Montaukers and others traveling to see the Montauk Lighthouse in its Christmas finery might have noticed trucks and machinery at work near Deep Hollow Ranch, where state, county, and town employees, with the help of the East Hampton Trails Preservation Society, are opening up old trails and blazing new ones through the 200-acre Amsterdam Beach Preserve.

    The large public preserve stretches from Montauk Highway to the ocean and from the Montauk Association houses on the west to the dirt Ranch Road at Deep Hollow.

    The State Department of Parks is not only working on the preserve’s trails but is expected to complete a small parking area at Ranch Road’s intersection with Montauk Highway in January. In addition, the county plans to put up a kiosk for trail maps.

    According to Scott Wilson, director of the town’s Department of Land Acquisition and Management, the trails should be ready by spring.

    “The trails preservation group has had six or eight volunteers helping us. There had been one main trail that had grown over, over time. It has been rerouted out of wetlands. It now affords more views. It’s really half trail, half hike, with uphills and downhills and over small streams. This has been a long time coming. We’ve been planning it for about a year,” Mr. Wilson said yesterday.  

    The 200-acre preserve grew out of two land acquisitions. It was originally purchased by the state, Suffolk County, and the town, using money from the community preservation fund in 2005. In 2008, Dick Cavett, who lives in the Association area, donated an additional 122 acres.  

    Medical professionals in Haiti are still dealing with the aftermath of the devastating earthquake that struck nearly two years ago, and two East Hampton women recently spent a week at hospitals outside of Port-au-Prince to help caregivers learn new ways to provide a little T.L.C. not only to others, but to themselves.

    Liz Lattuga and Mitten Wainwright attend the Urban Zen Integrative Therapy program, offered by Donna Karan’s Urban Zen Foundation in New York City. The yearlong therapy program, one of a number of initiatives sponsored by the foundation, brings students together one weekend a month at the Manhattan center for training in yoga, nutrition, and “contemplative care” such as meditation, use of essential oils, or aromatherapy, and Reiki.

    According to practitioners, these alternative modalities can help improve symptoms of illness such as pain, anxiety, nausea, insomnia, constipation, and exhaustion, as well as general well-being and health.

    (Of Reiki, an energy practice originally developed in Japan, Ms. Lattuga said: “The way I explain it is as a healing technique that works to balance your body. When your body’s balanced, you’re more relaxed, and it promotes healing.”)

    “A large part of the program is to practice self-care,” Ms. Wainwright said in a recent interview. “You can’t help others if you can’t take care of yourself.”

    She and Ms. Lattuga were among the first small group of students carrying the teachings to Haiti. Others will travel there biweekly through March. Ms. Wainwright is a yoga teacher at various local studios, including Yoga Shanti in Sag Harbor, which is run by Rodney Yee and Colleen Saidman Yee, who serve as co-directors, with Ms. Karan (the fashion designer), of the Urban Zen Integrative Therapy program.

    More than 80 students have graduated from the program as integrative therapists, so far. Ms. Karan’s desire to provide training to health-care workers in a variety of therapies reportedly grew from the experiences of her husband, Stephan Weiss, who died of lung cancer. Mr. Weiss benefited from the use of Eastern modalities in addition to his traditional, Western-medicine treatment, and had asked his wife to take care of the nurses who had cared for him.

    This year, Ms. Karan partnered with the Johnson & Johnson Campaign for Nursing’s Future to offer scholarships to nurses to attend the program. Ms. Lattuga was the recipient of one of the four awarded this year.    

    Beyond the weekend sessions in the city, students are expected to continue the meditation, breath work, and other practices at home. “It’s amazing, and it’s transformed me,” Ms. Lattuga said

    A nurse for 30 years, she works in the ambulatory surgery department at South­ampton Hospital’s Ellen Hermanson Breast Center and at the hospital’s dialysis center in Hampton Bays.

    She has also served at Memorial Sloan- ­Continued from A1

Kettering and St. Vincent’s Hospitals in Manhattan, in community health and hospice settings, in occupational health centers on Wall Street, and in the Southampton Hospital emergency room.

    Two graduates of the integrative therapy program have been practicing at Southampton Hospital. Others have brought the techniques to Montefiore and Beth Israel Hospitals, and the University of California at Los Angeles.

    “I would see them with the patients before surgery,” Ms. Lattuga said. “[The patients] were so much calmer.” She applied for the scholarship program the  day after first hearing of it, submitting a video documenting her daily routine as a nurse.

    “Nursing has always been in my blood,” she said. “Literally, since second grade, I knew I wanted to do this.” But, she noted, “caregivers have a real potential for burnout.”

    Passing along the integrative therapy techniques she is learning at Urban Zen “helps caregivers be more calm, mindful, and compassionate,” she said.

    “It has taken my nursing and self care to a whole new level. I know I’m a better nurse for what I’m doing. I’m a much better nurse — a much better person, really.”

    A majority of the patients she offers to guide through some of the techniques agree to give it a try. She said she hopes to eventually expand her services, perhaps volunteering to offer the therapies in community settings such as senior citizens’ centers.

    In Haiti, Ms. Wainwright and Ms. Lattuga worked at St. Luc’s Hospital and St. Damien’s, a pediatric hospital.

    “There are a lot of people living in tents, and it’s almost two years since the earthquake,” Ms. Lattuga said. Much has been rebuilt, Ms. Wainwright noted, but Haiti “just seems to have one disaster after another.” 

    Those working to help others there face a challenging road, and both women felt teaching them self-care techniques was particularly important “because of the burnout rate — they’re working so hard — and what they’re seeing,” Ms. Lattuga said.

    They offered five to seven classes daily for hospital workers, from doctors and nurses to administrators, social workers, and the housekeeping staff, as well as private sessions. They also held classes for international aid workers and child patients at St. Damien’s (as well as the children’s parents).

    “It was a very nice balance, with my yoga background, and Liz’s nurse’s background,” Ms. Wainwright said. “It was a way to respect the work that all of the people in the hospital did — and then they can go back to their work reinvigorated.”

    Among their pupils were people caring for children with cancer and children who have been abandoned, as well as two young American doctors in their second year of residency in Haiti, Ms. Wainwright said. “It’s very, very draining for them.” 

    Many patients, they said, would arrive at the hospitals in dire condition. “They would probably lose a baby a day in the E.R.,” Ms. Wainwright said. “I couldn’t even imagine handling that kind of pressure and anxiety.”

    According to Ms. Lattuga, one human-resources director told her, “People keep coming with bricks and mortar, but nobody’s coming to heal inside.”

    “When people came at the beginning of the week, they were a little tentative,” she said of the therapeutic classes. “By the end of the week we were getting smiles and hugs after the classes.”

    “It was life-changing,” Ms. Lattuga said. “It made me appreciate my own life and what I have.”

     “The value of the Urban Zen program is that they are committed to staying in Haiti” and helping the hospitals’ staff carry on the therapeutic work, Ms. Wainwright said.

    Both said that they would happily go back.

When well told, a fish story is a love sonnet that begins with “There we were” in place of “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” and ends when a beautiful creature is brought up from the deep to babbling praise along the lines of “So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”

    If the crew aboard the Viking Star on Tuesday has anything to say about it — and you can bet they will — the day they were attacked by an army of black sea bass will not be forgotten.

    The Viking Star was a floating book of sonnets as it left its dock in the dark two days after Christmas with a crew of Montauk locals, longtime friends, fishermen to a man — except for Joe Bloecker’s daughter, Fallon.

    The fishermen sat around the table across from the small coffee-and-egg-sandwich factory that is Kobi’s galley, and, as waves slapped the Starship’s steel hull en route to Coxes Ledge they spun yarns enough for a heavy sweater.

    Jack Curtin, who drives a tugboat in New York Harbor these days, brought them back to the day he was a hundred miles at sea in February. He had fallen from a longliner while going after a big tilefish that slipped from his hands as he unhooked it. The fish was floating on the surface.

    “I didn’t feel the cold at first. I swam after it, away from the boat. He made me fall and I wanted to get him.”

    “I yelled, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ ” Eddie Eurell recalled.

    “He pulled me out,” Curtin said of Eurell, his former crewmate nodding. Both laughed at the scary memory.

    And, there was the time it took several men to haul Big Paul out of the harbor when he fell from a plank between dock and boat. He weighed 450 pounds. Then there was the time a bayman who was expert at such things skinned a big green eel by making a few cuts at the head and peeling it off the body like a stocking, then giving it to another bayman (they all knew him and smiled), who wore it as a headband while playing the slots at the Foxwoods casino. The band stayed fresh — for a while.

    And there was the big striped bass caught on six-pound test in the freshwater of Hook Pond, where the striper should not have been. Was there a way into the pond from the ocean? There used to be, years ago. Scallops were discussed, and how fishing regulations were turning good men into criminals. And, the one about the fisherman who stayed at sea because the I.R.S., a motorcycle gang, an ex-wife, and the police were all looking for him. Where else could he go? Nowhere, they all agreed.

    On and on they flowed, fish stories powering this particular trip as much as the Starship’s growling diesel.

    Capt. Steven Forsberg actually did compare Tuesday’s trip to a summer’s day in that the grounds east and southeast in 90 feet of unseasonable, 51-degree water were carpeted with dinner plate-size porgies and sea bass and had been since September.

    Captain Forsberg settled on a favorite bottom structure at Coxes Ledge just as the sun drew a thin red line to mark the horizon. A heaping pile of skimmer clam baits awaited the hooks of Jack Curtain, Eddie Eurell, Joe Bloecker, Ritchie Weiss, Charlie Etzel, Stuart Heath, Sean Kinney, Bill Modica, Gil Parker, and Ray Hackebill, a young local on his first offshore trip.

    The first drop yielded a scary number of dogfish, the bane of many a fishing trip, but then several nice cod appeared, then sea bass, bergall, and porgies. When the Star moved to a second spot, a pollock was caught, and later in the day, a Spanish mackerel, a few bluefish, and a monkfish. Thirteen species in all, a bountiful mix that included many fish that should have been long gone. A pod of dolphins approached in arcing strides at one point. Shearwaters banked off wave-face updrafts. Mother Carey’s chickens, petrels, skittered along the surface.

    The weather forecasted for the following day appeared ahead of schedule. The breeze stiffened, the sky blackened, and a white-capped ocean swell grew out of the southwest, as did the fish story in the making.

    Between drops the fishermen repaired to Kobi’s galley or caught some shut-eye. When clam-baited fishing lines were sent below once again, their trepidations were read by knowing hands. Joe Bloecker told Ray Hackebill how the line’s vibration would telegraph the difference between a nibble and a bite. “Don’t swing at the small ones,” Bloecker told him. “Save it for the big ones.”

    The sun couldn’t tell you, but it was noon when Captain Forsberg turned the Star west toward a spot south of Block Island. After an hour’s steam, the island was just visible to the north, and it was getting late. The Star settled on some numbers the captain knew well. The screen of his electronic fish finder showed a stretch of fish — years of experience told him they were sea bass — in vivid, living color.

    Stuart Heath and Gil Parker took up position toward the bow on the starboard side with most of the other locals forming a phalanx along the rail. The boat was anchored and Captain Forsberg gave the signal. Baits descended to the bottom but the fish did not allow them to linger. Rods bent immediately and stayed bent for nearly an hour. Sea bass were coming over the rail in waves, their fins and spines erect, gills flared, electric turquoise stripes ablaze.

    At first, one fish at a time was brought up on the two-hook terminal gear. Then the anglers learned to wait a beat to feel the second hook taken. Arm-weary anglers began reeling up “doubleheaders.” Coolers bulged. Captain Forsberg grabbed his rod and joined the action.

    A story was being written in the grins, the hoots and hollers of friends who shared a strong bond with their hometown’s ocean surroundings. Stuart Heath summed up the day, so long as men can breathe, or eyes can see: “Black gold!” he shouted, lifting a doubleheader over the rail. “Black gold!”

    A flurry of activity, if not snow, has surrounded the Hook Mill in recent days, as teams of workers donated time and effort to get the East Hampton landmark ready for the holidays.

    After more than two years of reconstruction and rehabilitation, the Hook Mill at the north end of East Hampton Village is being shingled this week, courtesy of John Hummel and Associates, a builder with offices in East Hampton.

    “The village provided the shingles,” said Robert Hefner, the village’s historic preservation consultant. “The Highway Department crew were going to reshingle the mill themselves, but with Christmas approaching and all, it was decided to put it out to bid. John Hummel stepped forward and donated the labor.” Mr. Hefner added that the builder’s largess saved the village thousands of dollars.

    Jim Field and Sons, a local painting company, has also offered its services free of charge and will paint the windows and the door once the tower is shingled.

    The shingling, painting, and then the replacing of the windmill’s sails is the culmination of an intricate and lengthy process of restoring the 19th-century landmark at the intersection of Montauk Highway and North Main Street, a structure that had not been seriously rehabbed since the 1930s.

    Richard Baxter and his crew repaired the frame. The village Public Works Department crew — including Scott Fithian, the superintendent of public works, along with Paul Anderson and Rob Aldrich — put back the sheathing and flooring, and moved the mill’s machinations back inside.

    The project took far longer and cost approximately $11,000 more than the $200,000 originally intended, as the walls revealed more rot and damage to the mill tenons, or joints, than previously assessed.

    The plan had been to splice new bottoms onto seven of the eight wooden tower posts that hold up the structure, “maintaining the same sort of craftsmanship as Nathaniel Dominy,” said Mr. Hefner, referring to Nathaniel Dominy V, a member of the famed East Hampton family of craftsmen and wood makers who built the mill in 1806.

    “On the northeast side,” said Mr. Hefner at a village board meeting in May, “the deterioration was worse than anticipated.” He described the discovery as “very frustrating.”

    With the repairs nearly complete, it looks as though the mill will be shingled by the end of this week, with the sails, or arms, being reattached and lined with the traditional array of lights in time for the holidays.

    Approximately 150 people filled the East Hampton Town Hall meeting room and an adjacent hallway last Thursday night for a hearing on whether the town should seek Federal Aviation Administration funds to erect fencing at  East Hampton Airport, which would extend for 20 years the town’s contractual obligations, called grant assurances, with the federal agency as to how the airport is operated. The town board’s decision to do so is reported above.

    With noise from incoming and departing aircraft, particularly helicopters, and widespread concern in East Hampton and surrounding communities, arguments have centered on what degree of control, particularly with regard to enacting curfews or banning certain aircraft, the town could gain by eschewing F.A.A. money.

    The majority of the more than 50 speakers at the hearing, many of whom were pilots or involved in airport-related businesses, spoke in favor of accepting F.A.A. money, citing a need for maintenance and repairs to ensure safety.

    A number of speakers asserted that those who oppose federal funding were doing so not just to gain local solutions to airport noise, but to close the airport down. None of those on the other side said closing the airport was part of their agenda.

    Some of those who arrived at the start of the hearing found not only the meeting room but also the hallway packed. Unable to hear the goings on or to sign up to speak, a few left. 

    Town officials declined a request by a member of the Quiet Skies Coalition to adjourn the meeting to a larger venue. In a press release issued Monday by the group, Charles A. Ehren Jr. called the hearing a “sham.”

    Several of those who spoke against seeking a new F.A.A. grant represented organizations, including the Quiet Skies Coalition, with some 300 members, the Village Preservation Society, with a membership numbering more than 400, and the Noyac Citizens Advisory Committee.

    The town plans to install and pay for a seasonal air traffic control facility at the airport, which is expected to lessen the noise impact on particular neighborhoods by redirecting aircraft. While some speakers said that would adequately address noise problems, others suggested a wait-and-see approach.

    The air traffic controllers to be put in place, several speakers noted, along with an instrument landing system, would rereduce the number of missed approaches, avoiding the noise from multiple attempts to take off or land.

    The stream of speakers expressing support for the town board’s proposal to submit an application for a new F.A.A. grant cited the economic value of the airport to East Hampton, in tourism as well as airport-related jobs, and expressed a need to keep the airport open and safe, and the fear that, as Bruno Schreck said, “the town could lose an important asset.”

    Several were not only pilots but also owners of hangars at the airport, and, even though nonresidents, they do pay East Hampton taxes, they pointed out.

    “Not to take the money . . . is to shut the airport down,” Nancy Neumann, a pilot, said. “The airport will not survive,” she added, calling that outcome “un-American.”

    “F.A.A. support will help to facilitate” airport maintenance and noise abatement efforts, Wendy Reynolds said.

    Peter Kirsch, an attorney specializing in airport matters whom the board hired as a consultant, told the crowd that “at this particular airport, the existence of grant assurances “does not significantly affect your ability to address noise issues.”

    Federal airport guidelines remain in place regardless of whether the town has to abide by F.A.A. grant assurances, he said. In either case, a legal procedure must be followed in order for the town to gain the ability to make certain decisions about airport use. The question is how successful the town could be if it did not accept federal money.

    “What I want to advise you is there’s a great deal of legal uncertainty,” Mr. Kirsch said to the board during a work session this week.

    David Gruber, a plaintiff in a lawsuit against the town over whether noise had been sufficiently examined before the town board adopted an airport master plan, and Jeffrey Bragman, his attorney, questioned  Mr. Kirsch’s analysis.

    A Supreme Court decision upheld New York City’s right to impose restrictions on a heliport that was free of F.A.A. obligations, Mr. Gruber said, including a curfew, limits on the number of takeoffs and landings, and a ban on certain aircraft deemed too noisy.

    Mr. Gruber said an F.A.A. spokesman had told Representative Tim Bishop’s office that, with grant assurances in effect, the F.A.A. wouldn’t allow that to happen. “Because,” he said, “by the way the F.A.A. counts noise, there is no noise in East Hampton.” Rather than acknowledge the cumulative impact of aircraft noise, the F.A.A. uses “single event” methodology to assess the impact of noise, he said. 

    Kathleen Cunningham of the Quiet Skies Coalition, which sought and obtained a pledge from the Democratic candidates for town board in last month’s election to hold off on taking new F.A.A. money until the effect of the traffic control facility could be gauged, recommended the town conduct a detailed study and cost-benefit analysis of alternatives. Two of those candidates, Sylvia Overby and Peter Van Scoyoc, will take office in January, forming a minority under Supervisor Bill Wilkinson, who narrowly won his bid for re-election, and a Republican majority.

    “I would ask you to think very hard about the numbers of people in this town that are saying please listen to our concerns,” Ms. Cunningham said. “It’s so hard to live near this airport.”

    “They’re driving me absolutely nuts,” Patricia Currie of Noyac said of planes flying over her neighborhood.

     Mary Busch, a Village Preservation Society trustee, said she feared that extending the F.A.A. grant assurances would “require that the airport be open all day, every day, all year long, for another 20 years.”

    “Being beholden to the F.A.A. for 20 more years is a serious step that requires serious study,” she said, quoting a letter from her group to the board. “It may be that F.A.A. funding is the only way for East Hampton to have a viable airport. However, rushing to judgment for the sake of a politically connected lobby could be a regrettable step with long-reaching adverse consequences to the community at large.”

    However, in a letter read into the record by his daughter, Margie Saurenman, Tom Lavinio, a co-founder of the East Hampton Aviation Association, said, “The airport cannot exist without F.A.A. funds. Eddie Saureman said, “The F.A.A. is not the big bad bogeyman. They’re actually here to help, contrary to what some people believe.” But, he warned, “Don’t be adversarial with the F.A.A. You will not win.”

     “This is an issue about quality of life, and the issue is, what is the balance between benefits to quality of life for some people, and the damage to quality of life for others,” said Jim Matthews of the Northwest Alliance, which has raised concerns about the environmental effects of aircraft emissions as well as noise.    

    Opponents of taking F.A.A. funding, Rod Davidson charged, are trying “to close the airport by creating real safety issues,” due to lack of maintenance, that would lead to a closure.

    “I got drawn into this issue because I couldn’t take the noise over my home anymore,” Robert Wolfram of Sag Harbor said. “I’ve yet to meet anybody who wants to close the airport.” The control tower will not be enough to solve the problem, he said. “Just distributing the noise over a 360-degree circle is only going to piss off a lot more people than the ones that are currently getting annoyed by the flights.”

    A $1.5 million surplus in the airport fund is “not nearly enough to fund essential capital projects,” Jim Brundige, the airport manager, said. On Tuesday, Mr. Kirsch went further, saying that engineers had estimated that the town would need $2 million to $3 million annually for the next five years just for essential airport maintenance.

    “How important is tight local control in solving the problems associated with the airport?” Jordy Mark asked. “I think there are questions that need to be answered. It’s not about what side you’re on; it’s something that everyone should want to know.”

    “How big are the jets going to be in five years?” asked Bill Montanari, who said he lives about a mile from the end of an airport runway. Unlike the small Cessnas that he saw flying over his property when he was building his house, the large 20-seater luxury jets now are “so low that I can see the ice in the drinks,” he said. “I’m worried that the jets are going to be too big if we take the F.A.A. money.”

    “I think there’s a middle ground,” said Steve Beckerman, a New Jersey and Amagansett resident who flew in to East Hampton to attend the meeting. He, and others, noted that there is agreement among pilots and other residents about the need to address airport noise. “Problems often present opportunities,” he said. “I recommend that the board work with the F.A.A., work with this community, and create a win-win for everyone.”

    With a unanimous vote on Tuesday, the East Hampton Town Board resolved to apply for a Federal Aviation Administration grant to pay for fencing at East Hampton Airport. The decision followed a standing-room-only hearing last Thursday and prompted an East Hampton attorney, Jeffrey Bragman, to seek an injunction in a Riverhead court yesterday. (A report on the hearing appears below.)

    Accepting new federal funds for an airport project will extend, for a new 20-year period, the town’s contractual obligations to the F.A.A., called grant assurances. The board also agreed on Tuesday to initiate a coordinated effort to address the divisive issues surrounding the field, including a study of airport noise, the first step in a procedure that would be necessary in order for the town to petition the F.A.A. for new airport regulations that could curtail noise.

    “I tried really hard to balance all legitimate points of view around the airport in a more complex manner than the black-and-white notion of simply not accepting F.A.A. money. In the analysis of financial, safety, noise, and operational issues, I felt a comprehensive proposal had to be developed,” Councilman Dominick Stanzione, who led the town board’s airport deliberations, said yesterday.”I spent the last 18 months pursuing that consensus. As a community we needed to reconcile our differences, taking into consideration the legitimate interests of the entire community.”

     “You’ve brought a good plan forward with only one thing in mind — that’s the community,” Supervisor Bill Wilkinson told Mr. Stanzione.

    Advocates seeking better control of airport noise — which has grown in scope and intensity as air traffic, particularly helicopters, has increased in a widening area near the airport and across Long Island — had urged the board not to seek the federal dollars, while numerous pilots at last week’s hearing said doing so was a must. Up to 90 percent of the cost of eligible airport projects can be funded by the F.A.A.

    Opponents of F.A.A. money believe the ability of the town to institute curfews or other regulations that could effectively control excessive noise would be much greater if the town were free of grant assurances.

    Thirty-nine assurances are in place, with the majority to expire in 2021. Enwith the majority to expire in 2021. Enforcement of four of them, however, will end beginning in 2014, according to a legal settlement between the F.A.A. and the Committee to Stop Airport Expansion, a private East Hampton group. That, members of organizations such as the Quiet Skies Coalition have said, will provide an opportunity for the town to make its own decisions.

    But overarching federal aviation regulations will remain in place whether the town has contractual obligations to the F.A.A. or not, and there is legal uncertainty about the outcome of a bid to gain local control under either scenario.

    “I can tell you the law is uncertain, and where it’s uncertain,” Peter Kirsch, the town’s consulting attorney on airport matters, said on Tuesday. But, he said, “there are things you can do today where the law is quite certain.”    

    Mr. Bragman said yesterday that the objective of an injunction was to “prevent them from signing a new grant agreement which would block out local control for another 20 years.” He is representing the Committee to Stop Airport Expansion, the same group that challenged the updated airport master and layout plan, which was adopted and submitted to and approved by the F.A.A. after a lengthy procedure begun by a previous town administration.

    Along with the vote to apply for F.A.A. funding, the board is in agreement to move ahead concurrently with measures to address airport noise, including a potentially costly F.A.A.-required “part 601” noise study needed for the town to make a case for local noise-reduction reglations even after signing grant assurances.

    Mr. Kirsch presented the board with elements of a comprehensive management plan, addressing safety, noise, and operations at the airport, which he has developed with Councilman Stanzione.

    The timeline for the plan includes securing a commitment for F.A.A. funding for the fence within 30 days, finalizing a contract to install and operate an air traffic control tower within 15 days, and beginning a formal program to collect noise and safety data within a month.

    The plan also calls for developing, within 60 days, a strategy and timetable for specific restrictions on helicopters and starting the formal Part 161 process to request a helicopter curfew within the next six months.

    Town Councilman Pete Hammerle, a four-term board member who had served as the airport liaison in prior administrations, congratulated Mr. Stanzione at the Tuesday session. “I think the plan presented today is probably everyone’s best chance of getting immediate relief on helicopter noise — a lot faster than sitting and waiting for grant assurances to run out.” Were the town to do that, he said, conditions at the airport would continue to deteriorate. He said repairs to runway 4-22, now closed because of its unsafe condition, were needed.

    “I just hope in the coming year you will continue . . . so that we can grant some relief to the people who are adversely affected,” Mr. Hammerle said to Mr. Stanzione. Mr. Hammerle, who did not run for re-election this year, said, “You’re on a good course here, and I’ve only got two more weeks here, so I hope you’re going to continue.” Should the town successfully complete the Part 161 process and get F.A.A. approval for local regulations, he said, “The question of F.A.A. funding is not an issue.”

    The announcement two weeks ago that the south end of Three Mile Harbor would not be dredged as planned has not gone over well, but a county legislator sees a silver lining.

    Over 80,000 cubic yards of sand were removed from the harbor inlet where shoaling had posed a threat to navigation. The inlet was dredged to a depth of 12 feet. A channel on the harbor’s south end was to be dredged to 7 feet.

    However, Bill Hillman, chief engineer for the county’s Department of Public Works, said that a survey showed there to be not enough shoaling on the harbor’s south end to justify moving the county-contracted dredge there.

    Instead, Mr. Hillman said, his agency planned to work with the town to mark a 75-foot-wide channel with buoys. The original channel at the south end was 150 feet wide. It has not undergone a comprehensive dredging for more than 30 years.

    On Monday, County Legislator Jay Schneiderman said that “private structures, docks and moorings, in the county’s historical channel made a thorough dredging impossible. The county made attempts to have the structures moved and failed, so the county said narrow the channel down to 75 feet.” Mr. Schneiderman said the Department of Public Works had determined that it could not dredge around the structures because it would constitute public work on private property.

    “When calculating the amount of material in there they found only 1,700 yards, so when taking a giant dredge there when other inlets are facing a short dredging window, they thought if we realign the channel slightly using buoys, you still get to the 7-foot depth,” he said.

    Before the start of the regular December meeting of the East Hampton Town Trustees Tuesday night, Diane McNally, the trustees’ clerk, said she didn’t buy Mr. Schneiderman’s explanation and bridled at the idea that town officials failed to deliver. “This has been in the works for four years. There should have been a little going on between now and then.”

    “It’s not private property, it’s trustee property,” she said of the bottomland under the docks in question — dredging around the docks would not have been doing public work on private property. She added that in any case, the understanding was that the dredging would be done, not within the dock complex at the Three Mile Harbor Boat Yard, but outside it.

    “Jay Schneiderman was a town supervisor. He should know that. He should have made a call. They are faceless,” she said of the county agency. “They passed the buck and left us to explain to our constituents.”

    “This may not be a terrible thing,” Mr. Schneiderman said. “We have a 10-year permit, maybe we can get back next year. If we do go back, we could dredge to 10 feet, not 7, to accommodate sailboats with 7-foot keels. It would help if private docks did not extend 50 feet into our channel. We did not walk away from it. We made multiple attempts. This was a dredge project gone right. It took out 80,000 yards.”

    “This was an over-$2-million project, a large-scale project that rebuilt the Sammy’s Beach peninsula,” he said.

    Meanwhile, the Bistrian Materials company has excavated approximately 6,000 cubic yards of sand from the south end of Georgica Pond to be used to rebuild eroded beaches. Last week, the Bistrian company and the Keith Grimes company agreed to take equal amounts of the 12,000 cubic yards of sand, the amount permitted by the State Department of Environmental Conservation. If possible another 12,000 cubic yards will be excavated after the first of the year and before a Jan. 15 deadline, the start of a dredging ban imposed to accommodate spawning fish.

    Several years ago, Paul Roman, dressed as Santa with a surfboard on the beach, was featured on the cover of The East Hampton Star’s holiday supplement. Underneath the fuzzy red suit he wore a wetsuit, but the bowl full of jelly was all his.

    Thanks to a Weight Watchers program, the portly Santa is now down 80 pounds, and he took first place in the Weight Watchers Inspiring Stories Contest.

    Mr. Roman, a 62-year-old former resident of Montauk now living in East Hampton, started the program a few days before Christmas last year. He is a trained chef who specialized in classic French cuisine and graduated from the Culinary Institute of America.

    His winning essay says that he has worked at high-end restaurants including Cafe des Artistes in New York City and the Living Room in East Hampton. He is also the reigning champ, three years running, of the annual clam chowder contest in East Hampton. “Wonderful temptations have always been close by,” he wrote.

    By the time he started the weight-loss program, he had been overweight for 30 years and in denial, he said. When his clothes got too tight, he just went up a size and was eventually wearing XXL shirts and pants with a 42-inch waist. A surfer, he started using longer boards for flotation and soon saw that he was on the biggest board in the lineup at Ditch Plain Beach. Other surfers called him “big guy,” and he didn’t like it.

    Spending the winters out east was like an invitation to get big and enjoy good food, Mr. Roman said. But when his girlfriend was invited to attend a Weight Watchers meeting with a friend, she asked him to join them. He said he had a “wow” moment when he first stepped on the scale and saw that it read 260 pounds.

    He enjoyed the meetings and found them inspirational. He was comforted by the fact that there were other men in the group and that the weighing in was done privately. He said you could take off as much clothing as you wished when being weighed. “Me, I stripped down to my Speedo,” he said with a laugh.

    He still attends meetings and plans to be a lifetime member. “The leaders really encourage you” and are a constant source of information, he said on Tuesday.

    “The diet problems and victories of others have unquestionably helped me with my personal challenges,” he wrote in his essay.

    Mr. Russo’s blood pressure and cholesterol levels have dropped, and as a result he’s been able to stop taking a prescription medication. “Everything we’ve monitored before has gotten better,” he said.

    His team leader suggested he enter the contest. His prize was a $100 gift card to Macy’s. What he really wanted, though, was to win the grand prize of a full makeover, not because he’s vain, but because his clothes don’t fit him anymore. “I have no clothes,” he said.

    One of the goals he set for himself was to be able to wear a favorite bathing suit that he had long since stuffed away. Now, the bathing suit fits but is loose, he said.

    “I feel phenomenal! I wish I hadn’t gained that much weight, but it was an accumulation over years and snuck up on me. Now I’m looking for one person to see this so I can start my modeling career,” he said with a laugh.

    Another pre-existing, nonconforming building is drawing fire in the political arena this month. On Dec. 7, a near-capacity crowd came to hear the East Hampton Town Planning Board discuss an application for site-plan approval of Wainscott Wombles, a 14,297-square-foot parcel at the corner of Sayre’s Path and Montauk Highway in Wainscott.

    The applicant, Michael Davis, seeks to demolish an existing 1,375-square-foot building and construct a one-story office building for his company, Michael Davis Design & Construction, of the same dimensions, with a full basement. Right next to it, he wants to add eight parking spaces and a new sanitary and water-supply system, and construct a small, 600-square-foot, two-story residence with a first-floor garage. Both buildings would be 24 feet in height. According to the application, the addition is intended as a place for Mr. Davis’s son Zachary, age 18, to live. The lot is a commercial site in a residentially zoned district.

    The paper-trail history of the parcel begins with a certificate of occupancy dating to 1969 that allows its use as a diner; modern town zoning laws did not exist at that time. A variance for a change of use was granted in 1975, for an antiques shop, and the last C of O on record was issued in 1976 for a retail structure.

    Laurie Wiltshire of Land Planning Services in Wainscott, a representative for Mr. Davis, spoke first. She described the site as, “The beginning of the gateway to our community. It houses a former diner, and the majority of the lot is demarcated gravel, and used cars for sale. There is one overgrown weed there.”

    Ms. Wiltshire’s office is located two doors down from the Davis property, and she offered her perspective as a neighbor, on the prevailing aesthetic of the area: “Wainscott is one of the most expensive ZIP codes in the country, but you certainly wouldn’t know it by driving through our downtown.”

    Denise Schoen, counsel for Mr. Davis, asserted that the application is within the legal jurisdiction of town code. “This proposal is to replace in-kind, essentially what exists on the site today. It can be used for retail or office,” she said. According to Ms. Schoen, Mr. Davis has “built lots of attractive homes in our area.”

    In the past, the town allowed the lot to be converted into a retail-or-office space, and it is currently classified as a commercial property in a residential district with a nonconforming business use. “Look further into the code,” Ms. Schoen said, “and any commercial property in any lot can have two uses, a pre-existing nonconforming office use, and a single-family residence.”

    The Davises’ project did not appear before the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals, because Tom Preiato, the town’s senior building inspector, gave his permission for the two uses, commercial and residential, and the proposal then went directly to the planning board.

    However, David Eagan of MacLachlan and Eagan has questioned Mr. Preiato’s decision. Mr. Eagan, the owner, with his wife, of the nearby Kilmore Horse Farm, is an attorney and former chair of the Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee. “There has been an appeal filed by myself, in front of the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals,” Mr. Eagan said, “and under New York State Law, it was timely [ . . .] and it will be heard.”

    Mr. Eagan said that a variance of use is extremely rare. In order to obtain its current approval as a commercial space, he said, previous applicants had to prove that the site was not appropriate as a residence and would fare better for commerce. “It is not correct under the law to change a conforming use. Here the Z.B.A. said you could use it for two commercial uses, an antique shop and a real estate office, that is all you can use it for.”

    Under New York State law, Mr. Eagan said, you can revert the use from commercial to residential, but you would have to eliminate the commercial use. “You can’t mix the two,” he said, “Where in East Hampton Town do you have a commercial use for 30 years, and then somehow, you can put a house on it? It doesn’t make sense, and that’s what the law reflects.”

    Jose Arandia, a Wainscott resident and member of the hamlet’s citizens advisory committee, has been conducting his own research into the town code. “All the documents I saw in this application identify this parcel as a residential parcel. It’s not a commercial parcel,” he said. Mr. Arandia opposes a dual usage, and cited specific town codes to support his position: Redevelopment requires a change in use, not conversion to both; and a nonconforming use prohibits physical expansion.

    He pointed out that while the main structure may remain within the original square footage, the residential building of 600 feet would be an addition and expansion. “[In] any commercial lot or district,” he said, “two uses on an additional lot may be authorized within a complex, but this is not a commercial lot, it’s a residential lot. It needs to be treated as such.”

    Mr. Arandia also noted the unusual size of the residence, commenting, “That is a very small structure. I don’t know if that can be considered a residence.”

    Some in the community have voiced fears that approval of this application could have a domino effect. “Wainscott citizens have been trying to improve the gateway to the Hamptons,” said Jordy Mark, another member of the Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee. “We’re happy it’s a low-density, low-rise, rural-looking area.” She offered the board a description of the green vista that greets drivers along the highway, and added, “There is no way that this trend will not spread to the entire way to Wainscott. Other people would want to do it, business and a residence.”

    “Any discussion about the beauty of the building isn’t an issue,” Ms. Mark continued. “It’s what dual use means in Wainscott: increased development, more development, and more buildings. I wouldn’t be opposed to that building being improved, but I’m opposed to moving it so you can have a second building, and someone living there. I question this concept, ‘I’m building it for family.’ ”

    Ms. Mark asked the board to “be careful here because you will change the entrance to our community.”

    Bruce Solomon, who has lived in Wainscott for four years, also spoke against the project. “I happen to be standing in a building that’s 300 or 400 years old, it’s held by pegs, there’s some historical integrity. When I come over the ridge entering Wainscott, I have a nice view of the farm. I also have a nice view over Sayre’s Path, an open vista, and then a building that sits back considerably. Thatís a nice feel. It’s not something that’s shoved in your face at the end of a property line.”

    Mr. Solomon also questioned the future impact of an approval. “The reason I bought and moved the family out to this area is because of what it has. I’m beginning to see, it’s carving away at the integrity. Why did some people’s families stay here for 14 generations, because they wanted to live down the street from a strip mall? I don’t think so. Do the citizens want to be on County Road 39?”

    In support of the project, Nancy Davis, wife of Michael Davis, addressed the crowd. “It’s for our son, who is learning disabled, and has special needs. He will need a place to live when he graduates from his special school,” she said.

    One of the last speakers of the evening, Philip Young, who lives on Sayre’s Path, expressed his perspective as a real estate developer for 34 years in Manhattan and Wainscott. “In the early 1980s, I purchased the property on the south [sic] side of Montauk Highway, and developed Wainscott Village. Five buildings have a dozen commercial stores in there. Mr. Davis isn’t trying to turn it into a commercial [use],” he said. “For the building inspector to allow this project to go forward there must be some way that the planning board can find the true legal meaning of what we’re doing here. I like to see a lot of commercial; the more there is, the better for me. But you’re starting a precedent, which was pointed out. It’s wrong, and it’s probably illegal.”

    The comforting smell of cooked lentils with rice and freshly baked bread filled the classroom last Thursday at Our Sons and Daughters, a Waldorf preschool located at the Hayground School in Bridgehampton. In existence for three years, the program grew from parent-child classes steeped in the Waldorf approach, which values imagination and creativity over technology, to a small school with 12 students ages 3 to 6. There are no computers in the classroom, and the soft pink walls have been intentionally left blank. The children are encouraged to develop their language skills through routine play and practical tasks rather than traditional visual methods of reading and writing.

    Unlike in a typical preschool, the alphabet and written numbers are nowhere to be seen. There is a sense of calm and warmth in the room. Andi Pisacano, co-teacher-teaching assistant and administrator at Our Sons and Daughters, who has taught for 22 years at mostly Waldorf-inspired schools, explained the philosophy behind it. “We’re not teaching them letters, and we’re not giving them a lot of input on the walls,” she said. “The development of language the first five years of life is the most important. Their language skills are what people have expected the child to succeed at first, which develops from repetition and example. Since so many children aren’t exposed to the type of beautiful language anymore — it’s TV or what’s on the radio — it’s not the development of language that students are exposed to. We do that here. We’re careful in how we bring language to the children.”

    A fundamental aspect of a Waldorf education is its emphasis on a learning progression that evolves without modern tools of technology. “We believe it’s really important for the child to develop their capacity for memory through active learning. We don’t believe in sitting them in front of a TV. More educators are realizing that to put a child on technology too early is stifling their ability for imaginative play. The other thing about media, children repeat all the time what they see,” said Ms. Pisacano.

    The classroom has an earthy feel with all-wooden toys, including a dollhouse, stove, and plenty of bricks. A wreath is suspended from the ceiling with rope, and felt stars dangle from it. Next to a rocking chair is a plain tree stump. “They experiences from these natural materials. The children make their own play from there,” Ms. Pisacano said. The art on one wall is a magical scene done in pastels. On another is an art piece made of blue fabric, wood, and sticks surrounding a figure. The overhead lights are kept off, and the classroom purposefully relies on natural light from ample windows, and two small dim lamps.

    Maggie Touchette, the lead teacher, who has taught at Our Sons and Daughters for three years, sketched a brief outline of the day. “We work with having a rhythm. There is free play, you have your own experiences, and then there are moments together. These include snack time, circle or story time. Circle time is little nursery rhymes or finger games. When there are bigger verses or a movement journey, which is a rhythmic story, it is accompanied with gesture.” Painting and crafts are also scheduled during various times of the week. Nature is a fundamental aspect of the program, as well. “They’re creating their own world in which they play in,” Ms. Touchette said.

    After a non-structured early morning play period last Thursday, the children cleaned up the toys while Ms. Touchette sang a song about tidying the room. Some boys were throwing wooden blocks until Ms. Touchette interrupted them, “We do not throw blocks at school.” The boys looked mortified, and seconds later they helped one another put the blocks away.

    The children then gathered in a circle to sing and repeat rhymes that have coordinating body motions. “Where it’s rhyme and verse, the language we use is consciously beautiful language. The stories we tell them or the songs we sing them are carefully thought out. When they go home, they’re not singing what they hear on the radio. They’re singing something that is appropriate for where their imagination is,” said Ms. Pisacano. The teachers recite the verses or stories from memory.

    “We don’t believe we need to teach them to read in preschool or to color. We show by example,” Ms. Pisacano said. “We bring them language that’s real. They can form pictures in their head, and that helps them develop their brain.  From 0 to 7, they don’t really need to have external stimuli. They don’t need to learn how to write their letters.”

    During a brief nap, Ms. Pisacano lightly touches the children’s hands with lavender oil (“fairy drops”). When it was time to get up and have a snack, Ms. Touchette walked around the room and tapped each child with a fairy finger puppet.

    A long table was set with cloth napkins and a glass for each of the students. Adjacent to the table, in the kitchen, were three large tubs set up for dish duty. Through routine tasks, from food preparation to washing their own dishes, the children learn how to work cooperatively in a group, and develop a sense of accomplishment.

    Rain or shine, outdoor play and exploration are daily activities at a Waldorf school. Last Thursday, after the children took off their inside slippers, they changed their shoes, zipped up their coats, and put on hats. When the weather is less than desirable, the students are prepared. “They have rain pants, and if there’s snow, they wear lots of layers,” said Ms. Touchette. Once they were bundled, the children took off in different directions and formed into small groups. An old dried worm was of interest to some, as were the leftover evergreen trimmings from a previous event at the school. The mud was a big draw. So much so that Ms. Touchette ended up with it all over her face. There were no arguments, and the children included one another as they played.

    Puppet shows are another means for teaching language skills. “They have some sort of nature story to them. They’re human; they’re not fantastical. It’s just a picture of how language is used to develop the child’s sense of security and presence in the world. We do it very consciously,” said Ms. Pisacano. The next scheduled show is about getting ready for winter. “Instead of it being a mundane, practical get your clothes on, your boots, it’s more of how to look out for ways to bring kindness to each other,” said Ms. Pisacano. “We would bring an image of a little child who has the desire to share their light, their goodness with the world. They go on a journey. The journey is dark. They ask for help. They’re given tools, and they’re given a better level of understanding. It’s a way of promoting goodness by showing someone who wants to help the world,” said Ms. Pisacano.

    Students react positively to these shows. According to Ms. Pisacano the metaphor for light helps the children feel more confident, and “after a puppet show like that, the kids look at one other and say, ‘This was the best puppet show ever.’ ” Young children are not able to distinguish between reality and fiction, Ms. Touchette explained. “When in front of computer screen they’re presented with images that they can’t really process. We provide them with a puppet show, it moves slowly, and they can process it. They can understand and get something out of it,” she said.

    Festivals that are tied to the change of season are central to a Waldorf education. Recently, Our Sons and Daughters held a festival to celebrate and mark the beginning of winter. Ms. Pisacano pointed out that these festivals have been going on for hundreds of years. “The kids walk the spiral of boughs of green spruce. We trim the trees and make a huge spiral, and they walk inward. We prepare ourselves to walk inward to winter. It’s a symbolic festival,” she said. The children also walked with candles to create a feeling of peace about winter and light in the darkness. A festival in March will celebrate the arrival of spring. “We do four a year,” Ms. Pisacano said. Part of the curriculum is to teach about the world through celebrating festivals. “It brings everyone together, families, it’s a nice way to build community.”

    “We don’t bring them images from the modern world; we give them archetypical images that are good and calm. They get a sense that the world is good and it’s not too much for them to handle,” said Ms. Pisacano. The Waldorf philosophy emphasizes allowing children “to unfold in their best way without presenting them with too much stimuli at once. So they can learn how to trust themselves and behave in a group with other human beings, and develop at their own pace,” she added.

    The push to read in traditional preschools concerns Ms. Touchette. “I don’t think human development has changed in the past 40 years. This is a concept of modern culture: ‘I want my child reading at 4. Then at 6, then they can do this, and they can go to Harvard. They can be the top of the game,’ ” she said. Alternatively, the focus at Our Sons and Daughters is on giving children the time and space to be children. “We’re giving them what we think they need: time to play, time to be with nature, time to hear stories, and time to be with their friends and learn how social relationships work,” Ms. Touchette said.

    In January, Our Sons and Daughters will offer a parent-child class with activities similar to those of a typical school day. Children will take part in the activities and parents will observe without intervening. “The children get to experience it without someone directing them,” said Ms. Pisacano. “It’s planting a seed to be with your child in a group without any real stress. It’s a simple way of being with them. It’s structured without seeming like it’s structured,” she added. Those interested in the class can find more information at the school’s Web site, oursonsanddaughters.org.