A proposed reorganization that would place four branches of town government under the supervision of one new Environmental Protection Department led by Kim Shaw, the recently appointed director of natural resources, failed to pass muster at a meeting of the East Hampton Town Board last Thursday night, when Supervisor Bill Wilkinson brought it up for a vote.

    The measure, which appeared on the agenda just hours before the meeting  without the board’s having discussed it in public, was supported by Councilwoman Theresa Quigley, a Republican who is Mr. Wilkinson’s deputy supervisor, but was voted down by the Democratic board members, Sylvia Overby and Peter Van Scoyoc.

    Councilman Dominick Stanzione, elected with Mr. Wilkinson and Ms. Quigley on the Republican slate, was not present for the vote, but said on Tuesday that “it’s an important reform” which he would support, though not before further review of the details.

    The four agencies involved are the Aquaculture Department, the community preservation fund office, and a to-be-created “environmental protection unit” and “natural resource reviews group.” The proposal, which would shift responsibility for “natural resource reviews” from the Planning Department and transfer several planning staffers into the new units, made waves, particularly among Democrats who feared it was a move by its two Republican supporters to weaken environmental protections. Mr. Wilkinson and Ms. Quigley have often characterized the process of obtaining approvals for development as onerous.

    Pressed for details of the proposal last Thursday night, the supervisor said the Planning Department would be asked to focus on long-range planning issues, and that its staff would continue to include Marguerite Wolffsohn, the director, JoAnn Pahwul, the assistant director, Brian Frank, the chief environmental analyst, Eric Schantz, a planner, one aide, two clerk-typists, and a secretary.

    The proposed resolution states that placing “the activities of Environmental Protection, Natural Resources, Aquaculture, and Community Preservation” under Ms. Shaw’s leadership would allow “environmental issues, one of the town’s top priorities, to be addressed in a focused, cohesive and comprehensive manner.”

    Three Planning Department staffers, Joel Halsey, Lisa D’Andrea, and Tyler Borsack, would be reassigned to the “natural resource reviews group,” under Ms. Shaw. “As a result of this reorganization,” the resolution says, “the Planning Department will no longer be responsible for natural resource reviews.”

    The “environmental protection unit” would include Mark Abramson, a senior environmental analyst, and a senior clerk typist.  

    The Aquaculture and Land Acquisition and Management Departments, with staff intact, would also go under Ms. Shaw’s umbrella, according to the proposal. Bill Taylor, whose title is waterways management specialist, would be transferred to the Harbors and Docks Department, reporting to Ed Michels, the senior harbormaster.

    “Other than that, nothing’s changing,” Councilwoman Quigley said on Tuesday. “There’s no proposal that anybody’s job duties change. There’s nobody terminated. The proposition is moving three people who do natural resources, into Natural Resources.”

    The lack of prior public discussion has raised fears, particularly among Democrats, that the reorganization was less about increasing efficiency and more about weakening environmental protections.

    At last Thursday’s meeting Betty Mazur, a member of the East Hampton Democratic Committee, stood up “to express my dismay,” she said, that “this resolution to consider major environmental reorganization and restructuring of the town’s environmental agencies, including the Planning Department, was not discussed in public.”

    “This is such an important issue for this town,” she said. “It harkens back to other attempts to do major restructuring of this vital area of the town’s planning and protection, that it makes me a little nervous that the board is presenting such a resolution tonight with the expectation, I assume, to vote on it without the proper public discussion and information.”

    “I cannot stress enough that . . . the restructuring of our planning and zoning departments, and environmental protection, should be discussed in public,” Deb Foster, a former town board member, said. “This might be a great idea, but our history here has been fraught with disaster.” She recalled when, in 1983, a Republican-controlled  town board abolished the Planning Department. “Frankly, there has been a history of some members of this board, of conflict with the Planning Department. We want to hear discussion as to why this is going on, and how it will go on,” Ms. Foster said.

    “There have been discussions,” Mr. Wilkinson said. “Publicly?” Ms. Foster asked. “No, not publicly,” said Mr. Wilkinson, citing his “35 years of organization expertise.”

    “You’re not in a corporation anymore,” Ms. Foster responded. “You’re a public servant.”

    “Don’t tell me what I am,” the supervisor replied. “This thing has been discussed internally since January,” he continued. “I am not going to recommend that every organizational change be exposed to a public hearing; I’m not going to do that.”

    Councilman Van Scoyoc acknowledged that the board had discussed the changes to personnel assignments in executive sessions, but Ms. Foster asserted that, according to the state Sunshine Law, “executive session is not for reorganization; it is for individual performance.”

    “It is if there are names involved, and they are yet to be released,” said Mr. Wilkinson.

    Job Potter, another former Democratic board member, also weighed in on the issue. “Clearly . . . individual people, when their names are being used and their job performance is being discussed, that deserves to be in executive session.”

    But, the former councilman said, “I think that any discussion of creating new departments or merging departments is clearly not executive session material, and that if new departments are being created or bundled together, it really does deserve an open discussion.”

    “Could you just explain what’s going on?” he asked.

    In comments that evening, and at the board’s work session on Tuesday, Mr. Wilkinson and Ms. Quigley cast the measure as primarily a reorganization of the Natural Resources Department under its new leader, after the retirement of its longtime director Larry Penny. All the board members have expressed great confidence in Ms. Shaw.

    “We wanted to ensure that two things be accomplished,” Mr. Wilkinson said last Thursday. “That we retain the viability and vitality of our aquifers. We always push natural resources.”

    “We wanted to do, at the same time, ‘one-stop shopping’ for natural resources. . . . So we started trying to figure out what was under that umbrella. At the same time, I wanted to have the Planning Department take a different focus. I wanted the Planning Department to start planning. I wanted the Planning Department to look 5 and 10 years out for this town. We’ve done a wonderful job in planning for land acquisition and land management, but I wanted us to start looking at short-term . . . and on to 15 years of strategic planning.”

    Planning efforts should focus, the supervisor said, on infrastructure, septic-waste management, cell towers, and solar energy, as well as “things like highway — how many miles of highway can we bring into the system [and] whether it has to do with recreational fields or whatever.”

    “We haven’t done that,” he said.  “The [comprehensive] plan is one thing, but we really have to look at legitimate tight plans, long-range plans.”

    “There are a number of aspects to this reorganization that I support,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said last Thursday, but also a “couple of problems. But by and large I think that the move is a positive one.”

    One issue, he said, is the “inherent conflict” of having an agency whose decisions could affect a property’s value under the same arm as an agency that might seek to purchase such properties using the community preservation fund.

    “I think we should do everything we can to not have the appearance of impropriety,” Councilwoman Sylvia Overby said when Mr. Van Scoyoc raised the same issue on Tuesday. But Ms. Quigley and Mr. Wilkinson said they saw no problem. “I don’t see the conflict,” Ms. Quigley told Mr. Van Scoyoc. “Why don’t we keep every single person separate from everyone else? Then we’ll never have an appearance of conflict.”

    Ms. Overby also said Tuesday that, while she might not disagree with some of the shifts proposed, certain responsibilities  are ascribed to the Planning Department by the town code, and that revising those assignments would require a public hearing before changing the code.

    The duties of the new proposed “environmental protection unit,” and the “environmental resources review group,” should be defined, Ms. Overby added.

    As they had last Thursday, Mr. Wilkinson and Ms. Quigley cited less far-reaching changes made by the prior, Democratic administration, that assigned some of the Natural Resources Department’s duties to the Planning Department, and shifted staffers from one department to the other.

    After a Coast Guard inspection today and a county vote on Tuesday, the Peconic Jitney passenger ferry will be able to hit the harbor for 100 days. Many voices of opposition were heard yet again at the final hearing on the matter Tuesday night, but the Sag Harbor Village Board voted 4 to 1 in favor of issuing a temporary special permit for passenger ferry travel from Long Wharf to Greenport.

    The ferry service is planned to begin on or about June 28, with seven round trips a day Sunday through Wednesday and nine from Thursday through Saturday for a price of $11 one way and $20 round trip. Fares for children 13 and younger will be $6 one way, $11 round trip, according to Geoff  Lynch, the president of Hampton Jitney and of the newly formed and separate entity Peconic Jitney. Mr. Lynch, a Sag Harbor resident, will use his family-owned company’s money for the trial run.

    “We don’t have a chance to make a red cent,” he announced at Tuesday’s hearing. “It has to do with transit on the East End — not just Sag Harbor, all five towns.” Mr. Lynch explained that he saw the trial period as an opportunity to enhance transportation, as outlined in a portion of a transportation study by Sustainable East End Development Strategies, for the long-term benefit of the region. He said bicycles would be welcomed on the boats for no additional charge.

    “If we can come up with a long-term plan that alleviates traffic, every person in the village will win,” Mr. Lynch said.

    Also approved despite opposition of neighbors was the lease of a parking lot from Pierson High School for Peconic Jitney to use for a shuttle for those who drive to the village to take the ferry. The lease was Mr. Lynch’s response to an outcry about the already disastrous parking situation in the village during the summer. The Sag Harbor School Board will receive $20,000 for the use of the lot when school is not in session.

    Some residents said they were concerned about “unacceptable” effects on Sag Harbor and its quality of life and didn’t see sufficient benefits. Fears cited included the safety of children sailing, parking, pollution, overcrowded streets, and a decrease in property values.

    But Bruce Stafford, a village board member, could see benefits, one of them being access to Greenport’s many family-friendly activities, such as a skate park and a carousel. “I have a 12-year old,” he said. “We can walk downtown, hop on the boat, and have a great day.” He also said that, despite the mostly negative comments at the hearings, he has heard a lot of positive ones from people on the street.

    The board reassured those in attendance that when the trial period is over, a permanent application would require a much more substantial review, which would involve the Harbor Committee, the village’s planning and zoning boards, and the architectural review board.

    Mr. Lynch estimated a maximum passenger count of 350 people per day, which he called “not an overwhelming number.” The boat holds 53 people. As a guide, Hampton Jitney buses usually operate at 40 to 50-percent occupancy, he said. “I don’t think 175 will have cars. I can handle most of those cars if I do my job of marketing it that way.”

    Mr. Lynch also spoke of plans for expansion to other ports, such as Orient, New Suffolk, and Montauk, “if this looks like it has potential.”

    “This boat goes away after September,” he said, and for the service to continue, investors or public-sector grants would be required, as would more boats.

    Jim Ryan, the owner of Response Marine and “employee number-one” at Peconic Jitney, explained nautical details for the board, for example the fact that the boat will come in even with the bulkhead at high tide, thus not disrupting any scenic vistas. It has its own gangplank for passengers to board.

    “Four cleats are the only footprint,” Mr. Ryan said, along with a sign showing hours of operation and fees. He said the ferry would not travel at more than five knots near the harbor. “We don’t want to disturb people,” whether they are fishing, anchored, or sailing. He said those in the shellfish industry had been assured their traps would not be disturbed.

    Opponents, however, also complained Tuesday about the buses that the new enterprise is to run in a loop, in conjunction with the ferry schedule, to and from Bridgehampton and East Hampton.

    Mr. Lynch countered that the county’s S92 transit bus is the “best deal in the Hamptons” and said he would prefer that passengers take advantage of its 16 daily runs to East Hampton, Sag Harbor, and Bridgehampton. “Anybody can get on for $2.25.”

    Jeff Peters of the Harbor Committee, the sole member of that body who believes the ferry plan is not consistent with the village’s Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan, spoke as a resident of Main Street and questioned the fee of $12,000 for the use of Long Wharf. “It is going to cost more than that. It’s common sense,” he said, pounding the podium.

    On Monday at a Harbor Committee meeting, Mr. Peters said he was concerned about the disruption of activities at the north end of Long Wharf. “We don’t know how it will displace the fishermen and visitors to the wharf,” he said.

    “I really want to try this for the summer and see how it works,” Mayor Brian Gilbride said Tuesday night. “If it does work out, or it doesn’t work out, I want to have as much information as we can to study this. This provides the data, that’s the real story.”

    “I think it’s worth a try,” Mr. Lynch said. “I am willing to take the loss to do the research and do a study for the East End.”

    Chet Basher, a 70-year-old Special Forces Vietnam veteran and longtime summer resident of Louse Point Road in Springs, is riding his bicycle across America to support the Wounded Warrior Project.

    Mr. Basher, who owns a residential construction and remodeling company in Sparta, N.J., took up cycling about 15 years ago. Before his current trek, his longest cycling trip was about 700 miles through the Rocky Mountains.

Mr. Basher began the cross-country journey on May 12 in Los Angeles, with a group called Cross Roads Cycling. They expect to cover 3,415 miles before finishing in Boston on Friday, June 29.

    The 23 cyclists in the group stop each night to rest at a motel or hotel. A support team transports their gear and can pick up an ill or injured rider.

Mr. Basher’s son, Devon, said from New Jersey this week that his father was “the oldest one on the ride, and he sounds pretty good.” Chet Basher was in Ohio at the time. “I’m probably going to meet him in Vermont,” his son said.   

The elder Mr. Basher has participated in Wounded Warrior Project activities for years, said his son. He has “donated his time and had people stay at his house; he’s driven folks around from one place to another. He’s done lots of things to help.”

The Wounded Warrior Project, originally formed to provide basic necessities such as clean clothes and shaving gear to wounded veterans returning from combat, continues to grow. The program now offers academic and job training support, advice on benefits, stress recovery support, adaptive sports programs, and more.

Mr. Basher’s journey can be followed online at ChetBikeUSAforWoundedWarrior.blogspot.com.

    “I was dancing at the Memory,” Elvis Ruiz-Denizard said in an interview last Saturday during a break from his job at Fishbar in Montauk. “I went out for a slice of pizza. I came out of the Memory, and six black guys surrounded me.”

    Mr. Ruiz-Denizard speaks only a little English, so most of the conversation was conducted through Noel Feliciano, a manager at Fishbar.

    He was talking about what had happened in Montauk early on June 11. It was a little after 3 a.m. Within half an hour, Mr. Ruiz-Denizard was arrested  and charged with rioting in the second degree.

    “I tried to run. I ran toward the Point [bar],” he said, adding that he was trying to get away but was penned in and beaten. When he fell to the ground, he said, he was kicked.

    Mr. Ruiz-Denizard claimed he was attacked because he was Puerto Rican.

    “They were looking for Puerto Ricans,” agreed Mr. Feliciano. He said the alleged attackers were in the center of Main Street, between the Memory and the Point, challenging Puerto Ricans to fight. That account was corroborated by other witnesses.

    According to Mr. Feliciano, Mr. Ruiz-Denizard was simply “in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

    After he was beaten, he got up and ran to several men he recognized from Rincon, P.R. Ethnic groups of seasonal workers ebb and flow in numbers as the years go by: Irish, Czech, Ecuadorean, Mexican, Puerto Rican. This year, there is a large influx of men from Rincon in Montauk, seeking seasonal work.

    According to Mr. Ruiz-Denizard and others, East Hampton Town police had difficulty controlling the situation. They were outnumbered, and called in additional officers.

     “After he was beaten,” Mr. Feliciano said, “an officer pointed at him and told him to sit on the ground. ‘You’re under arrest.’ ”  Mr. Ruiz-Denizard was handcuffed and placed in the back of a squad car. Even then, he said in Spanish, several men tried to get at him.

    One of them, he asserted, told police, “Don’t fuck with us, we won’t fuck with you.”

    Asked if there was anyone who could corroborate his story, Mr. Ruiz-Denizard said, “It happened so fast.” He was too busy defending himself to notice if there were witnesses, he said.

    According to Mr. Ruiz-Denizard, there were no officers at the scene that night who spoke Spanish, and no Spanish-speaking officer or agent of the police interviewed him after he was arrested. He did not hear the language spoken until that afternoon, he said, during his arraignment, when the court provided him with a translator.

    He also said there were more than 10 African-American combatants on the scene, the number first reported.

    “Why weren’t any of the black guys arrested?” Mr. Feliciano asked. Four men were arrested after the battle. All were Puerto Rican.

    “We don’t put anybody in custody unHampton Town Police Detective Lt. Christopher Anderson said on Tuesday.

    The police account of the brawl, which some bystanders agreed with, has it starting inside the Point, where Emmanuel Candelaria-Vargas allegedly slammed a bottle on the side of the head of Arben Shoshi. The altercation quickly exploded into a chaotic massive fistfight, spilling out into the street.

    According to the police report, several Puerto Rican men then gathered and fought with various men in the street, with Mr. Candelaria-Vargas allegedly punching and knocking down Kyle Russell, who is black.

    However, Felipe Marion, who was also at the scene, gave a different account, saying he saw a man matching Mr. Candelaria-Vargas’s description being chased by three African-Americans, two of whom gave up the chase. The man who looked like Mr. Candelaria-Vargas pivoted and punched the last pursuer, knocking him down, said Mr. Marion.

    An officer then pursued Mr. Candelaria-Vargas and caught up with him a block away.

    It took police at least half an hour to restore order.

    Mr. Candelaria-Vargas and Mr. Ruiz-Denizard were arraigned the next morning, along with Ivan Candelaria-Noriega and Charley Carillo Torres. Bail was set for Mr. Candelaria-Vargas at $10,000, and at $500 each for the other three, all of whom made bail with the help of friends and employers.

    Mr. Candelaria-Vargas was set free on Friday on his own recognizance, under a New York State law requiring that suspects be released without bail if they have not been indicted within 120 hours of their arrest.

     On Monday at 3 a.m., the scene on the street was quite different. There were two squad cars parked in front of the Point and two police SUVs parked at the Shell station next door. Two officers were on foot patrol, walking back and forth, covering the 40 or so square yards that had been the scene of the previous week’s battle.

    Sunday night in Montauk is Friday night for its young seasonal workers. Many are off the next day after working a long, hard weekend in the restaurants and resorts that are the bloodstream of the hamlet’s summer economy.

    At 3:30 in the morning all was still peaceful, as hundreds of young workers, of all races and ethnicities, slowly went their separate ways, back to the motel rooms they share, four to six in a room.

    William A. Donnelly, who gave police a Montauk motel where he had been staying as an address, was indicted in Suffolk Criminal Court on Tuesday on charges including four Class C felonies, 12 misdemeanors and moving violations. Mr. Donnelly, 30, is alleged to have gone on a five-hour crime spree on May 16 and to have led police on a wild chase before being captured on Shelter Island.

    The indictment alleges that he committed two burglaries that day and one the day before, in East Hampton Town, East Hampton Village, and Amagansett, valued in excess of $50,000. Judge Stephen Braslow set bail at $500,000.

    Mr. Donnelly faces a minimum of seven years in prison for each burglary because of previous brushes with the law, including a 2005 conviction for felony assault in the second degree. Robert Clifford, a spokesman for the Suffolk district attorney, said on Tuesday that Mr. Donnelly could be sentenced to consecutive time if convicted of the three burglaries, or a minimum of 21 years.

    “He came in through the back door, and the guy was cooking eggs,” Ron Levin, the East Hampton Village burglary victim, said Saturday, describing how a neighbor stumbled upon the crime in progress on Barns Lane. The neighbor, Arthur Purcell, knowing that Mr. Levin was away and seeing eggs cooking on the stove, ran back to his house next door and called police. Although three officers arrived within a couple of minutes, the unwelcome visitor had left.

    According to Mr. Levin, who is 74 and on several medications including insulin, the officers found pills scattered all over as they went through his Barns Lane house.

    Mr. Purcell told police that he had seen a man loitering around the property earlier in the day, and he provided them with a description, which proved invaluable  when Shelter Island police arrested Mr. Donnelly after the chase.

    Mr. Donnelly allegedly struck another house that day, at 14 Osborne Lane, stealing a red van parked in the driveway, and putting Pennsylvania license plates on the van that he allegedly had taken off a vehicle in the Schenck parking lot. He then headed for Shelter Island, where he had lived for a time last year, according to Shelter Island Police Sgt. Jack Thilberg.

    But the island provided no shelter for Mr. Donnelly. Shortly after arriving there, island police received a call from someone concerned with Mr. Donnelly’s welfare. According to Mr. Clifford, the district attorney’s spokesman, the caller said Mr. Donnelly was high on drugs, and possibly armed.

    Several police cars approached the house on South Ferry Road where he was believed to be. However, he saw the cars and took off, the sergeant said, leading police on a high speed chase for several miles. The time was about 3:30p.m., and children who had just gotten out of the only school on the island were walking its narrow, winding streets, Mr. Clifford said. The van allegedly hit speeds of up to 80 miles per hour and slashed across crowded intersections, before crashing into a row of boxwood bushes at water’s edge at the end of a one-way street.

     Mr. Donnelly reportedly ran from the crash, and Shelter Island police, calling for reinforcements from the Suffolk Sheriff’s Department as well as state troopers and two canine search units, began the hunt.

    Mr. Donnelly was found hiding in a shed later in the day and arrested, Mr. Clifford said.

    Shelter Island police found that the van contained “an antique coin collection, several signed baseballs in cases, jewelry, cash, a laptop computer, and seven rifles,” Mr. Clifford reported. The owner of the van was able to identify several of the items.

    East Hampton Village police passed along the description of the Barns Lane burglar and a list of stolen items provided by Mr. Levin to the Shelter Island department. That list included a Felt bicycle valued at $1,500 and several Brooks Brothers shirts still in a shopping bag.

    The Amagansett house hit during Mr. Donnelly’s alleged crime spree was at 12 Sheperds Lane, just off Bluff Road. At the motel where Mr. Donnelly had been staying police obtained signed permission from his mother to search his room. They found other apparently stolen items.

    Mr. Clifford and Sergeant Thilberg said Mr. Donnelly confessed to the crimes he was accused of, but, represented by a Legal Aid attorney, he pleaded not guilty on Tuesday. His next court date is July 10. Mr. Donnelly admitted to having taken suboxone and vicodin and smoking marijuana, according to Mr. Clifford.

    “I never had a robbery in the 27 years I’m here,” Mr. Levin said. At police headquarters, he identified his missing items, lined up neatly in a row. However, he will have to wait a couple of weeks before he can get his beloved Felt bike back. The most difficult part of the ordeal for Mr. Levin, a hair colorist at a Manhattan salon, was cleaning up the black powder police used to dust for fingerprints. But he isn’t complaining.

    “I told the mayor [Paul F. Rickenbach Jr.] how wonderful the police were. The work was fantastic,” Mr. Levin said.     

    At a town board meeting on Tuesday, Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, the board’s liaison from the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee, reported that members of the committee had expressed concern at their last meeting about garbage cans on the hamlet’s Main Street being filled far beyond their capacity, even before the end of a weekend.

    “It was a result of our not implementing the seasonal pickup schedule,” said Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc, the board’s liaison to the East Hampton Town Building and Grounds Department. The pickup schedule was not aligned with the earlier-than-usual arrival of visitors, he said, citing the mild winter as well as the Montauk Music Festival, which brought thousands into the area, and the big Mother’s Day weekend.

    Amagansett business owners who were interviewed this week are also upset about overflowing garbage cans and, to hear them talk, have been for a good while. “For a beautiful town, it should be very easy to take care of this,” said Michael Cinque, who has owned Amagansett Wines and Spirits for 32 years. “It’s downright ugly — and horrible that they can’t control it. Who’s asleep at the wheel?”

    Not only Main Street, but the parking lot behind it, is a problem, Mr. Cinque said. “It’s full of broken glass and beer bottles every weekend. Who’s responsible for cleaning that up?” He suggested that business owners meet with Tony Littman, who heads the Building and Grounds Department, to discuss changes in the garbage-pickup system.

    Another Amagansett merchant, Susan Seitz-Kulick, who has owned Gone Local for six years, said the bins at either end of Main Street were not used as much as the ones in front of the places that sell food, including Indian Wells Tavern, D’Canela, Felice’s, Sopra Sotto, Mary’s Marvelous, and the two in Amagansett Square, Hampton Chutney and Meeting House. She suggested the town might put more bins where they are most needed, or move the ones that are underused nearer to the ones that brim over with bottles, cans, and plastic cups. She has seen dogs eating discarded bits of food near full bins, she said.

    “It is very frustrating and embarrassing, and it doesn’t speak well of our town,” said Sandra Schoenlien of Mary’s Marvelous. There is no can in front of her popular bakery and gourmet takeout shop.

    “We need to make adjustments,” said Mr. Van Scoyoc. He said he has suggested adding more cans or shortening the distance between the cans.

    Mr. Littman said his crews empty 250 garbage receptacles all over East Hampton Town, including at bayside road ends. The summer schedule, which is now in force, has two trucks going out on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday between 7 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. On Monday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, there is a truck out between 4 p.m. and 12:30 a.m.

    On Saturday and Sunday, an additional two trucks are out between 5 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. The night shift handles the beaches and the Main Streets — “the big stuff,” said Mr. Littman. That shift hits the receptacles twice, he said, once on the way out and again on the way back. Mr. Littman said the work schedule and routes are about the same as in years past.

    “People should understand how much ground Tony Littman’s crews cover,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said. “They don’t know, and they take it for granted.” Mr. Littman recently told Mr. Van Scoyoc that his crews picked up 1 million pounds of garbage last year.

    Mr. Van Scoyoc is not only the town board liaison to Mr. Littman’s department but also the Wainscott advisory committee’s  liaison, so “all these issues get routed” to him, he said. The Wainscott committee has complained about garbage at beaches, as have Amagansett citizens committee members, who are concerned about overflowing bins at the Indian Wells and Atlantic Avenue road ends.

    “It’s a perennial problem,” said Mr. Van Scoyoc, “because some people decide they want to get rid of their household garbage in them on a Sunday. We will be working on stepping up enforcement of that.”

With reporting by Joanne Pilgrim

    Charles Soriano, the assistant superintendent of the East Hampton Union Free School District, is clearly in his element when presenting the report cards on the different schools in the district. With comparisons over the past three years to New York State, then Suffolk County, and finally the other districts on the South Fork, Dr. Soriano has given presentations on the elementary school and middle school.

    But it was the high school in the spotlight at Tuesday night’s board meeting, and the results were the least rosy of the three, although all seem to be increasing from year to year.

    As per his other presentations, Dr. Soriano was quick to note at the outset that the Regents exam, on which the report card was based, “describes; it does not define.”

    “These are our children,” he said. “We don’t want to enter a false world of steady increases. This is not the stock market. . . . It doesn’t work like that. Kids are not widgets.” He held up his iPhone. “This is not a child,” he said.

    “We need to take care in drawing conclusions,” he continued. “Making generalizations based on a single test is not advisable. Data is more than a number; it should tell a story.”

    The tale woven by the exams seems to show something that the district already knows: that the many students of limited proficiency in English, also known as English language learners, bring down the scores on the English language-arts Regents. However, on history exams, where the students are able to take the Regents exams in Spanish if need be, the scores are in line with, or even exceed, other schools and districts.

    In the language of Dr. Soriano’s report, a score of 65 is passing, or proficient, and a score of 85 or higher indicates mastery in a particular subject.

    Regents are required in five areas in order to earn a diploma: integrated algebra, global history and geography, United States history and government, English language arts, and science, although students can opt to take an additional five exams.

    When compared to New York State scores in English Language Arts, East Hampton was just about equal, and showed an upward trend over the past three years. In algebra and geometry, East Hampton fared even better, sometimes more than 15 percent above the state averages for proficiency. The same numbers applied for global history, U.S. history, and living environment (biology), all of which were notably higher than the state averages.

    The same was not the case for algebra 2/trigonometry, which was lower than the state average. Adam Fine, the school principal, explained that East Hampton has been pushing for its students to test the limits, and advancing as many students as possible into upper-division classes. “The common core learning standards will teach for deeper understanding,” Mr. Fine said.

    The standards, which are being adopted by the school, teach 18 topics in greater depth rather than the current 32 topics, which, Mr. Fine said, the teachers sometimes need to race through. “We need to adapt to the common core learning standards, and that will help with greater mastery,” he said.

    Patricia Hope, a school board member and a former science teacher at the school, explained also that once a Regents exam has approximately three-quarters of the students who take it gaining mastery, the State Department of Education makes the test more difficult. “Mastery is something to constantly strive toward,” Dr. Soriano agreed.

    Compared to other local high schools — Hampton Bays, Pierson, and Southampton — East Hampton scored below average on the English language arts exams. “It’s not that far below,” Dr. Soriano said. “But it’s every year. That’s a cause of concern.” Mastery is increasing year to year, “but it’s still lower than the other schools,” Dr. Soriano said.

    In math and science, East Hampton was on average with the other schools, and scored highest on the physics Regents last year, with a 95-percent proficiency rating. It scored noticeably lower in earth science each year. 

    The results led Dr. Soriano to analyze the situation and come up with some suggestions, including the institution of a four-year math requirement. “It should be four years at the high school, four years of continuous mathematics,” he said. “Obviously there are costs associated with this. Too bad. If we want our kids to succeed, we have to push them.”

    The high school also needs “to get serious about pull-outs and field trips,” Dr. Soriano said.

    “This is not meant as a criticism,” he said. “But there are some students that — because of sick days, pull-outs, field trips, and testing — only end up actually in class 130 out of 180 days. Adam [Fine] is definitely tightening this up, but it’s an area we need to keep a grip on. Nothing substitutes for an hour in front of the teacher.”

    Mr. Fine will give a presentation at the next board meeting on June 19 about what programs have been put in place to push students to better achievement on the Regents exams.

    “We need to embrace the reality of who we are,” Dr. Soriano said at the close of his presentation. “We expect every child to reach mastery. Will they? Maybe not, but teachers need to believe that it’s possible. When the teacher believes, the student does better.”

    The full results are available for viewing on the school district’s Web site, ehufsd.org.

    Allegations that East Hampton Town officials had improperly intervened in decisions regarding the issuance of a building permit for renovations at the former Ronjo motel in Montauk are “totally baseless,” the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Government Corruption Bureau has determined.

    The allegations were made in a letter to the The Independent newspaper by Zachary Cohen, the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for town supervisor in 2011. In a letter sent yesterday to John Jilnicki, the East Hampton Town attorney, Christopher McPartland, the Division Chief of Investigations, wrote that, “after a thorough investigation” it was determined that “each and every allegation of illegal conduct or misconduct in the letter is totally baseless.”

    The matter was referred to the district attorney by town officials following a public exchange about the letter between Mr. Cohen and town board members at a meeting last month.

    In his letter, published on May 2, Mr. Cohen, who lost his bid for supervisor by 15 votes, claimed that Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson and Councilwoman Theresa Quigley “continue to allow town employees to bypass proper review” of projects — specifically the renovation of the Ronjo, alleging that the owners, Chris Jones and Lawrence Siedlick, had received an unfair advantage from “their friends on the town board.”

    Mr. McPartland said in his letter that that suggestion is “totally without merit,” and “there is no evidence at all” to support claims by Mr. Cohen in his letter that “town attorneys, along with the owners’ attorney, encouraged an illegal action by the building inspector,” or that the building permit that was issued was illegal.

    Mr. Cohen said yesterday that he would not comment at this time. In an e-mail on Tuesday, Mr. Jilnicki said, “I am very pleased by the D.A.’s determination. I have the highest regard for the individuals in this office and for the building inspector and this determination confirms that they acted properly at all times.”

    Mr. Jones and Mr. Siedlick are renovating the downtown property into an upscale motel called the Montauk Beach House. Their purchase of the old Ronjo has been in the news for months, following a proposal by Supervisor Wilkinson to sell a portion of a town-owned alleyway that bisects the site to them for $35,000, without first having the value of the land appraised.

    The Democratic minority members of the town board protested, and a petition calling for a public referendum on the sale was circulated. The petition was thrown out on a technicality by Fred Overton, the town clerk. The petitioners, including leadership of the local Democratic Party, sued. Separate appraisals commissioned by the Democrats and by Mr. Jones and Mr. Siedlick set the appropriate price of the alley segment at widely varying levels — $184,000, in the case of the Democrats’ appraisal, and $22,500 in the other.

    In his letter to The Independent, Mr. Cohen referred to the acting chief building inspector Tom Preiato’s issuance of a permit allowing the installation of a basement at the motel to proceed, even while a site plan application seeking approval for the work is under review. The terms of the permit required Mr. Jones to sign an affidavit saying that he would proceed with the work at his own risk, as site plan approval was not assured.

    “This is not legal under the town code. . . .” Mr. Cohen asserted in his letter. He said Mr. Preiato’s decision followed a “powwow” including the motel owners and their attorney along with the town attorneys assigned to the planning board and the Building Department — roles filled by Kathryn Santiago and Patrick Gunn, though they were not named in the letter.

    “The inescapable conclusion is that town attorneys, along with the owners’ attorney, encouraged an illegal action by the building inspector,” Mr. Cohen alleged.

    There was no response by press time to requests for comment sent to Ms. Santiago, Mr. Gunn, and Mr. Preiato. Mr. Wilkinson and Ms. Quigley also did not respond to a request for comment.

    According to Mr. McPartland’s letter, the district attorney’s office conducted “numerous interviews of town officials,” and offered Mr. Cohen “an opportunity to support his claims.”

    “Relevant town documents were examined and other evidence regarding this issue was reviewed,” the D.A.’s letter said.

    Mr. Jones spoke out yesterday morning about what he called “despicable,” politically motivated actions. “They view this as a game, and it’s not,” he said. “It has really far-reaching impacts.”

    “We have upwards of 70 people employed on our project, and all of these kinds of tactics and antics have repercussions,” Mr. Jones said. Controversy over the alley sale, which he said is now proceeding, and then over the permits for his project, has set the motel renovation back by about a month, he said.

    News of the allegations and a district attorney’s investigation had caused business associates to question his integrity, Mr. Jones said, “and that has long-lasting and meaningful ramifications.”

    “We are very thankful that the town and the D.A. investigated the matter as expeditiously as they did,” he said. “Clearly, there was never any doubt in either Larry’s or my mind as to what the outcome would be. The truth always comes out.”

    “As regards Zachary Cohen, I’m very, very sad, quite frankly, that he would resort to slander for his own political gain. That’s an issue that we will review to the extent that there are legal remedies to do so,” said Mr. Jones. The point of any potential legal action, he said, “is not financial gain; the bigger goal is, this needs to stop, and this community needs to recognize that these people should not have a podium to stand on.”

    Mr. Jones said he and his staff are “working furiously” to open the Montauk Beach House by June 22.

    Gina Bradley, who calls herself the Paddle Diva, went before the East Hampton Town Board and the East Hampton Town Trustees on Tuesday, hoping to help shape the dialogue on commercial mass-gathering permits, specifically those for public beaches. 

    While stand-up paddleboards have become as common as driftwood on bay and ocean beaches, the Paddle Diva’s boards are the tools of a successful trade. She teaches the art of stand-up paddling and conducts tours of East Hampton waters for between 6 and 20 clients at a time from various launching spots.

    Ms. Bradley applied to the town board about a month ago for a commercial mass-gathering permit, which would allow her to operate from May through October. Although the town code permits the use of public property for food vendors via a bidding process, and allows the free use of beaches for weddings and certain other events, it requires a permit if a commercial enterprise brings five or more people together on public property. Regulations for surfing lessons, yoga instruction, and photo shoots on the beaches have not been spelled out.

    The trustees, who own most of the beaches and bottomlands in town, except in Montauk, have resisted their use for commercial purposes. Longtime local pursuits, such as beach-driving and shellfishing, are permitted by regulations jointly designed by the trustees and town board. The proliferation of recreational uses by for-profit enterprises has prompted joint discussion.

    During a town board work session Tuesday morning and at the trustees’ regular June meeting that evening, the members of each panel agreed that the goal of an updated mass-gathering permit law would be to encourage appropriate uses of East Hampton’s beaches while at the same time making sure commercial uses did not interfere with the public’s enjoyment of a common resource.

    “The uses are varied — volleyball, kite surfing, paddleboarders — it’s a tremendous task to see the public resource is not overused,” Diane McNally, the clerk, or presiding officer, of the trustees said at its meeting. “It was the catering, private businesses making money off a public resource that got us thinking.”

    “The floodgates are opening. If it’s commercial it can’t interfere with a family on a Sunday afternoon. Next year there might be 10 Paddle Divas,” Stephanie Forsberg, a trustee, said. Debbie Klughers reminded her fellow trustees of complaints they had received on one occasion when up to 20 paddleboarders virtually took over the beach at Maidstone Park.

    At the town board’s session earlier, Town Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc suggested that stand-up paddleboard tour guides should be accommodated but limited to particular places. Ms. Bradley told the trustees she had no problem with the town’s citing specific areas for paddleboarding, saying her clients looked for diverse locations. Although Paddle Diva is based at the Shagwong Marina on Three Mile Harbor, she said that given the  southwest winds of summer she would like the option of working from places like Landing Lane in Springs, Fresh Pond in Amagansett, and Hand’s Creek on Three Mile Harbor. The trustees’ discussion veered, at that point, to alternative ways to launch should public beaches become too crowded.

    Lynn Mendelman, one of the trustees, suggested that Paddle Diva use town launching ramps, which provide access to the bays for licensed baymen and fly-fishing and other guides. She also recommended that in the interest of safety, paddleboard guides instruct their clients on the marine rules of the road. Joe Bloecker, another trustee, recommended that guides like Ms. Bradley be licensed. The Paddle Diva liked both ideas.

    “I don’t want to run 50 people in and out. I don’t want to see any one landing get overwhelmed. I’m not overusing any one environment, and I want to offer diversity to my clients,” Ms. Bradley said.

    The trustees thanked her for sharing her concerns, while the town board gave her the go-ahead to operate for four to six weeks and then report back.

    “It may be appropriate to license these businesses in order to impose guidelines,” Councilwoman Theresa Quigley said. 

    A partially built barn in Wainscott, standing on land that community members and East Hampton Town paid to preserve, was the subject of a hearing at Town Hall last Thursday night and is presenting a legal quagmire.

    After holding a hearing last week on whether to issue a construction permit for the barn, on the Babinski farm in Wainscott, the town board debated on Tuesday about how to proceed under a section of the town code that they agreed is outmoded and should probably be deleted.

    The barn was approved by the planning board, and the building inspector issued a permit for it. Neighbors sued to overturn the planning board approval, however, and work on the barn, which is close to completion, was halted after a stop-work order was issued.

    Because the town has purchased the development rights for the farmland on which the barn is being built, it was determined, according to a relevant section of the town code, that the town board must also sign off on the construction.

    That part of the code, said Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc at the Tuesday work session, should be repealed. “I don’t think this is a necessary step for a farmer to have to go through,” he said. “There’s no criteria in the code by which to judge the appropriateness of the structure.” Although requiring a town board-issued permit, the code section in question does not lay out standards to help the board determine whether to issue it.

    “We have a review process in place for agricultural buildings,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said. “This is a vestige, I believe, of a time when we did not have a review process.”

    The law was adopted in 1982, said John Jilnicki, the town attorney, when the purchase of development rights was new. It was likely designed to ensure some degree of control over farm buildings on land the town had paid to preserve.

    Now, he said, including the Babinski purchase, the deeds transferring development rights spell out conditions. In the Babinski case, the agreement designated a four-acre portion of the acreage where agricultural buildings would be confined, and established a 30-foot setback limit along three sides of the area.

    At last week’s hearing, Andy Babinski, whose son is farming the land, said that “never was structure placement an issue.” A requirement that precluded the farmers from putting up an agricultural building in the most convenient section of the four acres, he said, would have been “a definite devaluation of the land’s value,” and would have prompted the family to ask for more money for the development rights.

    Alex Balsam, a farmer and an attorney, said at the hearing that farmers who sell the development rights on their land transfer only that, and not the right to farm the property or put up agricultural buildings. Requiring a permit from the town board to do so, he said, is “nothing more than a tool of harassment against the farmer.”

    William Babinski, who obtained both planning board and architectural review board approval for the barn, “has done everything, and more, that the law requires,” said his attorney, David Eagan. “And then to have, at best, an unenforceable provision to be enforced for the first time in the history of the town — that’s just plain wrong.”

    But Tom Gilbert, a neighbor of the Beach Lane farm and the plaintiff in the lawsuit against the planning board’s approval, argued that public money, plus private contributions from the neighbors, including $20,000 from his own family, had been spent and that the town should exercise some oversight.

    “We think that the function of the town in these circumstances is to provide a balanced solution, to balance the needs of the neighbors and the farmers and the community,” making sure, he said, “that we’re not disproportionately being penalized by virtue of the fact that all the barns are being just dropped in front of our property.”

    “That’s our primary view; obliterating our view, essentially,” Mr. Gilbert said. “We don’t think this is an appropriate use of the rights — really collective rights, now.”

    “The town did not relinquish regulatory control” when it spent $7 million on the development rights, Jeffrey Bragman, Mr. Gilbert’s attorney, said, asserting that the town board must follow the existing town code “unless and until a court of law tells you it’s improper.”

    The town board’s discussion on Tuesday centered on what exactly is required by law. Councilwoman Theresa Quigley suggested that the board not make its own decision on the building permit, but said instead that the planning board review, and the discussion by the 2005 town board when forging the agreement with the Babinskis, constitutes the required review.

    However, “there is no legal basis for that,” Mr. Jilnicki said. In order to make the case that the board’s legal obligation has already been met, it would have to review a transcript of the 2005 public hearing on the development rights purchase.

    “It seems to me this guy has gone through enough process,” Ms. Quigley said of Mr. Babinski. “I believe that we should take a step that does whatever we can to get them out of this litigious morass they’re in.”

    “I think the fact is, there will be a lawsuit whatever we do,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said, “and I don’t see where following the code is the least defensible. I don’t think that a town board can simply ignore a section of the code that requires a process.”

    Councilwoman Sylvia Overby suggested that the board simply issue the construction permit. Ms. Quigley disagreed, and Councilman Dominick Stanzione asked for time to review the 2005 board discussion.

    An earlier version of this story misidentified Alex Balsam as being recently appointed to the East Hampton Town Planning Board. He is not a member.