The fifth budget work session of the Springs School Board, on April 4, made clear a few pertinent points; that the school board was going to make some cuts, and that the decisions were going to be emotionally charged for both the board and the community.

    Audible gasps, sighs, and groans issued from the crowd, which was not invited to comment since it was a board work session, and at one point a Springs School teacher raced from the auditorium in tears as her position was eliminated.

    After the dust settled, programs like Project MOST, summer school, and many extracurricular activities, along with participation in interscholastic sports, had suffered or been eliminated.

    Due to the recent guidelines sent from Albany relating to the new 2-percent property tax levy cap, the budget for 2012-13 is limited to $24.68 million, or $208,920 less than the current budget, due in no small part to decreased revenue. A budget reduction of $791,969 over what was originally considered needed to be achieved by cutting programs.

    “Districts all over the state are grappling with this,” Tim Frazier, a board member and principal of the Southampton Intermediate School, said. “We’re going to try to be as fiscally responsible as possible.”

    “Please understand that this is very emotional for everyone,” the board president, Kathee Burke Gonzalez, said in a quiet voice. “No one prepares you for this. We realize this will affect staff members and their careers, and we are not taking this lightly.”

    One piece of good news: Rather than the $2.9 million that the board originally thought was all that would be allowed for the programs being inspected, it was learned that an additional $400,000 could be allocated after Colleen Card, the school’s business administrator, was able to examine the State Department of Education’s recently released instructions for the implementation of the tax levy limit.

    The five-person board looked at the 25 programs that had been discussed during a community forum on Feb. 11, and went down the list line by line, taking a “show of hands” vote amongst themselves on each program, then discussing the pros and cons of cutting or keeping it.

    Prekindergarten, which had been on the cutting block, passed with flying colors to the relief of many parents in the audience.

    Mr. Frazier was the only holdout on the most hotly-contested item of the night — changing the sixth grade from its current elementary model, which has the students spending a half-day in their homeroom with rotations for math, social studies, and science, to a middle-school model, in which the students would spend their first period with the homeroom teacher, and then travel from class to class like the seventh and eighth-grade students. The change would realize about $200,000 in savings and would lay off three of the least-senior elementary school teachers.

    “I’m speaking as an educator. It is going to tear apart this school,” Mr. Frazier said. “It’s going to make a difference in the morale of the school and it will destroy all the hard work this school has achieved.” Mr. Frazier’s wife, Tracey, is a fifth-grade teacher at Springs, but her position was not at risk by the vote.

    John Grant disagreed with Mr. Frazier. “I have to put students first, taxpayers second, and the staff third,” he said.

    “But that’s exactly what I’m doing, John,” Mr. Frazier answered. “Students are going to get harmed by this in a way that’s going to affect the performance of this school.”

    “I have to respectfully disagree that this is going to harm kids,” said Ms. Gonzalez. “They’ll have the same art teacher, the same music teacher. Personally, I think our kids will thrive.”

    Mr. Grant pointed out that in many districts, sixth grade is a year when children move to another building. “This is kindergarten through eighth,” he said. “Everything will still be familiar to them.”

    Immediately after that, the board changed the schedule from a nine-period day back to an eight-period day, which saved $100,000 by having four middle school teachers go from full time to four-fifths time.

    Again, Mr. Frazier seriously objected to both the loss of teaching positions and to reducing math classes from 70 minutes to 48 minutes.

    After more heated dialogue, it was decided that the changes to the sixth-grade program and the shift in class periods would be left open for possible further discussion.

    Funding for Springs School in Action, a film program for second through eighth-graders, which won the Magna Award last year, was cut from $60,000 to $10,000. The board saw savings of another $100,000 by appointing only one teaching assistant for two first grade classrooms, rather than having one in each classroom.

    When it came to regular education summer school, the board vetoed the program, saving $65,000, with Mr. Grant as the holdout against the move. “I have a big concern about regression during the summer anyway,” he said.

    There was a tense moment as the board voted to eliminate one English as a second language teacher. Alexandra McCourt, the least senior E.S.L. teacher, left the room in tears, followed by several other Springs educators.

    The board also voted to reduce middle school sports by 30 percent, achieved by cutting all East Hampton intrascholastic sports — football, lacrosse, track, and cross country. “I realize this isn’t going to be popular,” Ms. Gonzalez said. Liz Mendelman agreed. “It’s a loss to the school, but there are other options, like Little League,” she said.

    Four of the members voted to cut the school’s funding for Project MOST, a $40,000 cost. Teresa Schurr was the only vote to continue district funding for the popular after-school program, run by an independent nonprofit. “If it wasn’t for Project MOST, we wouldn’t have a greenhouse,” she said. “They have brought so much to the school. We voted no on intramural sports — that’s something Project MOST could pick up.”

    “We’re laying off teachers,” Mr. Grant responded. “We’re laying off staff, people I know and care about. I just can’t support something outside the school day.”

    Tim Bryden, the executive director of Project MOST, said on Tuesday, “Project MOST remains committed to supporting the academic goals of the school.” There is one state contract remaining for the program, after which, Mr. Bryden said, “There will be some reorganization.”

    “It’s a challenge to find resources, to make sure that kids that are at a disadvantage will be able to have the support they need,” he said. “All children who want one should have a quality after-school program available, as it improves academic performance, keeps kids safe, and supports working parents.” He added that the Project MOST board was committed to “sustaining this critical resource.”

    At the budget meeting, extracurricular activities — yearbook, journalism club, and student council among them — were cut by 50 percent across the board.

    “I’ve lost sleep over this,” Ms. Gonzalez said. “I’ve developed T.M.J. These decisions have been emotionally charged.”

    She addressed the audience. “Now you’ve seen democracy in action, warts and all,” she said.

Correction

    An article last week about the East Hampton School District budget incorrectly implied that funding for high school boys and girls lacrosse and boys volleyball programs were cut. Funding for the middle school second teams in those sports has been eliminated.

    The question of what kinds of restrictions East Hampton Town may be allowed to place on the use of its airport in an effort to control noise turns largely on whether the town seeks to restrict jets and seaplanes or focuses access restrictions on helicopters.

    Airport operators must comply with Federal Aviation Administration rules and may not unreasonably restrict access or discriminate against particular types of airport users. The scenarios and possibilities differ, however, depending on whether or not the airport has accepted F.A.A. money, to which a number of contractual obligations, or grant assurances, are tied.

    In a presentation to the East Hampton Town Board on Tuesday, Peter Kirsch, an aviation attorney working with the town on a comprehensive approach to airport management, said that the F.A.A. gives airport owners the authority to enact rules governing aircraft categorized as stage one and stage two, which includes helicopters, even under the grant assurances. However, the agency’s approval is required before enacting rules governing stage three or stage four aircraft, which includes jets and seaplanes.

    Should the town cease taking F.A.A. money, allowing existing grant assurances to expire in 2014, the agency’s approval would not be needed for rules on any kind of aircraft. The F.A.A. could, however, sue the town, challenging it to prove that its rules meet legal standards. The town would have to provide sufficient data to show that its rules were a reasonable reaction to a documented noise problem.

    Citing the degree of difficulty in successfully enacting access restrictions under the F.A.A. grant assurances, airport noise-control advocates, such as the Quiet Skies Coalition, had asked the town board to reconsider applying for new federal funds. Information provided by the F.A.A. to Representative Tim Bishop earlier this year, specifically stating for the first time that local regulations could be enacted without submitting to the F.A.A.’s review process should the town no longer take federal airport money, should be carefully considered by the board, the advocates said.

    In response, the board asked Mr. Kirsch to address the matter. “If the town were seriously thinking of restrictions on stage three [aircraft], that would be a big deal,” he said. But, he said, “I don’t believe it’s a big deal” under the understanding that the town is considering only rules to limit use of the airport by helicopters. The town board has not specifically discussed that option in public.

    Mr. Kirsch recommended that the board continue with a multipronged approach, under which federal funds would be solicited to pay for airport projects, but data collection supporting potential future airport restrictions would also begin.

    “I believe the comprehensive management plan takes all of these factors into consideration and positions the town to move forward with restrictions,” he said.

    In comments to the board before Mr. Kirsch’s presentation, Kathleen Cunningham, the president of the Quiet Skies Coalition, said that the F.A.A.’s assertion that it would not sue the town if it instituted access limits once free of the grant assurances, after 2014, “is a window of opportunity for the town to explore other options, and I would urge you to take advantage of that.”

    Those concerned about airport noise, she said, “are not interested in shutting the airport down. We are also interested in safety. What we are interested in is the town’s ability to limit access, which is the true noise-abatement tool, and the ability of the town to limit types of aircraft, and the times they will come in.”

    Also speaking at the meeting were a number of airport users, including Cindy Tuma, the owner, with her husband, of Sound Aircraft, which is based at East Hampton Airport. “Please maintain the airport as the asset that it is,” she said. “In order to do that, you need to accept federal funds.”

    Runway 4-22, which has been closed because of disrepair, is needed for safety and should be reopened, speakers said. Without federal money, they said they feared the airport would become too expensive for the town to keep open.

    Richard Burns smiled broadly, accepting a standing ovation from the East Hampton School Board and the audience in the high school auditorium on Tuesday night as the board announced that his position as interim superintendent would now become permanent.

    “I am so grateful for the wave of support, not only from the board, but from the community,” Mr. Burns said. “I’m going to give everything I can to make this school the best place on Long Island. I promise that.”

    Mr. Burns has served as the district’s interim superintendent since August, following the retirement the month before of Raymond Gualtieri. He has worked in the district since 1990, first as a teacher and finally as director of pupil personnel services before taking his latest post. All five of his children have been through the East Hampton school system.

    “Rich will be a dynamic, passionate leader for our district,” Laura Anker Grossman, the school board president, said yesterday. “He has enormous integrity, and an educational vision for our district. I see him as compassionate, but also demanding. He has the highest expectations of what our district can be, and what our children can achieve.”

    Last summer, the district hired Raymond Fell, a consultant with the Eastern Suffolk Board of Cooperative Education Services, who helped the district narrow its list of candidates down to a field of three, based on specific wants and needs outlined in meetings with both the board and the community.

    In Springs, where Mr. Fell helped initiate the same process as part of that district’s superintendent search, the list of candidates has been narrowed to three finalists, including the man who initially assisted the board in developing its criteria for a new superintendent.

    Mr. Fell conducted a community forum at Springs as a search consultant with BOCES, but stepped out of that role when he decided to apply for the job.

    With input from the community, the Springs School Board elected to develop a new administrative model for the district that includes a full-time principal, currently Eric Casale, a new assistant principal, and a part-time superintendent.

    In addition to Mr. Fell, the candidates include a former Springs superintendent, Dominic Mucci, and Francis Mazura, a retired assistant superintendent from the Center Moriches School District.

    Mr. Mucci was the Springs School superintendent from 1999 to 2002. He is now the superintendent for the Englewood Cliffs, N.J., school system.

    In addition to being an assistant superintendent, Mr. Mazura has also worked as a high school principal. Since his retirement, he has been an interim superintendent for the Islip School District.

    Mr. Fell had a 33-year career as a teacher and administrator in the Patchogue-Medford School District prior to his work with BOCES.

    Michael Hartner, who holds the job now, leaves at the end of June.

    Parents, staff, and the community will have the chance to meet and interview the candidates for superintendent at a forum next Thursday night at 6:30 at the school.

    In 1792, Abraham Sherrill bought a farm at the foot of Fireplace Road in East Hampton, where it meets North Main Street, “to move out of town where it’s quiet,” according to one of his descendants, Jonathan Foster, who still lives there.

    The house, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, was made over in 1858 in a late Greek Revival style, but elements dating from 1760 or earlier remain.

    In 1910, A.E. Sherrill founded the Sherrill Dairy at the family farm, which once extended all along North Main Street’s east side from Cedar Street to what is now Floyd Street.

    With some of the original farmland still intact — acreage that remains in the Sherrill family, as well as 16 adjacent acres that the town has preserved by buying the development rights — a committee advocating for the site’s public purchase using East Hampton Town’s community preservation fund sees it as the perfect place for a historical institute melding the agricultural past with modern-day farming and providing a place for students of history to soak in the past. 

    The group includes members of several of East Hampton’s founding families — Sherrills, Daytons, Fosters, and Talmages — along with historians and active farmers.

    To generate interest in their idea, they have invited visitors to an open house on Friday, April 6, at 3 p.m. East Hampton Town Board members have specifically been invited in hopes that they will move to buy the site.

    “The family, the house, the dairy . . . all the things that transpired on that property. I just can’t imagine not fighting for that house,” said Prudence Carabine, an East Hamptoner of Talmage lineage who has twice gone to the town board to ask that members consider preserving the house and land. “To me, it’s worth keeping intact,” Ms. Carabine said Tuesday.

    A member also of a committee working to create a farm museum on the former Lester (and later Labrozzi) farm at the corner of North Main and Cedar Streets nearby, which the town bought with the preservation fund, Ms. Carabine said she pictures rooms on the upper floors of the Sherrill house occupied by visiting researchers and scholars and an active farming operation, perhaps incorporating the newest organic methods with traditional techniques, on the land out back.

    A small house on a separate lot next to the one holding the historic house, which was built by the late Sherrill Foster, the great-great-great-granddaughter of the property’s original owner, would be donated to the town by her heirs, Mr. Foster and his sister, Mary Foster Morgan, and could be used by a “young farmer,” Ms. Carabine said, charged with caring for the historic house and gardens and helping organize community events, like pumpkin picking.

    While the Lester site farm museum down the street will exemplify the living quarters and lifestyle of a typical farming family circa 1810, the Sherrill house could serve as an example of “a farmhouse of some prosperity” circa 1850, Ms. Carabine said. “People could actually come in the front door and feel they were in the 1850s, prior to the Civil War.”

    Together, Ms. Carabine said, the two facilities could “make North Main Street a focal point,” portraying “the farmers and the fishermen who kept this place going.” It would provide “a sense of East Hampton’s early look and feel,” Mr. Foster wrote yesterday in an e-mail.

    Maintaining an open vista, Mr. Foster wrote — the view across plains to the ocean that produced “that magical light which drew out the artists in the 19th century” — in an area where trees have grown up over the years, will help preserve “that sense of grandeur and closeness to our natural-historical world.”

    Over the years, the Sherrills have carefully preserved history, maintaining records such as a list tracing the ownership and occupants of the house and its changes over time, such as the installation of a “modern” kitchen in 1927, which had an enamel sink and a breakfast nook with an Arts and Crafts table and a Hoosier cabinet.

    The Sherrills bought much of their furniture from the Dominys, who lived and worked on the other side of North Main Street, and items such as cabinets, a railing, and a mantel remain in the house.

    From the 1760s to the 1840s, three generations of Dominys made furniture and clocks that earned the family a widespread reputation, and a room is dedicated to the East Hampton furniture-makers at the Winterthur Museum in Delaware. The Sherrill collection of Dominy furniture was prominently featured in “With Hammer in Hand,” a book by Charles Hummel, a former Winterthur curator.

    Now at a busy intersection and built close to the road, as was common in days past, Ms. Carabine said she fears the Sherrill house would have little appeal to a potential buyer, and would be torn down. Though inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places precludes changes that could compromise a property’s historic integrity, it does not prevent demolition, she said.

    Mr. Foster has completed a careful renovation of the house. It is in good shape, Ms. Carabine said. “We have a plan for fund-raising, for carrying this whole thing forward without any burden to the town,” she said.

    The house, in its present configuration, was renovated for Nathaniel Huntting Sherrill by Charles A. Glover of Sag Harbor, with the help of Stephen Sherrill, at a cost of $1,560. Mr. Huntting Sherrill was married in 1859 and lived in the house at the time with his wife, 21-year old Adelia Anna Sherrill, his parents, and three brothers.

    Sherrill Foster was born in the house and was an East Hampton Town historian for many years. She traced her roots to 30 of the 47 East Hampton families included in Jeannette Edwards Rattray’s 1953 genealogy of East Hampton.

    In 1992, descendants from those founding families came from near and far to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Lt. Abraham Sherrill’s purchase of the land. The 1792 deed is among the documents preserved and displayed by the family.

    Ms. Foster spent several years organizing the event, which included “Maidstone Revisited,” a two-day lecture series at Southampton College by history experts.

     Shortly afterward, the house and the acre it sits on were listed for sale for $600,000 and the idea of having the town buy the site for preservation was first broached. According to an article in The Star, Tony Bullock, the town supervisor at the time, said federal and state funds for preservation were largely unavailable, and that the town had a financial deficit. Those advocating for public preservation at that time noted that the Dominy family house and workshop had been lost — although the Winterthur recreated the workshop and bought many of the family’s tools and molds.

    In 1995, the town bought the development rights to 16 acres of the original Sherrill farm, which was owned by Thomas Martuscello, paying $560,000 to maintain its use for agriculture. There was talk of putting a winery on the site, and some of the acreage has been planted in grapevines. 

    According to Town Councilman Dominick Stanzione, who until recently was the town board’s liaison to the community preservation fund committee, the historic house and land is on the list of properties eligible for acquisition. Whether the committee has evaluated the site and rated it against other potential purchases is “confidential,” he said.

    At present, the town’s preservation fund, which receives the proceeds from a real estate transfer tax, and is earmarked exclusively for open space, farmland, and historic preservation, has about $23 million available for purchases, Scott Wilson, the director of land acquisition and management, said Tuesday.

    The East Hampton School Board approved a $62.8 million budget for the 2012-13 school year at its meeting Tuesday night after a presentation by Richard Burns, the interim superintendent, on the $2,772,654 in cuts made in order to squeeze under the state’s recently enacted 2 percent cap on property tax increases. A public hearing on the budget will be held on May 1 and taxpayers will get to vote on it on May 17.

    “The first draft . . . was $65,621,042,” Mr. Burns said. “We needed to get to $62,848,388.” He acknowledged that the budgeting guidelines from Albany had been confusing. “But,” he said, “I think we have a true handle on it.”

    After many long meetings and late hours, the board seems to have accomplished what it set out to do — but at an expense. Two administrators will not be returning next year, and three teachers, five paraprofessionals, two custodians, and one district-wide position were cut.

    “Unfortunately, we had to excess some positions,” Mr. Burns said.    

    The administrators let go are Lawrence Roberts, the director of unified arts and assistant middle school principal, and Eric Woellhof, the director of facilities. “These were very difficult decisions,” Mr. Burns said. Alison Anderson, a board member, agreed. “It’s one of the toughest things I’ve ever been involved in.”

    Other cuts in the budget were possible because nine employees chose to take an early retirement incentive. “That’s nine positions that will not be replaced,” Mr. Burns said, noting that doing so saved $878,896. 

    The rest of the cuts came from restructuring or streamlining programs and departments.

    “We have scrutinized, analyzed, and developed this budget line by line,” Mr. Burns said.

    For example, parents will probably have to absorb some or all of the costs of drivers’ education. “I think we’re one of only two schools in Suffolk that pays for drivers’ ed,” Ms. Anderson said.

    As outlined in previous articles, the East Hampton Middle School will no longer have second boys or girls lacrosse teams or  boys volleyball. Expenses for one of two plays at the Middle School also bit the dust.

    The senior citizens event, at which guests are served lunch before seeing a high school musical, received a death-row pardon from Kevin Seaman, the district attorney, who offered to underwrite the $4,000 cost.

    The district is also looking at bringing more special education programs back to East Hampton, rather than continuing to send students to Westhampton, which, according to Mr. Burns, is highly expensive and time-prohibitive. “We’re thinking of creating our own programs here. Maybe to have an autism center that other districts close by can also avail themselves of,” he said.

    All the cuts and changes were the lesser of two evils, according to Jackie Lowey, a board member. “I think the board agreed strongly that a contingency budget, which is close to $4 million in cuts, is a scary thought. We thought of piercing the cap,” she said, referring to the choice some districts are making to go above the 2-percent tax levy cap, relying on a supermajority vote from taxpayers to sanction the decision. “But if it didn’t pass, we would have to go to a contingency, which would not serve the district well,” Ms. Lowey said.

    “This was unbelievably difficult and painful,” Laura Anker Grossman, the school board president, agreed. “But it’s helped us look at things in a more creative way.”

    She warned that “this isn’t the end, either. The tax cap is around until at least 2016. We’re going to have to continue looking at cuts next year, and the year after that.”

    Patricia Hope, a board member, likened the effort to “tines on a fork being straightened out. The curriculum is going to be tightened up. We’re going to have to take a good, hard look at what’s working and what isn’t.”

    But Mr. Burns said the district still wants “to make sure we’re remaining on the cutting edge.” He added that  money was still earmarked in the budget for professional development. “We’re committed to that.”

    “Things were gold-plated in the past,” Ms. Lowey said. “Right now we are able to reduce costs without reducing quality of education.”

    Ms. Hope became emotional, and her voice broke as she said, “We have taken wonderful things away to cut away what we see as fluff. But I think we did it.”

    Mary Ella Moeller, an East Hampton activist who often chides the board, said, “I think you’ve done a good job. Tough times don’t last, but we’re tough people and we’re going to make it through.”

    If you buy a small house as a year-round residence,  should you be allowed to expand seven months later even if an expansion would violate the East Hampton Town Code? That was the issue in one of two applications for variances from residents of the Beach Hampton section of Amagansett before the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals on Tuesday. A third hearing was on an application from the clothing designer Cynthia Rowley, who owns a house in Montauk.

    Bethany Mayer, a single mother, bought a two-bedroom house at 25 Wyandanch Lane in Beach Hampton in August. She told the board she wanted her only child, a girl who sat quietly in a stroller in the audience, to go to school in Amagansett. “It was what I could afford.” Now she wants to expand the house to accommodate her mother, as well.

    The house is on a 4,000-square-foot lot, one of the smallest in town. Neighbors on both sides are just yards away, so the only direction possible for expansion is up. But, as Donald Denis, an architect who lives at 18 Wyandanch Lane and opposes the proposed 537-square-foot, second-floor addition, said, the addition would be in violate of the town’s pyramid law. The pyramid law limits how high structures can be near their property lines. It is intended to prevent buildings from looming over neighboring properties.

    “East Hampton was the first town to have a pyramid law,” Mr. Denis said, calling it a model for many zoning codes in the state.

    The owners of houses to the north and south of Ms. Mayer also attended Tuesday’s hearing, as did two other neighbors besides Mr. Denis.

    The attorney representing Ms. Mayer, Andy Hammer, pointed out that the neighbor to the south, Jonathan Poole, had been a beneficiary of a pyramid variance. But when Mr. Poole addressed the board, he said, “My variance was so that you’d be able to stand in the shower.” The shower was in a second floor bathroom.

    He went on to say that on the side of his house adjacent to Ms. Mayer’s “what we did was to cut the roof down. We did what we could to stay within the code. What you have before you here is completely different.”

    Louis Aceri, another neighbor, said that Ms. Mayer should have been aware of the limitations on the property when she bought it. “If you grant this, my wife will have me back here asking for a garage,” he said.

     Denise Schoen of Tarbet, Lester, and Schoen, who represented several of the neighbors, noted that the original owner, Paul Abia, had appealed unsuccessfully for smaller variances in 1982, first for a 900-square-foot house, then for one of 800 square feet. Eventually, he built the existing house, which measures 766 square feet. It did not need variances.

    “The challenge before the board is to differentiate the decision of 1982, to approve a variance that it denied 30 years ago,” Ms. Schoen said yesterday.  

    When Ms. Mayer addressed the board, her voice broke  as she tried to compose herself. “I thought, in my ignorance, that this would be enhancing the neighborhood,” she said.

    Ms. Mayer bought the house in August 2011 for $690,000.

    Although Mr. Aceri’s wife, Patricia, spoke to the board expressing strong opposition, she also said, “I just hope everything works out.” As she walked back to her seat, she touched the disconsolate Ms. Mayer on the shoulder.

    The board voted to keep the record to open to allow Mr. Hammer to amend the current application, a move Ms. Schoen was not happy with. “I would have much rather have them rule on the application,” she said.

      Ms. Mayer was seen leaving the hall, wheeling her child in the stroller, tears in her eyes.

    The other application from Beach Hampton was from Dana and Andrew Stern of 8 Treasure Island Drive. They are asking for a 10-foot setback variance to put in a swimming pool and spa. It would be 20 feet from the property line rather than 30 feet as required. They also were represented by Mr. Hammer, who told the board that the difficulty the Sterns were having in placing the pool was the result of the house being bordered by three roads. “They have three front yards,” he told the board, saying the pool was intended for family gatherings. “It is not a luxury item,” he said.

    Three neighbors appeared in opposition to the application, and alleged that the Sterns had not been good stewards of the neighborhood. For example, Betty Mazur said, “Overclearing has opened up the roads, and beach vegetation was cleared without code. The question here is, is this proposed project appropriate?”

    Peter Gayer agreed. “What has happened, we now have four gravel parking areas,” he said. “It appears to be have been uncontrolled. I don’t want to say it’s ugly. If I lived in Queens it would be nice.”

     A bone of contention was that neither of two property surveys submitted seemed complete. Joshua Jablons, speaking in opposition, said neither survey showed off-street parking. He also expressed concern about the relationship of the pool to the groundwater level.

    The record will be kept open for an additional week to clarify the survey issues.

    The final hearing was for a new house for Ms. Rowley, at 31 Ditch Plain Road, Montauk. She is seeking to replace an existing house with a larger one, which would total 2,012 square feet. Her application met with no opposition, per se, though one neighbor, Tom Dunfee, complained about Ms. Rowley’s hedges. He claimed they were on public land and obscured his view of the road as he pulled out of his driveway.

    Controversy continued this week over the proposed sale of a piece of an East Hampton Town alley that bisects the downtown Montauk site of the old Ronjo motel, which is being renovated by new owners.    

    Two privately ordered appraisals have set the value of the alleyway at widely varying points, both differing from the proposed sale price of $35,000, which was approved by the town board majority on March 6.

    An appraisal commissioned by the East Hampton Democratic Committee, which also organized a petition drive challenging the Republican majority vote on the sale, puts the value of the alley at $184,000.

    The appraisal was prepared by Cynthia Marshall, whose firm, Clark and Marshall, is used often by the town.

    However, Stephen H. Schuster of Sag Harbor, an appraiser hired by Chris Jones and Lawrence Siedlick, the new owners of the motel, which they are calling the Montauk Beach House, sets the value at $22,500.

    Mr. Jones and Mr. Siedlick, whose limited liability company bought the Ronjo in February for $4.2 million, discovered during the transaction that some 3,700 square feet of the town alleyway, which runs perpendicular to South Edison Street behind stores on South Etna Avenue, bisects the property of the motel, which has encroached on it over the years.

    The East Hampton Democrats were to deliver a 46-page petition to the town clerk yesterday afternoon with the signatures of 630 town residents requesting that the sale be put to a public referendum.

    Upon the collection of enough signatures — 5 percent of the number of local votes cast in the last gubernatorial election, which the Democrats have estimated at 405 — state law calls for the town board either to repeal the resolution of sale or to hold a vote seeking the public’s approval within no less than 60 nor more than 75 days.

    Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson has said at several meetings that he had pulled the $35,000 sale price “out of the air,” and he and other board Republicans resisted calls to have the value of the alley appraised, citing a transfer in 1999 of land at the other end of the alley from the town to a business owner for $2,500.

    That deal, according to a board resolution from that year, included a reciprocal grant to the town of an easement that maintained public use of the thoroughfare.

    Town Councilwoman Sylvia Overby and Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc, the Democratic board minority, had opposed the sale without first obtaining an appraisal and investigating the details regarding use of the alleyway. The open portion of the alley provides access to and parking for the adjacent businesses.

    Mr. Jones owns the Solé East motels in Montauk, and was an organizer of the aborted Music to Know concert, for which the town board, in a split and controversial vote last year, issued a permit after a cursory review.

    The concert was to be held on Amagansett farmland. Citizens’ concerns about the traffic and crowding that were feared as a result led to a lawsuit against the town and an offer by town officials to hold the event at East Hampton Airport on an August weekend. It was canceled at the last minute, however, due to a lack of ticket sales.

    Mr. Siedlick is a businessman who has been a donor to national and regional Republican campaigns over the past several years.

    In a press release issued yesterday, Jeanne Frankl, the chairwoman of the Town Democratic Committee, said, “The discrepancy of $149,000 between the sale price and appraised value corroborates our conviction that the sale was a gift, violating the State Constitution.” 

    According to the release, “members of all parties and unaffiliated voters” signed the petitions challenging the sale. “People from all communities and across the political spectrum signed without hesitation, expressing outrage at the sale of public property without an appraisal. Some mourned that the sale was part of a pattern of the current government administration selling off all town property,” the press release said.

    “The people who signed the petition and probably many more among the public, hope the board will rescind and repeal the decision in accordance with their option under the law, avoiding a costly election,” according to the press release.

    “Certainly any sale should be based on the appraisal. Even before that, it is believed the board’s fiduciary duty requires a broader assessment the supervisor also omitted in his impulsive decision, of the implications for the public including the Ronjo’s neighboring businesses, of turning the alleyway over to a single owner that would cut off public access entirely,” the release said.

    In a statement also issued yesterday, Mr. Jones and Mr. Siedlick said that they envisioned the revitalization of the Ronjo property “in keeping with the very special nature of Montauk,” into “a resort property that we believe will be viewed positively by our community.”

    “Sadly, we did not anticipate the current political controversy over a sliver of land that for over 50 years was utilized by the previous owners of the property,” it continued.

    “We have no desire to be involved in controversy and regret the fact that this very positive project is now embroiled in what seems to be a political dispute over which we have no control. We hope the issue is resolved in a fair and equitable manner that benefits the long-term interests of our community.”

    In a telephone interview yesterday, Mr. Jones said remarks quoted in another newspaper this week regarding the potential for the motel property to become subsidized low-income housing should his plans be derailed were taken out of context.

    In their statement, the new owners said that they are “working very hard to complete the renovations so that the Montauk Beach House will be open for the 2012 summer season.”

    Vendors who offered the winning high bids on exclusive rights to sell food at a number of town-owned beaches and parks were announced at an East Hampton Town Board meeting on Tuesday.

    Before contracts are finalized, the bids will have to be formally approved by the town board, after verification with the Suffolk Health Department that the vendors have permission to sell the food items on their menus.

    Lili Adams, the owner of the Ditch Witch, appears poised to remain in her traditional spot at Otis Road near Ditch Plain Beach in Montauk after offering to pay the town $27,600 for a three-year contract.

    Until last year, setting up shop at the town’s designated vending spots was first come first served. But with an ever-increasing number of vendors vying for parking locations and customers, the town board instituted a bidding procedure last season.

    Rather than simply awarding a contract to the highest bidder, the technique adopted this year, bids were evaluated according to a points system that, along with the monetary bid, weighed other factors, such as familiarity with the community.

    A hue and cry erupted when it was announced that, under that system, the Ditch Witch would be ousted from its usual spot. The town board subsequently found fault with the process and threw out all the bids, allowing the vendors to set up last summer as they had previously, without paying the town.

    Those expected to be awarded contracts based on their three-year bids are, at Ditch Plain Beach, besides the Ditch Witch, Montaco, for $12,575, John Bogetti, for $22,524, and Turf Lobster Roll, which will pay $12,000 to set up at the dirt lot at Otis Road for the next three years.

    Also in Montauk, Scott Bogetti was the highest bidder for a vending spot at Kirk Park, for $10,550, and Jimmy Hewitt, the owner of the Shagwong restaurant, offered $10,000 for the location at the end of West Lake Drive.

    The town did not set minimum bids for any of the locations. According to Jeanne Carroza, the town purchasing agent, no bids were received for vending at Gin Beach in Montauk or Maidstone Park in East Hampton. Town board members suggested issuing a new notice to bidders for vending at those locations.

    At Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett, Craig Denice of Craig’s Ice Cream is expected to set up shop, paying $20,002, and Doreen Drohan, who bid $18,000, will offer items from Doreen’s Clam Bar, once the contracts are formally approved.

    Kenny Preuss of Dune Doggie, a hot dog truck that has been a fixture for decades at Indian Wells, did not submit a bid.

    Other vending spots designated in the town code for which exclusive contracts are not awarded can be used by itinerant peddlers, who may stay at one location for only a limited amount of time.

    Pertussis, the highly infectious bacterial disease also known as whooping cough, has made an appearance at the East Hampton Middle School, where one case was reported last week. A letter from the Suffolk County Department of Health was almost immediately put up on the East Hampton Union Free School District’s Web site, and was given to staff and parents at all the schools in the East Hampton system.

    Dr. Gail Schonfeld of East End Pediatrics said on Tuesday that she has diagnosed four cases in the last three weeks, including a 3-month-old infant who was admitted to the hospital but eventually recovered.

    Most children have been vaccinated against the illness, and the vaccine is reported to be 95 percent effective. However, when a child, particularly a baby, gets infected with pertussis, the results can be very serious and sometimes fatal.

    Pertussis is spread through the air by the cough of an infected individual. A course of antibiotics is usually helpful, while cough syrups and elixirs are not.

    According to the Suffolk County Department of Health, in a letter that is posted on the East Hampton School District’s Web site, “A person with pertussis is infectious for 21 days from the start of the cough or until he/she has been on five full days of appropriate antibiotic therapy. Children and adults may be susceptible and still develop pertussis even if they are up to date with their vaccinations, as immunity to pertussis wanes over the years.”

    Whooping cough earned its name by the distinctive whooping sound made by someone with the illness as they attempt to draw in breath. “In between coughing fits, a patient could feel pretty good,” Dr. Schonfeld said. “But when they start coughing, they can’t stop. There is really thick mucus that blocks the airways, so there is a feeling of not being able to breathe.”

    Patients with pertussis often have other cold-like symptoms: fever, nausea, a runny nose. But it is the whooping and gasping for air that are the surest signs. In other countries, it is sometimes known as the “100-day cough.”

    According to the Web site for the World Health Organization, in 2008, 16 million people were affected worldwide and 195,000 children died from the illness.

    “Pertussis has been with us a long, long time,” Dr. Schonfeld said on Tuesday. “Only 10 percent of the cases were diagnosed until recently, but now we have a test that’s fairly accurate.” The test involves a “skinny little Q-tip” being inserted way back in the throat. “It’s not a really pleasant sensation,” she said.

    Up until 2005, she continued, there was no vaccine approved for children over 7 years old. Therefore, many adults could have the disease without knowing it. “If a cough lasts for more than a month in an adult, one-third of the time it’s pertussis,” Dr. Schonfeld said. Only a small percentage of adults in the U.S. have been vaccinated, but there is currently a campaign in progress to encourage adults — particularly those who spend time around a newborn — to get immunized.

    Another unpleasant fact: Getting pertussis once does not bring immunity to the illness. “You can get it more than once,” Dr. Schonfeld said.

    Fred Weinbaum, the chief medical officer at Southampton Hospital, acknowledged that pertussis in adults over 55 years old is fairly common, because of the decreased immunity as time passes. However, he added that the disease is not frequently spread, since most of the other people around an infected person are usually inoculated against it.

    Richard Burns, the interim superintendent of the East Hampton School District, spoke on Tuesday about the situation at the middle school. “The infected child was, of course, immediately removed from the premises, and is already fully recovered and back at school. The facilities, at least any facilities that the child had direct contact with, were cleaned and sterilized. I think we followed the best practices for this kind of situation, and managed to keep it under control,” he said.

    The superintendent’s office sent a letter to staff, parents, and guardians on Friday reiterating the points made by the Department of Health and also advising parents or guardians with any concerns at all to contact the nurse in their child’s school.

    “Suffolk County continues to see an increase in pertussis,” read the Suffolk County Department of Health’s letter. Last June, there were 40 cases of whooping cough reported in Suffolk County, and in the fall the disease made its way to the South Fork, with two confirmed cases in the Southampton School District.

    Dr. Schonfeld, however, remains unperturbed, and put forth the possibility that “this may not be an increase in cases — it’s just that we are better able to diagnose,” she said.

    “I do not see this as a catastrophe, like the plague has descended,” she said, adding she did not see this wave of whooping cough becoming epidemic in proportions. “But it’s right for us to publicize this and explain what to look for.”

    Along with walks on the beach and chowing down at East Hampton’s finest eateries, strolling along East Hampton Village’s thoroughfares to shop and gawk ranks high on the list of favorite activities.

    However, over the past few years, as more and more local businesses have taken down their shingle because of the economic downturn, the formerly-dressed windows of the empty and silent shops have remained, well, naked. And that’s not okay with the East Hampton Village Board.

    “The board of trustees has fielded a number of complaints over the past several years about the unappealing appearance of papered-over or dark storefronts, particularly during the off-season,” reads a section of a proposed local law, which would require businesses or building owners in the village to pretty up their windows whether or not the stores are occupied. At last Thursday’s meeting, the board agreed to hold a public hearing on May 18 to further discuss the situation.

    This is not the first time that nonexistent window displays have come up. In June 2010, the village issued a pamphlet to commercial property owners and tenants titled, “Maintaining an Attractive Commercial District During the Off-Season: Guidelines for Vacant and Closed Stores.”

    “The treatment of a vacant store or of a store that is closed during the winter can detract from the overall character of an area and can degrade the setting of neighboring businesses that remain open,” Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. wrote in an opening letter to the brochure. “Papered-over windows and disheveled empty storefronts diminish the life and vitality of the street.”

    However, the plan “fizzled out,” Mayor Rickenbach said last Thursday.

    “Following meetings with commercial property owners and other interested community members, the board now finds that it is appropriate to enact a requirement that owners and tenants in possession of empty storefronts erect displays consistent with the guidelines,” read the notice of public hearing for the new law.

    The May 18 hearing will begin at 11 a.m. at the Emergency Services Building on Cedar Street.