Taxi company owners turned out last Thursday to tell the East Hampton Town Board that proposed changes to taxi licensing regulations would negatively impact them, to the degree, some said, of putting them out of business.

    Among the burdensome provisions, they said, are a proposed increase in the minimum required insurance coverage — which one man said could double his premiums — and a requirement that cars more than 10 years old, or with 250,000 miles or more on the odometer, be taken out of service.

    Town board members, with the exception of Councilwoman Theresa Quigley, who was absent, indicated that they would review the law before taking action, saying it was designed to protect and assist local cab companies, not create more challenges for them.

    Several years ago, a taxi owner complained to the board that an increasing number of out-of-town drivers were competing with locals for fares during the prime summer season. Since then, complaints and concerns have grown about the number of cabs operating, their safety, and crowded and chaotic scenes caused by cabs congregating at beaches and outside late-night spots.

    At last week’s hearing, however, attorneys representing several cab companies questioned whether the proposed legislation would adequately address those problems, and whether the town even had the authority and jurisdiction to enact some of the suggested restrictions.

    At question, in particular, is a proposed requirement that a cab company must have an office in East Hampton Town to obtain a license to operate here.

    Carl Irace, a former town attorney who drafted the original taxi regulations, called the new proposal “well-intentioned,” but said that “what it’s created is a story of a punishment that doesn’t fit the crime.”

    “A lot of the issue appears to be periodic congestion,” he said, suggesting that, if enforced, existing vehicle and traffic, highway, and public health laws, along with the taxi rules already on the books, can police that problem.

    He advised that the problem of having taxis clustered around certain spots, such as bus stops or near nightspots in Montauk and Amagansett, could be relieved by establishing designated taxi stands, and ticketing cabs that stop outside them.

    The town could limit the number of taxi licenses it issues, Mr. Irace said, citing opinions of the state attorney general and state comptroller that support a municipality’s right to do so. Additional licenses could then be issued to do business solely from June to September, when rider demand increases.

    However, Mr. Irace said, one of the state opinions indicates that the town cannot issue taxicab licenses to local companies only. “I think there are ways to achieve the goal,” the attorney said. “There might be safer ways for the board to operate.”

    Lawrence Kelly, an attorney representing Moko Taxi and Surf Taxi, two Montauk companies, noted that Suffolk County is seeking to establish a taxi and limousine commission. “The question is raised, then, what’s the role of town government and does it have a role in regulating the taxi industry. It’s not clear that it does have a role, under the law.”

    County Legislator Jay Schneiderman said Tuesday that the Legislature is indeed interested in setting up a taxi-licensing procedure, following passage of a state law last summer giving the county authority to do so. “To what extent that will limit the town’s jurisdiction, that’s not clear to me,” he said. But, “with or without it, I think the town still has limited authority in this area.” In particular, Mr. Schneiderman said, limiting licenses to those who are based here only raises constitutional concerns. It’s not required of other industries where town licenses are required, such as home improvement contractors, he pointed out.

    “We’re doing the best that we can. It’s not a 365-day operation,” said Carlton Cornelius Campbell Jr. of Rockers Express Transportation at last week’s hearing. The local cab drivers are only trying to make enough in the busy season to sustain them year round, he said, and are not gouging fares. “With these wolves or vultures coming in . . . they don’t follow the rules like we do . . . they don’t compromise . . . they carry on . . . all kinds of shenanigans.”

    “You want to keep the out-of-towners out, medallionize it,” Richard Quimby said.

    Brian DeParma of Hometown Taxi has a 60 to 70-car fleet operating in East Hampton and Southampton. Hometown also has taxis in other East End towns, as well as in Seaside Heights, N.J. That town, Mr. DeParma said, issues a limited number of licenses to operate taxis year-round, to companies that offer service 24 hours a day, seven days a week, which are allowed an unlimited number of cars. Seaside Heights also issues 10 summer-only licenses, and allows those companies to have a maximum of five taxis in use. That addresses the problem of the “weekend warriors,” coming in to siphon business from the local cabs, Mr. DeParma said.

    “We’re really trying to protect the general public, and the local cab companies aren’t the problem,” remarked Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc.

    “It’s a very hard business to operate,” Brian Damark of East End Taxi, Mr. Irace’s client, told the board. “I was in the Marine Corps for four years; I thought that was difficult until I came into the taxi business.” Mr. Damark said one thing that would help would be if the town designated taxi parking areas.

    Mr. DeParma said his insurance agent had told him that the cost of insurance, now $9,138 for cars insured at the state mandatory minimum of coverage, would go up to $13,659 a car if the town puts minimum coverage levels of $100,000 and $300,000 into effect. And Mr. Damark, who now pays $7,000 to $9,000 a year per car for insurance, said his premiums could double if the law is passed mandating more coverage.

    Should local companies that can’t afford increased insurance costs go out of business, larger taxi companies from out of town could replace them, dominating the market, Mr. Damark said. And, he added, “If taxi insurance is double, then we’re going to have to gouge people and double the fares.”

    “The bottom line for my client is, this proposition is just too burdensome and too restrictive on them,” Mr. Irace said. The lawyer also questioned the effect of provisions in the proposed law regarding fingerprinting drivers, and the disclosure of prior criminal offenses listed in certain sections of the state penal law. As the town law is written, he said, someone who had been convicted of shoplifting could be precluded from driving a cab. Other regulatory agencies and corrections laws already outline how people who have paid for prior crimes can go back to work, he said.

    The proposed town law would also ban taxis from idling for more than five minutes. The issuance of taxi licenses, and review of licensing issues, would be overseen by the town’s License Review Board, which now deals solely with contractors’ licenses.

    Several members of that board appeared at the hearing and said they were willing to take on that responsibility. They asked, however, that the board be given a secretary, and that compensation to members be increased along with the expanded responsibilities.

    A dead female finback whale, estimated to weigh about 58 tons, was beached on Napeague on Sunday, the same day that a young male pygmy sperm whale washed up, still breathing, about three miles down the beach in Amagansett.

    Though the beaching of two whales in one day may have seemed like an unusual coincidence, Kim Durham, rescue program director for the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation, explained that their proximity was related to the ocean currents, which take marine mammals when they are in a weakened state.

    The pygmy sperm whale “wasn’t a candidate for rescue,” Ms. Durham said on Monday morning. The team assessed the five-and-a-half-foot mammal at 160 pounds, and found him in severely compromised health, emaciated, with labored breathing and thermal lesions, she said. The whale was euthanized by injection on Sunday, and its remains were taken to Riverhead. The cause of the whale’s illnesses had not been determined and the foundation did not venture any guesses.

    As for the finback’s cause of death, Ms. Durham believed it was a ship strike. She pointed Monday morning to the exposed underside of the whale, which was lying on its side, partially submerged in the water. A large black mark between its fins, approximately three feet in length, lined up horizontally with the fin below it, which bore a mark of almost the same size and shape. The strike area appeared to be surrounded by bruising, she said. In addition to those wounds, scarring on the whale’s tail indicated her entanglement in a fishing net at some point in her life, Ms. Durham said.

    On Tuesday evening, Rob DiGiovanni, the foundation’s executive director and senior biologist, confirmed that blunt-force trauma was the cause of death. He said that abrasions and bruising beneath the whale’s skin provided evidence of a collision, while she was alive, with something hard and large in the water. Although “nobody was there to see it,” he said this is usually indicative of a sea vessel. Her severe decomposition indicated she was dead for about two weeks before washing up on the beach, he said.

    After completing a necropsy on the pygmy sperm whale on Tuesday, Mr. DiGiovanni said that preliminary findings uncovered bleeding ulcers in its stomach, an excessive nematode infestation (roundworms), and peritonitis, a bacterial or fungal infection of the inner abdominal wall. “Any one of these issues is a severe condition,” explained Mr. DiGiovanni.

    With the finback whale landing at the end of a path from the road to the ocean, many residents, including a busload of children, saw the enormous creature up close on Sunday and Monday.

As the whale rocked back and forth with breaking waves at the water’s edge, a team of volunteers gathered at the site on Monday and waited for the tide to go out before a crane pulled the whale’s tail toward the beach, to enable examination. Due to the strong stench of decay and potential spray of fluids, the whale was positioned so that the wind would not carry either toward those who worked on her.

    Many spectators were fascinated with the whale’s mouth and baleen, but Ms. Durham warned that a decomposing mammal presents “an amazing buffet of bacteria,” which can cause illness. Chief Edward Michels of East Hampton Town’s marine patrol was on the scene to secure public safety, by delineating a viewing area with police tape.

    Rodney Smith of the Shinnecock Nation came to pay his respects, and performed a ritual that included an offering of tobacco in four directions and the burning of sage around the whale.

    When conditions permit, whales can be buried on the beach, but according to Mr. DiGiovanni, local officials and environmental agencies decided to cart the whale off premises for disposal, after the remains were documented with the National Marine Fisheries Service.

    A finback whale can grow to as long as 75 feet; a pygmy sperm whale can reach a maximum of 14 feet.

    Had the pigmy sperm whale been viable for rescue, there would have been a problem, since the foundation’s tank is currently occupied by a harbor porpoise, and mixed breeds in tanks are not an option. The porpoise, which is being fed and doing well according to Mr. DiGiovanni, may be released in a month or so. Pictures of the porpoise can be found on the foundation’s Web site, riverheadfoundation.org.

    Two waterfront properties on Lake Montauk and one on Gardiner’s Bay were front and center at the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals meetings on Tuesday and Jan. 8, with the size of a pre-existing dock being questioned, the placement of a pool puzzled over, and the proposed location house on Gerard Drive under discussion.

    The dock in question is in the water at Lake Montauk adjoining a nearly one-acre property at 289 East Lake Drive owned by Peter Bennett and Jean Nevins. The couple are proposing to tear down an existing house with related structures and paving and replace it with a 4,679-square-foot house with 538 square feet of balconies, plus another 4,300 square feet of decking, a 674-square-foot swimming pool, a new septic system, and an expanded dock.

    The variances needed for the project were extreme, the board’s chairman, Alex Walter, said, calling the application “busy.” One of the setback variances requested would leave no separation from wetlands at all where 100 feet are required, and the variance requested for the septic system would place it 51 feet from wetlands where 200 feet are required.

    The expanded dock would be 80 feet long and requires a natural resources permit because it is on Lake Montauk, which New York State has designated as a significant fish and wildlife habitat, and which is part of the Peconic Estuary critical environmental area.

    While allowing that the proposal seemed, on the surface, to be asking for extreme variances, Mr. Walter also said, “I understand why this is such a busy application, as far as the upland portion” of the site. The property, he said, is severely constrained in terms of its proximity to wetlands.

    He also told the board it would be wise to bifurcate the proposal, and consider the upland part of the parcel separately from the dock, which is just what the board did.

    “There is no conforming envelope on the property,” Andy Hammer, of Biondo and Hammer told the board on Jan. 8.

    The Town Planning Department agreed with Mr. Hammer’s assessment when it came to the upland portion of the property, and, in fact, went further. “The proposed project will bring the lot coverage down 8,206 square feet, so that the property conforms to the total allowable lot coverage,” wrote Joel Halsey, a former planner for the town, in a memo to the board in September of last year.

    Brian Frank, the town’s chief environmentalist, called the property as it is an “environmental disaster.” It has two paved driveways, one to the house, the other running all the way down to Lake Montauk. Mr. Frank pointed out on Jan. 8 that runoff water from storms accumulates on the driveways and runs right into the wetlands.

    The proposed new house would be much smaller, with the paved driveway o the house replaced by a permeable one made with stones, and the second paved drive removed altogether. Also included is a major revegetation plan, bringing in native species where non-native invasives now grow.

    The board heartily embraced these proposals during Tuesday’s deliberations.

    But when it got to the proposed expanded dock, the application hit choppy waters.

    According to Mr. Halsey’s assessment, which was confirmed by Mr. Frank, the original certificate of occupancy was for a 38-foot dock. A dock that size would be allowed to remain on the site, despite the fact that it normally would not be permitted in Lake Montauk, because its existence predates town regulations prohibiting it. However, nothing larger would be permitted, unless the board grants a variance.

    Mr. Hammer argued that the exact size of the pre-existing dock was uncertain, a point the board seemed dubious about.

    Mr. Frank explained that Lake Montauk was not originally open to tidal flow. It was, in fact, the largest freshwater lake on Long Island, before Carl Fisher blasted an opening on its north side to the Long Island Sound in 1927, as part of his ill-fated “Miami North” development plan for Montauk.

    Mr. Frank told the board that the lake is very shallow, and that extending a dock into the lake would not get it into navigable waters.

    Don Cirillo, who is a strong proponent on the board of landowners’ rights, pointed out that the dock, with its planned extension, would still be on private land.

    “Is this a boat dock or a swim dock?” Mr. Walter had asked the applicants on Jan. 8.

    “It is a boat dock,” Mr. Hammer responded.

    However, later that night, Ms. Nevin told the board that the couple are kayakers, and that Mr. Bennett liked to walk out onto the end of the dock when the house was filled with summer guests. “Peter takes a chair, the crossword puzzle, and gets away from the crowd,” she said.

    The board requested a copy of the original certificate of occupancy from the town’s Building Department on Jan. 8, to settle the question of the original size of the dock, but had not received it as of Tuesday, and so, tabled the entire matter until the certificate is received.

    In a separate matter discussed Tuesday and on Jan. 8, the board considered Mark Goldberg’s plan for two nearly half-acre properties on East Lake Drive. One of Mr. Goldberg’s lots, at 269 East Lake Drive, runs from the road to Lake Montauk. The other, a vacant lot, adjoins it to the north and is also on the lake.

    Mr. Goldberg wants to build a 4,628-square-foot house with a deck on the undeveloped property and needs a natural resources special permit to do so because of the house’s proximity to the tidal wetland line and the bluff crest, something the board seemed willing to grant. It was the already developed property that sparked a somewhat heated debate.

    On that property, he wants to tear down the 2,100-square-foot house and replace it with a new 3,884-square-foot house. The existing pool, which is close to the lake, would be replaced with a new, larger pool. The house and deck caused little controversy in terms of their distance from wetlands, but the pool was another matter.

    “I believe that they had options to pull the pool back and locate it in a different location. My opinion is, they need to pull the pool back,” Bryan Gosman, a board member from Montauk who is familiar with the terrain, said during Tuesday’s deliberations.

    Mr. Cirillo told the board that he believed that the pool was placed where it was so it would be accessible to both properties. “I don’t like to tweak an application. I don’t have a problem with where the pool is,” he said.

    Lee White and Sharon McCobb, other board members, both agreed that the pool could be placed in another location where it would be more in line with the town code. Mr. White added that the applicant’s assertion that the new pool’s location should be allowed because it was farther away from Lake Montauk than the old pool, and therefore, an improvement, was not a valid argument and that the new request must stand or fall on its own merits.

    “I’d say this is substantial, compared to where it could be located,” Mr. Walter said.

    “When a person makes a request to do what they want to do, we should have a good reason to say no,” Mr. Cirillo said.

    The other board members felt there was a good reason, and voted 4-1 to deny the variances for the pool, then unanimously approved the variances for the new house.

    The application for Gerard Drive in Springs led to an unusual moment for the board, with Mr. Cirillo and Mr. Frank finding themselves allies on Jan. 8.

    The two have frequently been at loggerheads over the relevance of the town’s code versus a property owner’s right to develop.

    In this case, Barbara Kruger, who has owned her 881-square-foot house for many years, wants to save it from potential flooding from Gardiner’s Bay, which is right across the road, and adhere to the Federal Emergency Management minimum first-floor height regulations, her representative, Mary Whelan, told the board. She plans to move the house 20 feet landward, away from the causeway but closer to the wetlands, and raise it up 41/2 feet. The house, which would be as close as 70 feet from wetlands, would need a variance for that reason and several others because of its height.

    As opposed to building some form of shore hardening, which would be against town code, a “retreat is one of the options that this board, and I’ll speak for myself, looks kindly towards,” Mr. Walter said.

    Mr. Cirillo asked Ms. Whelan whether Ms. Kruger had considered moving the house even closer to the wetlands. Ms. Whelan responded that she and her client had tried to adhere, as much as possible, to town code with the proposed move.

    Mr. Frank said the Planning Department would encourage the move Mr. Cirillo suggested, in this specific case, due to the expense of such a move on the homeowner, who would, in all likelihood, get just one bite at the apple.

    Mr. Cirillo seemed surprised by Mr. Frank’s comments, saying, “I wasn’t necessarily advocating . . . I wouldn’t want to micromanage.”

    Mr. Walter said the board could keep the hearing open for two weeks, which would allow Ms. Whelan and Ms. Kruger to explore whether a request for the additional footage should be added to the application.

    Ms. McCobb, whose term on the board was up at the end of last year, is continuing as a board member for now. The town board tabled a decision on an appointment to the zoning board earlier this month.

    East Hampton Town Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc suggested Tuesday that the town remove the Fort Pond House property in Montauk from the market, but was opposed by Supervisor Bill Wilkinson and Councilwoman Theresa Quigley, who called opposition to the sale “political.”

    Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, Mr. Van Scoyoc’s Democratic cohort on the board, agreed with his proposal. Defending an ongoing lawsuit challenging the sale, brought by several community groups, is costing the town money, she said.

    The four-acre waterfront property on Fort Pond, which contains an old house that was used by groups including the Boy Scouts and the Third House Nature Center, along with other community groups, was put up for sale in 2010 despite massive public opposition.

    The move prompted two lawsuits — an Article 78 that alleged that the town acted illegally in several ways when authorizing the sale of the property, including violations of the state open meetings law and public trust doctrine, and a federal suit that alleged Mr. Wilkinson and Ms. Quigley had violated opponents’ constitutional rights by retaliating against those who opposed the sale. That case has been settled.

    Mr. Van Scoyoc asked the board not only “to remove Fort Pond House from consideration for sale,” but also requested “further investigation to be made as to its use” and possible designation as parkland.

    “The town is not in the same economic straits that it was in when this sale was proposed,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said.

    “Thanks to this board,” Ms. Quigley threw in. She said that the job of fixing the town’s economic difficulties is not complete. Town officials, she said, “did a thorough analysis of what the town needs to keep itself afloat. . . . I think it’s inappropriate for us to retain it,” she said of the Fort Pond House site. “In addition, it’s in the middle of litigation.”

    That, Ms. Overby said, is part of the point. The litigation has “dragged on,” she said, and is costly. “That is part of our fiduciary obligation,” she said, to minimize the legal costs to the town. In addition, she said, a sale of the property would be subject to a permissive referendum, which could be an additional cost, if enough residents force a vote on the sale. With public opinion against the sale, Ms. Overby said, a permissive referendum is a likelihood.

    “It is a town asset; it was being used by the community,” Ms. Overby said. “And I think that we have been negligent in letting that town asset deteriorate.” She said the money spent on defending the lawsuit would have been better spent on maintaining the site, which has fallen into disrepair.

    Both Ms. Quigley and Mr. Wilkinson called questions about the sale political.

    “We campaigned on the fact that we were going to sell properties,” said Ms. Quigley, who ran on a Republican ticket with Mr. Wilkinson and Councilman Dominick Stanzione. “We chose one property — one. And the people who lost the election decided to fight. It’s a political issue,” she said.

    Mr. Wilkinson echoed that. “The people in Montauk didn’t even know where it was,” he said. “We campaigned in 2007 and 2009 on the fact that we were going to sell properties,” said Mr. Wilkinson. He said he targeted Fort Pond House in part to prove that he would not shy away from selling a town property in his own hamlet of Montauk.

    “It’s a community issue,” Ms. Overby said.

    “It’s a C.C.O.M. issue,” Mr. Wilkinson retorted, referring to the Concerned Citizens of Montauk, an organization with which he has at times disagreed.

    “I don’t think it’s necessary to sell for financial reasons,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said. “And I think it’s a benefit to the community.”

    “Montauk is 70-percent preserved,” Ms. Quigley said. “I think it would be better to get better housing out there.”

    The town’s comprehensive plan, Ms. Overby pointed out, calls for reducing density of development.

    Mr. Stanzione did not weigh in on the debate.

    The sound of explosions started over a year ago, with what seemed to be professional-grade fireworks. Now, one woman said, the culprits seem to have moved on to pipe bombs, but the source of the alarming noises besieging Montauk — the most recent of them heard on Sunday evening north of the Montauk Firehouse — remains a mystery.

    Sunday’s explosion was heard toward the Montauket on Tuthill Road, and though some claim to know who is responsible, East Hampton Town police have yet to make any arrests.

    Many of those who commented for this story asked that their names not be used for fear of retaliation with a bomb set on their lawn. And many pointed to one couple living near Gravesend Avenue and Greenwich Street whom they suspect are responsible, though none would name the pair.

    According to East Hampton Town police, the apparent explosives have been set off in a number of areas of the hamlet, including Second House Road, the golf course at the Montauk Downs State Park, West Lake Drive, and several beaches.

    Many residents have reported calling the police about the noises, but the Montauk Precinct commander, Lt. Chris Hatch, said there have been surprisingly few calls.

    Lieutenant Hatch said that the police have been investigating for the last three months. Fireworks have been confirmed, but, citing confidentiality, he declined to say who made that confirmation. He said that despite the reports coming in to the department there has been nothing that has led police to the perpetrators.

    Officers have heard the explosions and have responded to the areas where they believed they originated, but have found nothing, he said, adding, “the explosives occur without warning and leave no evidence.”

    The noises sound like a house exploding, Gail Simons wrote in an online forum, and are louder than anything she’s ever heard. Her children cry out in fear and huddle in corners and her dogs go running for cover. It is the female half of the couple who often sets off the explosives, Ms. Simons claimed, sometimes from her own backyard and sometimes near her place of work by West Lake Drive.

    The worst of the bunch came right before Christmas, said Vicki Rudolph. She saw a flash and within a second her whole house shook. Her 10-year-old daughter was terrified and screamed, “ ‘Mommy, Mommy where are you?’ She thought I was hurt,” she said.

    The blasts usually occur at night around 10 p.m., but there have been a few during the day. In summer, the noises stopped.

    Kim Gatti said she feels as if she’s living in a war zone, with the sounds of bombs and gunshots.

    Some have speculated that the noises are coming from the Long Island Power Authority’s substation on Industrial Road. But Mark Gross, a spokesman for LIPA, disputed that, saying that if a piece of equipment failed it would make a loud popping sound and would also cause electrical outages, none of which have been reported. He said that the frequency at which residents are hearing the noises also indicates they could not be from the station. “No, it’s not us,” he said.

    Lieutenant Hatch said he’s worried that the people setting off the explosives will eventually have an accident or an explosive will land on someone’s house. Since the department began investigating, police have found no evidence, such as burn marks or burned mailboxes. “We hope that the public will assist us and forward all information immediately,” he said.

    “She did not get nearly the punishment she should have, in my opinion,” said East Hampton Village Police Chief Gerard Larsen yesterday.

    The chief was speaking of the 30-day sentence handed down in county criminal court on Jan. 9 to Keri Dewhirst of Ronkonkoma. Judge James C. Hudson imposed the sentence after she pleaded guilty to embezzling close to half a million dollars from Schenck Fuels of East Hampton.

    Ms. Dewhirst, 38, had been Schenck’s bookkeeper for six years when, in the fall of 2010, Chris Schenck and Rodney Herrlin, cousins and co-owners of the company, became suspicious.

    Mr. Herrlin said yesterday that Mr. Schenck had been looking for a new car around that time, “and a couple of weeks later she rolled in” in a brand-new Mercedes, the very one he’d been yearning over in the showroom. After admiring the car, the cousins asked the bookkeeper what it had cost to lease it.

    She wasn’t leasing, she said, she’d paid cash.

    It was during the depths of the recession. “We’d been letting people go, trying to save some money,” Mr. Herrlin remembered. “But every time we let someone go we didn’t see any difference.”

    The partners wondered, but “We had to trust somebody, and we trusted her,” he said — until Ms. Dewhirst drove her $75,000 car to work. Then they went to the police.

    “We did a short investigation and determined she was stealing,” Chief Larsen said. Ms. Dewhirst was fired immediately and charged not long after with grand larceny. She pleaded guilty to the charge in October 2011.

    Ms. Dewhirst, who is pregnant, has paid $60,000 in restitution up front and has agreed to pay the company $2,000 a month for the next five years. If she misses a payment, according to a court stipulation, she will go to jail for a minimum of five years, or as many as 15.

    “She took a company that has been around since 1902 and nearly bankrupted them,” said Chief Larsen. “They are recouping $180,000 out of the $440,000, and we believe it probably was more.”

    In this case, said the chief, it would appear that crime may indeed have paid.

    The outlook for Montauk’s threatened oceanfront improved Monday with the passage in the House of Representatives of $50.7 billion in Hurricane Sandy aid. The measure moves now to the Senate, where its approval appears certain.

    Representative Tim Bishop, whose district includes East Hampton and Southampton Towns, said that he had been in a preliminary conversation with representatives of the Army Corps of Engineers to argue that the row of motels along Montauk’s south-facing beach needed immediate protection.

    “I am pushing very hard for beach nourishing,” he said. “The infrastructure is imperiled.”

    The Atlantic beachfront along Montauk’s main business district was sharply eroded during Hurricane Sandy on Oct. 29, then suffered again during an early northeaster about a week later. Most of the protective dunes along a roughly half-mile-long stretch were clawed away. Efforts by resort and condominium owners there to shore up their properties have been ongoing.

    In an interview yesterday Mr. Bishop said that the House bill contained $1 billion for flood control and coastal emergencies and would pay for up to 100 percent of projects approved by the Army Corps of Engineers.

    “The immediate need in Montauk is an emergency, at least in my opinion, and it’s my job to convince the Corps of that,” he said.

    He said that he was going to look at needs on the entirety of Long Island, with particular interest in Montauk. Any quick restoration on the Montauk oceanfront this year would be a stopgap, he said, “but we need to get some sand on the beach right now.”

    Mr. Bishop said that a separate portion of the Sandy relief package would make money available to local governments for projects intended to reduce coastal hazards over the long term. Up to 7.5 percent of each state’s share of the $50.7 billion package could be made available. It would be up to village and town governments to apply to the State Office of Emergency Management, which would manage grant applications for federal funding.

    Under the terms of the long-term hazard-reduction portion of the bill, local governments would contribute 25 percent of the cost of projects, Mr. Bishop said.

    “There is time to prepare a really, really good, well-thought-out application,” he said.

    He said that Brian Beedenbender, his district office director, and Oliver Longwell, his communications director, had begun meeting with every mayor and town supervisor in the First Congressional District to brief them on the process. They met with East Hampton Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson last Thursday to discuss the Montauk erosion, Mr. Longwell said.

    In all, the Army Corps is set to receive $5.35 billion, Mr. Bishop’s office said in a press release yesterday. Of that, $3.5 billion would be for repairs to ongoing projects damaged by Sandy, and $821 million for dredging and maintaining navigation channels.

    Other provisions in the package include $11.5 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster relief fund, $5.5 billion for the Federal Transit Administration, $16 billion in community development block grants, and $780 million in small-business recovery loans.

    Mr. Bishop said that he had had a good response from the federal agencies so far. “In the wake of the storm they were able to mobilize a dredge to close two of the breaches along the South Shore — put sand onto the beach — within three to four weeks.”

    Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. said in an e-mail yesterday that he, like Mr. Bishop, had been focused on the portion of the package appropriating money to the Army Corps.

    “I spoke with Tim Bishop several times about this, including this morning,” he said. “We both agree that our primary push will be for downtown Montauk. That is the portion of my district that needs immediate attention and is most vulnerable to future storms. We would be looking for a beach nourishment project — not any hard structures.”

    Mr. Thiele said that he hoped the Army Corps would agree to an emergency project for Montauk similar to that approved for Tiana Beach in Hampton Bays and to close post-Sandy breaches in the barrier beach near Cupsogue on Dune Road in Westhampton Beach.

    In East Hampton Town, Len Bernard, the town budget officer, said that officials were in the process of applying for $400,000 in first-round funding. An example was the restoration of Gerard Drive in Springs, which was heavily damaged during Sandy. He said that there was approximately $2.5 million in damages to town properties from the storm and that he hoped to get as much as three-quarters of that reimbursed.

    Rosemarie Cary Winchell, the Sagaponack clerk and treasurer, said yesterday that she anticipated that the village would not seek funding. She said that the village did not suffer significant damage, as it does not have all that much public property. Seven private houses were lost in the storm, she said, as well as dunes and beaches. A bath house owned by the Town of Southampton was damaged.

    Steve Kalimnios, the owner of the Royal Atlantic resort in Montauk, which, along with neighboring hotels, has been undermined by storms with increasing frequency, said, “I’m ecstatic if the enthusiasm for some kind of beach project turns into dollars. I’m cautiously optimistic. This is good news that it’s being recognized as an emergency.”

    Jeremy Samuelson, executive director of the Concerned Citizens of Montauk environmental group, said, “I think everyone is of the same mind at this point about the need for short-term, medium-term, and long-range solutions to downtown Montauk’s vulnerability. This might be an opportunity to accelerate the process, to get sand on the beach. Everyone would be supportive of that, including C.C.O.M.”

    Mr. Samuelson went on to stress the importance of getting the maximum benefit of any federal money. “If it’s done the right way, it would increase the natural barrier, giving us years of protection, but it comes down to design. You need the insight of people who know about it.”

    Larry Cantwell, the East Hampton Village administrator, said that a recent letter from the village to Mr. Bishop asked that he help find a way to restore eroded beach and dunes in the Georgica area.

    “A couple things are going on. My conversations with FEMA about Main Beach and Georgica — some sand replenishment might be possible, even though those are not ‘engineered’ beaches, normally a requirement of Army Corps reconstruction. This may make this even more likely. If the funding is approved, it’s huge,” Mr. Cantwell said.

With Reporting by Joanne Pilgrim and Carrie Ann Salvi

Jack Perna, the superintendent of the Montauk School, has been chosen to be the grand marshal of the 2013 Montauk Friends of Erin St. Patrick’s Day parade, which will begin on March 17 at 11:30 a.m., a week earlier than it has been traditionally held.

The vote for Mr. Perna was unanimous at the Friends of Erin meeting on Thursday night.

The naming of the grand marshal is always big news in the hamlet at this time of year. Residents try to guess who will be chosen, throwing prominent residents' names around. Many started sending their kudos to the popular principal Thursday night via Facebook.

Mr. Perna is known as a cheerleader for Montauk's students, even years after they graduate. For example, when he hears that a former student made the honor roll or was on a dean’s list at college, he makes a call to congratulate them. He calls the students “my kids,” as if the school is one big happy family, which it appears to be when one is visiting the school.

An owner of Pizza Village in downtown Montauk for many years, Mr. Perna always hired local young people to work behind the counter. And when the older students go on field trips to Washington or Albany, he either drives or flies to spend a day with them there.

Mr. Perna is no stranger to awards and honors. He was named man of the year at the annual end-of-season party in 2000 hosted by the Montauk Chamber of Commerce. Over the Thanksgiving weekend, he was chosen by the Montauk Historical Society to flip the switch that lit up the Montauk Lighthouse with over 3,000 white holiday lights.

In an e-mail message Friday, Mr. Perna said he’d have to come up with new material for all the publicity he will soon be doing for the Friends of Erin. “But at my age I don’t know if I can,” he said.

    The inevitable change wrought by Mother Nature is spurring changes at Georgica Beach in East Hampton in light of the destruction caused by storms in 2011 and 2012.

    At an East Hampton Village Board meeting last Thursday, Drew Bennett, a consulting engineer working on behalf of the village, updated the board on repairs to be made to facilities at Georgica and Main Beaches.

    The road end at Georgica Beach, said Mr. Bennett, was undermined by the surging tide during Tropical Storm Irene in 2011 and again during Hurricane Sandy on Oct. 29. Mr. Bennett proposed repairs to the asphalt road, a split-rail fence, a curb, and the addition of 600 cubic yards of sand. The sand, he said, would “provide some degree of structural integrity and protection of the property. At a minimum, it’s basically what we did a year and a half ago.” A second phase, Mr. Bennett said, would add an additional 2,500 cubic yards of sand to rebuild the dune.

    Mr. Bennett said that he and Larry Cantwell, the village administrator, met with Federal Emergency Management Agency officials and are preparing a plan that would be consistent with the agency’s reimbursement policies. These policies aim to avoid repeated damage and promote economic recovery.

Repairs planned for Main Beach include straightening and stabilizing the pavilion’s deck, replacing the lattice skirt on its front and side, and replacing cedar shingles.

 Morgan McGivern

    Mr. Cantwell said he was encouraged by a Dec. 28 meeting with a FEMA representative, and that he felt that the agency “would seriously consider a larger beach replenishment project, both at Georgica Beach and at Main Beach.” The FEMA representative was “up in the food chain, so to speak, and had quite a bit of experience and was an engineer. He thought we should make a strong case under mitigation from recurring damage as well as for economic recovery, because we explained to him how important our public beaches are — as public facilities, the number of permits we issue, the importance to the culture and economic fabric of the community,” he said.

    At that point, the board’s Richard Lawler spoke up. “What about bulkheading the end of the road before we repair it, because that always gets undermined, and that’s what tears up the pavement, eventually. At Main Beach, that didn’t happen at the top of the road because there’s bulkheading there.” He asked Mr. Bennett if he knew the cost of such work and whether or not FEMA would pay for it. Mr. Bennett answered that FEMA may classify such work as mitigation, but that the board should also consider the aesthetic change a bulkhead would represent. “Certainly, if the board feels that that’s the way to go, we could include that in the plans. The cost of that is, in round numbers, probably $30,000,” he said.

    Such work would require a permit from the East Hampton Town Trustees as well as the State Department of Environmental Conservation, Mr. Bennett said.

    With Memorial Day weekend the crucial deadline to complete such work, Barbara Borsack, another board member, asked, “Would that set us back time-wise if we decided to do something like that?”

    “You’d know quickly,” Mr. Bennett replied.

    But Mr. Cantwell cautioned against a hasty decision that would have long-term implications on the character of Georgica Beach. “As the level of the beach changes, you would have a hard fixture there. That’s a lot different than what we’re accustomed to having there, aesthetically and otherwise, in previous years.”

    “People always object to change, but they do get used to it,” said Ms. Borsack. “It might be something that people don’t like at first but would probably adjust, in a few years, and forget that it was ever not there if we had to put a stair system in there. I think it’s worth looking into, especially two years in a row that we’ve had to do this.”

    Bruce Siska, another board member, agreed with Ms. Borsack. “I think we should go with trying to put bulkheading in, like at Main Beach. It would save the road, at least, from getting torn up so if sand goes down a little bit, we can put in stairways. That’s pretty easy to do.”

    The bulkheading at the Main Beach road end, said Mr. Bennett, held up through Hurricane Sandy, and resulting damage was minimal compared to that at Georgica Beach. “That was an investment made in the early ’80s, and it really held up great,” he said. 

    “That sand has maintained its level right up against that bulkheading,” Ed McDonald, the village’s beach manager, said of Main Beach. “It’s pretty impressive that it went through two monster storms and that one structure held up to everything. We should seriously think about putting one down at Georgica.”

    Only minor repairs are necessary at Main Beach, said Mr. Bennett. “The building itself actually did quite well. It’s built on piles, above a 100-year flood elevation. The decking is on simple posts that are in the sand, so there is some movement in the deck and some posts that have rolled a bit. The plan is to lift it up, adjust it, tweak it, lock it as best we can to try to straighten it out.” The lattice skirt in front of the deck, as well as the side, was lost and will be replaced, he said, and approximately 150 square feet of cedar shingles were lost. Adding approximately 2,000 cubic yards of sand to the beach would be advisable, he added.

    Some jagged edges at the road end will have to be repaired, Mr. Bennett said. The lifeguard shack, which was also damaged, had been in disrepair for some time and should be replaced regardless of Sandy’s impact on it, he added. The village would have to absorb that cost, Mr. Cantwell said.

    Eleven of the 12 Sea Spray cottages at Main Beach suffered roof damage between Hurricane Sandy and the northeaster that followed, said Mr. Bennett, and the village will have to consider re-roofing the cottages. FEMA, said Mr. Cantwell, would not cover that repair, but given the rental revenue the cottages generate, maintaining them is a justifiable expense.

    Ms. Borsack calculated approximately $400,000 in total costs for repairs to both beaches. Mr. Cantwell predicted that FEMA would cover approximately 75 percent of the total. “That’s an estimate, obviously, but we were successful a year ago in getting reimbursement,” he said. “It depends on how much they’re going to pay for mitigation. All this work qualifies, but they will reimburse the cost of putting back what was there originally, and no more, and we’re doing some more than that.”

    Geoffrey Lynch, president of Peconic Bay Water Jitney, attended Tuesday evening’s Sag Harbor Village Board meeting to announce that he does not “have any immediate plans to go forward with service in 2013.”

    Mr. Lynch recapped the jitney’s trial ferry service that ran between the village and Greenport for 85 days last summer, saying that from June 20 through Sept. 30 the boat had transported an average of 195 passengers per day. The gross income was $160,000, he said, and Hampton Jitney, which he co-owns with his brother, “spent a heck of a lot more than that.”

    Despite the “financial bust,” Mr. Lynch said he and his partner in the trial, Jim Ryan of Response Marine, do not want to give up on the idea of ferry service between the waterfront villages. He said ZIP codes on receipts indicated a predominantly local customer base and that there had been very little negative feedback from customers, municipalities, or boaters.

    Although passenger counts didn’t reach the hoped-for 250 a day, Mr. Lynch said that the “appetite from a local perspective is there . . . 195 shows potential.” He believes there is a broader market out there, as well, including tourists and day-trippers.

    Mr. Lynch chalked up the difficulties to “first-time operator teething issues,” from boat maintenance costs to exceeding budgeted fuel expenses. In the future, he hopes to receive money from the federal government to pay for the boats. He said one vessel is not enough to increase the frequency of service. “Two vessels would be ideal.”

    In answering a question from Mia Grosjean of Save Sag Harbor, Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., the village attorney, said that if the Peconic Bay Water Jitney did receive funding, it would require a new approval process, what with the expiration of the temporary permit allowing the ferry service and the use of Long Wharf. “Basically they would have to start from scratch,” Mr. Thiele said.

    Mr. Lynch thanked the village board and the community for allowing the trial run, and Suffolk County Legislator Jay Schneiderman for his support.