William Bauer, 78, died on Friday night when the one-room cabin he shared with an adult stepson at the Cozy Cabins complex on Montauk Highway in Wainscott, exploded in a ball of fire. The small building was gutted and everything inside destroyed.

    Mr. Bauer was reported to have been bedridden following surgery and to be a smoker. His stepson, who was known to neighbors as Vinnie but did not want to be identified further, was out at the time the fire began. He arrived at the cabin to see smoke coming from it and, according to a neighbor, he knocked on all the windows, calling Mr. Bauer’s name, then opened the door. The fire exploded.

    The Bridgehampton Fire Department received the call at 6:15 p.m. The volunteers responded quickly and were able to put out the fire in about 15 minutes, but they were unable to get inside. The heat was reported to be so intense that it melted the siding on an adjacent cabin. The East Hampton Fire Department was also at the scene.

    Ivory King, who is among the residents who live in the cabins on a long-term basis, described stepping outside when she smelled smoke and seeing the inferno, as did Karen Antonez, another neighbor. “There was an explosion, like fireworks,” Ms. Antonez said.

    Thomas Baker, an East Hampton Town fire marshal, explained what apparently caused the explosion. “If a fire has been starved and you introduce oxygen to the room by opening a door or window, it causes an immediate flashover,” he said.

    Ms. King reported that Mr. Bauer’s stepson returned on Wednesday and that she assisted him in sifting through the ashes for any possessions. “The only thing we found was a crucifix,” she said.

    The fire is under investigation by Suffolk County Arson and Homicide Squads, which automatically take over when a fatality is involved.

    “It was probably some kind of accident,” Lt. Gerard Pelkofsky of the homicide squad said. It will be several weeks before the coroner’s office or the arson squad release their findings.

    “We don’t know for sure, but there are no indications of any foul play,” the lieutenant said. He added that the cause of the fire may never be known because of the total destruction of the contents of the cabin.

    Hamptons Escape Management of Bethpage, which operates Cozy Cabins, released a statement expressing deep sadness about the fire and expressing gratitude to the Bridgehampton Fire Department for its “prompt response and courageous acts in containing the fire to one cabin.” They also thanked the East Hampton Town Police Department.

    The Surf Lodge was in East Hampton Town Justice Court again on Monday to defend charges of 686 violations of town code and 1 fire code violation, and once again, the case was postponed.

    Justice Catherine A. Cahill emerged from a closed-door meeting with Pat Gunn, the town’s director of public safety, Robert Connelly, an assistant town attorney, and Colin Patrick Astarita, an attorney for the Surf Lodge, 45 minutes after court was scheduled to be in session.

    “We had a discussion in chambers,” Justice Cahill said. “Several proposals were put forward, and some were resolutions. For the bigger picture, nothing bigger is going to happen,” she said.

    Justice Cahill set the new court date for March 19, and said this would allow time for the town zoning board of appeals to consider the Surf Lodge’s appeal of the town’s senior building inspector, Tom Preiato’s, determination regarding a food cart and a covered wait service area at its Montauk property. On March 19, the court will consider all of the pending charges, Justice Cahill said.

    The owners of the Surf Lodge, Jamie Mulholland, Robert McKinley, and Edgemere Montauk L.L.C., face town code violations dating from May 28 through Sept. 16 of last year for having no building permit, no certificate of occupancy, no site plan approval, illegal clearing of wetlands, property maintenance issues, and overcrowding. The establishment was cited for between 1 and 13 violations daily, until it closed for the season.

    The defendants failed to appear for multiple court dates and were issued two criminal summonses and a warrant. There have been several adjournments, and Mr. Astarita filed a motion on Jan. 4 requesting that Justice Cahill recuse herself from the case on grounds of bias, which she refused on Jan. 30.

    The Surf Lodge is also seeking permission from the town planning board to legalize a food cart in its parking lot and a covered wait service area on its deck. Mr. Preiato dubbed the project an expansion of use on Dec. 6, and said it would require a natural resources special permit and variances.

    On Jan. 25, the planning board agreed with him and referred the owners to the zoning board of appeals.

    The property is in a residential zone and has two commercial uses that would not be allowed under current zoning, but were in place before restrictions prohibiting them. As of press time, the zoning board hearing on the Surf Lodge’s appeal of Mr. Preiato’s determination and a request for the variances and permits had not been scheduled.

    In an e-mail this week, Richard Kahn, chairman of the Concerned Citizens of Montauk’s legal committee, who was an observer in court Monday, speculated about the Surf Lodge’s success and its motivations to legitimize the food cart. “The likelihood of obtaining the needed variances is very small,” he said. “For example, with regard to the portable hot dog stand which requires a use variance, the Z.B.A. would have to find that in the absence of the variance, the Surf Lodge cannot realize a reasonable economic return from its property and that such hardship has not been self-created.”

    “One can only guess why the Surf Lodge would waste its time, and the time of the Z.B.A. and the planning board, in pursuing variances that they know they will not obtain. My guess is that they are simply seeking further delays in the adjudication of the 687 violations charged against them,” he added.

    Mr. Astarita defended the Surf Lodge and its use of the food cart in an e-mail on Tuesday. In the large number of pending violations, he said there are only two violations relating to overcrowding and one fire code violation that was corrected immediately. Mr. Astarita claims that most of the violations were for “the use of a small food truck at Surf Lodge for sandwiches.”

    “It is the town’s position that this truck requires a building permit and permission to be operated on the site. The Surf Lodge used the truck at times for selling sandwiches instead of using the hotel’s large kitchen, thereby reducing their environmental impact and energy consumption,” he said. According to Mr. Astarita, the food cart, which is registered with the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, received eight different code violations daily while it was in use over the summer. “The sheer number of violations gives the erroneous impression that the business is violating the law in a flagrant and dangerous manner,” he added.

    Mr. Astarita advocated for the Surf Lodge’s clean record when it comes to the environment, and a lack of criminal activity regarding its patrons. “The Surf Lodge has never been accused of any type of environmental violation, pollution, or other unsafe environmental condition at the hotel or restaurant,” he said, adding that the Surf Lodge is responsible for bringing money into the local economy. “They buy at the hardware store, liquor store, markets, and bakeries. They use local contractors, local landscapers, and local painters.”

    Additionally, “The Surf Lodge patrons shop in town, rent local houses, use the taxis, and eat in the local restaurants,” he said. “It appears quite unfair that all the positive aspects are pushed aside and all focus is placed on the number of violations pending and not their substance or legal content,” Mr. Astarita added. He referred the Surf Lodge’s attempt to legalize the food cart and said “in all likelihood [it] will be withdrawing that part of the application.”

    A Lindenhurst company that submitted the sole response to East Hampton Town’s call for proposals to privatize the town-owned scavenger waste plant wants to purchase the plant, on Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton, for $300,000, or lease it for $1,000 a month for a total term of 30 years, starting March 1, with a guaranteed option to buy it in the first five years.

    East End Processing Corporation is a subsidiary of Clear Flo Technologies, a company that owns and operates a wastewater facility in Lindenhurst as well as two other plants in Florida and Indiana.

    Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson said at a town board work session on Tuesday that he was ready to cut a deal with the company immediately.

    But other board members suggested taking time to fully examine all the options, and to further vet the provisions in East End Processing’s proposal.

    Mark Wagner of Cameron Engineering, a consultant to the town on the waste plant, was on hand. Mr. Wagner said that the cost of constructing a similar plant from scratch would be approximately $15 million. “Mark, you told me the other day that it is a $22 million facility,” Councilwoman Sylvia Overby interjected.

    “That asset’s not worth $22 million to anybody but somebody in that business,” Mr. Wilkinson said.

    Under the proposed terms, if East Hampton does not sell the plant to East End Processing right away, the town would be required to pay $18,575 per month to subsidize the costs of operating the site as a septic waste transfer station, for up to two years, or until three months after East End Processing gets the plant up and running as a fully operational waste treatment plant.

    The company would pay for repairs and capital improvements at the plant, but retain ownership of any new equipment that is installed.

    After it was built in the late 1980s, qualified town employees ran the plant, which is designed to process sewage pumped out of septic systems before discharging the final liquid product into the ground. Ten years ago, after those staffers left the town’s employ, the town began paying an outside company, Severn Trent, to oversee operations.

    Dissatisfied with how the plant was running — numerous violations from the State Department of Environmental Conservation were racked up between February 2008 and March 2011 — the town board declined to renew Severn Trent’s contract last fall and suspended waste treatment until problems could be fixed.

    Since January, Hamptons Septic Services has been operating the site as a waste transfer station, trucking deposits elsewhere for processing, under a short-term contract with the town.

    Finding a company willing to take the plant over, make the necessary changes, and keep it open as a treatment site  — “To me that’s a win,” Councilwoman Theresa Quigley said.

    “It’s not within our core competencies o run sewage treatment,” Mr. Wilkinson said. “That’s why you have to cede some things to the private sector. I would vote it right now,” he said.

    Although his 2012 budget, based on the assumption that the plant would be quickly privatized, contains only enough money to keep the plant open, solely as a transfer station, through the end of this month, Mr. Wilkinson said budget adjustments could be made if it is not immediately handed over.

    “I think we have to look at what it would take for the town to bring the plant back to proper operation,” Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc said. “Some of this relates to controlling what’s happening inside your town. I think we have to carefully look at all the options, because we’re talking about such a long-term impact.”

    If the town relinquishes its state permit to run a waste treatment plant, the ability to secure another in the future would be unlikely, Mr. Van Scoyoc pointed out.

    While all of the board members were provided with a written analysis of East End Processing’s proposal by Mr. Wagner, Councilman Van Scoyoc said he was surprised to learn, during the work session discussion, that the town budget officer, Len Bernard, had prepared a financial analysis. “It would be helpful to have a copy,” he said. The analysis was not available to the press, Mr. Bernard said Tuesday, as it had not yet been distributed to all members of the board.

    “Instead of just saying, ‘I agree with it, let’s go ahead,’ ” Ms. Overby told the supervisor, “I’d like to see the legal department look into how that agreement would be written.”

    Mr. Wagner agreed, saying the board should make sure the proposal contains no “deal-breakers.” He said he had known the principals of Clear Flo Technologies, who are relatives of Ralph Macchio, the actor who portrayed the “Karate Kid,” for 30 years.

    The proposed agreement calls for the ability to accept waste from outside East Hampton. Deborah Klughers, a town trustee who spoke at Tuesday’s board meeting, questioned the wisdom of processing more waste than necessary here, adding nitrogen from discharge to the ground, which can affect nearby waters and shellfish.

    Mr. Van Scoyoc pointed out that odor is “a major concern for those near the plant. What kind of input would the town have, what kind of controls?” he asked.

    And Councilman Dominick Stanzione suggested that discussion of what to do about the plant might be better in the context of a “comprehensive septic waste management plan” that includes provisions to address the impact of individual septic systems at residences throughout town. The board should “really use some serious planning techniques,” he said, to determine “where does the plan fall into a comprehensive plan?”

    “To me, the issue is environmental impact,” Ms. Overby said. “I do think there’s a responsibility the town has . . . because it discharges directly into groundwater, we need to make sure,” she said.

     One concern, she said by phone yesterday, is that the proposal specifies that pre-existing environmental problems remain the responsibility of the town. But, she said, no baseline conditions have been established. “We’re on the hook for everything,” she said, “and I don’t think the town should be on the hook for everything.”

    She also said she is uncomfortable with a provision of the proposed agreement that would allow East End Processing to seek D.E.C. approval to loosen the environmental standards that are now imposed.

    Mr. Wagner said Tuesday that it could cost up to $2 million to get the plant running in a way that, as Ms. Overby said, “you could practically drink what comes out the other end.” Bringing it up to minimum required standards would be less than that, he said, and there is grant money available.

    But, he said, he believes it would still be difficult for the town to find a qualified operator to hire. 

    “I cannot understand how we can deliver a core competency, even recruit a core competency, because it’s not resident here,” Mr. Wilkinson said.

    “I believe government should not be handling everything that comes its way,” said Ms. Quigley.

    “I guarantee you, at the pace you’re going right now, you’ll be here in October,” Mr. Wilkinson told the board.

    “I want plenty of time to go through it,” Ms. Overby said. “I would like the public to weigh in on it . . . to understand what we’re thinking about doing.”

     It may be almost impossible today for someone under 40 to believe that birth control was not legal in the United States until 1960, and then only between a husband and wife. The so-called “Comstock” chastity laws kept the sale of contraceptives illegal in eight states until 1966, the same year that Margaret Sanger, the founder of the modern birth control movement, died in Phoenix just shy of her 87th birthday.

    “She got to see the spread of the movement she started,” said Esther Katz, the editor and director of the Margaret Sanger Papers Project at New York University, and a Springs resident. Dr. Katz is at work on the final volume of the four-volume “The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger: Round the World for Birth Control, 1920-1966.” The series is taken from over 120,000 of Ms. Sanger’s papers and letters that continue to turn up all over the world, documents found in a 10-year international search of over 1,500 archives and private collections.

    Because of Ms. Sanger’s world travels promoting the birth control movement, “papers were scattered all over the place,” Dr. Katz said. She founded the project in 1985 as a historical editing project.

    The Margaret Sanger Papers Project put out a microfilm edition based on documents in the Smith College collections, which include over 50,000 of Ms. Sanger’s documents. “A lot of the stuff was private,” said Dr. Katz, who “hadn’t expected all the affairs,” the documentation of which includes “cryptic little postcards” from H.G. Wells.

    Margaret Sanger traveled around the world as a vocal supporter of birth control, “but her muted agenda was to give women the same freedom as men,” Dr. Katz said.

    Many of the letters that came to Ms. Sanger, and which are in the collection, are pleas for help obtaining birth control. “It’s heart-rending,” Dr. Katz said. “One says, ‘I have six children, my husband’s out of work, I’m already sick, please help.’ There are hundreds of letters like that.”

    Margaret Sanger first became a champion for contraception when she worked as an obstetric nurse on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It was there, in the early 1900s, where she saw up close and personal the high death rates for infants and mothers in that poverty-stricken area of New York, and decided to do something about it. She coined the term “birth control,” and saw it as a way of prolonging life and health in women. Her own mother had 18 pregnancies in two decades, and died early of cervical cancer.

    The first day her clinic opened in Brooklyn in 1916, over 100 women showed up. Only a week later, Ms. Sanger was arrested, along with two nurses. She reopened the clinic two more times, only to be arrested and have her clinic shut down permanently.

    In 1921, Ms. Sanger founded the American Birth Control League, which eventually morphed into Planned Parenthood. Ms. Sanger remained president until she turned 80.

    Planned Parenthood has been in the news this week, as the Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast-cancer foundation announced that it has withdrawn its funding for Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screening and other programs, leading to a social media outcry and resignations.

    “I know Margaret Sanger would be appalled by any effort to cut funds to any group that was working to keep women healthy, as well as to provide them access to reliable birth control,” Dr. Katz said. “In Sanger’s view, women’s health and access to birth control were one and the same.”

    “She looked at what she really believed would help women — not the vote. It was sexual freedom, to decide what they could do with their own bodies.”

    The Dunes, a private alcohol and substance-abuse facility at 26 Bull Run in the Northwest Woods section of East Hampton, has filed a lawsuit against the Town of East Hampton claiming that the town’s senior building inspector reversed his own 2010 approval of it, following a complaint from the owner of a rehabilitation center in Westhampton.

    Safe Harbor Retreat, the corporate owner of the Dunes, which opened in November 2010, filed papers in United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York on Jan. 25, claiming that the town is in violation of its constitutional rights, the Fair Housing Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

    The lawsuit also challenges a decision by Tom Preiato, the town’s top building inspector, that reversed his own March 2010 determination that had allowed the Dunes to open in a residential zone.

    In September, however, Mr. Preiato told the Dunes owners that it was a semipublic facility that would require site plan approval and an additional “special permit” from the town planning board.

    Safe Harbor Retreat seeks an injunction and monetary damages.    

    The lawsuit also claims that “By arbitrarily and illegally reclassifying 26 Bull Run described as something other than a single family use, the Town of East Hampton is threatening to make single family housing unavailable to persons recovering from drugs and alcohol addiction.”

    In an e-mail this week, Brian Sokoloff, partner at Sokoloff Stern in Westbury, who is an attorney for the town, said, “We reject the allegations in the complaint, particularly the charges that the Town of East Hampton has a discriminatory intent or bias against disabled individuals. The Town at all times has complied with the law, and intends to continue doing so.”

    “Cases cannot be litigated in the media. They get litigated in court with hard evidence, not racy headlines,” he said.

    In a letter dated Feb. 27, 2010, Joe McKinsey, founder and chief executive of the Dunes, told Mr. Preiato he intended to “establish a high-end executive retreat for men and women recovering from alcohol and drug dependence” in Northwest Woods, where they will live as a “family unit.” According to Mr. McKinsey, the residents “will live and cook together as a single housekeeping unit” for a recommended period of 11 months. Also, he wrote, residents will be under 24-hour supervision and cannot have vehicles.

    In a letter to Mr. Preiato dated March 1, 2010, Mr. McKinsey said he was applying for licensing for “community residential services” from the New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse. These types of services are defined by the state as “transitional” for people who are in the process of or have completed treatment, but cannot live on their own yet and need clinical support.

    Mr. Preiato met with Mr. McKinsey at the property, and rendered a written determination on March 4, 2010, that allowed the Dunes in a residential zone. Overcrowding and vehicles were non-issues; Mr. Preiato cited the East Hampton town code and said the residents functioning as a family unit for that time period entitled the facility to exist without the additional permit.

    Following Mr. Preiato’s approval, Safe Harbor Retreat moved forward with its plans, and, the lawsuit states, it spent approximately $2 million to open the Dunes. The lawsuit also claims that Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson, East Hampton Town Police Chief Eddie Ecker, and John Jilnicki, then the deputy town attorney, signed a letter on July 9, 2010, in support of the Dunes in its licensing application to the state. “The Town of East Hampton is looking forward to what will be the first of its kind on the East Coast: a private-pay comprehensive residential program,” it said. The application was approved, and the facility was ready for business in the fall.

    In April Mr. Preiato responded to a question from Mr. McKinsey as to whether lighted exit signs were necessary at the Dunes. He reiterated his determination that “the clients in your recovery program, although unrelated, function as a family unit in this residential setting,” and the “normal unobstructed doors” do not require exit signs.

    According to the lawsuit, Madeleine Narvilas, a former East Hampton Town attorney who is now the executive director of Safe Harbor Retreat, was told in September 2010 by Pat Gunn, the town’s director of public safety, that there had been complaints about the facility.

    Ms. Narvilas and Mr. Gunn met with Mr. Preiato to speak off the record. The lawsuit states, “She was told that the complaint arose from an article that appeared in the New York Post. She was told that the only complainant was George Benedict, the owner of Seafield, a 90-bed inpatient rehabilitation facility in Westhampton. Ms. Narvilas was asked if she would consider applying for a special permit based on a change in use, the suit claims.

    Mr. Benedict was unavailable for comment. In a phone interview this week, Mark Epley, the executive director of Seafield (Mr. Epley is also the mayor of Southampton Village) said, “We don’t view the Dunes as a competitor.”

    Mr. Preiato told Mr. McKinsey by letter on Sept. 27 that because the Dunes is “providing of on-site clinical addiction treatments and services, as well as the transient nature of your client’s varied residencies at the facility, it is now clear that such an operation is not permitted in a residential zone without site plan approval.” He advised that the Dunes could be classified as a semipublic facility, which requires a permit from the planning board. On Nov. 2 Mr. Preiato sent a notice of violation to Mr. McKinsey.   

    In response to Mr. Preiato’s reversal of his original determination, Mr. McKinsey wrote a letter to him on Nov. 11, and said he w

as “both baffled and mystified by your correspondence” and “it appears that you are attempting to backtrack from your completely unchallenged determination of over 19 months ago.”

    He asked that Mr. Preiato “consider standing proudly in support of your March 2010 determination and concurrent endorsements of the town’s highest ranking officials.”

    When asked about the lawsuit, Mr. Gunn said, “I can’t comment on it, it’s pending litigation.” Mr. Preiato, Mr. McKinsey, Ms. Narvilas, and Robert Schonefeld, an attorney for Safe Harbor Retreat with Moritt, Hock & Hamroff in Garden City did not return calls seeking comment.

    At Friday’s East Hampton Village Board work session, the mayor and board members put their heads together to try and come up with a definitive new law that would limit the size, position, and look of real estate and contractor signs in the village.

    A hearing in mid-January was held open to invite more public comments prior to the work session, but “nothing was sent in,” said Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. “The next point is to come up with an appropriate size.”

    The original law as first proposed shrank the seven square feet currently allowed for real estate signs to one and a half square feet, but the board reconsidered that size, “which we all agreed was too small,” the mayor said. The board settled on a square, 18-by-18-inch uniform size for all signs, including contractor and builder signs.

    The next question was whether signs would be displayed as they currently are most of the time: a two-sided sign hanging, usually from a white wooden post, perpendicular to the house it fronts. The mayor wants real estate signs to run parallel to the property’s front, which would mean that only a single side would be seen from the street.

    “There will be a hearing on this,” Mayor Rickenbach said. “And everyone will have a chance to speak on this. It’s a process.”

    There was also discussion on whether all real estate and contractor signs should be allowed to display colors or be a consistent black and white. “If they’re uniform, then anyone will know what it is when they see it,” said Barbara Borsack, a board member and the deputy mayor.

    “We would not be the first municipality to have a color code,” the mayor added.

    The proposed law will also affect the commercial district in the village, which has been derided recently for its ghost town feel, due in part to the large for-sale and for-rent signs in many of the windows on Main Street and Newtown Lane.

    Posts — wooden or metal, white or black — and their height were next on the agenda, but language will be refined before the next public hearing.

    “We’re 99 percent there,” Ms. Borsack said.

    The hearing will continue at the village board meeting on Friday, Feb. 17, at the Emergency Services Center, but another draft of the law and another hearing are likely before any of the discussed changes are adopted.

    Last week, the Town of East Hampton was poised to remove the lien it applied to a property on Montauk’s Fort Pond Bay because of the resident’s failure to pay his 2010 tax bill, which included a surcharge of $19,700 for removing cars and equipment that the town alleged had posed a danger to the community.

    The offer to remove the lien was part of a settlement agreement that the town proposed to the property owner, Tom Ferreira, who declined it, saying that the strings attached would preclude any effort to recoup losses.

    At issue — with perhaps far-reaching implications — is Mr. Ferreira’s contention that the civil servants who made the determination that he was in violation of town law, and who wrote the summonses that eventually led to the seizure of his property and the subsequent lien, lacked the authority to do so. 

    After removing the cars, car parts, and garage-related material from Mr. Ferreira’s property at 63 Navy Road three years ago, the town registered its lien with the county’s department of taxation and finance, and Mr. Ferreira, fearing the loss of the house that has been in his family since shortly after World War II, filed an Article 78 action against the town in State Supreme Court. The suit, filed on Oct. 10, 2010, charges that his constitutional right to due process was violated.

    During an appearance before Judge Peter H. Mayer last week, Robert Connelly, an assistant town attorney, requested an adjournment. It was one of several such requests made by the town since the suit’s inception. According to those close to the case, Judge Mayer had recommended, in the strongest terms, that the parties come to a settlement before the Jan. 31 hearing.

    That the town had made a settlement offer came to light in East Hampton Town Justice Court last week when Thomas Horn, a former East Hampton Town fire marshal, safety officer, and one of Mr. Ferreira’s lawyers, brought Justice Lisa R. Rana up to date on negotiations between the town and his client. Mr. Horn was in court discussing a separate matter regarding Mr. Ferreira.  

    According to Mr. Ferreira, he was given the town board’s settlement offer just hours before Judge Mayer’s deadline: The lien would be lifted if he agreed to hold the town harmless in the future regarding the events that led up to the removal of his property. He declined.

    Repeated calls to John Jilnicki, the town attorney, and Mr. Connelly to confirm the substance of the deal were not returned.

    “For nearly a decade my family and business have suffered due to the actions of the [Bill] McGintee administration and previous town boards. I thought justice might be found in the State Supreme Court, where the judge has tried to settle the matter since last summer,” Mr. Ferreira said.

    “The town received adjournment after adjournment from a very patient judge. With less than 24 hours until the judge’s final deadline, I received my first written offer from the town. I would have gladly taken it, but my only precondition was not there,” Mr. Ferreira said, referring to his refusal to forgive the town’s actions that led up to the lien on his property.

    On Jan. 31, Justice Mayer agreed to adjourn the matter until March 6, at which time a settlement will be announced, or he will hear opening arguments in a trial whose outcome could have implications well beyond Mr. Ferreira’s case.

      Mr. Horn is not serving as Mr. Ferreira’s attorney in the Article 78 suit. He was hired to help Mr. Ferreira negotiate a settlement. “My role in it was to act as a negotiator. The subject of the 78 was entering his property. The property was entered, things were destroyed and taken away,” he said. “I sought to resolve that. An agreement was not reached.”

    Mr. Horn said he believed his client was offered the settlement after the town board learned through its attorneys that the lien itself had not been registered with the county with the appropriate certification, an allegation that the town’s tax receiver, Monica Rottach, has disputed. The county purchased and assumed the lien from East Hampton Town on Aug. 10, 2010.

    Mr. Horn said the case against his client leading up to the lien was, like the execution of the lien, illegally prosecuted by agents of the town via trespass, false accusations, and by issuing summonses without the authority to do so. 

    Mr. Ferreira, a mechanic, has a pre-existing right to repair cars at his Navy Road property, within a bayfront community upzoned from industrial to residential in 1982.

    The current impasse started with accusations that Mr. Ferreira was operating a garage illegally, allegations that were disproved when town records showed that in September 2003, his Automotive Solutions, while perhaps less than scenic, was deemed a pre-existing, nonconforming use of his property. Mr. Ferreira held, and holds, both state and town licenses to operate an auto repair business. Nevertheless, complaints about Mr. Ferreira’s yard continued.

    On June 18, 2009, the town board unanimously authorized an enforcement action, pursuant to the town code’s chapter on litter, to remove material dangerous to the public’s health, safety, and welfare. The board was acting on the continuing complaints of neighbors as well as on the advice of Dominic Schirrippa, a code enforcement inspector and director of Ordinance Enforcement at the time.

    On at least two occasions beginning in March of 2008, Mr. Schirrippa and Kenneth Glogg, also an ordinance inspector, declared that Mr. Ferreira’s “abandoned cars, car parts, tires, propane tanks, and other combustible materials . . . contain gasoline, oil, possibly diesel fuel which, when ignited, would lead to possible catastrophic consequences.”

    But, in a letter dated the day before the board made its decision to seize Mr. Ferreira’s property, James Dunlop, a town fire marshal, wrote: “No violations of state and local code were noted” during an inspection of Automotive Solutions the month before.

    Mr. Ferreira was cited for violating the town’s litter statutes.

    On June 22, 2009, Trinity Transportation, the town’s outside contractor, hauled away 12 vehicles and other material from Mr. Ferreira’s property and charged the town $9,850 for the work. Trinity visited 63 Navy Road again later and removed eight more cars and other material, charging the town another $9,850. East Hampton billed Mr. Ferreira for the expenditure, and when he was unable to pay, imposed the lien.

    The seizure of Mr. Ferreira’s property went forward despite the fact that the case against him was still before East Hampton Town Justice Court. Pete Hammerle, a town councilman at the time, said it was the feeling of the board that Mr. Ferreira’s requests for a trial were a delay tactic.

    However, Pat Mansir, also serving on the town board in 2009, while at first voting to remove material from Mr. Ferreira’s yard, then voted against hiring Trinity Transportation.

    She said at the time that town workers had balked at removing material from a Maidstone Park property owned by Rian White earlier that year. She said there was a similar uneasiness about the legality of the Ferreira removals among town workers. “They felt we were going too far,” Ms. Mansir said.

    “Were we stepping on someone’s constitutional rights? When it came right down to it, the [town] attorneys didn’t seem that comfortable. So we stopped, and hired from the outside,” she said of the Rian White case. “Same with Ferreira. It was a bad decision,” Ms. Mansir said.

    Mr. Ferreira said on Monday that he refused the town’s deal for a number of reasons. There was the question of the $140,000 in vehicles and materials taken from his property, attorneys fees, as well as the overriding fact that he believes the town had overstepped its legal authority from the start.

    Mr. Ferreira claims that the town’s agents who wrote the summonses that eventually led to the Trinity Transportation’s visits to his property were code enforcement “inspectors,” not code enforcement “officers.” Mr. Horn claims there is a fundamental difference.

    In 2007, apparently in the interest of saving money (inspectors are paid less than officers) the town board decided to leave the job of code enforcement in the hands of civil servants with the rank of inspector.

    Although the board had proposed a law in October of that year that would have allowed the town to empower inspectors with greater enforcement authority, as provided by the state and county, a resolution that would have accomplished that met with public opposition and was not passed.

    “All the things they were writing is enforcement. They had no right. After 2007, the town can’t argue what they have now does the job,” Mr. Horn said.

    Patrick Gunn, the town’s public safety division administrator and an assistant town attorney, disagrees. Mr. Gunn said he could not comment on Mr. Ferreira’s Article 78 proceeding, but as to needing a resolution of the town board to give ordinance inspectors the authority to enforce the town code, he said, “I believe they are authorized to enforce the code.”

    The Ross School is known for its innovative academic model, its gorgeous campuses, and its holistic approach to education, along with its hefty tuition. The “Ross community,” as it is known, consisting of faculty, staff, parents, and students, is charged with the task of being the school’s shareholders and its ambassadors.

    But as of late, there have been rumblings that this ideal may be fraying at the edges.

    First came a decision at the beginning of the school year to designate Mandarin a mandatory language, followed later in the year by the resignations of several key leaders, including the head of school, Michele Claeys. But it was a meeting on Jan. 27 with Courtney Ross, who founded the school 20 years ago and has funded it since then, that had parents and other members of the Ross community more confused than ever about the direction of the school.

    “The meeting was interesting,” said Dominic LaPierre, a Ross parent of three. “I expect everyone — the administration, parents, teachers, and students, as well as the board members — left disappointed.”

    “Every time I ask a question, it’s greeted with avoidance,” Joe Schrank, another school parent, said. “It’s been off-putting.”

    Some parents interviewed said that the problems at the private school, with campuses in East Hampton and Bridgehampton, began when Mrs. Ross’s New York City charter school, the Ross Global Academy, was shuttered by the New York City Department of Education last year for its poor performance, and attention was turned once again to the original model.

    Several new initiatives have been put into the works at Ross, including a new Ross Academy focus on science, math, and technology, and a decision to move the sixth grade back to the Lower School campus in Bridgehampton to make room for the growing upper grades.

    In August, a directive was issued to make Mandarin a required language, with a degree of fluency to be achieved by graduation, and the relegation of Spanish to elective status. The Ross School has of late become a boarding school as well, with many students from Asia, but Mrs. Ross maintained in an interview with The Star in September that this was not the reason for the new language requirement.

    “China’s economy is booming,” she said. “It’s predicted that their economy will surpass ours in 10 years. And it’s many people’s opinion — not just mine, but the State Department, the leaders of this country — that students with a degree of fluency in Mandarin will possess a skill set that is highly valued. They will be able to build bridges with other nations as a result.”

    A student-generated petition arrived at The Star several weeks ago, with the names of those who signed it torn off, although it was estimated by parents interviewed that over 50 percent of the high school’s students lent their signatures to the document. The students expressed excitement over some of the new initiatives announced recently by the Ross administration, including the new science and math academy, but they also recognized “some flaws” in the school’s proposal to have its students master three languages.

    “If the goal of the initiative is to have students be trilingual upon graduation, [. . .] a more beneficial way of execution would be to offer a broader spectrum of language courses instead of eliminating options,” the petition read.

    While curriculum was one of the subjects discussed at the meeting with Mrs. Ross on Jan. 27, more parents were reportedly concerned over the general operation of the school. In addition to Ms. Claeys giving notice, Andi and Bill O’Hearn, the director of college counseling and the middle school director, respectively, also tendered their resignations.

    “When your leadership implodes and you say, ‘But look, we’re a world-class tennis academy,’ it’s all icing and no cake,” Mr. Schrank said.

    Parents have also expressed their frustration at the inability to get answers. “It’s developed into a culture of secrecy,” Mr. Schrank said.

    A letter from parents was hand-delivered to Mrs. Ross in mid-January, congratulating her on the 20th anniversary of the school before launching into a list of concerns about recent “unsettling events.”

    “A number of esteemed faculty members have either left campus, given notice, or are currently seeking other employment opportunities,” the letter states. “The result is a widespread level of confusion and lack of confidence within the Ross community.”

    Other points in the letter included suggestions to re-evaluate the school’s governing structure “with the focus on greater transparency,” design a three-year strategic plan, and hold more meetings between the board of trustees and the Ross School community.

    Parents interviewed for this article said they felt that their concerns and questions fell on deaf ears at the Jan. 27 meeting. Dozens of parents sent e-mails to Mrs. Ross prior to the get-together, and many expected those questions and comments would be addressed in a conventional Q-and-A format.

    However, that is not what occurred. Instead, Mrs. Ross offered a half-hour talk prior to discussion. During that talk, said Patti Silver, a Ross parent and president of the school’s board of overseers, “Courtney answered every question and spoke very clearly. There’s a difference,” she said, “between questions not being answered, and not liking the answer.”

    “I’m also on the board of the Ross Institute,” Ms. Silver said. “And we read every letter, every question, every document that came in.”

    Ms. Silver acknowledged that Ms. Claeys’s announcement just prior to the December break, followed by the O’Hearns’ announcement on Jan. 1 that they were also leaving, created “a perfect storm of unrest, confusion, and the feeling that something wrong was underlying all of this.” There isn’t, she said.

    “It’s coincidental,” agreed Philip Turits, a parent with a junior and senior at Ross. Mr. Turits offered what he called a “balanced perspective,” based on his years as a Ross parent and his experience as former vice-chairman of the Hampton Day School’s board of trustees. While he acknowledged the concerns parents expressed over changes in upper level management, “there are always bumps in the road,” he said.

    “What we’re most concerned with is getting a good education for our children,” Mr. Turits said. “Lisa and I are very satisfied with the education our children have received at Ross,” he said, crediting a few “outstanding teachers that were absolutely inspirational to our kids.”

    Bill O’Hearn said that he and his wife, Andi, were offered “the chance of a lifetime” to work together in Beijing. “It’s the only reason I would leave Ross,” said the former Asian studies major and past head of school. As to the convergence of resignations in a short period of time, Mr. O’Hearn said, “I wouldn’t connect the dots to make it something more sinister than it looks.”

    “Hiring the next head of school is key to settling the waters,” he said, and Ms. Silver agreed. “Trust needs to be established. Now is not the time to vilify the leadership.”

    Mr. O’Hearn added that the administrators who attended the meeting on Jan. 27 “listened to the questions and are writing responses to be sent out by the end of the week.” Ms. Silver, Mr. Turits, and Mr. O’Hearn all said that Mrs. Ross is working on establishing better communications between parents, administration, and the board of trustees.

    A release issued by the school stated: “The Board supports the development of the international student population at Ross School as part of the learning experience for all students, and supports the administration in developing instructional programs that address the needs of individual groups of students as well as the needs of global learners.”

    “Courtney is constantly pushing the envelope as to the best way to educate our kids,” Ms. Silver said, adding, “Change is always turbulent.”

    A first look at the East Hampton School District’s proposed budget for 2012-13 on Tuesday evening brought Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s 2-percent tax levy cap up close and personal — to the tune of a possible $2.85 million gap.

    The figures used to arrive at the gap are far from complete, however, Isabel Madison, the district’s business administrator, said, acknowledging frustration at the lack of hard numbers.

    All municipalities in the state are required to have property tax calculations written in stone by March. But, Ms. Madison pointed out, the district did not yet know what its contributions to the teachers retirement system would be nor has East Hampton Town provided a definitive assessment of taxable properties. So the budget, she said, was fairly nebulous.

    The potential budget gap presented Tuesday was arrived at by taking the 2011-12 tax levy of $42.97 million and adding an estimated amount for the growth of the tax base. Doing so increased the tax levy by $1.27 million and the tax rate by 3.9-percent over this year.

Were East Hampton to continue to provide the same programs and comply with a 3.1-percent aggregate increase in mandated teacher salary steps (which add up to approximately $1.1 million), and taking into account expected cuts in state funding, the district would be looking at a shortfall of $2.85 million. No salary increases were included for administration and noncontractual workers.

    “This is a moving target,” Ms. Madison said. “There is so much information we don’t have yet.”

    The 2011-12 budget was $64.41 million; 2012-13, with an estimated 4-percent increase it would come to $65.44 million. “I used the 4-percent increase per year just for people to get an idea,” Ms. Madison said. “She’s minimizing it,” Richard Burns, the interim district superintendent, commented.

    Even if the teachers’ step increases were taken out of the equation, an additional $1.7 million would have to be cut from the proposed budget. “It’s a very significant cut, to say the least,” Mr. Burns said.

    If the budget was not approved, and also did not pass after a second vote, the district would be forced to adopt a contingency budget, with a 0-percent increase and  $4.5 million in cuts.

    Patricia Hope, a board member, who had been a longtime high school teacher, said she remembered what austerity was like in the late 1970s. “There were no sports, no after-school activities at all,” she said. “It was a dreadful year for the children in this community.”

    In order to pierce the 2-percent cap, 60 percent of taxpayers would have to approve a proposed budget that caused the tax levy to be higher. But Ms. Madison pointed out that budgets needed to be examined over a three-year period. The 2-percent cap is tied to the New York City rental market and is in effect until June 15, 2016, unless rent control is extended.

    “The truth is, the Board of Education of New York State will have to pierce the cap,” Ms. Madison said. She added that school districts may be able to fill the gaps with reserves at first, “but what’s going to happen when there’s no fund balance available anymore?”

    “It’s going to be like using your entire savings account,” Ms. Hope said.

    “Even in the most benign situation, we still have to cut around $2 million a year,” Mr. Burns warned.

    “In order to meet the 2-percent cap, everyone is going to have to work together,” Jacqueline Lowey, a school board member, said.

    One silver lining is early retirement that the district is offering those who have been employees for over 10 years. The incentive program includes a one-time bonus of 13-percent of the worker’s most recent annual salary.

    “The deadline for incentives is Feb. 10,” Ms. Madison said. “That number is going to be really important for us.”

    Sharing services with other districts is another way to make cuts, which was recommended by the district’s citizens advisory committee.    

    “How serious are we about shared services?” queried Alison Anderson, a board member. “Are we going to actually do something about it? Because I don’t want to waste time discussing it if we’re not.”

    “If not, the cuts to educational programs are going to be just extraordinary,” said Laura Anker Grossman, the school board president.

    “But are we realistic in thinking we’re going to get anywhere significant for this year?” asked George Aman, another board member. “I think the answer is no.”

    Mr. Burns agreed somewhat. “Realistically, shared services would be in the realm of transportation and special services.” However, he added that he did not want to contribute to an illusion that sharing would get going in the coming year and save significant money. “It’s a process,” he said

    The next school board meeting is on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. in the district office. “And we’re going to start going line by line at the next meeting,” Dr. Grossman said. “Slice and dice, stage two,” Ms. Hope added. The next budget work session is scheduled for Feb. 14.

     Dr. Grossman also suggested a meeting with the East Hampton Town Board, “sooner rather than later.”

    “When the town made those major cuts in social services, it expected Project MOST and other nonprofits to take over, but then cut funding to them as well. So the school district is all that’s left,” she said.

    What had been called the most “genteel address” of its time, the Nathaniel Rogers House in Bridgehampton, will soon be brought back to much of its former glory as renovations continue to move ahead.

    One of the finest examples of a Greek Revival residence in New York State, according to the National and New York State Registers of Historic Places, the house on the southeast side of the intersection of Montauk Highway and Ocean Road became an architectural landmark when its owner, Nathaniel Rogers, spent his accumulated wealth on its design and renovation in the 1830s.

    Today’s renovations are being done by the Bridgehampton Historical Society, which now owns the Nathaniel Rogers House, with additional financial support from Southampton Town and New York State. All told, the project is expected to cost $6 million, according to John Eilertsen, executive director of the society.

    As some of the most visible exterior work is completed in the coming months, passers-by will finally be able to see the results of efforts that have thus far been largely behind the scenes. It’s taken a good deal of historic structure research, not to mention engineering and architectural design work, to reach the point the restoration is at now, and along with that have come some interesting surprises, Mr. Eilertsen said.

    Among them was the discovery of two cooking hearths from about 1820, around the time that Abraham Topping Rose built the original house. The portion of the residence that still exists from that period is one of the earliest known remnants to have survived on Main Street from the period of the 1720s to the 1820s. A whiskey bottle and a box of cigarettes were also found between the wall and floor, and have been archived for inclusion in a future exhibit.

    Mr. Rose, the original owner, was born in Bridgehampton in 1792 and built the house for himself and his wife, Eliza Van Gelder, just after their marriage in December of 1823. A Yale University graduate and attorney, Mr. Rose lived his life in Bridgehampton, serving as a county judge. He was a popular speaker, renowned for “his remarkable knowledge and vocal skill,” according to “History of Suffolk County” an 1882 book by Henry P. Hedges.

    Mr. Rose and Nathaniel Rogers had known each other since the elementary grades and were well acquainted during their lifetimes. Mr. Rose eventually built himself a larger residence for his household of 11 people on land his parents owned across the street, and sold his first house to Mr. Rogers for $4,000.

    Mr. Rose’s house on the northwest corner of the same intersection, known in recent years as the Bull’s Head Inn, is also being renovated, with expectations of its being open to the public this summer as the Topping Rose House, an inn with seven guest rooms and eventually much more, when completed in about a year. The project’s blueprints promise that “alteration and restoration of the inn shall comply with the Secretary of Interior’s standards for the treatment of historic properties.”

    It is interesting to many, including Sally Spanburgh of the Bridgehampton Historical Society, that both houses are being restored at the same time. Mr. Rogers and Mr. Rose had a significant connection. Mr. Rose presented Mr. Rogers with his first set of watercolors and paintbrushes when he was badly injured while working as an artistic apprentice to a shipbuilder in his younger years.

    Mr. Rogers became a renowned miniature portrait painter, and was also a creator of other genres of art and design work in Manhattan and on the East End. Many of Mr. Rogers’s miniatures can be found in museum collections, including that of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A founding member of the National Academy of Art and Design, he is also said to have been involved in the design of the Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church.

    Born in Bridgehampton in 1787, Mr. Rogers married Caroline Matilda Denison of Sag Harbor, and the couple had six children. Mr. Rogers achieved success through his artistic career, and used much of it to improve his house, including elaborate decorations such as the cupola on the roof, carved with a pineapple finial. He expanded the house to include its two-and-a-half-story temple front structure with flanking one-story wings and iconic columns. He added a new entrance hall in front, four rooms to the first floor, and two bedrooms to the second floor. Mr. Rogers retired in 1839 to Bridgehampton at the age of 52, and died shortly after from tuberculosis. Many of his family members are buried in the cemetery by the Presbyterian church.

    The restorations under way now will take the exterior of the house back to the era when Mr. Rogers expanded and remodeled it. The inside of the house will reflect the period between 1858 and 1873, when the house was owned by James R. Huntting, a whaling captain, Mr. Eilertsen said. The Rogers-Huntting residence was then called the Hampton House, and was a boarding house and restaurant.

    The landscaping will evoke Nathaniel Rogers’s time in the house, minus the livestock, which at one time included a cow, two horses, two ponies, and chickens. The society’s photos of mature trees taken from 1840 to 1880 are being referred to, as is documentation about the philosophy of landscaping in that era.

    The historical society will use the house as a museum, with changing exhibits and a climate controlled archive, space for records viewable by the public, and staff work space. Mr. Eilertsen plans a permanent exhibit on whaling, in honor of Captain Huntting. Loaned collections have been promised by East End residents, and others have been bequeathed to the society upon the deaths of their owners, among them a metal toy and bank collection that Mr. Eilertsen said is the fifth largest in the world.

    As weather permits, the exterior of the house is being painted. Next, workers will reassemble the interior center staircases.

    Inside, workers are removing mold that Mr. Eilersten said is most likely due to rainy weather and lack of heat for seven years. Workers will repair and restore the building’s framing and foundation, which Mr. Eilertsen said was “underdesigned” in 1820. Its roof and gutters will be replaced, and the four columns in front of the house, which have been held up for years by makeshift planks with rotted bases, will be replaced, as well.

    After the columns are complete, windows, doors, shutters, and a baluster rail will be replaced. An ornamental cupola will be rebuilt. Heating, plumbing, and electrical work will come next, and then a large portion of the house’s south wing will be removed and replicated.

    Already the historical society has received $1.3 million from Southampton Town and $700,000 from New York State toward the restoration, but it needs another $2 million just to finish the first phase of renovations.

    When the work is finished, the Nathaniel Rogers House will sit on one corner of an intersection that will look radically different than it does now. Not only are the former Rogers and Rose houses being renovated, but a dilapidated beverage store that stood on the northwest corner of that intersection has been demolished and a new building is planned in its place. “It’s going to be a really fancy corner,” Mr. Eilertsen said.