Following a widespread mailing to voters from the incumbent Republican East Hampton Town supervisor, which claims that Zach Cohen, his Democratic opponent in the November election, worked “unlawfully” on the town’s finances under Bill McGintee, the disgraced former supervisor, Mr. Cohen has, in a press release, accused Bill Wilkinson of “outright lies.”

    Mr. Wilkinson directly links Mr. Cohen’s voluntary financial advice with the misallocation of funds under Mr. McGintee, tagging the last budget the McGintee administration prepared as the “McGintee-Cohen” budget. Mr. Wilkinson’s letter says there was “$10 million of padding” in that budget, which his administration has “reigned [sic] in” since taking office in 2010.

    Moreover, Mr. Wilkinson uses the words “unpaid, unauthorized [and] uncredentialed” in characterizing Mr. Cohen’s involvement in the town’s finances. His actions were “basically illegal,” Mr. Wilkinson said in an interview on Tuesday. 

    “Absent of a town board resolution [Zach Cohen] was unauthorized in his unfettered access to computers, to checkbooks, to officers and the budget, during the time, through his own self-admission, he helped prepare,” Mr. Wilkinson said.

    Mr. Cohen, who has an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago and has been endorsed by the Working Families Party and was by the local Independence Party, says he made his expertise available to the town comptroller, Janet Verneuille, during the entire year of 2009. In his press release, he also says that in 2008 he brought the improper use of community preservation funds to the town board’s attention.

    Mr. Cohen insists that not only the McGintee administration asked him for help in unraveling the town’s financial morass and pending bankruptcy, but that Mr. Wilkinson and Theresa Quigley also called on him for analysis and preparation of an alternative financial plan, which they released during the election campaign. Mr. Cohen goes on to say the Wilkinson administration continued to rely on his advice during its early days in office, even placing him on the town’s Budget and Finance Advisory Committee.

     Mr. Wilkinson also charges Mr. Cohen with having cost the town thousands of dollars by making faulty accusations against Nawrocki Smith, the external auditing firm chosen to assess the McGintee adminstration’s financial misdeeds. Len Bernard, the town budget officer under Mr. Wilkinson, echoed the supervisor’s concerns.

    “The engagement letter to do the yearly audit said only $100,000 could be spent and we expected to pay less, but it took much longer because of the wild goose chases the auditors had to go on because of the allegations Cohen made against the work Nawrocki Smith had done,” Mr. Bernard said.

    Mr. Bernard also said Nawrocki Smith was forced to absorb $56,000 in extraneous claims, because its re-investigation costs far exceeded the amount it had agreed to charge.

    Pete Hammerle, a town councilman in both adminstrations, interviewed on Tuesday, said all the work given to Nawrocki Smith during the McGintee reign, was authorized by Ms. Verneuille and the entire town board. “Zach did not have the power to unilaterally make anyone do anything,” he said. “He would express concerns and then we would decide whether or not to go to the auditors. We welcomed his assistance.”

    Mr. Cohen said he had turned away from working with the Wilkinson administration when it refused to allow members of the Business and Finance Advisory Committee to question Nawrocki Smith about an audit under way of the town’s capital expenses. He continued, however, to advise the committee and the independent  Group for  Good Government until he announced his candidacy for supervisor.

    In attempting to undercut Mr. Wilkinson’s charges that he acted illegally, Mr. Cohen cites an e-mail during the 2009 campaign from the secretary of the Republican Party, Tina Piette, which says: “I am assuming you saw some of your ideas etc. in what eventually (and finally!!) came out as a proposed ‘financial plan’ for the board to consider?”

     In January, Theresa Quigley, who who was elected deputy supervisor, wrote: “Hope to be working with you on these important issues about which you know so much.”

    On Tuesday, Mr. Wilkinson said it was important not to confuse courtesy correspondence, referring to the e-mails Mr. Cohen has offered, with authorized activity or accepted support of any advice. Rather, Mr. Wilkinson insists those e-mails were largely obligatory responses that behoove any successful politician.

    Mr. Hammerle and Town Councilwoman Julia Prince, who was also on the town board when the last McGintee budget was prepared, agree that Mr. Cohen had never been appointed formally as a financial consultant but, they say, his involvement was openly understood and appreciated by everyone.

    “I was the acting supervisor at the time and [Zach] had the full board’s permission to shuffle through the finances with Janet,” Mr. Hammerle said. “At the time we were not audited yet. Janet came in and was trying to figure out whether we had enough money to get to the end of the year. And Zach showed an acute and, at that time, unbiased interest.”

    Ms. Prince said this week that she wasn’t sure why Mr. Cohen’s involvement in the budget would have been illegal. She said all the town attorneys were aware he had volunteered to help, as well as the comptroller who, Ms. Prince said, consulted Mr. Cohen daily.

    “If you are sitting there with the state comptroller and the person is speaking their language, a resolution never crosses your mind,” she said. “It was great to have people that were smart and came forward with their ideas. [Zach] wasn’t a political person at the time. He was just trying to offer his services, and he’s a damn good forensic accountant.”

Correction:

An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Ms. Verneuille was fired. In fact, after her East Hampton Town salary was substantially reduced after Mr. Wilkinson took office, she took a job with the Sag Harbor School District as its business manager. Coverage of that story can be found at http://67.199.116.138/dnn/Archive/Home20100114/News/EastHamptonComptrol…

    The purchase by East Hampton Town of four acres just off Swamp Road, near the headwaters of Northwest Creek, will bring the preserved land in the area to 800 acres and could be used for storing kayaks and canoes and for kiosks with trail maps and natural history information, Scott Wilson, the town’s director of land acquisition, said last week.

    The town board approved the $887,500 purchase last Thursday night following a hearing. The land, owned by Charles Wade and Cynthia Loewen, will be acquired with money from the community preservation fund.

    The property had been the site of Northwest Kennels, a longtime dog-boarding facility that had, beginning almost a decade ago, prompted complaints from neighbors, some of whom sued the town in 2005, challenging a decision by the town building inspector that the kennel could continue to operate legally as a pre-existing, nonconforming use in a residential zone.

    The neighbors, who included Theresa Quigley, now a town councilwoman, Thomas Quigley, her husband, Peter Van Scoyoc, now a Democratic candidate for town board, Lawrence Koncelik, Ms. Quigley’s brother, and Patricia Hope, claimed the kennel had stopped operating for a time, thereby losing its legal rights.

    The group sued after an appeal to the town zoning board to overturn the building inspector’s decision was denied. Instead, the zoning board confirmed the inspector’s finding that the business had been in continuous operation as a boarding facility for dogs, including, it was asserted, a Quigley pet.

    The business was inherited from its founder, Alfred Staudinger, by Mr. Wade, his grandson, and Ms. Loewen, his stepdaughter, who is married to former Town Councilman Brad Loewen. Mr. Loewen, a member of the planning board at the time, raised the abandonment issue during a 2005 run for the town board. He denied suggestions that applications before the planning board from Mr. Wade might have received preferential treatment.

    Ms. Quigley abstained from the vote on the acquisition last week. Prior to the town board’s vote, three people spoke in favor of it, including Ms. Hope, who said  preserving the site would “help to scrub the [nearby] shellfish beds and give them back to the people.”

    Bill Mott, an Independence Party candidate for East Hampton Town Trustee, said preserving the land would have a positive effect on water quality.        Speaking for himself and Jim Matthews of the Northwest Alliance, Chris Haak, a resident of Northwest Landing Road, said, “The creek is one of the nicest areas of town, and its preservation is critical.”

    Mr. Wilson announced that a house on the property and the kennels would be demolished, but that a detached garage might be retained for public use. The county and state, he said, would provide information for visitors to tracts they own nearby.    

    As Bonac-American as bluefish and pancakes, striped bass and civil disobedience, Budweiser and black Labs, the red, white, and blue dory that sits on the front lawn of the East Hampton Historical Society’s Marine Museum in Amagansett — angled slightly as though lifted by a wave — has been restored, thanks to an Eagle Scout and his grandfather.

    Chris Westergard, 17, a senior at East Hampton High School, chose to refurbish the dory from a list of Lions Club projects deemed Eagle Scout badge-worthy.

    His grandfather John DiSunno of Amagansett agreed to lend a hand, as did a number of local stores that enthusiastically donated materials for the project. Donors included Aboff’s Paint and Wallcovering of East Hampton, which came up with red, white, and blue paint plus the lime-green (bordering on chartreuse) color of the boat’s interior. The shade would seem incongruous without knowing the boat’s history.

    The dory was built for haulseining at the back of Stuart’s Fish Market in Amagansett by Stuart Vorpahl and Tom Field, in 1976. That was 15 years before the traditional method of fishing was outlawed by the state. It was the center of a partnership formed by Mr. Field, Billy Vorpahl Sr., and Dan King.

    The bright lizard green was the original color of the entire dory, Mr. DiSunno said, quite a sight when it was launched from the partners’ trailer and pickup, and as it paid out the semi-circle of net to encircle shore-grazing bass.

    ’Seventy-six  was the nation’s bicentennial year, so Jimmy Lester painted three-quarters of the dory’s hull with red and white stripes, with white stars against a field of blue on the bow. 

    After Billy Vorpahl Sr. began working at Stuart’s on a more regular basis, and Mr. Field got busy excavating, Mr. King became the dory’s fishing captain, heading up one of several haulseine crews working in East Hampton at the time.

    In 1990, the ocean seine was outlawed as a method of catching striped bass. The Flag Dory, as it became known, became the indelible image here of a civil-disobedience protest against the state ban. The protest was held at Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett with the support of town officials and a celebrity boost from Billy Joel.

     Chris Westergard said the dory’s original flooring had rusted. Using steel plate donated by Bridgehampton Steel and Ron Sullivan of Montauk, his grandfather welded a new bottom. Weep holes and a drain were added to fight corrosion in the future.

    Riverhead Lumber supplied wood for a seat. East Hampton Plumbing supplied piping to rebuild the dory’s gunwales where they had been worn by nets and weather. Rust-busting wire brushes were donated by East Hampton Hardware.

    The resurrection was begun during the second week of August and completed in three weeks, working two days each week, 9 to 10 hours a day, with the help of Chris’s fellow scouts Rick Nardo, Nick Pucci, Brendon DiSunno, and Mike Gherardi.

    Oh, and the new white stars that now grace the dory’s bow shine compliments of the Sign Language store on Gingerbread Lane. 

    “Does anyone know who’s buying the old Pacific East space in Amagansett?” someone inquired on the Web site chowhound.com in May of 2008.

    There was no answer then, but there may be one soon.

    The restaurant and nightclub, on a two-acre site just west of the Amagansett Firehouse, has been for sale since Sept. 29, 2007. The original asking price, set at the crest of a strong market, was $8.5 million, Htun Han, an Amagansett real estate broker, said this week. But it came down fast after the recession began, to $6.5 million and eventually to $4 million.

    “Make an offer,” implored the Saunders and Associates listing. Apparently nobody did.

    Enter now the Amagansett Fire District, which surprised the community last week with the news that it is in contract with the owners of Pacific East to buy the property for $2.8 million, pending a referendum. The vote, to be taken on Oct. 4 at the firehouse, will be preceded there a week earlier, on Sept. 27, by an informational meeting and discussion of the purchase.

    Fire district officials outlined their plans for the property on Monday night before a well-attended meeting of the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee. Jack Emptage, a fire district commissioner who has been at the forefront of the drive, said the 7,155-square-foot building, which he described as “a total shambles,” would be used for training for a time before being put to the torch in a controlled burn. “The building has no real interest to us,” he said. A new one would go up in its stead, to be used primarily to house ambulances.

    “We believe we will have to go from two ambulances to three, and we need a facility to do that,” Mr. Emptage explained. “With the increasing average age of the community, we have an increased number of ambulance calls every year. In July alone, we responded to 98 ambulance calls,” almost twice as many, he said, as in 2010.

     Amagansett ambulance coverage extends across the Napeague stretch, the scene of all-too-frequent late-night auto accidents, and on out to Hither Hills State Park, taking in a number of motels and condominium complexes along the way.

    Besides ambulances, the new building would be a base for emergency medical technicians and contain training quipment. Currently, Amagansett E.M.T.s are volunteers, but the district has said it may need to hire paid personnel in the future

    With one or two exceptions, the audience at the citizens committee meeting reacted enthusiastically to the proposed purchase. “I feel the timing is perfect,” said Mr. Han, who was there in his capacity as a critical-care E.M.T. “To get two acres in the heart of Amagansett for $2.8 million is a rare opportunity.” Several people gasped when the price was announced.

    One woman wanted to know why vacant land behind the firehouse could not be used for the new building. Mr. Emptage answered that it was needed for helicopter landings and training. “We use the field for medevac all the time,” he said. “The land that’s left is insufficient.”      

    Someone else asked what the purchase would mean in terms of property taxes. “Taxes will go up as a function of the market value of your home,” Mr. Emptage said. “I think, less than a mug of beer at your uncle’s saloon once a week,” he added. The figure has yet to be determined.

    The property tax on Pacific East now is $27,975.26. The owner, listed as Asmac L.L.C., has not paid the taxes, however, for the last three years. The parcel would be taken off the tax rolls if the sale to the fire district goes through.

    There was also a question from the audience about the timing of the public referendum. “There’s a minute window between the hearing and the referendum,” a woman said. “I feel just a sense that we’re rushing to it. Seven days between the time you meet and the vote?”

    Mr. Emptage paused for a moment before answering. “On the timing issue. The current owner was most anxious to get a deal and go away,” he said. “We would not have been able to get this good a deal. . . . “ He stopped. “We were, frankly, between a rock and a hard place.”

    He would not elaborate, but a look at the East Hampton Town Code and a visit to the building inspector’s office sheds some light. The question is whether or not a restaurant could still be opened at the location. If yes, then the fire district has made a good deal; if no, maybe not.

    The building, at 415 Main Street, is in a residential zone, but it was in commercial operation before zoning was adopted. This classified it as a legal pre-existing and nonconforming use. There have been restaurants and nightclubs there since at least 1955, from the Elm Tree Inn to Martell’s to Oceans to Pacific East. That means a new restaurant might be able to operate there today, which would make the property a lot more valuable, even in a down market.

    But there’s a catch. The code says that if there has been no commercial use of a nonconforming place for 18 months, it is considered abandoned and the pre-existing classification expires.

    To all appearances, no one has bought a drink or dinner at Pacific East for years. But appearances can be deceiving. Someone evidently did, and has done so all along, including at least once in the last 18 months.

    According to Tom Preiato, the town’s senior building inspector, the time limit in the code was last satisfied in March of 2010. He declined to say by whom, but said that the commercial use was “good for 18 months,” or until sometime next month.

    Kieran Brew, vice chairman of the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee and himself a firefighter, told Monday’s meeting that yes indeed, the Building Department had said the place could be a nightclub once more. Those in attendance were asked for a show of hands, after which the committee voted unanimously “to support the fire district in this effort.”     

    A mammoth 2.26-pound quahog dug from the bottom of Napeague Harbor earned Edward F. Hoff Jr. top honors in the junior division from that body of water, as well as the whole quahog enchilada, during the annual Largest Clam Contest weigh-offs on Sunday in Amagansett.

    The festivities were held, as usual, at the Bluff Road headquarters of the East Hampton Town Trustees, who sponsor the event. And, as usual, only the most experienced judges were chosen to measure and weigh the contesting bivalves, in this case Milton Miller and Ben Havens.

    With practiced eye, they determined that Jessica James found the heaviest clam in Lake Montauk, a diminutive representative from that water body at 8.7 ounces. Emily Jackson topped the juniors in Lake Montauk with a 7-ouncer.

    Accabonac Harbor was better represented. Nancy Peppard found a 1.85-pound clam to take top honors among adult diggers. Jessica Branche was the junior winner with a 1.43-pounder. In Three Mile Harbor, Tim McAuliffe’s 1.55-pound quahog was the adult winner, and Ethan Stillwachs ran away with the junior title with a very respectable 1.54-pound mollusk.

    Napeague shone once again as the water body with Godzilla potential in the clam department. Mr. Hoff’s monster bested a very respectable clam dug by Cameron McAuliffe weighing in at 1.79 pounds.

    For the third time in the history of the chowder competition, Paul Roman of Montauk brewed up the best-tasting clam chowder, a white chowder, out of a field of 12.

    Free to all the celebrants were hot dogs, clams on the half shell, and vats of the Overton family’s Bonac chowder, which year after year seems to top all those entered in the chowder competition.    

    Tropical Storm Irene may have been more bark than bite for most East Enders, but the Long Island Power Authority’s struggle to get power restored to thousands of customers caused a storm of outrage that has lasted more than a week.

    “On a grading scale of pass-fail their grade is C minus, and even then I am being gracious,” East Hampton Village Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. said in a statement issued on Friday. In it, he also praised village personnel and volunteers for their emergency response.

    “It is one thing for a LIPA customer not to be able to leave the appropriate message of an outage, but when local government, i.e., your village, has to undergo phone transferal from one person to another seeking answers to substantive questions regarding power restoration, something is totally out of whack,” Mr. Rickenbach said.

    The mayor’s statement echoed similarly critical ones earlier last week from State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. and State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle.

    It was clear to anyone who drove through East Hampton last week that not only were LIPA workers and contractors in the area, but so were other electrical teams from as far away as Missouri. However, as late as Tuesday afternoon, pockets of houses, most notably in Amagansett and Springs, remained in the dark.

    Roger Grunewald is a resident of Old Stone Highway in Springs whose house was one of five or six in a small area that was without power for a week.

    “It came back on about 11 a.m. on Sunday,” he said. Mr. Grunewald had called the LIPA hotline “pretty much from Tuesday on, getting that message that said my outage had been recorded.”

    On Sunday morning, he received an automated call back from the company, assuring him that power would be restored that day. “My wife and I went to the beach,” he said. “When we got back, it was on.”

    According to Vanessa Baird-Streeter, a spokeswoman for LIPA, “about 96 customers lingered on into Monday,” although, she added, the moderate wind gusts and rains that assailed the area on Monday night into Tuesday morning actually helped, not hindered.

    “In some cases, trees and branches may have been leaning on wires, and the storm that happened Tuesday may have removed those branches and alleviated the problems,” she said.

    During the tropical storm surge on Aug. 28 alone, LIPA fielded over 875,000 calls, she said. “There was mass devastation across Long Island,” Ms. Baird-Streeter said, which resulted in a “lack of communication.”

    She explained that, to expedite services, LIPA delegated local control to a series of mini-substations, “which were not designed to be control stations.” There was a breakdown in communications, not between the customers and the automated messages, which entered outage information directly into the system, but between these local control stations and command central.

    “Any time we go through a significant weather event, there are lessons learned,” she said.

    In East Hampton, where many houses have private wells, running water — and flushing toilets — was an issue after a few days, as was food spoilage.

    “By Wednesday, we had to throw out all the food in the refrigerator,” said William Sherman of Abram’s Landing Road in Amagansett. “Steak, chicken, frozen vegetables, cheese which had melted, all in the garbage,” he said. The Shermans’ power was restored on Saturday afternoon.

    “Some of my neighbors had power, people across the street,” he continued. “We saw crews on Tuesday [Aug. 30] on our road, and we asked them when the power would come back on. They said, ‘We’re doing primaries now, you’re a secondary.’ ”

    Those terms, primaries and secondaries, may have been unknown to those not in the power business before Irene hit the South Fork, but now they’re understood. Primaries are lines that serve a large number of customers. Secondaries are the offshoots that serve a smaller number of people.

    “Over all, I understand that their first objective was primaries. I even agree with it,” Mr. Sherman said. “But they just had to run one wire for us to get power. It would have taken 15 minutes. They were working 20 yards from my house. They weren’t rude about it, they just said, ‘We don’t have that assignment, we can’t do it.’ ”

    “One guy was local, a Bridgehampton worker. He was amazed that the contracted workers wouldn’t do it. He said he would have.”

    Mr. Grunewald laughed the LIPA situation off. “I’ve been here 40 years,” he said. “In the ’70s and ’80s, if you sneezed at the dinner table, the lights went out. But after [Hurricane] Bob, they started a pretty vigorous campaign for tree trimming and all that. It’s been pretty good since then.”

    An audit of the East Hampton Town Human Services Department, commissioned by the town board last October, has turned up numerous instances in which supervision and records were lacking. A report released last week states that there had been “extensive and pervasive destruction of records.” The report, from the accounting firm Nawrocki Smith, also states that records were missing from sealed boxes, as well as files.

    The missing documents, Len Bernard, the town budget manager, said at a town board meeting last Thursday, were apparently destroyed by outgoing department administrators prior to their retirement last fall. Human Services Department staff members, he said, had “confirmed that in the final weeks documents were shredded in great quantities.”

    Due to the destruction of records, the auditors were unable to fully analyze the workings of the department or to determine whether services for which the town had received grant money were provided. The report rates “inherent risk” and “control risk” as high, and states that administration of the department “needs improvement.”            That records are missing has been reported to the offices of the state comptroller and the county district attorney, Mr. Bernard said at a town board meeting last Thursday night, as he outlined the report.

     Among the 26 problems cited in the report was that the department lacked a license to provide psychotherapy counseling but had offered it. Diane Patrizio, the current director of the department, has discontinued these services while seeking proper licensing, and has acted on several of the auditors’ other recommendations, Mr. Bernard said.

    While neither the report nor Mr. Bernard named names, a letter to Supervisor Bill Wilkinson, which accompanied the report, said, also without using  names, that the auditors had tried and failed on three separate occasions to interview the former Human Services Department director, Edna Steck, the former youth services supervisor, Audrey Gaines, and the family counseling supervisor, as well as a former town board liaison to the department. Neither did Ms. Steck or Ms. Gaines, nor Craig Karlebach, the family counseling supervisor, return calls from The Star this week.

    They were among 12 employees who retired at the same time as the town board made deep cuts in the department’s budget.

    A New York State “records retention and disposal schedule” outlines what records should be retained, and for how long. It requires, for example, that documents related to grants, client files for senior services, and budget preparation files be maintained for six years. Other “routine internal reports” — travel schedules, memos, and the like — are not required to be retained.

    In the report, the auditors said 36 empty file folders had been found with labels such as “Adolescent Pregnancy,” “Annual Beach Party,” “Youth Speak Out,” “Memorandums,” Resumes,”

    Tropical Storm Irene left many trees in her wake when she ran across the South Fork on Aug. 28. While the damage could have been far worse, arborists have been quite busy since then tackling all the cleanup.

    There is no way to compete with Mother Nature, especially when you are up against 60 to 70-mile-per-hour winds, but some local tree-care specialists have offered a few tips for protecting your property next time around.

    Michael Gaines, founder and president of CW Arborists in East Hampton strongly recommends that homeowners have a qualified person inspect their property annually for signs of rotting, decay, and diseased or dead trees, so that any hazardous ones can be removed prior to a storm.

    And when it comes to post-storm cleanup, Mr. Gaines, a master arborist certified by the International Society of Arboriculture, said the most important thing is to have a professional assess the situation and take action. “There are a lot of different methods to remove a tree, if a tree has fallen on a house. Sometimes a crane is perfect, or a cut is the right way to go. You can crush the house if you make the wrong cut,” said Mr. Gaines. “Gravity, torsion, compression, all of these forces are compounded when a tree falls,” he said.

    And, those who need tree work done after a storm should make sure their arborist is legit, he said. “Insurance goes for the deepest pocket. If you’re going for cheap labor [and something happens], the homeowner is responsible. It’s safety. You have to ask yourself, ‘Is it worth it?’ ”

    Bad cuts can further damage trees that can be saved, he said. “I take it personally because these are some wonderful trees that I’ve known my whole life. When I’m talking about a tree, I’m talking the next 40 to 50 years, they need to be maintained.”

    Prevention and awareness are half the battle. According to Mica Marder, owner of Mica Marder Landscaping in East Hampton, good tree maintenance and good pruning are crucial to tree health. “There are certain varieties of trees that don’t develop deep root systems. In East Hampton the elevation isn’t that high and lower elevation is usually something to worry about because you have a higher moisture content [in the soil] that can lead to root rot or softer ground, which results in a poor root system,” he said.

    In addition to removing large dead branches near a house, Mr. Marder also recommends that homeowners be aware of the type of soil on their property. He cautions people against simply removing trees from their property in an attempt to protect their house. “Trees are a privilege to have on your property, and if you maintain proper tree care, your trees are better protected and less of a potential hazard during a storm,” he said.

    If a tree is in wetlands or softer ground, then it is a more viable candidate for removal, he added. However, he pointed out that there are town restrictions regarding the percentage of a property that can be cleared.

    Mr. Marder, too, advised having a professional survey a property in the aftermath of a big storm. “People will take chances, and the homeowner is responsible. Even if you think the tree is leaning one way, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to go that way. There could be vines, there could be rot in the tree, all of which could cause the tree to go in an unpredictable fashion.”

    “Our approach is trying to get our clientele to understand and practice a proactive approach to trees that are at risk,” said A.J. Remy of Remy Tree in Sag Harbor. “My business is based on pruning trees. We don’t practice chopping, we don’t top trees, but sometimes we have to do some canopy reduction, which develops an eye for natural pruning. We try to preserve trees.”

    He also suggests that property owners diversify their plantings. “Mix it up. Don’t just plant one kind of tree across your property. Have a variety of texture, color, and flowering. It gives you a nice balance.”

    Mr. Remy cautioned against employing tree workers who “might not understand the practice, and don’t get the union of the branches and the tree,” he said. “It’s really been hard this past week to see landscapers wielding chain saws like they’re cowboy jockeys.”

    Next Thursday from 6 to 8 p.m., Mr. Gaines will offer a chain saw-safety class at CW Arborists at 194 Three Mile Harbor Road in East Hampton. It will be free and open to the public. “I’ve seen so many accidents and close calls, why not make it available?” he said. During the seminar, Mr. Gaines will demonstrate proper technique, the most dangerous parts of the saw, and how to protect the most at-risk parts of your body while operating a saw.

    Steven Gaines, who is running for East Hampton Town Board on the Republican line, announced the creation of a new local political party this week called the Opportunity Party.

    The New York State Board of Elections okayed the new party after receiving 782 signatures on a petition. Mr. Gaines said the month-long process of gathering the signatures gave him a good chance to exchange ideas and concerns.

    “You walk up and down the streets, you stand in front of the post office, and you meet your local voters to find out what the concerns are of the people here,” he said. “It created a sense of discourse. I got to hear what a lot of people were thinking. If I got 782 signatures, then I definitely spoke to about 1,500 people.”

    Mr. Gaines described himself as a lifelong Democrat who aligns with the party on a national level. On a local level, however, he said the Democratic party was in disarray, and that he had jumped at the chance to run on the Republican ticket.

    “When I was asked to run with Bill Wilkinson, I said, ‘I’m not running because he’s a Republican or not. I’m running because I watched this town almost destroyed financially.’ I’m part of a large group that Bill has put together. I didn’t have any trepidation running under the Republican ticket because I am who I am. And believe me, no one has ever tried to influence my opinions or thoughts. No one wants me to hew to a certain philosophy.”

    Mr. Gaines said many of his supporters were disconcerted to find him on the G.O.P. ticket. The Opportunity Party, he hopes, will woo back Democratic and independent voters.

    “They wanted to vote for me, but not on the Republican ticket,” he explained. “I realized there was a way of getting my constituents who really cared about getting me elected, but who couldn’t bear to pull the Republican lever, to vote for me as a person. There are a lot of independent voters and thinkers who were sick and tired of the polarization of the parties.”

    Mr. Gaines said the Opportunity Party was not for him alone, or for this particular election, or for any particular party, but an opportunity for voters to make a more open-ended choice, one they believed in as opposed to feeling obligated by.

    “When you go into the voting booth, somewhere in that morass you’ll see the Opportunity Party,” he said with a laugh. “I’m hoping it will stay alive out here and we’ll nurture it.”

    With the autumnal wind comes the season of politics, and the weeks ahead will be filled with know-your-candidates  fund-raising parties. Beginning on Saturday,  opportunities abound for Republicans, Democrats, the uncommitted, and the undecided to meet and mingle with the movers and shakers of the community.

    Gloria Prager will host a cocktail party for Democratic candidates and their supporters from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, at her house in Montauk, 5 North Farragut Road. The entire Democratic slate is expected to attend: Zach Cohen, who is running for East Hampton Town Supervisor, Sylvia Overby and Peter Van Scoyoc for the town board, Scott King for highway superintendent, Stephen Grossman for town justice, and Jeanne Nielsen for town assessor. Running for town trustee on the Democratic ticket are John Chimples, Sima Freierman, Ray Hartjen, Rona Klopman, Debbie Klughers, Samuel E. Kramer, Nanci LaGarenne, Steve Lester, and Loretta Sears.

Tickets, which will be available at the door, are $100.

    The Republicans are holding a party in support of Stephen K. Lynch, who is running against Mr. King for highway superintendent, on Saturday from 6 to 9 p.m. at Wolfie’s Tavern on Fort Pond Boulevard in Springs. Mr. Lynch is an East Hampton native, who, according to a G.O.P. release, has 28 years of experience in excavating, draining, and building driveways and parking lots, in addition to having owned his own trucking company. Tickets are $45.

    Friends of Richard Haeg, a Republican running for the town board, will throw a cocktail party for him next Thursday evening from 6 to 8 at Rugosa restaurant on Route 27 west of East Hampton. Mr. Haeg is a Marine Corps veteran and a former Suffolk County police officer and detective.

    Hot and cold hors d’oeuvres will be served, with complimentary beer and wine and a cash bar. Tickets cost $75 in advance or $100 at the door.

    The next night, Friday, Sept. 23, will see all the Republican candidates gathering from 6 to 8 for a reception at Betty Ann Becker’s house, 25 Dune Alpin South in East Hampton. From the top down, they are Bill Wilkinson, running for a second term as supervisor; Richard Haeg and Steven Gaines for town board, Mr. Lynch for highways, Lisa Rana for another term as town justice, and Jill Massa for another term as town assessor. The trustee candidates include Diane McNally, Stephanie Talmage Forsberg, Timothy Bock, Joe Bloecker, John Gosman Jr., Lynn Mendelman, Kevin Byrne, Sean McCaffrey, and Nathaniel Miller.

    No contribution is necessary.