The East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals held its final work session before the Christmas break on Dec. 11, and, making like Santa Claus, filled several applicants’ stockings with variances, but left a lump of coal for one man, Ron Baron.

    In 2007, Mr. Baron, whose net worth is listed by Forbes magazine at $1.5 billion, purchased 40 acres of oceanfront land off Further Lane from Adelaide de Menil and Ted Carpenter, paying $103 million, said at the time to be a record price for an American property. The parcel covers three addresses, 260 and 278 Further Lane, both within the town’s jurisdiction, and 244 Further Lane, which is in the Village of East Hampton.

    In 2008, Mr. Baron built a double wall — parallel walls about four feet apart — that separates the properties from the dunes and ocean. Everything about the wall has been in dispute ever since.

    The main question for the Z.B.A. to determine was whether the wall was built on sensitive dunelands. If yes, then a natural resources permit should have been obtained first. If it was not, the board would then have to decide whether to grant it after the fact.

     This past April, the town’s head building inspector, Tom Preiato, determined that the wall had been built in an area of duneland and beach vegetation, in violation of the town code.

    Mr. Baron appealed that determination. At a Nov. 20 public hearing, his attorney, Brian Matthews, told the zoning board that Don Sharkey, who was chief building inspector at the time the wall was built, had assured the surveyor, David Weaver, that it did not need a building permit, as the walls were to be only four feet high. The assurance was verbal, not written, the board was told. Mr. Sharkey, who later denied saying it, died in July 2009.

    A memo from Larry Penny to Mr. Baron in May 2007, cautioning the new landowner about the sensitive nature of his property, played a prominent role in the Z.B.A.’s discussion. Mr. Penny was the director of the town’s Natural Resources Department at the time.

    “I believe that this letter did put the owner on notice that the land did contain” dunes and beach vegetation, said the board chairman, Alex Walter. “They knew that the property they were purchasing had these kind of characters and that it was something they had to be careful about.”

    Don Cirillo, a strong advocate of landowners’ rights, argued that the wall was not built on duneland, and that even if it was, the board should grant the needed permit. “I don’t think you should place a hard-and-fast determination over a homeowner,” he said. “Natural resource permits are not meant to be punitive.”

    The other board members did not see it that way.

    “He got a letter from Larry Penny,” Sharon McCobb said. Such a letter should have sent up red flags for Mr. Baron, she said.

    Lee White argued that judging from aerial photographs, it was clear the walls had been built over dunes.

    “The height of the walls should have automatically triggered the need for a building permit,” said Bryan Gosman.

    In the end, the board voted 4-1 to affirm Mr. Preiato’s April determination that the walls were built in violation of town code, and 4-1 to deny Mr. Baron’s request for an after-the-fact permit. Mr. Cirillo was the lone dissenter.

    The decision may have ramifications for Mr. Baron beyond the walls in question. In September, the town planning board issued a preliminary approval of a plan to merge the two parcels of land at 260 and 278 Further Lane and divide the resulting property into six lots, two of which would be set aside for potential farmland and a third, containing dunes, that would remain undeveloped. The other three, of about three acres each, would have broad ocean views. Under the terms of the subdivision agreement, Mr. Baron could build up to six residences across those three properties, the most likely scenario being a main house with a guest house on each.

    Reed Jones, the chairman of the planning board, visited the site during the hearing process. “The views are amazing,” he said on Tuesday.

    Each property could sell for $30 million or more, said J.R. Kuneth, a real estate salesman with Devlin McNiff Halstead Property.

    But now comes the lump of coal: Mr. Baron may be unable to gain final planning board approval for the subdivision while the walls at 278 Further Lane are in violation of the town code. That board’s preliminary okay concludes by mandating that all conditions listed in the agreement must be met within six months or the entire plan will be considered null and void.  The conditions include a section titled “Compliance with Town Code or other Requirements of Law.”

    East Hampton Town attorneys did not respond to repeated requests for comment, nor did Mr. Baron’s law firm, Eagan and Matthews of East Hampton.

    The zoning board did give out some goodies, in the form of variances, to several applicants. None of the applications had engendered opposition during their hearings.

    One of them was for a two-foot variance from the s pyramid law, which restricts the allowable height of a structure in relation to its neighboring properties. Pantelis Karoussos, the owner of a 7,500-square-foot property on Miller Lane East in East Hampton, had renovated his residence.

    “They decided to renovate their house to accommodate their growing family,” his attorney, Carl Irace, told the board. “The dining room was an alcove. They cut the alcove from the house.”

    Mr. Karoussos then moved the old alcove, setting it up as a freestanding shed, without realizing that he’d moved it a foot and a half closer to his neighbor’s property than town code allows, and that it was two feet taller than the code dictates.

    Mr. Irace emphasized the “reuse, recycle” aspect of the project, a point of view with which the entire board agreed. Both the requested variances were approved, allowing the alcove-turned-shed to stay where it is.

    End Note: Ms. McCobb’s term on the zoning board expires at the end of the year, and she will have to be reappointed by the town board if she is to continue. She has frequently acted as a voice of calm during some of the current term’s stormier sessions.

    Administrators and faculty in the East Hampton School District and at surrounding schools have begun reviewing existing safety measures following the shooting deaths of 20 students and 6 adults at a school in Connecticut last week.

    Richard Burns, the East Hampton superintendent, speaking at a school board meeting Tuesday night, said immediate steps had been taken to improve security at each of the district’s three schools and at its bus facility.

    “Plans are in place; they are constantly being reviewed,” Mr. Burns said.

    Mr. Burns said a meeting among administrators and buildings and grounds personnel was scheduled for tomorrow. Additionally, he is planning to meet with both East Hampton Village Police Chief Gerard Larsen Jr. and East Hampton Town Police Chief Edward V. Ecker Jr.

    “We know there are some issues that need to be addressed, and we won’t be complacent with this,” he said.

    George Aman, the East Hampton School Board president, asked each of the district’s three principals to briefly describe their response following Friday’s shootings.

    Adam Fine, the high school principal, said an exterior “breezeway” that had been used by students and faculty to pass from one section of the building to another had been closed off. Parents and others visiting the school must now enter via the main office and will be required to show identification to reach other parts of the building, he said. Students have been told not to allow anyone — even other students who leave the school during the day for any reason — back into the building.

    Two “lockdown” drills are being planned, Mr. Fine said. The first is expected before the holiday break, with the other sometime in January. He said that he and the staff would have to also reconsider procedures for after-school events, such as sports and theater practices.

    Gina Kraus, the principal of John M. Marshall Elementary School, said she had reviewed security steps with her staff on Monday. One area of concern that was identified during meetings was that lunch monitors did not have any form of immediate communication with the rest of the school while they were outside with students.

    She also said she had observed a “vulnerability” with after-school programs, in particular Project MOST, which provides homework help and other services to students. As a result, she has had a staff member assigned to the building’s front desk and visitors can only be let in after identifying themselves.

    During her remarks, Mr. Burns said parents of students also have to cooperate with security measures and not walk among classrooms, for example to check on their children. “They should do their business at the main office,” he said.

    Mr. Burns also said that the elementary school should no longer be designated as a polling place by the Suffolk Board of Elections. “That’s a day we really don’t have any control,” he said.

    Speaking on behalf of Charles Soriano, the middle school principal, Robert Tymann, the district assistant superintendent, said that a review of procedures there suggested that the school’s security cameras could be improved.

    Paul Fiondella, a district resident who has in the past sought a seat on the school board, spoke up after Mr. Tymann to ask about the role of teachers in identifying students who may be at risk of committing violent acts and whether the schools were able to help their parents in any way.

    Mr. Burns assured him that the district did have such programs. “We have in place crisis teams to identify kids who may be struggling,” he said. “We are very aware of this and there are many behind-the-scenes things going on.” He mentioned that the school budget contained $10,000 for student psychological evaluations.

    He also said that several parents had e-mailed him in recent days to ask about getting a regular police presence at the elementary and middle schools and offered money to help pay for it. A town police officer is assigned to the high school during the day, Mr. Fine said.

    Larry Cantwell, the East Hampton Village administrator, said yesterday that any conversation about adding an officer to a schools assignment would ultimately have to involve both the village board and school board.

    Like many other South Fork schools, the Amagansett district sent a letter to parents in the aftermath of the Newtown, Conn., shootings. Eleanor Tritt, the Amagansett superintendent, wrote that her school’s staff trained throughout the year on emergency procedures. Even before Friday’s attack at the Sandy Hook School, Amagansett’s annual lockdown drill had been scheduled; it will be on Jan. 17.

    Ms. Tritt said that Officer Kim Notel, who is involved with the town police department’s anti-drug school outreach, had met with staff and members of the board of education on Monday to go over procedures and consider improvements.

    In an interview yesterday, Ms. Tritt said, “We are reviewing all our safety plans and discussing together any modifications to our building that we feel would be an enhancement of security, as are all districts.”

    Montauk’s principal and superintendent, Jack Perna, in a message posted on the school Web site late Friday, said he had spoken by phone to Chief Ecker and Officer Notel that day about security. A meeting with police and school staff took place on Monday.

    Mr. Perna said in an e-mail on Tuesday that one immediate outcome of the meeting was that parents will no longer be allowed to walk their children to their classrooms in the morning.

    In a longstanding procedure, the front door of the Montauk School is always locked, and visitors must press a button to be allowed in. All the other doors are always locked. During school hours everyone must enter through the front door.

    An e-mail in English and Spanish from Eric M. Casale, the Springs School principal, referred parents to the “For Parents” section of the school handbook. He reiterated that no one is admitted into the building before 7:25 a.m. and that students are not allowed to return once they are dismissed at the end of the day.

    Mr. Casale said he had been speaking with Captain Chris Sarlo of the East Hampton Town police in the wake of the Connecticut shootings about the next steps.

    Gregg Maloberti, the interim head of school at the Ross School, which has school buildings in Bridgehampton and East Hampton, said in an e-mail to parents that it had private security officers stationed at each campus. Extra staff members will be posted at school entrances, and faculty and staff have been instructed to review emergency procedures, Mr. Maloberti said.

Police Preparation

    Chief Ecker said in an interview Tuesday that the East Hampton Town Police Department has been revisiting its procedures in the remote chance of a school attack or an assailant at another public place.

    “It was a coincidence, but this week we had a drill of the emergency services unit,” he said. The unit, a joint operation between East Hampton Town, East Hampton Village, and the Sag Harbor police, would be mobilized in the event of such an attack.

    “The schools have their plan in place. The important thing is that we know the school’s plan and they know our plan,” said the chief.

    It was unfortunate, he said, that it took such a tragedy as happened in Connecticut to get people to address the risk. “It’s gun control. It’s mental health. You kind of wish there was a magic wand for something like this, but, sadly, there isn’t,” he said.

    In East Hampton Village, Chief Larsen said, “We’ve worked together with the schools for years. It got going after Columbine. We do school assessments. We do movie theater assessments. There is a lot of communication back and forth, a lot of cooperation. The schools and the police departments are prepared to act.”

    Chief Larsen said his department had floor plans for the village’s two school buildings and its theaters, as well as keys to important buildings.

    “We work with the schools on their state-mandated plans. We meet monthly and discuss,” he said.

With reporting by

Christopher Walsh, Janis Hewitt, and T.E. McMorrow

    They come from Jamaica by way of the Bronx or from Trinidad by way of Riverhead or from Antigua by way of Queens, gathering around midnight in six-inch heels, rhinestones, sunglasses, and intricate hairdos for a dance party at East Hampton Bowl that will go till 4 in the morning. If a bowling alley seems an unlikely venue for such finery, then the location is, at least in part, a practical response to a bedeviling problem: two of the attendees one night in July had been denied entry into a nearby restaurant and bar because of their race, some said. There are obviously still closed doors in the Hamptons, but the door to the bowling alley in East Hampton that night was not one of them.

    “I’m drinking!” called out the D.J. when things were heating up around 2 a.m. “I’m drinking!” called out the crowd. Forget the exclusive and the exclusionary. The people in the alley’s barroom were as one, singing along to Beenie Man’s “I’m Drinking Rum and Red Bull” on a Saturday night in East Hampton. The floor was packed with dancers, and in the jam and crush people held lighters in the air.

    These parties, organized by various promoters and set to a soundtrack partygoers might expect in a Kingston nightclub, happen almost every month of the year, according to the alley’s owner Ian Grossman. A New Year’s Eve event was just canceled, but upcoming parties can be found on the East Hampton Bowl Facebook page.

    Inside a large room in East Hampton Village’s Emergency Services Building at 1 Cedar Street, preparation for a major storm, be it a northeaster, a blizzard, or the storm of the century, doesn’t begin in the hours or even days beforehand. It begins months, even years, in advance.

    East Hampton Village Police Capt. Michael Tracey has seen the operation grow from a gleam in the eye several years ago to today’s well-oiled machine. It is an asset, he said last week, for both the town and village to use, and its value was demonstrated during Hurricane Sandy, the first time a cross-section of emergency responders from across the East End, as well as town agencies as disparate as the Highway Department and code enforcement, could all work smoothly together.

     “It is a way for the community to build a framework where your information is going to be funneled into one area, you’re going to formulate a plan and you’re going to get that out to the public,” Captain Tracey said. “You need one centralized place to communicate with everybody on the road, support the leadership that’s going to make decisions. It’s not a command center, it is a coordination center.”

    When a storm actually hits, all hands are on deck, with the coordinators seated around a 12-by-12 foot table, all wired into communications. “There is so much to gain by having everybody together,” said J.P. Foster, one of three emergency dispatch supervisors.

    He gave an example of how it worked during Sandy, of a downed tree that had to be cleared from the roadway to allow emergency vehicles to pass.

    “I need three payloaders. The village has two. The Town Highway Department says, ‘I got one I can send.’ Now we can move a huge tree that we otherwise couldn’t move. For me to have the highway person sitting next to me was so nice.”

    Captain Tracey described how things were organized. “At the first meeting, [the different department heads] show up with a cup of coffee,” he said. “The second, with a cup of coffee and a pencil, and the third, coffee, pencil, and part of the plan they are going to help write.” Sitting together, they run through a step-by-step review of their various plans for emergency.

    “When you plan as a group, you have to think of everybody,” said Captain Tracey. “The highway fellow, we rely on him for so much, what about gas? That was years ago we thought about that. How far out did you have to know about this storm to know to top off your gas?” Both village and town agencies topped off their supplies of gasoline several days in advance.

    The captain gave an example of the pitfalls that can be prevented by rigorous preparation. “If somebody says, ‘This will be covered by this group.’ Well, who do you contact there? Nobody knows? Guess what. They are not part of your plan.”

    At that point, he said, it’s time to call the agency in question. If it provides the contact information needed and guarantees that it can follow through, it’s added into the overall plan.

    “It’s disaster-specific, also agency-specific,” said the captain. “What’s the beach manager doing? What’s the facility super doing? What’s the commander of the police department doing?”

    “Everybody knows what everybody else is doing. That solves a lot of turf and communication issues.”

    Mr. Foster talked about the use of personnel, saying that their deployment across disciplines is essential in an emergency. Traffic control officers, who would not be out in the streets writing tickets during a hurricane, might be deployed instead to answer phones, he said. “The goal is to minimize the impact of the emergency. These are the things our community has to have.”

    Planning for a storm starts with the weather forecast. The National Weather Service issues PowerPoint presentations in the lead-up to any storm, which continue throughout the day. Any department that has questions can call in during the presentation and speak directly to the people preparing the reports.

    Customized alerts are sent out according to the needs of each area. “You design your own alerts,” Captain Tracey explained. “I draw an area around the Island, relative to us. It is very specific and very tailored. Each person using the system can change their zones.”

    When an alert comes in, Captain Tracey sends out e-mails to essential responders. In the case of Sandy, East Hampton had a week’s warning. The emergency planners went through three phases: a preliminary meeting, followed by a major briefing, followed by implementation.

    In the case of the police, schedules were readjusted, with extra overtime added. The various departments brought in extra personnel to sleep in the building, in order to be on hand, and prepared “ready meals” to feed them.

    One important asset deployed in crisis situations is the village’s communications truck. While Sandy’s winds were howling, the fear was that the radio tower in Montauk might lose service, as happened last year during Hurricane Irene. But for the mobile truck, it would then be next to impossible to dispatch radio signals to emergency workers in Montauk. (The problem is Hither Hills, which blocks the signals from the other four towers in the town.)

    But the truck — which contains radio transmitters to cover the different ranges and frequencies that could be called on in an emergency as well as an onboard generator, various computers and work stations, and even a telescoping 21-foot tower for shooting live video — can act as a dispatch center, filling the gap of a failed tower. It was stationed in Montauk during Irene and proved its worth when the tower there went down; during Sandy it was again stationed in the easternmost hamlet but this time the tower held.

    East Hampton Town had been planning its own emergency planning center, said Captain Tracey, but things went so smoothly during Sandy that the two municipalities may instead team up permanently out of the Cedar Street headquar

    The East Hampton Town Planning Board held its final meeting of the year on Dec. 19, giving several applicants suggestions that could be New Year’s resolutions for their various site plans.

    For the Montauk restaurant East by Northeast, the board’s advice boils down to one word — Shh!

    The owners of the South Edgemere Street restaurant, which is about a quarter-mile from the Surf Lodge, want to move 48 of its 180 seats, all of them indoors, to an outside patio, and to improve the parking. Both establishments are on Fort Pond, both have parking issues in the busy season, and both pre-date the town’s zoning code, which allows them to operate in a neighborhood zoned for residential use. Also, because of that last condition, neither is allowed to expand.

    But, as several board members pointed out, there is one key difference. Surf Lodge always was and still is a nightclub; East by Northeast is strictly a restaurant. As a nightclub, Surf Lodge can play outdoor music much later than East by Northeast, which must shut it down at 9 p.m., just about when a Montauk midsummer night’s scene takes off. East by Northeast can never be a nightclub, because that would constitute an expansion of use, prohibited under town law.

    The restaurant’s application would appear to be ready to schedule for public hearing, but there was a catch. Because under the code East by Northeast stands too close to wetlands, it must first obtain a natural resources permit and two setback variances, of 67 and 77 feet, from the zoning board of appeals. That board, however, could not hold its hearing until the planning board ruled, under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, that the project would not have a negative impact on the area.

    This presented Robert Schaeffer, a board member, with a problem: What if a new piece of evidence were presented ex post facto? Would the board be locked into the vote it took that night?

    After being assured by both counsel and the Planning Department that it could change the vote in that case, the board voted 7-0 to approve the finding under SEQRA, meaning the zoning board is now free to schedule a hearing for the needed variances.

    Nancy Keeshan, whose real estate ofice is in downtown Montauk, was supportive of the site plan, but with reservations as to noise. “There’s been a lot of controversy,” she said, about Montauk’s after-dark scene. “I know what I’m hearing. We need to address those comments.”

    Pat Schutte, a board member, agreed. “Last time this was brought up, the noise was a question for me. We have to rely on the applicants, or whoever’s there in the future.”

    The board encouraged the applicant, a corporation called Stone Lion Inn, to do more to assuage the fears of its neighbors regarding noise, through screening and possibly even by agreeing to restrictive covenants. The next appearance in Town Hall for East by Northeast will be before the zoning board.

    For two other applicants, the New Year’s one-word resolution might be, “Details!”

    Mary Schoenlein, the owner of two Mary’s Marvelous eateries, has made several missteps in her effort to add an exterior walk-in box to the store in Amagansett, the largest being building it before she had official approval. The planning board has been highly supportive of her throughout the process, with a couple of members mentioning that they were devotees. Eager to schedule the needed public hearing and a final vote of approval, the board has encouraged her, as it does with all applicants, to meet with town planners and attorneys for guidance.

    Ms. Schoenlein went before the Z.B.A. in September and eventually received zoning variances regarding the size of the walk-in box.

    The planning board’s patience with Mary’s Marvelous may have been strained, though, during the board’s Dec. 5 session, when it finally came time for the public site-plan hearing. It was learned at that time that Ms. Schoenlein, who has represented herself throughout the complicated process, had not properly alerted her neighbors about the hearing. She apparently thought that when she sent them notices about the zoning board hearing the notices covered the planning board hearing as well. They do not.

    The planning board’s attorney, Kathryn Santiago, explained that the hearing would have to be rescheduled and that Ms. Schoenlein would be required to send out new notices. The new date for the hearing on the now almost year-old walk-in box is Jan. 9, at 7 p.m.

    Pesky details plagued another Amagansett business at the Dec. 19 session. The owners of Amagansett Building Materials, which occupies a 1.6-acre parcel off Abram’s Landing Road, want to tear down three attached one-story buildings and replace them with a two-story building with a basement. They are still in the preliminary stage of approval, and were presenting the board a revised site plan, a little over a year since the first one was submitted.

    The revised plan, however, lacked a square-footage calculation for the proposed project. It was also missing a floor plan for the second floor, and it failed to respond to previous board suggestions regarding landscaping and parking. Richard Whalen of LandMarks, an Amagansett firm that helps applicants navigate the procedural maze involved in getting a building permit, faced some tough questions from the board.

     “This is going to be a difficult application,” said Diana Weir. “Why does it seem to be such a challenge to figure out the square footage? A lot of housekeeping issues need to be addressed.”

     “We’re early in the process. The applicant has some homework to do,” said Reed Jones, the board’s chairman.

    The board also took up the issue of a potential road abandonment that would turn a town-owned cul-de-sac at the end of Water’s Edge in Barnes Landing into private property, split between two of the three parcels of land surrounding the road. The town board had referred the matter to the planning board for comment, at the suggestion of David Buda, a Springs resident, before moving ahead on it.

     “When I heard that an existing roadway was going to be abandoned, and there was not going to be any hearing, any public input, and that the town board was going to vote on it as a referendum, I felt that was insufficient review,” he told the planning board.

    Richard Whalen, an attorney, then spoke, and it quickly became clear that further exploration was needed. The planning board had initially been told that Neil and Miyoung Lee, who own two of the three properties involved, were applying for the road abandonment “together” with the owner of the third property, a holding company. But, according to Mr. Whalen, who represents that company, the Lees were acting on their own.

    “They did not propose the road abandonment,” he said about his client.

    “They’re not part of this request?” asked Ian Calder-Piedmonte.

    “They’re actually not,” Mr. Whalen answered. He said the Lees had been told, “ ‘Hey, we might be interested.’ ” He added, “All my clients want to know is, what’s involved. They would cooperate if it made sense.”

    In the end, the planning board agreed to advise the town board to seek written approval from the owner of the third property, and to seek comments as well from both the Springs Fire Department and the town highway superintendent. Members also agreed, at Mr. Calder-Piedmonte’s suggestion, to recommend that the town board hold a public hearing before it voted on the road abandonment.

    As East Hampton Village officials prepare to give 25 historic timber-frame buildings special status that would allow their owners to build a second dwelling on their properties, the village board heard comments Friday on a separate proposed zoning code amendment that would repeal a limited exception allowing second houses on other large properties in the village.

    The zoning code has long allowed a second dwelling on a lot large enough to be subdivided, provided the second house was for “domestic employees or members of the household of the occupant of the single family residence.” The house, if newly built, must conform to all setbacks that would be applicable if the property were divided in two.

    “In the decades since this provision

. . . was first introduced into the code, a considerable amount of development and redevelopment has occurred, producing more crowding of buildings and traffic congestion, and significant changes in the character of the neighborhoods,” according to the proposed amendment.

    Given the lengthy deliberations on the consequences of timber frame landmark designation and a controversial application by one Main Street couple to build a second house on their property — a move the village is trying to prevent — Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. prefaced the hearing on Friday by saying, “We will be taking no action at all on this. There will be further discussion and deliberation.”

    The exception in the zoning code, he said, is inartfully worded, grammatically confusing, and produces conflicting opinions on its very meaning, said Anthony Pasca, an attorney with Esseks, Gefter, and Angel, who represents Gordon and Amanda Bowling. Mr. and Ms. Bowling “asked me to come and express their support for your proposal to eliminate this exception,” Mr. Pasca said. “The bigger-picture question, though, is whether this provision has any use or utility in your modern code,” he said. “The reality is that this is an anachronistic vestige of a code that doesn’t exist anymore.”

    The Bowlings’ house is adjacent to that of John and Suzanne Cartier, who are engaged in a long effort to move their existing house, add 182 square feet to it, and construct a second house of similar size on the property at 105 Main Street. The village sought a temporary restraining order to stop them from doing so; it was denied on Dec. 13.

    Mr. Pasca, who also represented owners of one of the proposed timber-frame landmark houses, referred to that legislation and the zoning bonus it would confer on the affected properties’ owners. “A letter went out to those people

and it says, ‘You would be the only people in the village entitled to a guesthouse. It’s a unique benefit to you.’ The problem is, as long as this quirky loophole exists, that’s not true. Other people can try to take advantage of guesthouse rules without having to comply with even the same standards that the timber-frame landmark owners would have to comply with. If you’re going to be true to them and confer that kind of benefit on them of having this guesthouse right, then you should close this loophole.”

    Mayor Rickenbach said that the board would hold the hearing open until Jan. 18. “And please recognize, we understand that this is a very sensitive subject. We’re trying to deal with it in a uniform, constitutional basis,” he said.

    The board also heard on Friday from two members of the Ladies Village Improvement Society. Dianne Benson, chairwoman of the society’s Nature Trail committee, discussed a proposed kiosk to replace present signs at the 28-acre preserve.

    “We find that the signage and the accessibility of information at the Nature Trail is awful,” Ms. Benson said. “All it says is ‘No this, no that, no something else, don’t let the rats get the food, no.’ ” Instead, she proposed a kiosk featuring several panels that would describe the type of waterfowl there, what food is appropriate to feed them, and other facts.

    “Instead of approaching it with a ‘no,’ we approach it with a ‘yes’ kind of attitude. All this is going to be done in very few words,” she said.

    Ms. Benson showed the board a mockup featuring a kiosk presently standing on Three Mile Harbor Road superimposed on a picture of the Nature Trail’s entrance. “We think that this would make it more welcoming and representative of the village,” she said, adding that, if it is approved, the L.V.I.S. would pay for its construction. The 16-member Nature Trail committee, she said, would create the content for the kiosk’s panels.

    “Dianne, I think you’ve hit a home run this morning,” said Mayor Rickenbach. “I think it’s a wonderful gesture, a nice, natural evolution with respect to the signage that’s there and what will come. We’ll take it to the next step.”

    Colleen Rando, the society’s secretary, came bearing gifts: a copy of the history of the L.V.I.S. from 1895 to the present that she wrote. The book contains personal reminiscences, letters, and newspaper and magazine articles, she said. “I think they capture the spirit of the 21 women who founded L.V.I.S., and all the ladies who have followed,” she said.

    “Since the village was incorporated in 1920, L.V.I.S. and the village have enjoyed a unique public-private partnership,” she said. “Our joint efforts in the care of village trees, greens, and other projects have preserved our lovely village for future generations. In honor of our special relationship and in appreciation for your important role as stewards of East Hampton, I’d like to present each of you with a copy and wish you, from all of our L.V.I.S. members, a very happy holiday.”

    Officials in East Hampton Town took another tentative step recently toward tackling the problem of septic waste and its pollution potential after receiving proposals from four consulting firms that could help develop a comprehensive wastewater management plan for the town.

    The companies not only submitted information on their qualifications — all found to be sufficient for the project — but each provided an outline of how they would address three key areas: development of an overall plan for dealing with wastewater in the town, with an eye toward protecting the environment and meeting regulatory mandates; the condition and future of the town’s aging scavenger waste treatment plant, and setting up a program of ongoing water quality monitoring to be sure that ground and surface water quality is maintained.

    A political standoff over the last two years about what to do with the waste treatment plant, which needs extensive upgrades to meet current environmental standards, led to a shutdown of the plant, except as a waste-transfer station, and continuing arguments, the latest of which took place at two recent town board meetings.

    After receiving the preliminary responses from engineers, the board must determine exactly what tasks it would like a consultant to undertake and issue a formal request for proposals from companies that could be hired for the job.

    The details provided by engineers in their initial responses as to what areas and options should be explored could guide the content of the request, which the board has asked town planning and natural resources staff to develop for its review.

    Supervisor Bill Wilkinson and Councilwoman Theresa Quigley, who both opposed the development of a comprehensive wastewater management plan but were overruled by the other three members of the board, took issue with the inclusion, in all of the companies’ proposals, of plans to assess the functioning of the individual septic systems that process the wastewater on properties throughout the town, which does not have any centralized sewer systems.

    But Kim Shaw, the town’s director of natural resources, informed them at a Dec. 11 town board meeting that the town code requires an inspection by the town, at least every three years, of every on-site wastewater disposal system and sewage treatment plant.

    In addition, she said, programs such as the federal Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems require the town to address the impacts of septic systems.

    The town has an estimated 20,000 individual septic systems, according to its water resources management plan. Their functioning, all of the qualified engineers said in their proposals, is central to environmental protection.

    “Bacterial contamination of surface water from failing on-site septic systems and cesspools remains an important consideration in the development of a wastewater management plan for the town,” the proposal from P.W. Grosser Consulting of Bohemia said.

    “Meeting regulatory requirements” that limit the amount of nitrogen — which is generated by waste — that can be discharged into water bodies “will soon be difficult,” according to the proposal from Cameron Engineering, a firm already acting for the town as a consultant on the scavenger waste treatment plant. Septic systems may already be adversely affecting local waters such as Three Mile, Accabonac, and Northwest Harbors, Napeague Bay, and Lake Montauk, it said.

    The town has not been doing the mandated septic system inspections, Mr. Wilkinson pointed out at the Dec. 11 meeting. “We actually have to start figuring out how to do it,” Ms. Shaw told him. “It is a daunting responsibility.”

    However, she said, several of the consultants outlined in their proposals how such a process could begin.

    For instance, several said, higher-priority, more environmentally sensitive areas could be identified and systems developed to provide more advanced wastewater treatment than typical septic systems do.

    A look at septic pump-out records and data compiled by agencies such as the United States Geological Survey, the Suffolk County Water Authority, and the County Health Department could be a place to start, H2M Architects and Engineers of Melville said in its proposal.

    Ms. Quigley suggested last week that the board seek separate formal proposals from consultants regarding what to do about the scavenger waste treatment plant and what to do about wastewater management overall, which could include an analysis of the use of individual septic systems. “I suspect the issue of wastewater management is going to be far more complex than the issue of scavenger waste, and I think we need to deal with them separately,” she said.

    But Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, who was among the three-member majority that overrode the objections of Mr. Wilkinson and Ms. Quigley to move ahead with development of an overall plan before making final decisions on what to do about the treatment plant, said that the two issues are inextricably linked.

    Whatever decisions are made about how to deal with the septic waste generated by individual properties — working with homeowners to get systems upgraded, for instance, or establishing small neighborhood treatment “plants” in sensitive areas, perhaps, using new technologies — will dictate what sort of municipal waste treatment plant, or transfer station, is necessary, she said.

    “I think this is an attempt from the start to take something which is an isolated facility and turn it into something it’s not,” Ms. Quigley said to her. “And we’re going to have to figure out what we’re going to do with our septic.”

    Mr. Wilkinson said that the proposals had “changed the focus completely” from looking at the scavenger waste plant to looking at individual septic systems.

    “Scavenger waste is a component and aging septic systems are a component,” Ms. Overby said. No matter what is suggested by the experts, she said, “the town has to decide how far to go, and in what phases.”

    “This issue started with scavenger waste, and now we’re at people’s personal properties,” Ms. Quigley said. “I’m just trying to get out to the public that that’s what’s happening.”

    “Because every one of the proposals mandates that people upgrade their septic systems,” she said. “And that means individual property owners are bearing the cost.”

    “We’re not necessarily going to be saying that,” Ms. Overby said. “It’s not about coming to somebody’s house and being the septic police.” The overall goal, she said, would be to ensure that drinking and surface waters remain clean. Should septic system upgrades be deemed critical to that end, she said, the town could discuss ways to reach that goal, such as providing grants to homeowners, as a county program currently does, she said.

    Each of the town’s potential consultants listed options that could be explored, such as financing a wastewater management district or instituting tax credits, rebates, refunds, or penalties to encourage sustainable practices.

    “Failing septic systems and improper stormwater management can cause bacterial-pathogenic contamination of water bodies,” the professionals wrote in a proposal submitted by Lombardo Associates of Ronkonkoma, the FPM Group, and the Woods Hole Group, along with Christopher Gobler, a Stony Brook Southampton professor.

    Mr. Wilkinson said on Dec. 11 that he opposes asking consultants to include any possible “audits” of individual septic systems in their final proposals.

    “I would like to know what regulates us here,” Mr. Wilkinson said at that meeting. “I’m just trying to figure out, what are we required to do by the [federal Environmental Protection Agency] or by the [State Department of Environmental Conservation] . . . as far as scavenger waste, as far as individual septic systems.”

    At the board’s meeting last week, he again reviewed the history of the board’s discussions on the wastewater treatment plant. The previous board had voted unanimously to seek proposals to privatize it, but, after a proposal came in and the board’s membership had changed in early 2010, three members overruled Mr. Wilkinson and Ms. Quigley’s desire to accept the deal offered by the single company that expressed interest in taking over the plant. The idea of doing some comprehensive planning for future wastewater management then took shape, over the minority’s objections.

    “From the start,” Mr. Wilkinson said last week, the town wasn’t setting out to do “long-range planning.”

    “I thought we should go on the outside to recruit some competence,” he said. “That now . . . has become a component of something else.”

    Ms. Shaw said on Dec. 11 that each of the four responding consultants had “really nailed it” in terms of looking at “creative solutions and innovative technologies.”

    Though the scope of what the town will ask a consultant to do remains undetermined, the cost of work outlined in the proposals by the four companies ranged from $108,750, which excluded ongoing water quality monitoring, to $350,000.

    A temporary restraining order sought by East Hampton Village to prevent John and Suzanne Cartier from building a second house on their property at 105 Main Street was denied last Thursday.

    The Cartiers have long sought to move the existing 2,575-square-foot house to the rear of their property, add 182 square feet to it, and construct a second house of similar size on the property. The couple would live in the new house, and their children and grandchildren would reside in the existing one.

    Last month, the village board hired the law firm Lamb and Barnosky to commence legal action to “preclude the proposed disturbance” to the Cartiers property, which is covered by a scenic easement granted to the village in 1975.

    According to Linda Margolin, of Bracken Margolin Besunder, who represented the Cartiers, Suffolk County Court Justice Ralph T. Gazzillo declined to grant the restraining order last Thursday.

    Denial of a temporary restraining order is not especially significant, said Larry Cantwell, the village administrator. “That bears no prejudice on a judge’s decision to listen to the case and hear the merits and make a decision. The judge said, ‘Let’s get to the facts and I’ll make a decision,’ which will take longer. The temporary restraining order doesn’t stand on its own,” he said.

    But Jeffrey Bragman, an attorney who represented the Cartiers before the village zoning board of appeals, disagreed with that assessment. “I’m not particularly surprised by the decision of the court not to grant a temporary restraining order. The reason it’s significant is that, in order to get a T.R.O., you have to prove that you’re likely to win the case,” said Mr. Bragman, citing the “likelihood of success on the merits” factor that a judge would consider. “Obviously, they failed in that effort. It’s significant. It has some evidentiary significance. You don’t go for it lightly.”

    The Cartiers initially sought a building permit to relocate the existing house, build an addition, and construct a second house in 2010. That permit was denied, and earlier this year the couple applied to the Z.B.A. for variances. After four months of review, the zoning board determined that the requested variances were unnecessary because the proposed houses would both conform to its requirements for large lots.

    Under current zoning, second houses for family members or domestic employees are allowed on certain properties provided that both houses would conform to zoning if the properties were divided in two.

    But the village board believes that the scenic easement granted in 1975, when the Cartier property was subdivided and a portion of the original property was gifted to the village, does not permit construction of a second house there, Mr. Cantwell said last month.

    “The fact that the village would seek injunctive relief and basically try to undercut and really eliminate a decision by one of its own boards, is, as far as I know, unprecedented,” Mr. Bragman said. “The village should concede this case and not fight what the zoning board found. I don’t understand what the motive is. I’ve never seen this kind of reaction to the decision of its own board.”

    Gordon Bowling, whose house is adjacent to the Cartiers’ property, was surprised by the denial of the temporary restraining order. Mr. Bowling has previously registered his opposition to construction of a second house on the Cartier property on the grounds that the scenic/large lot easement granted to the village also covers the Cartiers’ property.

    “That’s disappointing,” Mr. Bowling said of the denial, “because I do think an easement is important for the village, for the future of East Hampton. It’s too bad because easements should mean something.”

    “I don’t have anything personally against the Cartiers,” Mr. Bowling said. “They’re nice neighbors. I just don’t believe that we should go back on an easement. It seems if you don’t enforce an easement, the planning board has no tools. For the preservation of East Hampton it’s an appropriate thing.”

    The case has been a difficult one, Mr. Bragman said, involving many hearings and strong opposition. But the zoning board, he said, “looked at the application and saw that it was very modest, and balanced it against the results that would happen if they denied it. And they acted very reasonably.” Should the lot ever be sold, Mr. Bragman predicted, “They’re going to tear down the house. We’ve done a zoning analysis. They can get something like a 9,400-square-foot house with all the amenities: pool, pool house, tennis court. . . . They’re being myopic. They’re looking at this application in horror that there could be two houses and not examining the long-term impact on the village. I think the Cartier case preserved the village’s character, puts two very small houses on very large, one-acre lots, and retains the small-house charm of that central historic village area, which is really critical.”

    The village, Mr. Cantwell said, will continue its efforts to prevent the construction sought by the Cartiers. It has also proposed eliminating the section of the code allowing second houses on certain single lots. The change, subject to a hearing before the village board tomorrow, would prohibit people from building a second house on their property unless they first subdivide it. The hearing will begin at 11 a.m. at the Emergency Services Center on Cedar Street.

    The directors of South Fork libraries that hosted and served thousands of residents rendered bereft of electricity, heat, and Internet access after Hurricane Sandy were surprised and delighted by news received last week.

    Last Thursday, Alec Baldwin, the actor and Amagansett resident, announced that the foundation that bears his name would redirect funding from its usual recipients — artists and the arts — to local libraries.

    Taking to Twitter, Mr. Baldwin sent a series of messages. “My foundation is diverting arts-related funding 2 Sandy relief. The first recipients are libraries in East Hampton, Montauk, Amagansett, and Sag Harbor” was transmitted over two “tweets,” such messages being limited to 140 characters. In all, “we will send $250,000 to these institutions.”

    The move, Mr. Baldwin told The East Hampton Star, was inspired by a letter he received from Catherine Creedon, director of the John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor. Ms. Creedon, said Mr. Baldwin, “contacted me with a lovely letter in which she said, ‘Nearly everyone in the town passed through the doors of the library in the ensuing week after the storm.’ That was the beginning of examining, for me, these community hubs — libraries, in this case — that were in areas hit.”

    “I wanted to thank Mr. Baldwin for his support for libraries, for what he and donors like him do,” Ms. Creedon said of her letter. “It’s an awesome, awesome gift, particularly because by donating across East Hampton Town he’s really strengthened the library system for the whole community.”

    Mr. Baldwin, who reported that the storm felled just one tree on his property, appears in television commercials for Capital One Bank and funnels the proceeds through his foundation. “My whole thing with Capital One was to give all the money to arts, but in the wake of the storm decided to give it to her,” he said of Ms. Creedon. “One concern was food, fuel, housing, medicine, health care, transportation, and I knew many agencies would take care of that. So I gave the donation to Amagansett, Montauk, and Sag Harbor, and then a large donation to East Hampton — I work with them during the year.”

    Mr. Baldwin has been a supporter of the East Hampton Library for several years, Dennis Fabiszak, the library’s director, said, “both in his time and financially. We are really happy that he has decided to use the Capital One money to recognize the important roles that libraries played in response to the hurricane.”

    Capital One, said Mr. Fabiszak, donates money in conjunction with and in addition to what it pays Mr. Baldwin for appearing in the ads. “The last time he talked to me about it, something like $9 million has been donated. It’s wonderful that he is able to do that.”

    “We are absolutely thrilled,” Cynthia Young, director of the Amagansett Library, said of the donation. “It could not come at a better time.”

    Karen Rade, director of the Montauk Library, had been unaware of the Alec Baldwin Foundation. “It was really wonderful to find out how proactive he is,” she said. “This donation is something we’re very excited about, and we’re very pleased to be included. It’s a wonderful thing he’s done for us.”

    Mr. Baldwin’s donation will be appropriated to the restoration and expansion project at John Jermain, said Ms. Creedon. The library, which is in a temporary location on West Water Street, was without electricity for a few days after the storm, she said, but held children’s story events and had games available, “and we hand-checked-out books and DVDs until it was literally too dark to see in the building.”

    Ms. Creedon said library officials are also interested in adding technology that would enable hearing-impaired and visually impaired people to take fuller advantage of the library’s offerings, and for those using the library to search for jobs.

    The East Hampton Library, which is also undergoing an expansion, will appropriate the donation to its capital campaign, said Mr. Fabiszak. The expansion, he said, “is really going to expand on the services we provided the week after the storm, and what we provide all year round.”

    On Oct. 31, day the library reopened, 1,400 people visited, Mr. Fabiszak said. Residents with no electricity, telephone, or Internet service packed the library and took the opportunity to get online and charge digital devices such as cellphones and tablets.

    Observations made in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and, in 2011, Hurricane Irene have generated many ideas with regard to future extreme-weather events, he said. “We reached out to the public and got some great feedback. Part of this money will go to putting things in place that will help meet those needs.”

    These ideas, said Mr. Fabiszak, include adding a television on which local news and the Weather Channel could provide information and updates. Another, he said, was to establish a location at the library where residents who are less affected by a storm could take items they are willing to share with others, “so that, the day the building is open, that’s available for people to take things and for people to drop things off.”

    Yet another idea was for the Red Cross and other relief organizations to provide food and essential services at the library. “A lot of people were here because they had no electric. The Red Cross was feeding people at the high school, so they were leaving their phones here to charge while running over there to get a sandwich.” A better course, he suggested, might be to shift some of the supplies to where people are congregating — the library — rather than concentrating them in one place.

    The Montauk Library’s board members had not yet met to consider use of the donation, Ms. Rade said. “But when I was talking with Mr. Baldwin, he was talking about the services we provided when we got our power back — everyone was plugging in their iPads and phones and getting in touch with relatives and friends. That’s something I will be looking into.”

    Though Ms. Young had not yet met with the Amagansett Library’s board, her hope is that some of the donation would go toward new digital devices such as tablets and e-readers, “so the staff is ready to help our patrons use all of these new devices after the holidays. And, of course, the library will purchase additional charging stations to be ready for the next big power outage. The library wants to help the community keep in touch with families and friends.”

    Mr. Baldwin’s foundation also made a $250,000 contribution to the Mill Creek Community Center in Stafford Township, N.J., and the actor told The Star that he would donate to a similar facility in his hometown, Massapequa, which also experienced extensive damage. The center in Stafford Township was damaged to the point that it will have to be torn down and rebuilt.

    “We were looking for a New Jersey-based group that fit into that mold,” Mr. Baldwin said. “Governor [Chris] Christie’s office helped point us to that one.”

    With arms ready to work and full of letters of care and concern, 10 members of the Montauk Rugby Football Club took a road trip to the Rockaways on Saturday to provide physical labor and emotional support to victims of Hurricane Sandy.

    The players began their trip on Friday night with a stop for work gloves donated by Emporium Hardware in Sag Harbor, another for protective masks, and a visit to Melissa Ann Mitchell’s house in Sag Harbor, where cards and letters to Rockaway residents awaited.

    Written mainly by schoolchildren from Montauk to Southampton, they included messages such as “I hope you found whtvr you lost,” or “I hope you have electricity” illustrated with a hand-drawn, brightly colored yellow house.

    Nick Finazzo of Montauk, acting leader of the pack of players, organized the logistics of Saturday’s trip. With a caravan of committed volunteers, he reaped the benefits of gratitude immediately upon their early morning arrival.

    Taking direction from Rockaway Wish volunteers at a check-in at the Belle Harbor Yacht Club, the men were given a list of houses that needed attention.

    Not to waste manpower, Mr. Finazzo decided that “three general contractors and a physical therapist” could handle replacing the basement stairs, which did not survive the floor-to-ceiling flooding caused by the storm surge.

    He directed the others to the next house, gutting the walls of a first-level living and dining room. The homeowners had lost everything in their basement, too, including carpeting, an entertainment center, electrical panel and wiring, and family memorabilia. At a third house, the group worked together to remove moldy paneling, insulation, and destroyed kitchen appliances.

     While delivering letters, the players met residents like Jackie Cashen. Pointing at the water line on the exterior of her front porch, she remembered watching the next block of houses burn to the ground from her third floor and wondering where the wind would take the fire next.

    There has been an “outpouring of generosity and hard work” in Sandy’s aftermath, she said, with busloads of people arriving from Long Island, New York, and even other states to offer invaluable help.

    With visible damage now cleared from many houses and streets, residents need simple items like vitamins, Ms. Cashen said. “They lost it all.” The donations and supplies volunteers have brought saved people so much money, she said.

    “The worst is over,” said Joseph Munson, her neighbor, who explained that the sand was piled five feet high in the middle of the street. With no heat or electricity for close to a month, he was nevertheless grateful that he had gas to boil bathing water.

    With a glimpse of the ocean on the mild sunny day, to Mr. Finazzo, a teacher assistant at the Amagansett School, it almost felt like home, except for the destroyed houses that lined the duneless coastline and a boardwalk that protruded from the sand.

    At a holiday party in a warming tent adjacent to the St. Frances de Sales Church, “Happy Christmas” by John Lennon and Yoko Ono was playing, Santa Claus was on hand, and there was food. The rugby players handed residents inside a glittered card made by a child, bringing one recipient to tears.

    Messages of love and hope have been sent from all over the world through Love Letters for Long Island, a letter writing campaign taken on by Ms. Mitchell’s company, Ruby Marketing Group, at the suggestion of Kathryn Perry, a member of East End Cares who had heard of a similar effort, moreloveletters.com.

    “What pains us trains us,” read one card, sent to a random person in need. The notes are placed inside open car windows, in mailboxes, on front porches, and slid beneath doors as a way of unexpectedly touching people with “love, support, and compassion.”

    At dusk, the players checked back in at the yacht club, where there was another holiday party with food, entertainment, and Christmases in a Bag, which included trees, stands, lights, and ornaments.

    Loretta Courtney, one of the volunteers, said she had asked a 17-year-old what she wanted for Christmas. “A bed,” she had replied.

    “It’s a shame that this happens,” said Stephen Daige, one of the rugby players. “If the hurricane didn’t change course, they would be helping us.”