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.”

   Gurney’s Inn hosted a post-Sandy summit on Friday that brought together first responders, planners, state, county, and local officials, and representatives of the Long Island Power Authority and Suffolk County Water Authority to discuss how to redefine the future of coastal living in the wake of the Oct. 29 storm.

    The all-day workshop was co-sponsored by the Montauk Chamber of Commerce and the Concerned Citizens of Montauk.

    “FEMA training” was offered to first responders and emergency management officials in morning and afternoon sessions. The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s center for domestic preparedness has developed advanced training  for responses to catastrophic natural disasters or terrorist acts.

    During a catered lunch between the two workshops, Jay Tanski, a New York Sea Grant coastal processes specialist, provided an overview of Long Island’s coastal makeup as well as the forces at work upon it. Few local governments have enough information to make informed decisions about how to deal with the long-range problem of sea level rise, he said, and the more urgent challenge posed by powerful northeast storms.

    While the occasional hurricane can be damaging, hurricanes tend to move by quickly, said Mr. Tanski. By contrast, more frequent northeasters typically drag on through a number of tide cycles — a high tide on top of storm surge produces a double whammy.

    The author of “Long Island’s Dynamic South Shore: A Primer on the Forces and Trends Shaping our Coast” said the island actually has more sand to work with than much of the rest of the East Coast, a function of its post-glacial beginnings. While a big storm like Sandy could strip beaches and cause the sea to reach farther landward than it has in years, he said, decisions about how to protect the coast should not be made in the immediate aftermath. Beaches grow and shrink. They are elastic if left alone. Beaches respond to storms. Sand pulled offshore by storm surge and wave action causes sandbars, which serve as natural buffers until natural processes restore them landward.

    In a PowerPoint presentation, Mr. Tanski showed that in 1962, the shoreward reach of the sea in front of downtown Montauk following the Ash Wednesday northeaster that year was as great or greater than it is today. He said the East End was eroding; Montauk loses a tenth of an inch of beach per year, the South Shore in general loses one foot per century. The East End, without the protection of barrier beaches, is eroding faster than western Long Island. A 2010 study showed that some beaches to the west are actually accreting, or growing.  

    “Long shore drift drives material east to west, but we don’t know where all the material comes from. We don’t know everything.”

    Mr. Tanski said that while the immediate impact of a single storm might be apparent, it is the cumulative effect of many storms that determines how the shoreline changes over time.

    “Annual fluctuations are uncertain, which makes it difficult to detect long-term trends,” he said. It is clear, however that the highest erosion and accretion rates occur near man-made inlets and structures that interrupt the natural movement of sand. Mr. Tanski said that as much as five million cubic yards has been taken out of the near-shore system by the Shinnecock Inlet, its jetties, and currents.

    By contrast, he said, Fire Island has remained relatively stable. It has not “migrated” — a function of dunes being overwashed over time — in 1,300 years.

    As for sea level, it’s been rising for the past 18,000 years. The sea level will be important in 2100. In the meantime, careful monitoring of the shoreline is essential, said the speaker — “small variations within larger changes. It lets us project, so we can tailor our response for specific areas.”    

    Mr. Tanski stressed the importance of “knowing the physical characteristics” of an area. Whether to buy flood insurance, for example, should be decided by an entire community. “You have to convince property owners.”

    The coastal expert said that Southern states have studied their coastlines to a far greater extent than New York. Sea Grant, he noted, has been negotiating with the State Department of State for the past five years for money to better monitor South Shore beaches. “There’s more interest since Sandy. Perhaps Sandy resources can be brought to bear for information-gathering.”

    “There are no typical shorelines,” Mr. Tanski concluded.

    Anger and frustration again erupted at the East Hampton School Board meeting on Tuesday night, with the board acknowledging the superintendent’s recommendation to deny tenure to Gina Kraus, the John M. Marshall Elementary School’s principal. Come September, she will return to her former position as an elementary school teacher. 

    After announcing to her staff that she would not be granted tenure and that her role as an administrator would end in June, more than 100 parents, teachers, and former administrators turned out at last month’s school board meeting — with many hoping that a strong show of support might reverse such a decision.

    On Tuesday night, the district office was packed, with some of her supporters forced to stand for the duration of the nearly two-hour meeting.

    Though she had yet to speak out publicly, Ms. Kraus stood and addressed the board. She was visibly upset and pushed back tears.

     “The reason I didn’t resign tonight is because things deserve to play out,” said Ms. Kraus, whose voice cracked throughout her remarks. “I am losing my position and I accept that. I am a great believer that really good things come out of really bad and unfair situations.”

    She concluded by noting: “I want to thank you for this wonderful journey. I have not one regret. I want to thank you for the privilege of being your principal and for the honor of being able to return to a place I so loved.”

    At the end of her remarks, all in the audience stood for a prolonged standing ovation.

    Just prior to speaking, Ms. Kraus’s husband, Ken, also addressed the board. Though Ms. Kraus later called it “grounds for divorce,” she thanked her husband.

    “She’s shivering in her boots and so am I,” said Mr. Kraus. “This is institutional bullying,” he said, questioning whether the decision-making process was a democratic or tyrannical one. He also described the board and the superintendent as “oppressive.”

    “Rich,” said Mr. Kraus, addressing Mr. Burns by his first name, “you stood in my home last year and said how lucky you were to have Gina as principal.”

    He also took issue with Robert Tymann, the district’s assistant superintendent, who sat in the front row, his back to the audience. “I think Bob should stand up and take some of this blame, too. He’s from Lindenhurst. He’s not turning around. He’s been here for eight months and still doesn’t know Gina well enough to make these decisions.”

     For their part, several board members said that their hands were tied.

    “The law says that the superintendent makes the decision to end a probationary period with or without tenure,” said Patricia Hope, a board member. “The board acknowledges that decision. It’s carved into New York State law. This law is simple. It’s not easy, but it’s simple.”

    Concern about an outsider coming in to replace Ms. Kraus seemed a pervasive sentiment. J.P. Foster, a resident of East Hampton and rumored to be running for the school board, said that going forward, he was in support of “keeping local people within our district.” He further added: “I want you to turn every rock inside our district over before even going there.”

    Jackie Lowey, a board member, also fighting back tears, said that the process of tenure in New York State was a broken one, and that it had been a difficult few weeks for every member of the board.

    “This has been a very difficult process for all of us and I hope at the end of all of this we can all go home and thank Gina for everything she has done and continues to do,” said Ms. Lowey. “And we can move on to healing and caring for this district.”

    Prior to adjourning, Ashley Blackburn, another member of the audience, also broke down in tears, on a completely different subject, saying that her son, a student at East Hampton Middle School, had been “physically assaulted, bullied, and discriminated against.”

     “My son and other students do not feel safe,” said Ms. Blackburn. “Parents want to know what is being done,” saying that she had received little in the way of an acceptable response.

    Mr. Burns interjected, saying that “it has been addressed and I feel that the solution we arrived at is being handled in the right way.” Both he and the middle school principal, Charles Soriano, declined to disclose additional details.

    While three East Hampton School Board members are up for re-election this spring, Lauren Dempsey indicated that she would not be running again. George Aman, the board president, said the odds were “three to one, against” his running again, and Alison Anderson said she has yet to make a final decision as to whether she will try to keep her seat.

    Later in the meeting, board members discussed the 2-percent tax levy cap and weighed the possible advantages of accepting certain exemptions, given that an artificially lowered tax rate might result in a dire financial situation in the coming years. So far, the board plans to cut nearly $1 million from this year’s preliminary budget.

    The board will cover other details related to the 2013-14 budget at next week’s work session, which is open to the public. The meeting kicks off at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the district office.

—

An earlier version of this story said that board members and Richard J. Burns, the school superintendent, remained seated during a standing ovation for Ms. Kraus. Several board members have disputed that and said that they, too, stood.

    After hearing 11 recommendations from an ad hoc committee on March 19 about ways to protect the Montauk ocean beach, the East Hampton Town Board seemed open to any or all of them. But at a work session on Tuesday, when erosion control was again on the agenda, the discussion bogged down, and the board ultimately dropped the issue without charting a course of action.

    The committee had proposed short-term fixes that could begin immediately as well as longer-term plans that would require legislative action or make a slow difference over time. On Tuesday, some board members appeared ready to get down to the nitty gritty of how to begin.

     Supervisor Bill Wilkinson had indicated general approval of the committee’s recommendations on March 19, saying, “Any of these things we can do, let’s get started.” In the interim, however, he and Councilwoman Theresa Quigley appear to have decided to push forward with only one: “dropping rocks” on the beach in downtown Montauk.

    Two of the committee’s 11 recommendations concern temporarily allowing Montauk oceanfront property owners  to install hard structures, such as buried rocks or concrete blocks, until longer-range solutions could be implemented. Because such structures are prohibited by the Local Waterfront Revitalization Program, however, the committee recommended that it be changed.

    At Councilwoman Quigley’s request, John Jilnicki, the town attorney, described on Tuesday a process by which the board could bypass town law and the L.W.R.P altogether. He pointed out that under the existing code, creating a new Montauk beach according to an engineer’s design, which could be expected to withstand storms and erosion over a certain length of time, would be allowable only if done without installing rocks or other hard structures.

    However, he said, the board could bypass the normal guidelines if it determined that certain conditions exist. One is that there “is no reasonable alternative to a proposed action,” he said. In addition, a supermajority vote, or majority-plus-one, would be required. The proposal was dropped when Ms. Quigley and Mr. Wilkinson found such a vote would not be forthcoming.

    The idea is that the rocks, Ms. Quigley said, would be temporary, with sand covering such structures placed shoreward of the water line close to the foundations of beachfront motels threatened by the sea.

    “So as not to waste time, would there be four votes?” she asked. “You’ll never get four votes to drop rock,” Mr. Wilkinson said, adding “I’ll vote for temporary.”

    “Define temporary,” Councilwoman Sylvia Overby said. She and Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc said they could not give blanket approval to a shore-hardening plan and that specific information was needed. It was unclear how the other member of the board, Councilman Dominick Stanzione, would vote, although he noted that they had talked about “liberalizing emergency measures.”

    The committee had suggested the board assess shore-hardening options, Mr. Van Scoyoc said, but that had not taken place. “I think there’s a whole lot of difference between having the Army Corps scientifically look at it, and having a motel owner saying, ‘let me drop cesspool rings,’ ” he said, referring to the owners of the Royal Atlantic Resort, who brought in concrete rings last year.

    Various options that were discussed by the erosion committee, Mr. Van Scoyoc said, would have to be reviewed as to their efficacy to protect against different storms or categories of hurricanes. “It’s a false sense of security to say that dropping rock in front of the hotels is going to protect the Montauk downtown in the case of a hurricane,” he said.

    “If your goal is to protect downtown Montauk, what will work?” Ms. Quigley asked him.

    Mr. Wilkinson pressed board members about what would happen should the town get news that its requested $20 million in federal grants for shoreline work is coming through. “If the Army Corps and [Congressman Timothy] Bishop say next week that money is coming, will you vote to drop rock?” he asked.

    “I would look at it. I haven’t seen a plan yet. Show me the plan. The Army Corps comes with a plan,” Mr. Van Scoyoc responded.

    Mr. Stanzione tried to steer the conversation to other elements of the committee’s work. “Does the board want to discuss adopting any of the recommendations?” he asked.

    “What good is it?” Ms. Quigley replied. “The committee recommended to this board — the board is not accepting them,” Mr. Wilkinson added.

    “That’s not true,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said. “That’s one recommendation; there are 11 of them.”

    “That is the most critical recommendation,” Ms. Quigley said.

    Other recommendations outline a broad approach, both short-term and long-range, and include such things as creating what is called an engineered beach, establishing an erosion control tax district to pay for protection efforts, developing a public buyout plan for willing sellers of shoreline property, encouraging property owners and utilities in the downtown and Ditch Plain area to implement flood protection measures such as those outlined by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and immediately beginning a beach “renourishment” process by bringing in sand.

    Mr. Wilkinson dismissed them as akin to having children “throw sand on the beach.”

    While there’s much talk in some circles about who East Hampton Democrats will tap to run for town office this year, the town Democratic chairwoman is keeping silent on the subject.

    “Our ground rule is that we don’t tell,” Jeanne Frankl, the committee’s leader, said Monday. “We’ve promised secrecy to everybody who’s screened.”

    That said, a number of hopefuls have themselves acknowledged that they have thrown their hats in the ring, including Job Potter, a former Democratic town councilman, Kathy Cunningham, executive director of the East Hampton Village Preservation Society and chairwoman of the Quiet Skies Coalition, and Kathee Burke Gonzalez, president of the Springs School Board, all of whom are interested in running for town board.

    In the mix for town supervisor are Larry Cantwell, the East Hampton Village administrator, and Zachary Cohen, who lost to Supervisor Bill Wilkinson by just 15 votes in 2011 and is determined to seek that job again.

    But you did not hear any of that from Ms. Frankl, who said that the Democratic Committee would not reveal the names of people it has screened or a list of its choices until May, when it holds a nominating convention. “We’re still screening and we’ll probably bring people back for second interviews.” The screening committee plans to interview candidates for all positions before making its recommendations to the full committee in May.

    “I think it’s a responsibility for people that have a strong public service streak to screen, even if they aren’t nominated, because it’s important to make sure that they are aware of the things we see,” Ms. Frankl said.

    Regardless of the outcome, Ms. Cunningham said, going through the interview process gives people “a chance to influence the agenda.” For her, sea level rise and related coastal erosion should be at the top of that agenda. Hurricane Sandy and its devastating impact west of here (her brother and mother were both flooded out of their houses in Lindenhurst), “made me realize how we’re kind of one extended power outage away here from total crisis. It hit me very hard that East Hampton was not prepared in any way for that.” It’s time, she said, for the town to move past “see no evil” policies, develop an overall plan, and enact some of the recommendations in its Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan.

    There seems to be a sense, Ms. Cunningham said, that “pro-environment forces have really strangled business,” but it’s important “to realize that out here the environment is the economy.”

    “There have been aspects of the last four years, really the last six years, that have been frustrating for me to see at the town level,” said Mr. Potter, who was a councilman for eight years and served on the planning board for four years before that. A lot of the problems he sees, “stemmed from the fact that the Planning Department has really been taken apart. Affordable housing is at a standstill.”     “We’ve got to get back to having a town board that has respect for each other and works effectively on behalf of the town,” Mr. Potter said.

    That’s a theme that comes up often among both Democrats and Republicans considering office this year. “East Hampton has a dignified history,” Ms. Burke Gonzalez said yesterday. “I would like to see civility and respect return to Town Hall. . . . I squirm in my seat sometimes when I watch the work sessions. I believe our town deserves better.”

    “Everybody is just watching the current situation and thinking surely we can do better than that,” Ms. Cunningham said.

    “A lot of projects have been held up by rancorous argument,” Ms. Frankl said. “I suspect our community is not as divided as our town board has been.”

    When he heard Fred Overton had decided to step down as town clerk, Mr. Potter at first thought about running for that post, but town board made more sense, he said, and people he talked to seemed to be interested in seeing him return to his old job. (The G.O.P. selected Mr. Overton to run for councilman, but he may be tapped for the supervisor slot following County Legislator Jay Schneiderman’s decision not to run for East Hampton’s top job.)

    Ms. Burke Gonzalez, whose professional background is in advertising, served on the Democratic Committee from 2001 to 2007. She now works part time for Blumenfeld and Fleming Advertising and Design in Montauk and is stepping down from the Springs School Board in June after nine years, the past two as president and the two before that as vice president. By being involved as she is, “I’m setting a tremendous example for my kids about giving back,” she said.

    Ms. Cunningham, who has been a strong voice for mitigating airport noise and pollution and regaining local control of East Hampton Airport, has screened before for a councilwoman slot. Just after screening this year, she said, she learned that her name had been on a list of potential candidates included in a poll Mr. Schneiderman commissioned to determine the viability of his town candidacy. “He said Fred came out first and I came in second, but it was a statistical dead heat.”

    “I feel very strongly that this is one of those pivotal periods in our community,” Ms. Cunningham said. “The people elected this year are going to shape the character of this community for the next 20 years.”

    In Springs, the big takeaway is that if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

    Over the past few years, such unrelenting persistence has resulted in the Springs School receiving $3.9 million after discovering that the East Hampton School District had continually overcharged its feeder districts for the hundreds of students it sends there.

    At a March 27 budget session, the president of the school board, Kathee Burke Gonzalez, informed the audience that East Hampton had again overestimated last year’s high school tuition rates. As such, Springs was set to receive a $354,000 refund.

    In the last two years alone, the perennially cash-strapped district has received more than $800,000 in owed tuition money after being continually overcharged.

    At this time last year, had Springs known such a refund was forthcoming, the district might not have needed to slice $792,000 from its preliminary budget. For the 2013-14 school year, Ms. Burke Gonzalez announced that Springs plans to hold steady and does not foresee the need for any cuts.

    “Due diligence pays off,” she said. “We just didn’t want to see our school decimated, and we did everything we could to prevent it from happening.”

    Besides the need for cuts, she said, taxpayers had to be asked last year for “more of their hard-earned money,” which should not have been necessary. “We’re looking to give money back this year.”

    Compared with last year’s 2.97-percent increase in the tax levy, this year’s proposed increase is only .82 percent, after applying a fund balance of $934,000. Additionally, a projected lower rate would result in substantial savings. Springs residents whose houses are valued at $600,000 paid $165 per household last year; this year those householders are projected to pay just $107. Houses valued at $800,000 paid $220 last year; this year’s projected rate is $143.

    Ms. Burke Gonzalez began last week’s session by recapping the tuition arrangement between Springs and East Hampton.

    In Springs, tuition dollars are a particular worry. In next year’s $25.5 million projected budget, the school plans to spend $8.2 million, or about 35 percent of the total, on high school tuition.

    Since 2008, East Hampton has continually overcharged sending districts by relying on a calculation called the Seneca Falls formula, which Ms. Burke Gonzalez described as “antiquated and flawed.” All sending districts are given a yearly flat tuition rate, whether a student is a resident of Amagansett, Montauk, Springs, or elsewhere, but with 273 students, Springs is the largest sending district by a long shot.

    The dispute over tuition money between Springs and East Hampton dates to May 2007, when Raymond Gualtieri, then East Hampton Schools Superintendent, decided that rather than sending districts negotiating a yearly tuition rate, the Seneca Falls formula would be followed.

    That formula, which dates all the way back to 1949, uses a kindergarten- through-6th and 7th-through-12th-grade funding model to determine a district’s costs. Confusion arises when schools are not configured that way and when a teacher’s duties are split between, for example, East Hampton Middle School and East Hampton High School.  

    To look into the issue, Springs hired Charles Winters, a retired school business official, to examine its agreement with East Hampton. In all of New York State, Mr. Winters estimated that perhaps 30 districts send large numbers of students to another district on a tuition basis.

    The Seneca formula dictates that districts pro-rate costs based on teacher salaries, split into either kindergarten through 6th or 7th through 12th grades.

    “All I did was to say, ‘I want to see the names of everybody on the payroll charged to secondary and I want to see your schedules,’ ” said Mr. Winters. “It’s not rocket science. It didn’t even take that long. Maybe five to six hours of nasty work.”

    Calling the Seneca formula volatile, he said he was puzzled by its continued use, though he acknowledged that a state-sanctioned substitute had failed to materialize.

     “It’s too unstable a formula for being a major component of a district’s financing, for either the paying or the receiving districts,” said Mr. Winters. For his services, he billed Springs School $75 an hour. His last two invoices, covering the last two years and resulting in a saving to Springs of $800,000, totaled $1,725.

    “The Seneca Falls formula is imperfect, and our use of it hasn’t been as perfect as we would like,” said the East Hampton School Board’s president, George Aman. “It’s bothersome, but we have to keep working at it until we can get it as accurate as we can.”

    On March 22, after a protracted three-month back-and-forth, East Hampton finally e-mailed the sending districts to say the tuition rate for the 2013-14 year will be reduced by $1,074 per student, to $25,789.

    Going forward, the Springs School plans to conduct annual audits of East Hampton’s figures. When its tuition agreement with East Hampton expires on June 30, 2015, some in Springs hope the school might abandon the exclusive contract, opening the door for students to attend either Bridgehampton High School or Sag Harbor’s Pierson High School, where yearly tuition rates are cheaper.

    Springs Superintendent Dominic Mucci didn’t mince words. “One of the things we need to keep in mind is that we don’t even think about something called exclusivity,” he said. “They’re not the only game in town. There are other options when you have other players at the table. I would recommend we look as far and wide as we can.”

    A final budget session for the 2013-14 school year will be held at the school on April 17 at 6:30 p.m.

    The Montauk Beach House may have the right to run a poolside bar and gift shop, but before it can do so legally, it needs approval from the East Hampton Town Planning Board, and on April 3, board members were full of questions about how the two amenities play into Chris Jones and Larry Siedlick’s overall plan for their downtown resort.

    “Exactly who is using the pool?” Ian Calder-Piedmont, a board member, asked the owners’ attorney, Andy Hammer of Biondo and Hammer. “I understand there are memberships that have been sold. Does that change things? Whether it is for a guest of the resort, or a guest of the guest, or somebody who is not staying there, and has somehow gotten permission to get inside. That makes a difference. There has to be a line drawn somewhere, that anybody operating a resort can’t just open a bar to anyone off the street,” he said.

    In addition to renting its hotel rooms, the Beach House, which opened last summer, offers membership for the season for $1,100, entitling people to a lounge at the pool with up to three guests at preferred times, according to its Web site. There’s a discount for “locals,” who can join for only $750 (“proof of residence required”). A daily membership is $50. Rooms at the hotel range from $299 to $399 in the off-season up to $459 to $679 for a Saturday night in July.

    Montauk nightlife, especially during the 2012 season, became a “hot-button issue,” said Reed Jones, the board’s chairman. “You make it sound very calm and easy, and maybe I’m at the pool and I can go get a cocktail and everything’s great, but how do you keep that boxed in, as opposed to this thing becoming the newest hotspot?” he asked Mr. Hammer.

    “I would like more detail in regard to the structures and a better narrative on how it will work,” said Nancy Keeshan, a board member whose real estate office is also in downtown Montauk. “I know [the store sells] more than a toothbrush, so I’d like to know the details.”

    Mr. Siedlick told the board that the owners want success, but not an excess of success. “We would destroy our own business if we let it get to that level,” he said. Two things, he said, will prevent the business from spiraling out of control: “One is that the crowd is controlled, and two is that the noise level disappears as the sun goes down.”

    Mr. Hammer, at one point, called the Beach House a “family oriented place.”

    The resort’s Web site describes it as “a hotel with an active environment — both day and night — that encompasses a private membership beach club and a lively outdoor bar scene within its grounds. The summer season is booked with special events including D.J.s, live music, fashion shows, and other like-minded social gatherings with one common goal: a bit of serious fun.”

    It continues: “So if you are looking for a serene, tranquil — and boring — environment, may we kindly suggest that the Montauk Beach House might not be for you.”

    The motel, formerly the Ronjo, could not be built today on its current site, just south of the Plaza, because that area is now zoned as a downtown business district, with hotels prohibited. But it can continue to operate as a hotel because its original construction predates current zoning.

    After a Feb. 5 public hearing, the zoning board of appeals reversed a ruling by Tom Preiato, the town’s chief building inspector, that said the poolside bar and gift shop on the site were prohibited uses, then upheld his determination that both had been substantially altered or rebuilt, meaning that each structure would have to undergo a site plan review before the planning board, which is where the Beach House now finds itself.

    From the beginning of the discussion last week, board members, as well as the applicants themselves, seemed a bit uncertain as to what they were supposed to debate.

    A memo written by Eric Schantz, a planner with the Town Planning Department, said that it was difficult for the department to determine “what regulations/standards of the town code will be applicable” to the current application.

    Mr. Schantz expressed concern in the memo that the “applicability of parking requirements is significant, in that the additional 210 square feet of retail would require two additional spaces, and the addition of a ‘tavern or bar’ would require two spaces for every three persons of rated capacity.”

    However, the board appeared to be dissuaded from following that line of questioning, in part by instructions from Kathryn Santiago, the board’s attorney, who seemed to say that because the structures were not an expansion of use, the board did not need to consider the parking issues Mr. Schantz had raised in his memo.

    It was the structures themselves, not the use of the structures, that the board was to consider, she told Pat Schutte, when he requested guidance.

    Ms. Santiago said on Monday that she was researching the issue, and would prepare the board a memo on what exactly needed to be addressed in the current site plan review.

    Mr. Hammer seemed prepared on April 3 to discuss the parking issue at length, referencing the Ross School’s construction of a tennis court and training facility in East Hampton, with additional parking added by the school on its own initiative.

    The board will continue the discussion on the bar and gift shop, but it concluded a separate site plan review relating to construction of a barbecue pit and trellis on April 3. The board received one letter in opposition, from Zachary Cohen, who charged that the multiplicity of site plan review applications from the resort’s owners was “segmentation,” which would not be allowed under the State Environmental Quality Review Act.

    Ms. Santiago told the board that such was not the case and the board agreed 6-0 last week, with Bob Schaeffer absent, that the plan was ready for approval. A formal vote on that element will come by the end of the month.

    Members of the East Hampton Town Police Department have been working without a contract since Jan. 1, and according to Joseph Fallacara, president of the town Police Benevolent Association, the two sides have a way to go before an agreement can be reached.

    “We’ve had three meetings so far,” he said on Friday, which have not been productive. “We’ve filed for mediation.”

    Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson declined to comment, saying he believed it best not to negotiate through the press.

    If nothing happens in mediation, the next step is arbitration, in which the P.B.A. and the town each select candidates from a list provided by the American Arbitrators Association, searching for one arbitrator they can agree on.

    According to the town’s current 2013 budget, most police officers earn about $104,000 a year plus benefits, with sergeants, lieutenants, detectives, and the department’s captain making more, and officers with lesser tenure making less. The only member of the force not covered by a P.B.A. contract is its chief, Edward Ecker.

    “We’re not in agreement on wages and benefits,” Mr. Fallacara said, while stressing there was more to the situation than that, including “job safety and staffing.”

    One area that officers across the force feel strongly about is scheduling, Mr. Fallacara said. Currently, as with a number of police forces across the country, officers rotate through three time-slotted shifts in a 20-day cycle. Uniformed officers work four consecutive day shifts, starting at 7 a.m. and running to about 3 p. m., followed by one day off. They then work five consecutive afternoon shifts, starting at about 3 and ending at about 11 p.m. After two consecutive days off, they finish out the rotation, working the night shift, starting at 11 p.m. and running to 7 a. m. Finally, they have four straight days off — but, because the first day starts the moment they finish their last nightshift, they effectively have only three, Mr. Fallacara said.

    “The divorce rate with regular civilians is 55 percent. With cops, it’s about 90 percent,” said the P.B.A. chief. “It takes a year off your life each year you do it.”

    Asserting that “most police departments don’t run that [schedule] anymore,” he said the New York City force now assigns officers set schedules instead. “We’ve offered to split the cost” of research leading to a better scheduling system, he said, and “We have presented different schedules that will save the town money.”

    Whether in the area of safety or scheduling or salary or benefits, Mr. Fallacara said the negotiations will all come down to money. The town is “always trying to cut back,” he said. As examples, he added, three officers retired at the end of 2012 but only two new ones were brought on board this year, while four officers who were recently promoted have not yet been replaced in the field. “We have a real shortfall in the street,” he said.

     “Police services are a necessary cost to the community,” said Mr. Fallacara. “People want police protection. When you go to work putting on a bullet-proof vest, you need to be paid.”

    While Mr. Wilkinson may have to wrestle with what could be difficult negotiations, East Hampton Village officials will have no such worries. The village P.B.A. is under contract through July 31, 2015.

    However, things are not so rosy in Sag Harbor, where the 11 officers on the force have been working without a contract for the past three years. One officer left the force several months ago and has not been replaced, and the village board has been threatening to eliminate yet another officer.