Mike Russell, 22, a former East Hampton High School star athlete who led the varsity basketball team to one of its most successful seasons ever in 2008, was arrested in Worcester, Mass., early Monday after allegedly taking part in a home invasion.

    Worcester police said Mr. Russell, a junior at Becker College in that city, was one of three masked men who pushed their way at about 1 a.m. into an apartment occupied by four 20-year-old Worcester Polytechnic Institute students. One of the three was reportedly carrying a gun.

    The trio, demanding money, began to separate the victims, forcing two to lie down and taking the other two to another room, police said. One young man fought back, struggling with Mr. Russell and pulling his mask off, reportedly recognizing him, according to police. Mr. Russell was said to have fled, along with the other two men, driving off in a dark-colored car.

    After speaking with the victims, Worcester detectives contacted Becker College police. At 4:30 a.m., detectives knocked on Mr. Russell’s dormitory door and placed him under arrest after a brief conversation. He had played basketball for the college the afternoon before, scoring a team-high 19 points as the Becker College Hawks lost to Newbury College, 61-56.

    Known here as Mikey, Mr. Russell, playing point guard, led the Bonackers, along with Marcus Edwards, to a 24-2 record, winning the Long Island Class A championship. Newsday named him Long Island’s player of the year for that season.

    But even while in high school Mr. Russell had several brushes with the law, first as a juvenile, later as an adult. His most recent arrest in East Hampton was in January 2012, following a prolonged New Year’s Eve brawl outside East Hampton Bowl.

    Becker is at least the third college he has attended, with four months served in the county jail interrupting his studies.

    A large group of parents of preschoolers urged the Montauk School Board on Tuesday to pierce the state-imposed 2-percent cap on tax levy increases rather than increase the class-size policy. One of the parents at that evening’s school board meeting said an effort would be made to mobilize voters to come out and approve the budget with 60 percent of the vote, which is needed to pierce the cap.

    At a meeting two weeks ago that most of the same parents attended, Jack Perna, the district superintendent, explained that the budget would have to be approved by that percentage in order to exceed the cap, or another vote would be mandatory. If that failed to garner a positive 60 percent, then the school would lose its option to increase the budget at all for the following year.

    In last year’s budget vote, 282 people went to the polls, with 214 in favor of the budget and 68 against it.

    At the board’s meeting on Jan. 8, members had discussed changing the maximum class size — 18 to 24 students — to 28 per class. On Tuesday they discussed leaving out an exact number regarding class size.

    Enrollment in the preschool class was so large last year that the board divided the classes into four, with a split session — two in the morning from 8:30 to 11, and two in the afternoon from noon to 2:30 — but the board kept the option to change it back should enrollment drop.

    Parents also rallied against that decision, saying a split session was too hard on working parents and wouldn’t provide the best education. The preschool classes are exempt from the class-size policy and cannot exceed 21 students per class.

    The final resolution, which was passed unanimously, reads in part, “The board reserves the right to consider class size per grade level based on the unique nature of individual students in classes.”

    Eliminating a set number, board members said, would avoid pitting parents against school officials. “I like no number. If you have no numbers it settles everything,” said Lisa Ward, a school board member.

    Kelly White, also of the school board, said that not including a number allows school officials to look at individual classes and see the differences in student achievement. Board members also said that a variety of activities in the curriculum already reduce class size on a daily basis.

    “There is never 100 percent in a class,” said Diane Hausman, the school board president. “Students are pulled out and a good portion of the time there are only six to seven in a group. This gives us some flexibility that we may need, not that we will need.”

    Therese Watson, another school board member, said a class-size policy is not a state mandate but that she personally favors smaller class sizes.

    “We would never jeopardize the education of our children,” Ms. Hausman said, adding that when programs have been cut because of budget constraints they were never of the educational sort. She said the board has an entire community to worry about and that senior citizens on fixed incomes cannot always afford school tax increases.

    Ms. Hausman also mentioned that the school district is now paying $27,000 in tuition per student at East Hampton High School. Teachers’ health insurance rates and retirement funds have increased, she said.

    A petition signed by 242 residents asking that class size remain as is had been handed to Mr. Perna earlier in the week. It asked that the board reconsider the policy amendment and keep the current class-size limits in place. One mother said that if 242 people signed the petition, those same people would get out and vote. “Why don’t we try to pierce it? We can mobilize,” Sharon Prince said as her hands swept across the room.

    “We can beat it,” added Marilyn Grande, who had turned in the petition.

Storm Shelter Talk

    Earlier in the meeting, Peter Joyce of the Montauk Fire Department asked the school board to make a list of what types of equipment the school would need in case another storm like Hurricane Sandy hit the hamlet.

    Mr. Joyce said the school is one of several designated shelters and in all probability would be used as one in the future. He said the Montauk Playhouse Community Center was another shelter but was inadequate as it does not have a generator. He said the department was seeking money for a generator and other equipment while the storm was still fresh in the minds of government officials.

    Mr. Perna said the school was able to get funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to purchase its generator.

    The other shelters in the hamlet are Montauk Downs State Park and the Montauk Firehouse, which in case of evacuation would be open only for fire department volunteers and their families.

    “A fireman is only good to protect the community if he knows his family is taken care of,” Mr. Joyce explained.

    He said the fire department is putting together a list containing all information about the Montauk shelters and what each could provide. He said the department had already identified about 500 houses in the harbor and Ditch Plain areas of Montauk that would be flooded in the case of a tidal surge.

    He asked for people to sign up to be Red Cross volunteers and said East Hampton Town Police Chief Edward V. Ecker Jr. was handling the training for what would be a one-day course. Volunteers would not need any other qualifications, such as knowledge of cardiopulmonary resuscitation, because members of the Ladies Auxiliary already have that training and would be on hand. A Red Cross volunteer would manage the shelters and be present for guidance.

    “If the school becomes a shelter, we need people in the building that know the building,” Mr. Joyce said in asking for volunteers from among school staff.

    The fire department is planning for Montauk as if East Hampton doesn’t exist, he said. While Sandy was raging, he said, there was only one shelter open and that was East Hampton High School.

    “We’ll be a free island out here if we get hit with a hurricane. It’s a reality we have to face,” Mr. Joyce said. “We are acting as a community and doing whatever it takes to protect our people.”

    With about 320 miles of road in the town highway system, maintenance is a constant item on East Hampton Town Highway Superintendent Steve Lynch’s to-do list.

    This week, midway through a potentially pothole-producing winter, Mr. Lynch said that, despite budget and staffing cuts, and a fall repaving program that had to be suspended because of sub-par work by a paving contractor, he feels like he is getting a leg up on the task. Preventive maintenance, such as quickly sealing cracks that would allow water to seep in and undermine roads, has been key, Mr. Lynch said.

    The goal for the roads, he said, is to “keep the good ones good, and keep pecking away at the bad ones.” A fairly gentle winter, so far, might have helped this year; Mr. Lynch said he has not received many complaints about the state of the roads.

    In the years before he took office at the beginning of 2012, the Highway Department was repaving only about three to four miles of town road a year, Mr. Lynch said. His goal has been 12 miles.

    Last year’s repaving efforts fell short, with “probably six or seven miles done,” Mr. Lynch said, because the poor quality of pavement being laid down led him to pull the plug on an outside company’s work, and begin efforts to have them redo the roads so as to meet engineering standards. Then Hurricane Sandy hit, focusing the Highway Department’s attention on clearing roads of debris, and the weather turned too cold for paving.

    With the $925,000 for repaving in this year’s Highway Department budget by the town board, nine miles of road can be repaved in 2013, Mr. Lynch said.

    Before a vote on the budget last fall, the town’s budget and finance advisory committee had recommended increasing the allocation for paving by 40 percent, to $1.4 million, so that more repaving could be done, but the budget was passed with the repaving amounts remaining as originally drafted by Supervisor Bill Wilkinson.

    The advisers also recommended the purchase of a pavement management program that, after the input of data about the town’s roads, could help Mr. Lynch develop a long-range plan for scheduled maintenance and repair.

    In a memo and presentation to the town board, the committee had said the additional funding was needed for a “catch-up plan” to address years of inadequate roadwork, as well as to maintain the level of funding needed to repair town roads at a rate equal to that of their deterioration. They said approximately 14 miles of road must be addressed per year, based on an expected span of 20 years between the need for a fix.

    Bonnie Krupinski, a member of the committee, told the board that the cost of bringing neglected roads up to snuff could reach $25 to $30 million over the next few years.

    The town board is expected to begin drafting this year’s capital budget in the coming weeks. Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc, the town board’s liaison to the Highway Department, said Tuesday that he supports including both the purchase of the pavement management system and more money for road paving. Money for capital projects is raised by issuing bonds, adding to the town’s long-term debt.

    But, Mr. Van Scoyoc said, instituting an organized repaving system with the assistance of a computer program will allow the Highway Superintendent to “calculate which roads, given their condition,” need attention, and when, and to determine “what’s the best allocation of resources. I think it’s going to aid us in making the right choices,” he said.

    Mr. Lynch said he expects both capital budget items to pass muster with the full town board. The inclusion of $250,000 for repaving in the upcoming capital budget, added to $250,000 for paving already listed in the capital spending plan, and the annual repaving allocation in the Highway Department’s budget, would mean almost $1.5 million for repaving, he said. With that, Mr. Lynch said, “If done right, I could get almost 15 miles of paving.”

    And, he said, the long-range planning tool will set the course for future maintenance and repair. “This way you can keep it in the black,” he said. In the meantime, besides crack sealing, Mr. Lynch has also assigned workers to maintaining drainage structures and road shoulders, preventive maintenance that will preserve roads.

    “By doing things differently, we can make everything last longer,” Mr. Lynch said. “We try to be as efficient as we can with what we have.”

    The Highway Department is responsible only for roads in the town highway system; numerous roads in subdivisions, called “urban renewal roads” have not yet been improved to town highway standards and are not publicly maintained. However, a system of private payments by property owners in each subdivision, put to use to improve the urban renewal roads a bit at a time with an eye to having them eventually adopted as public roads, has been unsuccessful, prompting some residents in those areas to ask town officials for a solution.

    The town’s first road improvement district, a tax district through which affected property owners will pay to have their roads improved so that they may be taken into the town system, has been formed and is now being reviewed by the state comptroller.

    Mr. Van Scoyoc said that once the town starts accepting new roads into the system, ongoing maintenance demands will increase and “we will be further behind,” he said.

    Mr. Lynch was operating this week out of temporary quarters in the hallway at the Highway Department barn while his office was being repaired. It had been “condemned,” he said, after a roof leak and problems with the ceiling. Mr. Lynch said he had experienced repeated bouts of illness, and an assistant had also become sick, and the air quality was found to be bad.

    A frantic call reporting a dispute at the trailer park on Oakview Highway in East Hampton gave rise on Jan. 22 to a bizarre, bloody confrontation between East Hampton Town police and Scott D. Golden, 44, a resident of the park.

    The first officer to arrive was greeted by a man with blood all over his hands and clothes, who told him that Mr. Golden was inside the trailer, “out of control and extremely dangerous.” The officer, Joseph R. Montiel, called for backup and looked inside the trailer. Mr. Golden was in the kitchen, leaning over a counter, head down. “The residence was in disarray,” Officer Montiel reported. “All living room furniture had been overturned, and the kitchen and living room floor were covered in glass and blood.”

    The officer called out to the man by name, and Mr. Golden raised his head, which, says the report, was dripping with blood from a large cut on his forehead. When the officer spoke to him, he responded with “screams and grunts, and spitting blood.”

    As Officer Montiel entered the trailer, Mr. Golden, who was wearing nothing but underwear and a fleece jacket, began moving toward him. His feet and legs were bleeding from walking across a carpet of broken glass that was strewn about the floor, but “he appeared to have no response to pain,” the officer reported.

    Just then three more officers burst in. Mr. Golden, screaming, grabbed a large glass vase filled with rocks and beach glass. Officer Montiel ordered him to drop it, but Mr. Golden hurled it at him. The officer ducked and the vase missed its mark, smashing instead through a double-glass window.

    The commanding officer, Sgt. John Claflin, then fired an X26 Taser at the enraged man, striking him, but to no effect; the report says he “continued to advance” on the four officers. Officer Montiel then threw himself at Mr. Golden, tackling him, and with the help of the other three got him onto the floor face-down, allowing them to handcuff and shackle him.

    Placed in an East Hampton Village ambulance with two of the officers, Mr. Golden continued to spit and kick and writhe against the restraints, police said. The two held him down as the ambulance sped to Southampton Hospital.

    Once in the emergency room, the East Hampton officers were joined by a Southampton Village policeman, and the trio kept the combative Mr. Golden under restraint, the report reads. Still under restraints, he was hospitalized.

    Southampton Town Justice Andrea Schiavoni arraigned him in the hospital two days later on charges of assault on a police officer and third-degree criminal mischief, both felonies. The delay in arraignment was unusual, but East Hampton police declined to say whether he was in restraints throughout the 48 hours.

    The amount of bail could not be determined. Mr. Golden was turned over after arraignment to the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department.

    In one other arrest report last week, a defective headlight led to the arrest of an Amagansett woman, 23-year-old Alexandra Colonna, who was charged with misdemeanor possession of alprazolam, a controlled substance similar to Xanax.

    Ms. Colonna was driving north on Three Mile Harbor-Hog Creek Road on the evening of Jan. 20 when she was pulled over. An officer smelled marijuana when he went to question her, and found a bag of what police said was the drug, along with five pills of alprazolam. Ms. Colonna was released from the station house with a ticket to appear in court at a future date.

Charles Soriano, the principal of East Hampton Middle School, will not be returning to work on Tuesday, as planned.

Mr. Soriano has been out on an extended medical leave since early fall. He was scheduled to return to work following the Martin Luther King Birthday holiday.

But as of Friday afternoon, that plan apparently changed, as explained an e-mail that Mr. Soriano sent to teachers, parents, and staff at 2:29 p.m.

At the time the e-mail was sent, teachers had already begun gathering for a going away party, complete with cake, for Thomas Lamorgese, who has served as interim principal since mid-November.

Mr. Lamorgese will continue filling in for Mr. Soriano until his return.

The e-mail, which was obtained by The East Hampton Star, appears below in its entirety.

From: Soriano, Charlie

Sent: Friday, January 18, 2013 2:29 PM

To: [email protected]; Ms-All

Cc: Lamorgese, Thomas; Burns, Richard

Subject: Update

For Middle School Colleagues and Parents,

Happy Friday. I am writing with the hope that this update will clear up any speculation, innuendo and rumor-milling that sometimes circulates unchallenged.

When the EH Star reporter contacted me last week she said there were many rumors circulating about my medical leave. As I've said before, creative tales are so much more interesting than the plain truth. The grapevine needs some pruning, folks. Unfortunately, yesterday's follow-up with my doctor in NYC did not go as I wanted or planned; he declined to write my clearance to return until I see another specialist next week. This was a personal disappointment, but my health must come first; and I know that you would agree. I have made a request to our superintendent for extending my medical leave until 25 January. No one is more frustrated than me about how long this has taken especially since I have always been a healthy, relatively fit person. Finally, I want to shout-out some thanks to Dr. Lamorgese who has done a great job leading in my absence, especially shepherding the school through the days and weeks following the tragedy in Connecticut. I'm sure it was a very difficult time, and I thought quite a bit about what that must have been like for all of you. I look very forward to being back at EHMS as soon as my doctor gives me the green light.

Please enjoy the long week-end, all best,

Charlie

    A committee convened by East Hampton Town to address issues of coastal erosion — what to do, immediately, to save threatened waterfront sites, particularly in Montauk, and how to plan for the future — jumped in on Jan. 7.

    Right away, erecting snow fencing along the dunes could help to capture and retain blowing sand, Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc, a liaison to the group, said at a town board meeting the next day. That would be just a first, and relatively easy, step in a series of actions discussed by the committee, Mr. Van Scoyoc said. They included temporary and long-term measures that could involve mining offshore sand to rebuild beaches, raising shorefront buildings to federal standards, or a major beach renourishment project to create an “engineered” beach expected to be able to withstand the onslaught of the wind and sea for a certain number of years.

    Mr. Van Scoyoc said that with the recent Congressional release of money for Hurricane Sandy recovery efforts, including money to be distributed to municipalities by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the committee will focus on obtaining emergency permits for restoration work on the Ditch Plain and downtown Montauk beaches.

    Drafting an environmental impact statement for longer-term work in downtown Montauk, such as pumping sand onto the beach from offshore, will take a back seat.

    “This is an enormous problem,” said Ed Braun, a member of Concerned Citizens of Montauk, at the town board’s Jan. 8 meeting. “We should look at this as an opportunity for satisfying the desires of both environmental interests and commercial interests,” he said. “None of us win if there is no beach.”

    “We need your help to elevate this conversation,” he told the board, to keep it from becoming adversarial.

    Supervisor Bill Wilkinson introduced the subject by saying that he wanted people to understand “the economic impact of the ‘retreat’ philosophy on the downtown business district . . . that there is truly an economic impact of these establishments on the shoreline.”

    Mr. Wilkinson said that for every $1 spent at a Montauk motel, there is $8 to $10 spent at other downtown businesses, and that downtown Montauk property owners contributed $10 million in school and property taxes. He did not cite the source of that information, nor respond to an e-mail requesting a citation.

    “It’s an interesting dynamic; it’s a dynamic between property value versus those that have a greater priority on the environment,” he said on Jan. 8.

    “It’s clear that the business economy and the health of the beaches are inextricably linked,” Councilman Van Scoyoc said. A wide, sandy beach is what draws visitors, he said. With the effect of erosion “on a lot of levels, we’re really gambling now; we’re playing Russian roulette,” he said.

    At the meeting of the coastal committee, he said, “there was broad and general agreement that restoring the beach in front of the Montauk business district was a goal that everyone could agree on.” Though there are other “hotspots” of severe erosion throughout the town, he said, the group decided first to focus on Montauk, and had discussed short-term, medium-term, and long-term strategies.

    But, Mr. Van Scoyoc said, “There has to be an acknowledgement that sea-level rise would obliterate any short-term or medium-term fixes. So that has to be in the back of our minds, as well.”

    Councilwoman Theresa Quigley said that she had hoped that the committee would research current town and state regulations to ascertain what actions are allowed in emergency situations of severe erosion. “We’re trying to figure out what the code provides, and I haven’t seen a clear answer to that,” she said.

    Mr. Van Scoyoc said that the town code and East Hampton’s state-approved Local Waterfront Revitalization Project plan specify that only “beach-compatible” sand, or geotextile tubes filled with sand, may be put on ocean beaches under any circumstances; no hard structures are allowed.

    “Are we okay with emergency measures to protect properties?” Councilman Dominick Stanzione asked. “The immediate preservation of property is paramount to the next paramount issue, which is protecting the beach,” he said. “Property owners want a liberal interpretation of what they can do, temporarily, given the emergency.”

    “What are we considering allowing an owner to do under such adverse conditions?” Mr. Wilkinson asked. “We have a long winter, as well as spring approaching. What do you do, what are we going to allow . . . these other places to do in the case of a storm?”

    “What emergency powers does the board have, or the supervisor have, or the committee have, to allow somebody on the beach in downtown Montauk to keep their building standing?”

    “The context is a larger plan for coastal erosion planning,” Mr. Stanzione said, “so that we don’t want to take any action in an emergency that won’t be part of a longer-term plan.”

    Mr. Stanzione suggested having the coastal committee come up with ideas, and then have them vetted by John Jilnicki, the town attorney, as to legality.

    If the board wants to allow property owners to take actions beyond what is called for in the town code, Mr. Jilnicki said, it will “run into the problem of the [waterfront revitalization plan].” The plan is the product of a years-long community effort to craft coastal policy in sync with state dictates, land-planning parameters, and scientific projections regarding erosion.

    “I want to know over the next three months whether we can amend that procedure or that law,” Mr. Wilkinson said.

    Mr. Stanzione questioned what would happen “if we find, in an emergency, that those measures are inadequate, and we have property owners who are not willing to sacrifice their properties to the inadequacy.”

    “What complicates the issue is that no oceanfront property lives in a vacuum,” Councilwoman Sylvia Overby said. For instance, she said, she would like an engineer’s opinion of what effect the installation of concrete septic rings on the beach in front of the Royal Atlantic in Montauk might have had. Though Mr. Wilkinson and others have cited them as saving the building from destruction by the surf, the beach level drops by several feet nearby, Ms. Overby said.

    In addressing both the pressing and long-term problems, Mr. Braun said, the board cannot allow anything to be done “that is in tremendous conflict with phase two or phase three.”

    “That’s my concern with putting in hard structures on one little reach of beach,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said.

    The coastal committee is to meet again on Monday. Among the tasks on its agenda, Mr. Van Scoyoc said, is reviewing coastal engineering information from local and other experts, and actions taken in neighboring municipalities as well as other areas of the East Coast. 

    Mr. Van Scoyoc said earlier this week that, though the town’s L.W.R.P., anticipating the effects of sea-level rise and increasing erosion, called for a series of proactive actions, there was a period of time when East Hampton was spared severe storms — a lull during which the issues now facing our coastal community remained in the background.

    Now, he said, “When we see what happened to the west, and think about it happening here, it brings it back to everybody’s mind.”

    “We have to keep in mind that any solution can’t be one-sided,” he said. However, he said he is “ultimately on the side of preserving the public beach.” 

    The Montauk Brewing Company has been serving up tastes of its signature Driftwood Ale at its headquarters across from the hamlet’s Little League Field for about a year, but so far has not been able to make the ale on site. Now the partners, Joe Sullivan, Eric Moss, and Vaughan Cutillo, all graduates of East Hampton High School, want to make the brewery just that, installing the equipment needed to make Driftwood Ale truly made in Montauk.

    But doing so triggered the need for a site plan review by the East Hampton Town Planning Board, which got its first taste of what the young entrepreneurs have in mind on Jan. 16 and seemed to like it.

    The small brewing company is in a former woodworking shop opposite Zebrowski Field. Their plan, presented to the board by the owners’ representatives, Andy Hammer and Tara Burke Powers, seemed to go down smoothly until the subject of parking bubbled up.

    According to the evaluation prepared for the board by Eric Schantz, a town planner, the plan lacked needed parking calculations, called for under town code. Mr. Schantz wrote that it appeared that three additional parking spaces would be needed on the site. However, there is no place on the already developed property to put the parking spaces.

    The town code makes a provision for situations like the one facing the fledgling company, where it is not possible to create additional spaces on the site, by allowing the owners to pay into a fund to create parking spaces elsewhere.

    However, according to Mr. Hammer, the cost of such a payment, which he said could be as high as $70,000 in this particular case, would be prohibitive for a startup venture such as the Montauk Brewing Company. He suggested, instead, that the board grant an easement, allowing the owners to use the municipal parking lot, which is adjacent to the building, in its parking calculations.

    Mr. Hammer told the board that he frequently coached Little League in the park, and had never seen a problem with the parking. He explained that the actual traffic generated by the brewery, which only had a tasting room open to the public in its first year, was not going to change.

    “We’re putting brewing equipment in the back. The public isn’t going to have access to it,” he said. “The easement could be solely dependent on the current use,” he suggested, meaning that if the brewery closed, the site would forfeit the easement he was requesting.

    “We could go in two directions on this. One, fees in lieu of parking, two, grant an easement to allow the business to use the town parking,” said Reed Jones, the board’s chairman.

    This particular easement is unusual in that, because it involves municipal land, it would require the town board’s approval.

    The proposed easement was discussed at a town board meeting on Jan. 15 and had received bipartisan support, although a formal vote was not taken.

    Several planning board members expressed support for the project, too. Nancy Keeshan, who grew up in Montauk, told the board that it was important to support local people taking on the risks of a startup business, and suggested that the attorneys for the town and the applicants sit down and work out a deal, an idea Bob Schaeffer supported as well.

    However, Patrick Schutte cautioned the board about the dangers of granting the easement, something he said had been denied to previous applicants in similar situations.

    “I can name 10 other applicants who had to pay into it. I don’t think that legally we can do that, the town board can do that. I don’t think the town board or we can grant an easement on this,” he said.

    While supporting the endeavor, Ian Calder-Piedmonte, another board member, was also concerned about the easement. “If we did it for this business, then we’d have to do it for anybody near municipal parking,” he said.

    He cautioned the board to look beyond the immediate implications, and remember that its decision would hold sway in perpetuity. He then suggested scheduling the fee payments over a five-year period, to make it easier for the applicant.

    “I think we want to be helpful to the applicant,” Mr. Jones said. “We’re talking 150 parking spaces within 100 yards.”

    Mr. Hammer reminded the board of the time factor. The applicants are hoping to have the brewery running in time for the hectic summer season.

    The board agreed, and said the application was complete, save for the easement question, which will have to be worked out. A hearing on the application will be scheduled the next time the board meets.

    “Harrier, harrier, harrier!” Vicki Bustamante yelled, her eye downward peering into her Swarovski birding scope early Saturday morning as a biting northwest wind buffeted her parka. The low January sun threatened not to rise much farther and the chopped surface of Hook Pond made it hard to count the waterfowl she was scoping.

    The annual New York State Ornithological Association survey was what had Ms. Bustamante and her cohorts, Karen Rubenstein and her sister Barbara, perched head-down behind tripods. They were counting by tens within their respective fields of vision, ID-ing species against the howl of the wind with the bravado of auctioneers.

    “Bonies, they’re Bonies, see the white leading edges,” Ms. Bustamante announced, briefly leaving her scope to watch two Bonaparte gulls struggling against the wind. Bonies and harrier hawks are not waterfowl, of course, but the three surveyors are birders by nature, so anything with feathers earned a shout-out.

    “I’ve got one merganser, two razorbills!” shouted Ms. Bustamante. “We don’t count alcids,” she informed a tagalong, alcids being diving seabirds.

    “I’ve got 63 black ducks,” Karen Rubenstein barked against the wind. There followed a good 10 minutes of studied, telescopic silence.

    Saturday’s duck count was part of a statewide effort to compile statistics in cooperation with the State Department of Environmental Conservation. The Ornithological Association divides the state up into regions. The regions do not correspond with the D.E.C.’s management areas. There are 25 survey areas within Long Island’s Region 10, including New York City.

    On the South Fork, the South Fork Natural History Museum oversees the count in four areas: Shinnecock to Water Mill, Amagansett to East Hampton, Mecox Bay, and Montauk. Two of the four areas were covered by other teams on Saturday. The Montauk count took place this week. All the surveys must be made between Jan. 19 and Jan. 27.

    The duck count is not to be confused with the National Audubon Society’s annual Christmas bird count that takes place between Dec. 14 and Jan. 5 and involves tens of thousands of volunteers throughout North and South America.

    Ron Bourque is a veteran birder who has been involved in the annual Mid-Winter Waterfowl count for the past decade. He is the regional “compiler” of the numbers that come in from all over the Island and the city.

    “I transpose all the data onto an Excel spreadsheet and send it to the association. They look for trends,” Mr. Bourque said, going on to describe the span of the project whose data goes back three decades. In all, 47 species are counted, including cormorants, coots, grebes, and loons. Why count them midwinter, Mr. Bourque was asked.

    “There are a lot of inland birds that normally breed in lakes, rivers, and ponds. It’s their regular habitat, but when it freezes, they head for the Atlantic Ocean. They come out to saltwater because it’s a place to feed,” Mr. Bourque said. The Ornithological Association’s avian records committee has been compiling annual reports since 1977.

    “I have 1,200 Canadians,” Ms. Bustamante said. “Sometimes we see greater white-fronted geese, and snow geese. A lot of mergansers lately. I don’t think we’ll pull much more out of here,” she said, folding the legs of her tripod.

    The duck counters repaired to the warmth of their cars and headed for Georgica Pond to compile their stats, but with binoculars at the ready.

    Affordable housing in East Hampton Village got a small but important boost on Friday when the village board considered and then quickly adopted a zoning code amendment that will eliminate a disincentive to establishing second-story rental apartments in the village’s commercial districts.

    In the past, when the village zoning board of appeals granted variances from off-street parking requirements, applicants were required to pay $10,000 to a village parking fund for each parking space that could not be provided. But the village board realized that in order to implement affordable housing, in some cases, strictly applying those requirements in commercial zones “may require variance relief in order to implement affordable housing,” according to the legislation. The amendment “is intended to replace the disincentive with a requirement that covenants and restrictions be imposed that will ensure the continued use of the property for purposes of affordable housing.”

    The encumbrance represented by the $10,000-per-space fee had come to the board’s attention in the form of Pat Trunzo’s November 2012 appearance before the Z.B.A., at which he made a case for variances needed to convert the second floor of the building he and his brother own at 11 Lumber Lane into two apartments. Mr. Trunzo said that the fee would deplete the money for the project.

    At Friday’s meeting, Michelle Trunzo read a letter on Mr. Trunzo’s behalf, in which he urged the amendment’s adoption. “It is well drafted and well thought-out, providing relief to deserving projects while still leaving the village, through its zoning board of appeals, in control of which applications benefit from its considerable relief. As we hope to be the first to benefit from the proposed amendment, we sincerely hope it may spur other affordable housing projects in the commercial and manufacturing districts to materialize.”

    With a seemingly insatiable demand for second homes and the encroachment of those houses into neighborhoods traditionally populated by local residents, the proposed amendment represents “one of the few potential countertrends to a demographic shift that poses continuing threat to the very fabric and viability of the community,” Ms. Trunzo read. The letter complimented the Z.B.A. for being open-minded and for listening to the public with regard to the need for affordable housing.

    Public comment was unanimously in favor of the proposal. Joan Osborne, speaking for the Village Preservation Society of East Hampton, voiced the society’s strong support for “finding ways to create affordable housing units in the village where practical, applicable, and appropriate. . . . As the asset may change hands over time and tenants come and go, it is essential that any property benefiting from relief under this special exception remain affordable,” she said.

    Though neither a resident of the village nor speaking on behalf of the Town of East Hampton, Tom Ruhle, the town’s director of housing, also voiced his support. “I believe this to be an excellent move by the village toward making it easier for the private sector to create affordable housing opportunities, in this particular case over a building that already exists.”

    Waiving the off-street parking spaces fee requirement is not mandatory, Mr. Ruhle said, “but it’s giving the authority to the board on a case-by-case basis to relax it. I believe from my experience in the town that this can be done and can be maintained in perpetuity affordable.”

    Gerry Mooney, who has been managing affordable housing complexes in the town for 25 years, including the recently opened senior citizens apartments at St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in Amagansett, also spoke in support of the code amendment. Mr. Mooney said that a waiting list for the 175 units he manages grows daily, and that applicants can wait up to seven years for housing. “The reason we have over 350 applicants is because nobody moves. There’s really no place to go, it’s not like there’s a lot of choices out there. And when they hear that there’s going to be a long waiting list, many of them get so discouraged that they don’t even make the application after we send it to them,” he said.

    The need has never been greater, Mr. Mooney said, adding that most applicants are now sharing overcrowded housing, and sleeping on couches or in basements. They are also likely to spend half of their income, or more, on rent. “This is not only seniors but also local people, young people who have gotten out of high school and college and would love to live here, near their parents and grandparents. They work in the hardware stores, Starbucks. They’re plumbers, electricians, landscapers, waiters. But most of all, these are our neighbors and they are people that we have a responsibility to, to work with as far as providing affordable housing,” he said.

    “This is a baby step for your village government, where we’re proceeding today,” said Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. “The one drawback, as I think we all realize, is the cost of real estate. But this was a first step forward. Hopefully we will be able to build on that as time unfolds.”

    After three years of discussion, a state-mandated environmental quality review, and a green light last month from the Sag Harbor Village Planning Board, the Harbor Heights service station’s application for demolition and large-scale expansion finally came before the village’s Zoning Board of Appeals on Jan. 15.

    Harbor Heights, on Route 114 (Hampton Road), is currently the only provider of fuel in Sag Harbor, and the night’s long hearing brought out a packed crowd of residents opposing many aspects of the plan, especially the addition of a 972-square-foot convenience store. The station is in a residential zone, but is allowed to operate there because it was built before the zoning code took effect.

    Anita Rainford, who said she was representing 130 taxpayers of the Azurest Homeowners Association and some 300 other residents as well, said traffic was bad enough already on 114, and a convenience store would only make it far worse. The four gas pumps there now are enough, she said — four more are proposed — and she called the expansion plan “a monstrosity.”

    The Rev. Kenneth Nelson, speaking on behalf of the nearby A.M.E. Zion Church, took issue with a convenience store selling alcohol (beer) so close to the church. “My ancestors built this church,” he said. “I want to save the church and the area around it.” He also expressed concern that students from nearby schools would walk down the sidewalk-less streets to buy things at the store, creating a safety issue, and that the store would become “a hangout for youth who have nothing else to do.”

    “We are against that kind of environment,” said Mr. Nelson.

    Dennis Downes, the village attorney, representing the applicant, John Leonard, brought two engineers to brief the board. Chris Tartaglia of High Point Engineering described the existing station as antiquated, run down, and in dire need of updating. He emphasized its lack of curb cuts or proper traffic flow, and said its pumps were unsafely positioned, just a few feet from the road.

    Under the proposed redevelopment,  the pumps would be set back to a less visible location on the side of the building, with a redesigned traffic flow, 32 parking spots, and a truck-loading stall, in addition to the doubling of the number of pumps. The other engineer, Charles Olivio, the owner of Stonefield Engineering, said the pumps as they now stand — in the right-of-way of a state highway — are “somewhat dangerous.”

    The development also calls for a 24-foot high, 102-foot long, lighted canopy atop the island holding the pumps; about nine feet higher than the code allows. Mr. Tartaglia told the board the height was essential for tractor-trailers delivering gas to maneuver safely, adding that the shingled roof of the canopy accounts for several excess feet in height. Drawings of the canopy and the overall plan portrayed a “country market” look and feel, intended to fit in with the residential area.    

    While 600 square feet is the code limit for a convenience store, the requested variance is for 972 square feet. That includes a restroom for customers (there is none now), an 11-door walk-in cooler, two 20-foot display “gondolas,” 80 feet for coffee service, and display space for candy and gum, “salty snacks,” “meat snacks,” cookies and pastries, pet supplies, paper products and cleaning aids, groceries, and health and beauty products. The total also includes a stairway, the register area, an office, and a storage closet, said Mr. Tartaglia.

    “Nobody knows where the 600 feet came from,” he said, calling the code “out-of-date.” Code restrictions on canopy height were “nowhere in any municipality I have ever worked,” he said. “It is completely nonsensical, especially for a gas station.”

    He went on to present a lengthy explication of convenience store industry studies to justify the financial reasoning behind the desired size of the store, observing that fuel costs are up and profits on gasoline sales down, thanks to federal mandates requiring that cars get better mileage. And, he said, the demand for repairs has lessened, because oil changes and brakes last longer. You would “make as much on a can of soda as a $10 fill-up,” he asserted.

    The board listened to the statistics, but its new chairman, Anthony Hagen, told Mr. Tartaglia that “what’s important to us is . . . how will this impact our community.”    

    Under the redevelopment, the current service station would be demolished.  The new one, together with the store, would be in a single building, with decorative barn doors “for aesthetic purposes,” said Mr. Tartaglia, with a “300 percent increase” in landscaping as well as a new septic system, already approved by the Suffolk County Health Department, to improve on-site drainage. The engineer called that a substantial environmental benefit. Right now, he said, runoff goes into the state right-of-way.

    A request for a sign setback variance was explained as a safety issue, so drivers could know the price of gas without slowing down. The existing Harbor Heights sign would be removed, and Mr. Tartaglia said the applicant would work with the Architectural Review Board for any new, ground-mounted, low signs.

    Mr. Olivio told the board that based on traffic studies covering summer months, off-season months, and holidays, a 972-square-foot store would generate no more traffic than a smaller store that conformed to the code. Gas stations draw cars that are already traveling on the road, he explained. The fact that the village’s only other gas station, Getty, is now closed was not discussed or taken into account of by the traffic studies, as it happened only recently.

    The finding about there being no increase in traffic at a larger store was a factor in the planning board’s approval last month. That board determined the site’s use under the code to be a gasoline service station with an accessory convenience store, where gas is what draws the traffic. The presumption is that a driver stops to fuel and then pays a visit to the store. Mr. Hagen confirmed, “You are making a judgment that the main use is gasoline.”

    The meeting went on for over three hours. As it showed little sign of ending, Mr. Hagen tabled the matter until the board’s next meeting, on Feb. 19. Jeff Bragman, an attorney representing Save Sag Harbor, which has been gathering petitions against the application, was eager to speak, but said he would hold off until then in view of the late hour.