The East Hampton Town Trustees will hold their 27th annual Largest Clam Contest on Sunday at noon at the Donald Lamb Building on Bluff Road in Amagansett.

The contest, which serves to educate the public as to the trustees’ role in town government and celebrate the bounty of the waterways under their jurisdiction, is a perennially popular post-summer event.

Through Saturday, contestants can take clams harvested from Lake Montauk, Napeague Harbor, Accabonac Harbor, or Three Mile Harbor to the Amagansett Seafood Store, Gosman’s Fish Market in Montauk, the Seafood Shop in Wainscott, or Stuart’s Seafood Market in Amagansett. Winning entries will be named on Sunday in categories including largest overall clam and the largest clam taken from each harbor by both adults and juniors age 4 to 14. A clam chowder competition will also be on the menu. Prizes have been donated by shops and restaurants here.

Town Councilman Fred Overton’s Bonac chowder will be served to the gathering, and clams on the half shell, shucked by members of the trustee board, will also be free to those attending.

Representatives of the town’s shellfish hatchery will explain the ongoing effort to seed town harbors with shellfish and keep the waters pristine. Officials from Concerned Citizens of Montauk will offer information about septic systems and water quality. An overabundance of nitrogen and phosphorus, leaching from aging septic systems, is blamed for the harmful algal blooms that have beset waterways, resulting in shellfish kills and destruction of eelgrass beds, which provide essential habitat for marine life.

Members of the East End Classic Boat Society are also expected to be in attendance. The society typically displays and sells raffle tickets for the boat its members have constructed over the past year. This year’s offering, a sunshine tender, will be raffled in December.

James P. Foster, an East Hampton Village public safety dispatcher, has been promoted from the position of PSD II to PSD III, a supervisory title. In his new role, he will oversee the daily operation of the village’s dispatch center, which has 16 full-time dispatchers.

At the village board’s meeting on Friday, Mr. Foster, who is known as J.P., was recognized for his long and distinguished service. He joined the village as a public safety dispatcher in 1990, said Village Police Chief Michael Tracey.

“He’s been a great asset to us, as is our entire dispatch staff,” the chief said. “But he has separated himself in a way, in that he has stood up time after time and taken on additional duties that we’ve asked him to undertake.”

“I’ve known J.P. for many years,” said Richard Lawler, a member of the board and the village’s police commissioner, “and the one thing everybody agrees on is that if you give him a job it will be done professionally, it will be done right, and it will be done on time.”

The Hampton Library in Bridgehampton will float a proposed 2018 budget on Saturday that is asking for less in library taxes than the year before. Those registered to vote in the Bridgehampton and Sagaponack School Districts are eligible to cast ballots between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m.

The proposed budget is for a total of $1,293,300, which is $373,800 less than the current budget. While the total operating expenses increase by $186,200, the debt service for the 2009 building renovation and expansion has been eliminated from next year’s budget because it will be paid off in December.

“Thanks to fund-raising efforts and the support of the community, this is 10 years earlier than the 20-year debt service approved by voters in 2007,” according to the library’s newsletter.

For a house assessed at $1 million for the 2016-17 year, the library’s share of property taxes would have been $141.60. Under the proposed budget, it would decrease by $31.71, to $109.89 for the year.

Also on the ballot, Louise Collins, the board president, Jackie Poole, the treasurer, and John Vendetti are up for re-election. They all represent Bridgehampton. Absentee ballots are available in the library director’s office or at the reference desk.

A vote on a modest budget increase for the East Hampton Library will be held there on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Registered residents of the East Hampton, Wainscott, and Springs School Districts can cast ballots on the proposed $104,000 tax hike for 2018.

East Hampton’s tax increase would be just over $73,500, Wainscott’s would be $19,000, and the increase in Springs would be $11,400. The library has estimated that the annual increase for the average household would be $6.62. The budget’s largest increase is for staff, including salaries and insurance. The total proposed budget for next year is $2.58 million.

Absentee ballots must be returned to the respective school district offices by 5 p.m. on Saturday.

In its first meeting after Labor Day, the East Hampton Village Board addressed public safety and issues that affect the quality of life in a 30-minute work session on Thursday.

An expansion of the paid paramedic program,  the use and misuse of air-conditioning, and the scourge of gas-powered leaf blowers were topics, along with the construction of a roundabout on Buell Lane, for which a bid was accepted. The rescue of a person in distress at Georgica Beach, covered in a separate story on this page, also was discussed.  

The board looked favorably on a request from Michael Tracey, the provisional chief of police, that the village’s paid full-time paramedic program be expanded by hiring a second technician. The village added a paid first responder to supplement its volunteer ambulance association in 2015. “Right now, other surrounding municipalities, Sag Harbor, Amagansett, and Montauk, also have a second full-timer as part of their program,” Becky Hansen, the village administrator, said. 

Funding would come from the recently adopted budget, as there would be less reliance on part-time paramedics, she said. “The additional cost, of course, would be hiring another full-time employee, whether or not they are going to request health insurance, but that is also funded in the budget at this point.”  

“Your comments are falling on receptive ears,” Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. said. “The flavor of the board is to move ahead.”

The mayor called the common practice of keeping shop doors open in the summer when they are air-conditioned ineffective and inefficient and proposed a law requiring that they be shut.

“Many of our commercial business establishments have their doors wide open during the day, and the air-conditioning is running,” he said. New York City prohibited the practice last year, making an exception only for windows allowing direct service of food and beverages, such as drive-through restaurants. 

Although air-conditioning occurs in the summer, the mayor told Linda Riley, the village attorney, that “we have the same issue in the wintertime, where some of the storefronts, their door is open and the heat is running. . . . It’s an invitation to come into that particular retail establishment, but it’s not good policy.” 

Bruce Siska, the deputy mayor, agreed that any prohibition should apply to heating and air-conditioning alike. “I would recommend that we do both summer and winter,” he said.

“We may be at the cutting edge with respect to putting some restrictions in place,” the mayor said. He suggested that doing so might result in a legal challenge, “but I’m willing to take that chance.”

“I’m a little concerned about the pushback we might get from the chamber of commerce,” Arthur Graham, the board’s newest member, said. “But I don’t really understand why they have their doors open. They think by having a cold draft on the street they’re going to suck people into the store? I think people will go into the store to get cool in the first place.”

Ms. Hansen told the board that at the beginning of the summer she had tried, in conjunction with the chamber, to encourage shopkeepers to keep their doors closed. “Obviously, not all of them complied.” Ms. Riley agreed to draft legislation. 

As it has in the past, the board also considered legal restrictions on gas-powered leaf blowers, this time in response to “numerous inquiries,” the mayor said. The devices are ubiquitous, but some residents decry the noise they create throughout the day, along with air pollution. “I think the time has come for us to address that issue,” the mayor said. There is no time frame to enact restrictions, and we’re not attempting in any manner to suppress the way lawn management companies or contractors deal with their customers,” he said, but he went on to note that the industry has developed quieter models, “and we’re going to make that a part of the conversation.”

“At some point, when we have something that may be rough-draft copy for village resident consumption, we will have a public hearing,” he said. “This is another area where I think we should at least make an attempt to discuss the issue, and if we’re successful, maybe make it better.”

Mr. Graham, whom the mayor assigned to follow up on the matter, said residents were welcome to contact him through Village Hall. 

The long-planned roundabout at the intersection of Buell and Toilsome Lanes took a step closer to reality when the board voted to accept a $1.34 million bid from South Fork Asphalt to construct it. The roundabout, designed by the office of Drew Bennett, a consulting engineer, is intended to regulate traffic at what is commonly called the five corners. 

Approximately 3,800 square yards of roadway is to be relocated and realigned to accommodate the 100-foot-diameter roundabout, Mr. Bennett told the board in January. The project will include a landscaped center island, pedestrian safety islands, multiple crosswalks, the relocation of one utility pole, and new sidewalks, signs, landscaping, and drainage.

Residents who spoke at Tuesday’s Sag Harbor Village Board meeting were concerned over possible deletions in the village code having to do with the board of historic preservation and architectural review and the posting of notices. 

Anthony Brandt, the chairman of that board, explained before the public comment portion of the meeting that the decision to delete a provision requiring such notices to be posted for every application, and the removal of another requiring that every decision be put in writing, was to take pressure off the Building Department. 

“We get dozens of applications all the time,” he said, “which are really minor — I mean, I want to paint my door red instead of blue, and it’s silly to waste the board’s time on these things.”

“This is for minor things, so if I’m going to paint my back door purple I don’t have to post it?” Mayor Sandra Schroeder asked him. “If I’m putting something up legally in the village, I don’t have to make a poster?”

“That’s right,” Mr. Brandt answered, “it doesn’t need to be posted publicly, in my opinion.”

To lessen the workload for the small staff at the Building Department, it was proposed, the removal of the provisions would allow the review board more discretion in choosing what projects need a public hearing and which need a physical posting outside the construction site. This, Mr. Brandt said, would also allow the board more time to concentrate on bigger issues and projects. 

While Mr. Brandt and David J. Gilmartin, the village attorney, said that every application would still need to be reviewed by the board, the public was nevertheless concerned. 

Hilary Loomis, a village resident and a member of Save Sag Harbor, read a letter from Jeffrey Bragman, whose law office represents that group, saying that it is opposed to the changes because they will “eliminate public notice of upcoming board reviews, and reduce transparency and accountability.” The letter went on to state that there was no reason to eliminate public posting for every application. (Mr. Bragman, who formerly worked as an architectural review board attorney, could not attend the meeting because of his run in the East Hampton Town Board primary on Tuesday.)

Another resident, Renee Simons, worried that the removal of the provisions would “deprive village property owners their rights to due process.”

“I think the answer to anybody’s concern as they look at this law,” Mr. Gilmartin said, “is the board has the right to take any application that it sees and call a public hearing on it. So nothing is going to fall through the cracks. Due process isn’t being interfered with by this law, but there is going to be some judgment by the A.R.B. on what requires a public hearing and what doesn’t, and really what is noticed in a poster in front of the house.”

“What isn’t going to need to be posted anymore,” Robby Stein, a village board member, said, “are things that are clearly minor.” 

Despite attempts to clarify the language during the meeting, residents continued to press the point: “I think it needs to be more specific, because right now, the way it reads, it has a lot of discretion,” Ms. Simons said.

“What changes with this law is some of the procedural stuff associated with the scale of the matter,” James Larocca, another village board member, said. “Some of the smaller issues that require people coming to court still require that, it’s just that the steps for posting are reduced.”

After an hour of deliberation among the public, the board members, and the village attorney, Ken O’Donnell of the village board suggested tabling the revision and revisiting it next month. 

The board also invited residents to informally submit in writing changes they would make to the statute for the board to consider.

The summertime shuttle bus in Montauk, organized by East Hampton Town and provided by the Hampton Hopper bus service, carried about 1,600 passengers in its first week early in the season, running a loop from the Hither Hills area to Montauk’s downtown to the docks between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m.

By the final week at summer’s end, ridership on the free shuttle, set up as a trial run this year, had risen to approximately 2,800 people, Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc reported at a town board meeting on Tuesday.

“I think the shuttle bus concept was clearly proven successful this year,” Supervisor Larry Cantwell said. 

“It was very well supported, and people want to see more of this kind of thing,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said.

The town received a state grant to pay for the shuttle’s first go-round, and, Mr. Cantwell said, Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. has secured state funding for it for next summer. 

The shuttle was designed to reduce traffic and take some of the pressure off parking areas in various parts of town. “We will have to start looking at expanding in Montauk, or starting similar services in other hamlets,” Mr. Cantwell said. “That’s where we need to go in the future.” 

Talks have been ongoing between state and local elected officials and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority about adding more trains to and from the East End, including shuttle train service between hamlets and towns in the region. East End officials have long been looking to add public transportation options in order to give people an alternative to driving here for work or vacation. 

A shuttle train service could be launched in the fall of 2018, Mr. Cantwell and Mr. Van Scoyoc said. “We’ll have to look at bus service for those who use the shuttle train,” said Mr. Cantwell. Local transportation to and from stations and hubs is a key element to the shuttle train concept and would be provided by individual towns. 

Representatives from the Hampton Hopper will provide a briefing on this summer’s service at a town board work session early next month. Planning for next year could then begin, Mr. Cantwell said, based on details about ridership, popular stops, and the like.

Like its previous gathering, Friday’s meeting of the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals was brief, with a relatively small number of hearings on the agenda. 

An application for the Hedges Inn, at 74 James Lane, was one of just two heard. The business seeks variances to legalize 29,105 square feet of coverage, where 15,345 square feet is the maximum permitted; to legalize air-conditioning condenser units and storage bins that are within required front and side-yard setbacks, and to legalize a wood storage rack and slate pavers that are within the side and rear-yard setbacks. Also needed are a wetlands permit and variances to legalize a sign, a storage bin, and air-conditioning condenser units within the required 150-foot wetlands setback. 

The lot coverage is nearly twice the maximum allowed, in part because the village board decided some years ago to include driveways and parking areas in coverage calculations for pre-existing nonconforming commercial uses in residential districts. 

“I believe that some or perhaps all of these minor items have been in place for quite a while,” said Tom Osborne, an attorney representing the applicant. “I’m not aware of any complaints about anything.” A neighbor, he said, did question whether one of the bins was being used for garbage. “There is a Dumpster; it’s not a bin, it’s a metal Dumpster” behind the inn, he said. The neighbor’s concern is about rodents. “We’re not aware of a rat problem at the inn, and we’re subject to Health Department inspections.” 

The neighbor, said Frank Newbold, the board’s chairman, would like a stipulation that no food or kitchen refuse be stored in the bins closest to the property line. 

“That’s fine,” Mr. Osborne said. The bins are used to store beach umbrellas, chairs, toys, and laundry, he said. 

The neighbor also asked that the applicant come before the board again if any of the air-conditioning units are to be replaced.

“Yes, we would have to come back for approval for that,” Mr. Osborne said. All agreed that most of the units are small and very quiet. 

The wetlands setback pertains to Town Pond, Mr. Newbold said. Mr. Osborne said that Billy Hajek, the village planner, “had asked us to map out the nearest point of the Town Pond bulkhead to any of the structures, and we’re well away from them. He points out we’re across the street, too. I don’t see how any of that would impact the wetland.” 

Be that as it may, the structures are still within the setback, Mr. Newbold said. The sign, he said, is set well back from the street line, and the design review board approved its location. 

The board seemed inclined to grant the variances and wetlands permit, but before the hearing was closed a representative of the neighbor asked to address the board. Amanda Frazer, an attorney, said that there is a basis for concern about rats. “During the period that the inn was operating an outdoor restaurant, which use has since ceased, there was in fact a rat problem that affected my client’s property,” she said. The rats disappeared after the restaurant use ceased, she said, “but that concern remains if there were an increase in the use of the restaurant or the use of these bins for the disposal of food or kitchen refuse.” 

The neighbor would be satisfied by a condition attached to the application’s approval prohibiting use of the bins for food or garbage, Ms. Frazer said, and the hearing was closed. t

Three determinations were read at the meeting. Harry Macklowe was granted a wetlands permit to allow the removal of phragmites by hand cutting and the revegetation of cleared areas at 64 West End Road. The permit was granted on condition that Mr. Macklowe retain a qualified professional to monitor the various species that are planted to determine which are succeeding and where; that soft rush, which is naturally established and flourishing, be included in the revegetation plan, and that an updated vegetation survey be submitted to the village at the end of the four-year implementation period to demonstrate compliance and reflect the project’s success. 

The board also granted a wetlands permit to Howard and Sherri Lippman of 112 Georgica Close Road for phragmites removal by hand cutting, and to allow a children’s play set to remain 59.2 feet from the wetlands, where a 150-foot setback is required. 

Dax and Rielly Vlassis were granted a variance to allow an increase of 16 square feet to their house at 47 Huntting Lane, resulting in a total floor area of 3,809.5 square feet, where 3,659.5 is the maximum permitted. The board found that a proposed expansion on the pre-existing nonconforming property would not result in an undesirable change to the character of the neighborhood. 

The seventh annual ride with the Red Knights’ Chapter 25 to raise money for the Donald T. Sharkey Memorial Community Fund will take place on Sunday. Mr. Sharkey was a well-known member of the Amagansett community and an East Hampton Town building inspector. 

The ride starts at the Bridgehampton Firehouse on School Street. Registration begins at 9:30 a.m., with the ride kicking off at 11.  Coffee and bagels, provided by Goldberg’s, will be provided in between. 

Each person on a bike is asked for a $30 donation. After the ride, the group will gather at the Highway Restaurant and Bar on Montauk Highway in Wainscott for food, drinks, and a 50/50 raffle at 12:30 p.m.

The Donald T. Sharkey Memorial Community Fund is a nonprofit corporation, which provides educational scholarships and summer camp opportunities, as well as assistance to those in need due to injury, illness, or loss of a loved one. Since Mr. Sharkey’s death in 2009, over $370,000 has been raised.

LTV will hold an orientation workshop, open to any resident interested in producing a show at the studio or learning the ins and outs of video production, on Monday, at its headquarters on Industrial Road in Wainscott. The orientation is a prerequisite for would-be LTV producers, and also for a class in directing and camera work, which will be held on Sept. 16. 

“We want to encourage as many people as possible to become producers, so we are offering it at night to make it easier for those who work regular business hours,” said Morgan Vaughan, LTV’s executive director. 

The class in camera work and directing will run from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Those not able to make that class can volunteer to train on other producers’ shows.

Registration for the orientation class is by email to Ellen Watson, the development director, at [email protected], or by calling 631-537-2777, ext. 110.