Instituted last year by Organizacion Latino-Americana and the Children’s Museum of the East End, the Circles of Strength (Circulos de Fuerza) workshop will return to the museum on Tuesday from 6 to 9 p.m. 

The workshop maintains the same goal as it did last year, to help families who are struggling with the psychological effects of immigration-related stress and uncertainty.

It seems especially timely, as last week Luis Marin-Castro, an East Hampton resident of 20 years, although supposedly without legal status, was picked up by immigration officers and moved to New Mexico and later to El Paso, Tex.

The workshop will be facilitated by mental health and social work professionals in an effort to offer tools, exercises, and approaches to help families decrease stress, increase communication, and build stronger support systems. Attendees will be placed in groups with children kept together and separated from the adults. The professionals conducting the workshop will be ready for crisis intervention, if necessary. A dinner will also be offered.

Registration is required before Tuesday. The workshop is free and appropriate for ages 4 and over. CMEE is at 376 Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike in Bridgehampton. Registration and additional details are available by sending a text message to 631-848-7043 or by calling 631-899-3441.

Last Thursday’s deadline to file petitions to be on the ballot in the June 26 Democratic primary election for New York’s First Congressional District has claimed one victim. 

Brendon Henry, a bartender and musician who also works for a plumbing supply company, said yesterday that he had no choice but to suspend his campaign when he was unable to submit the minimum 1,250 signatures of registered Dem­ocrats living in the district. “We were very close on signatures,” he said. “We were just a little undermanned. We gave it a good run. When it came down to it, it wasn’t working out.” 

His volunteer staff of 12 had collected more than 1,000 signatures, he said. “They did great, but with the storms and bad weather, it held us off a little.” Getting a petition with the required number of signatures postmarked before the deadline was impossible, he said. “We didn’t have enough time to get it all together.”

Mr. Henry, who lives in Center Moriches, also cited his wife’s pregnancy in deciding to suspend his campaign. “Going forward, we’ll see what happens,” he said. “I’m not trying to become a politician, but if I see another place where I could help, I would definitely be willing to think about it.” 

Perry Gershon, Kate Browning, Elaine DiMasi, David Pechefsky, and Vivian Viloria-Fisher remain in the hunt for the Democrats’ nomination. Mr. Henry pledged to support the primary’s victor. The winner will challenge Representative Lee Zeldin, who is seeking a third term.

The creation of 37 apartments in six buildings on what is now a 4.6-acre field on Montauk Highway in Amagansett has been scheduled for a public hearing at 7 p.m. on May 2 before the East Hampton Town Planning Board. The plans can be inspected at the planning board office at 300 Pantigo Place.

The development, which has been referred to as affordable housing, is more accurately described as work force housing, according to Catherine Casey, executive director of the East Hampton Housing Authority, which is working with David M. Gallo of Georgica Green Ventures on construction and will manage the property. One-quarter of the apartments are to be subsidized as low-income housing.

The plan calls for 12 one-bedroom, 12 two-bedroom, and 12 three-bedroom apartments, as well as a single four-bedroom unit. All except the latter will be in the six two-story buildings, while the four-bedroom apartment will be on the second floor of a common building, which is planned as a community center. There also will be a sewage treatment plant on the site, along with a 493-square-foot building to house equipment. There will be an open meadow at the center of the development, with the buildings clustered around it.

Originally, the plan called for 11 residential buildings, as well as a commercial building. The planning board had objected to the density and the current plan evolved through several site plan reviews. Also changed from the initial proposal is the setback from Montauk Highway, which was doubled from 50 to 100 feet. There are 77 parking spaces planned with a circular roadway around the development accessed from the highway on the western corner. 

When the planning board scheduled the May 2 public hearing, there was some discussion about the lighting. Ms. Casey assured the board that it would be “dark-sky” compliant. 

The property is just west of a Shell gasoline station and runs back to the Long Island Rail Road right of way. An eastern red cedar tree on the west border will be retained, as will two clusters of trees to the east. A fence facing the highway is to be removed, while another, on the northern border facing the railroad tracks, is to remain, as is a fence on the western border. A four-foot-high stockade fence is to be built on the eastern border.

A portion of the sand placed on the downtown Montauk beach to cover sandbags exposed by a series of storms washed away over the weekend as yet another northeaster swept through the region.

East Hampton Town had authorized $1.05 million on April 5 to pay for the work being done by Bistrian Materials of East Hampton. Shortly after the contract was awarded, large dump trucks and earth-moving equipment arrived in Montauk to begin spreading sand that had been trucked in from an upland source.

Some residents and visitors expressed outrage on social media and in conversation about the new sand itself, which was an orange shade dissimilar to the familiar white sand beach that had been there before. That sand is to be covered with a layer of beach sand that is lighter in color.

The initial work lining the approximately 3,100-foot-long section of beach with massive sandbags had been paid for by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. That project, which was completed in 2016, cost $8.4 million. According to a deal struck at the time, East Hampton Town and Suffolk County were supposed to share the cost of keeping the bags covered and the beach usable by the public. The town is in negotiations with county officials about getting reimbursed for a share of the cost of repairs in the future.

Toward the end of last week, as a forecast for yet another coastal storm became clear, East Hampton Town Highway Superintendent Stephen Lynch, who was supervising the project, suspended the work. In the days that followed, higher-than-normal tides and a strong easterly sweep of surf scoured the contours of the sand that had already been placed between the sandbags and the ocean.

The effect was not as dire as it appeared, East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said during a meeting on Tuesday in Town Hall. “Despite claims to the contrary on Facebook that sand did not all wash away and some of the pictures that were posted showed places where the sand had not been placed yet,” he said.

Mr. Van Scoyoc said yesterday that there had not been a determination of how much sand had been lost. He also said that he had had conversations with some of the Montauk downtown oceanfront property owners about creating a tax district to allow them to pay for sand replenishment in the future themselves. “I don’t feel that this should be an ongoing cost to taxpayers,” he said.

“I think that it is unfortunate that there are some people actually cheering for the degrading of our beach to continue. We understand that this is a stop-gap measure and that a major sand-only replenishment is the only interim step, but, ultimately, development needs to move out of the way of the ocean,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said.

A recently unveiled town planning study called for the gradual retreat from the shoreline of at-risk structures. There are about 11 separate properties along this portion of the Montauk beach, most of them motels and condominiums, with a handful of private residences. In the study, these would be removed from harm’s way and rebuilt inland in two phases. A large restored dune would be built in their place to protect the rest of the commercial area.

Sources for the money for such an ambitious project were not identified in the town study. The Army Corps has been working on and off for decades on a master plan for beaches from Fire Island to Montauk Point that is thought to be nearing completion. 

The Montauk sandbags were described as a temporary measure, to hold the motels and other properties in place while the Army Corps plan was being finalized. 

However, a 2016 outline of the $1.1 billion Fire Island to Montauk Point work did not include substantial restoration of the downtown Montauk beach, a disappointment to East Hampton officials.

Work to cover the sandbags, at the Army Corps’ expense, also was done in 2017. The cost was more than $700,000.

“What we’re witnessing now is how unsustainable, and costly, the A.C.O.E. project is,” said Laura Tooman, executive director of Concerned Citizens of Montauk. Moving forward, she said, C.C.O.M. will work to see that “we take collective steps to ensure we assess and implement a more sustainable plan for our downtown beaches.” While the hope is that the Army Corps will “deliver the sand they promised” through the Fire Island to Montauk Point study, “we may not be able to sit and wait that long,” Ms. Tooman said. 

C.C.O.M. is working with the town and community to explore an erosion control district “to give us a wider beach profile and protect the short to medium-term viability of our beaches. The longer-term solution is still one which we must continue to build consensus on within the community.”

“We need to allow the natural processes of sand movement at the beach without the interruption of development,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said. “That’s what creates our beautiful beaches here and we need to take those long-term steps to maintain that. That’s not going to happen overnight. This is a difficult position to be in, and I think that the alternatives are to do nothing or do the best we can, and we’re actively pursuing doing the best we can.” 

Barring any more storms, the sand work should be completed by May 15, the town said.

The East Hampton Town Board renewed the push to regulate takeoffs and landings at East Hampton Airport at its meeting on Tuesday, as an attorney described the potential ways to restrict, or even ban, aircraft deemed noisy, including helicopters.

A 2016 federal appeals court ruling struck down three town laws designed to reduce aircraft noise that had been enacted the previous year. The board is now preparing an analysis, known as a Part 161 study, that airports must perform when proposing local noise or operational restrictions to the Federal Aviation Administration. The study represents a new effort to exert control over the noise that has plagued residents living under the airport’s flight paths.

Bill O’Conner, the attorney assisting the town in its long effort, told the board there were eight options for the study, which are not mutually exclusive and can be layered together.

“Does Part 161 not compel us to have a problem statement that we’re working off of?” Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez asked, referring to a statement the board had made in 2014. “That’s up front in the application,” Mr. O’Conner said, “mostly driven by complaint data we have over the last several years.” 

The existing statement should be fine-tuned for the application, he said. “The F.A.A. is going to require alternatives. We need to look at options and determine what the impacts might be before the actual problem statement is drafted. But we know what type of aircraft is causing the most complaints, when they’re operating, when they cause most complaints.” 

The F.A.A., Mr. O’Conner said, “wants to see that you’ve considered other alternatives that will have a meaningful impact in reducing noise at the airport. There’s no set formula as to the number of alternatives you need to study, but you do need to study some alternatives.” 

One option is a blanket curfew that would apply to all aircraft, be they helicopter, seaplane, or fixed-wing, Mr. 

O’Conner said. “This is designed to have open and closed hours,” he said, such as 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. The curfew could apply only to aircraft deemed noisy, he said, or to a particular time of year. 

A second option would be to simply close the airport during designated hours. The board could enact tighter restrictions on weekends, for example, “when people don’t want to be bothered by aircraft noise early or late,” Mr. O’Conner said. This option, too, could be crafted to apply to particular aircraft types or the season. 

Mr. O’Conner said a third option would prohibit operations during designated hours unless prior approval was obtained from the airport manager. Such a system would not be left entirely to the manager’s discretion; it could designate times for which prior permission is not required, he said. 

Tag administration is another option, Mr. O’Conner told the board. Using limits to a fisherman’s catch of a particular species as an analogy, he said this would be “a system where the town board limits operations to a finite number during a set period of time based on tags.” The board would administer the tags through a process designed to be fair to all airport users, he said. This could take the form of a prohibition on operations during one designated time period, a ban only on noisy aircraft during another, and no restrictions on a third. 

A fifth option is the quota system common in Europe, “where they have much more progressive views on regulating noise,” Mr. O’Conner said. Under this protocol, each operation during designated hours is assigned a value based on measured “effective perceived noise” in decibels, known as EPNdB. Most aircraft, he said, are assigned a rating when certified by the F.A.A. As aircraft take off or land at the airport, their EPNdB value is added until the quota is reached, after which noisy operations would be prohibited for the remainder of the designated time, Mr. O’Conner explained. This option has worked well at large commercial airports in Europe, he said, but might be difficult to apply at a general aviation airport such as East Hampton’s. 

Under another quota-based approach, the airport could assign an allotment per operator for a designated period, with each noisy operation assigned a value, such as its EPNdB. Once the operator had reached its quota for the designated period, the operator would be prohibited from further takeoffs or landings for the duration of the period. 

Should the town board deem it necessary, it also could ban aircraft defined as noisiest, Mr. O’Conner said. Or it could limit such operations to a specified number per hour, banning noisiest aircraft from, for example, noon on Thursday through noon on Monday. Or, he said, it could ban the noisiest aircraft that either originate or terminate within 105 miles of the airport, a move aimed at targeting flights to and from Manhattan, the source of much of the helicopter traffic, which generates the most noise. 

Finally, the town could move to close the airport, which it would be legally permitted to do in 2021, upon the expiration of federal grant assurances, he said. 

H.M.M.H., an environmental and transportation planning consultant, is working to assist the town in the Part 161 study. H.R.&A., another consultancy group, also has been retained to conduct a study of potential economic impacts of the restrictions Mr. O’Conner detailed. 

“What we’re talking about here,” Mr. O’Conner continued, “will be proposed to be part of the town code. It has to be fairly straightforward. Some of these things will not be easy to administer, but that’s okay. In order to have a robust system, it’s going to involve some administrative time and effort to get it right.” The goal, he said, is to have the application completed and ready to submit in the fall. 

The F.A.A. will determine if the application is complete. “I expect they’ll have at least one round of comments, and ask us to take another look at it,” he said. Once the application is published in the Federal Register, a public comment period will open, after which the F.A.A. will determine whether the town is authorized to enact the restrictions, he said. 

“We now have our work cut out for us in refining our approach and reviewing these different options,” Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said at the presentation’s conclusion.

East Hampton Town

A Boost for Energy Savings

The Town of East Hampton has announced the upcoming launch of its Energize East Hampton solar and energy savings program. The initiative will launch with an informational booth at the East Hampton Village street fair, happening on May 12 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Newtown Lane.

In a release issued by the town on Tuesday, the program is described as one-stop shopping for free or discounted energy efficiency and solar energy projects available to residents and businesses. The program is a joint initiative with Long Island Green Homes, South Fork Peak Savers, Renewable Energy Long Island, and others. 

The program has three components. One, called Solarize East Hampton, is a program that will make investing in solar power easier and more affordable for homeowners and businesses through bulk purchasing. Another, through Long Island Green Homes, provides free home energy assessments and assistance with efficiency upgrades. The South Fork Peak Savers program offers free smart thermostats, pool pump rebates, and free commercial lighting efficiency upgrades.

The programs are available to residents and businesses of both the town and village. Residents and business owners who sign up for solar installations through Solarize East Hampton by October will be able to take advantage of group rates below market prices by using a designated solar installer that has undergone a prequalification process. The more customers sign up, the lower the price will be. 

In the statement issued on Tuesday, Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said that, “Thanks to state assistance, we will now be able to offer solar installations below market prices to East Hampton home and business owners, along with other energy savings programs. The Energize East Hampton initiative will help our community to save energy and money and is another important step in reaching our 100-percent renewable energy goals.” 

More information about Energize East Hampton is at energizeeh.org.

Two days after hearing a presentation on how it might restrict flights at East Hampton Airport, the East Hampton Town Board last Thursday revoked a license agreement with the helicopter company Fly Blade, which offers scheduled and charter flights to East Hampton. 

The board also authorized the town attorney to file a complaint with the Office of Aviation Enforcement and Proceedings of the United States Department of Transportation asking for a review of Blade’s practices and its consistency with federal obligations.

The board charged that Fly Blade Inc., with which the town entered into a license agreement in 2016, is deceptively marketing itself as offering scheduled passenger service to East Hampton Airport. The airport is not certified by the Federal Aviation Administration to accommodate scheduled passenger service.

The 2016 agreement allowed Blade a check-in desk at the airport, at which passengers undergo a security check, they and their baggage are weighed, and they are directed to the proper aircraft. 

Edward Burke Jr., a Sag Harbor attorney representing the company, issued a statement on Friday that Blade had not been notified of the change by anyone from East Hampton Town. He also said that the company complies with Department of Transportation requirements.  Timothy Dwyer, Blade’s head of operations, said yesterday that the company is “in communication with the town.”

As of yesterday, Blade’s website offered scheduled flights to the South Fork, including flights from the East 34th Street Heliport and the West 30th Street Heliport to East Hampton Airport via Bell 407 helicopters, both departing Manhattan at 5:30 p.m. A seat is listed at $795 on each flight. Seats to East Hampton Airport can still be booked through August.

A statement issued by the town last Thursday said that Blade has previously been investigated by the Department of Transportation and was “determined to have violated federal law by engaging in air transportation as a direct and indirect air carrier without economic authority.” As a result of the violations, the company signed a consent agreement with the department and paid a $40,000 fine.

In an add-on resolution last Thursday night, the town board voted to revoke the 2016 license agreement and said it would not issue Blade a new license until the company complies with Department of Transportation and F.A.A. rules. 

“Our small, local general aviation airport is not designed for scheduled air service,” and the town “will not tolerate operators violating the law, especially when the safety of the flying public is jeopardized by unfair and deceptive business practices of operators,” Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, the town board’s co-liaison to East Hampton Airport, said in a release.

“The town faces a steep increase in air traffic through businesses that appear to offer, in advance, scheduled passenger service to the airport, either through smartphone applications or by offering scheduled passenger service to the public directly,” Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said in the release. “It has an obligation not just to ensure that the airport remains safe for all users, but also that adequate disclosures are made to the traveling public with respect to commercial arrangements at the airport.”

Councilman Jeffrey Bragman, the other co-liaison to the airport, said in the same release that “Until such time that they prove that they are in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations, they have no place at East Hampton Airport. Ride sharing of helicopters which masquerades as scheduled service, is damaging to our community and small airport.”

The town’s decision followed a long discussion on April 17 between the board and Bill O’Conner, an attorney assisting the town with an analysis known as an F.A.A. Part 161 study, which airports must perform when proposing local noise or operational restrictions on aircraft. The study is part of a new effort to exert control over noise that has long plagued people living under East Hampton Airport flight paths.

The board is focusing on potential ways to restrict, or even ban, aircraft deemed noisy, including helicopters. Officials hope that the Part 161 study will be completed and be ready to submit in the fall.

This article has been updated since it was posted with the April 26, 2018, print version.

President Trump has signed bipartisan legislation sponsored by Representative Lee Zeldin that expands severely disabled veterans’ access to health day care. 

Veterans whose disabilities are at least 70 percent connected to or aggravated by their military service can need significant day-to-day assistance, with the burden often falling on family members, Mr. Zeldin’s office said in a release. “Some veterans may even need to reside in institutionalized facilities to receive the daily assistance of a trained medical professional. Both of these options can create financial and emotional hardships for the veteran and their family,” acccording to Mr. Zeldin’s office.

Adult day health care for disabled veterans can be provided at state veterans homes, but veterans and their families are often responsible for the cost of the care, and such care is offered only in three facilities in the country, including the Long Island State Veterans Home in Stony Brook. 

Mr. Zeldin’s bill, which was signed into law late last month, defined the adult day health care program as a reimbursable treatment option through the Department of Veterans Affairs, making veterans whose disabilities are 70 percent or more service-connected able to access the care at no cost. The bill, which passed in the House of Representatives on a voice vote last year, also expands the program, which could be offered at any of the country’s 153 state veterans homes.

“This is important legislation that provides a valuable and necessary service to our nation’s veterans, and I thank President Trump for signing it into law,” Mr. Zeldin said in a statement. “By expanding access to adult day health care, we can ensure that all veterans receive the best and most efficient outpatient services that provide each veteran with the assistance and special attention they need, while still allowing them to maintain their independence.” 

A proposed Sagaponack subdivision on the south side of Montauk Highway drew the ire of the East Hampton Town Planning Board on March 14. The conversation began when its chairman, Job Potter, said, “This is a big, if I can use the word, ugly subdivision of farmland.”

The proposed 41.3-acre subdivision calls for nine clustered house lots and a slightly under-27-acre agricultural reserve on what is now open farmland. The Sagaponack Village Board is scheduled to take up a preliminary map of the subdivision, called Meadowmere, at its meeting on Monday. Under state law, the village is required to invite East Hampton to weigh in due to the property’s proximity to the town line.

On March 16, the East Hampton Town Planning board wrote to the town board, saying it would “strongly recommend that the town board urge Sagaponack Village to use community preservation fund money to conserve the farmland, or if preservation of the entire farm were not possible,” to save as much as they could.

Kenneth Schwenk and his family own the rectangular parcel. Mr. Schwenk, who is represented by Alice Cooley of Matthews, Cooley & Kirst, has submitted a preliminary subdivision map to the Sagaponack Village Board, which is scheduled to discuss it on Monday. Neither Mr. Schwenk nor Ms. Cooley would comment Tuesday on the proposal. 

Mr. Schwenk’s property is marked by an unusual 19-foot-tall sculpture of sorts and contains a house and several small structures. If the subdivision were approved, these structures would become part of a tenth 55,000-square-foot lot. 

According to Rosemarie Cary Win- chell, the clerk-treasurer of Sagaponack Village, Mr. Schwenk’s property is the only piece of contiguous farmland on the south side of the highway on which the Town of Southampton has not bought development rights, which it has done for 17 acres on Town Line Road behind TownLine Barbecue and 88.3 acres to the west of Mr. Schwenk’s property. 

The new house lots would range from 53,000 to 56,597 square feet, clustered on the southwest corner of Mr. Schwenk’s property and about 700 feet from structures now on the highway. A new, 50-foot-wide, over-1,000-foot-long roadway would be constructed for access. 

Ms. Winchell had sent a letter about the subdivision to Carole Brennan, the East Hampton Town clerk, on Feb. 27, which was forwarded to the town board and subsequently to the planning board and Planning Department. 

According to Ms. Winchell and the planning board’s attorney, John Jilnicki, such letters, while rare, are generally innocuous, and do not usually call for a response. That will not be the case here, if the planning board’s comments at its March 14 meeting, as well as the position of the town’s Planning Department, hold any sway. 

Marguerite Wolffsohn, the town planning director, reading from a memo at March 14 meeting, said, “Every person traveling Montauk Highway to and from East Hampton passes by this farm.” She pointed out that the lots are clustered away from Montauk Highway and are located adjacent to existing residential development. “This will help minimize impacts to the rural character of the highway,” she said. However, she then turned to a point that became key for board members. “If there is a way to provide access to the new parcels while avoiding a new curb cut on Montauk Highway, we strongly recommend that the village explore this with the applicant.”

 “Bad move,” Randall Parsons, a planning board member, said about the access road. Mr. Potter added, “The road is the most offensive thing, in a way. You have that long, long stretch of undisturbed farmland, from Town Line Road to Sagg Main Street. Right in the middle of that, you’re going to have a cobblestone, paved access road.” 

“And, it is going to be right in the middle,” Ed Krug, another board member, agreed. Mr. Krug then turned the conversation to the possibility of the project’s not going forward at all. “These are prime agricultural soils. This is as good as it gets,” he said. “Once it is gone, it’s gone,” Kathleen Cunningham, another board member, said. 

Later in the meeting, Mr. Parsons suggested, at the very least, that an attempt be made to reduce the density of the proposal, to which other members agreed.

Mr. Potter said he would encourage the Village of Sagaponack and the Town of Southampton to explore the use of the community preservation fund “to protect this farmland and stop the subdivision.”

“Absolutely,” Mr. Krug said. “I agree,” Nancy Keeshan, another member of the planning board, added.

“It is kind of hard to do this, because it is not our code,” Ms. Wolffsohn said. “I think it is very hard to do this,” said Ian Calder-Piedmonte, himself a farmer and partner in Balsam Farms on Town Lane in Amagansett. “I am certainly not in favor of subdividing farm fields if we can help it, but I think the language of doing everything you can to stop the subdivision is unfair, maybe, because we don’t know their standards.”  

Mr. Potter agreed with Mr. Calder-Piedmonte, telling his fellow board members that the focus of their letter to the East Hampton Town Board should be on “conserving the farmland, as opposed to stopping the subdivision.”

A plan for a 900,000-gallon water reservoir off Cross Highway in the Devon area of Amagansett has drawn the ire of several residents. The Suffolk County Water Authority was to have held a meeting at the Amagansett Library last night to discuss the plan. 

According to project documents, the 30-foot-tall tank, 90 feet in diameter, would be installed on an existing water authority pump site and “painted a shade of green designed to blend in with the surrounding environment.” The reservoir is intended to boost water pressure to water authority customers from East Hampton to Napeague. It would be about 40 feet from the Cross Highway roadside in the southeast corner of the site.

In a written description, the water authority said that it did not have to apply for permission from East Hampton Town. Steve Latham, a Riverhead attorney representing several of the project’s neighboring property owners, rejected that assertion. He said that only utilities specifically exempted by law are able to avoid town review.

Mr. Latham also faulted the water authority for keeping the project quiet until plans for it had been completed. Town officials were only notified in late March, he said. In addition, of the 14 nearby property owners, some had not seen a notice that the water authority said it had sent by mail.