A petition drive to collect enough signatures of East Hampton voters to force a vote on the sale of a town-owned Montauk alleyway to the new owners of the Ronjo motel, a sale that was approved by the Republican majority of the town board, has been “going like gangbusters,” according to Jeanne Frankl, the head of the Democratic committee and an organizer of the drive.

    As of yesterday, Ms. Frankl said, almost 300 signatures were in hand, with more to be compiled, heading toward the 405 total she said the group believes is needed to force the permissive referendum — 5 percent of the voters in the last gubernatorial election. To be safe, she said, the goal is to collect 600 signatures.

    Two groups circulating petitions collected 140 signatures on Saturday, the first day of the petition drive, Ms. Frankl said.

    The board majority approved a resolution selling a piece of the alleyway that bisects the Ronjo motel property — an extension, on paper, of an alley that runs behind businesses on South Etna Avenue — for $35,000.

    The property was not appraised. Supervisor Bill Wilkinson said he pulled the price “out of the air.” He and Councilwoman Theresa Quigley have said that, based on examples of town land transfers from the 1980s, they believed the price was fair.

    They rebuffed several calls by Democratic Councilwoman Sylvia Overby and Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc to rescind the vote. If the property is to be sold, they said, it should be appraised and an analysis made of its potential use to the public, with, perhaps, retaining an easement over it considered.

    Ms. Frankl said that residents talking to those collecting petitions at several locations over the last few days have been getting “apolitical, good government comments” in support of having the public land appraised before selling it, with people indicating that they believe “it’s just wrong and contrary to what government should do,” she said.

    “The idea that the board doesn’t follow procedure . . . that the supervisor is unilaterally negotiating with his friends is also unacceptable,” Ms. Frankl said. “It’s a matter of principle.”

    In addition, she said, “we see evidence that the Wilkinson administration wants to sell off everything that doesn’t make money for the town.” She mentioned proposals to lease or sell the scavenger waste treatment plant and town-owned tennis courts. “That’s not appropriate,” Ms. Frankl said. “There are properties that the town owns for a good reason.”

    The petition drive will continue through the weekend, with volunteers in Montauk today, and on Saturday at the Amagansett Post Office and I.G.A., the East Hampton Post Office and Waldbaum’s, and at the Montauk Post Office. On Sunday morning, volunteers will be at the Springs General Store.

    If enough signatures are collected, Ms. Frankl said, the group would be satisfied if the board rescinds its resolution of sale, ordering an appraisal and researching the alley situation before moving forward with a sale. That way, the cost of holding a townwide public vote could be avoided, she said.

    Robert Straight Arrow Cooper of Springs, one of three men who have claimed to be the chief of the Montaukett Indian Tribe in recent years, has voiced strong opposition to the creation of a museum of Native American history in downtown Montauk.

    The museum has the endorsement of Robert Wyandanch Pharoah of Sag Harbor, who claims to be the legitimate leader of the 1,000-member Montaukett Indian Nation. A spokesman for the Montaukett Indian Nation has claimed that Mr. Cooper was banished from the tribe in 2004.

    Mr. Cooper’s denunciation of the museum project, which came to light in a letter read to the East Hampton Town Board on Tuesday, has prompted a strongly worded rebuttal from Leighton Blue Sky Delgado, a Montaukett Indian Nation tribal consultant.

    Lawrence Cooke of Montauk has proposed that the museum be located beside the Montauk Historical Society’s Second House Museum on Montauk Highway at the west end of the Montauk business district. Plans for the Native American Museum of Montauk are now before the town planning board.

    Reached on Tuesday, Mr. Cooper did not mince words: “A Native American museum is a Native American endeavor.”

    During Tuesday’s informal meeting of the East Hampton Town Board, Supervisor Bill Wilkinson read a letter received this week from John L. Ciarelli, a Riverhead-based attorney representing Mr. Cooper.

    “The Montaukett tribe does not seek to exist in isolation, and has, and will, continue to celebrate its shared cultural heritage with other tribes. However, in that same spirit, [the tribe] has asked us to express its firm opposition to the concept and execution of the Native American museum as proposed, and apparently, championed by [Lawrence] Cooke, who has no affiliation with the tribe.”

    The letter goes on to observe that the proposed museum would be located on tribal lands. “No museum on such lands should be conceived without the direct and substantial involvement of the Montauketts. The ‘endorsement’ of Robert Pharoah is a meaningless, superficial excuse for the failure to incorporate meaningful Montaukett involvement.”

    Mr. Ciarelli’s letter, which asks Reed Jones, chairman of the town planning board, to “cease further action on the pending proposal,” also raises the possibility of Montaukett burial grounds and traditions being “disrespected, if not desecrated, to support the museum.”

    “The implication is I’m digging up graves. Shame on him. That’s terrible. What he put out there is so wrong and inappropriate. This has been a monumental effort to honor the reality of his people. He’s clearly trying to use me to impress others, to attract followers because he doesn’t have them,” Mr. Cooke said yesterday.

    Mr. Cooke added that the proposed museum would not be focused on the Montaukett tribe alone. “Their historic record is one aspect of prehistoric life, the archeological record. It’s a stretch to assume that all the people were related to the Montauketts. This was a meeting place for migratory people. Montauk has always been a magical place.”

    In a strongly worded open letter to Mr. Cooper that appeared on the Web site hamptons.curbed.com this week, Leighton Blue Sky Delgado, who claims to be a tribal member, wrote:

    “The Montauk tribe of Long Island Cooper claims to be the chief of is actually a minuscule and illicit splinter group of about 15 people with no official standing whatsoever.”

    Mr. Delgado states that Mr. Cooper was “banished forever from the Montaukett Indian Nation,” and that Robert P. Pharoah, “who happens to be a fellow fireman and close friend of Lawrence Cooke, fully endorses Lawrence’s important project and will be doing so in writing presently [. . . ] This email is putting you on notice that we will not be tolerating this abuse of the good name and honor of the Montaukett any further . . . you will be hearing from our legal team.”

    The Springs, East Hampton, Montauk, Sag Harbor, Southampton, and Tuckahoe School Districts and the Eastern Suffolk Board of Cooperative Educational Services will seek a $175,000 grant from the State Department of Education for an efficiency study that will look at ways the six districts could work together to collectively save money, from sharing services to possible consolidation.

    The Springs School Board voted Monday night to pursue the grant money along with BOCES and the other districts. Together, the six districts serve 5,892 students.

    The grant money from the state would amount to $175,000; each participating district and BOCES would offer up an additional $2,777 to bring the total money available for the study to $194,444.

    “It’s a competitive grant,” Michael Hartner, the Springs School superintendent, said on Monday, and it is available not only to schools. “The school districts are clumped in with other municipalities, so there’s no guarantee.” In a press release issued earlier that day, Mr. Hartner had said, “We have nothing to lose, and a great deal to gain — the possibility of improved educational opportunities for children and reduced costs to taxpayers.”

    The idea to apply for the grant came about soon after Springs and East Hampton signed their tuition agreement in June, an agreement which also contained a rider for the districts to explore a consolidation study.

    “It should be noted that the study would be strictly advisory,” read the release from Springs School. “Sharing of services cannot occur without the authorization of the boards involved, and district consolidation cannot occur without both board authorization and a public referendum.”

    Kathee Burke Gonzalez, the Springs School Board president, acknowledged feeling hopeful since learning of the government efficiency grant. “I was genuinely excited,” she said. “It’s a significant amount of money.”

    The districts that receive the awards should be notified by June, and if the local schools are awarded the grant the next step would be to issue a request for proposals from professional firms and appoint a steering committee to oversee the study.

    The application for the grant is due in Albany by Wednesday.

    “We are the only group of schools on Long Island doing this,” Ms. Gonzalez said. “I have a feeling all eyes will be upon us.”

    In other news, Springs, like other public schools in the state, is still waiting on the data from Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office in order to comply with the state’s new 2-percent cap on property tax levy increases in its 2012-13 budget. The information was originally expected sometime in November, but it has been pushed out repeatedly, and may now interfere with the deadline of April 16 for a completed budget.

    “If that is the case,” Ms. Gonzalez said, “we may need to push the date to April 18 or 23 to give us more time.”

    Eric Casale, the school’s principal, offered a presentation on the mandated Common Core Learning Standards that 48 out of 50 states, including New York, have adopted. Mr. Casale focused on reading expectations in the early years, which will now be set at a notably higher competency level.

    Testing for fourth-grade English language arts, which used to take the students 35 to 45 minutes to complete, now involves three days of 90-minute testing, a huge jump that Mr. Casale called “interesting and scary.”

    During public commentary, Michelle Grant, a Springs parent, spoke up about some of the budget cuts the school board is considering. “The cuts you are looking at are counterintuitive to what the [Common Core Learning Standards] are trying to accomplish,” she said. “You’re talking about doing away with prekindergarten, about kindergarten going to half a day, 30 to a class, reducing the number of teaching assistants.”

    “I mean, you have to look at what you have to look at,” she continued, “but I wish the community could see this, could hear that these students are expected to meet these standards early and consistently. Cutting programs is not going to accomplish what the state is mandating the school to do,” she said.

    Mary Jane Arceri, a Springs teacher for 30 years, said her goodbyes at the school board meeting as she heads into retirement. “Springs School will be losing a tremendous teacher and an advocate for special education students,” Ms. Gonzalez said with emotion. “Congratulations, M.J., and thank you.”

    As genetically modified foods become an increasing topic of debate both nationally and internationally, a number of South Fork food producers, sellers, and restaurateurs are working on the local level to keep modified plants and products out of their fields, off their shelves, and away from their tables.

    “One of the most important issues of our time is the emergence of non-labeled, genetically modified food,” said Barbara Layton, owner of Babette’s restaurant in East Hampton.

    Ms. Layton and others concerned about the proliferation of genetically modified foods, many grown from patented seed, worry that they are rushed to market without any scientific data to support their safety or dispel concerns about the side effects of human consumption. Those who champion the modified crops argue that scientific innovations in seed development allow for greater yield and disease resistance, and even that the world food supply depends on such technology.

    It is a subject that Ms. Layton takes very seriously “both as a human being sharing a planet and as a businesswoman,” she said. She believes that by supporting local farmers, growers, and distributors who “do the right thing,” people can make a collective difference in the food to be eaten generations from now.

    Paying close attention to soy products, since she said these are among the most heavily genetically-modified foods, Ms. Layton sources organic, local, and seasonal ingredients. She also serves only organic poultry, locally caught fish, and organic, grass-fed beef at her East Hampton restaurant.

    “Countries all over the world are now banning G.M.O. foods, while here in the United States only three counties in California have banned such items,” she said.

    In the European Union, genetically modified foods can only be authorized after “a rigorous safety assessment,” according to the European Food Safety Authority’s Web site. In Italy, according to The New York Times, farmers must get special permission to plant genetically modified crops. The only “biotech crop” grown in Europe, The Times reported, is a type of corn produced by Monsanto, an agriculture and chemical company that is the world’s largest producer of seeds and an increasing target for farmers and consumers here and abroad who are concerned about the impact of genetically modified seeds on human health.

    Scott Chaskey of Quail Hill Farm in Amagansett is so concerned about the issue that he is writing a book about it, and is personally part of a class-action lawsuit brought by a group of farmers against Monsanto. He said he would not buy Monsanto seeds for the community-supported agriculture program that he runs in partnership with the Peconic Land Trust. Instead, he said, he orders seeds from suppliers who take a “safe seed pledge.”

    At local farms, corn is the most likely vegetable to be genetically modified, said Rich Kresberg of Provisions Market in Sag Harbor. But corn aside, he advised that those looking to avoid G.M.O.s should shop at farm stands and natural food stores. G.M.O.s are a “cause for great concern,” he said, “nobody knows what the long term effects are, and a lot of what has been done is irreversible, due to drift and cross pollination.”

    “The simplest and most effective way for a consumer to find out if what they are buying is a G.M.O. or not, is to go to a farmers market or local farm stand and ask,” said Dave Falkowski of Open Minded Organics, known for the organic mushrooms he grows and sells at local farmers markets. “A grocery store likely won’t be able to answer that question, but a farmer will.”

    Trying to sell food without them is a challenge, Mr. Kresberg said, because companies are not required to label those products that are grown from modified, or transgenic, seeds. Organic foods, while not entirely free of G.M.O.s, strive to be so. According to The New York Times, the United States Department of Agriculture “has a recommended guideline of no more than .9 percent of transgenic content for organic crops.” Mr. Falkowski and Mr. Kresberg both believe that labeling of G.M.O. foods should be mandatory.

    “There are hidden G.M.O.s in most mass-produced foods, including the feed for cattle and poultry,” said Lisa Blinderman of Second Nature Market in East Hampton. “When we alter the genetic structure of foods, we are playing with nature,” she said, and “the long term results are unknown.” Although foods that contain G.M.O.s need not be labeled, those that do not almost always advertise the fact.

    “We believe people have the right to know what is in their food,” said Karin Bellemare of Sunset Beach Farm in North Haven, who has been following organic standards, and will be certified organic this season. “Under the standards you cannot use G.M.O.s,” she said. “We do not buy seed from companies that sell G.M.O. seed, and we do not grow near farmers that have G.M.O. products,” she said. She and her partner, Jon Wagner, lease land from the Peconic Land Trust.

    Matt Laspia of Springs takes organic, G.M.O.-free crops directly to “people’s lawns,” then works to spread the fruits of his labor to a broader group of consumers. Mr. Laspia’s organization, Produce in the Projects, finds people willing to host gardens on their property, then grows the produce at no cost to the donor, who in return gets half of what’s grown. He distributes the other half through soup kitchens, food pantries, and nonprofits.

    His goal, he said, is to offer safe food for the community, and in the process help bring organic produce within reach of less affluent people and the poor. Working together on a small scale, he believes people can “shake corporate control over our food supply.”

    “Big food scares me,” said Bryan Futerman, a local chef and owner of Foody’s restaurant in Water Mill. “Corporate control of 99 percent of the food supply, and none of it being tested. . . . In Europe it’s not allowed, in India, people are killing themselves over seeds,” he said.

    Mr. Futerman, one of the leaders of Slow Food East End, does what he can to source food “as close as I can to the restaurant,” driving his pickup truck to local farms to get vegetables. “It’s next to impossible to eat non-G.M.O. in the United States,” he said, with corn and soy being fed to livestock, and soybean oil in so many products on the shelf. “I want to serve non-G.M.O., but I don’t know what’s coming in the door.”

    Mr. Futerman started the Springs Seedlings Project, a garden program at the Springs School, because he believes it is important to start from the ground up, by giving children an appreciation of where their food comes from.

    Joni Prosnan of Joni’s in Montauk also works to find organic products and natural distributors when she sources food for her cafe. Even it if it costs more, she said, “even if I lose a little at the end of the day, I’m glad that people are getting hip to it.”

    A 17,500-square-foot retail store at the former Plitt Ford property on Montauk Highway in Wainscott is closer to reality following the East Hampton Town Planning Board’s unofficial nod of approval on March 7.

    An official vote approving the plan is expected in the coming weeks.

    If the property owner, Gregg Saunders, had his way, the space would be used for a grocery store. But regardless of what business eventually occupies the building, the architecture will be the same, he said.

    “I want a food store, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, that is what I want, that’s what people here want, but it is hard to convince executives who don’t live here that this can be year-round.” If not a food store, the priority would be either a drugstore or, failing that, a furniture store, said Mr. Saunders, a developer of retail spaces across the country who has a house in Sagaponack.

    “I never thought I’d develop where I live,” Mr. Saunders said in an interview. When he heard the 1.9-acre parcel was available a year and a half ago, he scooped it up. “I develop all over the country. But I live here. I shop here. I shop at the fish market, the bagel shop, Breadzilla. I eat at the pizza restaurant. I thought, let me put something nice here. Whatever it is. A business hub.”

    The one-story shingled building will have a parking lot for 98 cars that will enter and leave via a driveway on the east side of the property that will be shared with neighboring businesses. It will have a 12,500-square-foot basement.

    Mr. Saunders does not see the project as a “superstore,” and said he plans to be very selective about what business occupies the location. He has, he said, “already turned down several prospective tenants, including a national self-storage company, a car wash, and a well-known fast food chain.”

    “I feel within one month I’ll have someone in there,” Mr. Saunders said. “The more business we bring to this hub, the better for everybody. It creates jobs and taxes.”

    There was no public opposition to the building at the hearing, but the traffic that the development could bring was another story.

    Barbara Miller, a year-round resident of Wainscott, spoke at the hearing. “I live on Wainscott Northwest Road, right around the corner from the site. I can tell you there is a major problem with the traffic on 27 right now,” she told the board.

    “It’s a good thing in general; it’s going to be good for the economy. But what I really am concerned about is the traffic,” Ms. Miller said after the hearing.

    Once a hub store is put on the property, Ms. Miller believes that it will be impossible for shoppers who want to head east to make the left onto Montauk Highway. “Out of desperation, everybody exiting the site will have to turn right. But they actually want to head east, so they’re going to go to the next corner, make the right, go down to Cow Hill Lane, make that right, cut around the neighborhood to Wainscott Northwest Road, then head south to the light to head east. To the residents who live north of this structure, it’s incredibly unfair. It is going to be a thoroughfare there.”

    “The big issue is traffic,” Bob Schaeffer, the planning board member whose district is Wainscott, said Monday, while not wanting to comment on the specifics of the proposal in front of the board. “Dunn Engineering did the original [traffic] study, the State Department of Transportation came back with a long reply to it. There was a very extensive study.”

    “Traffic is the issue for everyone but welcome to the Hamptons,” Diana Weir, another board member who lives in Wainscott, said Sunday.

    Ms. Miller suggested that an egress onto Wainscott Northwest Road might be a solution, but Peter Cook, the architect on the project, said that during the design phase that very option had been explored with the adjacent property owners but that none of them were willing to allow for such an egress.

    Concerns about traffic were not enough to delay the process any further. A formal vote to approve the plans could come as soon as Wednesday.

    Mickey Valcich, who has been named the grand marshal of the Montauk Friends of Erin 50th anniversary St. Patrick’s Day parade, has played Santa Claus in more ways than the obvious. For 24 years he has donned the red suit at the Montauk Fire Department’s holiday event and listened to the wishes of children who wait in long lines to whisper in his ear that they would like a pony, a puppy, or a computer for Christmas.

    For the last eight years, he has submitted the same low bid to the Montauk School for garbage pickup, which was noted at a board meeting just last week. “No wonder he’s the grand marshal,” Lisa Ward, a board member, said.

    Every year at the end of the parade, a crew from Mickey’s Carting sweeps in to clean the downtown area and parade route, free of charge. “Mickey embodies all of the ideals of the Montauk Friends of Erin,” Joe Bloecker, the group’s president, said. “He quietly does community service, he never says no, and he never looks for a thank-you.”

    Asked what else he does in the community, Mr. Valcich said he’d rather not say. “I like to fly under the radar. I just try to give monetary support and service support wherever I can,” he said on Tuesday from his newly renovated digs on South Erie Avenue in the hamlet.

    Mr. Valcich moved with his family to Montauk when he was 3 years old. “I don’t remember living anyplace else.” His family owned several Montauk businesses, including the Four Oaks deli and cottages, where many a newcomer rented a place to live when they first arrived. He worked for his parents, Ray and Margaret Valcich, before opening Mickey’s Mowing in 1983. That venture expanded into Mickey’s Carting in 1986, and he now supervises 50 employees, some at desks but most out in the field mowing lawns and offering garbage pickup and landscaping services.

    He can often be seen driving around Montauk in his hefty pickup truck with a cellphone crooked in his neck, and a Montauk Fire Department sticker plastered to the truck’s rear window. When a crew is short, he jumps in and does whatever needs to be done, he said.

    As a child, he said, he always loved garbage. Since part of his job entails providing and picking up fully loaded Dumpsters, he was asked if he ever did any Dumpster diving. “I was always the biggest garbage-picker. I found a $5 bill, a $1 bill, and a quarter, but I don’t do it anymore. If I did, I’d wind up dumping the truck at home instead of bringing it to the dump,” he said, adding that when his son was younger he took over the Dumpster diving and found really good stuff, such as a nearly new skateboard.

    While on the subject of garbage, he recalled what he defined as a comical incident when a roll-off truck literally rolled off a Shelter Island ferry several years ago. “It took us four hours to fish it out, but nobody got hurt,” he said.

    A member of the Montauk Fire Department for 30 years, Mr. Valcich has been a lieutenant and first and second assistant chief. He never sought out the chief’s position because, he said, it is too time-consuming. “If I was going to do it, I wanted to do it right.”

    He is the chairman of the Montauk Fire Department’s junior fire department, which was formed in 2006 and has 12 members. He’s with the future firefighters, who range in age from 12 to 18, at meetings, drills, department functions, and training sessions, some of which take place once a real fire is put out. “At a fire, I don’t participate with the fire department, I participate with the juniors.” Once they turn 18 most of them make the transition into the regular department, he said.

    Mr. Valcich has also been a member of the Montauk Lions Club for 30 years.

    He has been married to Valinda Valcich for 24 years, and they have two children, Carin, 22, and Tyler, 18. They keep a slew of animals, including 10 dogs, various cats, and a few horses, the number of which Mr. Valcich couldn’t come up with. “They keep me on a need-to-know basis. What I don’t need to know, I don’t know,” he said with a laugh.

    In addition to having the distinction of being the 50th grand marshal, Mr. Valcich is also one who learned of his honor earlier than the others. The big news is usually released in early February, although the honoree’s name is often leaked before then. But on Sept. 17, a verdigris monument etched with all the names of the past grand marshals, as well as Mr. Valcich’s, was unveiled at a halfway to St. Patrick’s Day celebration on a warm, sunny day that drew several grand marshals of the past, among them family members of the very first grand marshal, and local politicians.

    On Saturday, he joined about 35 others, including his wife and Richard Valcich, his brother, in traveling with the Friends of Erin on a Hampton Jitney to participate in the New York City parade, which he called awesome. “Everybody yelled out to Montauk; everybody knows Montauk. It was unbelievable,” he said.

    He’s a walker, so the grand marshal is not worried about the long route he must travel by foot on Sunday — close to three miles. But when told rain was in the forecast, he said with mock horror, “You mean it’s going to rain on my parade?”

    East Hampton Town’s citizens advisory committees received another smackdown Monday in a letter from Supervisor Bill Wilkinson asking them to curb their advocacy and reminding them that their role was “advisory only.”

    The citizens committees were formed to be the town board’s “eyes and ears” in the community, the supervisor wrote, but recently, he said, some have been overstepping their bounds by creating agendas that “target one individual or business,” e-mailing members to “encourage them to attend court hearings in an attempt to exert influence on how a particular matter is prosecuted,” and writing to judges on matters currently before the court.

    Also falling under the advocacy, as opposed to advisory, heading, the supervisor wrote, committee members were “monitoring and attending planning board and zoning board of appeals meetings in their official capacity [. . .] to give their input on a particular application,” sending letters to planning and zoning board members urging denial of applications, and writing letters on citizens advisory committee letterhead to state legislators seeking “opinion on how to enact certain legislation, implying that the town, in some fashion, supports their position.”

    The last example seemed to be in reference to a letter the Montauk C.A.C. had sent to its town board liaison, Councilman Dominick Stanzione, and copied to State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., Senator Kenneth P. LaValle, and the town clerk. In it the committee, prompted by concern raised by the opening of a 7-Eleven in Montauk recently, requested guidance on how to regulate “formula,” or chain stores, in the hamlet.

    “Such actions by a C.A.C. are beyond the scope of the authority of the C.A.C.,” Mr. Wilkinson wrote. The town board voted on Feb. 28 to once again advise the committees that “such actions are not acceptable” and that the committees “are not authorized to advocate nor to communicate with other agencies in town or outside of town in an official act. . . .”

    The Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee discussed the letter before a huge crowd on Monday night, many of them there to discuss the creation of a new business alliance in the hamlet.

    The supervisor’s reprimand is “not an issue,” Lisa Grenci, the committee’s chairwoman, said. “We can still be very functional.”

    At last month’s meeting, the first that Mr. Stanzione attended as the new liaison, committee members agreed at the councilman’s urging to turn any concerns over to him so that he could take them to the town board. “If Dominick performs, you’ll be heard,” Ms. Grenci said on Monday. “If not, we’ll work another way. We have to give him the benefit of the doubt.” Mr. Stanzione was ill and unable to attend this week’s meeting.

    After Ms. Grenci read the letter aloud, members joked that they might as well adjourn the meeting since there was nothing left for them to discuss. “We’ve been here through five or six administrations and we’ll still be sitting here when they’ve moved on,” Ms. Grenci said.

    “It’s very disturbing to hear this. I don’t know what they’re afraid of in little Montauk,” said Ray Cortell, a committee member. “If they want to pull the puppet strings there’s no reason for us to be here. I find it very upsetting that they’re trying to squelch us; it’s a very sad day for democracy.”

    The following day, a flurry of e-mails followed, with the strongest coming from Larry Smith, another member. The supervisor is correct, he said, “we are just an advisory board with no power, except, evidently, to tell the board of our apparently irrelevant opinions.”

    He suggested that members of the town’s citizens advisory committees “resign in mass” from the town-appointed boards and reconstitute themselves as “citizens action committees.”

    “We can have a Congress of C.A.C.’s that would hopefully represent the best interests of each hamlet in the Town of East Hampton.”

    While the supervisor’s letter resonated after the meeting, the committee had other business on its agenda on Monday, as well. Last month, the group heard an appeal from Ken Walles of the Montauk Memorial Committee requesting support for the veterans’ use of the Montauk green for a three-day memorial service there. Ms. Grenci informed her fellow committee members on Monday that a compromise had been reached between the veterans group and the Montauk Artists Association, which has held a large art fair on the green for the past three Memorial Day weekends. The two groups have agreed that the art fair will go on, but that a section near a memorial and flagpole will be closed off for the veterans’ use.

    A Memorial Day parade will be held on Sunday and other activities will take place on Monday when the art fair is over.

    Petty Officer Brian Giunta was stationed outside Manama, Bahrain, just one year ago when government troops tore down the Pearl, a 300-foot-high monument comprising six curved struts and topped with a giant pearl, a tribute to the kingdom’s pearl-diving history.

    It made Manama a kind of sanctuary from the “eye of Allah,” a place considered somewhat removed from the strictest religious dictates. “Saudis came over the bridge [King Fahd Causeway] and they would no longer be sinning,” said the 25-year-old machinery technician second class, who now serves at the Coast Guard’s Montauk search and rescue station.

    Mr. Giunta said Bahrain was a vacation spot with grand hotels, a place long considered safer than Iraq for people in the oil business to meet.

    Then came the Arab Spring. Pearl Square became the site of anti-government protests, that is, until troops from Yemen moved in to quell the protests. Bahrain’s ruling class is comprised of Sunni Muslims. The country’s Shiites were pushing for greater freedom. “The riot control was never non-lethal,” Mr. Giunta said.

    “There were a lot of fatalities. Tear gas engulfed our housing every night. We saw flashes, heard gunfire. But, it was like night and day. Once the sun came up everything seemed normal, but at night it was chaos. A very strange atmosphere. In the morning we were debriefed, updated, told where not to go. But it didn’t seem to faze the people. They’re used to it. It’s an ongoing battle over there. It never ends.”

    One day last week, he poured a visitor a cup of coffee in the station’s mess deck and described his one-year tour protecting oil depots in the North Arabian Gulf aboard an aging 110-foot cutter.

    His deployment coincided with the transition from the military’s Operation Iraqi Freedom to Operation New Dawn and the departure of some 50,000 U.S. troops. The exodus did not include the Coast Guard.

    “We were part of the Fifth Fleet Coalition along with the Brits and Australians. There were German ships, and French, but mostly the Royal Navy.”

    The Montauk station has a history with the Iraq War. In April of 2004, one year after its shock-and-awe start, Petty Officer Nathan B. Bruckenthal was killed in an exBruckenthal was killed in an explosion when he and his team intercepted a boat packed with explosives heading for the Al Basra Oil Terminal, the same terminal Mr. Giunta patrolled. Nate Bruckenthal, who served at the Montauk Station, was the first coastie killed in action since the Vietnam War.

    Heather Kendall, a boatswain’s mate second class attached to the Montauk Station’s cutter Ridley, will leave for the Coast Guard’s area of operations in the North Arabian Gulf in December.

    Mr. Giunta said last June was a “big turning point” in Operation New Dawn when the Iraqi Navy and Marine Corps were “polished” enough to take from coalition forces the job of protecting the country’s main source of income from insurgent attacks.

    He said that because of its unique capabilities as the nation’s only service with both military and police powers — including the power to board vessels on the high seas and waters “over which the United States has jurisdiction” — the Coast Guard would remain on what is being called “a contingency basis.”

    While the Navy does not have the same police powers as the Coast Guard, a naval ship could assume those powers as long as there was a Coast Guard contingent on board, he said.

    Mr. Giunta was assigned to the 110-foot Aquidneck. The cutter was transferred from the Guard’s Atlantic Beach, N.C., station to Bahrain in 2006.

    “There are six of them. They have low draft so they can go up the rivers,” Mr. Giunta said, adding that the cutter’s “op-tempo” was just about nonstop in the gulf and with sea conditions that changed in minutes. The winter is the worst. “They were built in the early ’80s,” he said of the 110s. “They’re far past their life expectancies.”

    Aquidneck patrolled two big oil terminals off of Basra that filled tanker after tanker, day and night. The cutter patrolled in company with ships from the coalition navies. Tankers were not boarded, but vessels that ferried food and the terminals’ crews were always checked. Mr. Giunta said fishing dhows caused the most stress.

    He explained that fish were attracted to the waters around the terminals, and fishermen were always pressing the strictly patrolled boundaries. “They were a big mission for us. We would veer them out of the way.”

    When not on duty, Mr. Giunta said the Coast Guard crews lived in hotels or gated communities in Bahrain where the day would begin at 4 a.m. at about 100 degrees with the first call to prayer from local mosques. “By afternoon it would reach 110 to 120 with 100 percent humidity.”

    “Bahrain is civilized with subways, McDonald’s, the people are used to the U.S. presence,” he said, but there were times when the cultural gulf was challenging. Mr. Giunta said the heat of August coincided with the Muslim holy days of Ramadan. “We abide by the cultural rules, no drinking, eating, music, shorts, or short-sleeved shirts. You could leave the base, but couldn’t even drink water in public.” A surfer, Petty Officer Giunta said the local culture precluded hanging at the beach.

    The two months of training required before deployment to the gulf included several days of classroom work devoted to the Koran, customs, and courtesies. “General (David) Patreus enforced that,” Mr. Giunta said of the former commanding general of the multi-national force in Iraq. The recent accidental burning of Korans in Afghanistan has had catastrophic consequences, he observed.

    He said he did not get the sense that the women viewed staying covered as oppressive as many in the West assume they do. He recalled going to a swimming pool where a woman was “swimming” in full burka. “My buddies were jumping in, but I felt funny.”

    At first the early morning calls to prayer seemed calming, Mr. Giunta said. “It was nice, but I was done by the eighth month.” 

    Coast Guard personnel are rotated out of the area after one year. The young machinist mate said it was considered a plum assignment in terms of career advancement as well as pay. There is no income tax on money earned overseas. Only experienced and trained individuals are considered. “No one goes there right out of boot camp.”

    Mr. Giunta said the Coast Guard would allow him to go back if he chose to. “I know what I’m capable of. I would be more confident, but it was tough. It took a toll on my personal life. I would go back but there would have to be a damn good reason.”  

    East Hampton Town has received bids from two private companies that would repair four town-owned tennis courts at the Terry King recreational center on Abraham’s Path in Amagansett in exchange for a license to operate them.

    In one option laid out in its response, Sportime, the largest tennis club operator in the metropolitan area, which last year was given an exclusive 15-year license to run the town’s enclosed hockey rink adjacent to the tennis courts, would enclose the courts in either a fabric-sided building, a pressurized bubble, or a permanent building, which would be attached to the hockey building, with a single entrance used for both. The courts would be redone with a Har-Tru surface. A second option would leave the courts outdoors, and see them resurfaced with a hard surface.

    Headed by Claude Okin of Amagansett, Sportime operates its own tennis center and camp across Abraham’s Path from the town park site, as well as a number of other facilities, including several on public land under municipal licenses, such as one on Randalls Island in New York City.

    Scott Rubinstein, the owner of East Hampton Indoor Tennis, submitted the second proposal, offering to resurface the tennis and basketball courts, and to continue to operate them as outdoor play areas.

    But with his proposal he sent a letter to the town board asking members to “beware of the slippery slope of a private business operating their private business on town property using town assets without the intended benefit to the residents of this community.”

    In order to recoup the investment needed to enclose the courts, Mr. Rubinstein said, it is likely that any business would seek a return by maintaining a right to use the courts for its private clients during “prime time,” as well as through fees higher than those usually paid by residents at a town-run facility.

    Mr. Okin said earlier this week that during an 18-week season, roughly between Memorial Day and Labor Day, he would charge $10 an hour for town residents to use the courts. During the rest of the year, he said, “it will be a regular indoor club,” with market pricing.

    However, he said he would offer discounts on court time and programs for residents, as well as time for school tennis teams to use the courts at no charge.

    Mr. Rubenstein’s proposal calls for free court use for residents during the week in May and June, as well as for school teams, along with discounted clinics and court time for residents at other times. “We didn’t look at this as a business,” he said. His proposal is to “basically try to continue it as a town facility.”

    On its 23-acre property in Amagansett, Sportime has 33 tennis courts and operates a summer camp. None of the courts are enclosed. Mr. Okin said this week that he had “been working on getting permitting for indoor courts in Amagansett for 20 years.”

    The property is in a residential zone, but could be eligible for a designation as a recreational area, which could allow Sportime to apply for site-plan approval for enclosed courts. That process would require an application to the town board for a zone change, and to the planning board as well. Mr. Okin acknowledged earlier this week that creating the indoor courts on the town’s property, should his proposal be accepted, was an easier route and more attractive, economically.

    In his letter to the board, Mr. Rubenstein said that between his business and the Ross School there are 14 indoor tennis courts in East Hampton, and they are not fully utilized. Allowing the public courts to be enclosed, he said, would be “financially devastating” to those facilities.

    The effect of privatizing town recreational facilities on the public’s access to them, and their fees, has increasingly become a topic of discussion by members of the public who have commented at town board meetings and in letters to the editor and other forums. A town board discussion of the tennis court proposals may be taken up next week.

    Some have criticized the deal the town made with Sportime on the indoor hockey arena, which allows the Sportime camp to make use of the facility during weekday daytime hours when school is not in session, at a discounted, per-hour fee to the town.

    According to Mr. Okin, Sportime paid the town a total of $26,760 in license fees, including $17,212 for use of the arena and park in conjunction with the summer camp, covering the months of 2011 for which the license was in effect. For the first full license year ending in August, he said, the total is expected to be $50,000.

    Mr. Rubinstein said yesterday that he feared that numerous camps and recreation businesses would join forces with Sportime, allowing them access to the town facilities at the discounted rate, and forcing taxpayers who are not members of the various clubs or other entities to pay the maximum rate.

    “We were transparent with the town that the underlying economic opportunity for Sportime, in conjunction with the long-term investment in the Arena, was to be able to use the Arena, and the facilities at the Terry King park, in conjunction with our summer camp programs,” Mr. Okin wrote in an e-mail.

    “Like many others on the East End, we generate virtually our entire profit for the year over about 12 weeks in June, July, and August, so the prime business value of the opportunity at the Terry King park for Sportime is during those weeks, during weekday hours. The rest of the time, it is all about community and grass-roots programs.”

    Other criticisms have centered on whether the public is being afforded adequate access at affordable prices to the indoor hockey and soccer arena under Sportime’s management.

    “We haven’t eliminated any low-cost or community programs,” Mr. Okin said last week of his business’s oversight of the rink over the past year.

    The programs offered, he said, “are bigger than ever, and as available as ever.” He provided a schedule of activities at the site.

    Youth and adult programs are offered at rates of between $2.50 and $16 an hour, which he said are “comparable if not lower” than those offered by the rink’s previous operators.

    Mr. Okin said a number of the capital improvements to the rink building that were required under Sportime’s agreement with the town, some $300,000 worth, had been completed, including the correction of safety and fire code violations, and installation of air conditioning. Others, he said, such as the installation of indoor bathrooms and a snack bar, had been held up by the need to obtain County Health Department permits, but will be completed within 30 days.

    According to the licensing agreement, signed in December 2010, the improvements were to have been completed within a year.

    A three-floor, 31,000-square-foot compound on Halsey Lane in Bridgehampton, which is listed for sale for $49.5 million, raised the hackles of neighbors last month when its owner, Joe Farrell, a prominent builder of luxury houses on the South Fork, applied for permission to build an equestrian barn on his property.

    The spread, called Camp Farrell, includes a 12-bedroom house on a 3-acre parcel where Mr. Farrell and his wife and three children now live, and an adjacent 8.6-acre reserve, where a 4,410-square-foot barn is proposed that would house seven horses. It would add to the outdoor features of the compound, which already include a sunken tennis court, 60-foot swimming pool, and a baseball field.

    The house, which is named “Sandcastle,” is designed around a recreational pavilion, which has a 10-seat interactive theater, a D.J. booth, a spa and gym, basketball and squash courts, a two-lane bowling alley, rock wall, and a half-pipe skateboard ramp. According to the Web site Curbed Hamptons, it can be rented for two weeks in August for $550,000.

    The application now before the Southampton Town Planning Board is for a special exception permit for the barn and permission to relocate a deeded 20-foot-wide right of way onto the agricultural reserve, which had been set aside by the former owner of the property, Ahmet Ertegun, in 1999.

    At a well-attended public hearing of the planning board on Feb. 9, several neighbors spoke in opposition to the barn and took issue with the relocation of a gravel driveway.

    In an interview on Tuesday, Kristen Farrell called the house the “most detailed home yet.” Although it is listed for sale, she said “it was not our intention to sell it.” She explained that having the house on the market made it possible for prospective customers to see what the Farrell construction company was capable of. However, she added that they would sell it if the right offer were made.

    Debra Srb, a neighbor since 1994, objected to moving the access, fearing it would decrease the value of her property. She also complained about glaring spotlights, A.T.V.s, and the use of sprinklers and removal of sod on the reserve. Another neighbor, Daniel Rosen, called the proposal an inappropriate use of an agricultural reserve. He said that the deeded easement called for “no streets [or] roadways for non-farming use.” He also said the reserve was smaller than the 10 acres required as a minimum for equestrian barns in the town’s zoning code.

    Ms. Farrell disagreed. She said the code allowed the planning board to approve barns on smaller parcels provided they were for fewer than 10 horses and for private use. The relocation of the driveway had been a planning board recommendation, Ms. Farrell added. The driveway had been a planning board recommendation, Ms. Farrell added. The original access would have gone through neighbors’ yards and right beside a swimming pool, she said.

    Ms. Farrell said she was not prepared for the neighbors’ comments at the hearing, neighbors whose grandchildren, she said, have played baseball on their property. She alleged that other neighbors knew about the plans when purchasing their house. And, she added, those who complained at the hearing about parties on the property had not noted that they were benefits, for hospitals and other local causes.

    Mr. Farrell’s attorney, John Bennett, said on Tuesday that the proposed equestrian use was traditional and neither invasive nor dangerous, as another agricultural use, such as crop farming with pesticides, fertilizers, and fungicides, might be. He clarified a misconception that the barn required a variance, saying it was instead “a use permitted upon special exception, appropriate to the area.”

    “I guess the neighbors have no sense of mom and apple pie,” Mr. Bennett said, “They are against horses and baseball?”

    The only variance involved, Ms. Farrell said, is a matter of 10 feet. “The horse farm makes sense. It’s an equestrian community.” She said the couple were in no rush to complete the project, but believe they should have permission in place.

    According to documents on file, Bruce Anderson of Suffolk Environmental Consulting, a private firm, agreed “the use is consistent with the agricultural easement.” He confirmed, after questioning at the hearing, that the horses would be for private use, not for boarding, equestrian events, or commercial enterprise.

    The planning board had sent letters asking for recommendations to the Bridgehampton advisory council, the Southampton Fire Department and fire marshal, and the town agricultural advisory committee, engineer, and conservation board, and the county planner and Department of Health. It had left the hearing open for comments for 30 days, so a decision may be imminent.