Since workers have begun gutting the former Bulova watchcase factory, plumes of dust have been emanating from the building, drawing complaints from a number of Sag Harbor residents. The dust is a result of the resurfacing of interior support beams on all floors, as well as the grinding of brick mortar, according to Larry Perrine, a member of the Sag Harbor Village Planning Board, who has been acting as a liaison between the community and Cape Advisors, the developer.

    Mr. Perrine said at Tuesday’s planning board meeting that there was an attempt to board up the rooms, but that a significant amount of the dust was still escaping. He was scheduled to meet yesterday with Timothy Platt, the village’s building inspector, to further discuss the issue.

    County Legislator Jay Schneiderman, who has an office down the street from Bulova, is also concerned. He was contacted by Joan Baren, a resident, who said that some people living near the site have been experiencing asthmatic-type respiratory issues, and have also reported having a metallic taste in their mouths.

    Mr. Schneiderman said that there were four complaints filed with the village that he was aware of. He walked the perimeter of the site, he said, and videotaped large clouds of visible debris particulates that he assumed to be concrete dust coming out of openings along Route 114, and sawdust coming out on the opposite side of the building. He then toured the site with Mr. Perrine and Mr. Platt, and noticed that the grinders being used did not have vacuum bags attached to them, but that the workers were wearing full respiratory protection gear.

    “I don’t want to be alarmist,” he said, “but I do not want a public health issue.”

    “The vibrations and the noise I can live with,” Mr. Schneiderman said.

    Mr. Schneiderman contacted several state and county agencies to notify them of the residents’ concerns.

    According to Aphrodite Montalvo, a citizen participation specialist at the State Department of Environmental Conservation, as part of the remediation plan from the site’s former Superfund status, “air monitoring in place [at Bulova] does take air readings every 15 minutes during the workday and the results of that monitoring is currently being analyzed.”

    Since January, when Mr. Perrine accepted the liaison position, to be held through the end of April, he said that the first concerns heard were about limited short-term parking, and fears that construction would block, and workers would use, the few spaces that exist. It was suggested that some of the long-term parking be made short-term to accommodate shoppers, and Mr. Perrine took the feedback to the attention of the village board.

    Mayor Brian Gilbride said that the board would consider adjusting parking regulations if they became a problem.

    Another issue Mr. Perrine was asked to handle was the temporary construction of a retaining wall on Sage and Church Streets, which caused significant vibrations for a few weeks, felt in surrounding residences. Citizens were also concerned about potential damage to their properties. Mr. Perrine said that Cape Advisors “stepped up to the plate” and made adjustments that lessened the vibration. The company also signed a legal agreement to be held responsible should any property damage occur.

    “We’re looking for help to find a valid solution,” Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. told the people who gathered last Thursday night with the East Hampton Village Board to look at parking problems and possible solutions.

    “We’re only as good as the input we get,” he said. “We want to see if we can’t make things a little easier for the good people of this village.”

    The meeting was called to come up with creative solutions to the burgeoning parking predicament in the village, where, in the summer, the number of spaces — approximately 830 — roughly equals the number of employees working in the businesses, potentially leaving no room for customers.

    “We have 800,000 vehicles going in and out of the Reutershan parking lot alone between April and December,” said Larry Cantwell, the village administrator.

    Efforts to have employees of Main Street and Newtown Lane businesses park in the long-term parking lots near Gingerbread Lane have been unsuccessful, as those workers tend to fill up the closer lots. Some are even “entrepreneurial people who go out with a wet rag and wipe the chalk marks off their wheels,” the mayor said. “That’s a class A misdemeanor.”

    Elaine Hayes, the owner of Special Effects Salon at the corner of Newtown and Osborne Lanes, had no sympathy for workers walking, and neither did her employee, Julie Terry. Ms. Hayes maintained that she, and all of her workers, park in the long-term lots.

    “You can wring me out some days when I come to work,” Ms. Terry offered. “I look like a drowned rat. But we have to do that. I would never consider taking a closer spot that a customer might use.”

    As it is, Ms. Hayes said, the one-hour parking on Newtown Lane is killing her business. “I’m losing customers,” she said.

    Her creative solution has been to offer her clients, some of whom are elderly and can’t walk from the lots — an impromptu valet service, parking their cars for them in the lots and taking them back when the appointment is done, but she lobbied for two-hour parking places, at least at the north end of Newtown Lane.

    “We hear you loud and clear,” said the mayor.

    Other suggestions ranged from paid parking, with the ability to be validated after making a purchase in a store (“But what would stop employees from validating their own tickets?” mused Barbara Borsack, the deputy mayor), to offering a shuttle service for employees from the back lots.

    “The mindset here,” Mayor Rickenbach said, “is people — employees and customers — who don’t want to walk for five minutes. It’s about instant gratification.”

    “We need to give employees the mindset that the customers should park closer to the stores, or those employees may not have jobs anymore,” said Rick Lawler, a board member.

    Many kudos were given to Hamptons Free Ride, a free electric shuttle service that ran last summer and is planning to return this summer as well.

    “Would the board ever consider putting a parking garage in one of those back lots?” asked Bernard Kiembock, who owns the Village Hardware Store on Newtown Lane.

    “No,” the mayor said. “No, no, no.” The board and the audience shared a laugh.

    Andrew Goldstein, the chairman of the village zoning board of appeals, spoke out against paid parking. He also asked that the traffic control officers be “called off” during the week in the winter months, when “there are only three cars parked on Main Street. The idea of getting a parking ticket on a Tuesday in January only contributes to the general malaise,” he said.

    “Would the trustees consider drafting a letter to the businesses, saying you are doing your best to provide parking for their customers, and could they encourage their employees to park in the long-term parking?” asked Margaret Turner of the East Hampton Business Alliance. 

    The board agreed to that. “If it’s a concern to you folks, it’s a concern for us,” the mayor told the audience.

    The Surf Lodge, Montauk’s trendy summertime playground for adults, is for sale, according to Colin Astarita, who let it be known at a closed-door conference with Justice Catherine A. Cahill on the town’s ongoing case against the corporation on March 19.

    The conference was called by Justice Cahill in an effort to settle the terms of the dispute. Mr. Astarita told her the four principals of the corporation, Jayma Cardoso, Jamie Mulholland, Rob McKinley, and Steve Kamali, “are closing down Edgemere Montauk and selling the Surf Lodge.”

    He went on to tell the court, “They have two potential buyers. They are in a position where they would like to close this case, and they are moving on.” Mr. Astarita has since been replaced by Thomas Horn, an East Hampton attorney.

     When asked at the conference about the need for a proposed $140,000 new septic system for the property, which sits on Fort Pond, Mr. Astarita told Justice Cahill that the owners had said, “We can’t engage in a whole septic system program. Find out what the town wants. They win. We’ll sell and let the new owner deal with whatever down the line.” Justice Cahill expressed doubts about such an arrangement.

    The conference soon broke down with the two sides unable to reach an agreement on settling the outstanding 687 violations alleged against the hot spot during the 2011 season.

    Back in the courtroom, the session that followed was brief and heated, as Mr. Astarita objected to Justice Cahill’s discussing the owners’ plans to sell in open court, despite the fact that a court reporter had recorded the conference. Justice Cahill ended the session saying, “At this point, gentlemen, we are going to have to proceed to trial.”

    But on Monday, when the case returned to court for what was supposed to be a pre-trial hearing on the violations, it ended in an adjournment and pre-trial motions were set for April 16. Mr. Astarita entered the court as attorney for the owners, but Mr. Horn exited it 20 minutes later as the new attorney.

    Afterward, outside the courthouse, Pat Gunn, an assistant town attorney, said, “A new attorney is potentially another delay.” He had indicated previously that “one of our desires is to wrap this up before the new summer season.”

    For his part, Mr. Horn said afterward, “The judge is respectfully impatient and wants me to get up to speed as soon as I can.” He could be seen minutes later huddling with Robert Connelly, the town attorney. When asked when he had been brought in on the case, Mr. Connelly replied, “Over the weekend,” noting that he was taking the case at Justice Cahill’s discretion.

    Meanwhile, in early March, King and Grove Hotels, the company that has managed the Surf Lodge as well as Ruschmeyer’s in Montauk, announced that it would no longer have the Surf Lodge as a client. Jennifer Shields, speaking for King and Grove, said the company will focus on Ruschmeyer’s, which she described as the company’s “flagship,” as well as “new, emerging lifestyle hotel brands.”

    Ben Pundole and Rob McKinley, one of Edgemere Montauk’s principals, are partners in King and Grove, which also manages properties in Miami and in Brooklyn, Ms. Shields said.

    Mr. McKinley, while not wanting to comment on the possibility of a sale or on the court proceedings, said via e-mail this week, “The Surf Lodge has and always will work with the town and community to become a better member each day we’re open. We have a commitment to Montauk and its residents and guests, to provide a good honest product, to promote commerce, and maintain the natural beauty of Montauk.”

With Reporting by Joanne Pilgrim

    Severe erosion has again revealed the wooden bones of the Mars, a sailing vessel that went aground on a clear day about this time of year in 1828 at Georgica Beach east of Georgica Pond.

    According to local lore as recorded by Jeannette Rattray in her book “Ship Ashore,” Mars was a well-built, nearly new brig fastened with copper bolts. According to Ms. Rattray’s account, “Two young men, Stephen Sherrill and John Osborn, bought the wreck where she lay for $100. They removed the furniture and trim from her cabin, the spars, sails, and much of her copper,” she wrote, referring to the copper sheathing that served as defense against marine worms.

    Unfortunately for Sherrill and Osborn, a storm hit and waves covered the wreck with sand. The ship’s hull was not seen again until March of 1931 when a storm “ripped the Mars out of her sandy bed.” The wreck lay close to the summer homes of Grantland Rice and Ring Lardner, which were nearly taken by the same storm. Both were subsequently moved back from the sea.

    The prevailing rumor at the time was that the Mars had carried slaves from Africa to the West Indies, and then sailed north ballasted with molasses. Although a federal law banning the importation of slaves was adopted in January of 1808, it was not well enforced, and the law did not prohibit United States flagged ships from carrying slaves to other countries.

    Judge Henry P. Hedges of Bridgehampton reported that Mars had come ashore in fair weather. Her captain was a man named Ring. “Among the local men who went to view the Mars was a retired whaling captain, Jonathan Osborn of Wainscott. He questioned Captain Ring closely as to how often he had sounded,” meaning checked the depth under the brig.

    “Old fellow, what do you know about a ship?” a testy Captain Ring was said to have responded. “If I should tell you, do you think you would know any more than you do now?”

    Captain Osborn replied: “I have commanded a ship larger than your brig, and never ran her ashore, either.”

    The luck of the Irish really kicked in on Sunday when the rain held off until the end of the Montauk Friends of Erin’s 50th anniversary parade.

    The new 10 a.m. start thinned the crowds by about 40 percent, according to East Hampton Town police, but they still estimated the throngs to number about 20,000.

    The earlier start miffed a few bar owners, who are not allowed to serve liquor until after noon on Sundays, but Joe Bloecker, the president of the Friends of Erin, said on Tuesday that the change had worked exactly as the organization planned. “I think it was a great parade,” he said, adding, “We got rid of all those bums, and when families hear that they might think about coming back out for the parade.”<br />    The 10 a.m. start was timed in part to avoid an influx of drunken crowds pouring into the hamlet from eastbound trains. The first train arrived in Montauk that day at 10:46 a.m.

    Mr. Bloecker said that many people who did come out for the parade rented motel rooms and ate in restaurants the night before, giving a boost to the economy. The new time is not written in stone for the future, and the organization is contemplating what to do for next year, he said.

    “I got a lot of grief about that. Some were happy about it and others were not. But it’s a decision that was made not by one person. The whole organization has to vote on it,” he said. Also, the parade this year lasted less than an hour and a half, half the time of previous parades that some had complained dragged on for too long.

    It was the lack of people getting off the trains that allowed it to proceed on schedule, Mr. Bloecker said, noting that the rabble-rousers who used to come off the train often disrupted the parade. He said that the organization has already raised enough money to cover the expense of the parade, which can cost more than $30,000 to stage.

    Children and their parents gathered behind barriers to grab at the beads, candy, and other trinkets that were thrown from the floats. The Montauk Indian Museum entry won first place for best float. It had a crudely constructed wigwam, with a simulated fire blazing. Fish hung from racks to dry and Dick Cavett, a supporter of the museum, which is still in the fund-raising stage, made an appearance. Lawrence Cooke, who initiated the idea of the museum and was on the float, pocketed a prize of $500 for his cause.

    Second place went to the Mickettes, a flock of family and friends of the grand marshal, Mickey Valcich, who were dressed as cheerleaders with pompoms as the Toni Basal song, “Hey Mickey, You’re so Fine” blasted from speakers. They won $300.

    In third place and winning a $100 prize was Montauk Youth, featuring the Funk Squad, a bunch of dancers marching along. An honorable mention for fourth place went to the Montauk Boy Scout float.

    Among the fire departments participating, the Patchogue Fire Department claimed the trophy this year. The department will keep it until next year, when it is handed over to the 2013 winner.

    It was mostly locals who won the prizes in the Friend’s annual Pot of Gold raffle. Gloria Etzel of Montauk took home the top prize of $10,000. Larry Otto of Otto Glass won $1,000 and donated it right back to the organization, as Paul Darenberg of Montauk did with his $500 prize. Tyler Weiss, also of Montauk, took home the other third place prize of $500.

    The Montauk Chamber of Commerce sold 550 cups of soup donated by various restaurants for $7 apiece and split the proceeds with the Friends of Erin.

    East Hampton planners, in cooperation with other town agencies, have generated detailed and color-coded maps showing the Lake Montauk watershed — actually watersheds, plural.

    The maps show 10 sub-sheds that encircle the lake. A watershed is an area with geological boundaries within which water drains, in this case to Lake Montauk. The separate drainage areas were identified through studies done by the Cornell Cooperative Extension using data compiled by the county.

    Bob Mason of the town’s Information Technology Department transformed the information into the colorful maps.

    On their face, the maps would seem to be extremely useful to the Lake Montauk Advisory Committee, which met on March 14 at the Montauk Coast Guard station. Brian Frank, chief environmental analyst for the town’s Planning Department, led the meeting and explained how the maps would serve as a template for the watershed characterization report, a document required as a condition of state grant funding.

    A priority of the Lake Montauk committee is to identify the sources of pollution and the tributary routes they take to the lake. Some trouble spots are well known: a culvert that empties into the south end of the lake, for instance. But, what might not have been fully realized, in that case, was the size of the sub-watershed in question.

    A map shows watershed number five as extending from just east of South Lake Drive, then south through the Ditch Plain community to the ocean. Montauk Highway bisects it.

    South of the highway, number five extends all the way to a point just east of Surfside Avenue. North of the highway, it extends even farther west. In short, the sub-shed drains water to the lake through a very large and relatively developed area.

    Each sub-shed has its own personality and problems. The lakefront houses along Old Montauk Highway, for example, were built decades ago, before town water was supplied to the area. Because individual wells supplied the water, residents located their septic systems “down gradient” from them to preclude contamination. Good thinking, but now it’s realized that the septic systems (simple holding tank and leaching ring arrangements) are too close to the lake.

    Mr. Frank spoke of Montauk’s unique, often mysterious, mixture of soil types. “It’s an interesting and complex watershed because of Montauk’s soil composition, the high clay and silt content. There was so much development around the lake, west and south, in the early 20th century. They just went through what was in their way — like at Ditch Plain and the golf course — instead of working around.”

    Montauk’s large clay component often defies efforts to predict the course of a stream. But, finding and tracing each wetland and tributary within the sub-sheds is the next phase in the committee’s watershed characterization report.

    Kevin McAllister, the Peconic Baykeeper, attended last week’s meeting. He spoke about the possibility of upgrading traditional tank and leaching field septic systems by way of a simple chemical process — the passage of effluent through a carbon-based membrane. In this way, nitrogen, the food that breeds shellfish-killing algal blooms, is removed.

    Mr. McAllister said the process has been scaled to single-family households and restaurants.

    Supervisor Bill Wilkinson, who attended the committee meeting, approved of the denitrification concept. “It’s the right thing to prove. It’s something we should do,” he said, agreeing that someone interested in building or upgrading a home or restaurant might be willing to give it a try.

    “Montauk is a passionate community with a unique harbor that has different active and passive uses,” Mr. Frank said. “The watershed characterization report will be an important guidance document.”

    The summer sounds of a boat horn or fireworks on the East End might be welcome to many, but not to those with post-traumatic stress disorder, like Michael Roesch. For him, a “duck and cover” instinct takes over when he hears such noises.

    When he returned to Shelter Island at the age of 23, after four years in the Air Force, some asked him, “What’s wrong with you?” What was wrong was that Mr. Roesch felt as though he had been ejected, unprepared, from the military, culture-shocked by civilian life, and traumatized by some of his experiences. Even so, he said his deployments did not compare to those currently serving in the same areas, such as Afghanistan.

    Injuries from Mr. Roesch’s military service are the invisible kind. They have included the whole spectrum of P.T.S.D. symptoms, from headaches to depression to seclusion. Smells can be the worst triggers for Mr. Roesch; an unexpected scent can lead to disturbing flashbacks.

    He said the government doesn’t do what it should to meet the needs of returning veterans, and that he had to fight for the help he has received from the Veterans Administration. “I will get back to you,” he was told, upon requesting help for his symptoms.

    But Mr. Roesch has found relief in nonprofit organizations and social media groups, and he now tries to help other veterans — a way of serving after serving. Most, if not all, of those returning from deployments to war zones are experiencing the effects of P.T.S.D. in one form or another.

    “Civilians don’t understand, and politicians don’t care,” he said.

    Frank Bania, the president of the Long Island chapter of the U.S. Veterans Motorcycle Club, agreed, saying, “Many on Long Island have not survived the effects of the disorder.” He leads a group of riders who support vets and attend military funerals across the Island.

    “P.T.S.D. won’t go away,” Mr. Bania said, “you just have to keep it out of the way of your future.” The “best way is to find a social networking group that works for the individual.” Having long-term goals is also helpful, he said, as is helping other veterans.

    Semper Fidelis Health and Wellness is the organization that has helped Mr. Roesch, now 32, with his recovery the most. Started by two marines, it offers customized  programs including sports, yoga and nutrition, and life coaching. The nonprofit enables practitioners on the East End and service providers around the country to offer support where it is needed.

    Mr. Roesch has found that the companionship of a dog has also helped a great deal. He has Rex registered as a service dog so he can take him wherever he goes.

    The camaraderie of the military is something civilians have trouble understanding, he said — the consideration of others, having someone you depend on who depends on you, the moral and ethical obligations.

    The group mentality of the military is represented in the “boot camp” Mr. Roesch leads as a personal trainer at Studio 89 in Sag Harbor, where people work out together and support one another. Mr. Roesch is also an active member of the American Legion and the Patriot Guard, motorcycle riders who welcome returning veterans upon their airport arrival.

    Helping his comrades is what Thomas Spotteck, 23, has chosen to do. Back on Shelter Island since February 2011, his last tour was documented by HBO in the series “The Battle for Marjah,” based on his First Battalion Sixth Marines unit. Mr. Spotteck said of his combat experience that he “pushes it down” and focuses on work, school, and future career plans.

    After returning from Bethesda, Md., on Tuesday, he said he was motivated by his trips to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where four friends he served with are residing. His presence there seems to help them, he said. “They survived,” he said, but “the hardest part is the mental part.”

    One friend, Josh Sams, 27, is the worst off of those in the unit who survived, having lost both legs and half of a hand in a Jan. 12 incident during his third deployment in Afghanistan. Mr. Spotteck said Mr. Sams’s sniper assignment was a difficult one to get and that he was one of “the strongest, in-shape kids” he’d ever met. “He was deployed for eight of the nine months he was married,” he said, before the injury.

    After visiting him at Walter Reed, Mr. Spotteck said, “I had to do something.” His decided to raise money for his friend and his wife, Lindsey. The couple have a mortgage on a house in North Carolina, and Ms. Sams quit her job to come to her husband’s bedside in Bethesda. He is still undergoing countless surgeries and medical procedures, while his wife sleeps in a cot in his room.

    His mother, who lives in Ohio, stays in a hotel across the street. The hospital has little to offer family members, Mr. Spotteck said. There is no food facility on the premises or nearby. Mr. Sams is likely to be at Walter Reed for a few years, Mr. Spotteck said.

    To raise money for Josh and Lindsey Sams, nonprofit groups that help veterans, and a scholarship fund in honor of their Shelter Island neighbor Joseph Theinert, who was killed in Afghanistan in June 2010, Mr. Spotteck and Mr. Roesch are taking part in athletic fund-raisers with seven other East Enders. The newest plan, a boot camp at Studio 89 on April 22, will benefit the Samses.

    Next up will be the Tough Mudder in New England on May 6, described on its Web site as “probably the toughest event on the planet,” and then the Warrior Dash in Maryland on May 19. Mr. Spotteck hopes that Mr. Sams might be able to leave the hospital to attend that one. On Memorial Day weekend, a kickoff fund-raiser is being planned for the night before the Memorial Day 100, a relay run from Orient Point to Ground Zero in Manhattan. Soldier Ride the Hamptons in July is also on the list.

    Donations to “Run for Josh Sams” will be accepted at all of the events, by mail, or at any Capital One Bank. More information can be had by e-mailing [email protected].

    Following a heated exchange in the courtroom on Monday, East Hampton Town Justice Catherine A. Cahill ordered the attorney for the Surf Lodge to return to court on Monday for pre-trial motions, this time with his clients in tow, saying “At this point, gentlemen, we are going to have to proceed to trial.”

    The Surf Lodge, a popular Montauk club and restaurant, was charged between May 28 and Sept. 16 of last year with 686 violations of the town’s zoning code and 1 fire code violation, many of them repeated citations for the same handful of issues.

    Justice Cahill and the owners’ attorney, Colin Patrick Astarita, had a conference in chambers earlier Monday morning in an “attempt to move forward, at which point we discussed several issues.” Among them, she said, was a food cart in the Surf Lodge parking lot, for which the owners had been separately seeking town planning board approval. The Surf Lodge had also been charged with operating without a building permit, certificate of occupancy, or site plan approval, and for illegal clearing of wetlands, property maintenance violations, and overcrowding. Justice Cahill began to list the issues discussed in chambers, but Mr. Astarita objected to her attempts to bring them out in open court.

    At times, it was as if the two had been sitting in different rooms during the conference, with Mr. Astarita and Justice Cahill seemingly at odds about anything that had been agreed upon. The court reporter had been present for the conference, an unusual step meaning that the conference minutes were part of the record, however The Star was unable to obtain them by press time.

    At one point Justice Cahill said, “Counsel made the court aware, as well as the town, that his clients will be divesting themselves of their shares,” a point which Mr. Astarita objected to, causing Justice Cahill to respond, “What counsel said was your clients wished to divest, your words.”

    Justice Cahill was particularly taken aback when Mr. Astarita refused to tell the court the name of one of the Surf Lodge’s owners. Justice Cahill had told Mr. Astarita that she hoped having the owners present might speed a resolution, and began to name four individuals — “[Jayma] Cardoso, [Jamie] Mulholland, [Rob] McKinley,” then stopped, not recalling the fourth name, and asked Mr. Astarita what that name was.

    Mr. Astarita declined to answer, telling the court that the true defendant was Edgemere Montauk L.L.C. It was at that point that Justice Cahill set the date for pre-trial motions.

    According to Robert Connelly, an East Hampton Town attorney, the Surf Lodge was offered a $100,000 settlement over the outstanding violations in October, a settlement the owners have not accepted.

    Mr. Astarita declined to comment later on the hearing or what the future holds until consulting with his clients.

    The Surf Lodge, which opened in 2008 on Edgemere Road, has been popular from the start, but the crowds and the cars, which line Edgemere Road and sometimes nearby Industrial Road, have drawn frequent complaints from neighbors.

    The violations began accumulating in early 2011. As the season went on, so did the violations, followed by a number of missed court appearances by the owners and their attorneys, even after criminal summonses had been issued requiring them to appear.

    In early January, Mr. Astarita filed a motion requesting that Justice Cahill recuse herself from the case, claiming she was biased against them. She declined, commenting in her decision that Mr. Astarita had failed in his motion to offer proof “or even an allegation that the court has come to an opinion on the merits on some basis other than this court’s participation in this case.”

    A member of a Springs group formed to draw attention to illegally overcrowded housing called on East Hampton Town Councilwoman Theresa Quigley to resign last Thursday, following her characterization of the group as “Nazis.”

    For two years, the Springs Concerned Citizens has been asking for more town attention on numerous residences in Springs that it claims are being illegally used as multifamily housing and rooming houses.

    After the close of a meeting earlier this month at which residents reported alleged housing code violations and urged the board to investigate them, Ms. Quigley was reportedly heard saying, “This is Nazis.”

    “Her comment is appalling and denigrating,” Fred Weinberg said at a town board meeting last Thursday. “It ignores all bounds of integrity and decency. It is intolerable.”

    “I call on you, Ms. Quigley, to resign, now, and I call on the other members on the board to demand you resign.” Before doing so, he said, she should apologize. “Then and only then can we move on,” Mr. Weinberg said, to applause.

    “I’m not a Nazi. No one on the Springs Concerned Citizens committee is a Nazi,” Mr. Weinberg said. “No one in Springs spies on our neighbors. Their violations are in our face. They are apparent.”

    Another speaker at the meeting, Joan Baum of Springs, noted that Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson had recently asked a speaker not to use the word “shit,” but had not reacted to the use of the word “Gestapo” by Tina Piette, a Springs resident who said she was uncomfortable with the Springs Concerned Citizens reporting alleged code violations.

    Inflammatory language is “cheap shots in the place of reasoned discourse,” Ms. Baum said. “We need you to address the volatile issue that keeps coming before you,” she told the board.

    She said she had earlier in the week observed a court proceeding over housing violations. The presiding town justice, she said, had expressed frustration with continued delays in adjudicating the matter. “What you have are long stretches . . . that involve continued or renewed violation of the law,” Ms. Baum said.

    David Buda, a leader of the citizens group and of what he is now calling the “Unoccupy Springs” movement, reiterated a request for the board to hold a summit on illegal housing at which all involved — residents, town department heads, police, and so on — can discuss the issues. “Here goes nothing,” he prefaced his remarks, noting it was the third time he has made such a request of the board.

    Mr. Buda spoke to the board again at a work session on Tuesday, saying he was going to “take a different approach.” The town’s code enforcement office is “understaffed, undervalued, and even underpaid,” he said. But while housing code violations can be difficult to assert, he added, other code violations are easier to ascertain, but are “being ignored.” He exhibited a display of photos of illuminated signs at a variety of locations that, he said, are prohibited under the town code.

    After taking heat over her comment about the Springs group, Ms. Quigley was also questioned last Thursday about her comments at a board work session regarding a memo she received from Marguerite Wolffsohn, the town planning director.

    The councilwoman had received a query about clearing restrictions from Deena Zenger of the Country School, which is on leased town property, and sent Ms. Wolffsohn some questions about regulations and policies.

    Several e-mails back and forth contain questions and answers about the applicable sections of the town code. At one point in the exchange, Ms. Wolffsohn copied Bob Schaeffer, a member of the planning board assigned to oversee applications regarding properties in Wainscott, where the school is located.

    Ms. Quigley questioned why Mr. Schaeffer was included. She told the planning director she was not advocating on Ms. Zenger’s behalf.

    After bringing up Ms. Zenger’s questions at a March 3 board work session, and being asked by Councilwoman Sylvia Overby for a copy of the e-mail exchange, Ms. Quigley said she would “rather not circulate it . . . because it was rather disrespectful.”

    “I got really crazy information back,” she said, calling the e-mail discussion “unacceptable.”

    Her comments at the public session prompted Ms. Wolffsohn to send a memo to the entire town board, with a copy to the town personnel director, expressing concern over “public accusation of wrongdoing without supporting evidence (and without presenting an opportunity to respond).” She asked the board to “quickly clarify the issues discussed with respect to my job performance in an equally public manner, so that we can move beyond any misunderstandings.”

    She said she had answered Ms. Quigley’s questions “to the best of my ability,” with no “intention to be insolent or rude” and that the e-mails “appear to have been misunderstood.” Ms. Quigley’s comments, she said, made in public at a meeting that was broadcast on LTV, “are damaging to my professional reputation and my ability to carry out my duties as a town department head.”

    “This is a nice little game here,” Supervisor Bill Wilkinson said when Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc said he would like to bring up the subject before the public at last week’s meeting.

    Mr. Van Scoyoc read Ms. Wolffsohn’s memo aloud. “After reviewing the e-mail exchange, I would like to set the record straight,” he said. “I believe Ms. Wolffsohn’s responses were not rude or in any way unprofessional.”

    Mr. Wilkinson interrupted him. “I want everybody to understand that that is your opinion,” he said. “That is Peter Van Scoyoc’s opinion about what is appropriate as far as supervisor-subordinate relations are concerned.”

    “I found the tone of the e-mail to be insubordinate, as did Ms. Quigley,” Mr. Wilkinson continued, saying his judgment is based on 30 years “with corporations doing just this thing.”

    Last year the supervisor circulated a memo to town employees warning them not to be insubordinate. “One has to understand that there is a supervisor-subordinate relationship, and the subordinates have to do whatever they can to ensure that the supervisor gets the answer, even if the supervisor isn’t asking the appropriate question.”

    “This is something that I judge from what I consider to be my core competencies,” Mr. Wilkinson said.

    Ms. Overby said she agreed with Mr. Van Scoyoc. “I think it is hard to divine tone in an e-mail,” she said.

    “The subordinate has to think of that . . . when they’re corresponding,” Mr. Wilkinson said.

    “I have no intention of apologizing,” Ms. Quigley said. “In town government there doesn’t seem to be any recognition of subordinate-management relationships,” she said.

    “I believe that the issue of the e-mail cannot be taken out of context of working for two years with that department,” she said. She said she had not wanted to elaborate on her initial comment on the e-mail at the earlier work session, but had been pressed to do so by Ms. Overby.

    “Now it’s public. Whatever. It’s fine,” she said.

    “This situation is the result of you bringing up the e-mail, and then characterizing the e-mail the way that you did,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said, asking that the board in the future reserve similar comments about employees for executive sessions.

    “I said the e-mail was crazy — that’s what I said. And it was crazy,” Ms. Quigley said.

    “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Mr. Wilkinson said. “This issue was dead until you brought it up. Give me a break.”

    “Absolute ridiculousness,” Mr. Wilkinson commented on Mr. Van Scoyoc’s raising the subject. “This is politics.”

    The three-person Republican majority on the town board split on Tuesday when Supervisor Bill Wilkinson and Councilwoman Theresa Quigley said they would reconsider accepting new grants for East Hampton Airport from the Federal Aviation Administration.

    At the same meeting, Councilman Dominick Stanzione tried, and failed, to gain board approval to apply for three more grants.

    Ms. Quigley had made her opinion known last week, following the receipt of a memo from the federal agency detailing, for the first time, its position regarding the potential for the town to enact its own restrictions on the use of the airport after the expiration of existing contractual obligations between the town and the agency in 2014.

    “I’d like to have clarification about what we can and can’t do,” Mr. Wilkinson said at Tuesday’s board work session. He said he would seek additional counsel from Peter Kirsch, an aviation attorney who had previously made a presentation to the board about the applicable statutes.

    Councilman Stanzione sought approval in vain to submit additional grant applications to the F.A.A., for the repair of runway 4-22, construction of a fence around the airport’s perimeter, and an airport capital improvement plan.

    Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc and Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, the Democratic board minority, had pledged during their election campaigns last fall to hold the line on new F.A.A. grants, at least until after 2014, when the town’s potential for local control could be assessed.

    Mr. Stanzione, who as the board’s liaison to the airport has advocated accepting F.A.A. money, and has been working with Mr. Kirsch to design a noise-abatement program that could be put in place even under new grant assurances, did get the board’s approval on contracts with several companies that will help the town gather data that could be used in seeking the F.A.A.’s okay for new airport rules.

    At last Thursday’s meeting, the board approved an agreement with Plane Noise, which will deal with noise by monitoring landings 24 hours a day and compiling data, matching complaints with particular aircraft, for $15,000 a year; with AirScene, a company that has been providing a flight tracking system used for similar purposes, for $98,697 a year, and with Vector Airport Solutions, which will record landings and bill aircraft landing at the airport, for an annual fee of $98,975, over a four-year contract, after the town buys needed equipment for $61,015.

    Following the designation by the F.A.A. of controlled airspace around East Hampton Airport, the town is also poised to have an air traffic control tower in place for the summer season. Another resolution approved last Thursday was to hire Robinson Aviation to staff and operate the control tower, for $342,600 a year.    

    Residents looking for relief from aircraft noise, particularly helicopters, including members of the Quiet Skies Coalition, believe the only way to effectively control noise is to limit access to the airport, at certain times of the day, for instance. Gaining F.A.A. permission to do so would be unlikely, they have said, if the town continues to follow the terms of “grant assurances,” which are set in place for 20-year periods when the town takes money from the agency.

    Last Thursday and again on Tuesday they urged the town board to rescind a December resolution to submit a new grant application to the agency for the design of a perimeter fence, thus creating a new set of 20-year obligations.

     “Give yourself time to reconsider the new information that’s been brought forward,” Kathy Cunningham, the chairwoman of the Quiet Skies Coalition, said to the board last Thursday. “All previous notions of what the F.A.A. would do, which were posited by [aviation] attorneys, have been trumped” by the F.A.A.’s direct responses to the group’s questions, she said.

    A federal law that allows airport proprietors to enact only “reasonable, nonarbitrary, and nondiscriminatory” rules will still apply whether there are grant assurances in effect or not, but the key difference after 2014, when the F.A.A. can no longer enforce several of the agreements, Charles Ehren, another Quiet Skies Coalition member, told the board, is that the agency has now said that it would also release the town from the provisions of the Airport Noise and Capacity Act.

    That legislation spells out the procedure through which any airport owner — even those beholden to grant assurances — may seek to gain approval for local restrictions. “Under that statute you can’t impose regulations without going to the F.A.A.,” Mr. Ehren said.

    But, Mr. Ehren said, since the act went into effect in 1990, only one airport, in Naples, Fla., has been successful in gaining F.A.A. approval for local control under those rules. However, he said, in litigation involving New York City’s heliport, for which F.A.A. funds had never been accepted, the F.A.A. did not intervene, and a court found that the city’s rules regarding use of the heliport met the federal “reasonable” standard, and allowed them to stand.

    A number of pilots and aviation business owners also attended last Thursday’s board meeting. They have claimed that the airport would eventually be closed unless the town takes F.A.A. money to fund its upkeep and repair. That, they have said, is the ultimate goal of the noise control group.

    “We are not trying to close the airport. That is not our goal; it never has been,” Ms. Cunningham said. The fence is not the problem, she said. “I have pledges in the thousands of dollars to privately fund the deer fence, if that’s what it will take to withdraw the application,” she said.

    Bruno Schreck, a pilot, said F.A.A. grant money was “money that we’ve already paid for” in transportation-related fees, and that “to decide instead that local taxpayers should pay” for the airport is “double taxation.”

    Margie Saurenman, the vice president of the East Hampton Aviation Association, urged the board on Tuesday, to have more public discussion about the issue. “The F.A.A. answers and questions have been more than clarified,” she said. “We need to put this to public debate so we can get the airport funded properly and maintained properly.”