Adelaide de Menil, who donated the historic buildings that now form the new Town Hall complex to East Hampton Town, received approval from the town’s zoning board of appeals Tuesday to build a new house for herself on Mile Hill Road in East Hampton overlooking Northwest Harbor.

    According to Laurie Wiltshire of Land Planning Services, the 8,400-square-foot, four-bedroom house will sit on a parcel of land slightly larger than nine acres. The plans include a 1,112-square-foot attached garage and gardener’s shed with a bath, a 600-square-foot barn, a 600-square-foot pool, a generator, and a new septic system on the site. The two residences that formerly stood there have been removed.

    Ms. Wiltshire appeared before the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals on Sept. 18 on behalf of Ms. De Menil. “We did a lot of research,” Ms. Wiltshire said Monday. Two years into the project, Ms. Wiltshire’s team has achieved the goals laid out for them by Ms. de Menil: “It is designed to be as conforming as possible to all elements of the code,” Ms. Wiltshire said, while having minimal impact on the environment.

    It will be a “green” house, with solar panels on the roof, and will not be visible from any neighboring properties. The project includes a revegetation plan to cover nearly an acre of previously cleared land with native growth.

    The only variance the project needed from the zoning board was for the septic system, because it is in a Harbor Protection Overlay district, and the proposed septic system would be 153 feet from the surrounding wetlands when 200 feet is normally required.

    “There is no location where the septic system could be placed without needing a variance,” Ms. Wiltshire told the board on Sept. 18.

    The board received one letter from a neighbor on Powder Hill Lane asking the builders to consider a different septic system. However, Alex Walter, the board’s chairman, noted that the system suggested by the neighbor would actually be bigger than what Ms. Wiltshire proposed.

    There was little debate about the proposal, and much praise from board members.

    “It’s a huge piece of property and they’re only developing a small piece,” said Sharon McCobb, before the board voted unanimously Tuesday night to approve the project, which needs additional permits from the State Department of Environmental Conservation and the County Health Department.

    Ms. Wiltshire will appear before the board again on Tuesday on behalf of Jerry Seinfeld, who is installing state-of-the art solar panels, making his Further Lane estate energy self-sufficient.

    There were two other variance requests voted on by the board Tuesday, both of which drew members’ criticism earlier. In both cases, work was done without receiving prior approval, putting the board in a position where it was being asked to approve a project retroactively. As with the de Menil application, both of the original public hearings were held on Sept. 18.

    Mary Schoenlein, owner of Mary’s Marvelous on Main Street in Amagansett, had already appeared before the town’s planning board earlier this year in her efforts to get approval for a new walk-in refrigerator behind her restaurant. The planning board, in its preliminary discussions, was very supportive, but told Ms. Schoenlein she would have to get approval from the zoning board for a 20-by-20-foot concrete slab for the refrigeration unit to sit on.

    “Months are going by and my season was approaching and I began to get worried,” Ms. Schoenlein said at the Sept. 18 hearing, explaining why she built the walk-in without receiving final approval. “A series of things happened and I made a mistake. I misjudged the situation,” she said.

    “What we have again is another retroactive request although this may have been an honest mistake,” said Don Cirillo, a board member, before the board voted unanimously to approve the application.

    A second project that went ahead without the needed variances was that of Stanley and Marie Einzig of 38 Shipwreck Lane in Amagansett, who built a 1,400-square-foot brick patio as well as a 180-square-foot pergola without getting the needed variances from the board.

    “When you come out of the sliding doors you are 8 to 10 feet from the pool. The pergola provides the only shade,” said Martha Reichert of LandMarks, in explaining to the board on Sept. 18 why the work was done without the proper approval. She added that a prime factor motivating the Einzigs was the safety of their grandchildren, noting that a grandchild had fallen into the pool before the work was done, and that the patio made the yard safer.

    “It’s always frustrating when people do these projects without [first getting approval]. It seems to be happening a lot lately,” Ms. McCobb said.

    “It looks like a deliberate request to abuse the system,” said Mr. Cirillo.

    In the end, the board approved an amended variance request, 4-1, that permitted the Einzigs to keep their patio and pergola, but requires them to remove a 10-foot wide strip of brick patio from the eastern side of the property. Lee White, voting in dissent, thought the board should also have required a scenic easement.

    When Representative Tim Bishop, the incumbent Democrat, and Randy Altschuler, his Republican challenger, sat down at Hampton Bays High School on Monday night for a second face-to-face, microphone problems and a high school senior almost stole the show. The event was a meet-the-candidates session rather than a debate, with rebuttals not encouraged.

    As the session began, Mr. Altschuler’s microphone was the first to hum. When that was corrected, the humming migrated to Mr. Bishop’s microphone, and he wound up going through five of them, including two handed to him by the moderator, Bruce King, president of the host Hampton Bays Civic Association, before the program could proceed.

     Jennifer Linares, a senior whose entire civics class was in the audience, tried to steer things in a positive direction. “We are taught not to bully as students, she said. “Why are you, as adults, running negative campaigns instead of concentrating on your own achievements and accomplishments?”

    There was no disagreement here. Mr. Bishop called her question “excellent,” and the crowd cheered as both candidates nodded in agreement.

    “The state of election politics has deteriorated in my 10 years in office,” Mr. Bishop said, citing political action committees and super PACs for contributing to the negativity. “You find yourself dragged into it.”

    “I would like to have a discussion on the merits and our strengths,” Mr. Bishop said, “and I think my opponent would agree with me.” Mr. Altschuler did. The executive chairman of an electronics recycling company who came close to defeating Mr. Bishop two years ago, Mr. Altschuler admitted dismay at recent campaign practices, but he pointed a finger at Mr. Bishop.

    “In business, you’re taught to praise your competition. Unlike my opponent, I ran a positive ad . . . about my family life,” he said. “Every time I turn on the television, I see a negative ad charging me with being an outsourcer,” Mr. Altschuler said, referring to a company, OfficeTiger, he sold in 2006. He then segued into the economy and his 10-point jobs plan, which calls on the private sector to create jobs, not government.

    Mr. Bishop never mentioned OfficeTiger by name, but said of his own record, “My time in Congress has been led by a fact-driven, pragmatic approach.” He said that he is working on a bipartisan bill to render companies that outsource jobs ineligible for federal grants and loans. “Ideological posturing doesn’t solve any problems; I have solved problems for 15,000 constituents, and I am proud of that.”

    Mr. Altschuler had a different take on  bipartisanship. “The problem with Washington is that the same people keep getting elected, the people who are responsible for the 40,000 more unemployment cases on Long Island.” He  said he would have a self-imposed three-term limit were he to be elected to Congress, said. “That’s not bipartisan; there are only 435 congressmen, and each one needs to count.”

Health, Immigration

    Mr. Bishop focused his remarks on Medicaid, noting that he supported its structure, and the Affordable Care Act, which includes discounted name-brand drugs for Medicare recipients, expanded coverage for young adults, small business tax credits, and pre-existing condition insurance plans.

    In this regard, Mr. Altschuler turned negative. While saying it was “absolutely critical that something be done or Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security will be bankrupt in the next 10 years,” he said, “At least I support a plan that will keep the system solvent; I’m not a part of the problem. Mr. Bishop is.”

    The candidates also addressed immigration.    “I am for deferred action for childhood arrivals,” said Mr. Bishop, who has hosted forums to help young adults apply to the program recently advanced by President Obama. “What’s fair about deporting young people with clean records? Give those 12 to 15 million people work visas and a path to citizenship.”

    Mr. Altschuler agreed with the incumbent that the visa process needed reform, but only for undocumented workers on farms and in the hospitality industry. “Those workers [60 percent of agriculture laborers are undocumented on Long Island] should get a three-year renewable visa,” he said. “But what’s not fair is that illegals are using our hospitals and other services and not paying into the system.”

    Mr. Bishop, a five-term congressman, was better equipped to answer remaining questions from the audience, such as, “Name an instance you have deviated from your party’s stance on an issue.” 

    “I did not support an initiative to move funding to charter schools because the jury is still out on whether they work,” Mr. Bishop said. “I also voted to not reduce the federal student loan interest rate below 3.4 percent.”

    Mr. Altschuler, who has no governmental experience, said he would promote investment in Suffolk County infrastructure, singling out sewers and waterway dredging.

    Concerning military spending, Mr. Bishop said, “We need to reduce overhead in the largest business in world, the Pentagon, which spends $240 billion,” while Mr. Altschuler stated that the country should be armed with the right weapons to remain “the strongest military in the world.”

    The candidates had different responses to another question, about what they would do to fix “the $7 million” flooding problem on Dune Road in Southampton. Mr. Altschuler said he would appropriate the federal funding necessary to fix the beachfront road if he could. Mr. Bishop countered that “since there is a ban on earmarks, the federal funds can’t be used for such a project since it is not a federal-aid highway.”

    The candidates are expected to meet at least 15 more times before Election Day, including a debate on health care at 7 p.m. tonight at the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall in Riverhead.

    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.”

    How could an effort begun by East Hampton Town in 2010 to construct a drainage system on Route 114 farmland that would resolve flooding in a nearby neighborhood, wind up in a gaping hole in the ground without anyone making sure that Suffolk County, which owns development rights to the protected land, had okayed the excavation? The East Hampton Town Board searched for answers at a meeting on Tuesday.

    The county warned late last month that, should the matter not be satisfactorily resolved, it might sue the town for violating its farmland preservation program. Its farmland committee had not been consulted, the county said, citing particular concern about the removal of prime agricultural soils from the site.

    The town did submit a permit application after the county issued a stop-work order in July, but county officials recently rejected it. Meetings continue in an effort to resolve the situation.

    Town Councilwoman Theresa Quigley discussed the episode in a Sept. 20 piece published on an online news site. Ms. Quigley, who until this year was the point person on the project, wrote that “Not only is the lawsuit startling, but the town’s failure in obtaining their approval to begin with is problematic. From my perspective, this failure is symptomatic of many issues in town government. These failures are constant and continual and they point out a system which cries out for reform, but which reform seems almost unattainable without laying down the political rhetoric and defensive postures and simply demanding accountability at all levels. It is time the system was turned on its head.”

    On Tuesday, Ms. Quigley released a 34-page record, dating to June 2010, that she had compiled, detailing the dates and times of e-mails between various parties involved in the drainage project. It included a summary, by the councilwoman, of the messages, and reflected, she said, an attempt to retrace just what went wrong.

    The record indicates that the question of the county’s involvement was raised in an April 20, 2011, communique to Ms. Quigley from John Jilnicki, the town attorney. “One question I want to ask is whether the county is on board with what we are doing, as a title review indicates they have an interest in the development rights on this parcel and I am hoping they will not be an impediment,” Mr. Jilnicki wrote.

    “The farm bureau is on board. Haven’t asked the county,” Ms. Quigley wrote, in part, in her reply. “What could possibly be taking so long? It has been many many months [sic] they gave their estimate for the cost,” she concluded.

    The question of county-owned development rights was apparently brought up again in September 2011 by Marguerite Wolfssohn, the town planning director, according to Ms. Quigley’s summary. It does not surface again in the comments included in her summary until July, after the county discovered the excavation, when Mr. Jilnicki expressed his belief that Ms. Quigley had spoken with the county. “Never spoke to them; had no idea they needed to be involved,” she wrote to Mr. Jilnicki on July 17. Shortly after sending that e-mail, the record indicates, she forwarded the correspondence to Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson with the comment “Now why would I know this?”

    On Tuesday, Mr. Wilkinson expressed his “disappointment at the appropriate vetting — or lack thereof — that was done, internal to the town.”

    “The board, in my opinion, should not be involved” in the process of submitting applications and securing required permits, he said. “That is for the board to direct and approve.”

    Board members’ responsibility, he said, is to assure that the taxpayers get “value for money . . . that, in this case, is performance of the staff. And I’m a little disappointed. And by the way, there isn’t, as far as I’m concerned, a non-guilty person.”

    And, he added, “I don’t have any problem saying that there is a political motivation behind this.”

    “We all bear some responsibility,” agreed Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc, who inherited responsibility for the project when he took office in January.  He said that despite his own questions about whether the town should be doing the work at all — sumps along state roads are usually constructed by the state — “I was compelled, by a lot of the work that had been done . . . to move forward” with the project. Looking back, he said, for example if he had made inquiries about county funding, “the development rights issue may have come out.”

    But, Mr. Van Scoyoc said, “I would like not to see this devolve into trying to point fingers. If we go down a situation of trying to place blame on individuals, we really don’t move forward.” The councilman, who met with county representatives last week, said there was an “openness and willingness on the part of the farm committee to entertain alternatives” to the sump design, and that the town should work with the county to come to an acceptable resolution.

    Mr. Wilkinson continued to press his point. “Unless we start to understand performance and accountability, we’re going to spin this way all the time. Performance has to be measured, and there are responsibilities,” he said.

    Ms. Quigley, too, addressed the question of responsibility, saying that people have been trying to lay it at her feet.

    “Even if I was responsible for getting county approval, who is responsible for ensuring that all the details are completed?” she asked. “There doesn’t seem to be anybody responsible for anything.”

    “We need to step up and start demanding accountability. We cannot allow this . . . to continue,” she said later in the meeting.

    “I’m not blaming anybody; I’m just saying, what the hell is wrong with the structure when this happens?” Board members set policy, she said, and should not have to oversee details.

    “We shouldn’t be involved in the managing, from day to day,” Mr. Van Scoyoc agreed. “But we do,” he told Ms. Quigley.

    “People say that I get involved in managing; I don’t get involved in any of the details,” she replied. “I was not involved in details, for the hundredth time,” she said later. “I sent e-mails saying, what is the status. I didn’t even know who was working on it. I’m only supposed to be kept abreast of what the process is.”

    Ms. Quigley said she believed that had she done more than that, it would, “quite frankly, be illegal. I don’t believe I’m allowed to step into those roles and start demanding what is done.”

    “Whose responsibility was it to find that the county had jurisdiction?” Mr. Wilkinson asked. “That’s a pretty interesting question,” Mr. Van Scoyoc replied. “It kind of goes back to, what is the role of the [town board member] liaison?”

    Various people involved in the project, Mr. Van Scoyoc noted, included the town attorneys, the Planning Department, the town engineer, and the Highway Department. But “Doesn’t it go back to the liaison?” he asked Ms. Quigley. “Because of your coordinating five departments, who’s the lead in those departments?”

    “Certainly not me,” Ms. Quigley replied. “I don’t understand, frankly, why we’re paying $3 million to our attorney and our Planning Department [and other departments] . . . if I’m doing the work.”

    “If they brought it back to Theresa, I’m sure Theresa would have said, go get county approval,” Mr. Wilkinson said.

    “Actually, I did get an e-mail that said, ‘Theresa, did you talk to the county,’ and I said no. Period. Period,” Ms. Quigley said.

    In her own online piece, published on Sept. 21, Sarah Lansdale, the county’s Director of Planning, made her own points.

    “What is beyond dispute is that the Town of East Hampton blatantly caused extensive damage to farmland, that was preserved by Suffolk County taxpayers, by removing large quantities of valuable topsoil,” she wrote. “This is the first time in memory that a municipality has unlawfully violated a piece of preserved property. To make matters worse, not only did the Town of East Hampton allow a contractor to excavate the soil, but further permitted him to sell the soil, considered the finest agricultural soil in New York — the ‘Cadillac’ of soil.  Rather than enriching the farm with the soil, the town chose to enrich someone’s pockets.”

    “This is the only instance anyone at the county can remember in the entire history of the 37-year Purchase of Development Rights program where a municipality blatantly violated the program and then asked the county to turn a blind eye to the law and retroactively approve an illegal action,” she continued. “Such approval will not be forthcoming.”

    “Ironically, the fact that the Town of East Hampton has responded to our notice of claim in such a hostile manner, rather than viewing it as an opportunity to find a compromise, demonstrates the very behavior that necessitated the notice in the first place.” Nonetheless, she concluded: “The county stands ready to work with the Town to find a legal solution that maintains the integrity of the program and relieves flooding faced by homeowners of Hansom Hills. I look forward [to] the Supervisor’s return call.”

    Monday marked the start of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., where 2,286 delegates and 2,125 alternate delegates from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and five U.S. territories converged on the Gulf Coast city. Among them is Andy Sabin of Springs, a businessman who recently co-sponsored a $25,000-a-plate fund-raising lunch for the Republican candidate for president, Mitt Romney, at the Creeks, Ron Perelman’s estate in East Hampton.

    Mr. Sabin made the 1,200-mile journey to be part of the festivities on Tuesday, yesterday, and today. “The convention is spectacular. . . . The ‘we built it’ theme resonated with a very energized crowd,” he said. “Ann Romney blew everyone away. She is of particular appeal to women.”

    Mr. Sabin described the event as focusing on the “American dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” He said conventiongoers were honoring ordinary people who built their businesses from scratch.

    Called for further comment yesterday, he said, “Can’t really talk right now. I’m sitting next to Karl Rove at the convention.” But before hanging up, he added, “I really feel Romney will surprise everyone and win by a very large margin.” 

    When the Clintons darken a restaurant’s door, everything stops, at least for a while. Flashing camera phones and applause filled the packed house, on Friday, when word spread that former President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and their daughter, Chelsea Clinton, an NBC news correspondent, were being seated for dinner at Almond in Bridgehampton.

    “It’s truly mind-blowing to have V.I.P.s of this caliber dine here,” Eric Lemonides, the restaurant’s owner, said. He helped six servers at the Clintons’ table of 12, who included former Representative Anthony D. Weiner.

    Mr. Lemonides and Almond’s chef, Jason Weiner, who launched the French bistro in 2001 and is Mr. Weiner’s brother, said they were determined to make it an unforgettable experience not only for the Clintons but for every patron. Mr. Lemonides had instructed the staff, he said, to “take care, the best possible care of their sections.” He also visited each table that night to talk to diners about their experience.

    Mr. Lemonides said he had eaten at an A-list restaurant where a celebrity was seated at the next table. “I felt insulted that every server hovered around the celebrity’s table, while I was thinking, Hello? Can I get a cocktail? I wanted people to feel appreciated, even if their last name isn’t Clinton.”

    According to the chef, customers’ food orders were put on hold until after the Clinton party had been served, but no one seemed to mind. “These aren’t the Kardashians,” Mr. Weiner said. “These are the Clintons, and you can’t get much more important than that.” He sent a few appetizers to the high-powered table, and then they ordered a la carte.

    “Someone told me the president had a gruyere burger,” said John McCue, whose vantage point at the bar afforded him a view of the back of Mr. Clinton’s head. “So I had one, too.”

    Jason Kringstein, an actor, who was seated 30 minutes after his 9:45 reservation, said the staff had been accommodating. “They gave us a free drink, appetizer, and dessert to compensate  for the wait. Chelsea Clinton apologized after she bumped into me. I told her that I didn’t mind.”

    “It was very low-key,” said Andrew Cimento, who was seated with his partner, Joseph Puglisi, at a nearby table just before the Clinton party arrived. “Bill took some pictures, shook a few hands, and then everything mellowed out,” he said. “Hillary looked great with her hair pulled back.”

     The restaurant had received confirmation on Wednesday that the Clintons, who rented a house on Lily Pond Lane in East Hampton Village for the month, would be coming to dinner. For security reasons, they remained tight-lipped and recorded the reservation under a false name. President Clinton appeared the next day at the East Hampton Artists and Writers Softball Game, and was greeted with applause.

     Almond’s owner and chef were reluctant to say much more about the Clintons’ visit. “We have a good relationship with the Clintons,” Mr. Lemonides said. “We want them to feel comfortable the next time they want to eat here.”

    It wasn’t the first time President Clinton had been at Almond. He was reported to have come in alone a few years ago, pulled up a barstool, and waited for a to-go order.

    “It was on a slow Thursday night, I think,” Mr. Weiner said. “He casually chatted with other people at the bar. “It was cool.”

    The Georgica Association has told the East Hampton Town Trustees they may no longer use the association-owned beach between Beach Lane and the Georgica Pond gut. The stretch has been the traditional access for trucks and excavators used to lett, or open, the pond to the ocean in the spring and fall of the year.

    At their monthly meeting on Tuesday night, Diane McNally, the trustees’ presiding officer, told her board she had received a letter from Karen A. Hoeg, an attorney with the firm of Twomey, Latham, Shea, Kelley, Dubin and Quartararo, representing the association. It states that “. . . no further use of the Association’s property is permitted to the trustees and its contractors in connection with dredging Georgica Pond . . . Moreover, the use of the Association’s property by the trustees for any commercial purpose of any kind whatsoever is not permitted. Please know that the Association has asked us to enforce their rights with extreme vigor. If the trustees desire use of Association property, please contact us to discuss the issues of price, insurance, indemnification, etc.”

    The beach between Beach Lane in Wainscott and the narrow isthmus that separates the coastal pond and the sea is one of the few beaches in town whose private ownership predates the formation, in 1686, of the town trustees. Their founding Dongan Patent declared beaches to be common land.    

    Since then, trustees have opened the pond in the spring and fall, as did their native predecessors, to allow spawning fish to enter in spring and exit in fall. In more recent times, high pond levels have occasionally flooded pondfront properties. In addition, trustees have made available to contractors, for a price, sand dredged from the beach to open the gut. The sand has been used to shore up eroded beach and dune.

    Trustees have had to balance the environmental health of the pond with the often-untimely wishes of the flooded, and they have provided sand to protect beachfront homes. By not allowing access to the Georgica Pond gut, the association has presented the trustees, and some of its own members, with a conundrum.

    During Tuesday’s meeting trustees agreed to send a letter to association members to alert them of the position their attorney’s letter has put them in, while at the same time asking East Hampton Village officials and excavation contractors to help find a way to access the gut from West End Road, on the east side.

    “We will say we don’t use the pond openings as just a commercial project but for the health of the pond. Our letter will say we’re surprised the association is not concerned with the pond’s health,” Ms. McNally said after the meeting.

    Trustees also discussed the problem of controlling the layout of docks and pilings in the various marinas at Three Mile Harbor. Trustees own, on behalf of the public, the harbor bottomland. They lease beaches and bottom for pilings and bulkheads, but have had trouble coming up with a formula that allows marina owners the flexibility to change the pattern of their docks in order to accommodate different-size boats, while restricting further expansion of the marina’s footprint.

    Peter Mendelman of Seacoast Enterprises Associates, owners of Harbor, Halsey’s, Three Mile Harbor, and Gardiner’s Marinas, urged the board to consider charging lessees by a marina’s footprint — the total area its docks, catwalks, and pilings take up.

    Trustees said that while the measuring of individual docks and numbering of pilings was indeed unwieldy, allowing marina owners to do whatever they wished within a given space whose bottomland was publicly owned, would eventually lead to the “privatization” of that area.

    Mr. Mendelman said requiring marina owners to pay for a new survey every time they changed the pattern of their docks would be prohibitively expensive.

    In the end, he and the trustees agreed to work together to design a system that would fit both the trustees’ and marina owners’ needs.

    The owners of cesspool-pumping businesses turned out en masse last Thursday night to tell the East Hampton Town Board hearing that closing the scavenger waste plant, in use in recent months as a transfer station only, would have a profound effect on them — in some cases, putting them out of business.

    Representatives of five different waste carters said they offloaded septic waste at the plant, contrary to what the board had been told in a report issued by the budget and finance committee. The committee recommended temporary closure of the waste-transfer site until long-term decisions about the future of the plant could be made, based in part on a finding that only one firm, the John K. Ott Cesspool Company, was using the plant.

    “This board cannot make a decision . . . when they’re given inaccurate information,” said Lucille Garypie, who owns that company with her husband, Eugene Garypie.

    John K. Ott, she said, is the predominant user of the plant, which can take in only a limited number of gallons of waste per day. When capacity is reached, carters must drive to facilities in Riverhead or at Bergen Point in Babylon to dump. While Ott, with two trucks, can “make do,” Ms. Garypie said, others cannot.

    Jason Libath, a part owner of J & J, a new septic-waste business, said that due to the limited capacity at East Hampton’s plant, he has had to tell restaurants that have called for a pump-out that he cannot help them. “We’re not set up to go to Riverhead,” he said. “If this plant shuts down, we might shut down, too.” A representative of Schenck Cesspool Service said the situation for his company is the same.

    John Stafford of the McMahon company urged the town board to reopen the town’s facility as a waste-treatment plant.  Among the important considerations, he said, is the impact on residents and business owners as septic waste carters set prices commensurate with their costs. The two UpIsland plants, he said, charge carters the full cost of dumping a truckload of waste, regardless of how much the truck actually contains. And, he said, East Hampton’s transfer station, at a rate of 13.5 cents per gallon, is “currently unaffordable.” 

    For several days last week, he said, his company was unable to dump a full truckload of waste as the transfer station was full up. “I ask you to give careful consideration to all of this, as it could cost us all a lot of money,” he said.

    “The transfer station as we know it doesn’t fit the needs of this community,” said Arthur Malman, a member of the budget and finance advisory committee.  The committee’s review of plant manifests, he said, had shown that “almost all the waste being dumped there was from Ott,” leading to the conclusion that other companies did not use the plant.

    The town board is grappling with the larger question of what to do about the waste treatment plant — rehab and reopen it,  privatize it, or shut it for good. The issue has been under discussion for more than a year, and a majority of the board members recently agreed to seek proposals from consultants who could help the town prepare an overall septic-waste management plan, which would inform specific decisions about the scavenger waste plant. 

    A number of companies have responded, and the proposals will be vetted after the Oct. 8 submission deadline.

    Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson and Councilwoman Theresa Quigley have disagreed with that approach. They supported accepting a bid from a company that would have leased the plant and eventually purchased it. The other board members did not find the terms favorable to the town and said that related issues, such as environmental conditions and potential groundwater pollution, should be addressed before moving forward.

Southampton Town

Southampton Town Grants

    Applications are now available for certified 501(c)3 organizations to apply for annual grants from the Town of Southampton. Human services grants assist organizations that help people obtain employment, counseling, psychotherapy, health care, child care, and educational services. Cultural arts and recreational grants mainly assist organizations that encourage visual or performing arts and recreational programs.

     Applications are available at Town Hall or online at southamptontownny.gov/communityservices. Completed  applications must be submitted by 4 p.m. on Nov. 9; electronic applications cannot be accepted.

Culvert Repairs

    Members of the Southampton Town Board unanimously authorized emergency drainage repairs, in the amount of $4,250, earlier this month when drains at the Sagg Beach culvert on Sagg Road in Sagaponack unexpectedly collapsed. The emergency had to be addressed immediately as the water level was in danger of dropping dangerously low. The Highway Department contracted with Terra Tech Site Development Inc. to perform the necessary repairs.

Sagg Bars Weekend Construction

    Sagaponack Village amended a local law on Tuesday, following a public hearing, to prohibit construction on weekends from 3 p.m. on Saturday through 7 a.m. on Monday, from May 15 through Sept. 15.

    Mayor Don Louchheim told David and Suzanne Reynolds, who brought the issue to the board as a quality-of-life issue citing constant noise, to contact the building inspector if any construction should occur during prohibited times.

    Trustees also appointed two new members to the zoning board. John N. White, formerly an alternate member, will become permanent, replacing Linda Louchheim when her term expires in July, and Lauren Thayer will fill Mr. White’s alternate position.