The East Hampton Star Nov. 10 Section A

NEWSPAPER OF RECORD SINCE 1885

VOL. CXXXVI NO. 18

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2022

PROPOSITIONS

Hochul Bests Zeldin in Close Governor’s Race

Housing Gets Solid ‘Yes’ Votes New .5-percent tax will take effect in January

BY CHRISTOPHER WALSH A community housing fund proposition that would authorize a .5-percent tax on some real estate transfers passed in East Hampton, Southampton, and Southold Towns, but appears to have been narrowly defeated on Shelter Island, according to unofficial results from the Suffolk County Board of Elections.

Voters in East Hampton Town gave their decisive approval to the ballot proposition, with 68 percent — or 7,106 — saying “yes.” The proposition passed with more than 53 percent of the vote in Southampton Town and nearly 59 percent of the vote in Southold but appears to have been defeated on Shelter Island, though unofficial results have it failing by just eight votes, 889 to 881.

The .5-percent tax will be in addition to the 2-percent transfer tax on real estate transactions for the community preservation fund.

The Peconic Bay Region Community Housing Act, signed into law last year, authorized the five East End towns to establish community housing funds to be supported by that transfer tax. Assuming the unofficial result holds, the fund will become operational in January.

Congressman conceded yesterday afternoon

November sea, November sky

Max Philip Dobler

Continued on A10

For ‘Seal of Biliteracy’ John Marshall program will continue past third grade

BY CHRISTINE SAMPSON Dozens of parents showed up to a special East Hampton School Board meeting on Monday ready to fight for an innovative dual-language program at the John M. Marshall Elementary School that for the last four years has laid the groundwork for students to become fluent in both English and Spanish and eventually graduate high school with the coveted “seal of biliteracy.”

The families who first bought into the program were essentially taking part in a giant experiment: Could native English-speaking children flourish in reading, writing, math, and even science with fully half their school day taught in Spanish? Data presented Monday night by school administrators showed that by the end of the second grade, the kids were indeed doing just that, having made up for shortfalls in their first year in the program.

But those who geared up for battle instead found themselves — at the end of the nearly two-hour meeting — applauding Adam Fine, the East Hampton School District superintendent, who formally recommended continuing the program. “I think it best serves our population — both populations,” he said, referring to children who are native English speakers and those who are native Spanish speakers.

The crowd of at least 100 people at the meeting, some children among it,

was a measure of the program’s popularity. For about 15 Spanish-speaking people who needed help understanding the presentation and discussion, a district employee used a wireless headphone system to translate in real-time.

Karen Kuneth, principal of John Marshall, and Tiffany Patterson, director of English-as-a-new-language programs across the district, explained that the dual language program meets state requirements for bilingual education for non-native English-speaking students. If the district were to discontinue the program, it would still find itself having to provide significant bilingual resources anyway to more than 40 percent of its 502 elementary school students. There are currently 159 children in the program, which this year runs from kindergarten through third grade.

Dual language “is a more inclusive model,” Ms. Patterson said, that has been proven to bridge cultural differences and language barriers.

She and Ms. Kuneth presented test scores that also measured children’s achievement in the general education and integrated special and general education classrooms. With an asterisk that some data was collected during the pandemic, when classes were virtual and many children struggled, all kindergarteners gained less than a full standard-grade-level of reading skills. Both Continued on A8

HIT-AND-RUN

‘I Prayed and Mourned’ Tearful Campbell addresses victim’s bereft family

BY TOM GOGOLA Appearing before Suffolk Supreme Court Justice Richard Ambro in Riverside last Thursday morning, Daniel Campbell, the driver in a 2021 hit-andrun in Amagansett, was formally sentenced to 90 days in jail, 90 days of community service, and five years’ probation.

Mr. Campbell was remanded to the Riverhead Correctional Facility at the conclusion of Thursday’s sentencing hearing.

He pleaded guilty in August in the Aug. 10, 2021, hit-and-run accident on Old Stone Highway that led to the death of Devesh Samtani, an 18-yearold pedestrian visiting the area with his family.

Mr. Samtani was poised to join his older brother at New York University that fall.

Dozens of his family members and friends from Hong Kong were in court Thursday, along with Mr. Campbell’s parents.

Mr. Samtani’s father, Kishore Samtani, his mother, Mala, and his cousin Kabir Kurani all had the opportunity to address Mr. Campbell in advance of Justice Ambro’s handing down his sentence.

Mr. Kurani told Mr. Campbell that his entire family had been devastated and had “collapsed” following the 2021 accident, which occurred after police broke up a house party on Timber Lane that Devesh Samtani had attended with his cousin.

Mr. Campbell was driving his father’s 2012 Honda pilot with his sister and several of her friends in the car when it hit Mr. Samtani. He said he panicked and left the scene.

Mr. Kurani recalled watching Mr. Campbell drive away as his cousin lay on the ground with a fractured skull.

“You left him out there on the ground to suffer and die,” he said. “At what point can we define you as pure evil? You have broken our family.”

Mala Samtani was next at the podium and recollected hearing the news that her son had been gravely wounded. Mr. Campbell, she said, had “killed my son and my whole family.”

Mr. Campbell may have gotten 90 days for leaving the scene of an accident involving a fatality — but Mrs. Samtani said her family would be dealing with a “lifetime of pain.”

Continued on A9

Your Friends May Be Your Only Safety Net Cancer’s financial toll can outlast treatment

BY JUDY D’MELLO The good news that EricaLynn and Alex Huberty received was that Mr. Huberty’s cancer — B-cell follicular lymphoma — is not terminal. But wrapped in that was also some bad news on the financial front.

Mr. Huberty, who lives with his wife and their two children in Bridgehampton, was diagnosed with this form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in April after detecting a swollen lymph node that he assumed was a cyst. Luckily, the couple was told that because of the scientific inroads made in developing a Covid vaccine, there has been much progress and change in how certain cancers are treated — and follicular lymphoma is highly treatable.

“The unlucky thing is that the treatment still involved a really primitive form of chemo,” Ms. Huberty, an artist and writer, said on Zoom, her husband at her side.

“It’s based on mustard gas they used in World War I. It’s in the class of nitrogen mustards,” said Mr. Huberty, who received his first round of a six-month treatment in early June. According to Ms. Huberty, the treatment involved “A day of chemo, a day of chemo and monoclonal antibodies, and then a day of a white blood cell-inducing shot to make your white blood cells skyrocket to counteract the chemo. And then the intravenous — four or five hours each time you go in for all these other things from gout medicine and antivirals, to Benadryl, Tylenol, anti-nausea, antianxiety. Literally, they just, like, throw a cocktail at you. . . . And by the time we got to the end of June, Alex had been in bed for three weeks. Just from the one week of treatment.”

Mr. Huberty, 50, an information technology consultant for small businesses on the East End, received three more rounds of treatment, each with worsening side effects that included severe bone and back pain, brain fog, and fatigue. Unable to work for more than a handful of days since June, Mr. Huberty suffered substantial income loss.

And that’s when he received the bad news: He was ineligible Continued on A4

BY CHRISTOPHER WALSH Gov. Kathy Hochul has apparently won her race against Representative Lee Zeldin of New York’s First Congressional District, but in a far closer contest than earlier polls had predicted.

Shortly after 11 p.m. on Tuesday, NBC projected the race for the governor, and ABC followed soon after. Although Ms. Hochul, the former lieutenant governor who was elevated to the top spot in the wake of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s resignation in 2021, was comfortably ahead of Mr. Zeldin for most of the campaign, the race tightened significantly in the closing weeks.

By yesterday, unofficial results posted on the New York State Board of Elections website had Ms. Hochul and her running mate, Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, leading Mr. Zeldin and his running mate, Alison Esposito, 52.7 percent to Mr. Zeldin’s 47.3, with 93 percent of votes in.

The board of elections was reporting 2,949,425 votes for Governor Hochul and 2,656,293 votes for Mr. Zeldin. The New York Times, at 11:30 a.m. yesterday had the governor winning 3,031,877 votes to Mr. Zeldin’s 2,727,152, or 52.6 percent to 47.4 percent, with 94 percent of votes in.

Should the result hold, Ms. Hochul, New York’s first female governor, will have been elected in her own right.

The Suffolk County Board of Elections website showed Mr. Zeldin, of Shirley, decisively winning in the county. With 1,042 of 1,058 election districts reporting as of yesterday morning, Mr. Zeldin had won 323,960 votes in the county to the governor’s 228,532, votes, or 58.54 to 41.3 percent.

The governor spoke to supporters in Manhattan after the networks called the race. “Together, we will ensure our values are put to work to lift up all and leave no one behind,” she said, “building a state where we can afford to raise our families, where we create good paying jobs in the industries of tomorrow — from Long Island to New York City, to Syracuse to Buffalo, where we expand safe, decent housing for all, where our kids succeed in school and reach their full potential, where we live without fear, safe in our neighborhoods and our subways, with illegal guns off our street, where our fundamental rights are protected and women can make decisions about our own bodies.”

Mr. Zeldin conceded the race yesterday afternoon, congratulating Ms. Continued on A10

When Warriors Become Peacekeepers Police work is popular among veterans, but it’s not all guns and roses

BY TOM GOGOLA It’s a career route that around 20 percent of veterans have taken when their military service is up: Join a municipal police force and transition from overseas warrior to domestic peacekeeper.

There are upsides and potential downsides when it comes to hiring veterans, says East Hampton Town Police Chief Michael Sarlo, who oversees a force of 66 full-time uniformed officers that includes a handful of former active service members.

“I understand the dual views and the pros and cons associated with transition from military service to municipal law enforcement,” said Chief Sarlo via email this week. “We focus on the positive aspects, such as discipline, calm, and a professional approach of someone who has had the determination and will to successfully complete military training and serve our country honorably.”

The challenge, said the chief, is in “keeping an eye on the potential pitfall of the warrior mentality. For the most part, our department culture of community policing and de-escalation make that a non-issue. We have quality people, who have a willingness to serve the community and take the opportunity to transition into a different form of service with a positive approach.”

One of those quality people is the former Navy SEAL Denis Shea, who has been a police officer with the town since 2011. The Montauk resident, who left the Naval Reserve in May, was on active duty starting in 1998, and joined the local police force im-

Denis Shea, a retired Navy SEAL seen here in Iraq in December 2007, is one of several military veterans now serving with the East Hampton Town Police Department.

Courtesy of Denis Shea mediately after his discharge on Dec. 26, 2011.

Over his military career, Officer Shea deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, and various ports of call in Africa, including Liberia in 2003, when he assisted with the U.S. Embassy evacuation that year.

“So, for the most part in the military — when you get there you’re always getting ready for war, especially in the SEAL teams,” said Officer Shea, 47, by phone this week. He contrasted that ex-

perience with the peacekeeper role he now plays with the local police force — and described a transition process that “was a little tough.”

“Initially it wasn’t hard,” he said, “The military bearing and the weapons, that goes hand in hand. But when you went in to hit a target with the SEALS — we’re going to win. You didn’t have a 15-year-old telling you to go eff yourself.”

Continued on A9

COMMUNICATIONS

The Tangled Tale of Two Towers As Blue Bay moves ahead, path for Springs Fire District becomes clearer

BY CHRISTOPHER GANGEMI The East Hampton Town Planning Board was poised last night to approve a new 185-foot emergency communications tower, including antennas for the four main personal wireless carriers, at Camp Blue Bay in Springs. Eric Schantz, the assistant East Hampton Town planning director, said it could be operational by Memorial Day. “I would think that once they get planning board approval, they’re set to go to the Building Department and apply for a permit. The Building Department should expedite it. Weather permitting, I think construction could begin within a month or so,” he said in a phone call.

No one would have guessed at the Oct. 19 public hearing concerning the tower that not only would all the comments be positive, but nearly all of them would relate to another application altogether, for a tower at the Springs Fire Department.

Many of the public comments seemed to indicate that the fire department pole could simply be “switched

on,” alleviating cellphone and emergency communications problems in the surrounding area. “ ‘Switch it on’ is a neat slogan. It’s not quite that easy, but the tower contractor can quickly mount antennas,” said Carl Irace, an attorney for the Springs Fire District’s board of commissioners. “Those forums were all Manny’s ideas.”

Manny Vilar, the chairman of the East Hampton Town Republican Committee and head of the lobbying firm Accabonac Strategies, held two “informational sessions” at the fire department in September and October. Even though the meetings were held at the fire department, Mr. Vilar does not represent the department.

“They could fit cell service equipment on the tower now,” said Mr. Schantz. “However, they have yet to seek the necessary approvals for the cell equipment. They can’t fit the town’s emergency services equipment.

Physically, the existing tower is not built for that.”

In a phone call Mr. Vilar claimed that the town has engaged in a “purposeful and willful attempt to prevent the fire department from bringing that tower on.”

“Riling people up to speak at a public hearing for a different application was unproductive,” commented Ian CalderPiedmonte, a planning board member.

The fire department hasn’t been in front of the planning board since September 2021. Back then, its application included the town’s emergency equipment. But in December 2021, the town board voted unanimously to place that equipment at Blue Bay, so that aspect of its application, at least, is obsolete.

“We welcome the fire department to submit something that’s going to improve cell service in the Springs,” Mr. Schantz said.

“Until September, we thought we still needed a 180-foot pole,” said Mr. Irace, for the emergency equipment. “We didn’t have reason to prioritize review of a shorter pole. We do now. We’re reviewContinued on A10

A2

The East Hampton Star, November 10, 2022

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Beginning in 2014 and every year since Saunders & Associates holds a Thanksgiving food drive for local food pantries.

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The East Hampton Star, November 10, 2022

DAVID E. RATTRAY 631-324-7827 Are We Alone?

The Hamptons Observatory will host a free online talk tonight about the search for extraterrestrial life. Jill Tarter, a co-founder of the SETI Institute, will discuss the age-old question “Are we alone in the universe?” at 7. Registration is at Tarter-Talk.eventbrite.com.

Ms. Tarter was a scientist for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence project’s High Resolution Microwave Survey, and has led programs at radio observatories worldwide. Fun fact: She inspired the character played by Jodie Foster in the 1997 Robert Zemeckis film “Contact.”

SETI and other projects like it search for “technosignatures” that could have been produced by intelligent civilizations beyond our own. There are a vast number of potentially habitable planets to explore beyond the solar system, and

the 21st century will be the one in which we will find some answers, Ms. Tartar has said.

— For Volunteers The Surfrider Eastern Long Island Chapter will discuss volunteer opportunities during a 5:30 p.m. meeting on Tuesday at the East Hampton Library.

There is a sign-up form at volunteer.surfrider.org.

David Alpern, a radio and print journalist, and Jesse Green, chief theater critic for The New York Times, will discuss Mr. Green’s collaboration with Mary Rodgers on her memoir, “Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers,” this evening at 5:30 via the library’s Zoom stream.

Robyn Carr, an author whose work led to the “Virgin River” series on Netflix, will be joining East End Libraries of Long Island by Zoom on Saturday at 1 p.m. to speak about her life and work.

In another online program, represen-

A3 tatives of the Stony Brook Southampton Hospital cancer centers will talk about their services on Tuesday at 1 p.m.

Joyce Raimondo will lead an online drawing class on Tuesday at 4 p.m. Participants will need a mirror, three sheets of paper, a pencil, a sharpener, and an eraser. Ms. Raimondo is the education coordinator at the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in Springs.

Mel Brooks’s 1976 “Silent Movie” will be shown in the Baldwin Room on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. In addition to Mr. Brooks, it features Marty Feldman and Dom DeLuise. The screening is part of an ongoing appreciation of the filmmaker, whose “High Anxiety” will be shown on Friday, Nov. 18, at 1 p.m.

Registration for most library programs is with the reference desk staff or via easthamptonlibrary.org.

— The East Hampton Village Board’s next meeting will be at 11 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 18, in the Emergency Services Building on Cedar Street.

— Looking ahead to Nov. 19, the East Hampton Trails Preservation Society will take a tour of Northwest Woods at 10 a.m. Laurie DeVito will lead a fivemile hike through the Grace Estate and past Scoy and Alewife Ponds, then into Cedar Point County Park. The meeting place is the pull-off on Northwest Road about half a mile from the Alewife Brook Road intersection.

Main Beach Lockers, Pickleball Rules

BY CHRISTOPHER GANGEMI Despite the approach of winter, the East Hampton Village Board turned its attention to Main Beach and summer recreation issues at Friday’s work session.

Apparently, many of the 176 lockers at Main Beach go unused. However, the parking passes for Lot 1 that are tied to the lockers are always used. Christopher Minardi, the deputy mayor, brought up the idea of separating the locker rental from the Lot 1 parking pass. He hoped that by doing so people who were only using the parking and not the locker would give up their lockers, freeing them up for others.

“Families outgrow their lockers, but don’t want to give up the parking pass,” said Mr. Minardi.

It now costs $500 a year for a locker and a Lot 1 pass, and there is a waiting list for beach lockers.

Michael Tracey, the village police chief, spoke about an idea to move the Americans with Disabilities (A.D.A.) parking spots closer to the A.D.A. ramp at the Main Beach pavilion. At present, the spots are on an incline. He suggested moving them into the 15-minute parking zone. “I think we’d make a lot of handicap folks happy,” he said.

The board discussed where to move the 15-minute spots instead. Ms. Doyle seemed particularly concerned

about losing them entirely, pointing out that many people use the spots to load and unload beach gear through the day. However, replacing two fullday spots with 15-minute spots was also a problem.

Marcos Baladron, the village administrator, said that the village engineer would make a diagram of the parking lot, so that board members could have a clear idea of a potential spot reconfiguration.

The board agreed to revisit the matter at its next work session on Dec. 2.

The lesson Mayor Jerry Larsen learned from toying with the idea of planting red cedars on village land that would block the view of the Main Beach parking lot for a private residence was that people value the view of Hook Pond.

Dave Collins, the superintendent of public works, said one way to open the view more would be to remove the nonnative species of shrub that have proliferated along the edge of the pond.

“I’d be in favor but is there any benefit the pond gets from those shrubs?” asked Mr. Minardi.

“You’re removing nonnative shrubs, there’s no harm in that,” said Billy Hajek, the village planner.

Mr. Collins said the area has become infested with weeds and it would be eas-

Jonathan Baker, Village’s First Mayor

BY ANDREA MEYER

From the East Hampton Library Long Island Collection

or and the groom’s sister, Staff Sgt. Adelaide Webb of Baltimore, as a bridesmaid. The brother of the groom, Lloyd Ronald Caneega Webb, also of Baltimore, served as best man.

The bride is a preschool teacher, and the groom works in business management. The couple will make their home in Port Jefferson.

Mill Road to Be One Way?

BY CHRISTOPHER GANGEMI At Friday’s East Hampton Village Board work session, held at the Huntting Inn, Michael Tracey, the village police chief, spoke about the merits of turning Mill Road into a one-way street.

Mill Road bisects the Village Green, separating its bioswale from Town Pond and the South End Cemetery. Traffic would continue to head from James Lane to Route 27, but drivers heading on Route 27 would no longer be able to turn onto Mill Road.

“It would be an immediate win,” Chief Tracey told the board. Accident data from the last six years at that location showed that “Twenty times in the last six years we had cars stopping and getting hit, or turning and getting hit, in the vicinity of Mill Road and Route 27.”

“By making it one way, we’d eliminate a fair amount of accidents at that location,” he said.

“That road is very narrow,” said Mayor Jerry Larsen. “You can’t pass two cars on that bridge.”

“Plus, there’s no turning lane,” said Christopher Minardi, the deputy mayor. “I’m concerned about stopping my car on 27 to make that turn. Too many people are on their phone and distracted. I completely agree about making it one way. I think we can get rid of it altogether.”

Carrie Doyle, a trustee, was initially circumspect. “If you’re coming out of Dunemere, how do you get to 27?” Cars are now blocked from shooting across 27

from Dunemere to drive north on Route 114, toward Sag Harbor.

“We’re not eliminating Mill Road,” said Mayor Larsen. “That road would still be one way to 27. The problem is the traffic traveling west on 27 that stops to make a left. They get rear-ended.”

Mr. Larsen saw an added benefit to encouraging people up Mill Road from Dunemere. “People would make a left on James and then a right on Mill Road and then a right on 27 to get to 114.

Good thing about that is there’s a left turn lane there to get on 114.”

Tackling the issue at Mill Road doesn’t solve all the traffic problems there, however. “The other place we see a problem is people trying to turn left from 114 towards Main Street.

They can’t make that turn, so a lot of people make a right, then a left down Mill Road and then the left on James.

We’d eliminate that by making Mill Road one way.”

That could lead to a potential problem as traffic backs up on Buell Lane before turning east on 27.

If Mill Road went one way, three stop signs, all where Mill Road meets James Lane, would be removed. The stop sign at Mill Road and Route 27 would remain.

All board members thought the change would reduce the number of accidents. A public hearing will be announced at the next meeting on Nov. 18 and will be held at the Dec. 16 village board meeting.

Outfitter and Guide Looking for Donations of used baseball equipment, sports shoes, and uniforms for baseball programs in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic

TIDE TABLE TIMES GIVEN FOR

THREE MILE HARBOR Promised Land: Subtract a half hour.

Montauk Inlet: Subtract an hour.

Sag Harbor: Add a half hour.

Ocean Beach: subtract three hours for an approximate time.

High a.m. p.m.

Thurs. 10 10:50

Low a.m. p.m.

11:19

4:28

5:21

Fri. 11 11:36

——

5:09

6:06

Sat. 12 12:09

12:25

5:54

6:55

Sun. 13

1:01

1:18

6:45

7:45

Mon. 14

1:55

2:13

7:41

8:35

Tues. 15

2:50

3:08

8:37

9:25

Wed. 16

3:47

4:06

9:34

10:13

4:45

5:02

10:30

10:59

Thurs. 17 Fri. 18

5:37 5:52 11:24 11:42 – Not for navigational purposes

EAST HAMPTON BUSINESS SERVICE in the 1920 census, Jonathan’s profession was described as superintendent of the almshouse.

In October 1920, he became the newly incorporated East Hampton Village’s first board president (a role later known as mayor), serving until 1922. He died the following year.

— Andrea Meyer, a librarian and archivist, is the head of the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection.

Webb and Clavin Wed in Bellport James Latham Sherrill Webb, a son of Dr. Sheppard Webb and Tania Elizabeth Emma Webb of East Hampton and East Setauket, and Meredith Ann Clavin, the daughter of Nancy and Charles Clavin of Miller Place, were married on Saturday at Mary Immaculate Catholic Church in Bellport.

Ms. Clavin was attended by Jessica Gomes of Port Jefferson as maid of hon-

Captain Harvey L. Bennett

Please Call 631-324-0770 or email: thetackleshop@aol.com

Item of the Week

BY ANDREA MEYER Jonathan Baker (1853-1923) was born to Capt. Edward M. Baker and Rosalie Miller Baker three years before his father died in 1856. His widowed mother raised Jonathan and his older brother, Edward Mulford Baker (1849-1910), alone, taking boarders into the family home at 118 Pantigo Road.

Rosalie continued to take on boarders until at least 1870, according to the census, and that year, in addition to boarders and her two sons, her home also included Edward’s wife and baby.

By the 1880 census, Jonathan had married and was operating a farm on the property. Rosalie no longer took in boarders, and Edward lived in another house nearby. That same year, Jonathan ran for public office, becoming East Hampton Town supervisor, a position he held until 1890. In 1882, he began building a new house on the family lot, expanding it four years later.

It’s not clear if the new house is shown in Childe Hassam’s 1882 etching of Jonathan’s farm, but it gives a sense of what a more rural Pantigo Road looked like.

One might wonder if their childhood experiences colored the brothers’ choices later in life, since Jonathan and Edward both took on roles in which they oversaw public services for the poor. Edward served as East Hampton’s overseer of the poor, and Jonathan served in that role for Suffolk County, as well as superintendent of the county’s almshouse and chairman of its Child Welfare Board.

Jonathan and his wife, the former Sarah Jane Peters, raised two daughters, Rosalie and Mary. By 1900 the family officially resided in Brookhaven, where Jonathan’s work with social services and local government had led him to move. He retained the property on Pantigo Road throughout those years, and even though the family appeared as Pantigo Road residents

ier to maintain without the nonnative vegetation.

The board decided to take a closer look at the pond’s edge, and to discuss shrub removal again at the next meeting.

In recreational news unrelated to the beach, the board again discussed draft legislation for pickleball court restrictions, which had been raised at the October work session. The village legislation was heavily influenced by new rules adopted by Sagaponack Village in the spring.

The new legislation would allow pickleball courts only on lots that are 60,000 square feet (1.37 acres) or larger.

To reduce noise pollution, all courts would have to be sunk “four feet below grade when measured from the lowest adjacent natural grade” and have a sixfoot “sound attenuation wall” installed around three sides of the court. An existing tennis court could be converted if it used the same noise-mitigating strategies. Courts could not be lighted for night play.

A public hearing could be held on the legislation as early as Dec. 16.

Card of Thanks Thank you to Volunteers For the Community Pollinator Garden At East Hampton Town Hall ChangeHampton together with the Town of East Hampton organized our first big day in the Community Pollinator Garden at East Hampton Town Hall on Saturday, Nov 5.

We want to thank all the volunteers who helped to make the day such a success, especially Aubrey Peterson, Karen Defronzo and Pamela Sandoval, social worker and teachers of the East Hampton schools, along with more than 30 students from John J Marshall Elementary, East Hampton Middle and High schools as well as the Ross School.

The Custodial teams at JMMES and the high school, led by LC Nelson and Curt Ottman as well as the kitchen teams at both schools, led by Chef Joe Lupo and Carol Fitzgerald, were instrumental in helping to gather and store truck loads of cardboard for our process.

John J Marshall Elementary School Science teachers, Lisa McKee and Robin Lewis, were helpful in the gathering of cardboard and teaching our method of weed suppression in their classes.

Volunteers, including Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc, joined in the edging of beds, donating and preparing cardboard for the Sheet Mulching “Lasagna” method of suppressing weeds and lawn over winter. With direction from our garden designer, Abby Clough Lawless and Paul Muñoz, Chair of the Energy & Sustainability Committee, volunteers then placed cardboard over the beds, watered it, and raked layers of leaf mulch and compost on top.

The crew of Paul Muñoz company, Eco-Harmony, also planted five trees and many shrubs donated by Whitmores for the garden. Fowlers in Southampton donated rakes and gloves. Thank you!

A big shout out to Tony Littman, Director of Buildings and Grounds, for the invaluable help from his department and staff!

The Community Pollinator Garden at East Hampton Town Hall is a public/private partnership between ChangeHampton and the Town of East Hampton.

Gail Pellett, Stephan Van Dam, Leonard Green, Paul Gartside & Paul Muñoz ChangeHampton www.changehampton.org

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Public Notice Please be advised that the Department of Public Works of the Inc. Village of East Hampton will conduct a leaf pickup program from Monday, October 10, 2022 through Friday, December 9, 2022.

LEAVES ONLY: Any pile that contains household refuse, plastic items, sticks, grass, ornamental grass or branches will NOT be picked up. Piles should be placed along the road shoulder, not on any paved part of the roadway.

At no time does the Village pick up or collect branches or trimmings from trees or bushes.

By Order of David Collins Superintendent of Public Works Inc. Village of East Hampton

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The East Hampton Star, November 10, 2022

Amagansett CHRISTOPHER WALSH cwalsh@ehstar.com The East Hampton Lions Club will hold a blood drive at the American Legion Hall on Wednesday from 11:45 a.m. to 7:45 p.m. The hall is on the corner of Montauk Highway and Abraham’s Path.

In order to give blood, people must be at least 16 (16-year-olds need a signed parental permission form) and weigh 110 pounds or more.

— The East Hampton Trails Preservation Society will host two hikes in Amagansett in the coming week. Eva Moore will lead a two-mile walk along a stretch of Gardiner’s Bay on the grounds of the Smith Meal Fish Factory on Saturday at 10 a.m. Hikers have been asked to meet in the parking area at the intersection of Cranberry Hole Road and Napeague Meadow Road. Ms. Moore can be contacted at 631-238-5134 or, on Saturday, at 631-681-4774.

The Amagansett Lanes, equidistant to the ocean and the hamlet’s commercial district, will be explored as Jaine Mehring, founder of Build.In.Kind, leads a discussion on Wednesday at 10 a.m. Those interested in participating have been asked to meet at Indian Wells Beach. An East Hampton Town permit is required to park there, and hikers have been advised to take water.

Irwin Levy can be contacted at 516456-1337 or irwintlevy@gmail.com for more information.

— The South Fork Natural History Museum will host an exploration of the Walking Dunes on Sunday at 10:30 a.m.

Melanie Meade will lead the walk in search of cranberry bogs and sundews, a type of carnivorous plant. The walk is for adults, teens, and children 5 and older, and is free for SoFo members. There is a $15 fee for nonmembers, $10 for children. Reservations are required by calling 631-537-9735 or sending an email to info@sofo.org.

— The Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee will meet on Monday at 6:30 p.m. at the Amagansett School. The meeting is open to the public.

— The Amagansett Library, as part of the East End Libraries network, will present a discussion between the radio and print journalist David Alpern and Jesse Green,

chief theater critic for The New York Times, about the latter’s collaboration with Mary Rodgers on her memoir “Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers,” today from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. via Zoom video conference. Registration is at bit.ly/3hdeFJi. The library will be closed tomorrow in observance of Veterans Day. Another East End Libraries Zoom presentation, “Indigenous Music: More Than Drums and Flutes,” happens on Sunday from 1 to 2 p.m. Craig Harris, a musician, radio host, and author of “Heartbeat, Warble, and the Electric Powwow: American Indian Music” and the forthcoming “Rise Up: Indigenous Music,” will talk about the multifaceted reach and resilience of Indigenous music, historically and today. Registration is required at bit.ly/3sSk5wd.

The library will host a Library for All interactive program for adults with disabilities next Thursday from 11 a.m. to noon. Adults with disabilities and their caregivers have been invited to play games, make crafts, find books, and enjoy their time at the library. Registration is not required.

Also next Thursday, the Mystery Book Club will meet from 4 to 4:45 p.m.

This month’s selection is “Breathless”

by Amy McCulloch. Copies are available at the circulation desk.

New fiction titles at the library are “Dark Music” by David Lagercrantz, “The Night Ship” by Jess Kidd, and “Next in Line” by Jeffrey Archer. New in nonfiction are “American Demon: Eliot Ness and the Hunt for America’s Jack the Ripper” by Daniel Stashower, “How to Speak Whale: A Voyage into the Future of Animal Communication”

by Tom Mustill, “Off With Her Head: Three Thousand Years of Demonizing Women in Power” by Eleanor Herman, and “Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization” by Neil deGrasse Tyson.

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Bridgehampton 631-324-0002 The Circassian Story The Bridgehampton Museum will host a reading called “Ocean Road: The Story of the Circassian,” involving new research by Peter Walsh, a museum trustee, on Saturday at 4 p.m. The Circassian, a cargo ship, sank off a Mecox beach in 1876. Twenty-eight men, both

crew members and salvage workers, died in the disaster, and 10 of them were Shinnecocks. Shane Weeks, a member of the tribe, will also speak.

The talk will take place at the Nathaniel Rogers House. There will be time for questions, and John Ludlow, a descendant of a member of the Mecox lifesaving crew, will provide entertainment on saxophone. Reservations can be made by emailing events@bhmuseum.org or calling the museum. Tickets are $20, or $15 for members.

— Small-Town Nurse Robyn Carr, whose books became the basis of the “Virgin River” series now in its fourth season on Netflix, about a nurse practitioner in a small town in Northern California, will give a talk from 1 to 2 p.m. on Saturday for the Hampton Library.

Registration is required for this Zoom program by calling the reference desk.

The library board will meet on Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. in the program room.

The library will be closed tomorrow for Veterans Day. — The South Fork Natural History Museum offers beach or trail cleanups every month and would be happy to have help. The latest is on Saturday at 10 a.m.

If you’d like to take part, info@sofo.org can be emailed or the museum can be called to find out the location.

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Montauk JANE BIMSON janeb@ehstar.com The Dock restaurant is having its annual Closing Run on Sunday at 11:30 a.m. The 3.3-mile course begins at the Montauk Post Office and ends at the Dock. Registration will be at the post office beginning at 11 a.m. on Sunday, and pre-registration is taking place at the Dock whenever it’s open. There will be raffles with locally donated items and a 50-50 cash prize. An entry fee of $30 includes a T-shirt and a beer. All proceeds will benefit the Montauk Community Senior Nutrition Center and the Montauk Food Pantry. Walkers will be welcomed; unicycles will not, according to the organization.

— The Montauk Library’s Armchair Travel book club will discuss “The Year of Living Danishly” by Helen Russell on Tuesday at 4 p.m. The book to read for December is “Travels With a Donkey in the Cevennes” by Robert Louis Stevenson. The Friends book club with Sally will discuss “Imagine Me Gone”

by Adam Haslett on Sunday at 1 p.m.

On Wednesday, the library will show the documentary “Hockeyland” at 2:30 and 6 p.m. The film looks at Minnesota’s extraordinary connection to hockey: It has more skaters than any other state in the country.

On Monday at 12:30 p.m. a case man-

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ager from the East Hampton Town Human Services Department will be available at the library to assist senior citizens in applying for county, state, and federal programs. Appointments can be made at 631-329-6939.

The next selection in the library’s classic film series will be “The Stranger” by Orson Welles on Friday, Nov. 18, at 5 p.m. Edward G. Robinson stars.

The library will be collecting nonperishable food items for the Montauk Food Pantry throughout the month of November.

The library is closed tomorrow for Veterans Day. — Registration is open for the 46th annual Turkey Run for Fun race on Thanksgiving Day starting at 10 a.m. at the downtown green. People can choose to run or walk three or six miles.

Bib pickup will be on Thanksgiving morning at the Montauk Chamber of Commerce. Proceeds and donations will go to the Montauk Food Pantry, the Springs Food Pantry, the East Hampton Food Pantry, and Meals on Wheels.

Registration is at bit.ly/3NOtwGr. — The Ladies Guild at the Montauk Community Church is urging shoppers to stop by on Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon and get an early start on the holidays. The church rummage sale has new and gently used items, including men’s, women’s and children’s clothing, kitchenware, linens, toys, artwork, and a large selection of jewelry.

— A Veterans Day celebration will take place at the Montauk Playhouse Community Center Foundation tomorrow at 11 a.m. There will be a flag ceremony and a wreath-laying ceremony with local Brownie troops and Boy Scouts, and music by Nancy Atlas. Light refreshments will be served outdoors after the ceremony.

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Sag Harbor CHRISTOPHER GANGEMI cg@ehstar.com Sag Harbor will celebrate men and women who served in the armed services with a Veterans Day parade tomorrow morning at 10 beginning at the Civil War monument on Main Street and ending at Marine Park, across the street from the American Legion post on Bay Street.

The Noyac Civic Council will honor veterans at the American Legion on Bay Street on Wednesday from 7 to 9 p.m. Bill Stafford, the post commander, will lead a tour of the legion’s museum, which highlights the service of local veterans.

— Tonight at 5 p.m., the Sag Harbor Village Historic Preservation and Architectural Review Board meets in the Municipal Building.

Sag Harbor village offices will be closed tomorrow in observance of Veterans Day. On Tuesday, the village zoning board of appeals meets at 5:30 p.m., in the Municipal Building. All meetings are also live-streamed on the village’s YouTube channel.

— The author Tom Clavin will speak about his new World War II book, “The Last Hill,” tonight at 6 p.m. at the John Jermain Memorial Library. In it, Mr. Clavin and his co-author, Bob Drury, explore “the history of ‘Rudder’s Rangers,’ the most elite and experienced attack unit in the United States Army.” Books will be available for sale and signing.

The event will take place in the lowerlevel program room.

On Sunday the library will host Martha Potter for a discussion about the history of immigration at 2 p.m. Some words to ponder in advance from the library’s website: “From our nation’s first years through today’s new restrictions, for every wave of immigrants, whether French, Irish, German, Eastern European, Italian, Asian or Central American, we have opened our arms and turned our backs, often at the same time.”

— The composer Bruce Wolosoff will direct a concert featuring Art Baron and the Duke’s Men celebrating the music of Duke Ellington on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. as part of The Church’s Reflections in Music concert series. Tickets cost $40. The first half of the program will

When chemotherapy for a non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma rendered Alex Huberty unable to work, he learned he was not eligible for Social Security disability benefits because his cancer is not terminal.

Huberty Family Photo

Your Friends May Be Your Only Safety Net Continued from A1

for Social Security disability unemployment due to health reasons, or unemployment disability, simply because his cancer is treatable. The fact that the treatment was so toxic and debilitating that it rendered him barely able to function, and entirely unable to work, did not factor into the equation. Outside of insufficient state funds for medical disabilities, there was no financial support system available for him and his family.

According to Disability Benefits Help, a website that provides information on applying for Social Security disability benefits: “While cancer is a disability regardless of how long it puts you out of work, only some people will qualify for disability benefits through the Social Security Administration. This is because Social Security disability eligibility requires you to have a terminal illness or a disability that has or will prevent you from working for at least 12 months.”

In the end, assistance came from the East End community. In September, Cindi Crain, a family friend, set up a GoFundMe page, helped by community members such as Almond Zigmund and other Hayground School parents. A goal of $50,000 was set; almost $38,000 has been raised to date.

In an email to The Star, Ms. Crain wrote, “My daughter went to the Hayground School with the Huberty kids and I got to know both Erica and Alex well through play dates and school committees. Even though the kids are at different schools now, our friendship endures. I knew what it meant to the family that Alex couldn’t work nearly as much while in treatment. Friends and I surmised that if we put out a plea for support, a pretty large community might respond. And wow did it ever! . . . It takes a village and thankfully we have an awesome one here on the East End.” The fact that so many Americans have to resort to internet donations to meet basic needs like food, housing, medical attention, and financial support, exposes the lack of a social safety net. In June 2021, in an article about the surge of focus on Ellington’s concert music; the second half is a 1940s dance party.

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Southampton CHRISTINE SAMPSON csampson@ehstar.com Donate Warmth Starting Monday, the Southampton Town Police Department will be collecting donations of winter coats, gloves, hats, and scarves to help provide warmth to those in need.

Unwanted winter attire can be taken to Stony Brook Southampton Hospital at 240 Meeting House Lane through Feb. 10. Donations should be in new or gently used condition.

Additional drop-off locations are the town police headquarters in Hampton Bays and the village police stations in Quogue and Westhampton Beach.

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Springs 631-324-0002 Chowdah Time!

The Springs Community Church’s annual Chowdah Chowdown, a fundraiser for the Springs Food Panty, will happen at the church on Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Each $40 ticket feeds two people and includes two 16ounce portions of hot chowder selected from offerings made by long roster of local chefs, a 16-ounce beer from Springs Brewery, and crackers, utensils, and napkins.

The chefs and restaurants include 1770 House, Peter Ambrose, Bostwick’s Catering, East End Food Institute, Estia’s Little Kitchen, K Pasa,

50 BEACH LANE, EAST HAMPTON 5 0 OLD BE A CH L ANE , E A ST H A MPT ON

CANCER PATIENTS RIDE FREE TO LOCAL MEDICAL APPOINTMENTS CENTE N N I A L

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Fighting Chance, a local 501c3 charity, provides free taxi rides to East End cancer patients.

If you need a ride to your treatment or doctor’s appointment, call 631-725-4646

crowdfunding in the wake of Covid-19, The New York Times posited that the prevalence of mass online charity drives might actually reduce people’s interest in addressing the root causes behind why so many people need to turn to online donations. GoFundMe’s chief executive, Tim Cadogan, underscored that point by reiterating that the company was never intended to be a substitute for effective social services.

But for the Huberty family, there was simply no other way.

“We were very reluctant at first. But people were just amazing and incredibly generous,” said Ms. Huberty.

“We are ridiculously lucky,” added her husband. “But we shouldn’t have to go through GoFundMe.” “Exactly. People kept saying, ‘No, it’s fine, you deserve it. You’ve given to so many other people and you guys are valuable members of the community.

You’ve done soup kitchen stuff — of course, we’ll give you the money.’ But why should they have to? Our friends shouldn’t have to help us. And literally at the same time, we’re giving to the GoFundMe of our other friend who has cancer and I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God, it’s an entire community of people who have to support each other because there’s no support system in place’ — and we’ve all just come to accept this as normal,” said Ms. Huberty.

In October, Mr. Huberty contracted Covid, putting his cancer treatments on hold. He is able to work in a reduced capacity but is currently on drugs to boost his blood count, which he said causes “ridiculously crazy headaches.” Being in this holding pattern of not knowing what’s next makes it difficult for the family to plan ahead, emotionally and financially.

“We keep meeting more and more people that are going through the same thing, this kind of epidemic, for lack of a better word, of no safety net, no social, financial, employment safety net, no health safety net, no support nursing. It’s really odd. You’re really on your own,” said Ms. Huberty.

Manna at Lobster Inn, Sen, Wolffer Kitchen, and many others.

Doors will open at 11:30 for pickup in advance and online ticket holders only. The general public will be admitted at 1.

Speaking of the Springs Food Pantry, Word Hampton Public Relations is accepting donations for the pantry of nonperishable goods, which can be dropped off at its office at 512 Three Mile Harbor-Hog Creek Road through Monday.

— The South Fork Natural History Museum and Nature Center has organized a tour of the Leiber Collection on Saturday at 1 p.m. Led by a docent from the collection, the tour will highlight Judith Leiber’s celebrated clutch bags, many of which featured nature motifs, and Gerson Leiber’s paintings and prints.

The fee is $15 for adults, $10 for children, and free for SoFo members. Preregistration is required at info@sofo.org or 631-537-9735.

— Temple Adas Israel in Sag Harbor has organized a tour of the studio of the late Springs artist Ellen Frank for Sunday at 10:30 a.m., both in person at 73 Squaw Road and via Zoom. A registration link for the Zoom talk is on the temple’s website.

— The Springs School’s eighth Annual Turkey Trot, which raises money for the school’s field trips, will happen on Nov. 21 and the PTA is looking for sponsors.

Sponsorships can be bought on the school’s website or by mailing a check payable to “Springs School PTA” to 48 School Street, East Hampton 11937.

— Enchanted Worlds Amy Zerner, a “collage artist, fashion designer, and tapestry expert” who lives in this hamlet, and her husband, Monte Farber, an author of spiritual works based on astrology and tarot, “will discuss their shared inspiration and creative journey,” according to a release, as well as their 2021 book, “Enchanted Worlds: The Visionary Collages and Art Couture of Amy Zerner,” next Thursday at 6 p.m. at Ashawagh Hall.

The free talk is part of the Springs Historical Society and Library’s Meet the Author series.

The East Hampton Star, November 10, 2022

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AN OPEN LETTER TO THE TOWN

Dear Councilpersons, Thank you for all your efforts to establish Town control over the Town’s airport. A CRUCIAL DEADLINE IN THIS EFFORT FAST APPROACHES. Like you, we are extremely disappointed by the ruling of a single judge against your carefully considered plan to convert the airport into a private facility, controlled by its owner, not federal bureaucrats.

The FAA has given a green light to your process for privatizing the airport.

But recently, massively funded lawsuits, along with an ongoing campaign of falsehoods and personal attacks, have halted the process.

We cannot allow self-interested for-profit aviation lobbies, Blade, and their various front groups to dictate to the Town what the Town can do with its own airport!

We implore you to stay the course in defending the Town’s rights through vigorous legal efforts – all of which will continue to be paid for, as they have from the beginning, out of airport revenues, and not by taxpayers.

The deadline to file a notice of appeal of this egregious ruling is Friday, November 18.

We are confident that you will promptly direct your attorneys to file this notice. If you do not, as you know, the Town’s right to seek reversal by a full panel of appellate judges will be lost.

Thank you again for the hard work and time you all put in to ensure a peaceful and more equitable future.

Coalition to Transform East Hampton Airport

TRANSFORMEASTHAMPTONAIRPORT.COM

VILLAGES

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The East Hampton Star, November 10, 2022

Sag Board Moves Ahead on Potter Project

The Montauk Brewing Company’s tap room will remain a community hub and all employees will stay on, one of its founders, Vaughan Cutillo, said this week after Tilray, an international cannabis and alcohol company, announced that Alex Lemonides it had purchased the hometown company.

Cannabis Giant Buys Montauk Brewing Co.

BY CHRISTINE SAMPSON Vaughan Cutillo and Eric Moss, who launched the Montauk Brewing Company with a basement beer-brewing setup in 2012, sometimes joke that their business is “a 10-year overnight success.”

People increasingly took note of Montauk’s growing popularity, characterized by its always-packed tap room, cool takes on brews involving ingredients like watermelon and pumpkin, and buzzy media coverage. The international cannabis and alcohol company Tilray was among those paying attention, and on Monday, Tilray announced that it has bought the Montauk Brewing Company for an undisclosed sum.

“We’ve been kind of punching above our weight class for a few years now,” Mr. Cutillo said by phone on Monday night. “We met the Tilray team a few months ago and as things progressed, we got to like them. They’re good people and they have a good vision for the future. We kind of fit in. . . . I think it’s time that we have a really good, strong partner. We’re excited.”

Those concerned that Montauk’s craft-brewing operation will be negatively impacted can be reassured that pretty much everything will stay the same, Mr. Cutillo said. All current employees will stay on, the tap room will remain a community hub, and they will continue to brew the beers that fans have come to love, he said. He described it as the opposite of contentious deals such as InBev’s hostile

takeover in 2008 of Anheuser-Busch, the maker of Budweiser.

Tilray has been great “because they want us to run the business. They don’t want to shake things up,” Mr. Cutillo said. “They obviously offer a lot of synergies in what they can offer in terms of distribution . . . but our team is staying on board. They want to keep everybody and grow the brand.”

Tilray, a public company headquartered in Ontario, Canada, and New York City, said in a press release that “Montauk Brewing has enormous potential to expand its customer base and grow throughout the U.S. as a true national brand.” It already has more than 6,400 retail partnerships, from local taverns and small beverage distributors to behemoth businesses like Target, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and Costco.

Tilray reported $153.2 million in annual revenue in August, a decrease of 9 percent from August 2021 that was attributed to labor issues and the volatility of currency exchange, according to the Canadian trade publication MJBizDaily.

Citing another one of its successful labels, the Atlanta-based SweetWater Brewing Company, described as “the 10th largest craft brewer in the nation,” Tilray Brands said it will use SweetWater’s “existing nationwide infrastructure to accelerate Montauk Brewing’s distribution network and revenue growth.”

In the same release, Tilray said that it is eyeing the federal legalization of cannabis in the U.S. If that happens, Tilray “plans to take full advantage of its

strategic infrastructure, operations, and consumer-loyal brands across beer, spirits, and snack-food categories to parlay into THC-based products and further expand its commercial opportunities.”

THC, an abbreviation for tetrahydrocannabinol, is the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, the recreational use of which was legalized in 2021 in New York State. It’s also legal, in recreational or medical forms, in 37 other states and Washington, D.C., but its federal status is far from certain. In April, Congress passed the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act, which, among other aspects, removes it from the list of federally controlled substances — but it has yet to pass the Senate. With heated races in midterm elections across the country this week, control of the legislative branch of the U.S. government hangs in the balance.

But Mr. Cutillo declined to comment on future plans and products for the Montauk brand, saying only that it has plans to “innovate.”

“I think this is a really good opportunity, in a tumultuous time, to really drive the brand,” he said, “and spread that kind of come-as-you-are, chaseyour-wave lifestyle more so than we’ve ever done.”

Fans immediately took to social media to congratulate the Montauk Brewing Company. “You were the Montauk boys,” one person wrote on Facebook, “but you just graduated to men.”

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BY CHRISTOPHER GANGEMI In a procedural, but consequential, step, the Sag Harbor Village Board issued a “positive declaration” Tuesday on the mixed retail and housing development proposed by Adam Potter and Conifer Realty.

When a positive declaration is made, it means a project could have a significant environmental impact and must undergo a lengthy public review.

Planners from Cameron Engineering, hired by the village to assess the project, read through part of the assessment form, a part of the State Environmental Quality Review Act designed to help the lead agency, in this case the Sag Harbor Village Board, study all potential resources that could be affected by a proposed project.

“Our role in this is relatively narrow,” said David Tepper, a planner with Cameron. “We’re not here to assess the merits of the project. We’re just assessing potential impacts and the magnitude, duration, and likelihood that any would occur.”

The assessment form is basically an exploded laundry list of 18 potential areas of impact. For example, under “impact on transportation” the engineers had to assess whether the project would create more traffic than the existing road network could hold, whether parking lots would need to be constructed, if existing walkways would be negatively affected, and if the completed construction would alter the traffic pattern in the area.

Of the 18 criteria studied, the engineers decided that the Potter project would have a “moderate to large impact” on 13.

“That’s a pretty significant list of impacts to digest,” said Mr. Tepper.

The $70 million project, listed on the agenda as the “Conifer Affordable Housing Development,” but derided by critics as a “mall” with housing attached, would add more than 100,000 square feet of building to a historic part of the village. The largest of the 79 housing units would be a 950-square-foot twobedroom, two-bathroom apartment. Retail spaces would dominate the lower story, with 34,000 square feet proposed.

As a comparison, the K-Mart in

Bridgehampton Commons is 89,935 square feet.

Highlighting the passion some feel toward the project, as Aidan Corish, a trustee, questioned the engineers about their assessments, Douglas Newby, a village resident, yelled out from the back of the room, “This is a sham!”

Mr. Newby, his wife, Kathryn Levy, and Maziar Behrooz, an architect, were all in attendance. The three village residents joined a recent Save Sag Harbor lawsuit challenging the zoning changes that allowed the project to be proposed in the first place.

“If you could please stop yelling out, thank you,” said Liz Vail, the village attorney.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are often accused of not being transparent,” said Mayor Larocca, pounding the table for emphasis. “You’re here to watch your board working on this matter. If you cannot observe politely, I would ask you to leave. This is not a public hearing.

Yelling, laughing, and snide commentary, are not helpful.”

“We can laugh. You cannot restrict me,” said Mr. Behrooz, who would be a close neighbor of the development.

“I’m just asking you to be polite,” said Mayor Larocca.

Sean McLean of Mpact Collective, hired by the board as a liaison and consultant, tried to ease the mood. “As I’m listening, and hearing confusion, I wanted to back up and discuss where we are now in the process.”

He explained that what the engineers were reading through was a draft document. If the board issued a positive declaration, the draft would be scrapped and a scoping process, with public input, would begin, which would add important local knowledge to the document.

“This is only a gate to pass through, to say it should be a positive or negative declaration. After that, it restarts a very public process,” he said.

“In that process, we will learn about other issues, other matters not yet apparent,” said Mayor Larocca. “The way this process starts, we’re looking only at the applicant’s view.”

“Right. It can’t possibly contain the local knowledge,” said Mr. McLean.

“Part of the reason you brought me into this is to make me available to residents,

to get their concerns on paper.”

Mr. McLean then recited his email and cellphone number.

Michael Keane, another planner with Cameron Engineering, said that regardless of the board’s decision, he didn’t feel they had enough information to make either a positive or negative declaration.

Thomas Gardella, the deputy mayor, acknowledged he was no engineer, but said that, “if 13 of 18 show moderate or large impact,” then they had enough information.

“There’s a low threshold for issuing a positive declaration,” said Ms. Vail. “I’d like them to read through the 13 largeto-moderate impacts for the record, and then the board can make a determination.” She reiterated that the documents hadn’t been released to the public to review because they were in draft form.

After that, the board voted unanimously to issue the positive declaration.

“I never thought there was any question here, that I would favor moving us toward a positive declaration tonight,” said Mayor Larocca.

The next step is for the Potter team to draft a scope of the environmental impact statement. A public hearing on that draft will be held, comments collected, and it will be revised. Any public meeting would be “duly noticed” in local media, said Ms. Vail.

Mr. Corish suggested the village set up a portal on its website leading to all the documents and information on the Potter project.

“I’m grateful that you made a positive declaration” said Ms. Levy, speaking at the public comment period after Cameron’s presentation. She was disappointed however, that more people did not attend the meeting. “People who live immediately around the project . . . some of their lives will be destroyed,” she said.

“We follow every single requirement in the law,” said Mayor Larocca, about placing notices of board meetings in the papers. “I’m sorry it doesn’t please you. We’re not writing a separate process for you.”

John Graves spoke at a public hearing about an overlay district for the historically black neighborhoods in Sag Harbor Village.

Christopher Gangemi

HISTORIC STATUS

New Designation for Black Neighborhoods?

ATTENTION ALL VETERANS COME MARCH WITH US Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, Post 550 is sponsoring a

Veteran’s Day ParaDe To Honor the Service of Our Veterans

When: Friday, november 11th, 2022, 10:00 a.m.

Where: Parade starts at the Old VFW building (now London Jewelers) and proceeds to the Memorial Green for a short ceremony.

Come 15 minutes early to form up.

After, we will go to the American Legion Post 419, Amagansett for their 11:00 a.m. Ceremony

eVerIt aLBert Herter POst nO. 550 P.O. DRAWER 5033, EAST HAMPTON, NEW YORK 11937

BY CHRISTOPHER GANGEMI Residents of Sag Harbor’s historically Black neighborhoods, Azurest, Ninevah, and Sag Harbor Hills, showed up in force at a village board meeting Tuesday night for a public hearing on whether to create an overlay district for those neighborhoods, as a means of preserving their character in the face of recent development trends.

The proposal, which would amend the village code, calls for a maximum house size of 4,000 square feet, no sidewalks or “impervious” paved driveways, and a maximum of three accessory structures for any one house. Importantly, a photograph or video evidence of a suspected violation in the overlay district would be enough to “warrant the institution of an investigation by the village.”

While a debate has raged publicly since August about the best way to preserve the neighborhoods, in the end, all residents, including Renee Simons, president of the SANS organization, spoke in favor of the overlay district.

She did so only after receiving assurances from the New York State Historic Preservation Office and the village that entertaining the law would “not conflict or pre-empt the contract responsibilities the village has to decide ‘yes’ or ‘no’ regarding the inclusion of the SANS area (with beach area included) into the village inventory of historic district properties.”

The neighborhoods are recognized by New York State and the National Register of Historic Places but have never been designated as such by the village, something that Ms. Simons has sought for years. She has long argued that historic designation by the village was the best means of preservation.

On the other side, a group calling it-

self the Tri-Community Working Group, comprised of the three presidents of the three communities, along with 14 residents, boasts that 95 percent of their residents support an overlay district to control development and preserve the community.

A draft of the law highlighted that the overlay district was not there to protect the houses, but more the sense of place. “What defined the look and feel of the three communities was not attributable to a particular architectural design or style. Instead, it was the sense of community and the close, familial relationship of the residents, and the rustic quality of size-appropriate homes set within treed lots unadorned by sidewalks or curbs.”

“Those who laid out lots did so to maximize the number of lots because they knew no one else would allow Black people to buy land and build on it,” said John Graves, a resident of Terry Drive. “The houses were modest only because Black residents didn’t have access to mortgage financing. If they had had access, they could have built larger houses.”

He said a house his parents had purchased in the 1990s had recently sold, “not because it was beautiful,” but because of how it could be renovated.

Like nine others who spoke in favor of the overlay district, Mr. Graves feared historic designation by the village would add more stringent regulations and reduce the value of properties in the three neighborhoods.

Many spoke of the benefits of multigenerational homeownership in Sag Harbor. Shannon Terry Richards said, “I carry the names of two streets, in Azurest and Sag Harbor Hills — we are deeply tied to this village and these communities.” He supported the over-

lay district, saying “It is representative of the community and its involvement.

The percentage of support is high.”

Mark Willis of Azurest said he was a relative newcomer to the neighborhood, who purchased his house in 2005. He has five children and said he chose to live in Azurest because after visiting for a summer, “within two hours the kids had lifelong friends.

They walked out of the house, and there was a community where everyone was welcome. There are very few communities in the country that provide that type of atmosphere.”

Ms. Simons lodged a complaint about the name of the overlay district. “The SANS area is listed on the state and national registries. H.B.B.C. is not listed.”

She urged the board not to erase “the SANS area listing and long-established nomenclature on village records.”

As she had in October’s meeting, she voiced concern that an overlay district was only code that could easily be changed, and pushed the board for a more permanent preservation. She called the overlay district “a secondclass alternative.”

Sarah Kautz of Preservation Long Island called in to the meeting and said her organization supported the overlay district, but only because “anything is better than the situation we have now.”

She asked the board to host a public hearing to consider adding the SANS neighborhoods to the historic district.

Liz Vail, the village attorney, said the public hearing concerning the overlay district would remain open for written comment until the board’s December meeting. Whether Ms. Kautz’s request for a separate hearing regarding inclusion of the SANS historic district would be considered was not discussed.

The East Hampton Star, November 10, 2022

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The East Hampton Star, November 10, 2022

SAG HARBOR

Voters Say Yes to Land Buy

BY CHRISTINE SAMPSON The Sag Harbor School District’s bid to buy five wooded lots on Marsden Street for the purpose of creating new athletic fields passed last Thursday by a vote of 638 to 521.

The outcome means that residents have given the district the green light to spend $3.325 million from its reserves toward the deal, which relies on a $6 million contribution from Southampton Town’s community preservation fund.

That contribution is still under consideration by the Southampton Town Board, which has yet to hold the required public hearing and vote to finalize the arrangement.

The runup to last Thursday’s vote was marked by tense discourse that divided the community. As has been the case in past school district votes, controversy was reflected in the voter turnout.

A similarly controversial proposal in 2016 to put a turf playing field at the school saw a nearly identical turnout but failed by a wide margin. In this case, just over 55 percent of voters were in favor of the land buy.

“I’m very relieved. This is for generations to come,” said Sandi Kruel, the Sag Harbor School Board president.

“This is a momentous accolade for the district that has been years in the making, and I’m so happy to be a part of it.”

At least eight people spent about an hour hand-counting the paper ballots.

Electronic voting machines were not available to the district because of how close the vote was to Tuesday’s midterm elections for state and federal offices.

Ms. Kruel and Jeff Nichols, the district superintendent, reiterated their commitment to seeking extensive public comment before any decisions are

made on the structure and surface of future athletic fields.

Mr. Nichols thanked the voters. “I’m looking forward to the next stage of the process,” he said.

During a school board meeting on Monday, several speakers questioned the outcome of the vote. “Those responsible for counting the vote [were] cheering the conclusion of the count.

They weren’t necessarily unbiased,” said Karen Arrigoni, who also alleged that school employees were handing out fliers the morning of the vote urging people to vote “yes.”

Alex Kriegsman, a school board member, responded by saying, “Nobody handed anything out on behalf of the school. This is a process that was vetted by counsel, and by the time we got to the vote, everyone was well aware of what the issues were, and the community has now spoken and voted in favor of it.”

Ray Pepe, another speaker, asserted that the voters have not “spoken in a resolute way, because 55 percent to 45 percent is not a unanimous ‘yes, we want to do this.’ ” “We would like to think the school would open up the discussion in a truly democratic way to let the community speak and have a discussion about what we really think about plans that the school might have, which have not been put forth in any detail as yet,” Mr. Pepe said.

During a follow-up conversation on Tuesday, Mr. Nichols reiterated that there are no concrete plans yet, and he repeated the district’s commitment to doing exactly the kind of outreach Mr. Pepe said he was hoping for.

“The next step is garnering commu-

At least eight people spent close to an hour last Thursday night counting paper ballots in the Sag Harbor School District’s vote on the purchase of five wooded lots on Marsden Street for an athletic field.

Christine Sampson nity feedback, which ultimately is going to guide the capital improvement project and the bond that finances it,” Mr. Nichols said. “We’re trying to focus on ways to increase outreach efforts.”

He said the district has kept all of the paper ballots cast by voters, including the 78 absentee ballots, locked up in a safe place.

For Southampton Town’s part of the deal — originally put forth in writing on June 24 by Lisa Kombrink of the town’s C.P.F. committee — Supervisor Jay Schneiderman said by phone on Tuesday that it may have been a somewhat premature offer.

“We wanted to see how that vote went with the school, and now we have

to decide. I know there are people who say it is not a good use of C.P.F. dollars, but there was a time when the town did help the East Quogue school build athletic facilities. It wasn’t using the C.P.F., but it did set some precedent. I’m not sure it’s a bad precedent.”

However, he said, “when it was first brought to the town board, it felt more like a community park that we were building together with the school, very multipurpose. Now it feels like the school’s athletic facilities that they’re asking for the town to help with, with ancillary or secondary public use. Where we go from here, I’m not sure. . . . I need more information before I would be ready to set a public hearing.”

Kids Culture Sag Harbor Village Mayor James Larocca recently recognized Pierson Middle School students for their advocacy efforts and classroom work about making healthy choices and preventing drug abuse during Red Ribbon Week, which is celebrated the last week of October.

Sag Harbor School District

175 North Sea Road, Southampton, NY

283-5515

Store Hours: Monday - Saturday 8-5:30 · Sunday 9-6

School Breaks With Project Most For working parents or families seeking kids’ activities when school’s out, Project Most has announced that registration is open for its three vacation learning labs: the day before Thanksgiving, winter break in February, and spring break in April.

The days are “filled with fun, outdoor play, and lots of activities,” including art, cooking, games, sewing, dance, Lego play, and music, Project Most said in an announcement. The programs have been known to fill up fast, so the organization suggests registering soon.

The programs are for kids in prekindergarten through sixth grade. They take place at Project Most’s temporary location at the Most Holy Trinity school building on Meadow Way in East Hampton Village. The Nov. 23 single-day session costs $75, and the five-day programs in February and April cost $380 for the week. Siblings receive a 25-percent discount, and a limited number of scholarships are available.

Details and registration links are online at projectmost.org. Jacqueline Gravina-Wohlleb is the contact for more information at jacqueline@projectmost.org.

More for Kids and Teens Amagansett Library Robotics with visiting Long Island Science Center educators for students in fourth through sixth grades, Saturday, 1-4 p.m. All about foxes with stories and painting for kids ages 4 to 7, Saturday, 3 p.m. Sixth-grade book club meeting, Monday, 3:30-4:30 p.m. “Navigating College Admissions Successfully” Zoom presentation for teens, Wednesday, 7-8 p.m., 631-267-3810, amagansettlibrary.org.

Children’s Museum of the East End, Bridgehampton Thanksgiving and Grooving, Nov. 23, 2-4 p.m., $25 ($5 for museum members). Katherine Holabird presents “Angelina Ballerina,” Saturday, Nov. 26, 10:30-11:30 a.m., $19 (free for museum members). Gingerbread house decorating for families, Saturdays, Dec. 3 and 10, 45-minute sessions at 10 and 11:15 a.m., $35, 631-537-8250, cmee.org.

East Hampton Library Chess for teens (must have working knowledge of the game), Sunday, 2-4 p.m. Wiggle and Giggle Time for babies and toddlers up to age 3, Monday, 11:30 a.m.-noon. Teen Advisory Board meeting, Monday, 3:304:30 p.m. D.I.Y. tape art for kids in sixth through eighth grades, Tuesday, 4-5 p.m. Thanksgiving cornucopia craft for ages 3 to 6, Wednesday, 4-5 p.m. No-sew fleece blanket community service project for teens, Wednesday, 5-6 p.m. Make your own lip balm for children 5 and up (with adult caregiver), next Thursday, 4-5 p.m., 631-324-0222, easthamptonlibrary.org.

LET SAMMY’S COOK FOR YOU!

Hampton Library, Bridgehampton Heat-press crafting for kids in sixth grade and up, Tuesday, 3:30-5 p.m.

Council of Young Adults meeting, next Thursday, 3:30-5 p.m. Paper football STEM project for kids 8 to 12, next Thursday, 4-5 p.m., 631-5370015, myhamptonlibrary.org.

John Jermain Memorial Library, Sag Harbor Minecraft Club for kids 8 to 11 (drop-off program), Saturday, 2-3:30 p.m.

STEM straw rockets for students in kindergarten through sixth grade (with adult caregiver if under 10), Sunday, 1-2 p.m. Hourlong virtual reality tours of the International Space Station for grades six through 12, by reservation, Wednesday through Friday, Nov. 18, 3-5:30 p.m. Quogue Wildlife Refuge art class for students in first through sixth grades (with adult caregiver if under 10), next Thursday, 4-4:45 p.m., 631-725-0049, johnjermain.org.

Montauk Library Apple-pie baking for families, Saturday, 2-4 p.m. Youth chess club, Tuesday, 3:30-4:30 p.m., 631-668-3377, montauklibrary.org.

Make Thanksgiving Simple Sammy’s Take Home Menu

Sag Harbor Cinema “The Princess Diaries” (rated G), screenings on Saturday and Sunday, times to be announced, ticket purchase required, 631-725-0010, sagharborcinema.org.

Complete Dinner for 8 — $325 Includes all the fixings!

Individual Turkey Dinner To Go — $36.95 À la Carte Sides, Desserts

South Fork Natural History Museum, Bridgehampton “Create your own animal superhero story” for kids 5 and up, Saturday, 10:30 a.m., $10 children, $15 adults, free for museum members. Walking Dunes exploration in Amagansett for ages 5 and up, Sunday, 10:30 a.m., $10 children, $15 adults, free for museum members, 631-537-9736, sofo.org.

with

Visit

Sammysmtk.com

Southampton Arts Center Native American walking stick workshop for kids and families, Sunday, 3-4:30 p.m., $15, $10 for arts center members), 631-283-0967, southamptonartscenter.org.

For More Information Call 631-238-5707

The Church, Sag Harbor Marionette workshop for kids 8 and up (with adult caregiver; adults not required to take part in program), Sunday, 2-5 p.m., $30, 631-919-5342, thechurchsagharbor.org.

to see the menu

Open 11:30 a.m. to closing

Closed Thursdays

A partition had to be opened up and more chairs added on Monday night for a special school board meeting in the East Hampton High School library addressing the John M. Marshall Elementary School’s dual-language program.

Christine Sampson

For the ‘Seal of Biliteracy’ Continued from A1

the first and second grade dual-language cohorts slightly outpaced the general education and integrated cohorts in ascending the reading-level scale. Children not enrolled in the dual-language program have Spanish lessons two to three times a week in a curriculum known as foreign language for elementary students, or FLES for short.

In a survey of parents who signed up for the opt-in program, more than 80 percent said they were satisfied or very satisfied with it, 89 percent said they are seeing progress in their children’s development of skills in their non-native language, and about 86 percent reported seeing their children “show excitement about learning another language.” Not every participating family responded to the survey.

Richard Burns, who retired in June 2021 after nearly nine years as East Hampton’s very popular superintendent, spoke up not as a school administrator, but as the proud grandfather of a dual-language student. He implored his former colleagues to find the resources to expand it, saying that “this program is working. I know you’ll find a solution somehow. . . . Every school district is facing this, but we always rise to the challenge.”

Marissa Cangiolosi, who has a son in the dual-language cohort, told the school board, “You’re literally growing their brains in this program.” She said she was learning along with him.

“Communication is freedom. When you are giving people another language to speak, you are giving people freedom to communicate — and power. We want to provide that to as many students as we can.”

Jorge Cruz, who is originally from Costa Rica and has a third-grader in the dual-language program, thanked the school district for offering it. “I think it’s a wonderful job that you guys are doing.

It’s a tremendous amount of work,” he said, calling the program “a big service” to the Spanish-speaking community.

Addressing the many Spanish-speaking families in the room, he urged them to get more involved in the school. “We are not doing that enough,” he said.

Along with the pros of the program, administrators acknowledged some cons. It’s usually hard to hire excellent

bilingual teachers, they said, though that has started to change. And the school’s relatively small elementaryschool enrollment (by Long Island standards) means students who opt in to the program are almost guaranteed to spend all of their years at John Marshall with the same group of classmates, and their peers in general and integrated classrooms will be grouped in a similar way.

One parent who did not identify herself said she had pulled her son out of the program — one of seven third-grade families who had done so since kindergarten. “Please do whatever is best for your child . . . but please look at the other side,” she said. “It wasn’t the best for my son to start off that way, plus he does have an I.E.P. [individualized education program]. That program was not right for all learners — the support is not necessarily there for that type of learner.”

School board members were frank about one of the challenges associated with expanding the program: finding room in the budget to hire more teachers.

“When we put this program in place, there was not money to do it for fourth and fifth grades. We wanted to do the program, so we said, ‘Let’s start it as a pilot,’ “ said Jackie Lowey, a school board member.

She recalled years when East Hampton was forced to lay off teachers under the constraints of the tax-cap legislation, and a board colleague, Christina DeSanti, explained that the current dual-language teachers were hired without impacting the budget because other, longterm teachers had retired.

J.P. Foster, the board president, called it “money that we will do our best to find,” but cited the tax-cap rules, which require a supermajority of at least 60 percent voter approval to pass an over-the-cap budget. “We can pierce the cap,” he said. “If that’s where we go, then we’re going to need your help to do so, because parents are the ones who do vote.”

Toward the end of the meeting, he added, “We’re not going to not support something that you guys want.”

The East Hampton Star, November 10, 2022

Daniel Campbell, second from left, entered the Arthur Cromarty Criminal Court Complex in Riverside last Thursday for his sentencing hearing in the 2021 hit-and-run accident that led to the death of Devesh Samtani.

Tom Gogola

‘I Prayed and Mourned’ Continued from A1

“He came here to study,” said Mrs. Samtani, “not for you to take his life away.”

Her husband then stepped up to the podium and, in a soft voice, thanked Justice Ambro for reversing a promise he had made to Mr. Campbell in August that the young man would not face any jail time. Justice Ambro revised his earlier sentencing decision only after information about Mr. Campbell’s recent driving record came to light.

The U.K. Daily Mail reported in late September that Mr. Campbell “has racked up a catalogue of reckless driving violations” that included causing a headon crash in White Plains in 2021 after going the wrong way down a one-way street, and getting caught speeding just weeks before the Amagansett accident.

In addressing the court, Mr. Samtani highlighted a contentious aspect of this case: the speed at which Mr. Campbell was driving when he struck Devesh. Mr. Samtani was unsatisfied that Mr. Campbell had never admitted he was speeding when he struck Devesh.

Through his attorneys, Mr. Campbell has asserted he was not speeding — an assertion apparently borne out by a Suffolk County grand jury and the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, which, after interviewing numerous witnesses, did not charge Mr. Campbell with any reckless-driving-related charge.

Mr. Campbell was ultimately charged

with and convicted on a single criminal count — leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death, a class D felony in New York State punishable by up to seven years in prison. Prosecutors had sought at least a year of jail time for Mr. Campbell.

Edward Burke, Mr. Campbell’s attorney in this case, described his client to the court as a quiet and shy young man who was not the “monster” he was made out to be, and who had a history of poor coping skills and other psychological conditions associated with post-concussion syndrome. Mr. Campbell had suffered numerous concussions through his involvement in high school sports, he told reporters after the hearing.

Mr. Burke offered that he did not raise these issues to “make excuses” for Mr. Campbell, who had already admitted his guilt and responsibility in the accident.

He did reiterate, however, that given that there were no drugs or alcohol in play, nor any charges of reckless driving or speeding, his client had simply panicked and left the scene of the accident — and badly regretted doing so.

Moving forward, Mr. Burke said his client “would like to speak to young people about how one bad decision can totally change your life.”

Now it was Mr. Campbell’s turn. He slowly unfolded a white piece of paper and thanked the judge for the opportunity to address the grieving family.

“I am truly sorry for ruining your

When Warriors Become Peacekeepers Continued from A1

In military parlance, the “rules of engagement” are radically different for domestic peacekeepers than for activeduty service members in a hostile and foreign land. The SEALs, he said, “were going against people with weapons who want to kill you and hurt your country, as opposed to in policing, where it’s people who are down on their luck, or just kids, not a grown-up using their head. You’re not going to ‘win,’ you’re going to keep the peace and alleviate the situation.”

His favorite part of the job, said Officer Shea, is the camaraderie among officers, “and the helping is great.” Least favorite? He’s not so hot on having to issue all those traffic tickets.

Returning veterans may suffer from P.T.S.D. or traumatic brain injury, adding a profound wrinkle for law enforcement agencies looking to recruit veterans.

Officer Shea, who did not experience either affliction, pointed out that veterans returning from service in Iraq and Afghanistan have a range of support services that just didn’t exist for those who fought in World War II, Korea, or Vietnam.

Policing, however, comes with traumas and stresses all its own — the old trope is that you’re pretty much dealing

with people in crisis and at their worst, on a day-by-day basis. Officers are usually first on the scene in serious car accidents or other catastrophes that can come with bloodshed, burns, and death.

“As far as seeing bad stuff,” said Officer Shea, “that stuff is going to happen, and you have to roll with the punches.”

Patrick Royal also works as a police officer for the town. He has been on the force since 2018 after a career in the Coast Guard. Officer Royal had a unique advantage given his service with the Coast Guard, which is the only one of the five military branches that can execute federal law over civilians without a decree of martial law.

To that extent, said Officer Royal, there are similarities between service in the Coast Guard and on the police force.

“You’re looking out for drunks on the water, there are rescues at sea of civilians, drug arrests.” He also performed police functions while deployed overseas, working in counter-piracy and “teaching the Iraqis how to be a better Coast Guard for themselves.”

“The law enforcement background from the military really did translate quite easily into being a police officer,” said Officer Royal, who initially worked as a town harbormaster for a year before going to the police academy.

Officer Royal, 36, who hails from

Also on the Logs East Hampton Village A 14-year-old boy told police that his $235 Adidas Essentials hoodie had been stolen from a basketball court in the village on Friday. The boy’s mother said this had been happening a lot, though the manager of the unidentified business where the court is located said there had been no other recent reports of thefts.

A man was “creating a disturbance” on and around a Suffolk County Transportation bus last Thursday night, according to a caller, who said the man was walking on and off the bus while it was parked, and walking around the bus when it started up, distracting the driver. Police responded, but did not find the man.

Two youths were reportedly shooting paintball guns near the playground at Herrick Park early last Thursday evening. Police couldn’t find them, but did discover some round blue gel beads in the area.

Four people entered London Jewelers on Nov. 2, two of whom said they wanted to buy a watch. They picked one out, then showed a manager a picture of a credit card on a phone and said they’d pay for the watch that way. When the manager asked for a physical copy of the credit card, the would-be buyers couldn’t produce it. The four left the store; the watch stayed behind. The manager wanted the incident documented.

An East Hampton man reported credit card fraud on Nov. 2 after someone booked a room at a Ramada hotel using his credit card information.

The man contacted the hotel after finding the charge on his bank statement and canceled the card, which had been charged for two nights at $137 per night.

A Flanders resident told village police on the day after Halloween that someone had stolen a license plate from his 2000 Volkswagen.

Two East Hampton women, who police said were “in their 50s,” were yelling at each other at the train station on the afternoon of Oct. 31. One had beeped her horn at the other while she was trying to park, according to the police report. The beeper then got out of her car and began screaming at the parker. Both told police their brief confrontation was purely verbal, and they were instructed to stay away from each other.

POLICE & COURTS lives,” he told the courtroom full of Samtani friends and family. He expressed profound regret for leaving the scene of the accident and said he had “played the night out thousands of times” in his head over the past year. He was anguished, he said, by not being able to express his remorse to the family until last Thursday’s hearing.

“I would give anything to change the outcome of that night,” Mr. Campbell said, as he evoked his victim and began to weep.

“I prayed and mourned” he said, reflecting on the family’s loving descriptions of Devesh and “how good of a person he was. The loss of your son’s life will be with me forever.”

Justice Ambro then addressed the court and explained his change of heart insofar as he was now sending Mr. Campbell to jail after promising him he wouldn’t.

Describing the incident as “a very tragic car accident,” Justice Ambro noted that Mr. Campbell had not committed nor been charged with any crime prior to or associated with the accident.

“There was no allegation of speeding and no criminality with regard to how he was driving,” said Justice Ambro. He also noted that even as he fled the scene, Mr. Campbell’s departure didn’t play a role in whether Devesh received prompt medical attention. That was also a factor in his now-revoked promise to Mr. Campbell, he said.

Justice Ambro said he did not know of Mr. Campbell’s prior driving record until after the hearing in August when he had made that promise. That information came to him later, via a letter from the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office on Sept. 8 and another from a Samtani family lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, on Sept. 18.

“I believe the sentence is fair and reasonable under the facts and circumstances of this case,” Justice Ambro concluded before announcing Mr. Campbell’s punishment, which, along with the jail time, community service, and probation, includes a revocation of his driver’s license and a $2,138 fine.

Justice Ambro, along with Mr. Campbell’s parents and attorneys, quickly departed from the courtroom after the sentence was announced.

Silence descended as court officers asked the gathering of Samtani friends and family to wait a few moments before they, too, exited.

For a few minutes, the only sound in the room was of teary sniffles and of handcuffs clicking into place as Mr. Campbell was escorted from the courtroom.

South Boston, joined the Coast Guard in 2005, having committed himself to join the service as a high schooler after the events of Sept. 11, 2001. He served in Hawaii (“Boston with palm trees”), then at Coast Guard Station Montauk for three years beginning in 2006, then in Iraq, where he was homeported at a U.S. military installation in Bahrain. Returning stateside, he served in North Carolina and then in New Hampshire before moving back to the East End. Officer Royal’s wife is from the area.

Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington D.C., lawmakers created the Department of Homeland Security and put the Coast Guard under that multiagency umbrella — creating a somewhat bifurcated role for the branch, which was tasked, as before, to deal with civilian issues in local waters, but now also faced deployments to Iraq and other conflict zones.

“That’s right, we were under D.H.S.,” said Officer Royal, “but while we were there, we were essentially on loan to the Department of Defense.”

The big difference between military and civilian law enforcement, he said, was that in the Coast Guard “you are a much smaller cog in the machine — and when you’re a smaller cog, you don’t see the end result as much, you don’t really see it until the end. But on the local level in policing, you get to see things to the end and have an effect on the community in both positive and negative ways — and by negative, I mean you have encounters with people who get arrested.”

Officer Royal echoed some of what his colleague Officer Shea said when it comes to unpleasant encounters with civilians who may be suspicious of police and policing.

The divisiveness gripping this nation extends to views on law enforcement that may be impacted by events such as George Floyd’s death or the advent of far-right “Constitutional sheriffs” and the domestic terrorists who call themselves the Oath Keepers, who often draw from the ranks of the military and law enforcement.

“The great thing about this country is that the First Amendment goes a long way,” said Officer Royal. “Some people like to tell cops, eff you, go eff yourself, it is true — but in the military you don’t really have that because the show of force is just so much larger. Here, on the street, it’s just one or two guys. When you show respect, you get respect.

Every once in a while you’ll get anticop folks, but those are generally people who are running into the police more often anyway. Ninety-nine percent of the people out here love the police — they are happy to see you, glad you are out there.”

But in East Hampton, said Officer Royal, just as in Iraq, “you can’t win the hearts and minds of everybody.”

A9

Effort to Educate Police About Autism

BY TOM GOGOLA On a recent afternoon, police officers from Sag Harbor and East Hampton Villages and the Town of East Hampton gathered at town headquarters in Wainscott to collect “GoBags,” designed to assist officers who may encounter special-needs children or adults.

The GoBags are the brainchild of Kim Covell, founder of the Flying Point Foundation for Autism in Southampton, which aims to educate and inform the public about people who fall along the autism spectrum.

Ms. Covell, the parent of an autistic adult, told reporters that while she hopes police never have to utilize the GoBags, they’re a valuable add-on should an officer encounter an autistic person in crisis or engaged in some sort of criminality.

“I have always been aware that any minor emergency involving my son could go off the rails in a heartbeat,” she said.

The bags contain such items as whiteboards and markers, to assist in communication with nonverbal people; headphones, “to block an overload of noise,” sunglasses, and fidget toys, which can allay anxiety and serve as an effective distraction device. There’s also a card that provides information on how to interact with people who have autism, along with stickers that parents can put in their cars or homes telling the unaware that a special-needs person is present.

The “autism spectrum” is by now a well-known catchphrase, but there’s also a spectrum of sensitivity in policing when it comes to officers’ interactions with vulnerable persons. Their needs have of late been caught up in the political and media-fueled debate over defunding the police, which as a practical local matter may mean redeploying resources to social workers and others trained to deal with autistic or other special-needs persons.

In the absence of effective crossagency cooperation between law enforcement and human-services agencies, police find themselves all too often in the role of social workers.

At one end of that spectrum of sensitivity in policing are humane and smallp progressive police agencies such as the East Hampton Village Police Department, which has adopted a raft of bestpractice protocols to address the needs of the various communities it serves.

Parents, of course, have a big role to play in ensuring that their special-needs children are protected from excessive police force because of a lack of understanding — but so do citizens who encounter what they think is a “suspicious person,” but who may in fact be a person with autism.

Almost every week, crime reports from Sag Harbor, East Hampton Village, and the Town of East Hampton contain calls to police about “suspicious persons,” who turn out, when officers show up, to be anything but.

When it comes to those calls, East Hampton Village Police Chief Michael Tracey said it’s up to dispatchers to get the information correct, with no embellishment or assumptions. Then it’s up to the judgement of the responding officers to determine their approach.

“Our guys have gotten good at dialing it back while maintaining a safe, correct posture,” said Chief Tracey. “Our emphasis is on de-escalation, so it is enormously important that we hire people with good communications skills. A safe posture is important, but having a clear picture of what you’re walking into and what you’re not walking into is key, and why it’s so important that dispatch is accurate.”

Ms. Covell suggested at the recent GoBag giveaway that East Hampton may want to consider adopting a registry of special-needs children in the area to give police one more important tool.

“We deal with a wide variety of people,” said Sgt. Kenneth Alversa of the town police, during the GoBag event.

Some families are actively engaged in protecting their special-needs children from unnecessary encounters with police. “We’ve had families reach out to let us know they’ve moved to our jurisdiction,” said Sergeant Alversa.

Special-needs children’s encounters with police can, and have, gone horribly awry elsewhere. In 2020, CNN reported that an autistic 13-year-old boy was shot by police in Salt Lake City after his mother called to request a crisis intervention team to assist with her son, who was having behavioral issues. Instead, the boy was Tasered and then shot.

Closer to home and at the very far and ugly end of the sensitivity spectrum, it’s hard to look away from the recent case in Center Moriches where a former N.Y.P.D. officer, Michael Valva, left his 8year-old autistic son in a freezing garage overnight as punishment for his behavior.

The boy died of exposure. Mr. Valva was convicted last week of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Kim Covell, an autism activist and the executive director of the Flying Point Foundation for Autism, presented GoBags to, from left, Sag Harbor Police Lt. Robert Drake, East Hampton Town Sgt. Kenneth Alversa, and East Hampton Village Lt. Greg Brown at town police headquarters on Nov. 1. Durell Godfrey That case is clearly an outlier, but it raises a larger issue about training. East Hampton officers do receive crisis intervention training at the county police academy, but when it comes to training that’s specific to persons on the autism spectrum, Chief Tracey said that “there is not a lot of police training in that particular area given by the police agencies, the academy, or in-service, and we could certainly use more of it.”

The chief praised his department’s work with and presence in the local schools — he’s a former and longtime East Hampton School Board member — noting that the agency often relies on its partners in the schools, in social services, and in other agencies “who deal with a broader group of ‘customers,’ so to speak, than we do.

There’s no absolute formula for dealing with anyone with regard to their age or if they are on the spectrum, but we are not shy about calling for help or guidance.”

That said, Chief Tracey also emphasized community engagement as a key to maintaining a de-escalatory posture whenever possible.

“We have to have a lot of connections in that area, because if you call us, we are coming,” he said.

Mr. Tracey has championed a change in current state law that would allow local law enforcement, rather than strictly adhering to civil service lists, to have a say in who gets hired to the police force — much as school officials and boards are now making the decision when it comes to hiring teachers.

“There should be a way that we can broaden our hiring,” so that it’s more reflective and sensitive to the particulars of this community, he said.

“I’m not saying turn hiring over to the community — but the schools did it years ago.”

Chief Tracey also highlighted his department’s ongoing cooperation with the town’s anti-bias task force and the Family Services League of Suffolk County, which he said has helped keep a number of mentally challenged people from being sent to psychiatric units following a police encounter. Such disruptions can be especially damaging to autistic persons, for whom routine is a key factor in their well-being.

That best-practice approach involves officers calling in partners in the mental-health community who can assist in “making an informed assessment of their state of mind and can give you advice as to whether a person needs to be driven to a medical facility or doesn’t,” Chief Tracey said.

This training, he added, “is actually helping us reduce the number of people who get transferred to Stony Brook or another psychiatric unit.” He particularly pointed out the benefit to someone who is “saved from that ride because they maybe didn’t see their doctor, didn’t fill a prescription.”

But, he said, there is always more that can be done for East Hampton’s special-needs citizens. “We don’t have enough of that on Long Island — and we have even less of it on the East End.”

Few Details in Hit-and-Run Yomira Neira-Andrade of East Hampton was crossing Old Fireplace Road near Springs-Fireplace Road in Springs last Thursday afternoon when a vehicle of unknown make and model struck her from behind. The driver left the scene, and has not yet been identified. Ms. Neira-Andrade, 27, was transported to Stony Brook Southampton Hospital for unspecified injuries.

A glaring sun was the culprit in Montauk on Nov. 2 when Mitchell Marsicano of East Moriches drove his 2007 Lexus into the back of a 2008 Ford pickup driven by Romulo Guichey of East Hampton. Mr. Marsicano was westbound on Route 27 just before 7 p.m. when the accident occurred. He was checked out by medical personnel for a laceration to the mouth, but refused further medical assistance.

T.G.

Someone Called the Police Deborah Trezza of Centereach, 32, was driving a 2006 Nissan eastbound on Amagansett Main Street near Miankoma Avenue on the morning of Oct. 29 when someone called police with a tip about an erratic driver.

Officers said they saw Ms. Trezza swerving and tailgating the car ahead of

her. They pulled her over and reported that her speech was slurred, she appeared disoriented, her eyes were glassy, her pupils were dilated, she had poor coordination, and she was unsteady on her feet.

Ms. Trezza was charged with driving while impaired by drugs, a first-offense misdemeanor.

T.G.

Charged With Menacing Jordan Oney of Montauk, 28, was charged with two misdemeanors following an Oct. 27 incident on DeForest Road in Montauk, where Mr. Oney allegedly grabbed “an orange-handled sword” and lunged at another person during a verbal altercation.

He was charged with second-degree menacing and criminal possession of a weapon with intent to use it, and will be arraigned in East Hampton Town Justice Court at a future date.

T.G.

THE LAW OFFICES OF

CARL ANDREW IRACE & ASSOCIATES, PLLC

12 GAY ROAD #5128 EAST HAMPTON, NY 11937 631-324-1233 www.southforklawyers.com cirace@southforklawyers.com

GOVERNMENT

A10

The East Hampton Star, November 10, 2022

TRUCK BEACH

Housing Gets Solid ‘Yes’ Votes

Civil Contempt Is Charged

BY CHRISTOPHER WALSH The war of words between attorneys over the 4,000-foot stretch of Napeague ocean beach popularly known as Truck Beach continued this week, when an attorney for the homeowners associations who successfully sued East Hampton Town and the town trustees to assert that their property deeds extend to the mean high-water mark of the beach submitted a motion to hold the trustees in civil contempt.

On Monday, Stephen Angel, representing five homeowners associations, asked the New York State Supreme Court to hold the trustees in civil contempt of the Appellate Division’s Feb. 3, 2021, ruling that overturned the court’s 2016 decision holding that the trustees’ 1882 conveyance of some 1,000 acres on Napeague to Arthur Benson reserved the public’s right to access the beach for fishing and fishing-related purposes.

The trustees, he wrote, should also be held in contempt of an April 2021 modified judgment, a June 2021 temporary restraining order, and a June 2022 order finding the town and trustees in civil and criminal contempt of the judgment “on the ground that the trustees, acting through their counsel, Daniel G. Rodgers, Esq., and acting in collusion with various individuals, including Daniel Lester, are publicly denying the validity of — and actively encouraging others to violate — the aforesaid orders and judgment.”

The trustees are not Mr. Rodgers’s client, Francis Bock, clerk of the trustees, said on Tuesday. Rather, in the Truck Beach matter they are represented by the Hodgson Russ firm.

Mr. Rodgers did, however, defend 14 East Hampton fishermen, including Mr. Lester, on charges of trespassing stemming from an October 2021 act of civil disobedience, when they and others drove trucks and a dory across the beach in question before being issued summonses by Marine Patrol agents.

The matter was transferred to Southampton Town Justice Court after East Hampton Town Justices Steven Tekulsky and Lisa Rana recused themselves. With none of the property owners filing a complaint, charges against the 14 fishermen were dismissed last month.

The trustees, Mr. Angel charged, “have actually ramped up their contempt of the injunction by taking it to an open rebellion against the court’s authority.” He said that Mr. Rodgers, whom he repeatedly identifies as the trustees’ counsel, “has acted as someone on a mission to defy the court’s authority, by taking to the airwaves, brazenly insulting the court, including the Hon. Paul J. Baisley Jr., personally, by publicly declaring the court’s orders and judgment to be ineffective, and, worse, by encouraging the public to violate the injunction in a show of civil disobedience.”

Mr. Rodgers had declared the dismissal of trespassing charges a victory and encouraged town residents to access the beach. “We have the reserva-

Late-breaking news between print editions on Instagram: instagram.com/easthamptonstar

Continued from A1

tion, and that is a legal property right that belongs not just to baymen, not just to recreational fisherman, it belongs to 28,000 people who live in the Town of East Hampton,” he said outside the courthouse.

Mr. Angel wrote that, although the Benson deed reserved to town residents “the right to land fish boats and netts to spread the netts in the adjacent sands and care for the fish and material,” the Appellate Division ruled that the reservation cannot be construed as broadly as the trustees and town do, attempting to justify vehicular use on the beach by claiming that it was authorized by the reservation. “Rather, the reservation is in the nature of an easement allowing the public to use the homeowners associations’ portion of the beach only for fishing and fishing-related purposes.”

But much of his submission reads like a plea to Justice Baisley to take offense at Mr. Rodgers’s statements in the wake of the dismissal of his clients’ trespassing charges. While representing the trustees, Mr. Angel wrote, Mr. Rodgers “has ratcheted up his disobedience to an astounding level of disdain, disrespect, and contumacious behavior unbefitting any officer of the court.”

Mr. Angel, Mr. Bock said on Tuesday, “knows for a fact that we’re not [Mr. Rodgers’s] client. So this is just a game, to get us to spend more money, probably another cut to try to bleed us. That’s my opinion.”

“This entire filing is replete with complaints about our being vocal, nothing more,” Mr. Rodgers said on Tuesday. Mr. Angel’s motion “went on for six to eight pages about newspaper articles where I and Daniel were quoted.

They’re calling that contempt. They didn’t once claim in their brief that somebody was harmed because they went on the beach. All they did was bemoan the bad press.” The plaintiffs, he said, “are trying to spoon-feed Baisley to see how far he will go. But this is nothing more than speech.”

Like Mr. Rodgers, Daniel Spitzer of Hodgson Russ said the plaintiffs “seem to be complaining about the exercise of First Amendment rights by an advocate who, by the way, does not represent the trustees.”

The trustees, he noted, had issued a statement following the dismissal of the residents’ trespassing charges. The trustees “were pleased to see the dismissal of the charges . . . and congratulate the residents of the homeowners association who refuse to file any trespassing claims against the group of people who were doing no more than trying to support their family.” The statement reminded the public “that an injunction remains in place regarding this dispute, and the trustees who have issued no permits nor taken any other steps in any way encouraging or supporting any action in violation of the injunction, will continue to press in all legal forums the right of the public to use these lands” as they have for more than 300 years.

“I just think the whole thing is inappropriate,” Mr. Spitzer said of Mr. Angel’s motion.

Mr. Rodgers was blunt. “They can go to hell,” he said of the homeowners associations. “We’re not going anywhere.

They’re not going to bully us, and they’re not going to intimidate us.”

Gov. Kathy Hochul fought off a challenge from Republican Representative Lee Zeldin.

Darren McGee/Office of Gov. Kathy Hochul

Hochul Bests Zeldin in Governor’s Race final moments. The ad claims to show “actual violent crimes caught on camera in Kathy Hochul’s New York,” though the incident occurred three years before she became governor.

Mr. Zeldin’s campaign is also under investigation by the State Board of Elections regarding potential violation of state law for coordinating with two political action committees supporting his candidacy. And the cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder, who owns an estate in Wainscott, has emerged as a lead donor to those organizations, known as superPACs, spending more than $11 million to elect Mr. Zeldin, The New York Times reported this week.

Mr. Lauder is an opponent of the plan to land the South Fork Wind Farm’s export cable in Wainscott, a project Governor Hochul supports. She was among the officials taking part in a ceremonial groundbreaking for the wind farm at LTV Studios in Wainscott in February.

While most polls showed the governor, running on the Democratic and Working Families Party lines, leading her Republican and Conservative Party challenger, the race tightened considerably in leadup to Election Day, with Mr. Zeldin predicting a “red tsunami” that would sweep him into office amid midterm elections that almost always favor the party that does not control the White House. A handful of polls put Mr. Zeldin ahead of or tied with the governor, but Ms. Hochul never trailed in the majority of polling firms’ prognostications.

The candidates disagreed on virtually everything in their sole debate on Oct. 25. The governor repeatedly tied the congressman to former President Trump and the effort to overturn his 2020 election defeat, while Mr. Zeldin, who would not utter the former president’s name, called Ms. Hochul pro-criminal and corrupt.

Mr. Zeldin supported Mr. Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election results after his defeat, voting against certifying the results in two states on Jan. 6, 2021, hours after the insurrection at the United States Capitol, encouraged and cheered by the defeated former president. Previously, he defended Mr. Trump through two impeachments and, in December 2020, filed an amicus brief supporting a lawsuit that asked the Supreme Court to disenfranchise some 20 million voters in four states won by President Biden.

Continued from A1

Hochul on her election. “Those controlling Albany should take note,” he said. “New Yorkers of all walks of life are sick of the tracks on their wallets, their safety, their freedoms, and the quality of their kids’ education and are hitting the breaking point, as proven by these results. As they take office in January, Gov. Kathy Hochul and those controlling Albany must address the grave concerns voiced by the voters.”

Mr. Zeldin will apparently leave government at year’s end, having given up his seat in the House of Representatives to run for governor. The Republican Nick LaLota will take his place in the House of Representatives, having bested County Legislator Bridget Fleming of Southampton 55.81 percent to 44.09 percent. That race is covered elsewhere in today’s paper.

The Suffolk County Board of Elections website had posted no results as of 11:30 p.m. on Tuesday, and the New York State Board of Elections site had no results listed for Suffolk County either, the lack of online reporting likely the result of a September malware attack that crippled the county’s computer systems.

The county board of elections sent 48,635 mail ballots to voters, and had received 32,167 as of Monday. Mail ballots had to be postmarked by Tuesday, Nov. 8, and must be received by the board of elections by Tuesday, Nov. 15, in order to be counted, so an official tally is several days to several weeks away.

Votes cast during the early voting period, Oct. 29 through Sunday, were to be tallied and made public after Tuesday’s 9 p.m. close of polling stations. They were scanned as they were received, a board of elections official told The Star on Tuesday, but would not be tallied until after the polls closed.

A host of government functions and policies hinge on the contest, including gun policy, criminal justice, and abortion rights, though Mr. Zeldin downplayed any influence he could have had on the latter. His focus was on violent crime, which he made a centerpiece of his campaign. A shooting near his residence last month underscored his message.

Attorneys for the family of a man shot and killed by New York City police officers in 2018 issued a cease-and-desist letter over one of Mr. Zeldin’s campaign advertisements which depicts the man’s

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Should passage become official, buyers of a property would pay the .5-percent transfer tax, with the first $400,000 exempt for houses that cost up to $2 million, beyond which the full purchase price would be taxable. Firsttime home buyers would be exempt.

Money could be spent to buy land and buildings, pay for town-led or publicprivate construction projects for sale or rent, rehabilitate existing buildings, provide down payment and other financial assistance to buyers, offer loans to construct accessory dwelling units, create housing for employees of local businesses, purchase individual units within existing multiunit housing complexes, and offer housing counseling.

“I am very proud that East Hampton voters supported Proposition 3 with a resounding ‘yes,’ “ Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said in a text message yesterday.

“The funds raised will be a significant part of the town board’s ‘All Hands on Housing’ effort to address the housing crisis here in East Hampton.”

In another ballot proposition, New York State voters authorized the Clean Water, Clean Air, and Green Jobs Environmental Bond Act of 2022. According to the state board of elections website, with 13,065 of 14,245 elections

districts reporting as of yesterday morning, the proposition was passing decisively with 59.02 percent in favor and 28.83 percent opposed.

The act will authorize the sale of New York State bonds up to $4.2 billion to pay for environmental protection, natural restoration, resiliency, and clean energy projects to reduce the impact of climate change. Capital projects that could be funded include restoration and flood risk reduction (at least $1.1 billion), open space land conservation and recreation (up to $650 million), climate change mitigation (up to $1.5 billion), and water quality improvement and resilient infrastructure (at least $650 million).

In a third proposition, Suffolk voters were overwhelmingly in favor of a proposition to amend the county charter to set a term limit of 12 years in total, served consecutively or non-consecutively, for the offices of county executive and county legislator. The Suffolk County Board of Elections website showed 438,755 votes in favor and just 72,027 opposed, or 85.9 percent to 14.1 percent, with 1,042 of 1,058 districts reporting.

WITH REPORTING

BY CARISSA KATZ

The Tangled Tale of Two Towers Continued from A1

ing that and will put that alternative design to the planning board when it’s ready.” Mr. Irace didn’t offer a timeline, but noted that emergency response communications are integrated with wireless. “The line between radio and wireless and their necessity is getting blurrier and blurrier,” said Mr. Irace. Improving cell service would also improve the emergency response in Springs.

The Springs Fire Department’s quest for an emergency communications tower at its 179 Fort Pond Boulevard property began in October 2014 when the department and its tower contractor, Elite Towers, applied to the town for two building permits. Permits were granted for a 150-foot tower.

“The town had previously issued permits for the Amagansett Fire Department tower and the Montauk Fire Department tower. It was pretty routine fire district stuff,” said Mr. Irace.

Since then, much has transpired. The building permits were revoked by the town’s zoning board of appeals in late 2015, after neighbor opposition. By then, the pole was built, though not operational. The Springs Fire Department sued the town over the Z.B.A. decision in January 2016. Four and a half years later, in May 2020, the state Supreme Court upheld the Z.B.A.’s decision.

In the meantime, the town began an emergency communications system upgrade, hired Cityscape, a wireless consultant, and explored other locations for a pole, including the Crandall-Norfolk woods, which was also torpedoed by neighborhood opposition. It wasn’t until August of 2021 that Camp Blue Bay became a real option. Previously, the Girl Scouts of Nassau County, which owns the 172-acre parcel, were not interested in a new tower on their property.

During a six-month sequence beginning in May 2018, the fire department met with the town supervisor and others, and discussed moving the town’s police communications equipment to the fire department pole. But the current 150-foot pole wasn’t tall enough.

Eddie Schnell, the communications technician for the town police, worked with the fire department to engineer a taller tower, telling the department that it needed to be 180 feet. Later, after meeting with the planning board, he said it could be 163 feet.

“We don’t have faith in the town’s telecommunications engineering,” said Mr. Irace. “The town has changed the details and specifications of what’s needed on the pole multiple times.”

In July 2019, the fire district submitted a new plan for a 185-foot monopole for emergency communications equipment at a new location on the property.

It also agreed to remove the previously built 150-foot pole. A year later, the Planning Department ruled that the tower would have a significant environmental impact for the surrounding neighborhood, which is residential, and asked for a more detailed environmental review.

The reasons the Planning Department listed were aesthetic, but also historical. The Springs Fire Department is near the Springs Historic District. A tower at Camp Blue Bay was deemed to have less of an impact.

“For whatever reason, they didn’t find the same harm at Camp Blue Bay. I don’t know what to make of that,” said Mr. Irace. “The town wants to put a 185foot tower on the bay. How does that not have aesthetic harm?”

“It’s a matter of location,” said Mr. Schantz. “At face value, they’re proposing the same thing as far as structure.

There’s a big difference though. The fire department is on 2.7 acres, near a historic district and right near a historic property, and visible from a scenic area of statewide significance. None of that existed at Camp Blue Bay, which is 172 acres. The tower will be seen from there, but visibility is a manner of degree. You can see the tower, but it’s not nearly as conspicuous.”

So, when could the Springs Fire Department tower be operational? “I don’t know,” said East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc. “They have to update their application. It could go pretty quickly. We want those applications to be reviewed expeditiously because this is a pressing issue for many Springs residents.”

“With the code change [reducing the fall zone requirements] and a fairly specific request from the town board, we’re ready to go with it,” said Mr. Irace. “The commissioners are not looking to get into a fight with the town board. We’ve got a good application.”

Which is to say that the town and emergency responders all agree that a tower at the Springs Fire Department is necessary.

“Many people came out for the Blue Bay hearing,” said Mr. Calder-Piedmonte. “Unfortunately, people might have felt that they said their piece, but they delivered it in the wrong forum, which means ultimately it was not heard. Next time the fire department updates their application I hope those people return.”

“This isn’t a political issue, nor should it be made one,” said Mr. Van Scoyoc.

“It’s about providing needed services for the community, regardless of someone’s political affiliation.”

GOVERNMENT

The East Hampton Star, November 10, 2022

A11

OTHER RACES

What Now at the Airport?

LaLota Ends the Suspense

BY CHRISTOPHER WALSH In a night of suspense for voters on the South Fork, Nicholas LaLota, the Republican and Conservative Party nominee to represent New York’s First Congressional District, is the apparent winner of the race to succeed Representative Lee Zeldin, the four-term congressman who ran for governor of New York on the Republican and Conservative Party lines.

New York State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. of the First Assembly District was apparently re-elected on Tuesday, defeating Peter G. Ganley III, a political newcomer, and Anthony Palumbo, a former assemblyman and firstterm state senator, and held off a challenge by Skyler Q. Johnson, who was also running his first campaign, in the State Senate’s First District.

With 562 of 566 districts reporting as of yesterday morning, unofficial results from the Suffolk County Board of Elections had Mr. LaLota winning 173,275 votes, or 55.81 percent, to Ms. Fleming’s 136,899 votes, or 44.09 percent.

Should the outcome be certified, the Republican Party will hold the seat that Mr. Zeldin wrested from the Democrat Tim Bishop, who served six terms. Mr. Zeldin lost his bid for governor, which is covered separately in this issue.

The County Board of Elections sent 31,491 mail ballots to voters in the First District, and as of Monday 21,033 had been returned. Mail ballots had to be postmarked by Tuesday, Nov. 8, and must be received by the Board of Elections by Tuesday, Nov. 15, in order to be counted, so an official tally is at least several days away.

Votes cast during the early voting period, Oct. 29 through Sunday, were to be tallied and made public after Tuesday’s 9 p.m. close of polling stations.

They were scanned as they were received, a Board of Elections official told The Star on Tuesday, but would not be tallied until after the polls closed.

“I made a lot of bipartisan promises on this campaign, and I’d like to think our victory can prove that there is a way to maintain one’s conservative ideology

while also working across the aisle to benefit Long Islanders,” Mr. LaLota said in a statement issued at 2 a.m. yesterday. “When I’m sworn in on January 3rd, I’ll work with the new Republican House majority to bring responsible and transparent government back to Washington.”

While the Republican Party appeared poised to gain a majority in the House of Representatives, that was not conclusively known as of yesterday.

Democrats at present hold a thin 220to-212 majority in the House (there are three vacancies). Several races remained too close to call yesterday, but pundits’ predictions of a Republican wave did not materialize. Several candidates endorsed by former President Trump were the apparent losers in their respective contests.

In her own statement yesterday, Ms. Fleming congratulated her opponent.

“We focused on issues that are critically important to Long Islanders,” she said.

“Our fight continues, and the most important work lies ahead of us. The challenges facing our nation and Long Island communities are daunting. We must not back down from the fight to defend the freedoms that make our great country a rich, resilient, and generous nation. And our history teaches us that when Americans work together, we can overcome anything.”

According to unofficial results from the Board of Elections as of yesterday morning, Mr. Thiele, the Democratic Party candidate, led his Republican and Conservative Party challenger with 28,441 votes, or 54.71 percent, to Mr. Ganley’s 23,475 votes, or 45.16 percent, with all 87 districts reporting. The Board of Elections sent 7,599 absentee ballots to voters in the district, and 5,228 had been received as of Monday.

As of yesterday morning, with 208 of 211 districts reporting, Mr. Palumbo, the Republican and Conservative candidate, led Mr. Johnson, the Democratic and Working Families candidate, with 71,752 votes, or 56.39 percent, to Mr. Johnson’s 55,362 votes, or 43.51 percent, according to unofficial results. The

BY CHRISTOPHER WALSH AND CHRISTINE SAMPSON

Manny Vilar, chairman of the East Hampton Town Republican Committee, celebrated with Representative-elect Nick LaLota on election night at Stereo Manny Vilar Garden in Patchogue.

Board of Elections sent 15,449 absentee ballots to voters in the State Senate district, and 10,538 had been returned as of Monday.

Further Tallies In other races that East Hampton voters weighed in on, United States Senator Charles Schumer, a Democrat, easily held off Joe Pinion, his Republican challenger. With 13,065 of 14,296 election districts reporting, unofficial results from the State Board of Elections had Mr. Schumer with 55.01 percent of the vote to Mr. Pinion’s 42.58 percent. Diane Sare, an independent candidate, won .45 percent of the vote.

State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, the Democratic and Working Families Party candidate, apparently defeated Paul Rodriguez, his Republican and Conservative Party challenger, 54.98 percent to 41.92 percent, with 13,065 of 14,246 election districts reporting.

With 12,067 of 14,296 districts report-

Civil Service Union Applauds Town Budget

BY CHRISTOPHER WALSH A public hearing on East Hampton Town’s 2023 preliminary budget drew few comments during the town board’s meeting last Thursday, but one from a labor union representative conveyed appreciation for a key feature of the document, the salary increases that close to 200 of its members would see.

The $90,355,049 budget is “slightly less” — by $8,506 — than that proposed in the tentative budget unveiled last month, Becky Hansen, the town’s budget officer, told the board, but increases overall spending over the current fiscal year by 5.64 percent, or $4.8 million.

The preliminary budget stays under the New York State-mandated 2-percent tax levy cap by $16,688, she said.

The tax rate inside a village will increase by .27 percent, or 3.3 cents per $100 of assessed value, Ms. Hansen said, and outside a village it will increase by .48 percent, or 16 cents per $100 of assessed value. As an example, she said that a property with a market value of

$1.555 million would see a $2.34 tax increase if inside a village, and an $11.18 increase if outside a village. A property with a market value of $890,000 would see a $1.34 tax increase if inside a village and $6.39 if outside a village.

The board is to vote to adopt the budget next Thursday.

Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said last month that the budget would raise wages “significantly” in order to remain competitive in attracting and retaining staff, citing inflation and the astronomical and often-prohibitive cost of housing on the South Fork. In a message accompanying the tentative budget, he wrote that he had proposed salary increases averaging between 5.5 and 10 percent for union and non-represented employees.

He also announced 16 promotions, many of them within the Highway and Sanitation Departments.

A new program within the Human Services Department will be called Programs for the Aging, Mr. Van Scoyoc wrote. It will replace adult day care “and focus on presenting wellness, education,

and advocacy service programs designed to meet the needs of our 60-and-over community.”

Two new full-time police officers, an ordinance enforcement officer, two ordinance inspectors, and an additional animal control officer will also be added, the supervisor wrote. The town will also add a new full-time maintenance mechanic position. Ms. Hansen said at the meeting that a new full-time position for harbormaster was added to Marine Patrol, and additional money was earmarked for printing and mailing.

The budget will assist community organizations including the Eleanor Whitmore Early Childhood Center, I-Tri, the Family Service League, the Retreat, and the South Fork Community Health Initiative, as well as food pantries. Funding for LTV, to assist its ongoing capital improvements, will increase, and the Hampton Hopper bus shuttle service will also see continued funding.

As in 2021, the town is on target to end the current fiscal year with overall surpluses in major funds, Mr. Van Scoy-

ing early yesterday morning, State Attorney General Letitia James, the Democratic and Working Families Party incumbent, led Michael Henry, her Republican and Conservative challenger, 52.64 percent to 44.8 percent, also with 13,065 of 14,246 election districts reporting.

In the campaign for Suffolk County clerk, Vincent Puleo, the Republican and Conservative candidate, was comfortably ahead of Lisa Jimenez, a Democrat, by 58.97 percent to 40.91 percent with 1,042 of 1,058 election districts reporting. The county’s Republican and Conservative Parties did not back the longtime incumbent, Judith Pascale, who sought re-election, instead endorsing Mr. Puleo.

Also with 1,042 of 1,058 districts reporting, County Comptroller John Kennedy, the Republican and Conservative incumbent, led his Democratic challenger, Thomas Dolan, 59.95 percent to 39.93 percent.

oc wrote. “The town’s healthy fund balances continue to allow us to meet the unexpected needs that may arise during the year.” Healthy fund balances were in part due to “the continued robust real estate market, with monies from the mortgage recording tax and building permits exceeding budgeted amounts.”

Calling into the meeting, Jim Bennett of the Civil Services Employees Association union told the board that “We support this budget and the things that you’ve done for town employees,” calling it a move “in the right direction to help us out so we can afford to live here. We’ve got more work to do, but it feels good to know that we can all work together for better things.”

The current C.S.E.A. contract will expire at the end of next year. After the meeting, Mr. Bennett told The Star that “the union is in dire need of this to pass” as the cost of housing “has gotten way out of hand out here.” The preliminary budget’s salary increase for employees “makes us feel good about negotiating our contract that expires at the end of 2023,” he said.

The East Hampton Town Board will address the situation at the airport — what has transpired to date and the town’s options after its latest legal setback — at its work session on Tuesday.

After having implemented a temporary restraining order in May preventing the town from closing East Hampton Airport and reopening it 33 hours later as a private facility with new restrictions on aircraft operations, New York State Supreme Court Justice Paul Baisley last month ruled that by planning to conduct an environmental impact statement after the airport’s closure and reopening, the town had acted beyond its legal abilities and in an arbitrary and capricious manner.

Before its public discussion on Tuesday, the town board will meet in executive session with its consultants on Monday to discuss the airport, which has been a continued source of frustration to many residents, particularly in Wainscott.

At the town board meeting last Thursday, an irate Wainscott resident complained about aircraft “coming in at a higher rate than ever” and conditions in the hamlet that he described as “unlivable” and “absolutely insane.”

The board had made a sincere attempt to address airport noise and volume, Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc told the caller, James Clark. “We were sued in the process of trying to do that by a number of litigants. . . . The State Supreme Court recently ruled that we cannot regulate the airport at this time.”

The judge issued the temporary restraining order in May one day before the airport’s scheduled temporary closure, following oral arguments in three parallel lawsuits challenging the plan. To date, the plaintiffs — Blade Air Mobility, East End Hangars, and the Coalition to Keep East Hampton Airport Open, along with several individuals — have been successful in preventing the airport’s closure and new restrictions on aircraft operations. The lawsuits have since been merged.

The board had planned to limit aircraft operators to one takeoff and one landing per day, impose other restrictions based on the size and noise of aircraft, and implement an 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. curfew Monday through Thursday and from 7 p.m. to 9 a.m. Friday through Sunday and on federal holidays. All of these were prohibited by Justice Baisley.

While overall air traffic is “down about a third” from the previous year, Supervisor Van Scoyoc said “there were more flights that occurred over Wainscott than

the other hamlets,” echoing an observation frequently made by members of the hamlet’s citizens advisory committee.

“Wainscott bore the brunt,” he said.

At that hamlet’s citizens advisory committee meeting on Saturday, the focus shifted from the big-picture future of the airport to a short-term emphasis on the flight routes that aircraft are using.

Of most concern to the committee at present is the “two-way traffic” of aircraft takeoffs and landings occurring within short time spans over the same flight paths, with members saying they hope to influence the routes by next summer.

“Any recommendation we make about the future of the airport is kind of a moot point right now” because of the ongoing litigation, Carolyn Logan Gluck, the C.A.C.’s chairwoman, said after the meeting. Flight routes are “something over which we can make recommendations, which we hope the town and the airport managers will hear.”

The committee will start by researching those flight routes and how they are delineated because “it’s not clear to us who, besides the airport manager, is involved in that decision-making,” she said.

Ms. Logan Gluck acknowledged that “any shift in the flight routes is going to have an impact on other members of the community,” so the committee will try to avoid making recommendations that shift the burden of air traffic to other hamlets or villages. “Our overwhelming concern is public safety,” she said.

During the meeting, Barry Raebeck, an outspoken critic of the airport, asserted that “you cannot solve the problem by changing the routes.”

The town was theoretically free to retake control of the airport with the expiration of federal grant assurances in September 2021. The town board, with input from consultants and residents, landed on a middle path between the status quo and closure of the airport with the set of restrictions it planned to impose. “Now, these lawsuits are currently preventing us” from imposing restrictions at the airport, Mr. Van Scoyoc told Mr. Clark last Thursday. “But we are intending to persevere until we gain control over our town-owned airport and can regulate in a way that the community supports.”

Mr. Clark was unmoved. “Do you not realize these people don’t care about regulating?” he asked. “They will do anything they possibly can to keep this airport . . . and you’re still willing to compromise over these things.” He recommended that the town close the airport.

“We’ve been told by a judge we can’t do that,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said.

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MONTAUK

Land Buy Raises Questions

BY CHRISTOPHER WALSH The East Hampton Town Board voted at its meeting last Thursday to acquire 18.8 acres of vacant land at 66 East Lake Drive in Montauk, but will do so with general municipal funds and not community preservation fund money, as initially intended. The change in funding source spurred an accusation, during a public hearing earlier in the meeting, of a “secretive town board plan” to construct a sewage treatment plant for the hamlet at the property.

Following a June 2 public hearing, the board voted on June 21 to acquire the property, which is near the southern end of Lake Montauk and abuts county parkland, from an entity called Highland Meadows using $4.25 million in C.P.F. money. The purpose was for preservation of open space.

The town code pertaining to the C.P.F. stipulates that its purpose is protecting and preserving open and undeveloped lands, protecting historic places and properties, and providing outdoor recreational opportunities. Rights or interests in property acquired with C.P.F. money “shall not be sold, leased, exchanged, donated, or otherwise disposed of or used for other than the purposes permitted” by the code without an act of the State Legislature, “which is required to provide for the substitution of other lands having equal environmental and fair market value and reasonably equivalent usefulness and location” to those being sold or disposed of.

On Oct. 20, the board scheduled the public hearing on amending the June 21 resolution. The amended resolution adds

“water quality” to preservation of open space as a purpose for the acquisition.

At the Oct. 20 meeting, David Buda, a Springs resident, told the board that it “owes a better explanation” to the public as to why it was changing the funding source for the purchase. He suggested that adding “water quality” as a purpose for the acquisition indicated that it might be used to site a sewage treatment system for the hamlet, but “I don’t know because you’re not telling us.”

A town committee has met regularly this year to identify a site large enough and that meets engineering needs for such a facility that would serve the hamlet’s downtown, where property size constraints limit on-site treatment options, and eventually expanding to serve other areas including the docks, Ditch Plain, and the area around the Long Island Railroad Station and Industrial Road. Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said in June that a site east of the former landfill in Montauk was “promising” as a potential location for a wastewater treatment plant.

The Coalition for Hither Woods, an organization of conservation groups that formed in 1982 to oppose proposals to develop that area of Montauk, regrouped as an incorporated not-for-profit to oppose the potential construction of a sewage treatment plant there. Last Thursday, Richard Whalen, an attorney and representative of the coalition, reiterated what he said is an undisclosed plan to construct a centralized sewage treatment plant.

In announcing the coalition’s opposition to the board amending the initial resolution, Mr. Whalen asserted that the board intends “to swap the Highland

Meadows property for Suffolk County parkland in Hither Woods.” Such a scheme, he said, “will enable the town to build a huge sewage treatment plant on 14 or more acres of forest in the eastern part of Hither Woods,” the most expensive public works project in the town’s history “by far.” This, he said, would be “an environmental sell-out of the first degree, which will sacrifice public parkland to the perceived business interests of downtown Montauk property owners.”

While the coalition supports the acquisition of 66 East Lake Drive, he alleged that the board is treating the property “as a commodity, to be purchased and flipped to Suffolk County for what you really want — county land on which to site a sewage treatment plant.” There are better ways to improve ground and surface water quality than a sewer system, he said, and “an honestly prepared and objective environmental impact statement” should be issued to disclose them.

Following Mr. Whalen’s remarks, Mr. Buda again criticized the board. There has been “such a lack of disclosure as to what you’re doing,” he said, given the “extraordinary transaction” underway.

He again asked for a full explanation.

“Tell the public what you’re doing,” he said. “Why not?”

The purchase, and the method of purchase, “leaves the board with the greatest measure of flexibility,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said. “It’s unknown to us what the final disposition of this property will be,” he said of 66 East Lake Drive, “but what we are certain of is it will be preserved in perpetuity.” The purchase price, given the acreage, is “a very good deal for the community,” he said.

Mr. Whalen said on Monday that he is submitting freedom of information requests to the town, referring to informa-

tion that is not yet publicly available but “proves what I said” at the meeting.

“You don’t change the funding source from C.P.F. to general town funds except for one purpose: you want to trade the property,” he said.

Further, he said, the coalition “contest[s] the whole need for a sewage treatment plant,” adding his suspicion that the point of a sewage treatment plant in Montauk “is to promote development” in the downtown area, a move that he said would be “contrary to the whole town concept of coastal retreat and resiliency” as detailed in the Coastal Assessment Resiliency Plan, which the board adopted into the comprehensive plan in September.

A sewage treatment plant in Hither Woods would be “very close to the Paumanok Path, and no doubt you will see it from the trail,” Mr. Whalen said.

“That itself would severely compromise the integrity of the Paumanok Path, the most important trail in the town.”

Mr. Van Scoyoc said in an email on Monday that the town has been seeking a location for a wastewater treatment plant serving Montauk for some time, “but to date we have no assurances of any location.” Options are few given the acreage needed for a facility and attendant setbacks and buffer zones, he said.

A potential plan to build a plant on the west side of the former landfill won support from the hamlet’s Chamber of Commerce and its citizens advisory committee, but the town “found that there are covenants that would prevent use of that property.”

Residents will be informed if acquisition of another site is confirmed, he said, and at that time a thorough discussion and vetting under the State Environmental Quality Review Act would be conducted.

The East Hampton Star, November 10, 2022

C.A.C. Takes On Gun Club

BY CHRISTINE SAMPSON Members of the Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee are claiming that the Maidstone Gun Club, a private group that leases close to 100 acres of town-owned land in that hamlet, has violated multiple clauses of its lease.

During a virtual meeting on Saturday, the committee decided to write to the East Hampton Town Board, urging that it look into the alleged violations. The gun club’s lease is to expire at the end of October 2023, and the advisory committee has offered suggestions for what should be included if the lease is renewed.

The alleged violations, chiefly of an environmental nature, were listed in a presentation by a committee member, Anthony Liberatore.

“The gun club, in the lease, is not allowed to do any activities that could be toxic or contaminating,” he said. “This has been used as a gun club for 40 years — there is 40 years’ worth of shells, residue from the shot, which is probably the most toxic.”

Mr. Liberatore also cited the possible over-clearing of trees, “which I don’t believe has ever been approved or applied for,” he said. In addition, he claimed that club members have violated a clause in the lease that says noise beyond a 1,000-foot radius cannot exceed “normal background noise.”

Beyond complaints, Mr. Liberatore had some constructive suggestions, including that a full environmental study be conducted. “If we are wrong and there is no contamination, great, let’s find that out,” he said.

There have been a number of noise complaints from neighboring residents.

Suggestions in mitigation included reducing the gun club’s operating hours, installing sound barriers or similar infrastructure, and keeping activity indoors.

Mr. Liberatore also suggested that

both the club and its neighbors have their properties assessed, to determine what a fair-market rent would be. Currently, the club pays $100 per year for the 97 acres. He had studied the lease carefully, Mr. Liberatore said, and had concluded that the town was not obligated to renew it “if there are legitimate municipal uses for the property.” He suggested “reforestation, recreation open to all residents, [and] possible solar or other energy uses.”

Committee members acknowledged that at least one use of the gun club, training for law enforcement officers, could be considered an appropriate municipal use.

Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, who is the town board’s liaison to the Wainscott committee, responded to Mr. Liberatore’s comments: “All of the suggestions are worthwhile,” she said, “and everything is on the table right now . . . I think we’re ready to at some point — probably not until the new year — start working on how to solve this issue.”

“That’s music to our ears,” said Carolyn Logan Gluck, the C.A.C. chairwoman.

Mr. Liberatore’s presentation was not met with unanimous praise from committee members. Dennis D’Andrea, a longtime member, has defended the gun club — whose administration did not respond to a request for comment this week — and he continued to do on Saturday. “They’re not bad, crazy guys.

They are the E.M.T.s, policemen, they do a lot of good stuff in the community,” he said.

The committee’s next step, Ms. Logan Gluck said in a follow-up call on Tuesday, is to draft a letter to the town board summing up its suggestions.

“The draft letter will get circulated to everyone on the committee. If it’s not unanimous, that will be indicated in the letter,” she said.

There she went to work as a proofreader for the Permanent Press, and in Bridgehampton she joined the circulation desk staff at the Hampton Library, where with a colleague she led a popular film discussion group for a number of years.

Ms. Hartig found a further creative outlet writing book reviews for The Star, starting in 2008 with a Budd Schulberg story collection and notably including Hal Holbrook’s memoir. She was a regular contributor through 2013.

“My mom was an extraordinary woman, with so much verve, intelligence, beauty, and humor,” Zandy Hartig, who lives in Los Angeles, said. “To know her was to be full of admiration for her elegance and curiosity.”

Her other daughter, Margaret Hovdey of Austin, Tex., also survives, as do two grandsons. She was predeceased by two brothers, Peter Brookfield and Brian Brookfield.

A funeral service was held on Saturday at the Shelter Island Funeral Home, with dispersal of ashes on the water. Memorial contributions have been suggested to the Hamptons Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing, 64 County Road 39, Southampton 11968.

B.G.

was an excellent one, her friend said.

“Annie was finest kind and will be greatly missed.”

A graveside service is to be held on Nov. 19 at 10 a.m. at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Cemetery in East Hampton.

Contributions in her memory have been suggested to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, 501 St. Jude Place, Memphis 38105.

OBITUARIES

Daniel R. Shields II March 27, 1960 – October 21, 2022

D

aniel R. Shields II was many things - a loving husband, a father, a grandfather, a friend, a volunteer - and will be remembered as a man who cared deeply about his family, letting them know they were the center of his world and going above and beyond to make sure all of those close to him were always taken care of.

A native of Amagansett, Dan unexpectedly passed away at the age of just 62 years old on October 21, 2022 at South Shore University Hospital following complications during a routine procedure. He is survived by his beloved wife, daughters, sister, son-in-laws, grandchildren, nieces and nephews and countless family and friends.

Daniel R. Shields II was born on March 27th, 1960 - the first child of parents Daniel and Linda (Finch) Shields in Southampton, NY. He was raised in Amagansett with his younger sister, Darlene. Growing up on Hedges Lane, you could always find him spending his free time playing outside surrounded by many cousins and friends, mostly riding anything that had a motor. As long as it ran and was motorized, he was on it; especially dirt bikes and eventually cars. Dan attended Amagansett Elementary School through 4th Grade, then attended Most Holy Trinity Catholic School through 8th Grade and then graduated from East Hampton High School in 1978.

During the Summer of 1977 before entering his Senior Year of High School, he started dating the love of his life and soul mate, Evelyn Schellinger. From the first moment Dan saw Evelyn in the school cafeteria, he told his friends that he was going to marry her. They quickly fell in love and got engaged in 1980 and together were married on August 15th, 1981 in Amagansett. Dan and Evelyn built their home together in 1983. Much to their delight they welcomed their first daughter, Nicole, in February of 1985 and their second daughter, Allison, in June of 1988. In 2008, their daughter Nicole was married to Peter Grimes, of Montauk, and Dan gained his first son-in-law. In 2014, their daughter Allison was married to Michael Sauter, of Flanders, and Dan gained his second son-in-law. Dan could not have been more proud being the incredible Pop Pop he was to his four grandchildren, Lindsey (11), Callie (9), Jack (6) and Ryan (3).

Aside from spending quality time with his family which he adored and was so proud of, he was a staple of the community as shown through his dedication to and his long-standing career with the Amagansett Fire Department.

Dan joined the Amagansett Fire Department just two weeks after his 18th birthday in April of 1978. Dan also graduated from the Part-Time Suffolk County Police Academy in 1983 and served as a part time Police Officer at night for the East Hampton Town Police Department. Dan was offered a full-time Police Officer position with EHTPD but respectfully declined to pursue his lifelong dream of becoming a business owner. Dan continued his lifelong service to his community as a 44-year active member of the Amagansett Fire Department where he received various awards, accolades and recognition for his many years of service and devotion. He was honored with the ‘Fireman of the Year’ award in 1982 and attained various Chief rankings between 1988-1993. He was elected to the Board of Fire Commissioners in 1999, a position he held for the last 23 years and was the current sitting Chairman of the Board for the last several years.

Growing up, Dan spent many days after school and weekends with his Great Uncle Mike DiSunno toying around and playing with bulldozers and dump trucks which quickly became a passion of his and a skill he was determined to master, which he did. He started working full-time as a heavy equipment operator right out of high school in 1978 and became a partner in Mike DiSunno & Son Inc. in 1990. He was a legend at his craft as a bulldozer operator and the skills he had as a machine operator were like no other. There really wasn’t anything he couldn’t figure out how to operate. From bulldozers, to boats, to dune buggies, to cars, and everything in between, he mastered them all. He was an avid car enthusiast and loved the thrill of finding the car he’d been looking for and being able to cruise around town in his new ride. And anyone that knows Dan knows he always had the most well-kept, cleanest cars in town. He took pride in never driving around with even so much as a speck of dirt on his vehicles.

There wasn’t a person he didn’t know or get to know within this great community and beyond. Whether it was his signature smile or a wave while passing you by in his truck, or even just a quick roadside/jobsite chat, Dan always took the time to stop and say hello. Those who knew him knew that he was someone you could always count on, no matter what. He was kind and gentle, had the biggest heart and would always be there to lend a helping hand to others in need. His family jokes that he was the unofficial “Mayor of Amagansett” as everywhere he went, he always knew someone and had to stop to say hello. To say he will be missed is an understatement. His passing is a tremendous loss for not only his family, but for our entire community. The lives he touched and the memories made in his short time here with us will live on with us all for an eternity.

The family has suggested donations in his name and honor be made to the Amagansett Fire Department, PO Box 911, Amagansett, NY 11930.

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Jennifer Hartig, 85 Jennifer Hartig arrived on these shores from her native England to act, having landed a role in a Broadway production of “Jane Eyre.” Going by the stage name Jan Brooks, she found herself opposite none other than Errol Flynn.

That was 1958, and the title of Flynn’s autobiography the following year, “My Wicked, Wicked Ways,” helps explain how the pairing went: He was drunk, he was unprepared, he was boorish, and his breath was bad.

Ms. Hartig was an actress until about 1968, a good portion of her work involving sketch comedy, and that’s how she met the man she would go on to marry in 1965, Herb Hartig, a songwriter and actor. The two formed a comedy team for a time. He died in 1991.

Later in life, around 2003, Ms. Hartig moved to Noyac. She died on Aug. 16 at the Hamptons Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Southampton. She was 85.

Jennifer Mary Hartig was born Faye Snape on Nov. 6, 1936, in Leeds, England, to William Edwin Brookfield and the former Hilda Malcolm. Her parents were actors, and had “changed their surname to one that was more attractive” for their careers, her family wrote. And then they decided they didn’t like the name Faye, either.

At boarding school in England she was Jennifer Brookfield, and then, for simplicity’s sake on the stage, Jan Brooks.

She and Mr. Hartig had two daughters, the family living on Manhattan’s Upper West Side for about 25 years starting in 1967. She also lived in Brooklyn Heights for a decade or so before moving to Noyac.

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Annie S. Loris Annie S. Loris of East Hampton died on Oct. 31 of sudden unexplained heart failure, according to a friend. She was 80.

Mrs. Loris’s roots here ran deep, and she was proud to be able to trace her family back to the Mayflower. She loved to reminisce about old Amagansett history and lore.

She was born in Southampton on Jan. 15, 1942, to George L. Smith and the former Florence M. Bailey, grew up in Amagansett, and graduated from East Hampton High School before going on to the Suffolk School of Nursing at Southampton Hospital. She worked at the hospital for many years.

On July 27, 1963, she married Walter Loris. When not here, the couple enjoyed spending time at their cabin in Maine with their dogs, Rufous and Bab. “She spoke fondly of their life’s adventures,” a friend, Christine Vorpahl, wrote.

Mrs. Loris was a member of the Amagansett Presbyterian Church’s Women’s Guild, and her ability to “make something beautiful out of nothing” is still remembered by the group.

Friends recall her as kindhearted, creative, and independent.

While caring for her mother, Mrs. Loris worked as a seamstress, and she

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