New York voters will decide in November whether or not to hold a convention to amend the State Constitution, and on Tuesday at 7 p.m. the East Hampton Democratic Committee will lead a deliberation on the matter at St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in Amagansett.

Proponents say that new rights and safeguards for democracy, such as fair campaign finance, nonpartisan redistricting, rights to clean air and water, and protection for a woman’s right to choose could be gained by a convention. Opponents argue that rights now in the State Constitution, such as free and public education, safeguards for public employee pensions, and a ban on public funding of religious schools, could be lost. 

Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, will argue for a “no” vote, and Dick Dadey, the executive director of Citizens Union of New York City, will present the opposite view. 

The doors will open at 6:45. Refreshments will be served.

There was another primary on Tuesday: Lawrence M. Zacarese won his bid to run as a Republican for Suffolk County sheriff over State Senator Philip M. Boyle of Bay Shore. The county sheriff, a position held by Vincent DeMarco for the last 12 years, runs the county jails in Riverside and Yaphank. 

Mr. Zacarese, an assistant police chief at Stony Brook University who lives in Kings Park, received 55.92 percent of the vote, while his opponent received 43.5 percent. Mr. Zacarese is a former sergeant in the New York Police Department.

Mr. Boyle, a three-term state senator, had received the Republican nomination before Mr. Zacarese forced a primary. Mr. Boyle still has the Conservative and Independence Party lines in November’s election.

Sheriff DeMarco, a member of the Conservative Party, did not receive that party’s nomination and is not seeking re-election. 

Stuart Besen, an attorney and former member of the Huntington Town Board, received the Democratic Party nomination. There is a possibility that the party could nominate Mr. Boyle, according to Newsday.

Survey Presentation and Response

Paul Giardina, a Republican candidate for East Hampton Town Board, will present and discuss the results of a community survey he commissioned on Monday at noon at the American Legion Hall in Amagansett.

Hy Mariampolski, the president of QualiData, a research and consulting firm that conducted the study, will deliver a brief presentation of the findings. Mr. Giardina, who spent 37 years at the federal Environmental Protection Agency and four years with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, will then review his campaign’s response to those findings. A question-and-answer period will follow.

A light lunch will be served at 11:30. Reservations have been requested by sending an email to [email protected] but are not required to attend.

A fund-raiser for Mr. Giardina’s campaign is scheduled for Wednesday from 5:30 to 8 p.m. at East Hampton Point. The requested donation is $50, and the event will feature free hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar. Those planning to attend have been asked to R.S.V.P. by email to [email protected].

New Green Guide for the Town

Seventeen independent environmental groups have joined forces with the goal of ensuring that candidates in the Nov. 7 election for East Hampton Town supervisor and town board are educated about the key environmental issues facing the town.

Representatives from the East Hampton Environmental Coalition will hold a press conference on Monday at 11 a.m. on the lawn at Town Hall, where they will release the 2017 East Hampton Green Guide: A Primer on Sustainability Policy for Candidates.

The Accabonac Protection Committee, Amagansett Springs Aquifer Protection, Concerned Citizens of Montauk, the New York chapter of the International Dark Sky Association, Long Island Businesses for Responsible Energy, the New York League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, the Northwest Alliance, Renewable Energy Long Island, and the Quiet Skies Coalition contributed to and endorsed the guide.

Defend H20, the Ditch Plains Association, the Friends of Georgica Pond Foundation, Group for the East End, the Peconic Baykeeper, the Perfect Earth Project, the Surfrider Foundation’s eastern Long Island chapter, and the Third House Nature Center also endorsed the primer.

Environmental Candidate Forum

Concerned Citizens of Montauk and the New York League of Conservation Voters Education Fund will jointly present the East Hampton Environmental Candidate Forum on Oct. 12 from 5 to 7 p.m. at Scoville Hall in Amagansett.

Peter Van Scoyoc and Manny Vilar, the Democratic and Republican candidates for East Hampton Town supervisor, respectively, are expected to attend, as are their running mates for town board: the Democratic candidates Kathee Burke-Gonzalez and Jeffrey Bragman, and the Republican candidates Paul Giardina and Jerry Larsen. Topics to be discussed include clean water, climate change, light and sound pollution, and coastal resiliency.

An Endorsement for Giardina

Kenneth Wynder, the president of the Law Enforcement Employees Benevolent Association, has endorsed Paul Giardina, a Republican candidate for East Hampton Town Board. The association represents 8,000 members, including 400 New York City police officers, who are primarily responsible for protecting the city’s watersheds and reservoirs.

“It is a humbling honor to be endorsed by the Law Enforcement Employees Benevolent Association that keeps New York City drinking water safe,” Mr. Giardina, a former official with the E.P.A., said in a statement. “After working for a good part of my 45-year career with environmental law enforcement officers from New York City and New York State it makes me proud that these are the people who stand behind me and understand my body of work.”

A plan by AT&T to install cellphone antennas on the wind turbine at Iacono Farm in East Hampton has been tentatively rejected by members of the town planning board.

A sharply divided board voted 4-3 on Sept.13 that the applicant must submit a final environmental impact statement, all but ensuring the plan’s defeat. Job Potter, Randy Parsons, Kathleen Cunningham, and Patti Leber voted for an E.I.S., citing the fact that the site is considered an avoidance area for such development, as well as concern for the “fall zone” of the tower. Without the antennas, the wind turbine, which is already built, is considered an extension of normal farming structures.

The majority also expressed concern that Iacono’s 11 acres are privately held and could someday be subdivided and taken out of farm use, leaving the town with a cell tower the board had not wanted.

“This is an area of scenic statewide significance,” Ms. Leber said before the vote.

Ian Calder-Piedmonte disagreed. “I don’t see how we can find either that it has a big impact on current land use or on the aesthetics of the area,” he said. Diana Weir and Nancy Keeshan agreed with him.

John Huber, representing AT&T, has mentioned several times during the over-21-month-long site plan process, that the utility believes the town would be on shaky legal ground if it rejects the plan, citing federal law covering cellphone towers.

A final vote will be taken when and if the impact statement is received.

The scarcity of affordable housing, drug abuse and mental health, and preservation of the town’s character dominated discussion when the Democratic candidates for East Hampton Town Supervisor and town board held an informational meeting on Monday night at the East Hampton Presbyterian Church’s Session House.

For two hours, Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc, who is running to succeed Supervisor Larry Cantwell, Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, who is seeking re-election, and Jeff Bragman took questions from approximately 40 residents. The candidates plan future informational meetings in Springs and Montauk.

East Hampton is at a crossroads, said Prudence Carabine, an attendee who told the candidates that she is a 13th-generation Bonacker. Land is so valuable that longtime residents are selling and leaving, she said, leaving a critical shortage of affordable housing and scant opportunity for younger residents to own property.

In the latest solicitation from the town’s office of housing, more than 300 applications were received. A home ownership lottery drawing was held at Town Hall on May 31.

Mr. Van Scoyoc pointed to the 12-unit condominium project the town is in the process of developing at 181 Accabonac Highway in East Hampton. It is the first affordable housing project to get underway in “far too many years,” he said, and, while acknowledging that it falls far short of the need, it is a start. Another 38 units are planned in Amagansett through the East Hampton Housing Authority, a nongovernmental group, he said, and the town is “looking at additional properties to purchase.”

Mr. Bragman referred to his 29-year-old son and recalled once advising him that remaining in East Hampton would be impossible. Later, “I realized how pessimistic and wrong that is,” he said. Preservation, he said, is “not just about protecting beaches and water. It’s a question of protecting a real community.” East Hampton, he said, should not be “just a playground or film set.”

He also suggested that by connecting teens and young adults with entrepreneurs, younger residents could develop their own careers, allowing them to continue to live in the town while encouraging civic and government engagement. Current demographic trends are “a recipe for no future.” The youth of East Hampton, he said, have “energy, vision, excitement, and enthusiasm. I’d like to bring them to government younger. And we’re going to need them.”

Mr. Van Scoyoc seconded that observation. Of voter turnout among those under 35, “it’s scary how few in that demographic actually vote,” he said. “It’s not just keeping them here, but it’s involving the people already here.”

Ms. Burke-Gonzalez said that the town has made great strides in implementing mental health services, pointing to its participation in creation of the South Fork Behavioral Health Initiative, under which schools, hospitals and clinics, and other organizations unite to prevent mental health crises and suicide among youth. More social workers, some of them bilingual, and tele-psychiatry capability at East Hampton High School and the Family Service League now allow young people to be seen by a professional immediately.

The town provides an annual grant to Phoenix House, an outpatient rehabilitation facility, she said, and has held forums on substance abuse. “I’m proud of our track record,” she said, “but there’s always more we can do.”

Strict and neutral enforcement of the town’s zoning code is essential to protecting its character, the candidates said. The present town board “has really ramped up” that enforcement, Mr. Bragman said, working to restore Montauk “as a real community.” He advocated a “quieter, calmer, slower” town with smaller events and fewer mass gathering permits.

A prior town board, under then-Supervisor Bill Wilkinson, “simply ignored the rules that people have chosen for this town,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said. What is needed, Mr. Bragman said, are “people committed to protecting the community that can say ‘no’ ” to greater development. “You have to re-fight the battles constantly,” he said. “Today, the power of money seems more forceful,” and brings with it “a cultural pressure that anything that can be done should be done.”

The candidates were united in support for the South Fork Wind Farm, a proposed 15-turbine installation approximately 30 miles off Montauk that could be operational late in 2022. Mr. Van Scoyoc criticized the Republican candidates for supervisor and town board, who he said “started very early opposing the wind farm” and are “trying to drive a wedge” between residents over the project’s potential to impact the commercial fishing industry, members of which fear that the wind farm’s construction and operation will destroy critically important habitat.

The federal government, he said, has lifted a ban on offshore drilling and oil and gas exploration along the Eastern Seaboard. “What would you prefer, windmills or oil spills?” he asked. “We put ourselves and our children’s future at risk” should oil and gas exploration resume. He and his colleagues, he said, “are science believers, not deniers.”

The South Fork’s electricity supply will reach a critical shortage in 2019, he said. “We have a choice of receiving overhead transmission lines from farther west” that would deliver fossil fuel-derived electricity, “or we choose to signal our approval of a clean, renewable source.”

Renewable energy and decentralized systems allowed by solar panels and battery storage may also mean a new industry “that could be sources of jobs and new careers for kids who want to stay here,” Mr. Bragman said.

With another summer in the books, the second since East Hampton Town established a rental registry to help rein in problematic illegal short-term and overcrowded rentals, the legislation was this week declared a “terrific success” by Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell.  

“There’s no question in my mind that it was the right thing to do, and it’s working,” he said Tuesday.

In unanimously adopting a rental registry law at the start of 2016 in the face of vocal opposition, the town board said in a resolution at the time that it “recognizes that there are rising concerns and incidences of single-family residences being overcrowded, utilized as share houses, motels or other transient housing accommodations, multi-family residences and two-family residences.” 

“A large percentage of these incidences occur in rental properties, properties not occupied by the owner of the property,” it concluded. The requirement that landlords tell the town about rentals — their duration, number of tenants, and so on — and update the information when rental periods end or begin again, was meant to help enforcement officers more easily determine whether a property is being misused, or rented outside the limits of the town code. 

The code allows two rentals of 14 days or less of a particular property within a six-month period. But with the rise of Airbnb, a market has grown here for short-term vacation rentals. Opponents of the rental registry argued before its adoption that the rental market has changed, and there are fewer people seeking season-long rentals. 

“Excessive turnover” — the town code definition of repeated short-term rentals — was behind many of the complaints by residents about noise, overcrowding, and neighborhood disruption, town officials surmised.

“Honestly, I don’t think it’s been as crazy this year,” Kelly Kampf, the town’s assistant director of public safety, said of the 2017 season. “We haven’t had too many share-house complaints.” 

In 2016, the town issued 3,138 rental registry numbers, which remain in effect for two years. An additional 597 were issued this year. Last year, 58 citations were issued to property owners for renting without getting a registry number or failing to update the information on file with the town as required. This year, 41 such cases have been opened, Ms. Kampf said. 

A few people have been charged with failure to include a rental registry number in rental advertising, she said, but there is no regular review of advertisements, Ms. Kampf said. Online rental sites are surveyed, and the calendars showing rental periods are reviewed. 

Ordinance officers have been proactive, said Ms. Kampf, and visited houses that have previously been misused, outside of housing ordinances, with owners and tenants informed as to the laws. “We wanted to give them an opportunity to fix it,” Ms. Kampf said. “We try to give people the benefit of the doubt to an extent.”

Last year, there were 218 cases regarding housing violations, including excessive turnover, share houses, or overcrowding. This year’s tally, as of now, is 159.

The Building Department keeps the registry, and a number of investigations originate from referrals from the department when certificates of occupancy and other records that show the square footage of a house — which correlates to the number of people that can occupy it — do not sync with tenant information supplied for a rental registry application. 

The majority of cases, said Ms. Kampf, “have been clear negligence” and a failure to update “at all.” 

Nonetheless, the town has had “a fairly high level of compliance with the registry,” Mr. Cantwell said. “I think the monitoring has been pretty good. We could always improve.”

A site plan that would allow Tiina the Store, on Amagansett Main Street, to demolish a back building and part of its main building, is once again facing possible derailment.

East Hampton Town planning board members, meeting on Aug. 23, discussed a letter from Anne Glennon, the town’s chief building inspector, questioning the validity of the site’s retail use. If it had at some point been abandoned, she wrote, then the store’s current certificate of occupancy was invalid.

Tiina Laakkonen and Jonathan Rosen, the store’s owners, want to tear down a 937-square-foot back building and remove 769 square feet from the main building. The lost square footage would be replaced by a 1,605-square-foot addition to the main building, with a slight net reduction in the overall size. The property is in the Amagansett Historic District, which is zoned for residential and limited business use. Limited business does not include retail.

This was the second hearing on the proposal in August. The first was held on Aug. 9, with speakers and letter-writers almost all in support. This time, Eric Schantz of the Planning Department told the board that the proposal was ready for final approval. 

Board members had wondered in June whether the proposal was in keeping with the character of the 32 buildings in the historic district, which tend to have larger structures in front and smaller ones set back. The proposed addition would make the main building “very massive” Patti Leber said at the time.

John Jilnicki, the board’s attorney, later determined, however, that the board’s hands were essentially tied, since the town’s architectural review board had already approved the proposal. Ian CalderPiedmonte, who has expressed overall support for the plan, objected to an applicant sidestepping the planning board by going straight to the A.R.B., and other board members agreed.

However, Andy Hammer, who represents the owners and is shepherding the application through the site plan process, has suggested it was the board itself that suggested they visit A.R.B. first.

On Aug. 23, the validity of the C of O for the retail use became the central question. Job Potter, chairman, began the discussion: “I want to bring up the letter we received from Anne Glennon . . . which raises a question, unfortunately, about the validity of the C of O.” 

He asked Mr. Jilnicki to weigh in. 

“She believes there was a period of time where there appeared to be no retail use on the property, and that could mean that the retail use was lost,” Mr. Jilnicki said. If that becomes the Building Department’s final determination, he said, the zoning board of appeals would have to review it.

“So the C of O is valid right now,” Mr. Calder-Piedmonte said. “It would be up to the zoning board and the building inspector to determine if it weren’t.” He then asked if, by approving the proposal, and assuming the applicant then did the requested work, might not the planning board in fact be creating a new C of O? 

“No. That wouldn’t change the existing conditions,” Mr. Jilnicki responded.

Mr. Potter continued exploring the question, asking what would happen if the board approved the plan and the C of O was then found to be invalid. “What would happen is, they would basically have to default to another use,” Mr. Jilnicki said. 

“But we are approving that use, too, right?” Mr. Calder-Piedmonte asked. “Not really,” Mr. Jilnicki answered. “The use exists at this point on the C.O. that was issued. It is valid until such time as it is revoked.”

“It is worrisome for a planning board to approve a C.O. that is in question,” said Mr. Potter.

“I feel a little pressured to move forward on this,” Kathleen Cunningham said. “Because the A.R.B. already gave it an approval, we’re kind of sandwiched in here. We are not getting the chance to do the work we are meant to do. I am a little uncomfortable with it at this point.” Patti Leber expressed a similar sentiment, while Diana Weir supported the proposal. 

Mr. Potter pointed out that two board members, Randy Parsons and Nancy Keeshan, were not in attendance that night, and said the board would take the matter up again when all members are present.

Kathee Burke-Gonzalez and Jeffrey Bragman are the apparent winners in the Democratic primary for East Hampton Town Board, trailed by Zachary Cohen, who forced the primary after being passed over for the Democratic Committee’s endorsement. They will face the Republican Party’s candidates, Paul Giardina and Jerry Larsen, in the Nov. 7 election. 

In another primary race, Julie Evans, a registered Independence Party member who is running for town trustee on the Republican ticket, appears to have won one of the nine trustee spots on the Independence party ticket. Ms. Evans also successfully petitioned to force a primary after her party failed to endorse her race and will appear on the Independence Party line. 

The unofficial results posted Tuesday on the Suffolk County Board of Elections website gave Ms. Ms. Burke-Gonzalez a comfortable lead with 1,194 votes. Mr. Bragman had won 810 votes, and Mr. Cohen 662. Seven write-in votes were cast. 

The final tally could change the result, however. An official at the Suffolk County Board of Elections said on Tuesday afternoon that 162 absentee ballots had been received for the Democratic Party primary for East Hampton Town Board, along with 5 for the Independence Party primary for trustee. Absentee ballots had to be postmarked by Monday.

In the race for the Independence Party’s slate for trustee, Ms. Evans received 36 votes, finishing fourth of 10 candidates. Nine candidates will appear on each party’s ticket for the nine-person trustee body. 

Ms. Burke-Gonzalez is the lone incumbent in the race and easily won her spot on the ticket. A former member of the Springs School Board, she is seeking a second term on the town board, to which she was elected in 2013. 

The race was largely seen as one between Mr. Bragman, an attorney who is a first-time candidate, and Mr. Cohen, a past candidate for town supervisor in 2011 and town trustee in 2015. In a debate at the East Hampton Library last month, all three candidates were largely in sync on many of the issues, though Mr. Bragman, a political newcomer, made several efforts to criticize and draw a distinction between himself and Mr. Cohen, who is chairman of the town's nature preserve committee. 

Mr. Bragman has represented the town’s architectural review board, zoning board of appeals, and planning board, as well as private applicants before various appointed boards. He was counsel for the North Haven Village Zoning Board of Appeals and served as that village’s attorney. He is a member of the Peconic Bay Region Community Preservation Fund Advisory Opinions Bureau. East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell and Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. have endorsed his candidacy. 

In her campaign material, Ms. Burke-Gonzalez wrote of how confidence in town government has been restored over the past four years, citing the town’s recent budgets, which she said were both balanced and socially responsible. As a reflection of priorities, the budget demonstrates the community’s values, she wrote, pointing to funding for Meals on Wheels, mental health services for youth, the Eleanor Whitmore Early Childhood Center, and Project Most, an after-school program that operates in the East Hampton and Springs Schools. “As a working mother myself, I am fiercely committed to addressing the pressing needs of our children, seniors, and hard-working families,” she wrote. 

Ms. Evans is among 10 candidates competing for the nine spots on the Independence Party ticket. The party screened candidates in May, selecting five Republicans and four Democrats. Joining her on the Independence Party line will be Diane McNally, Susan Vorpahl, Lindsey Hayes, Joe Bloecker, Bill Taylor, Rick Drew, Gary Cobb, and John Aldred. Rona Klopman, who is also running on the Democratic line, lost a spot on the Independence ticket. 

East Hampton Town

Looking at Leaf Pickup

With fall starting and the process of raking and cleaning up fallen leaves set to begin once again, officials are discussing the feasibility of having the East Hampton Town Highway Department collect bagged leaves from the roadsides along properties here.

Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc said Tuesday that he and Highway Superintendent Steve Lynch have been assessing whether the department has the trucks and personnel to reinstitute a version of the town’s leaf pickup program, which was dropped by a previous administration. The vacuum trucks needed to suck up piles of loose leaves left roadside, which was the practice for many years, had reached the end of their serviceable lives and would be costly to replace.

But, Mr. Van Scoyoc said, if highway workers could pick up leaves that property owners have already collected in bags, it would at least save homeowners the step of loading those bags into cars or trucks and taking them to the recycling centers.

A Montauk Septic Update

Plans for a centralized septic waste treatment system to serve downtown Montauk properties are moving forward, according to Mr. Van Scoyoc. The councilman was to participate in a conference call on Tuesday with consultants designing the project and representatives of the Suffolk Health Department and the State Department of Environmental Conservation, agencies that must approve the location of the system. Potential sites were to be discussed.

On the Montauk Study 

Members of the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee have prepared responses to the suggestions included in a planning study for the hamlet that consultants are working to finalize. Subcommittees of the citizens group examining the issues of coastal erosion, traffic, code enforcement, housing, and the economy will submit their reports to the town board and to the planning consultants, Mr. Van Scoyoc told the town board on Tuesday. 

Mapping Potential Storm Surge

“We hold our breath each time” a new tropical depression or potential hurricane appears on the weather map, Supervisor Larry Cantwell said at the town board’s meeting on Tuesday. A new map depicting the areas of East Hampton that could be inundated by a storm surge under different categories of hurricanes has been posted on the town website, ehamptonny.gov. The map can be found by typing in a search for the site’s Emergency Preparedness page, and clicking on the Town of East Hampton Hurricane Storm Surge Zones heading under Quick Links at the right side of the page.

The zones are based on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Sea, Lake, and Overland Surge From Hurricanes model projections, or SLOSH. The projections have been cross-referenced with East Hampton’s coastal terrain to result in the map showing, as Mr. Cantwell said, “where potential evacuation areas might be.”

Filming resumed in East Hampton this week for “The Affair,” a Showtime series based in a fictional Hamptons town. The series, which has been filmed here from the start, is going into its fifth season. 

Its actors and crews are by now a familiar sight in East Hampton locations, and they will be returning during this round to several previous sites, such as the Lobster Roll restaurant on Napeague. Town permits have been issued for filming on weekdays through Oct. 3, following a careful review by a town committee on special events and filming of the filmmakers’ proposal.

“We spent an hour and a half with them on Thursday,” said Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, who sits on the committee, at a board meeting earlier this week. “We went through every shoot. We scaled them back on time at a number of places.”

Filming through the night at a house in Amagansett’s Beach Hampton neighborhood during the first year “The Affair” came to town caused neighbors to complain. A sit-down between town officials and producers of the show resulted in the development of some ground rules. One was that the show come to town only after Labor Day.

“Even though it’s after the season, we’re still sensitive to filming on the weekend,” Supervisor Larry Cantwell said Tuesday. The production was limited to Monday to Friday only. It has been granted permission to use public beaches and parking lots, but only if room is left for access and parking by members of the public.

“Over the years we have worked out the conflicts, and moved it to the ‘shoulder season,’ ” said Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc this week. “It’s been a cooperative effort,” he said, “ensuring that our public assets aren’t being negatively affected.” 

The production will pay for use of town parking lots and other public places, and must cover the costs of work by town personnel, including police assigned to the shoots.

According to Harold Graham, a deputy town clerk who reviewed the film production schedule for the town board at Tuesday’s work session, the fees for week one, this week, totaled $15,075. A deposit of $36,000 was made to cover  police services for the entire production schedule. 

Filming began on Monday at the Amagansett Fire Department. It will continue today at Ditch Plain Beach in Montauk, with the crew assigned the use of only three parking spaces at the popular beach’s main lot. Beginning tomorrow afternoon, and running through the night until 4 a.m., filming is scheduled at Montauk’s Kirk Park beach. 

Scenes will be shot next week at Multi Aquaculture Systems in Promised Land on Napeague, and in Montauk at properties on Old West Lake Drive and Rough Riders Landing on Fort Pond Bay. The following week there will be street scenes as well as scenes shot on the water.

The location for the final day of shooting, on Oct. 3, is “a tell,” Councilwoman Sylvia Overby remarked on Tuesday: It will take place at Cedar Lawn Cemetery in East Hampton. “Spoiler alert,” commented Mr. Van Scoyoc.