The recent arrest of a Montauk man on a charge of possessing illegal fireworks may or may not have solved the riddle of the Montauk explosions.

    Over the past several months residents of the hamlet have reported hearing single, isolated, very loud explosions, said to be so powerful that people can feel their houses shake. Police have received the reports from all over the hamlet, adding to the mystery.

    On March 29, Dan Roman, an East Hampton Town police sergeant, was on patrol near the Plaza with Officer Daniel Toia when they heard a loud boom from across Fort Pond to the west. Almost immediately, a call came in to the Montauk stationhouse, reporting the big bang as having occurred in the neighborhood of Second House Road.

    Canvassing the secluded Shepherd’s Neck area, the two spotted “a burnt orange fireworks fuse paper” in the driveway of a South Easton house. Underneath the porch, “a large black metal launching tube” was plainly visible, and was still smouldering, they reported.

    James D. Mitchell’s car was by the house. Mr. Mitchell, 43, whose mailing address is a Montauk post office box, agreed to allow the officers to search the vehicle, and they found a small shell, a one-and-a-half-inch titanium mortar, inside.

    Mr. Mitchell was placed under arrest for the class B misdemeanor, and later released from the Montauk station with a future date in court. The shell and mortar were confiscated. Police have not said whether they believe there is a connection between the man arrested and the spate of big booms.

    A Tuesday night dispute at Shagwong restaurant in Montauk ended with the arrest of a Riverhead man on April 9. According to police, a woman was at the bar when Wayne Smith, 42, whom she told police had been “staring at her all night,” grabbed her buttocks as he was leaving. Her boyfriend took immediate exception to that.

    When police arrived Mr. Smith was standing outside the bar. Asked for identification, he was unable to produce any, the report said, and “attempted to walk away.”

    The woman, who was “visibly upset,” officers noted, said she wanted to press charges, leading to Mr. Smith’s arrest on the charge of forcible touching, a misdemeanor. He was taken to headquarters, where, police said, “he continued to be uncooperative. Justice Catherine A. Cahill set bail the next morning at $200.

    Matthew D. Santich, 51, of Montauk was arrested on April 6, accused of choking a woman in his residence at about 3:30 that morning, in what police called a domestic dispute. The woman called police, who, after a brief investigation, charged Mr. Santich with strangulation in the second degree, a class D felony, along with criminal mischief and physical harassment.

    A consortium of the major environmental organizations in East Hampton called upon the town this week to seek immediate advice on how to address coastal erosion. An experienced and “nationally recognized engineering firm” should be called in, they said, regardless of whether federal funding is secured for the Army Corps of Engineers to design a beach reconstruction project.

    “Designing and funding the short-term and long-term protective measures for our community are too important to attempt without the best professional, scientific, and technical guidance our community can afford,” the consortium said in a letter submitted to the board on Tuesday. It is signed by the heads of the Group for the East End, Citizens for Access Rights, the Nature Conservancy on Long Island, the Peconic Baykeeper, the Eastern Long Island Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, and the Concerned Citizens of Montauk.

    In recent weeks, the town board, after receiving a list of 11 short and long-term recommendations from a committee formed to address coastal erosion in Montauk in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, has bogged down on Supervisor Bill Wilkinson’s insistence that board members accept an Army Corps plan that could include the use of rocks to bolster the hamlet’s shoreline — apparently anticipating that to be what the Army Corps will propose, should the town be included in the agency’s scope of beach reconstruction work. The town has put in a bid for $20 million in federal funding.

    Town Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc and Councilwoman Sylvia Overby have held back their approval, wanting first, they said, to see the specifics of the Army Corps’ proposal. The lack of accord derailed action on other recommendations, and the board came under fire last week from Montauk business owners and residents pressing for action before severe storms arrive again. “We’re running out of time,” Steve Kalimnios, the owner of the Royal Atlantic motel, told the board on Tuesday.

    “East Hampton will need an expert who does not work for another branch of government or have competing business interests to advocate for our community’s best interest,” says the letter presented to the board on Tuesday by Jeremy Samuelson, the executive director of C.C.O.M. That should be, the writers said, engineers specializing in coastal geology, with experience delivering large-scale, “scientifically supported” beach erosion projects, “representing the highest regard for protecting the longevity of the beach that serves as a critical natural and economic resource.”

    Councilman Dominick Stanzione called the environmental coalition’s suggestion “a reasonable request.” But, he said, if a privately engaged engineer issues recommendations that differ from a proposal the town might receive from the Army Corps, “what we’re really doing is paying for opposition within your own ranks.”

    “I don’t want to preclude any expertise from coming to the town board and helping us with making a decision,” Ms. Overby said.    

    “I’m willing to accept the Army Corps, and to not engage in spending town money,” said Councilwoman Theresa Quigley.

    “The Army Corps is the senior engineering firm in the United States,” Mr. Wilkinson said. “There’s going to come a time when the Army Corps — if we’re so lucky — is going to say, this is the project; accept it or reject it.”

    Mike Marozas, a Montauk resident who recently called and spoke to representatives of the Army Corps, said he was told that the agency is in the funding-allocation stage, and any action is “18 to 24 months out.” 

    “My concern is, we need to be moving forward without knowing if we get the Army Corps funding or not,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said. Should the town be left out of the federal beach project, something will still have to be done. “I think we should get the best nationally recognized engineers to look at this,” he said.

    The town needs to take a “proactive stance,” Ms. Overby said.

    All of the board members agree that creating an “engineered beach” in Montauk is needed — designing a beach and dune system that will withstand future storms by adding sand. The question is whether underlying rocks or other hard structures would be included.

    “I can see the benefit of having, at least, the services available to educate the board on coastal erosion issues, or a fully engineered beach,” Mr. Stanzione said. But, he added, “I don’t see the need in having such services in dealing with a temporary solution.”

    The coastal committee had recommended that beachfront property owners be allowed, on a temporary basis, to bolster threatened foundations with concrete blocks or other “hard” solutions, and the board has been pressured to act quickly to allow emergency actions to take place, beyond what’s presently allowed under the town code — on the ocean beach, only sandbags or sand.

    “There hasn’t been any discussion about what the impact of that is,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said Tuesday. “We want to move as fast as we can, but we don’t want to make mistakes that are going to have a long-term impact. So I’m not comfortable with moving forward with any short-term measures without any kind of coastal engineering . . . without understand what the consequences are, what the impacts are.” He said he would be “more comfortable” allowing emergency installations of hard structures if there is a clear time limit on them, and if the town is moving forward concurrently with creation of an engineered beach.

    “I’d like to pursue the short-term solutions, and not burden them with too much analysis,” Mr. Stanzione said, “because we have a very short window.”

    In response to concerns raised last week about a potential negative effect on the town’s federal funding request, due to division on the board about okaying any potential project posited by the Army Corps, Mr. Van Scoyoc drafted a resolution outlining the board’s agreement to “seek resources” from the Corps for an engineered beach.

    Mr. Wilkinson was not satisfied with the wording in the resolution, that the board would “entertain options” presented by the Army Corps.

    “I thought the option was to support the Army Corps in their recommendation even if it includes hard structures,” the supervisor said. “If the Army Corps says it will include a rock base, I will support that.”

    “You want a commitment on a plan we haven’t seen,” Mr. Van Scoyoc told Mr. Wilkinson on Tuesday.    

    “I just want to make sure we’re talking about the same Army Corps that took 40 years to come up with recommendations, and the same Army Corps that screwed Culloden,” Mr. Samuelson said Tuesday. He referred to the length of time the Corps’ Fire Island to Montauk Reformulation Plan — now revitalized in the wake of Sandy — has been in the works, and to the installation of jetties at Montauk Harbor, which nearby homeowners blame for exacerbating erosion. “The work of the Army Corps has not been without deleterious impact or cost (financial and ecological) in our community,” Mr. Samuelson and the others wrote in their letter to the board.

     “I think the resolution as written is something we could all agree on,” Ms. Quigley said at the meeting. “This is a first step. I think what the supervisor’s asking is, he’d like it to go another step, [to say] . . . whatever the proposal is, we would agree to it.”

    A vote on the resolution is expected to take place at the board’s meeting tonight, beginning 7 p.m. at Town Hall.

    The construction site behind the East Hampton Library is beginning to resemble what it will soon become — a 6,800-square-foot children’s wing.

    With winter finally in the past, decorative brickwork has been laid and the new wing’s roof is being framed. Windows and doors should be delivered in the first week of May and installed by that month’s end, said Dennis Fabiszak, the library’s director. At that point, he said, work on the interior, whose design was recently finalized, will commence.

    “We are excited for people to see what it’s going to look like and are going to do some focus groups with kids and parents to tweak some of the ideas that we came up with,” said Mr. Fabiszak.

    The addition will include a 3,545-square-foot main level, with a basement level accounting for the remaining square footage. Part of the main level will be for sixth through eighth-grade students, a demographic that did not previously enjoy a dedicated space in the library.

    On the lower level, “We went down much deeper than the original basement so we could have some nice ceiling heights and really make a beautiful room,” Mr. Fabiszak said, describing the large windows and outdoor stairwell that will allow abundant natural light. An elevator will extend to the lower level. “Finally, 100 percent of the building will be handicapped-accessible,” he said.

    The construction crew worked through the winter, Mr. Fabiszak said, though the harsh weather conditions were hardly conducive to a smooth process. “We still were able to work through,” he said. “They even came up with an ingenious way to heat from underneath, so they were able to pour the concrete. We were able to get a lot done over the winter.”

    Construction has been slower than initially anticipated, Mr. Fabiszak said, with completion now slated for the end of this year. “The steelwork took a little longer than we had hoped, but we’ve built a very strong and sound building,” he said. “We want to do it right since we spent a lot of time planning.”

    That planning included a “greener” building than existed before. The library will transition from oil to gas heat, said Mr. Fabiszak, and will include solar panels and improved insulation. He has also applied for a grant from the state to obtain a building-wide generator, citing the library’s importance to the community in the wake of Hurricanes Irene and Sandy. “The community flooded into the library because we had Internet and power,” he said. “If there’s a bigger storm and we lose power like everybody around us, we still want to be able to provide service. We really want to make this a space that can be self-sufficient if we need to and still provide service.”

    Parking will be expanded as soon as construction materials can be cleared from the area, he said. “One of the big things the community wanted is more parking. That will be done before the summer.”

    The project, Mr. Fabiszak said, is proceeding under its projected budget. “Things are really in line,” he said. “Fund-raising is going great. We have donors coming in weekly for private tours so they can see what parts of it they want to sponsor. There’s a lot of support behind it.”

    Dr. Frank Adipietro and his wife, Mary Ellen, the race director of the Shelter Island 10K, were enjoying (he as a participant, she as a finish-line spectator) Monday’s marathon in Boston when bombs on Boylston Street turned what had been a joyous occasion into an ugly, bloody one.

    When the first bomb detonated, Ms. Adipietro, a registered nurse, and hundreds of others in the stands across the street were shaken by the explosion’s concussive force. Moments later, about a half-mile away, Dr. Adipietro (an anesthesiologist who oversees a popular pain-management center at Eastern Long Island Hospital in Greenport), who was on pace to finish the 26.2-mile race in 4 hours and 20 minutes — his goal — was halted by a policeman. The officer, Dr. Adipietro said during a conversation on the couple’s way home from Boston Tuesday morning, gave no explanation.

    “You can’t stop me!” the 55-year-old veteran of 30 marathons said, resuming his stride.

    But within moments, the rush of ambulances, fire engines, and emergency vehicles to the scene near the marathon’s finish line made it painfully clear, he said, that “something major” had happened. He was three minutes from the finish line when he acceded to a second police officer’s urging that he and his fellow runners get off the course, that a bomb had gone off.

    “It was bedlam,” Dr. Adipietro said. “I told the guy my wife was at the finish line and that I needed to know how she was. ‘I can’t help you,’ he said.”

    “I didn’t know what to do. Mary Ellen knew my pace — she’s run many marathons too. I was thinking something bad, or worse, had happened to her, and she was thinking the same thing about me. . . . It was a heart-stopping moment for both of us.”

    As it was, Ms. Adipietro and her fellow spectators in the stands — some of whom were said to be children from Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. — were spared because they were 50 feet removed from the blast across the street. In the midst of the blood and carnage and panicking adults, “she was amazing,” said her husband. “Some of the adults in the stands were panicking — running, screaming, crying — but Mary Ellen doesn’t panic. She worked to calm everybody down and to shepherd children who’d been left alone in those moments by their adult supervisors to safety. She kept her head and made sure the stands were evacuated in an orderly fashion. She made sure the children were reunited with the adults who were supposed to be looking after them. She did an amazing, beautiful job.”

    Asked if his wife had helped to treat the injured, Dr. Adipietro, who, had he not been diverted from the course might well have found himself in the sights of the second explosion, said, “She offered, she said, ‘I’m a nurse, I’d be happy to help.’ They thanked her for her offer, but didn’t let her because she wasn’t a volunteer.”

    Dr. Adipietro tried to get to the finish line by way of “a parallel street, Newbury,” but ultimately found his way blocked (“Boylston had been evacuated, there was nobody in the stands”), and returned to their hotel, the Four Seasons, “about three-quarters of a mile from the finish line. . . . I found her there — visibly shaken. She still can’t talk about it. That’s why I’m doing all the talking with you. She saw a person with both legs blown off. . . . I’m so glad she was able to help. That’s what she’s about, helping people.”

    “It was terrible, just terrible,” he continued. “They took the most joyful day, a day of celebration — it was Patriots Day, you know, and there were runners there from all over the world — and, in a matter of moments, turned what had been such a joyous day for hundreds of thousands into a day of tragedy, of profound sorrow.” He thanked God that their 11-year-old son, Liam, was not there.

    The Adipietros, who first met at the Shelter Island 10K in 1984, have been responsible for persuading some of America’s all-time elite distance runners — Bill Rodgers, Joan Benoit Samuelson, Frank Shorter, and Kim Jones among them — to take part in Shelter Island 10Ks in recent years.

    Asked if any of them had been at Boston, Dr. Adipietro said, “Joan was there — she ran in the race. I just spoke with her. She called to see if I was alive. And of course I was glad to hear she was okay too.”

    “Oh, yes,” he said in answer to another question, “the marathon will survive. It’s an honor to run in it. It’s part of the American way of life, a way for people to come together and to celebrate each other. It makes a city one big family. Definitely, it will survive. They’ll have to make some changes, obviously, but I’ll definitely be there next year, no question. Runners run. Nothing can stop us.”

    Before a crowd of friends, family, and old colleagues from across the local political spectrum, Larry Cantwell, the East Hampton Village administrator, announced his candidacy for East Hampton Town supervisor on Friday night at the Highway Diner in East Hampton, saying he hopes to win support from the Demo­cratic and Independence Parties.

    The Democrats will not vote on nominations until mid-May. Although a number of Democratic committee people came out to support Mr. Cantwell on Friday, he still faces a challenge for the nomination from Zachary Cohen, the Democrats’ 2011 candidate.

    “This is likely to go to a floor vote,” Mr. Cohen said Monday.

    Mr. Cantwell, Mr. Cohen, and Nancy Keeshan, vice-chairwoman of the town planning board, will screen for supervisor with the Independence Party on Tuesday.

    The Republicans had chosen most of their slate last month, but were sent back to the drawing board when County Legislator Jay Schneiderman decided to run again for his county post rather than attempt a return to East Hampton Town Hall as supervisor. Ms. Keeshan said yesterday that the Republican Committee invited her to screen for supervisor, and that she would do so in the coming week. “I was honored to be asked.”

    Ms. Keeshan and her father, John Keeshan, are partners in the Montauk firm Keeshan Real Estate. She has served on the planning board for three years and has been president for six years of the Montauk Village Association, a civic group dedicated to the beautification of Montauk’s downtown. “I grew up here. I enjoy giving back to the community,” she said. “I love this town. . . . There are a lot of important decisions to be made and I think you need to keep a watchful eye on how things change to protect our beautiful town for future generations.”

    Before being asked to sit down with the G.O.P., she screened for councilwoman with the Democrats. She is not affiliated with a party.

    Fred Overton, the town clerk, who was chosen to run on the G.O.P. ticket for town board along with Councilman Dominick Stanzione, had contemplated a supervisor run instead. He decided against it.

    Meanwhile, Mr. Cantwell has assembled a strong group of supporters, inluding State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., who introduced him at Friday’s announcement gathering, offering a biting critique of where East Hampton Town finds itself today, and strong praise for the man who hopes to change that. Mr. Thiele, now a member of the Independence Party, once endorsed Republican Supervisor Bill Wilkinson. The assemblyman has known Mr. Cantwell since high school.

    “East Hampton Town used to have a leadership position on eastern Long Island,” he said Friday. “East Hampton was the first, and other towns would look to see what East Hampton was doing. That’s not the case anymore.” The town, he said, needs to return to the kind of leadership it had under “Judith Hope, Cathy Lester,  and Tony Bullock” — all Democrats. “We need to go back to the future for the Town of East Hampton and to do that, we don’t need a DeLorean or a flex capacitor, we just need a leader.”

    To resolve the serious issues East Hampton is facing, Mr. Cantwell said, “we need a leader now more than ever who is a consensus-builder.”

    He offered a rough sketch of his platform. “We need to adopt a mitigation and recovery plan to protect against the threat of coastal erosion and sea-level rise,” he said. “We need a strong consensus to maintain a small, safe airport and a clear strategy to reduce noise impacts on residential neighborhoods. We need to invest in technology to make town government more efficient in serving the public. We need a long-term capital plan to address the town’s rapidly deteriorating infrastructure. We need a town supervisor who believes in and supports planning and zoning. We must protect our residential neighborhoods for the peaceful enjoyment of all residents, preserving open space and protecting our drinking water and harbors from pollution. We must support local businesses. Believing in planning and zoning and supporting local business should not be mutually exclusive.”

    He spoke of a “negative cloud” hanging over town workers, of neighborhoods “under siege with noise and overflow parking from nightclubs and overcrowded houses,” and said, “I will not play party politics to reward special interests while disregarding the rights of all our residents and the best interests of the community as a whole.”

    Mr. Cantwell, who will retire as village administrator this summer after 31 years, has been the village’s chief financial officer. “During this time the village maintained a budget surplus every year for three decades,” he said.

    He served on the town board and as a town bay constable before being hired by the village. He also ran unsuccessfully for town supervisor.

    “I worked on his first councilman campaign in 1976,” said Christopher Kelley, a Democratic committeeman who was at Friday’s gathering. Mr. Kelley said Mr. Cohen “is certainly a very qualified and able person and he did a great job last time,” but he is supporting Mr. Cantwell this time around “because of my history with him and because I think he would make a great supervisor.”

    Mr. Kelley’s support at the convention in May will mean more than just one vote among 38. Two committee people represent each election district, but their votes are weighted according to the number of Democrats in their district who voted in the last gubernatorial election. Mr. Kelley’s district in Springs is large relative to others in the town and heavily Democratic, so he wields considerable power when it comes to nominations.

    Among the other committee people there to support Mr. Cantwell Friday were Bill Taylor, Phyllis Italiano, and Joe Giannini. Also on hand were Barbara Borsack, an East Hampton Village Board member, Bruce Collins, a former Republican town supervisor, and Roger Walker, a former East Hampton Town justice who ran for supervisor on the Republican ticket. “It’s very refreshing to have him in the race,” Mr. Walker said. “I will support him 100 percent.”

    “There will be a lot of campaigning on both sides,” Mr. Cohen said Monday, adding that he is “respecting the protocols requested by the Democratic screening committee to maintain silence during the nominating period.”

    He said he has not been invited and does not plan to screen with the G.O.P. “without consultation with the Democrats,” and even then, “I’d be doing it for cross-endorsement.” In 2011, the local Independence Party wanted to endorse Mr. Cohen for supervisor and even announced that it had, but the county party, headed by Frank MacKay, came out instead with an endorsement of Mr. Wilkinson.

    “A lot of East Hampton Independence voters were very upset at the action and frustrated that their choice . . . was taken away from them,” said Mr. Cohen.

    Elaine Jones, chairwoman of the Independence Party, said yesterday that she has called Mr. MacKay to say that if he planned to “interfere in this election, he should come down and screen with us. He told me he would endorse our choice for the 2013 election.” On the list so far to be interviewed on Tuesday for the town board are Mr. Stanzione, Mr. Overton, and Kathee Burke Gonzalez, who also screened with the Democrats.

    Many have questioned whether Mr. Cohen would mount a primary if he does not win the nomination. “Let the floor vote go,” he said, “and if I don’t get it, I’m going to go home and sleep on it.”

    The Independence Party has invited candidates wishing to screen for any town office to contact Ms. Jones in Amagansett or the vice-chairwoman, Pat Mansire, in East Hampton before Tuesday evening. Interviews will be conducted at Ashawagh Hall in Springs starting at 6 p.m. The public is invited to attend to watch the process.

   School board elections are heating up as unusually contested this year in East Hampton and Springs, with five newcomers and an incumbent battling for three openings in East Hampton and three candidates hoping to fill two places in Springs. They have a little less than a month to make their cases in time for May 21 elections and budget votes.

    The six East Hampton candidates are J.P. Foster, Nicholas Boland, Richard Wilson, Mary Ella Moeller, Wendy Geehreng, and Alison Anderson, the incumbent board member. Two other incumbents, George Aman, board president, and Lauren Dempsey, decided to step down. Last year, only two residents ran for two open seats.

    In Springs, two board members, Kathee Burke Gonzalez, board president, and Teresa Schurr, announced they would not run again. Vying for their seats are Jeffrey Miller, Adam Wilson, and Martin William Drew Jr.

    There are two people vying for one seat in Montauk, which is covered in a separate story. Two incumbents, John Hossenlopp, president, and Victoria Smudzinski, are running unopposed in Amagansett.

      In East Hampton, Mr. Foster and Ms. Geehreng, who are related through marriage, plan to campaign as a trio with Mr. Boland. According to Mr. Foster, they will hold events together and hope to infuse the board with new blood and fresh ideas.

    Mr. Foster, 42, ran unsuccessfully for the school board in 2005. He works as a supervisor in East Hampton Village’s emergency operations center, is a real estate agent with the East Hampton office of Town and Country, and is on the East Hampton Town Planning Board. He has two children at the middle school.

    Ms. Geehreng, 41, works as a part-time pediatric nurse-practitioner at Southampton Pediatric Associates and as a real estate saleswoman at the East Hampton branch of Brown Harris Stevens. In September, she will have one child at East Hampton High School, one at East Hampton Middle School, and two at John M. Marshall Elementary School.

    Mr. Boland, 48, is a former lawyer who moved to East Hampton in 1996. While he doesn’t have children in the East Hampton system, his wife is a first-grade teacher at John Marshall. Self-described as a “small-business entrepreneur,” he started a home improvement business and then a company called Fuel Renewal.

    Mr. Wilson, 73, is a retired Sag Harbor science teacher and a regular at school board meetings. This is his first bid at public office. A resident of East Hampton since 1968, he hopes to improve the district’s science program. He has four grandchildren who attend East Hampton schools.

    Ms. Moeller is also a regular attendee at school board meetings. Outspoken, she routinely sits in the front row. A former home economics teacher, she moved to East Hampton in 1996. She is a member of the East Hampton Town senior citizens advisory committee and of the Ladies Village Improvement Society, a volunteer at the East Hampton Healthcare Center, and a deacon of the East Hampton Presbyterian Church. 

    At 75, she dismissed the notion that age might be an issue in a race where a majority of her competitors were much younger. “You’re only as old as you feel,” she said. “And I feel pretty young.”

    The incumbent school board member in East Hampton, Ms. Anderson, was still undecided about running again at last week’s board meeting. She is now on vacation and could not be reached for comment.

    Among the candidates in Springs, Mr. Drew graduated from the Springs School, and has worked as a carpenter. Mr. Wilson, vice president of the East Hampton Little League, has lived in Springs for 13 years. Mr. Miller, a lifelong Springs resident who also graduated from the Springs School, has been a member of the Springs Fire Department for many years. He is a deputy fire coordinator for Suffolk County and works in public works for East Hampton Village.

   East Hampton Town’s Fort Pond House, which sits on four acres and provided, with the exception of a boat launching ramp, the only public access to the pond, will remain for sale despite a lack of viable offers and a recent attempt, for the second time, by the town board’s two Democrats to withdraw it from the market.

    The possibility of selling the house, which was used by community groups, drew strong vocal opposition and caused two lawsuits.

    On April 16, Town Councilwoman Sylvia Overby offered a resolution to cancel the sale. Supervisor Bill Wilkinson had initiated the sale in 2010, noting the town needed the cash. Since then, with the town addressing a deficit that had accumulated during the previous administration, budget surpluses have begun to accumulate.

    Ms. Overby’s proposal drew instant criticism from Mr. Wilkinson, who, along with Councilwoman Theresa Quigley, voted against keeping the land. Councilman Dominick Stanzione abstained, leaving it a tie.

    “Is there a double jeopardy here at Town Hall?” Mr. Wilkinson asked. “Can a board constantly bring up the same subject?”

    A previous vote on canceling the sale, Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc pointed out, also was tied. “At this point, we don’t need to sell it. It is an asset for the people of Montauk and the town,” he said, noting that a number of groups would like to use the site. “It is the town’s only access to Fort Pond. Frankly, it’s costing us money just sitting there in limbo — and the potential legal bills.”

    One of the lawsuits, a federal constitutional rights case against Mr. Wilkinson and Ms. Quigley, who were accused of retaliating against opponents of the sale, has been settled. The town is still defending itself in the other, which claims the property, as parkland, cannot be sold without state legislative approval.

    “Because the town is doing better or worse, you don’t change your financial analysis,” Mr. Wilkinson said. “The problem is, the reason you guys get into financial messes is there were no disciplines,” said Ms. Quigley. She said the Fort Pond property was purchased “for the specific purpose of land banking — to sell later for financial needs. We need to shore up our finances.”

    The ongoing lawsuit has cost the town at least $30,000 so far, Ms. Overby said, and another attorney, Anthony Tohill, has just been hired to respond to it.

    “I have no problem in spending money on outside counsel to defend some rights of the town,” Mr. Wilkinson said.

    Ms. Overby said the board had not received any offers to buy the property, but Mr. Wilkinson countered that there had been some. “But I didn’t think it was high enough,” he said.

    “We’ll probably bring it up again at some point,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said after the vote. “I’m sure you will,” Mr. Wilkinson said.    

    The property was purchased for $890,000 in 2003. It is listed by Halstead Property for $2 million, with Cornelia Dodge and William Kuneth as the brokers. A board vote to accept an offer on the property would be subject to permissive referendum, forcing a public vote on the issue should enough voters sign a petition supporting one.

    The East Hampton Village should modify roads and educate motorists in order to better accommodate bicyclists and pedestrians, according to two residents who addressed the East Hampton Village Board at its work session last Thursday.

    Describing roadways as dangerous and the relationship between motorists and bicyclists as “anarchy,” Paul Fiondella and Howard Lebwith suggested adoption of a detailed set of principles that they said would result in safer conditions for bikers and pedestrians.

    Mr. Fiondella recalled seeing a yellow Labrador on long-ago morning drives to Bucket’s Deli. The dog was jaywalking across Newtown Lane, “going from one place to the next, mooching his way along, minding his own business, and totally ignoring anything that was going on with automobiles,” he said. Mr. Fiondella, an avid runner and walker, added that “the point has been reached where I don’t feel safe in doing either one. The village has been taken over by automobiles, and it’s very dangerous to be a pedestrian or a bicyclist and go to the village using either method.”

    Citing a high incidence of accidents last summer, including one in which a 17-year-old honor student was killed by a taxicab as he walked along Old Stone Highway in Amagansett, Mr. Fiondella said that the proliferation of automobiles has “changed the quality of life from when a yellow Labrador could wander down Newtown Lane carefree, to a situation in which humans who want to walk to the village take their life in their hands.”

    Seeing little progress on improving safety for bicyclists or pedestrians, Mr. Fiondella presented the board with a document, “General Principles For Introducing Bike Lanes in East Hampton Village,” consisting of definitions and principles he said should govern any future action toward that end. “The whole idea of this proposal is to make it safe for someone to get on a bicycle, come to the village, pick up their groceries, do some shopping, and go home. You don’t necessarily have to take your car unless you feel that any other way would be unsafe,” he said.

    The document makes distinctions between bike lanes (sections of paved public roads and highways marked out for the use of bicycles), bike paths (lanes on paved public roads that are physically separated from the automobile lanes), and calm streets (paved local roads where primary automobile use is by residential homeowners to gain access to their property).

    Among the principles proposed is that “bike lanes should be located on public roads where they promote an alternative to automobile use and provide local access to major public facilities,” such as schools, beaches, libraries, shopping areas, recreational and government facilities, and transportation hubs. Also, “new bike lanes should be a part of the design of any highway improvement project,” and “wherever possible bike lanes should be placed on the paved shoulder of roads and not in the vehicle travel lanes.” They also proposed an expansion of shoulders, to a minimum width of three feet, in any repaving project.

    Mr. Fiondella suggested that the board seek comments from the departments that would be affected by such a project, that it establish a committee to examine the principles, or that it simply adopt the principles after internal discussion.

    Mr. Lebwith stressed the need for education of motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians alike. Most bikers, he said, do not signal, nor do they stop when and where they should, such as at stop signs and red lights. At the same time, he said, motorists are not typically courteous of bicyclists. “Most motorists, when they park their car, just open the door and step out. There have been a number of people in this town that have been injured, badly, by running into a door,” he said.

    Mr. Lebwith also showed the board a pamphlet detailing bicycle safety and basic techniques that he said he had developed with East Hampton Town officials, and suggested it be republished.

    Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. told Mr. Fiondella and Mr. Lebwith to set up an informal meeting with Chief Gerard Larsen of the village police and public works officials. “Let’s see if we can achieve some results,” he said.

    The board also decided that $100 would be the fee assessed for tent-permit applications, after previously acting to require a fee for such permits.

    The town and other neighboring municipalities already impose a fee, Kenneth Collum, the village fire marshal, told the board. Last year, 65 to 75 tent permits were given, he said, following inspections as stipulated by the state’s fire prevention law. “Some of them are very involved,” he said. “Some of these structures are on scaffolding; they need engineering reports.” The fee would offset the time and energy code enforcement officials devote to the inspection and approval process.

    Barbara Borsack, a board member, asked that nonprofit organizations be exempted from paying a fee, “but we have to be specific about it,” she said. “It would have to be a nonprofit on their own property doing a fund-raiser for themselves.” Only five or six such applications were received last year, Mr. Collum said.

    “Would you be able to differentiate between the two?” Elbert Edwards, of the board, asked Mr. Collum. 

    “I think so,” Mr. Collum replied. “I don’t think it’s going to be that hard to figure out what they’re doing.”

     East Hampton Town police reported that they arrested a man on Wednesday afternoon after a fight between two neighbors on Three Mile Harbor Road in which a weapon was used.

     Detective Lt. Chris Anderson said Melvin C. Smith, 46, had injured a man with whom he had “an ongoing dispute” late in the afternoon on Tuesday. The other man suffered lacerations, Detective Anderson said.

     Mr. Smith was charged with assault in the second degree, which is a class D felony, and a misdemeanor charge of possession of a deadly weapon, a knife.

     Because Mr. Smith has more than two felony convictions on his record, East Hampton Town Justice Catharine A. Cahill said at his arraignment Thursday that under New York's penal code, she was not permitted to set bail on the new felony charge. Mr. Smith’s attorney, Joseph Giannini, disputed the actual number of convictions Mr. Smith has on his record, and said that his client is innocent.

     Mr. Smith is being held without bail in the Suffolk County jail in Riverside.

     According to Maggie Bopp, a Suffolk County assistant district attorney, Mr. Smith was convicted of rape and sodomy in 1986, when he was 18. Ms. Bopp made that statement during a heated exchange with Mr. Giannini during Mr. Smith’s arraignment.

     In July of last year, Mr. Smith was arrested by East Hampton Town police for failing to update his address in the New York State sexual offender registration. “They arrested him on a technicality,” Mr. Giannini said Friday of the 2012 arrest. He also said that, regarding Mr. Smith’s address not being registered, “the police knew full well where he lives,” since he and his family have resided on the same East Hampton street since the mid-1970s.

     Mr. Smith pleaded guilty to that charge, a class E felony, and was due to be sentenced on Wednesday.

     The question of the number of convictions of Mr. Smith that should be counted for bail purposes produced a confrontation between the two attorneys at Mr. Smith’s arraignment.

     "He has only two prior felony convictions," Mr. Giannini said, arguing that Mr. Smith should be eligible for a bail determination because he had yet to be sentenced for what he said would be Mr. Smith’s second conviction.

     "He has seven felony convictions, even if you don't want to count his latest," Ms. Bopp relied.

     "That was 1986, over 25 years ago," Mr. Giannini answered, adding that two of the felony convictions Ms. Bopp was referring to had occurred for incidents that happened in prison, and should not be counted when considering bail.

     Ms. Bopp then read off, in rapid succession, a series of felony convictions, including four from the 1986 incident that involved the rape and sodomy charges Mr. Smith was convicted for, as well as two convictions stemming from separate prison incidents in which Mr. Smith possessed a homemade knife.

     Mr. Giannini quoted his client's reaction to the arrest. " 'Yes, I had a fight. It was over money,' " he said Mr. Smith told him, adding that Mr. Smith then said, " 'I did not have a knife.' "

     Mr. Giannini told the court that his client would testify in his own defense to the grand jury in Riverhead, which will occur in the next couple of days, and that Mr. Smith would submit to a polygraph lie-detector test.

     "A witness to the fight is sitting here in court," Mr. Giannini told the judge.

       The man Mr. Giannini was referring to, whom Mr. Giannini identified as Brandon Albert, called Mr. Smith’s arrest “ridiculous” as he was leaving court.

     According to Mr. Giannini, police have yet to interview Mr. Albert.

     Justice Cahill told Mr. Giannini that she would not have the case argued during the arraignment, and Mr. Smith was led away by an East Hampton Town police officer who immediately turned him over to a waiting Suffolk County Sheriff's Department officer. Mr. Smith was then transported to the Suffolk County jail.

     According to Mr. Giannini, the victim went to Southampton Hospital, then left the hospital a short time after entering and went to police headquarters, where he made the allegations against Mr. Smith that led to the arrest.

     Mr. Smith, who has spent much of his adult life in prison, “has worked very hard the past few years to put his life together,” Mr. Giannini said Friday.

     “They’re holding his past against him. They won’t let it go,” he said.

   While Southampton Town residents under the flight path of helicopters bound for East Hampton Airport continue their pleas to East Hampton officials to reduce the traffic and noise over them before it increases in the summer season, residents of East Hampton’s Northwest area are campaigning to prevent a return of helicopters to a route over their neighborhood.

    Still others in Northwest continue to press town officials to push forward efforts to gain the ability to limit access to the airport and reducing traffic overall. They compare the shifting of flight routes to “rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic” — relieving some noise-burdened residents at the expense of others.

    Meanwhile, Jim Brundige, the airport manager, and Jeff Smith, head of the Eastern Region Helicopter Council, will present new routing options to East Hampton’s town board and to a multi-town helicopter noise advisory committee in the coming weeks. Helicopters have been taking a designated route along Long Island’s north shore, then turning to approach the airport over Southampton Town.

    Because the Federal Aviation Administration has not enacted regulations governing specific helicopter routes, beyond the northern route along Long Island from points west, and since municipalities have no jurisdiction over flight paths, routes are normally negotiated by local airport managers with industry representatives like Mr. Smith, based on safety regulations, pilots’ considerations, and any airport noise-abatement procedures with which pilots are asked to voluntarily comply.

    A shift last season sending helicopter flights in and out of the airport following uninhabited utility lines and over Jessup’s Neck in Southampton prompted a wave of complaints from newly affected residents of the neighborhoods below.

    In an e-mail last week to The Star, Jim Matthews, chairman of the Northwest Alliance and a member of the Quiet Skies Coalition’s executive committee, called attention to an effort by another neighborhood group, calling itself the Northwest Preservation Society, to muster opposition to the possible return of a flight path over their area.

    “Last summer, you probably were relieved to experience the peace and quiet that returned to our area when low-flying helicopter traffic was diverted away from Northwest Woods for the first time in seven years,” says a letter addressed “Dear Neighbor[s]” and signed by eight homeowners or couples, including Judith Hope and Tom Twomey, John and Cindy Shea, and Robert and Ina Caro.

     “. . . The bottom line is that, unless local officials hear from the residents of Northwest Woods, North Haven, and Shelter Island, and hear from them quickly and in significant numbers, it is very possible that politics will prevail and invasive helicopter noise will return to our neighborhoods this summer,” the letter says. “If we remain silent, a small majority may have their way with politicians and deprive us of the peaceful enjoyment of our homes this coming summer.”

    “We very much regret that some in our area have chosen to distract us from the vital discussion about flight restrictions with shamelessly selfish not-­­in-my-back-yard provocations,” Mr. Matthews wrote in his e-mail. While the Northwest Alliance supports “methodical development of environmentally responsible and socially equitable routing patterns,” Mr. Matthews wrote, “this is no substitute for a serious effort to reduce aircraft traffic in our community as soon as possible.”

    According to the Northwest Alliance, a new helicopter flight path over the Northwest area is to be proposed, routing aircraft over Sag Harbor’s Azurest and Ninevah neighborhoods, and over “a protected environmental area” near Little Northwest Creek.

    The Alliance itself, in an ad published in this paper last week, is calling on members of the public to demand that the town board cease accepting F.A.A. money, which, the ad says, “forces unlimited access to our airport,” and demand equitable, environmentally responsible traffic routing, was well as limits to airport use.

    “I think focusing on routes is not going to solve the problem,” Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc said during a town board discussion in early April. “No matter where you put the route, obviously the result is, wherever they fly, those affected people will be affected in a negative way.” Nothing will improve, he said, “without some kind of restriction on the numbers of flights, the types of flights, and the times of day.”

    “You currently have a voluntary curfew from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.,” Mr. Smith told the board. He said that less than 2 percent of flights violate that request. The helicopter pilots can, Mr. Smith said, look at increasing altitudes, achieving target altitudes faster on takeoff, and staying at higher altitudes as long as possible before landing, but they cannot comply with ad hoc town restrictions on airport use when the F.A.A. maintains control.

    Then, Councilwoman There­sa Quig­ley said, the town will have to follow­ an F.A.A.-dictated “Part 161” proce­dure, and make a case to the F.A.A. for local control.

    “The ultimate bottom line,” Charles Ehren, vice-chairman of the Quiet Skies Coalition, told the board, “is you must take no more F.A.A. funding until you see the results that you can achieve before the 2014 expiration of current F.A.A. restrictions on your local noise control powers.”

    Also at the April 2 meeting, Mr. Ehren questioned why the town is applying for permanent approval for its seasonal control tower, which was put into operation last summer on a trial basis.

    Councilman Dominick Stanzione, the board’s liaison to the airport, said that the town had initially obtained a one-year temporary approval for operation of the seasonal control tower, and that under F.A.A. rules the facility could not remain in place without undergoing the full review proscribed in the permanent approval process.

    The town will not be obligated to continue to pay for and operate the traffic-control facility, he said, should it decide not to do so after three years.

    Kathleen Cunningham, the Quiet Skies Coalition’s chairwoman, expressed concern this week about the application for a permanent approval. “A permanent control tower will increase capacity, no matter what they say,” she said. “It’s just a lot of smoke and mirrors.”

    It had been hoped that air-traffic controllers would make noise abatement a goal in setting requirements for pilots. But, Ms. Cunningham said, “There’s still no noise-abatement plan.”