A former New York City police officer may have been carrying a fully loaded handgun when he walked into the John M. Marshall Elementary School at about 9:45 a.m. on May 1, posing as an N.Y.P.D. working officer investigating school security.

     The man, Harry Dalian, 36, of East Hampton was a passenger in his mother’s 2012 Mercedes SUV two days later when police pulled the car over at a rest stop in Wainscott. He was found to be armed with a loaded 9 millimeter gun, which he has a permit to carry.

    Police Chief Gerard Larsen said Tuesday that there was no way of knowing whether Mr. Dalian had the gun on him when he entered the school. Village police and the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department confiscated that gun and eight more handguns, all legally registered to Mr. Dalian, after the arrest.

    According to police, Mr. Dalian visited the school seeking to drop something off for his 8-year-old daughter, a student at John Marshall.

    At his arraignment Friday evening before Justice Catherine Cahill, Mr. Dalian’s attorney, Edward Burke Jr., said his client had become concerned after finding an unlocked door at the school building. He went up to two uniformed officers in the parking lot, a detective and an officer who is regularly assigned to the premises during school hours.

    The pair later reported that Mr. Dalian had asked them about school security and what their schedule was for patrolling the school grounds. He then pulled out an N.Y.P.D. badge and ID, they said, saying he wanted to speak to the principal of the school, Gina Kraus, and the district superintendent, Richard Burns, and that he was looking forward to seeing a study being made of the school’s security plan.

    Suspicions raised, the officers looked into the identity of the man they had just spoken to. A call to the N.Y.P.D. produced the information that Mr. Dalian had been with the department from 2004 to 2006, when he left for personal reasons, though not before reporting his badge and ID lost or stolen.

    Mr. Dalian was picked up for questioning on Friday and interviewed at the Cedar Street stationhouse. He was arrested afterward, charged with criminal possession of stolen property in the fifth degree and criminal impersonation of a police officer, both class A misdemeanors.

    Mr. Burke termed the sequence of events leading to his client’s arrest “a great misunderstanding.”

    Village detectives have been coordinating their investigation with the county sheriff’s department, which immediately revoked Mr. Dalian’s New York State gun permit after his arrest.

    Chief Larsen pointed out that a metal detector outside the school building would have prevented Mr. Dalian from entering it if indeed he was armed, but cautioned that the metal detector alone could not prevent a tragedy, being “only as effective as the personnel manning it.”

    Mr. Dalian’s wife was in court on Friday during the arraignment and was visibly upset. An older woman sitting next to her comforted her, assuring her before the proceedings began that everything would be all right. At the same time, the defendant’s 2-year-old son was singing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” oblivious to what was going on around him.

    Justice Cahill released Mr. Dalian without bail. He has a June 13 date to be back in court.

    Chief Larsen said he has been banned from all school properties.

    Laura Michaels of Edgemere Road received a hearty round of applause from the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee on Monday after reporting that she had succeeded in having a building permit revoked for a house about to be built next to hers, on the banks of Fort Pond.

    Noelle and Thomas Twiggs of New York City, the owners of an acre-plus lot at 85 Edgemere Road, have proposed a 2,437-square-foot house with 1,225 square feet of decking and a retaining wall, sanitary system, and driveway on property adjacent to freshwater wetlands.

    Their initial application, which was later modified, called for two floors that would violate the “pyramid” law; five bedrooms, each with a bathroom; a five-foot crawl space, and a 2,000-square-foot deck. At some point in the past the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals had granted several variances to allow construction, but Ms. Michaels said she realized that others, specifically setback variances, were needed as well.

    “I knew I needed to hire an attorney,” she told the committee. She retained Christopher Kelley of Twomey, Latham, Shea, Kelley, Dubin, and Quartararo in Riverhead.

    She produced copies of a letter dated April 30 from Tom Preiato, the town’s senior building inspector, stating that he had revoked the building permit until the additional variances were obtained. The east side of the property requires a 20-foot setback from the property line, where 11.6 feet is proposed, and the north side needs a five-foot variance from the 20-foot standard. A pyramid variance for the height of the structure is necessary as well, Mr. Preiato said.

    Backed up by Lawrence Cook, who has been raising money for the Montauk Indian Museum, Ms. Michaels told the committee that several thousand artifacts were found during an archeological dig at the site. Mr. Cook, who is known for scouting the hamlet for ancient and Indian artifacts, said arrowheads, pots, and shark and seal remains found there indicate it was once used for cooking, and called the site both sensitive and significant.

    Ms. Michaels said the land slopes steeply down to a deep basin in the environmentally sensitive pond, said to be the second-largest freshwater pond on Long Island and a significant coastal fish and wildlife habitat that supports one of three smallmouth bass populations.

    The archeological boundaries do not extend off the property, she told the committee, adding that because of the archeological associations the parcel is eligible for nomination to the state and National Historic Register. When she learned it was up for sale, she said, she approached the owner, Timothy Hogan, to ask if he would consider allowing the town to purchase it with money from the community preservation fund. She said Mr. Hogan thought that was a great idea.

    She then called Scott Wilson, the town’s director of land acquisition and management, and, she said, was told that the parcel was already on the preservation fund committee’s radar. It was scheduled for discussion by the committee at the end of November 2011.

    Ever since, Ms. Michaels said, she had thought the property would be purchased and preserved by the town, until she learned that Mr. Hogan had sold it to an outside buyer for $575,000.

    She vowed to keep fighting. The committee gave her its unanimous support with no abstentions, which is a rarity for the Montauk group.

    East Hampton Town Councilman Dominick Stanzione, the board’s liaison to the Montauk advisory committee, told the board about the discussion the next day. After his report, the town attorney, John Jilnicki, clarified that the owners had applied for and been granted a natural resources special permit and three variances, but that they still need the three variances mentioned above.

    A new budget, a new village administrator, a new lighted crosswalk, and a new source of fuel at the Emergency Services Building were topics of discussion at an East Hampton Village Board work session last Thursday.

    Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. announced the tentative 2013-14 operating budget, which, at $19.6 million, would represent a spending increase of 3.2 percent, or $617,322.

    Reading from a prepared statement, the mayor said there will be an increase in the tax rate of 2.2 percent and that the spending increase will be partially offset by a non-tax revenue increase of 6 percent, or $458,407. “The resulting increase in the amount to be raised by taxes is $258,913, which is $12,141 less than the state-mandated 2-percent tax cap formula,” which, he said, was the important point.

    After soliciting but receiving no comment from the public, the board had just authorized a property tax levy in excess of the 2-percent cap. “Had we had to override that 2-percent tax cap, we had the ability in place . . . we don’t have to,” Mayor Rickenbach said. “The board is happy to announce to the public that we’re staying below the 2-percent tax cap formula.”

    The spending increase here, as in many other communities, is mostly attributable to an increase to the state retirement contribution ($198,112) and a $339,781 increase in debt service, the mayor said. “The annual debt service payment will remain low, at a level of just under 6 percent of our total budget. That’s way below our maximum ceiling,” he said. “Budget spending is basically flat.”

    Capital projects transfers provide funds for $200,000 of roadwork, $80,000 to install a lighted crosswalk on Newtown Lane, and $65,000 to replace the beach tractor. “We believe that the lighted crosswalks on Main Street have worked,” the mayor said.

    The increase in non-tax revenue is attributable to services to other governments for emergency communications ($146,277), fines returned from Town Justice Court ($105,000), beach parking and building permits ($99,500), and rentals ($58,000). The mortgage tax, the mayor said, would raise $40,000.

    The added funds for emergency communications reflects the increased cost of a new three-year contract between the village and fire and ambulance responders in Montauk, Amagansett, Springs, and Sag Harbor, Larry Cantwell, the village administrator, told The Star on Tuesday. The increase in fines, he said, is due to better collection for minor infractions. “A year ago, the town and village agreed to a new contract with a new firm that does the collections,” Mr. Cantwell said. “Their collection rate has gone up.” A 3-percent rent increase was levied at the Sea Spray Cottages and the concession at Main Beach Pavilion, the Chowder Bowl.

    “It’s important to note that over the last six years, the tax rate in the Village of East Hampton has gone up by an average of 2.1 percent,” said the mayor. “The finances of many governments at all levels have deteriorated. We, the village, have managed to maintain an accumulated fund balance or surplus. We believe we have struck a balance between funding necessary services, maintaining our infrastructure and buildings, cutting expenses where they are prudent, and modestly increasing revenues where appropriate.”

    There have been targeted salary increases for some village employees, he said, but “on balance, we’re trying to maintain that legitimate cost frame for the residents that have to pay the taxes.”

    Mayor Rickenbach also asked that the board recognize Mr. Cantwell and the various department heads “for working closely in achieving the goal that we’re announcing today. It was a lot of hard work by a lot of people to come up with a valid product.”

    A hearing on the tentative budget will be held on June 6.

    The mayor also cited savings resulting from the Emergency Services Building’s transition from oil to natural gas — $8,000 over the first three months of 2013 relative to the same period last year. “I think that’s phenomenal,” said the mayor.

    Rebecca Molinaro, the new village administrator, had assumed her new role the day before. Mr. Cantwell, said the mayor, “has set a very high bar for Becky to follow, but given Becky’s professional and municipal background, I think your board agrees that it’s going to be as seamless a transition as it possibly can be.” Addressing Ms. Molinaro, he wished her luck and promised that the board would “put [her] feet to the fire.”

    “Your honor,” Mr. Cantwell said, “there’s optimism about Becky. We worked together yesterday for the first time. And she came back today,” he said, to much laughter.

    The question of whether a manager or administrator is appropriate and advisable for the Town of East Hampton was the subject of a lively debate at the village’s Emergency Services Building on Saturday.

    Sponsored by the East Hampton Group for Good Government, the League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, and the East Hampton Business Alliance, the 90-minute forum provided residents a range of opinions from elected officials and others.

    Lynn Sherr, formerly of ABC News and an East Hampton resident since 1980, moderated a panel consisting of Steven Altieri, administrator of the Town of Mamaroneck; Howard Arden, supervisor of North Castle, N.Y., which added an administrator in October; Carole Campolo, a retired New York City government executive and resident of Springs; Larry Cantwell, the East Hampton Village administrator; Zachary Cohen, a 2011 candidate for East Hampton Town supervisor, and Barbara Jordan, former president of the League of Women Voters of the Hamptons.

    The League of Women Voters, Ms. Jordan said, began to study the issue in 2008 and held a forum on the subject the following year. That study led to the league’s advocacy of the council-manager form of government. Its support for a change in the organizational structure, she said, “is based on the fact that since its inception our local town government has grown in complexity to the point where we believe professional management of the administrative details of government should be in the hands of professionals.”

    The town board, she said, spends “an inordinate amount of time on administrative details, many of which people are truly not qualified to do, but it’s part of the job.” This discourages otherwise qualified and talented people from running for office, she said.

    Combining the leadership of elected officials with the managerial experience of a trained administrator who would oversee delivery of public services would produce more effective and efficient government, Ms. Jordan said.

    A town manager’s duties would include serving as the board’s chief adviser, preparing budgets, hiring and firing department heads, supervising day-to-day operations, formulating and implementing personnel policies, negotiating contracts with employees, and enforcing local laws and ordinances, she said. (An administrator would have a similar job description, but would not have hiring and firing authority.)

    Mr. Altieri quoted Alfred Gatta, manager of the Village of Scarsdale, who he said had made an interesting comment at the 2009 forum. “He said, ‘Council members are elected to do the right thing, and managers are hired to do things right.’ “ A professional manager, he said, provides continuity, interdepartmental management, and efficiencies in staffing, borrowing, finances, and budgeting.

    Interdepartmental management is lacking in the present town government, Mr. Cohen said, and a town manager becomes a point of centralized knowledge, critical in the event of a newly elected board consisting of neophytes. “All of us who have proposed the town manager system are hoping it’s not a politicized system that changes with every supervisor change.”

    It is a form of government that can work in the town, said Mr. Cantwell, who is retiring from his position as village administrator and has announced his candidacy for town supervisor. His position had grown organically from within, he said, “because the board felt there was a need to have someone in place who would help them carry out their policies in an efficient way, and also provide institutional memory over time, and stability and continuity so that policy was carried out evenly over time.”

    “You don’t necessarily have to think of this in terms of establishing the office and bringing someone in to create a new department. . . . If you can find someone within the organization who has the skill and ability to take on additional responsibilities and fill this role, that may be the best way to implement it,” he said.

    Ms. Campolo, who Ms. Sherr said specialized in budgeting and operations over 30 years in New York City and State governments, was a lone dissenting voice. “I feel like the ants at the picnic,” she joked, before citing the town’s 2009 budget deficit of $27 million, which she called the most serious crisis in the town’s history after the Hurricane of 1938. “We were on the precipice of bankruptcy.” This was avoided, she said, thanks to “incredibly impressive organizational efficiencies and reforms. Departments were reduced from 21 to 13. Headcount was reduced from a staggering 400 full-time staff to 300. The budget was reduced from $72 million to $64 million.”

    This was accomplished without a town manager. “I’m not sure why we would then look to increase our headcount once more,” she said. Even with recent staffing and budget cuts, the town government remains bloated, she said. “Before we increase the size of the staff, the elected officials and town leaders . . . need to take a hard look at how to bring down the current number of employees, how to continue reforms in making government more efficient.”

    “There’s no doubt in my mind,” Mr. Arden countered, “that you would not have a $29 million deficit that you’re having to pay back if you had a town administrator five years ago.”

    Such was Mr. Arden’s confidence that he campaigned for supervisor on the platform of bringing in a town administrator. “I already knew how valuable it was,” he said. Describing politics as a beauty contest, he said, “You’re not going to get, necessarily, the right person for the right job.”

    Saying he did not run for office to address minutiae such as potholes or brush pickup, an administrator, he said, allows him to work on “big projects, things that will make a difference in the future of our town.” A qualified candidate was identified and hired at an annual salary of $135,000, he said. Mr. Arden volunteered to take a 60-percent cut in his own salary, and medical benefits for elected town board members were eliminated in order to pay for the new position.

    Initial objection due to the added expense was quickly assuaged, Mr. Arden said, and the results have been dramatic. “It’s been amazing, the coordination among departments. We’ve done a great job as far as cross-training people, as far as actually cutting staff in many cases.” Seven of 13 department heads were replaced, he added. “It has been a huge upgrade in personnel.”

    Nonetheless, said Ms. Campolo, an administrator shouldn’t be necessary. “When department heads and staff are doing their jobs at the best level they possibly can, that automatically frees up the executive and town board members to focus on policy,” she said. “In a large agency, that’s exactly what happens.”

    But the important point that Mr. Altieri and Mr. Arden were making, Mr. Cantwell said, is that an administrator brings a different skill set to local government. “One is a professional manager trained to do specific tasks, find efficiency, manage people, and run the day-to-day operations. You’re talking about a chief operating officer, really. The supervisor needs to provide much broader leadership throughout the community.”

    He cited coastal erosion, groundwater contamination, the septic waste disposal problem, and East Hampton Airport as “big issues that affect everybody in the community. The supervisor and the board should be spending their time thinking about, solving, and having a vision about how to resolve these big issues that impact the entire community, and less time with how the pothole gets fixed.”

    “How are the beaches?”

    It’s the first question being put to employees working the phones at Montauk’s beachfront motels this spring. The good news is that reservations are strong. The scary news is that a strong tourist season has such a shaky foundation.

    Resorts report that concern over the loss of sand and dunes caused by Hurricane Sandy and the string of northeasters that followed has sparked increased interest in Montauk as a summer destination. At the same time, the question lays bare an underlying trepidation.

    “It’s what’s on everyone’s minds,” said Steve Kalimnios, owner of the Royal Atlantic Resorts. “ ‘How are the beaches out there? Are we going to have a summer in Montauk, or are we going to have to move on to another area?’ ” But there’s been a different sort of call this year, Mr. Kalimnios said. While it’s still too early to tell, he said, the demand for reservations may reflect an influx of people looking into Montauk as an alternative to destinations they frequented prior to Sandy, in western Long Island, New Jersey, and even Pennsylvania.

    Colin Wood, general manager of the Atlantic Terrace on the eastern end of Montauk’s downtown beachfront, agreed: “The big impression is, people want to know how the beach is.” Mr. Wood said the number of first-time guests is up, plus visitors who, in a sense, have lost their summer for lack of sand. “We’re hearing from New Jersey,” he said.

    Mr. Kalimnios concurred: “The majority of our clientele has been New York City, Long Island, and Connecticut. That’s our client base. The appeal to the East End is the proximity to their homes. They don’t have to hop on a plane. If we lose that. . . .” He trailed off, leaving an uncertain future dangling.  

    “We keep assuring them that we have a beach,” he said, albeit a beach largely manufactured by the hotel owners themselves “with no help from anyone else. It’s mind-blowing we’re in this position. We are supporting the whole community.”

    The veteran hotelier said that while reservations indicate that Montauk continues to be seen as a sunny and sandy summer destination, what his reservationists are hearing underscores what he’s been telling the ad hoc town committee charged with recommending a beach-saving strategy.

    “If we lose that, [vacationers] will have to move on to another area. This is my worst fear coming to pass,” Mr. Kalimnios said.

    The Royal Atlantic resorts and their neighboring hotels and condos along what is known in Montauk as Motel Row have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars replacing sand in recent years. Mr. Kalimnios has weathered criticism for taking it upon himself to install sand-covered concrete rings as an emergency revetment. He has called upon East Hampton Town, or at least the Montauk business community in cooperation with the town, to contribute to the cost of keeping sand on the hamlet’s most popular beaches, but the approach has gained little traction so far.

    “We will be busy,” said Laraine Creegan with an accent on “busy” as if what she expected was more akin to a vacationing tidal wave.

    She is the director of the Montauk Chamber of Commerce. “Montauk has been discovered,” she said, “and there have been issues with New Jersey and farther west on Long Island.” As a destination, Ms. Creegan said, the easternmost hamlet on the South Fork fits within the two-hour-drive limit that most vacationers place on a two or three-day getaway.

    The chamber director agreed that while the search for less eroded beaches was attracting business, it also proved the need to keep them in place. “The beaches are a big draw, very critical to Montauk, not just for the businesses but for the people who live here year round. If we are offered millions of dollars because of the studies and don’t take it, we’d be crazy.”

    She was referring to the possibility that Montauk’s downtown beaches are eligible for federal dollars by virtue of their inclusion in the Army Corps of Engineers’ Fire Island to Montauk Reformulation Study. The study, now decades in the making, seeks to tailor-make strategies for protecting beaches and beachfront properties for each community in its range.   

    Ms. Creegan reflected upon the decision, made in the wake of the 1938 Hurricane, to move Montauk’s downtown from the shores of Fort Pond Bay to where it is now — not a good one in hindsight, she observed.

    “If it has to be a tax district [to create a fund to rebuild eroded beaches], then that’s what we’re going to have to do,” she said. “We’re not going to let businesses fall into the ocean. Everyone who owns property here has to come to grips with it, not take it lightly. It has to be a concerted effort, and we can’t put it off.”

    The town awaits the Army Corps’ decision as to whether Montauk’s downtown beaches should be included on a list of areas to be protected using federal dollars in a manner that has yet to be designed. Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson said yesterday that he was informed on Monday by Representative Timothy Bishop’s office that release of the Corps’ interim report on eligibility was imminent.

    If Montauk gets the go-ahead, the supervisor said, the Corps’ project would be undertaken in two phases. The first would be sand replenishment. The second would be a strategy for maintaining the beach in the future.

    The town board recently decided to amend the Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan in order to consider short-term protective measures.

    Beating the major parties to the punch, the East Hampton Independence Party announced its 2013 slate on Tuesday, naming Larry Cantwell as its supervisor candidate, and Fred Overton and Councilman Dominick Stanzione as its choices for town councilman.

    “I want to see a mixed board that can work together,” Elaine Jones, the party’s chairwoman, said Tuesday. Mr. Cantwell, the East Hampton Village administrator, is also seeking the Democratic nomination. Mr. Overton, the town clerk, and Mr. Stanzione are the Republicans’ nominees for town board.

    The party also screened four town board hopefuls seeking the Democratic nomination: Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, Job Potter, Kathy Cunningham, and Peter Wadsworth.

    In the end, its choices came down to experience, the party said in a release. “Experience was clearly the most impressive quality among the candidates this year.”

    Mr. Cantwell has worked for the village for 31 years and served on the town board and as an elected town bay constable before that. Mr. Stanzione, who had been nominated by the Independence Party in 2009 as well, is completing his first term on the town board. Mr0. Overton has been the clerk for 13 years and was a town assessor and town trustee for 12 years before that.

    In 2011, the Independence Party ran its own candidates for town board, Bill Mott and Marilyn Behan, but typically the party backs candidates on one of the major party tickets. This year, Ms. Jones was determined to nominate candidates who would get the nod from either the Democrats or the Republicans, but to do that she had to rely on her political instincts.

    Zachary Cohen, the Democrats’ supervisor candidate in 2011, is still hoping to win their nomination and also screened on April 23 with the Independence Party. In 2011, the local Independence Party wanted to endorse Mr. Cohen, but was overridden by the county party. “I still respect Zach,” Ms. Jones said Tuesday, “but I just don’t think it’s his time.” The vote to back Mr. Cantwell was unanimous, she said.

    “I’m honored to accept their nomination,” Mr. Cantwell said yesterday. Asked if he would consider an endorsement from Republicans as well, should it be offered, he said, “My focus of attention is to earn the nomination of the Democratic Committee, and the rest of it is just speculation.” Backing by the Independence Party can offer staunch party loyalists a way to vote for a candidate they like without voting for a party they don’t. “I have a number of friends who are strong Republicans who might break out in a cold sweat having to pull a different line for me,” Mr. Cantwell said. “They will sweat a little less pulling the Independence lever.”

    In its announcement Tuesday, the Independence Party said Mr. Cantwell “carries with him the peaceful demeanor needed to bring consensus and unified forward thinking among people.” His years in public service are “testament to the success of his approach,” the party said.

    Mr. Overton, in his various roles, “has been presented with difficult and confidential situations that were handled with finesse and genuine kindness,” the party said. “He is unflappable.”

    And Mr. Stanzione, the party wrote, has “stood up to politics and made decisions based on what is good for the people and the environment.” In the past three-plus years on the board, he “has shown his ability to work with others and think for himself. More importantly, he has been able to flourish under pressure when he has had to battle to be an independent thinker.”

    The party also nominated Carole Brennan, the deputy clerk, for town clerk, calling her “a natural to slide into the seat. . . .” Joe Bloecker, a town trustee and the Republicans’ choice for town assessor, also got the Independence nod. “Now here’s a man who has done it all when it comes to qualifications for town assessor,” the release said. He has bought and sold real estate, been a contractor and carpenter, and “is no stranger to working hard for a living.”

    For town justice, the party named Carl Irace, also the Republicans’ candidate. He was an assistant town attorney from 2010 to 2012 and provided counsel to the zoning board of appeals, town board, and Planning and Natural Resources Departments during that time. He now offers legal counsel to the Amagansett Life-Saving and Coast Guard Station, in addition to his private work. He is running for the seat that will be vacated by Catherine A. Cahill, a Democrat.

    For highway superintendent, Steve Lynch, the Republican incumbent, got the nod, and earned praise for having “saved the town a bundle of money, improved working conditions for his men, made homeowners happy, and kept us rolling as well as possible during storms,” the local Independence Party said in a release.

    The Independence Party nominated all but one of the seven incumbent trustees seeking re-election — the Democrat Stephen Lester and the Republicans Stephanie Forsberg, Sean McCaffrey, Nat Miller, Tim Bock, and Diane McNally. The party also threw its support behind Brian Pardini, Brian Byrnes, and Dennis Curles, who will run on the Republican ticket. Ms. Jones said she had told Deborah Klughers, a Democrat running to keep her seat, that she and all the other incumbents would get the endorsement. In the end, her fellow committee members failed to follow suit, she said.

    Mr. Cohen, who congratulated Mr. Cantwell on the nomination, criticized the Independence Party for “the unfair way” that Ms. Klughers was treated. “The trustee incumbents were . . . told they did not need to attend the screening, which I confirmed the night I was there. Under those circumstances it is completely unfair that Deb was not either nominated or given a chance at a future date to screen for a place that the Independence Party could have held open.”

    Republicans have yet to nominate a candidate for supervisor. Democrats will make their choices official at a nominating convention on May 15. Mr. Cohen has said he expects the nomination for supervisor to be a floor fight. If so, Mr. Cantwell said, he is “confident that I will earn the support of the Democratic Committee, ultimately, based on my years of experience in the community and my 37 years of public service.”

    The role of a professional town manager and the spectrum of ways East Hampton might use one will be discussed during a public forum on Saturday moderated by Lynn Sherr, an award-winning television correspondent and author.

    The discussion, which begins at 3 p.m. at the Emergency Services Building on Cedar Street, is sponsored by the East Hampton Business Alliance, the East Hampton Group for Good Government, and the League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, which has held previous forums on the subject and advocates that East Hampton Town adopt this model.

    Several panelists will discuss the rationale for having a professional manager who reports to elected officials. Stephen Altieri is the administrator for the Town of Mamaroneck in Westchester County. Larry Cantwell, a 2013 candidate for East Hampton Town supervisor, is retiring from his post as East Hampton Village administrator. Zachary Cohen ran for East Hampton supervisor in 2011 and is again seeking the Democratic nomination. Howard Arden is the supervisor of the Town of North Castle, N.Y., which just hired a town administrator in the fall. Also on the panel will be Carole Campolo, a retired New York City government executive, and Barbara Jordan, a former president of the League of Women Voters.

    “Many people erroneously believe that the town supervisor is the town’s chief executive officer,” Arthur Malman, co-chairman of the Group for Good Government, said in a release. “Under town law, the five-member town board, as a group, is the town’s chief executive officer. The supervisor is the town’s chief financial officer and is the presiding officer at town board meetings.”

    “Having five people act as both the legislative body and the administrative body may lead to difficulties, and the actual functioning of the town board will depend on the personalities of its ever-changing members,” Mr. Malman said.

    Saturday’s discussion will be taped by LTV and will be aired later on Cablevision’s Channel 20.

    Eighteen months after a fire destroyed Scoville Hall, the building used by the Amagansett Presbyterian Church for social events, meetings, and fund-raisers, its charred husk still stands. Demolition is imminent, however, thanks to the intervention of a celebrated attorney who happens to have a house on the same leafy, quiet street, Meeting House Lane.

    Since the involvement, beginning three months ago, of Barry Slotnick, who has represented high-profile clients including Bernard Goetz, Anthony Quinn, Joseph Colombo, and the former congressman Mario Biaggi, a protracted disagreement between Peerless Insurance and its client, the church, is moving toward resolution.

    The building, dedicated as the church’s Parish House in 1925, was named in 1973 for the Rev. Clarence Beecher Scoville, who led the congregation from 1919 to 1943. In the early hours of Oct. 15, 2011, the Amagansett Fire Department was notified that Scoville Hall was burning. More than 100 firefighters from five districts spent the next three hours fighting the blaze.

    The building had been an essential resource for many in the community, serving as a home for the Amagansett food pantry and a meeting place for recovering alcoholics, among other groups. Its continued existence, 18 months after the fire, has annoyed some residents of the block. “You have people on our street all wondering about it,” said John Jaxheimer, who lives there. “Half the town drives by Scoville Hall wondering, ‘How this can be going on?’ ”

    “We are every bit as frustrated,” said the minister of the church, the Rev. Steve Howarth. Mr. Howarth told The Star last August that church officials deemed the settlement offered by Peerless Insurance very low, but that he hoped an agreement would be reached within a month or two.

    “Accepting a less than equitable settlement doesn’t feel right,” Mr. Howarth said on Monday. “Honestly, it doesn’t feel right to the community. We don’t want to leave a lot of money in the insurance company’s pocket, and we don’t want to put up a modular piece that doesn’t fit the nature of the community. We want this to last a few centuries.”

    A sticking point in the dispute concerns the building’s foundation, the insurer contending that it should remain and a new structure be built upon it, said Britton Bistrian, a member of the church whose firm, Land Use Solutions, provides services including design and site planning, construction management, and the securing of permits and variances.

    “The foundation was constructed in the early 1900s and should not be built upon,” Ms. Bistrian wrote in an e-mail. “Due to the era of the building construction, it is likely there is very little, if any, structural support, from steel reinforcement to proper footings. It is my opinion that the new building should be constructed on a new foundation meeting all present-day construction codes and standards of good building practice.”

    The insurer, said Mr. Howarth, “is in effect saying we can patch the building from the first floor up. My sense is simply that the loss was much more extensive from both fire and water and, now, continuing weather damage, and that in order to rebuild a structure in keeping with today’s construction methods and code requirements, we believe that it’s going to be necessary to start anew.”

    Enter Mr. Slotnick, of the firm Buchanan Ingersoll and Rooney. “I was very offended by the fact that I saw this burned-out building sitting on Meeting House Lane without anyone doing anything,” he told The Star last Thursday. “I took one look and said this is the folly of the insurance company — they’re going to keep everyone strung out.”

    Mr. Slotnick offered his assistance to Mr. Howarth, who accepted. “We got in touch with the insurance company,” the lawyer said. “We told them unless and until there’s a resolution, we would do a $100 million lawsuit. They realized we were not kidding. We’ve done this before.”

    In 2007, Mr. Slotnick sued the insurer Lloyd’s of London on behalf of Steve Wynn, the casino mogul, regarding a Picasso painting, “Le Rêve,” which Mr. Wynn owned and had accidentally punctured. The damage happened just one day after he’d agreed to sell the painting for $139 million; the sale was canceled in light of the accident. Mr. Wynn claimed Lloyd’s owed him $54 million for the loss in the painting’s value resulting from the damage. Mr. Slotnick asserted on his client’s behalf that the insurer has dragged its feet, withholding appraisers’ reports on the painting. The case was reportedly settled to Mr. Wynn’s satisfaction.

    The dispute over Scoville Hall’s foundation “will probably be resolved in our favor,” Mr. Slotnick said. “We have the ability to bring in experts who will be able to give us appropriate reports, and the insurance company, I think in exchange for not being sued, will go along with what we have to say.”

    Mr. Slotnick’s firm referred church officials to Young Adjustment Company, a public adjustor that represents the insured. “Barry’s firm was extremely helpful for arranging Young to help us at a rate that made it possible for us to hire them,” Mr. Howarth said, adding that based on recent discussions, demolition is expected to commence within two weeks.

    “I have a demolition estimate on my desk,” Ed Williamson of Young Adjustment Company said yesterday. “Once we do the demolition, we are going to be able to then examine what I will refer to as the basement walls to see if they’re damaged, and proceed accordingly.”

    Neither Mr. Howarth nor Mr. Slotnick would divulge a settlement figure offered by the insurer, nor the discrepancy between it and what the church sought. But Peerless Insurance, Ms. Bistrian wrote, is “completely unreasonable with the cost of the rebuild, giving us pennies on the dollar.”

    “We don’t believe they’ve come up with the right price,” Mr. Williamson said of Peerless. “When they started out with an offer, they brought in an individual that was probably not capable of doing the job.”

    “The original contractor that the insurance company utilized to give them estimates is now gone,” Mr. Slotnick said.

    Mr. Howarth did not offer an estimate of the cost of reconstruction. “But it’s substantial, and far more than our church could raise with fund-raising dinners,” he said.

    Mr. Williamson said an initial figure of $800,000 to cover demolition and reconstruction has been increased to $1.2 million. “That’s a quantum leap,” he said. “I don’t necessarily believe it can be done for one-point-two — I guarantee it won’t be, because I can see already that the demolition was 15 to 18 percent short — but we’re moving along.”

    Asked for comment, Jonathan Lawlee, the claims adjustor handling the case for Peerless Insurance, referred The Star to the insurer’s public relations department. Christopher Goetcheus of that department e-mailed yesterday to say that the company does not comment on open claims.

    “At this juncture, they’re apologetic for their misdeeds,” Mr. Slotnick said.

    On the foggy early morning of May 8, 1978, a strikingly beautiful sailing yacht went hard aground on the rocks just east of Ditch Plain Beach in Montauk. She was Amazon, a steel-hulled, 72-foot, yawl-rigged ocean racer designed by Sparkman and Stephens.

    “It was a very disheartening sight to see such a beautiful classic sailboat lodged in the rocky bottom. Montauk has a long history of shipwrecks with an unfavorable history for salvage,” wrote Kevin McCann, a photographer and writer who grew up in Montauk. He witnessed the triumphant rescue of Amazon, which took the blessing of Lloyds of London and nearly a month of ingenious engineering to achieve.

    Mr. McCann chronicled the Amazon’s salvage at the time. He has posted his photos on his Web site, snatchingphantoms.com, to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the yacht’s grounding and the seat-of-the-pants ingenuity that saved her from ruin just seven years from her launch.

    John B. Goulandris, a Greek shipping magnate, was a close friend of George Coumantaros, a legendary ocean yachting champion who set records in the Newport-to-Bermuda race aboard the Baccara, a Sparkman and Stephens design that inspired Mr. Goulandris to commission one like it. Amazon was built at the prestigious Camper and Nicholsons shipyard in Southampton, England, in 1971.

    Amazon cruised and raced the Eastern Seaboard until she was sold in 1977. On the day of the grounding, the yacht was en route to Maine from Florida. At the helm was Bryce Muir, whose family had purchased the yacht.

    It was a foggy spring morning, the kind of eerie weather common to Montauk in the spring. Fortunately, the ocean was calm. As Mr. McCann points out in his description of the wreck, Long Island sticks out into the ocean like a foot ready to trip vessels moving up and down the coast. Captain Muir did not have the advantage of GPS in 1978. He wasn’t the first to misjudge the length of Long Island’s South Fork.

    According to Mr. McCann’s research, the Coast Guard alerted Chesterfield and Associates, a marine construction company from Westhampton Beach, shortly after the grounding. At about the same time, Mr. McCann’s brother, Roger, contacted Pat Bistrian, an operator of heavy machinery from East Hampton. The two came up with an ambitious plan that was approved by the yacht’s insurer.

    Because Amazon came aground at high tide on a rock reef that extended perhaps 50 yards offshore, it was not possible to pull her off. The first step then was for a 100-ton crane to lift and manipulate the 105,000-pound vessel off the rocks and onto the beach beside the dirt and clay bluff.

    After Amazon’s 105-foot-high mast was removed, a road was built using steel I-beams and concrete supports. A few of the supports remain to this day.

    It cost $40,000 to construct a combination cradle/sled for the boat. Using bulldozers, Amazon was nudged and towed 300 yards to the sand beach at Ditch Plain where a tug pulled her out to sea. She was taken to Derecktor’s shipyard in Mamaroneck, N.Y., where she was made whole again. Mr. McCann relayed that in a recent conversation David Allen of Chesterfield and Associates had said Amazon’s successful rescue was mostly due to the fact that her steel hull was able to take the strain. And, after 30 days of lifting and pushing by cranes and bulldozers, there was almost no damage to beach or bluff.

    Amazon changed hands a few times but continued racing in the North Atlantic and off southern Europe through the 1980s. In 1992, her German owner, Klaus Lower, refitted Amazon in the Netherlands, maintaining her original yawl design and sail plan. In the mid-1990s and early 2000s, Amazon sailed the Caribbean as a luxury charter boat owned by a Scandinavian company.

    In 2009, she was purchased by Olivier Pecoux and refitted in La Rochelle, France. Amazon is still owned by Mr. Pecoux, a member of the British Classic Yacht Club. The handsome yacht, whose life might well have ended on a rocky Montauk beach 35 years ago, is currently cruising the Mediterranean.

    An Amagansett man was arrested on April 24 and charged with forging Hampton Jitney tickets.

    Stratford Skalkos, 68, had just gotten off an Ambassador, one of the company’s luxury buses, when Southampton Town police arrested him at the Omni, the company transportation hub on County Road 39. The one-way fare on the Ambassador is $45.

    Mr. Skalkos has a 1999 conviction for felony grand larceny, according to records kept at the county jail, where he was held until yesterday. The records department at the jail could provide no other details about the previous conviction, for which he served a one-year term in county jail.

    Police said Mr. Skalkos had used at least 10 forged Jitney tickets before he was arrested. Employees on the bus became suspicious of the ticket he presented last week and alerted management, which contacted the police.

    Mr. Skalkos was said to be in possession of numerous forged Jitney tickets at the time of his arrest. Police said he was also in possession of several people’s “personal information.” They did not give specifics, but Southampton detectives are conducting an investigation as to whether Mr. Skalkos was using the information for criminal purposes.

    Court documents available online detail an embezzling scheme dating back to the 1980s in which a man with the same name, Stratford Skalkos, then working for Avon Products, used company funds to pay his own bills. As of noon yesterday, Southampton police would not say whether this was the same man. They have asked that anyone with knowledge of the case, or of past crimes involving Mr. Skalkos, call the Southampton Town Detective Bureau, 631-702 2230.

    Police would not speculate as to how Mr. Skalkos created the alleged forgeries, whether by himself on a home computer or with professional help. Forgery in the second degree is punishable by up to seven years in prison.

    He posted bail of $7,500 yesterday and was released. He has a date in Southampton Town Court on May 22.

    In other police news, Melvin C. Smith of East Hampton, who was charged with felony assault on April 10, was brought back to East Hampton Justice Court last Thursday, where Justice Lisa Rana set bail at $5,000, after the office of the County District Attorney agreed to reduce the charge against him to a misdemeanor. His attorney, Joseph Giannini, has maintained since the arrest that Mr. Smith is innocent.

    The attorney said that his client had testified before a grand jury in Riverhead for six hours in the days following his arrest, and that the grand jury then declined to indict him. That led to the reduction in the level of the charge. Mr. Giannini took exception to an article in this newspaper reporting that he believed race to be a factor in the arrest. He meant, he said, that race was a factor in the fight that occurred, not in the arrest. Mr. Smith is black; his alleged victim is white.

    Mr. Smith could not meet the $5,000 bail, and was returned to the county jail. He is due back in court today.