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.

    A proposal to demolish the 1,874-square-foot Harbor Heights service station building in Sag Harbor and build a convenience store in its place, while also expanding the auto repair garage and replacing the gas pumps there, was open for public discussion at the Sag Harbor Village Planning Board’s meeting on Tuesday evening.

    Petroleum Ventures L.L.C.’s proposal for the property also calls for new curb cuts along Route 114, improved drainage, new landscaping and lighting, a new septic system, and formalizing the parking area and pedestrian access.

    Richard Warren, the village’s environmental planning consultant, made it clear from the start that the hearing was to gather public input on the application’s environmental impact, and was “not a pep rally” for or against it.

    He detailed the issues that the zoning board of appeals had asked the applicant to address, including the project’s impact on water quality, aesthetics, neighborhood character, and traffic.

    A handful of people were in attendance, but only one member of the public commented. Michael Butler, who owns a house perpendicular to the applicant’s property, submitted aerial photos to the board, and said that a Dumpster planned for the southwest corner of the Harbor Heights lot is right behind his property. “I would prefer that the Dumpster be relocated so that it doesn’t impact my property,” he said. With no further public comment, the public hearing was adjourned until the Feb. 28 meeting.

    Another application discussed at the meeting was Danny Cheng’s request to change the use of a retail clothing store at 2 Main Street to a retail store for the sale of yogurt. Having received the Suffolk County Department of Health’s approval, the board agreed that the change of use would not increase wastewater, sanitary flow, or parking, and the application was approved with no requirement of a site plan.

    Sen restaurant’s proposal for a 550- square-foot addition to its kitchen, and to reconfigure a bathroom and the bar area, was also addressed. The board questioned whether the renovation would require additional parking, or would create additional seating in the restaurant. The applicant’s desire to also renovate the second and third floor apartments led to the board’s request for an amended proposition.

    The East Hampton Village Board held a public hearing on Friday on a law that would restrict the size of real estate signs from the currently allowed seven square feet to one and a half square feet. The room was packed with people, but no one spoke out against the proposed code amendment, though some did say it was a little too restrictive.

    “When this sign change came about, I was really interested,” said Sarah Minardi, an agent with Saunders and a village resident. “But one and a half feet is very, very small. It really doesn’t showcase the house at all.” Ms. Minardi held up a sign she had brought to the hearing, which was 16 by 24 inches or a little more than three square feet, the size that Saunders agents use in the village.

    “This is only a first step,” Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr., told the crowd. “This is the beginning of a conversation.”

    The board and the audience agreed that the additional signs that hang down from the main real estate sign are an unnecessary eyesore.

    “I am lending support for the change,” said J.B. D’Santos, a broker with Brown Harris Stevens. “It interferes with the beauty of our village, especially the addition of the riders,” he said. “I think we’re moving in the right direction.” Westhampton and Shelter Island both use real estate signs that are one and a half square feet, as does Palm Beach, Fla.

    John Gicking, the manager of the  East Hampton office of Sotheby’s International Realty, applauded the board for taking this preliminary step. “I abhor the signs in the village,” he said. “They are too many and too big. We’ve tried out the very small size, the same as Palm Beach, and we’ve had the same level of calls.”

    “I don’t think signs are the way brokers sell homes,” he added. “I fully support this effort.”

    “There will be more hearings before we decide anything,” said Elbert Edwards, a board member. Mayor Rickenbach added that the board had already decided to allow more time to come into compliance than had been proposed in a draft of the law — changing 60 days to 90 days “assuming there’s a resolution.”

    The matter will be left open for public discussion until the board’s work session next Thursday, when it will be discussed again in more depth.

    In other village government news, John Lundy of the auditing firm Lundy and Co. offered a favorable snapshot of the village’s finances. He reported that East Hampton Village holds total assets of about $3.6 million, with liabilities of approximately $300,000, leaving a fund balance of $3.3 million, which constitutes about 18 percent of the total budget.

    “It’s a very healthy balance,” he said. “Ten percent used to be the norm, but you need to have larger fund balances and reserves, because in a small town, if something goes wrong, it can go very wrong.”

    He applauded Larry Cantwell, the village administrator, for “a very good year.”

    “Every year Larry and his staff do the best job we’ve seen out of the 30 municipalities we audit,” he said. “You guys should go on tour.”

    Questions are surfacing about the future of East Hampton Town’s septic waste plant, as the town board is poised to review proposals from private companies interested in leasing and operating the plant. The proposals are due in today.

    The 2012 budget, adopted last fall, includes only enough money to operate the facility, known as the scavenger waste disposal plant, until the end of February. Yet Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, who took office at the beginning of this month, suggested at a meeting last Thursday that numerous questions have yet to be fully answered, including whether it may be better for the town in the long run to maintain control of the plant.

    The plant accepts septic waste pumped from residential and business cesspools by carters who are charged per gallon for dumping. If those costs rise, it would become more expensive to have cesspools pumped, or carters may choose to drive elsewhere to dump, creating traffic and perhaps making the East Hampton plant inoperable, because a certain volume of septic waste is required in order for the plant to run.

    A report issued last spring by the town’s budget and finance advisory committee laid out the questions and issues related to the plant, and analyzed options including pursuing a county takeover of the facility, closing it, turning it into a transfer station only, and privatizing it.

    The committee recommended that the town immediately conduct an environmental review to ensure that the plant could be run safely, without polluting groundwater. Although members of the town board insisted on not discussing them in public, it was subsequently revealed that citations had been issued repeatedly between February 2008 and last March for excessive levels of various elements, including nitrogen and mercury, in discharge from the plant, part of what the state agency called an “ongoing problem.”

    Plans to privatize the facility were developed by consulting engineers and the town board in executive session, and then outlined at a public board meeting last fall.

    Ms. Overby said last Thursday that over the last two years Supervisor Bill Wilkinson and his administration had held summits on deer management and business. The future of the waste treatment plant, she suggested, is also worthy of comprehensive discussion that includes a wide segment of the public.

    Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc, her Democratic counterpart, agreed. “It seems to me we need a broad discussion about all the different options, and the direction that the town needs to go in. There are a number of questions that I think merit having open discussions.”

    The town has been paying about $1 million a year for the plant, which included paying an outside firm, Severn Trent, to operate it. About $400,000 in annual revenue comes in.

    Faced with a deadline in the fall to inform Severn Trent whether the contract would continue, the town board sent a letter saying that it would not be extended.

    Because of the environmental issues, and pursuant to an agreement with the State Department of Environmental Conservation, waste processing at the plant was suspended as of the beginning of the year, and plans made to temporarily operate it as a transfer station only until long-term decisions could be made.

    In late December, the town accepted a bid from a private septic waste company, Quackenbush Cesspools, to run the transfer station. But on Jan. 6, Quackenbush informed the town that it was withdrawing, citing an inability to obtain the proper legal certifications in time.

    Hamptons Septic Services, a company owned by Patrick Schutte, who was just reappointed to the town planning board, was the next highest bidder and so was then awarded the bid. Hamptons Septic holds the town contract for cesspool pumping services, and has done so for several years.

    Quackenbush would have charged the town 13 cents a gallon to haul away septic waste, and 30 cents a gallon for grease, while Hamptons Septic’s price is 14 cents a gallon for septic waste and 30 cents for grease.

    Under the town’s operation of the plant, through Severn Trent, carters could dump septic waste there for 11.5 cents a gallon.

     However, on Dec. 20, after accepting the bid from Quackenbush, the town board increased the charge for dumping waste at the plant to 13.5 cents a gallon for septic waste, and 28 cents a gallon for greasy waste, effectively decreasing the potential margin of profit for the company if it had begun operating the plant as a transfer station.

    With the short-term plan in place, the board must turn to the plant’s long-range future. Councilman Dominick Stanzione said that the proposals due today would be reviewed publicly.

    “Are these bids going to be the decisive factor on the future of the plant?” Jeanne Frankl, an Amagansett resident, asked the board at last Thursday’s meeting. Ms. Frankl is also chairwoman of the East Hampton Town Democratic Committee. Her position prompted Councilwoman Theresa Quigley to accuse her of politicizing the issue.

    In a letter to the editor published in The Star this week, Zachary Cohen, who lost his bid for supervisor on the Democratic ticket this fall by 15 votes, said that “Given the environmental importance of how the plant operates, as well as the importance of how the total cost for this service will rise or fall with each option, the town board is much too hastily and much too secretively heading toward ‘privatizing’ another town asset.”

    “The matter of the disposition of our waste is a problem of momentous importance to every single resident and business person in our town,” Ms. Frankl said at last week’s meeting.

    She asked whether other “objective data,” such as groundwater reports, would be taken into account. Information provided by the town’s consultants on the plants, Cameron Engineering, would be considered, Councilwoman Quigley told her.

    With proposals on privatizing the plant just coming in, and only a minimal amount of money budgeted for its operation, “there’s not much time before we would be spending more than is in the budget,” should the board choose to move in a different direction on the plant, Councilwoman Overby said. There was a time, she said, when it operated in the black.

    “We the town are not equipped to operate a scavenger waste plant,” Ms. Quigley said. “Not only was it a revenue loss, but it was a D.E.C. nightmare.”

    “I think you focus on the core competencies,” Supervisor Wilkinson said. “And the core competencies are not that you operate a scavenger waste.”

    You open the front door of the old house and are confronted by low ceilings. The wood floor gently rises and falls having settled into the lay of the land over the course of centuries. The hallway is narrow, and so is the main staircase to the second floor. The bedrooms are small. Nooks appear here and there, built in unexpected places for uses that disappeared long ago.

    In the basement and in the attic, where the original peg-fastened mortise-and-tenon construction is visible, and in other parts of the house where the lathe and plaster ceiling is revealed, sounds from outside, a truck going by, a siren, even the house’s electrical refinements, are incongruous.

    At first, its small scale seems to shrink from the bluster of the present, but soon one is drawn by its pleasant confinements into a time that in many ways seems bigger than now for the self-reliance of its scant population. The wind whistles through unseen places, or is it the walls whispering, “We were here first.”

    The house in question is known as Congress Hall, located at 177 Main Street in East Hampton Village across from the South End Burying Ground and the old Mulford farmhouse. It’s south of where it once stood, originally a sloping-roofed saltbox built in 1680 with what Robert Hefner, a historic preservation consultant, described as a plaster cove cornice where roof meets wall. The cornice is still there, “a hallmark of early Georgian design that caught on here,” Mr. Hefner said.

    In 1805, the saltbox lost its sloping roof and was converted to a two-story house. An extra room was added to accommodate “the slave girls,” according to Mulford family tradition.

    At about the same time, an apple orchard was planted between it and the house’s future location. The orchard supplied fruit to the South Fork via a Sag Harbor market, and later became the subject of etchings by Thomas Moran and Mary Nimmo Moran.

     At one time, the entire house lot from Buell Lane south to the 1650 Thomas Baker House, now an inn, was owned by the Mulford family. John Mulford had arrived in Southampton from England in 1643 and moved to East Hampton five years later, where he became one of its English founders. In 1902 the house was moved to its present location at the southern end of the lot.

    In the late 17th century the house lot was owned by William Mulford, John Mulford’s son. He, in turn, left it to his son Thomas, but none other than Samuel Mulford, a cousin, purchased it from him.

    Samuel (Fishhooks) Mulford became a fixture in local lore. It might have been in the original saltbox that he made plans to sail to London to complain about the tax on whale oil that the town’s near-shore whalers were being forced to pay contrary to the guarantees of their founding Dongan Patent.

    Forewarned of the pickpockets who plied the big city, Samuel Mulford sewed fishhooks into his pockets to catch them in the act, earning him his nickname. In 1724, he deeded the property to his son Timothy, a cabinetmaker.

    According to Jeannette Edwards Rattray in her “Up and Down Main Street,” a history of the older houses in East Hampton, a section of the old house that had been removed when Buell Lane was widened (they might have said “widdened” at the time) became the house’s garage after it was moved.

    Mrs. Courtland Mulford told Mrs. Rattray about the straw matting that had been packed around the window inside the casing for insulation. “Someone told me that in the early days ships brought tea in bags from China to Sag Harbor and these tea bags, which resembled matting, were used at the time for the purpose of insulation,” Mrs. Mulford had said.

    In 1855, the house was owned by David B. Mulford, who lived from 1800 to 1876. Around this time, the house got the name Congress Hall because it had become a general meeting place for the men of the community. They no doubt shared a glass and talked about the events of the day, most certainly the 1876 presidential election.

    Rutherford B. Hayes, a Republican from Ohio, had defeated Samuel J. Tilden, a New York Democrat. It was the first time in U.S. history that a candidate had won an absolute majority of the popular vote, but was not elected by the Electoral College. In return for Democrats accepting the outcome, Republicans agreed to remove federal troops from the South, thus ending post-Civil War Reconstruction.

    Congress Hall is for sale and is listed with Devlin McNiff Halstead Property realty as “an antique home full of East Hampton’s rich history and lore,” which it surely is.

    From the street, the three-century-old, peaked-roof part of the structure is on the right side. A flat-roofed addition was added in 1902. It has four bedrooms with two baths and “is the perfect candidate for a loving restoration and renovation,” according to the real estate firm’s materials. The price is $1.25 million, a number that could have bought a good deal of Long Island three centuries ago.

    Mr. Hefner said Congress Hall was a “time capsule” whose heavy timber frame was original and still in good shape. The roof rafters were from the 1805 renovation, as were the interior woodwork, lathe, and stucco paneling. “It absolutely can be resurrected, he said.”

    Cornelia Dodge is the agent handling Devlin McNiff’s exclusive listing. “The Mulford Farm, Home, Sweet Home, and this are the Mulford triplets,” she said referring to Congress Hall and the two 17th-century houses on James Lane. “It wants to be a saltbox,” she said in announcing her preference for a restoration.

    “The old beams and pegs. There would be so many happy surprises if it were dissected. And, if you wanted to do things accurately, you could just look across the street,” Ms. Dodge said.

    “The staircase is the most worthy, remaining, clearly visible part of the old house,” she said. Unfortunately, the most recent owner, Janet Mae Arvold, died two years ago and the house has remained empty (except for thousands of books) and unattended since then. “The obsolescence it’s experiencing is not helping. It’s like Grey Gardens,” she said.

    First there was eBay — a global community of buyers and sellers exchanging their wares. Then there was Craigslist, which broke the selling down into regions. Instead of buying a tchotchke from Hong Kong or Peoria, a buyer could drive to Medford or Huntington to pick it up.

    But that wasn’t local enough for some East Enders. Now there’s Bonac Yard Sale — a Facebook page that boasts almost 1,800 members and offers everything from typical yard sale fare like children’s clothing, household items, and  electronics to items with a more Bonac flair.

    “Fresh local clams,” read a post on Thursday. “Harvested daily from the icy waters of Lake Montauk.” The molluscular morsels are delivered to your door.

    A biology teacher from East Hampton High School was looking for a pair of waders on Bonac Yard Sale last week “for a Bonacker uniform.” Within an hour the request was filled.

    “Who was looking for scrap metal?” a member wrote. “I have old galvanized steel gutters.”

    The page is a closed group — one must send a request to join — and there’s the occasional back-and-forth that comes from familiarity.

    One member had a skateboard listed for $25, but when another member responded that there was a little boy who would love it but whose family couldn’t afford it, the price immediately came down to zero.

    There’s friendly ribbing as well. When an old fruit poster featuring yellow pears showed up for $10, someone suggested contacting “Keith at Golden Pear. He might like this.”

    “In that case,” wrote someone else, “charge Golden Pear prices.”

    Jesse Libath of East Hampton started the group “just after Christmas of 2010 in hopes of selling a few things to make up for the seasonal shopping,” he said. He has been amazed by its growth.

    “We knew it was big when the ‘For Sale’ vehicles from the side of the road started appearing in posts on the group wall,” he said. The page has also spawned similar groups with different local focuses: Bonac Rentals, Bonac Autos, Hamptons Yard Sale, and the Bonac Work Force among them.

    Mr. Libath had noticed back in 2010 that few people were using the “Group” function on Facebook, “so I decided to try it out.” He added a few friends, “and here we are today, with 1,750-plus members.”

    Lisa Bonner of Springs has been using Bonac Yard Sale to sell the contents of her house, and applauded the efforts of the site.

    “I think it’s awesome for the community on so many levels: accessibility, landfill issues, carting, economics, a new world commerce,” she said. “Over all, the concept and idealism behind it is perfect.”

    “As with any sort of wonderful, brilliant concept,” she said, “it is only the people with self-serving greed that overextend boundaries of good-will agreements and situations that could possibly dirty a very useful commerce tool.”

    There have been stern admonitions against “bumping” posts to the top too often. But besides the occasional overzealous seller, the group seems to coexist with similar objectives: to sell stuff or get a good deal.

    Cheryl Smith has been a group administrator for about two years.

    “I help Jesse keep the board clean from overposts and monitor the page to make sure everyone stays friendly,” she said. “I also add people to the page and they inbox any issues they may have. Thank goodness we have not had to deal with many issues on the site.”

    She is not surprised by the site’s increasing membership. “It really is a great page,” she said. “I think everyone loves buying on it. It’s better than Craigslist. The locals love the fact that it’s local and personal with the items that they are buying and selling.”

    Local, indeed. A post just this week featured a buyer desperately seeking a copy of the old “Montauk Guide and Cookbook.”

    “I have this cookbook,” came a reply. “I’m not necessarily ready to part with it, but if you’re looking for certain recipes in it, I’d be happy to photocopy them for you.”

    The way in which the East Hampton Town Board makes decisions, and how much takes place in the public eye, is shaping up to be a bone of contention between the board’s Republican majority, elected as a slate two years ago, and the two newly elected Democratic board members.

    On Tuesday, Republican Supervisor Bill Wilkinson, who was re-elected this fall, expressed frustration when Town Councilwoman Theresa Quigley’s proposal to have a new committee discuss a proposed outdoor lighting law sparked a request by the minority board members, Sylvia Overby and Peter Van Scoyoc, to allow interested members of the public to observe those discussions.

    “My God, we have so much work to do,” Mr. Wilkinson said. “And everything’s got to be categorized . . . everything’s got to be open to the public. When do you do the work of the town?” he asked.

    “You’re doing the work of the people,” Ms. Overby responded.

    “No, you’re doing the work of the town,” Mr. Wilkinson said.

    He complained that, with discussion of several items on the agenda of that day’s meeting — a specially scheduled addition to the calendar designed to take care of just a couple of particular items — “today’s meeting could have been 15 minutes, and now is almost an hour.”

    “We’re getting bogged down. I can feel it,” he said. “And this is coming from someone with a business background.”

    “Government is opposite of business,” he added.

    How much time should be devoted to board discussions before decisions are made, and what should take place in public, was also a topic at the town board’s meeting last Thursday after Jeanne Frankl, an Amagansett resident who is chairwoman of the East Hampton Town Democratic Committee, suggested the board examine more carefully issues related to the future of the scavenger waste plant. A request for proposals for its possible privatization has been issued.

    “I do not feel it is getting enough of a public airing,” Ms. Frankl told the board.

    Councilman Dominick Stanzione protested, noting that the board-appointed budget and finance advisory committee had researched and then issued a report on the plant at a public work session last spring. Since then, he said, the board had made, and discussed in public, a decision that the town should stop paying for operation of the plant, almost $1 million a year. That, Ms. Frankl said, “is exactly the issue here for the public.”

    When the proposals from potential private operators are examined, Mr. Stanzione said, “I’m sure it’s going to get a full public airing.”

     Ms. Frankl questioned whether all factors were properly considered before deciding to stop town operation of the plant. “I’m not saying that you haven’t discussed it in public,” she said. “But when a problem has all of these ramifications, an elected board, as our representative, to give us government of, by, and for the people, is not really carrying out that mandate by simply making the decision on its own, whoever you consult.”

    Ms. Frankl, an attorney, said that she believes the board is too often choosing to discuss in executive session matters that could be addressed in public. “You don’t have to go into executive session every time you’re uncomfortable,” she said.

    She pointed in particular to a move to have portions of the budget committee’s scavenger waste plant report delivered in private last spring. The board then held an executive session to talk about the possibility of environmental violations at the plant. 

    “I don’t want to be saying stuff that perhaps our attorney will want to wring my neck,” Ms. Quigley said. “There are ongoing violations, and for us to talk openly, when there are claims against the town. . . .”

    Ms. Quigley accused Ms. Frankl of attempting to “politicize the issue.”

    “I was offended by that comment,” Ms. Frankl said. “It was a substantive comment, not a political comment.”

    “I don’t know what the difference is,” Ms. Quigley said.

    Councilwoman Overby noted that Mr. Wilkinson did not put enough money in this year’s budget to keep the plant running for longer than two months. “So there is a feeling that the town board did say, ‘We want to get this done,’ ” she said of leasing to a private company.

    Mr. Wilkinson interrupted her. “Now you and I, we are going to have fun in the next two years,” he said. “Because I’m coming out of the private sector that makes half-billion-dollar decisions in five minutes, and you’re coming out of, I don’t know what sector, that basically wants everything discussed and take[s] time and time and time. And we couldn’t have solved the financial crisis of this town by doing that. No, I’m talking about an application of process, and I’m talking about decision-making, and I’m talking about management of the enterprise. So, we’re going to have these . . . which is fine. I think they’re spirited and I think it’ll be an intellectual challenge for me to have these conversations.”

    He continued, “So, for you to say — yeah, we rushed. I think the pace of play in this town stinks. I think we are so slow to move it’s ridiculous.”

    “It seems to me we need to have a broad discussion about all the different options, and the direction that the town needs to go in,” Councilman Van Scoyoc said, citing various considerations about the waste plant. “There are a number of questions that I think merit having open discussions. It’s an important enough topic that it would merit its own meeting.”

    “It’s an important enough topic that it’s been studied for a year,” responded Mr. Wilkinson.

    A story about the scavenger waste plant appears elsewhere in today’s Star.

    “What I want to be sure,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said at Tuesday’s meeting, “is that when discussing legislation that will affect everyone, that the townspeople who are supposed to be represented . . . have an opportunity to understand.” 

    He said he understood the concern that it could become difficult for a committee to accomplish its work should it have to accommodate participation by numerous other members of the public, but that allowing observers would not interfere.

    “I don’t think that the public being apprised of how the discussions are going is in any way a hindrance,” he said. In fact, he said, the more open the process, the more likely it is that it would result in proposals that gain public support.

    “I think the whole idea of including the public . . . is [to avoid] this sense of, things are happening behind closed doors. It’s really simple to alleviate that,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said.

    “No,” said Mr. Wilkinson, “it’s really simple to say, ‘It’s nonsense. It’s not happening.’ ”

    Sitting at his desk on Tuesday in the East Hampton Town Police Department annex in Montauk, Lt. Christopher M. Hatch, the new precinct commander, made a statement that many Montauk residents will be happy to hear.

    “My goal is to recapture Montauk, to bring it back to where it belongs. We’re going to pay a lot of attention to quality-of-life issues. We need to evolve and take a closer look at what’s going on,” he said, speaking of the hamlet’s recent influx of nightclubs and what many residents perceive as code violations and a lack of enforcement at several of them.

    Lieutenant Hatch was named the Montauk precinct commander on Jan. 1. It was a position he was coveting. “My time was finally up,” he said. His wife was born and raised in the hamlet, and they spend a lot of time there with their two daughters, fishing and seeing old friends.

    He joined the force in 1993 and was made sergeant in charge of the patrol squad in July 2004. From there, he was promoted to commander of the Emergency Services Unit. He now trains other enforcement units in Suffolk and Nassau Counties, New York City, and New Rochelle in Westchester County.

    He coordinates training in areas such as obtaining a search warrant, knife defense, Taser use, defensive tactics, firearms, use of a breathalyzer, cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, and how to handle what are called post-Columbine school situations. Officers, he said, sometimes require outside training for up to 60 hours a year.

    A volunteer with the East Hampton Fire Department since 1995, he rose through the ranks to become a lieutenant in 2004 and captain in 2006. In 2005, he became a certified member of the townwide dive team, and he continues to volunteer.

    As a patrolman, he spent nine years in Montauk. As a sergeant, he would often be on his way out to the hamlet only to be called back, turning around on the Napeague stretch. “I’ve missed Montauk. I love working out here,” he said.

    He made it clear that he respected the work of the precinct commanders before him, but said that the nightclub problems needed a fresh look. “It’s all so new, we’re learning as we go.”

    Lieutenant Hatch works on a rotating schedule and will be patrolling the area and in the annex quite often, including on weekends and some nights. “I’ll be around,” he said.

    Working in a small town enables officers to get to know the community, he said, and he wants to ensure businesses and residents that they will be cared for. “It’s a matter of being treated the way you want to be treated,” he said.

    Regarding stopping drivers for violations, which he did last week while he was on a run for coffee and saw a vehicle pass another on the right, subsequently discovering that the driver was unlicensed, he said officers use discretion. “You get to know who needs a break and who needs to see the judge,” he said.

    Tuesday is the day of an anticipated Sag Harbor Village Planning Board public forum on an application to expand the Harbor Heights service station at 114 Hampton Street. According to Richard Warren, the village’s environmental consultant, the event has been called to make sure the board is addressing all potential issues rather than solicit opinions.

    John Leonard, the owner of Harbor Heights, has proposed a full redesign of the business, moving the pumps farther from Hampton Street and adding restrooms and a convenience store. The 1,874-square-foot service station building would be replaced with one of similar size abutting an existing vehicle repair garage at the rear.

    Mr. Warren has given the project his seal of approval. “I am in favor of it,” he said. In a report to the board, he noted that many aspects of the business do not comply with current standards. Environmental benefits, according to Mr. Warren, would be reduced impact on groundwater, with better drainage, upgraded fuel tanks, new fuel pipes, and a new septic system. His report also refers to the proposed architecture, design, and lighting as improvements.

    The plan has provoked objections from the station’s neighbors, documented in letters to the planning board as well as petitions. They have cited the station’s historic district zoning and expressed concern about proposed outdoor lighting and the potential for late hours that could generate increased traffic and noise.

    There have also been comments and a petition in favor  of the project, with the building’s improved appearance and condition, relocation of the pumps, and redesigned curbs that would prevent a backlog of cars on Hampton Road during peak hours.

    Mr. Leonard has said he had the building designed, including the repair garage, to look like a house. “I am not building a mini-mart,” he said. Dennis Downes, his attorney, had also told village officials that a convenience store was necessary to make ends meet.

    In a conversation on Monday morning at the station, Pam Kern, who has worked at Harbor Heights for 30 years, said it contributes to the local community in many ways. It addition to residents, she said the station serves out-of-town visitors by providing maps and directions.

    Interior floor plans call for an 11-door refrigerator, two 20-foot-long retail “gondolas,” two 16-foot-long counters surrounding an attendant’s area, a hand sink and office for employees, and a unisex, handicapped-accessible restroom. The garage would have seating for customers as well as another restroom for public use.

    The exterior plan shows a cedar-shingled, residential-style building with six windows surrounding a six-foot-wide doorway and an open porch. Instead of fronting on the road, the building is to face west toward Eastville Avenue. The garage would also be shingled and it would  have two barn-style doors. It was unclear this week if there would be one or two gas pumps in addition to the existing two. They are to be moved to a location farther from Hampton Road and be under a lighted canopy.

    A new parking area also would be further from the street, a sidewalk would be built, and new curbing would limit access. In addition to a new septic system and drainage improvements, three underground gas storage tanks would be upgraded and another one installed.

    According to P. W. Grosser Consulting, the village’s engineers, there are unanswered questions about the convenience store, or country market, including review of the requirements of the Suffolk Department of Health Services. The firm recommended further discussion of a variance request to allow the convenience store to go over the 600-square-foot limit in the village code to 1,000 square feet.

    Traffic study results are also a concern of the consulting firm because additional fuel pumps were not included in the study. Maintenance of new indigenous grasses was recommended to assure visibility, and a proposed sign, four feet from the front property line,  should also be discussed, the firm said.

    The meeting on Tuesday will begin with a work session at 5:30 p.m. The regular meeting, to include the forum, will start at 6.