East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc issued a tentative 2019 budget last Thursday calling for a 3.73-percent spending increase, or $2.9 million, over the current budget. 

Under the proposed figure, $80.66 million, property owners would see an overall tax rate increase of 2.47 percent, except for residents of an incorporated village, who would see a 3.58 percent rise. The difference is due in part to a decrease in the highway fund tax rate for nonvillage residents, whose overall rate is projected to be $30.90 per $100 of assessed value. 

Just under $53 million of the tentative budget is to be raised through taxes, an approximately $1.6 million increase from 2018, or 3.17 percent. The budget stays under the state-established tax levy cap, which allows an increase of $1.787 million over 2018, “by balancing the need for proper funding with the desire to maintain moderate tax rates,” according to an accompanying message from Mr. Van Scoyoc. “It uses a reasonable amount of surplus to create this balance while maintaining ample reserves that meet the expectations of the credit rating community, which has assigned the town an AAA rating, based on our ample reserves, conservative budgeting, and proactive financial management practices.”

Nondiscretionary spending, such as contractual salary and benefits and debt service, accounts for 73.3 percent of the proposed increase. Salary and benefit increases, upgrades of positions, promotions, and salary adjustments account for $1.28 million. Another $861,000 is for debt service payments for projects including the new townwide emergency communications system, the water main extension in Wainscott, improvements to the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter, perimeter fencing at East Hampton Airport, and digitization of town records. Health insurance costs have also risen. 

Of the $775,000 increase in discretionary spending, nearly 73 percent of it, or $605,000, goes to the airport fund, to purchase aviation fuel. That expense, Mr. Van Scoyoc wrote, is more than offset by revenue from selling the fuel to airport operators, who pay the town’s purchase price plus 30 cents per gallon. 

An additional $125,000 would go to the town attorney’s office to pay for outside counsel retained for various legal issues. For example, the office has hired a specialist to guide it in negotiations with Deepwater Wind on its proposed South Fork Wind Farm. Also, a $109,000 increase is sought for new and renewed software maintenance contracts. That expenditure, Mr. Van Scoyoc wrote, will reduce some long-term expenses by decreasing the need for additional hardware. 

The tentative budget adds one new full-time position, for a cashier in the tax receiver’s office. 

The budget has been distributed to the town board and submitted to the town clerk. Copies are available to the public in the clerk’s office.

The board will consider the proposed budget on Tuesday morning during a work session at the Montauk Firehouse. After a final review on Oct. 16, potential changes will be incorporated. A public hearing will follow before adoption in November.

An organization founded by former Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who was critically wounded in a mass shooting in her Arizona district in 2011, has endorsed Perry Gershon’s campaign to unseat Representative Lee Zeldin in the Nov. 6 election to represent New York’s First Congressional District. 

Ms. Giffords and her husband, the former astronaut Mark Kelly, founded Giffords, a gun safety organization. The group’s #VoteCourage campaign aims to elect candidates who favor reform of the nation’s gun policies. 

Ms. Giffords, who was considered a conservative Democrat in Congress, had just begun a third term when she was shot in the head while meeting with constituents outside a Tucson supermarket on Jan. 8, 2011. Her assailant shot 24 others, killing six including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl. Ms. Giffords resigned her seat a year later. 

“This year, voters are demanding leaders who offer more than thoughts and prayers when it comes to gun violence,” Ms. Giffords said in a Sept. 26 release announcing the endorsement. “They’re no longer willing to accept politicians who can’t imagine a world where schools, workplaces, churches, and communities are safe places, where our children don’t have to live in fear. The level of gun violence we experience in our country is not normal, and thankfully, we finally have leaders running for office who have the courage to fight to finally address it.”

Mr. Zeldin, who is seeking a third term, is a co-sponsor of the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, which the House of Representatives passed in December. If enacted, it would allow any person with a concealed carry permit from one state to carry their weapon in any other state, and allow anybody with a concealed carry permit to do so on any federal land, such as national parks or national monuments. The National Rifle Association gave him $9,900 in the 2016 election cycle. 

“With the support of Congresswoman Giffords, her husband Captain Mark Kelly, and countless other advocates for commonsense gun reform, I know we flip this seat in November,” Mr. Gershon, who lives in East Hampton, said in a statement. “Long Islanders who go to church, school, concerts, and movie theaters should not have to live in fear of violence. If elected in November, I pledge to make passing lifesaving gun safety measures a top priority.”

Mr. Zeldin picked up a high-profile endorsement of his own last week, when President Trump endorsed his campaign via Twitter. 

“Congressman Lee Zeldin is doing a fantastic job in D.C.,” Mr. Trump tweeted on Sept. 26. “Tough and smart, he loves our Country and will always be there to do the right thing. He has my Complete and Total Endorsement!” Mr. Zeldin retweeted the president’s remarks. 

Mr. Gershon, a Democrat, also took to Twitter, retweeting Mr. Trump’s message and adding “TFW your favorite puppet’s district is slipping away,” using a slang abbreviation for “that feeling when.” Mr. Gershon has called attention to high-profile Republican and conservative voices that have weighed in on the campaign, arguing that a tweet by Donald Trump Jr. and remarks by the radio personality Rush Limbaugh are indications that his race is winnable. 

Last month, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee added Mr. Gershon’s campaign to its “red to blue” list, a program that seeks to unseat Republicans in Congress.

Assemblyman Fred. W. Thiele Jr. has picked up two more endorsements as he runs to keep the seat he has held since 1996.

Mr. Thiele, who is running on the Independence, Democratic, Working Families, and Women’s Equality Party lines, has been endorsed by the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees and the Long Island Environmental Voters Forum.

The employees’ federation, the state’s largest public service union, has more than 400,000 members. Thanking the union for its endorsement, Mr. Thiele said in a release that he will “continue to defend the rights of these members and all working men and women who provide essential public services that New Yorkers rely on every day.” 

The assemblyman has won endorsement from the nonprofit and nonpartisan Environmental Voters Forum many times. “I have been a longtime advocate for protecting our natural resources, and I look forward to continuing my work on environmental conservation on behalf of my district and all of New York State,” he said. 

Mr. Thiele has also been endorsed by the New York League of Conservation Voters, the New York State A.F.L.-C.I.O., Long Island Federation of Labor, Suffolk County Association of Municipal Employees, Public Employees Federation, Communications Workers of America Local 1108, Planned Parenthood Empire State Votes PAC Endorsement Committee, the Suffolk County Correction Officers Association, the New York State United Teachers, and the Civil Service Employees Association.

Public hearings on a series of studies aimed at developing long-range plans for each of East Hampton Town’s hamlets will begin tonight at Town Hall, when the town board takes comments on a Wainscott hamlet study and an overall business study. 

The hamlet studies got underway in 2015, with public input beginning the following year. Consultants engaged by the town to assist in the studies, Peter Flinker of Dodson and Flinker, a Massachusetts consulting firm, and Lisa Liquori of Fine Arts and Sciences, a former town planning director, have presented updates since then based on public comment from individuals, the hamlets’ citizens advisory committees, chambers of commerce, and East Hampton Village. The goal is to adopt recommendations for each hamlet — Wainscott, Springs, Amagansett, Montauk, and areas of East Hampton outside of the village —that will be incorporated into the town’s comprehensive plan.

Tonight’s meeting begins at 6:30. Looking ahead, The East Hampton hamlet study will be subject of a hearing on Oct. 18. Next up, on Nov. 1, will be Amagansett, followed by Springs on Nov. 15, and Montauk on Dec. 6. 

All of the public hearings will happen at Town Hall, during town board meetings that start at 6:30 p.m. While an individual hamlet will be the focus of each hearing, public comment on any hamlet will be accepted at all of the hearings. 

The board decided in August to schedule the hearings and review any comments before determining any environmental impacts under the State Environmental Quality Review Act. The studies are then to be forwarded to the Suffolk County Planning Commission, which would have 30 days to offer its comments. 

A vote to adopt the recommendations would follow. But adoption, Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said in August, was “a broader stroke” than other regulatory legislation necessary to put recommendations into effect. The next step, he said, would be to “look at creating zoning laws or other means of regulation” to legalize the recommendations.

Affordable housing, congested roadways during the tourist season, and bicycle and pedestrian connectivity are common themes among the hamlet studies, the former requiring infrastructure to address wastewater treatment, the latter requiring a rethinking of the existing vehicle-oriented development with respect to streets and sidewalks. 

A lack of pedestrian connectivity and outdoor spaces is detrimental to Wainscott’s character, the study has suggested, and the haphazard development of its commercial district has brought a strip-mall look and feel with many curb cuts and uncoordinated parking lots. A rethinking could include connected parking lots behind the commercial buildings on the north side of Montauk Highway. Future uses of the sandpit, which will eventually cease operation, could include expanded commercial or mixed use, affordable housing, parking, a Long Island Rail Road station, or open space. (A development proposal now before the East Hampton Town Planning Board seeks to divide the sand and gravel pit into 50 lots with a commercial center.) 

The East Hampton hamlet study notes that connections between existing parking lots on Pantigo Road would reduce traffic and the number of curb cuts, and lighted crosswalks would enhance pedestrian safety. Traffic congestion at North Main Street has been identified as a concern and flow should be improved between Cedar Street, Collins Avenue, and North Main Street, a bottleneck between East Hampton and Springs, the consultants have suggested. The convergence of Three Mile Harbor Road, Springs Fireplace Road, and North Main Street might also be reworked. Cedar Street could be narrowed to allow safer pedestrian crossing while adding a second eastbound left-turn lane to ease congestion. 

The sandpit on Springs-Fireplace Road could become a site for development once it ceases operations. It might also be repurposed as a site for heavy vehicles and equipment owned by contractors who operate their businesses informally from Springs residences, alleviating noise and disruption in residential areas, the consultants suggest. 

Issues identified in Amagansett include a shortage of parking in the commercial district and at the Long Island Rail Road station. The I.G.A. and post office are well east of the commercial district, where neither amenity exists at present. 

Alleviating the shortage of affordable housing in Springs was identified as a critical need of that hamlet, where many workers live in group houses that exceed allowable density. But such housing would have to address an impact to water quality and an already burdened school district. 

In Montauk, where sea level rise threatens the downtown and dock areas, consideration has been given to a retreat from the ocean shoreline and a gradual shift to more lightly developed higher ground. Infill and second-story residential development could provide affordable work force housing. Mixed-use buildings and transit-oriented development have been considered at the area near the Long Island Rail Road station on Fort Pond Bay.

In a hoped-for development in the ongoing effort to install approximately 45,000 feet of water main in Wainscott, a project with an estimated price tag of $24 million that will allow property owners access to public water, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has announced a $9.7 million water infrastructure grant for the Town of East Hampton and the Suffolk County Water Authority.

The grant is allocated to the water main installation in the Wainscott water supply district, lying south of East Hampton Airport and stretching to the Atlantic Ocean. The district was created this year following the 2017 discovery of perfluorinated chemicals in many residential wells in the hamlet. 

To date, almost 500 private wells have been tested, Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said on Tuesday, with more than 200 testing positive for perfluorooctane sulfonate, or PFOS, and perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, both used in products including firefighting foam, carpets, furniture fabrics, and clothing, and both of which have been linked to cancers, thyroid problems, and serious complications to pregnancy. 

The federal Environmental Protection Agency has established a health advisory level of 70 parts per trillion. Sixteen wells in Wainscott tested above the health advisory level, Mr. Van Scoyoc said on Tuesday, and another 214 were found to have levels between 20 and 60 parts per trillion. 

The town board declared a state of emergency following detection of the perfluorinated chemicals, and then established a water supply district. In July, the board voted to enter into an intermunicipal agreement with the water authority, paving the way for a grant application. The town is funding the project through the issuance of bonds, and the grant money is to be used for reimbursement. 

  As of Tuesday, 21,380 feet of water main had been installed, Mr. Van Scoyoc said, or 48 percent of the approximately 45,000-foot total. “It has proceeded quite rapidly,” he said. 

The grant is part of $200 million in state funding announced on Tuesday for various efforts to address contaminants in drinking water supplies. It includes $185 million for water treatment system upgrades to combat emerging chemical contaminants such as perfluorinated chemicals. 

The grant to the town and the water authority represents the largest award out of $15 million earmarked for ongoing community projects. All of the funding flows from the governor’s $2.5 billion Clean Water Infrastructure Act. 

Wainscott residents who connect to the water mains must bear the costs of hookup to their houses by hiring private plumbers or using the water authority’s contractor, Asplundh Construction. Homeowners will have to pay upfront for the former option; the latter choice costs significantly more, because of the higher costs of publicly bid labor contracts, but allows amortization over a minimum of 20 years through an assessment on tax bills. 

“That’s a decision each resident will have to make on their own,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said. The board issued a statement last month encouraging Wainscott residents who plan to connect to public water to solicit estimates from both Asplundh Construction and a private plumber. 

While residents are not required to connect to public water, the town board has strongly recommended it. “Certainly with the concerns over the contaminants within that area, you are at risk if you continue to use your private well without any filtration,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said on Tuesday. The financing option, using the water authority’s contractor, will expire in July 2020. Under the emergency declaration, the town instituted a rebate program for the installation of point-of-entry treatment systems. That program will expire once public water installation is completed. 

To date, 91 residential property owners still have not responded to a request for testing, “which is still a very high number given the amount of publicity and the number of attempts made to contact homeowners,” the supervisor said. “If you live within Wainscott, south of the airport, you really should have your water tested.”

Concerned that the formula by which parking requirements are determined may not adequately address actual needs for some businesses, the East Hampton Town Board is proposing a zoning code amendment that would change that formula for bars, taverns, or restaurants that are accessories to resorts or motels. 

Business owners are taking notice, particularly in Montauk. 

An email from the Montauk Chamber of Commerce on Monday implored its membership to attend a hearing on the code amendment tonight at 6:30 at Town Hall. “The businesses need to attend and speak up,” it reads, “because this code change may very well, at some point, negatively affect your business.” 

The impetus for the proposed code amendment, Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said Tuesday, was the board’s recognition that “if existing businesses, which may not even meet their parking under code now, wish to add additional amenities and create additional traffic to their place of business, that there be a provision that they meet those requirements for parking to not further burden the community with overcrowding.”

Included in the proposal would be a statute limiting the area of certain uses. “A resort, transient motel, semipublic facility, or club may have an accessory use for incidental service, such as restaurants, bars, retail shops, etc.,” a legal notice reads. The total aggregate area devoted to such accessory use is not to exceed an area equal to one-third of the aggregate floor area. 

The amendment should not have been considered “without significant input from the business community,” Paul Monte, the Montauk chamber’s president, wrote in the email on Monday. “This type of change to the code can easily become a slippery slope resulting in the loss of significant grandfathered rights to all types of businesses and a great loss in property values to many commercial properties.”

“There have been comments made around town that this is targeted at one specific business,” Mr. Monte said, an apparent reference to Hero Beach Club, formerly the Oceanside motel, which seeks to add a restaurant and bar. “However,” Mr. Monte added, “it can and will have a significant impact on many businesses in Montauk. If you are currently pre-existing, nonconforming in any respect and have grandfathered rights on your property, this proposal should concern you.” 

An anonymous letter to the town board, however, supports the proposal, detailing a litany of concerns about Hero Beach Club, located at the west end of Montauk’s downtown and the entrance to the village. “We were pleased to learn that the East Hampton Town Board is attempting to be proactive in its efforts to control chaos and prevent further destruction to the quality of life in Montauk,” it reads. “How long before the roadway in and out of town becomes as treacherous as the roadway from the Montauk Railroad Station to Surf Lodge during July and August?” 

The proposed code change, Supervisor Van Scoyoc said on Tuesday, is “definitely not” specific to Hero Beach Club. Rather, he said, “It’s targeted to a whole class of businesses.” 

The areas of concern may be concentrated in Montauk due to the number of motels there, the supervisor said, but the issue applies to “any business that might add some other use or amenity.” 

The hearing is expected to draw a crowd.

On a separate matter, another group, OLA (Organizacion Latino-Americana) of Eastern Long Island, a nonprofit organization that promotes social, economic, cultural, and educational development for the region’s Latino communities, is urging people to attend tonight’s meeting. 

OLA is asking for public testimony related to “the treatment and protection of vulnerable and nonviolent, contributing members of our East End communities,” according to a flier it is distributing. 

The group is advocating legislation establishing a barrier between the East Hampton Town Police Department and the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, as well as requiring every police car to have a dedicated cellphone for live interpretation. It also wants the board to ensure that the Police Department has clear policies about traffic stops and checkpoints so that residents are not targeted based on race, ethnicity, or assumptions about immigration status. OLA is asking that people sign up to speak at tonight’s meeting. 

“Families are being separated right here in our towns as a result of inconsistent policies, unnecessary cooperation with ICE on nonviolent offenses, a criminalizing code that serves as a harassment tool for anti-immigrant groups, and increased enforcement on traffic violations that are landing people in Suffolk County jail and then in deportation proceedings,” the flier reads. 

OLA organized public testimony at the Southampton Town Board’s meeting on Sept. 25. The political leadership of that town and East Hampton, the flier reads, “promised they would not enact the worst of all policies — deputizing local police as ICE agents,” however “they have not taken the necessary steps to protect the peaceful and good members of our amazing community.” 

Also on the agenda tonight is a public hearing on the Wainscott hamlet study, which is covered elsewhere in this issue.

State officials may want to turn part of Camp Hero State Park in Montauk into a camping destination, with its sweeping panoramic views from atop the bluffs just west of Montauk Lighthouse, but several groups think that’s just one terrible idea. 

The state is considering allowing camping on 3.3 acres of the park, which offers panoramic views from atop the bluffs just west of Montauk Lighthouse. In August, the Department of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation issued a request for proposals “to achieve a new camping concession and expand access and utilization of Camp Hero for outdoor recreation,” which may include “complementary concessions for laundry, outfitting or sundries” for campers’ convenience. Facilities could range from tents and yurts to “glamping,” recreational vehicle sites with utilities hook-up, portable or trailered camping units including “tiny houses,” and traditional cabins or cottages.

The deadline was initially Oct. 4, but it has been extended to Oct. 18 at 2 p.m. According to the department, interested parties had submitted a number of questions.

New York has six state parks in Montauk, but only Hither Hills allows camping, though some say that Montauk Point and Camp Hero are unofficial camping grounds because they allow beach vehicles with fishing permits to stay overnight.

The 415-acre Camp Hero State Park, established in 1974, was used as a military base during World War II. The base’s primary purpose was to provide surveillance and monitor known German U-boat activity. A number of coastal bunkers, still in existence, were built. Later, during the Cold War, Camp Hero was used as an anti-aircraft artillery battery. Its radar tower remains on the bluffs.

At Tuesday’s East Hampton Town Board meeting, Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, who is the board’s liaison to Montauk, reported that the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee had met the night before and expressed concern. Later she told a reporter, “The concern was with the R.F.P. documents. It would be allowing concessions of food and possibly liquor within the park. I think it counterproductive for the park, and for the citizens of Montauk who feel there’s enough drinking and partying at other locations that they don’t need to also be concerned that they get [state liquor authority] licenses within the park.” 

She said the state put out the request for proposals without consulting the town. “That was part of the surprise. In the R.F.P. it says this park is being underutilized. But as people know, Montauk is being overutilized. And motel owners are saying this is competition they aren’t prepared for. They just increased Hither Hills by a number of camping sites. There were a lot of reasons this does not fit into what we look at for Montauk.”

“I think all of the town board members have contacted friends and the head of Montauk C.A.C., saying they are against moving forward with this type of activity within the park,” Ms. Overby added.

  Laura Tooman, president of Concerned Citizens of Montauk, sent a letter to Rose Harvey, Commissioner of the Department of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation, on Sept. 24, saying that the organization is concerned about the “potential scope and breadth of options outlined,” which could, she said, “pose negative environmental impacts and strain our most valued and treasured resources.” She urged the department to solicit public comment, either in writing or by public hearing, so the larger Montauk community can weigh in on the submissions.

The Eastern Long Island Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, which is a grassroots environmental organization that protects the ocean from the Moriches Inlet east to Montauk Point, is also worried about the prospect of a new camping concession. “This is an environmentally sensitive area, with eroding and dangerous bluffs, that would not be well suited for significantly more use than it experiences now,” the foundation said in an Oct. 1 letter to Ms. Harvey.

It laid out five concerns, including the safety of campers near the crumbling bluff lines, especially at night, and the impact to the bluffs themselves, some as high as 80 feet above sea level, from visitors not familiar with the area. Garbage was another issue. 

Sewage management is also a concern. The foundation said that any new bathrooms should have “new, advanced-technology, denitrifying septic systems” installed to mitigate further pollution. “We should not worsen that condition with any new fecal burden generated by this for-profit venture that will bring more visitors to Montauk Point.” 

While a licensee will run the camping, there is also the question of whether the state parks police have enough personnel to patrol another campground. The parks police have for years been complaining about the lack of staffing. 

“We’re way understaffed,” said Manny Vilar, the founding president of the Police Benevolent Association of New York State and its current vice president. Mr. Vilar, who lives in Springs, is running next month on the Republican and Conservative lines for a town board seat.

“The Montauk post is supposed to have five [parks] police officers assigned to it to cover 24-7, seven days a week,” he said. “Currently we only have two police officers assigned to Montauk, which does not provide any type of consequential nature. For all intents and purposes we’re not covering it 50 percent of the time.” It is left to other law enforcement agencies, mainly the town police, he said, to pick up the slack.

The Montauk parks police post is responsible for patrolling nine state parks, including the Sag Harbor Golf Course, and the state parkway, which runs from Hither Hills to Montauk Point. 

“As a P.B.A., we’re in support of the state expanding needed services,” Mr. Vilar explained. “We would never want to be the ones who were standing in the way of a local municipality’s economy or services to a state park.” However, he said, “Unless you get the coverage or the staff, we would highly discourage the state from proceeding.”

Bill Akin, a Montauk resident who frequently visits Camp Hero and who reviewed the R.F.P., said that while only 3.3 acres are being looked at for camping, “Nobody has said how many spaces or the target number of people. What are we talking about here in terms of numbers? . . . Even if they start low, what if they increase it? Once you let the camel get his nose in the tent, what’s next?”

The Montauk Fire Department’s emergency services are already stretched thin, Mr. Akin said. “The last thing they need to worry about is running out to Camp Hero in the middle of the night at the extreme end of their service area.” 

“The Parks Department is forgetting that Montauk is overutilized,” he added. “We are full! It’s an already chaotic situation that nobody is able to put their hands around.”

With Reporting By 

Christopher Walsh

Last month, Perry Gershon, the Democratic Party’s candidate to represent New York’s First Congressional District, told The Star that he was confident that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the party’s campaign arm for the House of Representatives, would soon add him to its Red to Blue list of top-tier candidates to which it provides funding and organizational support. “They’re aware of our race; they know it’s winnable,” he said at the time. 

His confidence was well founded: The campaign committee has added Mr. Gershon, who will face Representative Lee Zeldin in the Nov. 6 election, to the program. The race is one of 82 among the 435 House races to hold the designation. 

Representative Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico, the committee’s chairman, said in a statement issued on Friday that Mr. Gershon “is bringing the same tireless work ethic and determination that made him successful in business to his campaign for New York’s First Congressional District, and because of that this race is competitive and winnable in November.”

Mr. Gershon, who bested four others in the Democratic primary election in June, has earned a place on the Red to Blue roster by “surpassing aggressive goals for grassroots engagement, local support, campaign organization, and fund-raising,” the statement said. 

“The Red to Blue races are the priority races,” Mr. Gershon said on Tuesday. His campaign’s designation in the program, he said, “makes a statement that it’s a race they believe has a strong chance of winning over an incumbent Republican. What they’re saying here is that they see us having the potential vote support and energy and volunteerism, the campaign organization and fund-raising ability in order to defeat Zeldin.” 

Chris Boyle, the communications director for Mr. Zeldin’s campaign, dismissed the move. “Being the 82nd pick of top targets by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is nothing to brag about,” he said in an email on Tuesday, noting former Southampton Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst’s 59-to-41-percent loss in her 2016 challenge to Mr. Zeldin despite being chosen for the Red to Blue program. 

“It’s worth noting that she was actually from the district, as opposed to Park Avenue Perry, who recently registered in our district just to run against Congressman Zeldin,” Mr. Boyle said. Mr. Gershon built a house in East Hampton in 1999 and became a year-round resident last year. 

The Cook Political Report and the political analyst Scott Rasmussen place the First District in their “likely Republican” columns, and the website Real Clear Politics says the race “leans Republican.” 

But Mr. Gershon has been upbeat throughout the campaign. A 76-percent increase in turnout over the Democratic congressional primary in 2016 means that Democrats are energized, he told The Star, while the candidates he bested have all pledged their support. Conditions were less favorable two years ago, he said, while President Trump, of whom Mr. Zeldin is a strong supporter, is divisive and unpopular, despite having won the First District by 12 points in 2016. 

Mr. Zeldin, a former state senator, is seeking a third term. He defeated Representative Tim Bishop, who served six terms, in 2014. 

Mr. Gershon’s campaign began airing television ads on Sept. 4, which he said are helping his name recognition in the district. From discussions with district residents, he said that “the big issues to people are health care, gun safety, the environment . . . and Zeldin’s absenteeism and lack of caring for the district, for people here. People feel like Lee has deserted them."

A week after David Lys won the East Hampton Democratic primary for town councilman and voters rejected the Reform Democrats’ efforts to remake the town’s Democratic Committee, the local party remains split even as November’s election looms.  

Mr. Lys, who was appointed to the East Hampton Town Board in January to fill the seat vacated when Peter Van Scoyoc became town supervisor, handily defeated David Gruber in last Thursday’s Democratic primary. 

Unofficial results from the Suffolk County Board of Elections had Mr. Lys winning the contest 1,489 to 884, victorious in all but two of the town’s 19 election districts. 

The board of elections received 503 absentee ballots, an official said on Tuesday. Though they have yet to be counted, Mr. Lys’s lead is insurmountable if the unofficial count is certified.

“I think what happened is that the Town of East Hampton decided to go with the moral values of David Lys instead of the moral compass of David Gruber,” Mr. Lys said at Rowdy Hall last Thursday night, a reference to the Reform Democrats’ logo and slogan. “They decided to make sure that the person who stays above the fray and does it for the whole town instead of themselves will always come up above. I always wanted that.”

Mr. Lys will face Manny Vilar, the Republican and Conservative Party candidate, in the Nov. 6 general election. Mr. Vilar lost to Mr. Van Scoyoc in the campaign for supervisor last year. “I think it’s going to be great to talk about the issues, to make sure that the whole town now gets to vote on the candidate, the person that they want to represent them on the town council,” Mr. Lys said. “I hope that’s me.”

The vote was “a reaffirmation of the selection the Democratic Committee originally made of David Lys to be the candidate,” Christopher Kelley, the East Hampton Democrats’ campaign chairman, said on Monday. “It was an affirmation that the Democrats are happy with the job the town board is doing and support the leadership of the party that got them there.”

Looking ahead to the general election, Amos Goodman, chairman of the East Hampton Town Republican Committee, had a different point of view. “This race is really Manny versus the entrenched political machine,” he said yesterday. “It’s a referendum on more of the same versus reform and independence, business as usual versus change. We are confident Manny’s message of experience and independence will resonate with voters.”

But last Thursday, with a contentious primary in the rearview mirror, the mood was jubilant at Rowdy Hall in East Hampton as Mr. Lys and Democratic officials including Supervisor Van Scoyoc, Councilwomen Sylvia Overby and Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, County Legislator Bridget Fleming, Francis Bock, clerk of the town trustees, Susan McGraw Keber of the trustees, and incumbents and candidates for the Democratic Committee watched returns come in on the board of elections website. 

The East Hampton Democratic Committee chose Mr. Lys as its candidate in the spring, in the midst of a fraught campaign to select a new committee chair to succeed Jeanne Frankl, who retired. That struggle, in which the Democratic Committee ultimately chose Cate Rogers as its new chairwoman over Rona Klopman, was followed by the establishment of the East Hampton Reform Democrats. Mr. Gruber became its standard-bearer and candidate for the town board.

The Reform Democrats ran a full slate of candidates for the 38-member Democratic Committee last Thursday. Mr. Gruber won a seat in Election District 7, in Wainscott, but he was one of few among his caucus to win. Party leaders including Ms. Frankl, Ms. Rogers, Mr. Kelley, Mr. Bock, Ms. McGraw Keber, and Betty Mazur, the committee’s vice chairwoman, were among the victors. Ms. Klopman was among the Reform Democrats to lose a bid for a seat on the committee. For a full list of people elected to the Democratic Committee last Thursday click here.

The primary election campaign was at turns genteel and punctuated by attacks. Democrats held a 4-0 majority on the town board after the November 2017 election. Mr. Lys’s appointment to the fifth seat angered some Democrats, who complained that Mr. Lys was a lifelong Republican. Indeed, Mr. Lys had only recently changed his party registration from Republican to Democratic. He said, however, that he had never participated in politics before but had come to realize that his views align with those of the Democratic Party.

Since forming the East Hampton Reform Democrats, which he described as a caucus within the Democratic Party, Mr. Gruber has been a frequent critic of the town board, particularly Mr. Van Scoyoc, Ms. Overby, and Ms. Burke-Gonzalez. In mass emails and on social media, the Reform Democrats harshly criticized the town board over its handling of the town’s emergency communications system and the proposed South Fork Wind Farm. At the town board’s meeting on Tuesday, he continued to criticize the board’s actions with respect to the proposed wind farm. 

Councilman Jeff Bragman, also a Democrat, joined the Reform Democrats in their criticism of Mr. Lys’s move to form an independent party, the East Hampton Unity Party, to ensure himself a line on the Nov. 6 election ballot were he to lose in the primary. Mr. Goodman has mounted a challenge to Mr. Lys’s Unity Party nominating petitions, which is pending. He said yesterday that he believes Mr. Lys is 50 to 60 valid signatures short of the requirement.

In another unusual aspect of the campaign, the East Hampton Independence Party chose Mr. Gruber as its candidate for town board. East Hampton Republicans, however, challenged the validity of the Independents’ nominating petitions. A State Supreme Court judge sided with the Republicans, and the petitions were invalidated. Mr. Gruber was not involved in the gathering of signatures for the Independence Party petitions. 

Ms. Rogers expressed gratitude to Democratic voters on Monday “for overwhelmingly supporting David Lys and the East Hampton Democratic Committee slate. I am proud that running on merit still wins in East Hampton and that attack politics do not resonate here.” She asked that as attention turns to the Nov. 6 election, “all Democrats unite and commit to working together as we always have to continue the good work of electing Democrats for the betterment of our community.”

Last Thursday, his nomination assured, Mr. Lys, the former Republican, also sought to close the chasm that has opened among Democrats. “With time, all rivalries will melt away,” he said to the gathering at Rowdy Hall. “The angst, the anger we might all be feeling will melt away when we all come together as one unified Democratic Committee. That’s what we need to do right now. Let’s go forward. Let’s change Washington, let’s change East Hampton, let’s make sure that we have this on Nov. 6.” 

If he wins in November, Mr. Lys will fulfill the final year of Mr. Van Scoyoc’s term and would have to stand for re-election to a full four-year term in 2019, should he wish to continue on the board. “I think I’ve worked hard, I’ve researched hard, I’ve done my homework, and I’m ready to keep going forward for another year,” he said last Thursday.

New Union Support for Zeldin

Representative Lee Zeldin’s campaign has announced endorsements from eight unions, bringing the congressman’s total number of union endorsements to 25. 

Mr. Zeldin, a Republican, is seeking a third term in Congress. He is opposed in the race by the Democratic Party’s nominee, Perry Gershon, who lives in East Hampton. 

The International Union of Operating Engineers Local 15, the Laborers’ International Union of North America Local 78, the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association of the City of New York, the New England Regional Council of Carpenters of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, the Sergeants Benevolent Association of the N.Y.P.D., the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Joint Council No.16, the New York State Troopers Police Benevolent Association, and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2230 are the latest unions to announce endorsement of Mr. Zeldin’s campaign. 

“The Congressman’s strong record of passing legislation that protects workers’ rights and helps create good paying jobs has earned him widespread support for his re-election campaign for Congress,” a statement from Mr. Zeldin’s campaign said.

Gershon Gets Grassroots Group’s Backing

Swing Left, a volunteer organization that is working to elect a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, announced last Thursday that it is directing people to donate their time and money to Perry Gershon, the Dem­ocrats’ candidate for the First Congressional District, who is running to unseat Representative Lee Zeldin. The First District is one of six Republican-held districts it is newly targeting. 

Along with the first district, which encompasses the Towns of East Hampton, Southampton, Shelter Island, Southold, Riverhead, Brookhaven, and part of Smithtown, the group’s newest targets are districts in Florida, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. In total, it is working to unseat Republican incumbents in 84 congressional districts. 

“With Democrats contesting nearly every single House seat this year, and grassroots activists fired up and ready to win, we want to ensure that we connect everyone who can help with the smartest ways to invest their time, money, and energy this November to help us take back the House,” said Ethan Todras-Whitehill, co-founder and executive director of Swing Left. “We’re adding these new swing districts where we see the grassroots is building power and volunteers can move the needle to secure critical wins.” 

Swing Left examined districts’ candidates, voting history, fund-raising gaps, and geographic proximity to its volunteers to identify the new districts where its volunteers could make a difference. The group has raised more than $7 million for Democratic candidates since it was formed in January 2017.

Earlier this month, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee added Mr. Gershon to its “red to blue” program, which also seeks to defeat Republican incumbents. The race is one of 82 among the 435 House races to hold that designation. 

A.F.L.-C.I.O. for Thiele

Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. has announced the New York State A.F.L.-C.I.O., on the recommendation of the Long Island Federation of Labor, has endorsed his re-election effort. 

The 250,000-member Long Island Federation of Labor, A.F.L.-C.I.O., represents a range of union workers including teachers, technicians, public employees, painters, bus drivers, and bricklayers, as well as retail, auto, janitorial, utility, health care, and construction workers.

“I will remain committed to protecting and advocating for good jobs with decent pay and benefits for all working families on Long Island,” Mr. Thiele said in a statement.