A $77.7 million East Hampton Town operating budget for 2018 was adopted by the town board last Thursday after a hearing on the final proposal. 

The budget reflects an approximately 3.6-percent increase in spending next year, which will result in slight tax rate increases. For those living in the town and outside its incorporated villages, the tax rates will rise by 1.4 percent; the increase in tax rates for village residents will be 1.5 percent. 

According to Len Bernard, the town budget officer, the rate increases will translate to a rise in tax bills for residents with a house assessed at $4,000, which is considered to have a $700,000 market value, of $17.12 outside of the villages and an increase of $6.96 for village residents.

The budget and its minimal spending increase is below the state-mandated tax levy cap by $237,000, Mr. Bernard said.

Next year’s budget calls for the addition of three full-time employees: � a Marine Patrol officer, a Building Department clerk, and an account clerk at East Hampton Airport as well as for salary raises of approximately 2 to 3 percent for union employees, according to contract.

Timothy D. Sini, a 37-year-old Demo­crat serving as the Suffolk County Police Commissioner, handily won the race for Suffolk district attorney Tuesday night, and said he would prepare quickly to take over an office marred by political scandal in the wake of federal charges brought last month against Thomas Spota, the longtime sitting D.A., and his top aide.

Mr. Sini won 62 percent of the vote over Raymond Perini, a Republican. Christopher Garvey, who ran on the Libertarian ticket, received 1 percent.

The race for county sheriff, however, remains to be determined. As of press time, with all 1,052 districts reporting, just 1,354 votes separated Errol D. Toulon Jr., the Democrat, and Lawrence M. Zacarese, the Republican. Both candidates had about 49 percent of the vote, with Mr. Toulon holding a razor-thin edge. Mr. Toulon received 141,006 votes; Mr. Zacarese, 139,652. A third candidate, Peter J. Krauss, who ran as a Libertarian, got 4,613 votes, or 1.6 percent.

Mr. Zacarese has not conceded the race and said it would come down to paper ballots. Nick LaLota, a Suffolk County Board of Elections commissioner, said in a tweet on Tuesday night that 13,554 absentee ballots are outstanding. Election officials do not expect all those ballots to be returned by the Nov. 14 deadline. They had to be postmarked by Election Day.

The Suffolk County sheriff runs the county’s two jails. Mr. Toulon, a 27-year resident of Lake Grove, joined the race only five weeks ago. Democrats switched candidates after Mr. Zacarese pulled out a win in the Republican primary. He only held one line in Tuesday’s election, while Mr. Toulon also ran on the Independence Party line.

Mr. Toulon had a 25-year career with the New York City Department of Correction, starting as a corrections officer and ending as a deputy commissioner of operations. Mr. Zacarese is the assistant chief of the Stony Brook University Police Department and a former New York City Police Department sergeant.

In his victory speech, Mr. Sini promised to restore trust in the district attorney’s office. “Together we have ushered in a new era in criminal justice in Suffolk County — an era of integrity, fairness, and doing the right thing,” he said. Mr. Sini, a former assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District, thanked voters for giving him “this awesome responsibility, this awesome privilege,” and promised to “return the office to the honorable institution it once was.”

Mr. Spota, a Democrat, and Christopher McParland, who runs the D.A.'s political corruption unit, are accused of being involved in a cover-up after James Burke, then Suffolk County police chief, assaulted a suspect in 2012. They have pleaded not guilty and are free on $500,000 bonds. Mr. Spota, 76, had previously chosen not to seek re-election. He has served four terms -- 16 years -- and is the longest-serving district attorney in county history. After his arrest on federal obstruction of justice charges, he announced he would resign after working out details of his retirement.

”Now is not the time to rest on our laurels,” Mr. Sini told his supporters. “It’s time to get to work. Those of us who stand for justice, morality, and doing the right thing need to do that work,” he said, adding that he plans to assemble “a top-notch transition team” that will do a full assessment of the district attorney’s office.

Giardina Proposes Business Incubator

Paul Giardina, a Republican candidate for East Hampton Town Board, has proposed an incubator for the growth of retail and services businesses that he has dubbed the Paumanok Center for Innovation.  

The center, Mr. Giardina said in a release, would be an employment engine and alternative business model that would further the town’s reputation as a magnet for investment. Priority would be given to products and services that are made or sourced here, or depend on traditional skills and crafts of the East End and Suffolk County. The intended beneficiaries are those with family roots or significant experience living on Long Island, he said. 

The center would prioritize business segments including health and wellness, medical technology and robotics, artificial intelligence, information technology, services efficiency, ecology and environmental preservation, and international businesses. Members would be expected to graduate from the incubator within a time frame of two to five years and set up independent operations consistent with their business plans. Priority would be given to businesses that remain with at least a branch office in the town. More details of this and other campaign proposals can be found on Mr. Giardina’s website, paul4ehtb.com.

Democrats Campaign Rally

The East Hampton Town Democratic Committee will host a campaign rally with food, live music, and drinks on Sunday from 5 to 7 p.m. at the East Hampton Neighborhood House on Three Mile Harbor Road. 

Fried chicken, beer, wine, and soft drinks will be served free of charge, and candidates for town supervisor, town board, assessor, clerk, trustee, and town justice will be on hand.

In Their Own Words

In the lead-up to Election Day, the East Hampton Group for Good Government is promoting its three-part LTV series, “GGG Insights — Where Do You Stand,” with candidates for East Hampton Town Board and town supervisor. Airing on LTV Channel 20 and on demand at ltveh.org., the programs offer the candidates the chance to discuss issues head-to-head with “no time limit and little intrusion from the moderator,” according to the group.

One candidate from each party participated in each of the segments, which focused on clean water, the airport and affordable housing, and clean energy and short-term rentals. The programs can be seen on Channel 20 today at 5 and 5:30 p.m., tomorrow at 1 and 1:30 p.m., Saturday at 6:30 and 7 p.m., and Sunday at 1:30 and 2:30 p.m. 

East Hampton P.B.A. Endorsements

The East Hampton Town Police Benevolent Association endorsed Lawrence Zacarese for Suffolk County sheriff, his campaign announced Tuesday.

Mr. Zacarese is the assistant chief of the Stony Brook University Police and a former New York City Police Department sergeant. He is running against Errol Toulon, a former captain for the New York City Department of Correction. 

  Mr. Zacarese was also endorsed by the Southampton Town P.B.A. and the Eastern Long Island Police Conference. 

The East Hampton Town P.B.A. has also endorsed the Republican candidates for East Hampton Town Board and town supervisor. Manny Vilar is running for supervisor; Gerard Larsen and Mr. Giardina for town board. 

East Hampton’s Republican ticket also won endorsements from the East Hampton Village P.B.A., the Sag Harbor Village P.B.A. and a number of other countywide, statewide, and regional police groups.

New York State

Thiele Supports Intent to Sue E.P.A. 

Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. announced that he supports Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s move to file a notice of intent to sue the Environmental Protection Agency for violating the federal Clean Air Act by failing to curb ground-level ozone (or smog) pollution that blows into New York from upwind states. 

At least one in three New Yorkers breathes air with unhealthy levels of smog pollution, with some analyses placing it as high as two in three New Yorkers, according to Mr. Thiele. The E.P.A.’s own studies demonstrate that pollution from states upwind of New York contributes substantially to the state’s smog problem. Specifically, New York is asking that the E.P.A. require sources in five states — Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia — to do their fair share to address pollution affecting New York. 

In 2015, the E.P.A. determined that the planned actions of 24 states, including several upwind of New York, would not sufficiently and collectively reduce pollution emissions to ensure that federal smog health standards could be met and sustained in New York. This determination triggered a two-year deadline under the Clean Air Act for the E.P.A. to adopt federal implementation plans for these upwind states. Despite this statutory deadline, the E.P.A. has to date failed to adopt these mandated plans. 

Per a requirement of the Clean Air Act, Mr. Schneiderman informed Scott Pruitt, the E.P.A. administrator, that unless the agency fulfills its mandatory duty under the “good neighbor” provisions within 60 days, he will sue them to compel compliance.

Cuomo Signs F.A.A. Referendum Law

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has signed legislation that will require any future long-term financial agreements between the East Hampton Town Board and the Federal Aviation Administration to be subject to a permissive referendum, giving the community a voice in whether to accept federal money and regulations as it relates to East Hampton Airport.

Federal aviation grants can last up to 20 years, resulting in a long-term impact on the community when they are accepted. The law addresses this by entrusting authority to both the town board and residents. It allows the town board to hold a permissive referendum when considering state or federal assistance for the town-owned airport. It also gives residents the right to petition the town for a referendum, should the board accept a grant and withhold putting it out to a public vote. The petition must be signed by at least 5 percent of residents who voted in the last gubernatorial election and submitted within 30 days of the board having adopted the measure. 

“I am pleased the governor signed this measure, which puts the decision-making power regarding F.A.A. funds back into the hands of the community,” Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. said in a statement. “Town board members have terms that last only four years. Therefore, it’s important that voters also have a say on these agreements that will impact them for years to come.”

State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle also supports East Hampton’s efforts. The new law, he said in a statement, “enables the residents to decide by referendum whether to accept financial assistance from other levels of government. The new decision-making ability would enable the community of East Hampton to chart their own course.”

The law takes effect immediately.

Although East Hampton Town Planning Board opinion was divided, it appeared likely that AT&T will not be able to install antennas on the wind turbine on Iacono Farm on Long Lane. A final environmental impact statement prepared by the town’s Planning Department was discussed at the board’s Oct. 25 meeting, with four members of the seven-member board — the chairman, Job Potter, and Patti Leber, Kathleen Cunningham, and Randy Parsons — against the proposal. 

The project calls for three antennas to be mounted 75 feet above ground flush to the latticed wind turbine tower with three more at 85 feet and another three at 95 feet. In a memo to the board, Eric Schantz, a senior planner with the department, summarized reasons for opposing the antennas. 

“The proposed action may cause a diminishment of the public enjoyment and appreciation of the designated aesthetic resource, and East Hampton’s farmland vistas contribute greatly to the town’s sense of place and to its tourist economy,” his memo stated. The Iacono family has operated a poultry farm at the site, which has considerable open space, for many years.

His memo pointed out that the town code suggests farmland be avoided as sites for cell towers. Several other sites were suggested, including the former brush dump in Northwest Woods off Old Northwest Road, but other plans are in the works for that site: The East Hampton Village Fire Department plans to build a one-story, 3,800-sqaure-foot substation there, which was the subject of a public hearing that night.

In discussing the AT&T application, Ian Calder-Piedmonte, a member of the board who is a farmer, was among those in favor of the proposal. “I think we are cherry picking” reasons to oppose it, he said, adding that “the antennas would have a “very, very, minimal impact” visually.

Mr. Parsons asked John Huber, an attorney representing AT&T, what would happen if the turbine stopped operating. Mr. Huber said the lease for the antennas was not contingent on the wind turbine being operational. Mr. Huber has indicated at past meetings that, if denied, the next step for AT&T would be in court.

The new Fire Department building would have four bays and house an ambulance as well as firefighting equipment. The proposal is the result of concern about the distance from the Cedar Street firehouse in East Hampton Village to areas of Northwest and the subsequent response time. A house on Hedges Banks Drive was destroyed by fire on New Year’s Day 2015. 

Sheldon Kawer of the Landfall Property Owners Association spoke on Oct. 25 in support of the proposal. Residents of the Landfall area have urged that something be done for years. He said firefighting equipment was over five miles away and he read letters of support from the president and treasurer of the association. Charles Ehren, president of the Settlers Landing Association, also spoke in support. 

One member of the public, Alicia Barnes, spoke against the proposal. The board will take up the matter again at an upcoming meeting.

Tests of water from Wainscott residents’ wells for the presence of two toxic compounds linked to health problems continued this week under the auspices of the county and state Health  Departments. The agencies are screening for the presence of perfluorinated chemicals in wells near the industrial areas where the chemicals, called PFCs, had been used.

With lab results in for 24 of the 70 samples taken so far in a targeted area south of the East Hampton Airport, there have been no additional detections of the PFCs in question, perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanic acid (PFOA), at levels beyond a federal “lifetime health advisory” threshold. One resident’s well was found to have the chemicals at that concentration several weeks ago. 

However, the chemicals were detected in 15 of the wells that were tested, though at extremely low levels.

As of this week, East Hampton Town is delivering bottled water to more than 60 residents who, concerned about the safety of their water, have requested it. 

According to the federal Environmental Protection Agency, levels of PFOS and PFOA in water should not exceed .07 parts per billion, or 70 parts per trillion. At 13 of the 15 wells where either or both of those chemicals were found, the levels measured under 20 parts per trillion, Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell reported Tuesday. At two of the wells the levels were higher, he said, though still only a fraction of the E.P.A. threshold.

The chemicals in question are not formally regulated but are considered “emerging contaminants,” with federal health advisory levels set to protect the most vulnerable, such as breast-fed babies and fetuses.

A New York State laboratory is conducting the tests for PFCs, while the county Health Department lab, using a second water sample from each well, is testing for a broad range of contaminants, such as pesticides, metals, volatile organic compounds, and bacteria. Those results are pending. Lab results are reported to homeowners by phone and in writing.

Mr. Cantwell this week again urged Wainscott residents in the targeted zone, which now includes 246 properties with private wells, to consent to the free water testing. Sixty-three new requests for testing have recently been received, he said, but more than 100 property owners have still not responded to letters from the Health Department, or in-person visits from department representatives.

The testing zone was established by the Health Department based on groundwater flow and the nature of the chemical contaminants, and excludes properties served by the Suffolk County Water Authority, which does regular testing on the water it provides.

“The key is for homeowners to sign up for the tests and for the Health Department to get them done,” said Mr. Cantwell. “We need to have a much more complete picture of what’s happening.” The State Department of Environmental Conservation “will be the lead agency in investigating the source,” he said. 

Groundwater contaminated by perfluorinated chemicals has been found in several areas of Long Island, including parts of Yaphank and Westhampton Beach near sites where firefighting foam has been used. 

In the past, the E.P.A. has made efforts to eliminate the use of both PFOS and PFOA, and chemicals that degrade to them. Between 2000 and 2002, PFOS “was voluntarily phased out of production in the U.S. by its primary manufacturer, 3M,” according to an E.P.A. advisory. However, the agency continues to allow a limited set of ongoing uses for PFOS, including in fire-resistant aviation hydraulic fluids, metal finishing and plating, and photography and film products. 

The federal agency also reports that, at its request, eight major companies phased out the use of PFOA by the end of 2015. Early last year, the Food and Drug Administration banned the use of both chemicals in food packaging.

Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman has filed paperwork to switch his political registration to Democratic. The change will not take effect until after the Nov. 7 election, in which he hopes to be re-elected on the Independence and Democratic lines.

In part, Mr. Schneiderman’s decision was prompted by a Democratic primary attempt earlier this year by Fred Havemeyer of Bridgehampton.

Mr. Havermeyer had tried to force a primary after the Southampton Town Democrats nominated Mr. Schneiderman. The effort failed because of problems with the way Mr. Havermeyer’s petition signatures were collected.

Had Mr. Schneiderman not received the Democrats’ endorsement for supervisor, he would have run on the Independence line alone, without a chance of challenging for the additional ballot spot, because a candidate can only force a primary if he or she is a registered member of that party.

This is not the first time Mr. Schneiderman has changed his political affiliation.

“I started out as a Democrat,” he said this week, though he was never elected as one. While an appointed member of the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals, he changed his voter registration to nonaffiliated. He ran against Cathy Lester for East Hampton Town supervisor without being registered with any party but with Republican support. He later registered as a Republican. 

During his tenure in the Suffolk Legislature, to which he was elected after two terms as East Hampton Town supervisor, he switched to the Independence Party. While he won as legislator with Independence backing several times, and as Southampton Town supervisor two years ago, his cross-endorsements helped.

He said he was unwilling any longer to take the potential risk Independence Party candidates faced. “You need a major party line. It’s virtually impossible to win on just a third party line,” he said. 

“You’re more vulnerable and more dependent upon the major party when you’re not a part of it,” he said.

State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., the chairman of the Southampton Town Independence Party, said, “This isn’t unusual when individuals want to run for higher office. I think they believe there is a need to be a member of a major party.” 

Mr. Schneiderman said his focus is on this year’s supervisor race against Ray Overton of Westhampton, the Southampton G.O.P.’s candidate, and on continuing his work leading Southampton Town, not on any future race in Southampton or elsewhere. 

Steven Sheades, a detective in the East Hampton Village Police Department, was promoted to sergeant on Friday, the village board marking the promotion in a brief ceremony at its regular meeting.

Sergeant Sheades started with the village as a traffic control officer in 1996, at age 15. He became a police officer in 2004. “From day one, he was one of those guys that you knew was going to be into the job,” Chief Michael Tracey said. “He stuck to it with the same attitude, the same perseverance and dedication all these years.” 

In 2006, when the department was working toward state accreditation, a program comprising administrative, training, and operations standards that helps police departments evaluate and improve their performance, “Steve was tasked with doing the day-to-day work in order to comply with all the state guidelines that go along with that accreditation process,” said Richard Lawler, a member of the board and the police commissioner. The department “passed with flying colors” in 2009, largely due to Sergeant Sheades’s hard work, Mr. Lawler said. 

“But it didn’t end there, because we get re-audited every five years as part of the process to maintain our accreditation,” Mr. Lawler said. As accreditation officer for the department, “it was his task on a daily basis to make sure that everything the department did complied with New York State guidelines.” 

Many departments do not pass their second audit on the first try, he said, but the village’s Police Department did. “I’m very proud of Steve for the work that he’s done,” he said.

The communitywide debate about the South Fork Wind Farm, a proposed 15-turbine installation approximately 36 miles from Montauk, continued on Oct. 4 when the East Hampton Town Trustees’ harbor management committee and the town’s energy sustainability advisory committee hosted a forum that featured speakers both in favor of and opposed to the project. 

Deepwater Wind, the Rhode Island company that plans to build the wind farm, is engaged in survey work and community outreach. It plans to submit permit applications to some 26 federal, state, and local entities in the first quarter of 2018. If all goes according to its plan, construction would begin in 2021, with the wind farm operational late in 2022. 

Clint Plummer, Deepwater Wind’s vice president of development, told the gathering that the feedback his company has solicited from residents is helping to shape the project. He pointed to the company’s reconsideration of the transmission cable’s route from the wind farm to the shore, in response to concern from commercial fishermen that a route through Gardiner’s Bay would damage habitat and disrupt their livelihood, as an example. 

“We’re now considering three potential South Shore landing locations based on consultations with a wide variety of groups right here in East Hampton,” he said, “and are working to gather the data necessary to make a decision on what the most appropriate of those locations is.” Under consideration are landings at Hither Hills State Park in Montauk, the end of Napeague Lane in Amagansett, and around Beach Lane in Wainscott. “We’re changing the design of the project to make it work best for this community,” he said, “and we will continue to do so.”

Once it reaches land, the cable will be laid at least 10 feet underground, he said, via horizontal directional drilling. “I want to reassure the community that we understand the importance of beaches,” he said, hence a drilling methodology that will preclude construction on the beach. Should the project proceed, construction will happen in the off-season, he said, primarily between November and March. 

Permit applications will be subject to “a long public review process,” he said. “It will make the project better.” 

Deepwater Wind built the Block Island Wind Farm, a five-turbine installation that went online in December. For that project, the company undertook multiple environmental surveys. “When we have comparable science for the South Fork Wind Farm, we’ll come back and present those findings as well,” Mr. Plummer said. Initial findings in post-construction surveys of the Block Island installation indicate no detrimental effects on fish habitat or commercial fishing activities, he said. 

The Block Island project created around 300 jobs in Rhode Island, he said. “We’re evaluating the potential for basing our operations and maintenance — permanent jobs in connection with the project — right here in East Hampton.”

Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, was unmoved. A vocal critic of the proposal, she said that “an industrial project does not belong on fishing grounds” because of “the environmental harm they create from the construction phase through to operation.” The sound pressure produced by pile-driving the turbines’ bases deep into the ocean floor can kill and maim marine life, she said, causing permanent damage that renders fish unable to navigate and communicate. “When that pile-driving occurs,” she said, “it occurs for days on end.”

Jet-plowing the sea floor to create a liquefied trench, into which the transmission cable is laid, will annihilate fish and larvae, Ms. Brady said. Buildup of silt behind turbines’ foundations will “choke out the species that live there,” such as crabs and lobsters. Studies have shown that the electromagnetic field emanating from the transmission cable attracts sharks, she said, altering the existing habitat. 

“By putting these things in areas where fish live or migrate through, we’re taking chances on our own food supply,” Ms. Brady said. “Please reconsider this project.”

But Adrienne Esposito of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment noted that some of the fossil-fuel plants providing energy for Long Island have been killing fish and larvae for decades, and two transmission cables have long connected the Island with the mainland. Those concerned about fish should know that the Northport Power Station and the E.F. Barrett Power Station, in Island Park, use a “once-through” cooling system. “That means they are sucking water out of our estuaries, putting it through the power plant, cooling it down, and discharging it into our estuaries.”

The E.F. Barrett plant draws 294 million gallons of South Shore estuary water every day, Ms. Esposito said, killing some 906 million larvae or finfish each year in the process. “But that’s not the worst one on Long Island,” she said. “Northport is considered the fish killer in the Northeast,” drawing 939 million gallons of water each day and killing 8.4 billion fish larvae or shellfish annually. “These plants have been doing this for 50 years,” she said.

Wind power is not perfect, Ms. Esposito said. “All large-scale energy infrastructure has some impact to the environment and the society.” But “when you say no to wind, you’re saying yes to what we’re currently using.”

Brad Loewen, chairman of the town’s fisheries advisory committee, asked that Deepwater Wind establish a fund “that will be used to benefit the fishing industry in East Hampton.” The trustees and a committee of fishermen would administer the fund, which he said would further scientific and socioeconomic research of the fishing community and fund legal opinions and decisions about existing and future wind farms and other issues. If Deepwater Wind sincerely wants to benefit that community, “they will put their money where their mouth is,” Mr. Loewen said. 

Gordian Raacke, the executive director of Renewable Energy Long Island and a member of the energy sustainability committee, summarized the views of the wind farm’s proponents. “The oceans have been absorbing the carbon dioxide we’ve been pushing into the atmosphere” since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, and they are 30 percent more acidic as a consequence. If we continue on this course, the climate will reach “a point of no return” characterized by “dramatic and catastrophic effects . . . that we could never undo.” To return to a safe level, “we have to immediately reduce carbon emission from all sectors,” he said, “starting with energy production.”

Southampton Town officials are discussing  code enforcement operations in the rest of the town after a weeklong code enforcement safety check of residences and hotels in Hampton Bays resulted in 215 code violations.

Under the direction of Steven Troyd, the new town code compliance and emergency management administrator, enforcement officers inspected 42 houses and three motels between Oct. 10 and 13. They reported overcrowded housing, illegal rentals, nonfunctioning smoke and carbon detectors, blocked emergency exits, excessive vehicles, parking in front yards, and illegal conversions of single family homes into multi-family dwellings. Some are easy fixes, officials said. The fines for the various violations range from $100 to $1,000 per violation. 

The enforcement operation yielded violations against 28 landlords and a repeat offender who was convicted in June for failing to secure rental permits for eight properties he manages. Seventeen of the properties inspected had no violations.  

Supervisor Jay Schneiderman said these violations endangered the lives of residents  and that they will not be tolerated. 

The officers conducted “knock and announce” inspections and no forced entries. The Suffolk County Department of Social Services was on standby, but not needed as no one was removed from any of the sites.