East Hampton Town

Committee Appointments

    The East Hampton Town Board made several appointments at its meeting last Thursday night.

    Two new members were added to the town’s nature preserve committee, which oversees public properties designated as nature preserves, develops management plans for them, and makes recommendations as to new preserves. Laura Stephenson and Phil Berg will be the new members. The committee is chaired by Zachary Cohen.

    Other appointments were to groups connected to the Peconic Bay Region Community Preservation Fund and its administration in East Hampton Town.

    Pursuant to the law creating the fund, which assesses a 2-percent tax on most real estate transfers in the five East End towns to buy and preserve open space, historic sites, or farmland, each town has its own community preservation fund advisory committee.

    As Michael Denslow, a member of East Hampton’s committee, is unable to complete his term, the town board appointed Barbara Miller as his replacement. She will fill the remainder of his term, through March 23, 2013.

    Richard Hammer, a Montauk attorney, was appointed to sit on a regional community preservation fund advisory board. Established by State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle and Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., who sponsored the preservation fund concept and law, it was created to assist the towns in applying the preservation regulations in a consistent and proper manner. Each town is to appoint a member to the regional group.

    The town board also recently appointed Alex Balsam, a farmer and attorney, to a seat on the Suffolk County Farmland Committee. The town is authorized to appoint one member to the county group; the seat was formerly held by Bill Gardiner. Mr. Balsam will serve for four years.

Two Land Buys

    After holding hearings last week on two proposed land purchases using the community preservation fund, which drew no speakers, the town board voted on Thursday to move forward with both acquisitions.

    A 4.9-acre parcel on Town Line Road in Wainscott will be purchased for $600,000 from Richard Pratt, Robert Pratt, Paul Pratt, John Beebe, Robert Beebe, Trevor Beebe, Nancy Havens, and Kathleen Waygood. It is adjacent to a 71-acre nature preserve, and surrounded by other preserved open space.

    At 889 Fireplace Road in Springs, another parcel just shy of five acres will be bought by the town for $575,000. It is owned by Charles Mac Miller, Valerie Meyer, Denis Gates, and Debra Gates, and will be preserved for agricultural use and open space.    

Preserves for Adoption

    A two-year Adopt-a-Preserve pilot program will allow volunteers to assist East Hampton Town’s Natural Resources and Land Acquisition and Management Departments to maintain and protect tracts of preserved open space within the town — a total of 4,570 acres.

    Under the supervision of town staff, volunteers would assist with monitoring the properties and reporting any illegal activities such as dumping or use of trails by all-terrain vehicles and could also help with tasks such as minor trail maintenance, removing invasive plants, or litter cleanup.

    Individuals and groups who would like to lend a hand will be required to submit an application. Initially, the program will be tried out on 5 or 10 nature preserves or properties purchased with the community preservation fund, for which the town has adopted management plans.

    After the trial period, the town board will assess the success of the program and determine whether it should be made permanent

    A lawsuit brought by a neighbor of the Empire gas station site on East Hampton’s North Main Street, challenging a Zoning Board of Appeals decision that paved the way for construction of a convenience store on the property, has been dismissed in Suffolk County Supreme Court.

    In an Oct. 5 decision, Justice W. Gerard Asher upheld the zoning board’s decision and dismissed the matter “in its entirety.”

    Attorneys for the property owners at the Scarlato and Baldwin firm in Sag Harbor could not immediately be reached to determine if and when construction will begin.

    Residents of the neighborhood, including Jeffrey Slonim, the plaintiff in the suit, who lives two doors down from the gas station, had said the addition of a convenience store would add traffic and parking problems in an area already inundated and hard to navigate. “Traffic is already terrible on North Main. Parking, nil,” Mr. Slonim wrote in a 2011 letter to the Z.B.A..

    The owners of the property, Ali Yuzasioglu and S&A Petroleum Group, received site-plan approval in October 2010 from the town planning board to replace two existing buildings, which have housed a barber shop and a car rental business, with one store building of an equivalent size.

    Mr. Slonim initially challenged that decision with an appeal to the Z.B.A. asserting that a certificate of occupancy for the property was issued erroneously.

    Tom Preiato, the senior building inspector, had issued a certificate permitting occupancy by a motor vehicle repair garage, with gas pumps, and two buildings that could house “central business” uses, as defined by the zoning code. That includes retail stores.

    Mr. Slonim and his attorney, Michael Walsh of Water Mill, argued that a town law prohibiting filling stations and retail stores on the same property should prevail. However, Mr. Preiato found that the retail uses on the property pre-existed that code and therefore could continue, and the Z.B.A. upheld his ruling.

    Mr. Walsh said yesterday that he was “not at liberty” to discuss whether his client would appeal. “Judge Asher is a well-respected jurist, and we respect his opinion. But we are reviewing it, and we will make that decision in the coming days,” he said.

    This year’s Concerned Citizens of Montauk meet the candidates forum will be held at the Montauk Fire Department on Sunday at 1 p.m. It traditionally draws a standing-room-only crowd, so you might want to get there early for a good seat. Expected to attend are State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle, a longtime incumbent, and his Democratic challenger, Southampton Town Councilwoman Bridget Fleming, as well as Representative Tim Bishop and his Republican challenger, Randy Altschuler. Also on hand will be Wendy Long, who is challenging Kirsten Gillibrand for her Senate seat on the Republican and Conservative lines.

     Although most of the candidates have already met in debate-type settings, in Montauk they usually focus on problems specific to the hamlet and the surrounding area. The candidates will introduce themselves and state their positions. They will be able to ask one question of their opponents. The candidates will also take questions from the audience. Admission is free and refreshments will be offered.

    The season might be over, but the summer days at Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett have not faded from the memories of local beachgoers, who found themselves inundated by large groups of visitors who were encouraged by blogs and online social media to meet at Indian Wells to “party hearty.”

    Throughout the summer, residents complained to the East Hampton Town Board of the crowds and their behavior, including urinating in the dunes and the consumption of large amounts of alcohol. Parking at Indian Wells is by resident permit only, but taxis and party buses were dropping off groups, and in doing so were creating a hazardous situation in the parking lot, people said.

    East Hampton Town lifeguards also reported the crowded beach situation to the town board, expressing concern about the safety of swimmers and the amplified music, which made it hard for those in the water to hear lifeguards’ instructions.

    The lifeguards’ efforts to educate beachgoers about noise and other town regulations, along with extra patrols by Marine Patrol officers, toned the situation down somewhat, residents said.

    But action is still needed before the same problems arise again next summer, Ashley Silverman, a resident of Indian Wells Highway, told the town board at a meeting last Thursday.

    “This group started three or four years ago,” she said of the primarily young people who have begun gathering at the beach en masse. “I think what the difference is now is the Internet.” She told the board about a recommendation on  a site called Guest of a Guest, that people “bring a 30-pack” of beer to the beach at Indian Wells.

    In an e-mail circulated to other residents, eliciting advocates for official action, Ms. Silverman asserted that the crowd has doubled in each of the last three years, and that “young professionals in Manhattan view Amagansett as a sort of Fort Lauderdale/spring break-type place.”

    Ms. Silverman said at the meeting that she had seen groups of people walking past her house, to and from the beach, with open containers of alcohol. “I think, by next summer, there are going to be people upgrading from the Jersey Shore to the Hamptons because they know they can drink all day,” she said.

    The drinking, she explained in her e-mail, is the real problem, not the crowd. “The drinking leads to a decrease in inhibitions,” she wrote, which makes people “loud and inconsiderate of other people.”

    The visitors congregating at the beach, she said, do not contribute to the local economy, except perhaps for spending at bars and eateries. “These people . . . they’re not buying houses out here,” she said. “They’re not going to restaurants. I don’t see them shopping in town.”

    But, she said at last week’s meeting, the influx will result in more costs to the town for extra lifeguards, patrols, litter pickup, and the like.

    Ms. Silverman made some specific suggestions, to which the board did not specifically respond. The town, she said, could ban drinking on the beach during the hours lifeguards are on duty. In addition, the noise limit at the beach could be set at a lower decibel than at other places in the town: The crowds on the beach set up generators, she said, to play music.

    And, she noted in her e-mail, “It seems to me that if your group at the beach requires a generator and concert speakers or a full-size volleyball net, it could be argued that you should have a mass gathering permit.”

    Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson reported that he had recently had a two-hour meeting with East Hampton Town Police officials to discuss the summer. Topics included incidents that occurred, police staffing, mass gatherings, and the issues at the beaches, he said.

    A state plan to rid approximately five acres of invasive phragmites within a section of the Walking Dunes on the eastern end of Napeague using an herbicide has been delayed until spring so as not to threaten the annual cranberry harvest.

    The decision by Brian Foley, deputy regional director of the State Department of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation, was made on Friday. The Parks Department, which had earlier approved the use of chemicals to stop the spread of the invasive beach reeds, oversees the scenic expanse of inland dunes on the western edge of Hither Woods.

    The department reversed its position after a group of cranberry pickers were surprised to find the operation under way. The pickers brought their concerns to the Concerned Citizens of Montauk environmental group and the East Hampton Town Department of Natural Resources. The office of Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. was also brought into the phragmites fracas.

    The stand of phragmites in question grows in the midst of the dunes’ sweeping concavities that got their “walking” appellation because of their centuries-old northwest-to-southeast migration across the Napeague isthmus. The dunes are home not only to cranberry bogs, but also to a number of rare species of plant life, including a type of prickly pear cactus.

    On the weekend of Oct. 13, a group of cranberry pickers were alerted to the start of the project by the sound of chain saws. The project, which involves the application by wick of the herbicide AquaPro, a glyphosate herbicide, was announced in the Environmental Notice Bulletin of the State Department of Environmental Conservation in August. A call for bids was published in Newsday. The state awarded the winning bid to Warren’s Landscaping of Water Mill.

    Larry Penny, former director of the town’s Department of Natural Resources, said on Tuesday that he had seen the call for bids and brought it to the attention of Warren’s Landscaping. He said he had signed on as a consultant out of concern that the Walking Dunes ecosystem would be lost to phragmites. The reeds in question were beginning to take over one of the Walking Dunes cranberry bogs.

    Mr. Penny said annual cutting of the phragmites stand had been tried but was unsuccessful at stopping its spread. “In fact,” he said, “cutting alone might spur additional shoot development. The rhizomes are so deeply imbedded, cutting can’t get to them.” Prior to the outcry, the plants in question had been cut close to the sand and were about to have the remaining stems wicked with AquaPro, he said.

    Mr. Penny said the goal was to prevent a monoclonal stand, acres wide, like the one to the north of the Walking Dunes that stretches nearly all the way to Goff Point. Such stands crowd out all other plant life, including cranberries.

    The former natural resources director said he was in the process of obtaining a state license to administer herbicides in both upland and aquatic environments and had planned to help Vicky Bustamante, a Montauk resident and botanist working for Warren’s Landscaping, apply the herbicide.

    “The invitation to bid was very exacting,” Mr. Penny said. He said AquaPro was registered with the state as acceptable if used properly by trained applicators who applied the herbicide by hand to avoid the danger of affecting other plants by spraying. The work had to be done near the end of September or early October. “Now it won’t be done until next spring,” said Mr. Penny.

    Maybe and maybe not. “Because of the cranberry harvest and the chemical, they’re going to hold off until spring, but that doesn’t solve the problem,” said Jeremy Samuelson, executive director of the Concerned Citizens of Montauk. “This is a transparency issue,” he said, referring to the fact that the project took the local community by surprise.

    “Beyond that I’m not sure it’s the right solution. There are state and federally protected plant species there. They need to put a map on the wall. People are harvesting food there,” Mr. Samuelson said.

    Kim Shaw, East Hampton’s director of natural resources, said on Tuesday she had asked for a meeting with state officials, and would seek information regarding the herbicide from the Suffolk County Water Authority and the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife. “This is a pristine environment, if the state wants to experiment, they have other opportunities.”

    The Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor has invited the public to watch the presidential debates between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney on Wednesday, on Oct. 16 from Hofstra University in Hempstead, and on Oct. 22. They will be shown on a large projection-screen television. The Joe Biden-Paul Ryan vice presidential debate on Oct. 11 will also be shown, as will election night coverage. Doors open at 8 p.m., and the debates begin an hour later.

Admission is free. Drinks and snacks will be available for purchase at the bar in the theater’s lobby.

East Hampton Town

Consider C.P.F. Buys

    Two properties being eyed for preservation through a town purchase with the community preservation fund will be the subject of an East Hampton Town Board hearing next Thursday at 7 p.m. at Town Hall.

    The board will take comments from the public on the proposed purchase of 1.1 acres at 8 Deer Path in Springs, owned by Barry McCallion and JoAnne Canary. The cost is $385,000.

    A second hearing will center on the addition of a property just shy of five acres, at 889 Fireplace Road in Springs, owned by Charles Miller, Valerie Meyer, Denis Gates, and Debra Gates to the preservation fund list, which includes all properties that could be purchased with the preservation fund.    J.P.

New York State

Thiele’s Enviro Endorsements

    Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. of Sag Harbor has announced three endorsements from New York State environmental organizations: the Sierra Club’s Atlantic chapter, the New York League of Conservation Voters, and the Long Island Environmental Voters Forum. Mr. Thiele is running unopposed for re-election in the Second Assembly District on the Indepen

    At the Sept. 11 meeting of the East Hampton Town Board it was announced that Montauk’s Viking Fleet wants to berth its Viking Stariper, the fleet’s smallest party boat, at a town-owned bulkhead at the end of Gann Road on Three Mile Harbor.

    The 65-foot boat, built in 1957 and formerly known as the Jigger, would operate from Commercial Dock during April, May, and June in and around Gardiner’s Bay. With the approval of the town board, the Stariper would begin fishing from Three Mile Harbor in the spring.

    “There’s the early fluke run off Greenport, and porgy season opens in May,” Paul Forsberg, the fleet’s owner, said on Monday. He said the Stariper would carry no more than 20 anglers at a time.

    Mr. Forsberg said customers would board the boat by reservation only, “so there will be no crowds gathering.”

    However, the idea was not immediately embraced by the town board. Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc said that Gann Road had always been a dock for commercial fisherman. He said allowing the Stariper to tie up there would make it a “retail” dock.

    “You’re not selling fish, you’re selling the chance to catch fish,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said.

    Town Clerk Fred Overton told the board there was only one slip available. The owners of commercial fishing vessels pay the town $20 per foot of boat length for a season’s docking.

    Much of the space at Commercial Dock is taken up by a steel barge that was bought by East Hampton Town several years ago to help with mooring placement and dock repairs. Mr. Overton said that the only way more room could be found there for commercial fishing vessels would be to move it elsewhere.

    Supervisor Bill Wilkinson said it was possible that the barge could be sold.

    Mr. Overton also voiced concern about the number of parking spaces available at the Gann Road dock.

    “Then I say we kick the can until we study this,” Mr. Wilkinson suggested to his fellow board members.

    In other Three Mile Harbor news, a small bloom of one type of “red tide” algae showed up in its southern reaches last week. East Hampton Town officials are keeping a close watch on patches of Cochlodinium polykrikoides near the Head of the Harbor.

    “This is not the one that causes paralytic shellfish poisoning, but it is toxic to shellfish and finfish, but only in high densities,” Stephanie Forsberg, an East Hampton Town trustee and marine scientist, said yesterday.

    “It looks like streaks in the water. You could have a bloom three feet wide, and next to it, nothing. Fish can swim out of it, but shellfish can’t. We hope it won’t affect the scallop season,” Ms. Forsberg said.

    She said that the fall’s dropping water temperatures would likely keep colonies from expanding. So far, blooms have been seen at the south end of Three Mile Harbor and outside Hand’s Creek.

    Ms. Forsberg said this was not the first time Cochlodinium has been seen in the harbor.

    Bill Fonda, a spokesman for the State Department of Environmental Conservation, said his agency would be monitoring the bloom, which can thrive in nitrogen-rich waters.

    Larry Penny, former director of the town’s Natural Resources Department, went to look at the bloom and said he thought the county’s failure to dredge the channel to the south end of the harbor last year was at least partly to blame for it.

    “As a town, we are going to have to look into septic systems and all nitrogen sources,” Ms. Forsberg said.

    Jorge Kusanovic, an East Hampton Town Parks and Recreation Department employee, filed a lawsuit in late August against the town alleging that he was discriminated against because of his race, age, and national origin.    

    An American citizen raised in Chile, he had filed a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2007. The lawsuit claims that “Jorge Kusanovic was subject to a continuous pattern of harassment as a Latino pioneer in the overwhelmingly white employment of East Hampton Town.”

    Following an investigation, the E.E.O.C. issued a letter on May 25 telling Mr. Kusanovic that the Department of Justice would not file suit on his discrimination charge; however, it said, no judgment had been made as to whether the claim was “meritorious.”

    The letter informed the worker that he had the right to file a civil lawsuit against the town within 90 days. As of Tuesday, Brian Sokoloff, the attorney who would represent the town in this matter, said the town had not yet been served with the suit.

    Mr. Kusanovic is asking for an award of $3 million for each of six causes of action and for back pay, with interest. His lawyer, Lawrence Kelly of Bayport, has recently commenced lawsuits against the town on behalf of several other clients.

     The alleged acts of discrimination date back to 2007, when Mr. Kusanovic had also filed an E.E.O.C. employment discrimination complaint. New incidents since then, his complaint says, occurred in retaliation for that filing.

    Mr. Kusanovic alleges that he was passed over for promotion “in favor of younger, white hires,” and complains that he was assigned to work at the Montauk Skate Park in an unheated building with no restroom.

    At the Amagansett Youth Park, where he was formerly stationed, the complaint says, he was prohibited from walking around the track, and from taking his shirt off during his lunch break, but that “young white employees” were allowed to do so and that, while other employees were issued a town car to do work-related errands, he was expected to use his own vehicle, without compensation.

    The complaint also refers to alleged occurrences prior to 2006, when a time clock was installed at the youth park. Before that, according to the complaint, Mr. Kusanovic was “harassed continually for baseless allegations of lateness or early departure.” The time clock indicated that he was arriving before his scheduled start of work, and leaving after scheduled hours, according to the complaint.

    Among other charges, Mr. Kusanovic also claims that “in order to harass and inflict harm” on him, he was assigned to clean the bathrooms at the youth park, relieving a cleaning crew of that duty; that he was locked out of his office at the park while it remained unused; that he was denied sick leave to accompany his wife to visit her sick mother in Chile; that supervisors “fabricated rationales” to take away his compensatory time, and that white supervisors prohibited him from having his wife deliver his lunch, “while white employees were allowed to have boyfriends and girlfriends visit them at the park at any time.”

    From 1999 to 2012 he was not paid at a rate in accordance with his job duties, as defined under Civil Service laws, the complaint states. In addition, it says, he was not offered the same scheduling flexibility as other workers.

    Mr. Kusanovic also claims that, at work, he was given a pamphlet with a photo of John Wayne in front of an American flag, and the words, “Now just why in the hell do I have to press 1 for English?”    

    The complaint calls the 2007 transfer of Mr. Kusanovic to the Montauk Skate Park an “exile” and a discriminatory action in retaliation for his support of a younger Latino female worker who, it says, was being sexually harassed by an older, white supervisor.

    A new state-of-the-art hospital is in the works for the Stony Brook Southampton campus through a partnership between the State University at Stony Brook and Southampton Hospital, according to a nonbinding letter of intent signed by both parties and announced in a release dated Oct. 1. The 125-bed facility would join the university’s health care system, with a goal of the two hospitals’ working together to “improve health care quality and access, coordination of care, and efficiency for their patients.”

    With the same number of beds, the hospital would replace the current Southampton Village facility, which opened in 1909. (The fate of that building hasn’t been determined yet.) Money will be raised through a Southampton Hospital-led philanthropic campaign, and increased health care services, jobs, and economic development are expected on the East End as a result of the project, as are expanded educational opportunities for future health care professionals. With more than 1,000 employees, Southampton Hospital is the largest employer on the South Fork.

    The hospital will provide care under Stony Brook University Medical Center’s state operating license, and a joint advisory committee, with members appointed by both hospitals, will serve as advisers. Southampton Hospital employees would maintain their status as private-sector employees, according to the letter of intent.

    The two hospitals, formally affiliated since 2008, will soon exchange financial, business, and legal information, with a final agreement requiring approval from New York State regulatory authorities and the State Legislature, as well as Southampton Hospital’s board of trustees.

    Southampton Hospital is a not-for-profit organization with a medical staff of more than 240 physicians, dentists, and allied health professionals. It has 16 satellite locations across the East End. A 2011 audit reported “excess revenues over expenses of $2.2 million.”

    Stony Brook University Medical Center is a state educational corporation and Suffolk County’s largest hospital, with 597 beds. It has the county’s busiest emergency department, with nearly 100,000 visits annually. The hospital also offers the only Level 1 trauma center, burn center, and comprehensive psychiatric emergency program in the county, and its only bone marrow transplant program. It employs more than 1,000 full-time medical school faculty members and affiliated physicians, and has more than 5,500 staff members.

    Kenneth Kaushansky, M.D., senior vice president of health sciences and the dean of the Stony Brook University School of Medicine, said in the release that patients would benefit from the two hospitals joining forces. He added, “It also helps both facilities prepare for health care reform by cultivating a broader, stronger network of hospitals and health care providers to improve efficiency, control costs, and better coordinate care across Suffolk County.”

    When it comes to education, “Construction of a new state-of-the-art health care facility on the Southampton campus would be another building block in the revitalization of the campus,” said Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. “Together with a growing arts program, the new $10 million marine sciences facility, and the establishment of the Peconic Institute,” a kind of policy think tank for the East End, “a new hospital would be a major step toward having the Southampton campus reach its educational potential.”

    “Most important,” Mr. Thiele said, “the proposed affiliation between Stony Brook and Southampton represents an opportunity to provide expanded services and the best possible health care for the residents of the South Fork and eastern Long Island, an area that has historically been described as medically underserved.”