighborhood where Mr. Bennett also sold many pieces of jewelry. He also sold stolen items in two neighborhoods in Queens, near the Long Island Expressway. It is not clear whether they were sold to pawn shops or to "fences," people who deal knowingly in stolen merchandise.

The investigation spanned from Montauk to Manhattan, with the New York force playing an active role in recovering at least some of the stolen items. The series of burglaries of which Mr. Bennett is accused run back to January.

"People don't realize the amount of manpower and hours that go into an investigation like this," Detective Lt. Chris Anderson of the East Hampton Police Department said. "Thirty different burglaries, 30 different crimes."

The arrest came after Mr. Bennett was pulled over by East Hampton Town detectives, who zeroed in while he was driving his girlfriend's 2003 black Toyota Carolla, a car he allegedly used when he committed many of the burglaries, according to the detective. Some of the stolen jewelry was found in the car, police said. According to Detective Anderson, it will take time to return the missing items that have been recovered to their rightful owners, as police and victims go through them, one by one.

Wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, blue jeans, and white socks with no shoes, Mr. Bennett hunched over on the defendant's bench, obviously in distress, while waiting to be arraigned on Thursday, and then, again, after the proceedings. He is charged with 14 counts of burglary in the second degree, C felonies, along with two counts of attempted burglary, also felonies, possession of a hypodermic needle, and possession of marijuana.

Seated in the courtroom, just feet away from his handcuffed son, was his father. The two spoke quietly before the arraignment began, at least as quietly as they could, separated by about six feet and monitored by an officer. The father shook his head, meaning no, many times. "Sick?" he asked his son, at one point. "Yep," was the response, as the defendant slumped forward, chest going down towards his knees.

Sheila Mullahy, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society, who appears in the East Hampton courtroom on Thursdays to represent indigent defendants, stood to Mr. Bennett's right as he was arraigned. She had been summoned to court because of the serious nature of the charges. Justice Rana asked Mr. Bennett if he was going to hire an attorney or if he was going to request that Legal Aid represent him. "I can't really afford an attorney at this time," he answered.

Dan Cronin, assistant Suffolk Sounty district attorney, asked Justice Rana to set bail at $140,000 $10,000 for each of felony burglary charges. He also pointed out that the defendant had "made a statement to the police which amounted to a confession." Ms. Mullahy asked for much lower bail, pointing out that Mr. Bennett is a lifetime resident of the town.

"He is seeking drug treatment," Ms. Mullahy said. She also pointed out that the man's father was seated in the courtroom. The justice set bail at $100,000 cash or $200,000 bond. Mr. Bennett indicated he would not be able to post it.

"This is what I'm hoping is going to happen," the justice said. "I'm hoping this will start you on treatment. These are very, very serious charges here."

"I'm very sorry for what I've done," he said.

She cautioned Mr. Bennett not to say anything else to the court, except through Ms. Mullahy.

Arraignment over, an officer, preparing to take Mr. Bennett out of the courtroom, looked away as father and son embraced, both with tears in their eyes.

Outside the courtroom, Ms. Mullahy explained to the obviously distraught father what was about to happen. "Once we have arranged that, the judge will release him to treatment," she was overheard saying. "It is really going to help him," she said to the senior Mr. Bennett, who clearly was torn as to whether to try to raise the $100,000 cash or $200,000 bond needed to release his son.

When questioned after being picked up by detectives, Mr. Bennett described his method of operation. He told them he would case a neighborhood, always during the day, looking for a house that seemed unoccupied. He then would walk back and forth and try the doors and windows, he reportedly said. He also would search the property for so-called hide-a-keys, and was frequently successful. He found keys in various seemingly creative places, he said: under a plastic squirrel, hidden on a hook at the bottom of a railing, hidden under a two-by-four in a garage, and so on.

Descriptions of Mr. Bennett had been given police by two Springs residents. Craig McNaughton, who lives in the Maidstone Park area, said Mr. Bennett attempted to enter his house on March 6. Mr. McNaughton had told The Star at that time that a man walked into his house, not realizing he and his wife were home. When he confronted the intruder, Mr. Bennett reportedly told him, "I'm looking for my dog." Mr. McNaughton also described the Toyota.

Another time in early March, a Clearwater Beach resident called police after pulling into her driveway and seeing a man on the deck of her house. She also provided a description. Again, police say, Mr. Bennett said he was looking for his dog, and walked away.

Mr. Bennett is due back in court Wednesday. It is not clear if police plan on making any more arrests in connection with the series of burglaries. Detective Anderson said the investigation "is ongoing."

    Don’t worry, the following is not an SAT question, just something every buyer or seller should know: Let’s say a broker has a listing for a million-dollar house, and the seller has agreed to a 6-percent commission. When the house is sold, the agent gets $60,000, right?

    Wrong.

“The public has a huge misconception about how commissions are allocated,” said Chris Chapin, a broker at Douglas Elliman. “Even I did before I started in the business.”

    The truth is, the agent’s pie is split into many pieces. Again, let’s make the supposition that, as is usually the case, the listing agent is not also the selling agent. Thus both brokers have to split the commission. Then, because both have parked their licenses at a real estate agency with which they also share their commission, each of their commissions is split again — meaning the original agent has to split the commission four ways, each party getting 1.5 percent of the selling price, or in our hypothetical case, $15,000.

    Don’t forget that both the listing agent and his agency have paid for the marketing of said property, so shave off a couple grand more. Take into account all the showings, open houses, paperwork, prospects who have seen umpteen properties then disappeared — the weeks and weeks of work — and the commission Joe Public thought was so exorbitant begins to seem downright paltry.

    Add on to that the fact that sellers often feel they’re getting ripped off if they pay the standard 6-percent commission. Alan Schnurman, a broker with Saunders admits that the commission a seller pays an agent is “always negotiable,” and that “most [agents] will settle for 5 percent.” But he believes that the seller actually does himself a disservice by paying a lower rate. “You want the fee high enough to stimulate the selling broker to sell your house,” he said, pointing out that with, say, a 4-percent commission, and a high inventory of houses available, brokers would be less motivated to show it, as opposed to a “house around the corner” offering a higher commission.  

    On the other hand, the higher the value of a property, the more negotiable the fee. A four-way split of the commission on a $20 million house is nothing to sneeze at. When an agent at Rosehip Partners gets a listing at, let’s say, 4.5 percent, Joe Kazickas, the managing broker and founder of the company, will incentivize the selling broker by offering 2.5 percent rather than an equal 2.25 split, a win-win-win — especially if both agents hail from the same agency.

    Another way an agent’s split can shrink is when a sale is teetering on the edge. At that point the buyer’s and seller’s agencies might take a bit off their commissions to slide the deal through.

    Let’s not forget that the more productive an agent, the higher the commission he will receive from his agency. All agencies pay out on a sliding scale. “Newbies usually start out at 50 percent,” said Mr. Kazickas. “Once you reach a certain threshold of gross revenue generation, they will raise you to 55-45 or 60-30.” And that can keep growing and growing. “Private companies [such as Rosehip] are free to cut any type of commission deal we want,” he said. But he suspects that “larger companies have to be more rigid.”

    In a commission policy document from 2009, an agent generating above $475,001 in gross commissions would have received 75 percent from Saunders.

    The bad news for agents is that if they don’t keep their numbers up, their split goes back down too.

    Mr. Kazickas has introduced a motivational point system for his office’s rental agents. “Most brokers don’t want to do rentals,” he said, but he believes they’re important. “It’s an investment in the future: Most who buy, rent first and most [homeowners] who rent eventually sell.” He awards points for not only bringing in a deal, but also for every $5,000 in gross rental commission. “Once you accumulate 20 points, you move up to a 60-40 split.” Rentals may not generate huge commissions, but if you’ve worked yourself up to an 80-percent split on a $100,000 rental, you’re sitting pretty.

    Enter into the equation the many teams operating around town. Most teams comprise two agents (though some have more) who each have to divide the spoils between them. If we go back to our original equation, each agent’s share is now down to .75 percent. That is, if their split is 50-50. Some are equal partners, others not so much. “This is not communism,” is a favorite expression of Mr. Chapin’s partner, Ray Lord III. The pair works equally on most deals, but not all.

    With the team of Robert Tramondo and Vince Horcasitas of Saunders, Mr. Tramondo said, “Vince is the principal partner and I’m a lesser partner.” In their case, Mr. Horcasitas was an established broker before being joined by Mr. Tramondo, who worked in publishing before switching to real estate. “Make no mistake, his name is the marketable brand,” he said. Their split is not equal.

    When it comes to family teams, sharing commissions equally seems to be the rule of thumb. The father-and-son team of John and Bill Wines, who specialize in commercial real estate at Town and Country, are equal partners. “We respect each other’s capability,” said John, the father. “He’s great support and a great sounding board for me,” he said. While the son contributes technological know-how and more, the father offers “a depth of knowledge in terms of financing, legal issues, and zoning.”

    Ditto for the sister-and-brother team of Laura and Carl Nigro of Nest Seekers. Though Ms. Nigro is the senior partner, “we have different strengths,” she said. “I may bring in a listing that’s more expensive, but he’s going to do the groundwork.” A 50-50 split, she believes, is “the only way to go. Otherwise, you’d wind up fighting. It’s a trust issue. He was born on my 3rd birthday. . . . I know we would never hurt each other.”

    Four fishermen, including a captain who works out of West Lake Marina in Montauk and two other local men, are facing felony charges for illegally spearfishing striped bass. The incident occurred in late August, according to a statement released on Tuesday by the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

    While officers for the department were patrolling the waters off Valiant Rock in Block Island Sound, “they observed three divers with spearguns in hand boarding the fishing vessel Sea Spearit at Valiant Rock in a shallow area east of Gull Island,” says the statement.

    D.E.C. officers boarded the boat and reported finding both tagged and untagged bass in coolers onboard. The tags, which are placed on fish to be sold at market, belonged to both Christopher R. Miller, the Sea Spearit’s captain, and his sister, Tanya J. Miller, who was not on board, according to the officers.

    Commercial spearfishing is currently illegal in New York State. “When individuals use inappropriate methods to harvest a critical resource like striped bass, they are depleting the fishing stock and penalizing commercial fishermen who play by the rules,” says the D.E.C. statement.

    Mr. Miller denied all charges against him yesterday, but said his attorney had advised him not to discuss the matter in detail. At the end of the day, he said, he would be vindicated.

    Also charged were Erik A. Oberg of Montauk and Mica Marder of East Hampton. The three men will be arraigned in Southold Town Court on Nov. 4. The fourth, Peter J. Correale of New Canaan, Conn., is out of the country and will be formally charged upon his return.

    The Sea Spearit was ordered back to Montauk, where the fish were seized. The D.E.C. valued the catch, more than 70 fish that were weighed in at the Suffolk County Medical Examiner’s office at 926.5 pounds, at $4,632. The charge becomes a felony when the value is over $1,500.

    Mr. Miller was also charged for unlawful possession of striped bass tags and failure to display a dive flag, violations. 

    This month, said the D.E.C., he was “caught off Montauk Point on Oct. 2 with three speared striped bass hidden in a compartment on his boat,” and charged with a misdemeanor, which carries a minimum penalty of $5,000. He will be arraigned on that charge in East Hampton Town Court on Dec. 4.

    In Albany, meanwhile, a law is pending to legalize spearfishing for commercial purposes.

    Faced with the decidedly loaded question, “Preservation: Have We Gone Too Far?” at a forum last Thursday sponsored by LTV and the East Hampton Historical Society, the candidates for East Hampton Town Board agreed that more needed to be done to protect the town from overdevelopment.

    The hourlong discussion followed the screening of “East Hampton in the 1920s and 1930s,” footage of local scenes from those decades filmed by Hamilton King, a successful commercial artist turned landscape painter, and a short preview of “A Sense of Place,” a collection of oral history interviews with the town’s senior citizens.

    After the audience watched Mr. King’s grainy black-and-white images of Town Pond and Home, Sweet Home, whaleboats entering the surf, bathing beauties at Main Beach, a tennis match at the Maidstone Club, the Ladies Village Improvement Society Fair, and a seemingly endless procession of 1920s fire trucks rushing to a fire, Robert Strada, LTV’s chairman, led the candidates in a panel discussion.

    “Everyone was taken with the phrase,” Mr. Strada said, referring to the forum’s title. “Does ‘have we gone too far?’ mean there is too much preservation or the town has changed so much that it’s too late?”

    It is certainly not too late, said Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, a Democratic and Working Families candidate. An advertising account executive, she said she thought the title “was a little cheeky to elicit interest and entice people to show up.” A native of Valley Stream, she said her former community has been reduced to “strip malls and car dealerships and gas stations. Kudos to East Hampton.”

    “We have a moral obligation to do a lot more,” offered Larry Cantwell, the Democratic, Working Families, and Independence candidate, who is running unopposed for supervisor.

    Both Councilman Dominick Stanzione, who is seeking a second term on the Republican, Independence, and Conservative lines, and former Councilman Job Potter, who is backed by the Democrats and Working Families parties, agreed. Town Clerk Fred Overton, who is running with Mr. Stanzione, could not attend the event because he was out of town at his daughter’s wedding in Massachusetts, but in a statement read by Bob Schaeffer, he too offered support for continued efforts using the town’s preservation fund.

    With the general consensus that East Hampton Village had been more successful than the town in its preservation efforts, Mr. Cantwell said the village had involved residents in the process. When the village created historic districts, for instance, “we started out by meeting with the people who lived in those neighborhoods,” he said. “Instead of proposing a law, we had coffee.”

    “Everyone on the streets accepts some limitations,” he added, referring to architectural review. “Everyone accepts that and everyone’s neighbor accepts that, so everyone is together.”

    The village recently adopted a new law that allows residents who own historic timber frame houses the right to build a guesthouse on their property in exchange for preserving the original building. Mr. Cantwell said the approach worked well when targeted properties were scattered about a wide area and not concentrated in a single neighborhood, and he added that he thought it could work in the town as well, an idea echoed by Mr. Potter, who suggested it could be used to preserve more modest houses in Springs owned by East Hampton Town’s farming and fishing families.

    Asked why there were only two national landmarks — the Montauk Lighthouse and the Pollock-Krasner House in Springs — Mr. Stanzione said he would nominate the Amagansett Life-Saving Station as an ideal candidate, citing its role in the invasion by Nazi saboteurs in 1942 as well as the effort “to bring the community together to develop a new form of financing, which was really a public-private partnership.”

    The next landmark could very well be the Thomas Moran house, the East Hampton Village house and studio of the landscape painter, said Mr. Cantwell, who nonetheless said the best protection for historic structures would be found in strict local laws.

    Responding to a question about the size and mass of new houses being shoehorned into neighborhoods, Mr. Potter lamented situations in which “you have two 2,000-square-foot houses on half-acre lots and you put a 6,000-square-foot house between them.” The end result, he said, is “you’ve destroyed the neighborhood.”

    Although she said she would support using preservation fund money to buy easements on existing historic houses, Ms. Burke-Gonzalez balked at a suggestion that the town might be able to provide financial aid for the maintenance of private historic houses that are opened to the public. “That’s tricky,” she said.

    “In terms of the maintenance, I’m not seeing that happening,” agreed Mr. Cantwell. “Those are private homes; they should be maintained privately.”

    What the town should do when the preservation fund expires in 2030 was also a topic of discussion. Ms. Burke-Gonzalez said since two prior referendums, one establishing the tax and the other extending its life, had been passed by majorities of more than 80 percent of the voters, she was confident it would be extended again.

    Mr. Stanzione said he would like to see acquired land made more accessible to the public and better master plans in place. The town would likely earmark several million dollars for maintenance of public properties, he added. Plus, he said, “We might not have any more land to purchase.”

    Mr. Cantwell said the town should focus on protecting groundwater, wetlands, the coastline, and farmland while focusing on smaller parcels that might help to improve the value of neighboring property.

    Citing a pressing need for affordable housing, Mr. Potter said the preservation fund might be amended for that purpose. “I’m not sure that all that 2 percent 15 years down the road should go to land preservation,” he said.

    The East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals announced Friday that it will allow Mollie Zweig to build a rock revetment to protect her oceanfront house on West End Road.

    Ms. Zweig’s request was the subject of a lengthy and sometimes controversial hearing, with her representatives arguing for the need and effectiveness of the proposed project and the town trustees, who own and manage the town’s common lands on behalf of the public, imploring the board to consider alternatives given a revetment’s potential detrimental impact on the adjacent shoreline.

    A stone groin already in front of the property, which runs perpendicular to the shoreline, is to be removed before the sand-covered rock revetment, which will follow Ms. Zweig’s property line, is installed. The groin was originally constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers “as part of a larger project that anticipated the construction of a string of groins joined by a continuous revetment along a much wider area,” the board’s attorney, Linda Riley, wrote in the determination. The connection was not constructed, so the groin did not function as intended, she wrote, and became partially exposed by Hurricane Irene in 2011 and Hurricane Sandy last year, resulting in an increasing gouging away of the dune and beach around it.

    “I would urge all the interested parties — and there are many — to read the full determination, which was very carefully reasoned and explained by our attorney,” Frank Newbold, the board’s chairman, said before reading a summary of it aloud. The board granted the required variances for the rock revetment on the condition that a pole-mounted surveillance camera be removed from Ms. Zweig’s property and a sand-replenishment maintenance program required under the project’s State Department of Environmental Conservation permit be implemented. Ms. Zweig had already agreed to remove the camera and pole. The D.E.C. permit had already been issued.

    The board, Ms. Riley wrote, found no reasonable alternative site for the revetment. Numerous seawalls already exist along the shoreline where the proposed revetment will be constructed, and where it is to be built will be farther landward than the existing seawalls.

    The board ruled that proposed restoration of the dune — “the ultimate goal of this project,” according to Ms. Riley — “will not have an adverse effect or impact on the physical or environmental conditions in the neighborhood.” The project will include the depositing of 4,000 cubic yards of sand as part of a dune restoration seaward of the revetment.

    Michael Russell, a former East Hampton High School basketball star, is back in jail again, this time facing four felony charges and a possible extended stay in a state prison system, although which state would incarcerate him has yet to be determined.

     His latest brush with the law was in East Hampton Village, where, according to police, he went shopping early last month with several credit cards he had taken from an acquaintance, Aisha Ali, a trainer at Stony Hill Stables in Amagansett.

     Mr. Russell, 23, known as Mikey, has been in and out of criminal courts and jails across the Northeast. He is facing multiple felony charges in Massachusetts stemming from an alleged armed home invasion robbery and has been convicted of felonies twice before.

     According to East Hampton Village Police, Mr. Russell took the cards, which belong to Stony Hill Stables, then used them on Sept. 2 to purchase a pair of Nike Air Pippen sneakers, a pair of Nike Lebron sneakers, and two pairs of Sperry shoes at Sneakerology on Main Street.

     When Mr. Russell presented the first two cards to the clerk, a student at East Hampton High School, the charges were declined. The young woman checked with her manager, according to her statement to the police, and the manager, who recognized Mr. Russell, okayed her to run another card, which went through.

     The East Hampton Village detective squad identified Mr. Russell as the alleged perpetrator after interviewing Ms. Ali and showing store workers an array of photos. Two workers positively pointed to Mr. Russell as the one who made the purchases, according to police.

     East Hampton Justice Lisa R. Rana told Mr. Russell Friday morning that by state law she was not permitted to set bail due to his two previous felony convictions. His attorney, Sheila Mullahy of the Legal Aid Society, told the court that the defendant would waive his right to be released if not indicted after 144 hours, as is required by law.

     The most serious of the new charges against Mr. Russell are two felony counts of forgery. He is also being charged with two counts of felony possession of stolen credit cards and two misdemeanor petit larceny counts.

     A grand jury heard from witnesses on Tuesday and an indictment could be imminent.

     In Massachusetts, Mr. Russell was indicted on March 22 on "four counts of home invasion, three counts of armed assault in a dwelling, two counts armed and masked robbery, armed burglary, armed assault to rob, all of which are felonies, as well as two misdemeanor counts of assault and battery," Paul Jarvey, a spokesman for the Worcester County District Attorney said Friday. He was released on $5,000 bail, on what is called in the state a "pre-trial probation," according to Mr. Jarvey.

     The current charges against Mr. Russell "could have a bearing on his bail, which may well be revoked," Mr. Jarvey said.

     Mr. Russell was a star at East Hampton High School despite his brushes with the law as a youthful offender. His court records were sealed until he turned 18. In 2008, when he was 18 and had a scholarship awaiting him at Angelina Junior College in Lufkin, Texas, Mr. Russell pled guilty to two burglaries. He had also been charged with breaking into cars and possession of stolen property.

     While serving a year's sentence in county jail, he was charged for another crime, one that allegedly occurred before he was sentenced: felony sexual assault in Keene, N.H. The disposition of that case is not known.

     Still, given his basketball talents, schools continued to seek him out. On Jan. 27 of this year, he was the leading scorer for the Becker College Hawks, scoring 19 points in a loss to Newbury College. Just hours later, in the early morning of Jan. 28, Worcester police say that Mr. Russell and two other men, all wearing masks, forced their way into an apartment where four students at Worcester Polytechnic Institute lived. One of perpetrators was carrying a gun, police said.

     They forced the four male students onto the ground as they went room to room. One of the victims struggled, and pulled Mr. Russell's mask off, police said. That victim later recognized Mr. Russell, who fled with the two still-masked men, according to police.

     Several hours later, Mr. Russell was taken into custody in his dorm room at Becker College.

    The East Hampton Conservators, the political action committee founded by Alec Baldwin to back candidates who are strong on environmental protection, was accused by Republicans this week of violating campaign finance rules by placing ads in direct support of individual candidates.

    According to the New York State Board of Elections Web site, political action committees, while “not specifically defined in the New York State Election Law,” can raise money to support candidates or political committees, but are not supposed to make “direct expenditures on behalf of candidates.”

    The Conservators are “acting as an arm of the Democratic Party,” Thomas Knobel, the vice chairman of the East Hampton Town Republican Committee, said Tuesday. “They completely disown that, but that’s what they do. They’re pretending they’re not a political committee with a partisan agenda.”

    “If some Republican candidate jumped up tomorrow and outdid the Democrats in terms of environmental protection, I have no doubt that they [the Conservators] would hand money to a Republican candidate,” Mr. Baldwin said yesterday. “They’re not anti-Republican.”

    The group’s mission, according to its Web site, is “to control development, protect the environment and pure drinking water, and preserve open space and the quality of life through vigilance, public education, and the election of people dedicated to good government.”

    “That happens to be a belief typically supported overwhelmingly by Democratic candidates,” Mr. Baldwin said.

    “The attempt by the Democratic Party to seize control of the East Hampton Town Board at all costs is being tainted by big money,” the G.O.P. said in a release issued Monday on the heels of a complaint filed with the Board of Elections by Stuart Jones of Springs, a Republican committeeman. In an Oct. 16 letter to that board Mr. Jones charged that the Conservators made “blatant and public expenditures on behalf of candidates,” not only in this election cycle but in 2011.

    He pointed to advertisements paid for by the Conservators that champion the Democratic candidates for town supervisor and town board, the most recent published two weeks ago in local papers. The ads proclaimed the Conservators’ backing of Larry Cantwell for supervisor and Kathee Burke-Gonzalez and Job Potter for the town board, and urged people to “join us in supporting the entire Democratic slate.” The Conservators paid for similar ads two years ago supporting the 2011 Democratic ticket.

    Under the apparent rules for PACs, a contribution to a candidate’s campaign committee, Friends of Larry Cantwell for instance, or to a constituted political committee, such as East Hampton Democrats Campaign 2013, would be acceptable, as would an issue-oriented ad not naming a candidate. But an ad that directly states support for particular candidates would not, unless a form is filed stating the specific candidates the PAC is backing.

    “It seems bizarre that you could give that same amount of money to the campaign committee and the campaign could run that ad,” Chris Kelley, the chairman of Campaign 2013, said Tuesday.

    “Maybe the Board of Elections will make it clearer, because it is a bit cloudy,” Mr. Jones said yesterday of the rules.

    Mr. Jones has asked the New York State Board of Elections to investigate the matter “to prevent repetition of the improper actions of this ‘PAC’ that are at best duplicitous, and, at worst, criminal.”

    “It may be,” he wrote, “that this group called the East Hampton Conservators is simply a political committee cloaking itself as a PAC. . . .”

    Asked why the distinction mattered, Mr. Knobel said a PAC “can receive almost unlimited moneys,” while the contribution limits are considerably less for a political committee and far less for a candidate’s committee. A political action committee is “more innocuous than a political committee,” Mr. Knobel said, and has “more lenient reporting requirements.”

    In each election cycle, for example, a political committee must explicitly state which candidates it is supporting. If the Conservators are indeed a political committee, Mr. Knobel said, then the group should operate as such and face the same contribution limits as, say, the East Hampton Town Republican Committee or the East Hampton Democrats. The Republicans want a level playing field, Mr. Knobel said.

    The Conservators’ Web site explains that the group engages in education and activism, advocacy, and fund-raising “to support candidates for election to public office who support protecting the environment and quality of life in East Hampton.”

    It does so thanks to some deep-pocketed contributors, including a “founders’ circle” of backers who have donated $10,000 or more. In financial disclosure reports to the Board of Elections through early July, Mr. Baldwin was the listed as the Conservators’ largest donor of the year, giving $5,000 in January. The Conservators had not filed a disclosure statement for the period ending in late September.

    David Doty, the treasurer for the Conservators, said the Republicans were making much ado about nothing, and that he has “been scrupulous” in filing financial disclosures accurately, stating all receipts and expenditures, while “one candidate for re-election to town board on the Republican line didn’t file for years, and even filed what seem like false statements.”

    He was referring to Councilman Dominick Stanzione, who in July at first filed a no-activity report for the first half of the year, but admitted his mistake and filed a detailed disclosure report after it was pointed out that he had run ads in various local papers during that period.

    “This is really a hysterical smokescreen covering the lack of willingness of a small group of political operatives to engage in constructive dialogue about the future of the town,” Mr. Doty wrote. It is “the kind of small-minded insider politicking that has led the Republicans of good will in this town to have no candidate for supervisor, even though they have the incumbent majority advantage. It’s a tempest in a teaspoon.”

    “This election is about who will reasonably control the ear-splitting airport noise that disturbs not only our town but our neighbors, who will think long and hard about the long-term smart solutions for our beaches, who will get a handle on the out-of-control nightclubs that destroy our quality of life, and who will commit to keeping our water clean,” Mr. Doty wrote.

    “I don’t consider it a big issue,” Mr. Jones said yesterday. “It’s either a mistake or an oversight, or they just disregarded the rule or the regulation. I don’t want to get into any kind of a contest with them. I agree with their position on water conservation and saving the harbors.

    The Conservators did not file a disclosure statement for the period ending in late September, presumably because they did not raise or spend money between July and the end of September. The next filing deadline for campaign disclosure statements is Friday, and Mr. Doty said he plans to file a form indicating support of specific candidates.

    “We are committed to being transparent and doing the right thing. If we need to file a form,” Mr. Doty said, “we will do that of course.”