The Village of East Hampton has started an effort to comply with the federal Americans With Disabilities Act, which it incorporated into its code in 2005.

    Letters from Ken Collum, a village code enforcement officer and fire marshal, and Glenn Hall, the chairman of East Hampton’s Disabilities Advisory Board, which serves both the village and the town, have been sent to businesses in the village. One letter, signed by Mr. Collum, advised business owners that the village would initiate enforcement of the act’s “readily achievable barrier removal provision” — readily achievable being defined as “accomplished and able to be carried out without much difficulty or expense.”

    Code enforcement officers, the letter said, will work with businesses on a case-by-case basis to make a business or property accessible to disabled persons. “The village has made specific code changes to facilitate compliance, and there are also tax incentives available to mitigate the costs involved,” the letter stated.

    The other letter, written by Mr. Hall, made a more personal appeal to business owners, stating in part that, “We are only asking that you make changes to your establishment that are reasonable and affordable so that we can come into your store just like everybody else.”

    “We’re just starting off and trying to work through it with Glenn and the advisory committee,” Mr. Collum said. However, he said, “we’re so understaffed, so we tried to combine it with fire safety inspections.”

    Still, Mr. Collum said, the effort will bear fruit. “So far, everybody we’ve talked to has had an ‘A-ha’ moment, realizing, ‘This is a good thing we should do to get people into our businesses.’ Everybody seems to be embracing it.”

    “The village has been nothing but supportive since Day 1,” said Mr. Hall.

    The town government, however, has been slower to move on enforcing A.D.A. compliance. “Nobody’s pushing it other than the advisory board,” Mr. Hall said.

    At its regular meeting on July 18, the town board adopted a budget modification that Councilman Dominick Stanzione, the town’s liaison to the Disabilities Advisory Board, said would provide funding to the fire marshal’s office “for inclusion of documentation to business owners that will be included in the annual mailing of the fire marshal to commercial property owners informing them of the obligation to pursue the readily achievable components” of the Americans With Disabilities Act.

    “I made the point that this is a federal obligation,” Mr. Stanzione said on Tuesday. “The town has included the A.D.A. as part of its code. As a result, A.D.A. and readily achievable goals hold a special place in that we have an obligation to live up to those, that we communicate effectively to commercial property owners about their obligation.”

    When the town and village incorporated A.D.A. standards, no single department had been tasked with enforcement, David Browne, the town’s chief fire marshal, told The Star in an e-mail. “The fire marshal’s office has now been given that assignment. With budgets being so tight and the considerably greater number of businesses in the town, we did not have the funds” for a mailing such as what the village has undertaken, he wrote.

    Mr. Browne noted that state law contains accessibility standards, which the town already enforces. “The A.D.A. standards are much more detailed and comprehensive,” he wrote. “We don’t have the manpower to go out and inspect for just A.D.A. compliance. We are trying to become more familiar with these standards and include them in our continuously ongoing annual commercial inspections.”

    The Montauk Village Association, which is responsible for the flowering plants sprinkled about the hamlet, including those in the trees, is getting ready for its annual Greenery Scenery party. It will be held at the Montauk Lake Club on Aug. 16 from 6 to 9 p.m. Mickey Valcich Vanessa Trouble and the Red Hot Swing will provide the music, and the event will include a live auction and dinner. Tickets are on sale at $125 per person. Mickey Valcich is this year’s honoree.

    The party, and an annual cash auction, are the group’s only fund-raisers. Nancy Keeshan, the  president, noted that fund-raising is more important than it was previously because the M.V.A. no longer receives financial aid from the Town of East Hampton.

    “We rely solely on the generosity of the community, our membership, and this party to raise enough funds to keep the flowers planted, plant and maintain trees, and keep everything in good order. We are hoping to have a successful event so we can continue our work,” she said.

At the party, the winners of the annual Big Bucks . . . Go Green raffle will be drawn. Tickets are for sale for $25 apiece or five for $100 and will be available until the last minute. The first-place winner will receive $10,000, the second-place prize is $1,000, and there are two third-place prizes of $500. You do not need to be present to win.

    Tickets are available at Keeshan’s Real Estate office on the south plaza and Pospisil Real Estate on the north plaza. As a press release noted, “Now, who couldn’t use $10K?”

    Ms. Keeshan also expressed appreciation this week to Drew Doscher, the owner of Sloppy Tuna, who donated funds for a new Kirk Park sign made by Harry Ellis and posted at the entrance to the hamlet near the park, which is also maintained by the M.V.A. “All I had to do was ask,” Ms. Keeshan said.

    She added that Phil DeFina has been doing his part by cleaning the M.V.A.’s memorial benches throughout the hamlet. “He’s been at it all summer; all on his own. We are so thankful for that,” Ms. Keeshan said.

    If you are looking for some deep thoughts after your beach time, the Watermill Center’s lecture series may have something to offer. 

        Tonight at 7:30 it continues with “A Parallel Universe: Alternatives to Conventional Performance Spaces.” In a multimedia presentation, Victoria Newhouse will discuss unconventional spaces being used for operas and concerts and how they compare to more traditional venues.

    On Tuesday at 7 p.m., Dr. William Fifer will address “Understanding the Newborn Brain” and the latest discoveries regarding how babies “learn about their new environment and whether these early capabilities can shape their future development.” It turns out that the newborn is a “data sponge prepared to interact with the environment and adapt to life outside the womb.”    Marina Abramovic, a performance artist who had a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art recently, will speak on the need to unite the arts with science, technology, spirituality, and education on Wednesday at 7 p.m.

    Future lectures include “Clementine Hunter: Her Life and Art, a Postscript” by Tom Whitehead on Aug. 10, and Ron Gregg on making and experiencing the Hollywood global blockbuster on Aug. 12. Reservations are required and can be made through watermillcenter.org/events.

    Jeffrey M. Smith, a leading consumer advocate for non-genetically engineered foods, will be the keynote speaker at a preventive health and sustainable technology expo this weekend at the Dodds and Eder store at 11 Bridge Street in Sag Harbor.

    General admission tickets, at $25, will include a screening of a documentary, “Genetic Roulette: The Gamble of Our Lives,” based on Mr. Smith’s best-selling book, on Sunday at 1 p.m. A question-and-answer session will follow.

    Representative Tim Bishop will be in attendance at the expo, too, to speak about health care reform education. Other scheduled speakers are Candace Vorhaus, a feng shui expert, Jennifer Katz, a holistic veterinarian, Jason Foscolo, a food law attorney, and Amy Elias, a lifestyle consultant.

    Cooking demonstrations by Silvia Lehrer and Nadia Ernestus are in store, and a diverse group of exhibitors will share information about products and services that benefit health.

    The hours to see the exhibitors, in an outdoor pavilion, are from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday. A link for free tickets has been offered by the Sag Harbor Chamber of Commerce at mastersofhealthandwellness.com/shc-comp-day-pass/.

    In addition to the daytime events, a cocktail party can be attended for $50 on Saturday from 5:30 to 7 p.m. A casual dinner will follow from 7 to 9 to benefit Slow Food East End. Chef Todd Jacobs of the newly opened Fresh restaurant in Bridgehampton will prepare the menu, which will feature local, seasonal food and wine. Tickets for the cocktail party and dinner cost $150.

    Mr. Smith, who has lectured in dozens of countries about genetically engineered foods, will present his keynote speech at the dinner. A complete schedule and tickets are available at mastersofhealthandwellness.com.

Topping the weekend’s agenda here in the village must be the Ladies Village Improvement Society fair on Saturday, the organization’s 117th, by the way. The gates at 95 Main Street open at 10 a.m. One can also enter via a gate in Herrick Park near the basketball courts.

All the usual attractions, including for the young ones, games, a carousel, a petting zoo, pony rides, and children’s authors are being prepared. For adults there will be vintage goods, select highquality clothing, plants, and a range of raffle items. Food choices will range from hot dogs to gourmet.

The East Hampton Lions Club will open a clam bar at 2 p.m. and begin serving barbecued chicken at 4. Early takeout will be available from 3 to 4 p.m. A silent auction in connection with the fair has begun. Bidding is at lvissilentauction. com. Lots run from rare wines to Caribbean vacations; there are 150 to choose from.

In preparation for the fair, the L.V.I.S. Bargain Box and Books shop will close today at 3 p.m. and remain closed all day tomorrow. It will be open during the fair, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

    Larry Cantwell, the Democratic and Independence Party candidate for East Hampton Town supervisor, will lead a Montauk “listen in” with his Democratic running mates, Job Potter and Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, on Monday at 6:45 p.m. at Gurney’s Inn. They have invited residents to discuss their concerns about the hamlet and share ideas for what town government can to improve things.

    This will be the second in a series such events the candidates are holding in East Hampton Town’s various hamlets. It will begin with refreshments, with discussion slated to run from 7 to 9 p.m.

    Dennis Downes, the attorney representing the restaurant Page at 63 Main, returned to the Sag Harbor Village Planning Board on Tuesday evening with threats and photographs in response to an ongoing discussion of the restaurant’s request to renovate the rear of its property to create a courtyard for takeout food and drink.

    The area is currently used for Dumpsters and a driveway.

    Neil Slevin, the planning board’s chairman, said at last month’s meeting that it would not be in the best interest of good planning to exacerbate the already difficult parking situation in the village, predicting that delivery trucks would end up blocking traffic on Division Street if the application were approved. He said he would likely vote against it.

    “There is not a restaurant in the village that doesn’t offload from the street . . . including my buddy Jack,” said Mr. Downes, referring to Jack Tagliasacchi, owner of Il Capuccino, and a member of the board. Mr. Downes distributed photographs of trucks delivering to several restaurants in the village.

    “I think you are going to regret it down the road,” Mr. Downes warned the board, saying that it could not hold his client, Gerard Wawryk, to different standards than other restaurateurs. “Jerry could put up a fence tomorrow and eliminate any access from Division Street.”

    Gregory Ferraris, who will abstain from voting on the matter because an owner of Page is a client of his accounting business, told Mr. Slevin that the applicant could, in fact, put up a fence and then proceed with the application without a driveway.

    Mr. Slevin acknowledged Mr. Downes’s argument while reinforcing his point that a site plan change to eliminate a driveway “would exacerbate conditions that are not ideal.”

    Telling the board that it was going down “a slippery slope,” Mr. Downes asked about approvals or lack thereof for other village restaurants, naming several that had unapproved outdoor seating.

    “Provisions and Corner Bar have nowhere for a truck to pull in.”

    Mr. Downes added that a large truck, such as a Coors Light truck, would not pull into the driveway anyway, something confirmed by Mr. Tagliasacchi, who will also abstain from deliberations.

    “I agree the more we throw to the village is not going to help,” Mr. Tagliasacchi said, “but truck delivery . . . even if you have a place for them to unload, they are going to do whatever they want. They have to make 50 stops before they go home,” he explained.

    “We have a situation in the village . . . park wherever you can,” Mr. Tagliasacchi said. “We can’t condone one, we have to be careful to be fair,” he warned. From his own experience, he said outdoor dining could be beneficial for both business owners and their guests.

    Mr. Slevin stood firm on the issue, saying that some board members “don’t think eliminating delivery and parking space on a commercial property on a road as busy as Route 114 is a wise idea.” That, he said, is “the whole point of planning.”

    “It’s a 30-square-foot driveway,” said Mr. Wawryk from the audience, pointing out that he receives most of his deliveries before 7 a.m.

    Mr. Downes added, “We take deliveries from the front as well.”

    Larry Perrine, a board member, agreed with the chairman. “I drive by every day. The driveway is used, he said, but “doing this pushes all of that parking into the community.”

    Mr. Slevin suggested “something creative” that would not result in the elimination of a driveway. After discussing the matter with Mr. Downes, Mr. Wawryk said he would agree to shorten the driveway and have a smaller outdoor seating area.

    “Come back with drawings,” said Mr. Slevin. “That seems more reasonable to me.”

    Rich Warren, acting as engineer consultant to the board, advised that there was research to be done due to the quantity of new information presented by Mr. Downes, which now included an alternative site plan.

    “Let him do it,” Mr. Warren said. “Maybe you will find some balance.”

    “It can’t be okay for everyone else and not me,” said Mr. Wawryk after the meeting. He added that during his 33 years in the village, he has seen what goes on. He showed a new plan that will enclose the Dumpsters and move them away from the street, and said he would likely pave the area with red brick.

    The application was tabled until the Aug. 27 meeting.

    In an ongoing attempt to encourage more people to use the ocean beach at Kirk Park in Montauk, East Hampton Town officials have embarked on a restoration project there. The plan is to widen the beach’s main sandy path across the street from the parking lot, where parking was made free last year, reduced from a $10 fee for those without East Hampton Town resident parking permits.

    The path will be widened and clearly defined with wooden slats over the sand. Rope railings, nautical in style, will help senior citizens and others unsteady on their feet.

    The town board has been making the changes over the last two seasons to move some people off the other ocean beaches to the east — mainly the tightly packed Ditch Plain Beach — and get them to use the beach near Kirk Park on its south side, which is attended by lifeguards and has plenty of parking spaces. The lot has always been underused and has restrooms and a food truck.

    The project was started by former Councilwoman Julia Prince and picked up this winter by Councilman Dominick Stanzione, who said this week that included in the plan is the addition of more than 30 new parking spaces around the downtown area.

    He said that the restrooms in the parking lot have recently been painted pale blue, similar to what was there before. A recessed exterior wall that divides the men’s and ladies’ rooms might soon be painted with a mural. “Something like a clamshell,” Mr. Stanzione said. A bike rack has also been added to the site.

    Other paths that also lead to the beach at Kirk Park, which had been fenced off and posted with signs saying “Tick Infested Area” to keep people off them, will soon be further blocked with split-rail fences.

    Residents have been complaining for years that people are not using the proper path and are stomping all over the dunes near the I.G.A., where some beachgoers park for the day in the supermarket’s lot.

    The project will continue next year when the town opens another access point to the Kirk Park lot on South Eagle Street, west of the lot, where police cars usually sit. A large free-parking sign was posted there just weeks ago, and the new access will be just south of the sign. On the north side of the area, at the Kirk Park pavilion, brush has been cleaned up and trees trimmed, Mr. Stanzione said.

    The Sag Harbor Community Housing Trust, a sort of think tank set up by Gregory Ferraris shortly after he left his post as the village mayor when plans for the Bulova Watchcase condominium development were still under review, has been reawakened after a five-year slumber and is looking for help, Mr. Ferraris told the village board on Tuesday.

    Mr. Ferraris established the not-for-profit trust to help the village figure out how to follow through on a deal the village struck to allow Cape Advisors, developers of the Bulova project, to pay a fee that will go toward affordable housing rather than setting aside 20 percent of its 65 units for that purpose, as mandated by the state. In lieu of the 13 affordable housing units it could have demanded from Cape Advisors, the village expects to receive just over $2.5 million, or $194,200 per unit.

    The lofts and bungalows at the former watchcase factory will reportedly have asking prices from just under $1 million to $2.7 million, penthouses will range from $3 million to $10.2 million, and three to six-bedroom townhouses will vary from $3.5 million to $6.5 million.

    Now that Cape Advisors has reignited the project after a four-year stall, the units have begun to be marketed, and money from the first closing could be received within the year. Mr. Ferraris, who now serves on the village planning board, approached the podium at Tuesday’s village board meeting to gain insight from the board on how to move forward.

    “It was controversial back then,” Mr. Ferraris said after the meeting, and it was discussed and debated at length in the community. A lot of people demanded on-site housing, he said, and “in the beginning I was one of them.” After researching comparable projects such as one in Nantucket, however, he said his feelings changed.

    “By and large the community felt it would be more flexible as a fee rather than to plan on-site housing,” Mr. Ferraris said. He negotiated a fee based on the state planning commission’s estimated median income for a family of four in Nassau and Suffolk County back in 2008, which was $97,000.

    Although the trust spent the time and money to do detailed research about the village’s housing needs five years ago, the demographics have changed since then, Mr. Ferraris said, and today’s workforce housing needs have to be re-evaluated. At the time, the group primarily interviewed younger individuals who rented and didn’t own their own homes.

    The trust initially included Denise Schoen, an attorney and Stacy Pennebaker, a realtor and long-time resident. Ms. Schoen since left the committee due to a conflict of interest. She is an attorney for the village’s zoning board of appeals. Mr. Ferraris is hoping that new people with some expertise and interest in helping provide workforce housing will step forward. He gave an example of a similar group, the Southampton Business Alliance, which he said works toward the same goals and has attracted quality professionals in construction, development, and the law.

    Fred W. Thiele Jr., the village’s attorney and also a state assemblyman, explained potential ways that the trust could move ahead. One option, recommended by Ed Deyermond, a former mayor and new trustee, would be changing the village code to make the not-for-profit trust the recipient of the fees in lieu of housing. The village could also implement its own affordable housing program or delegate that responsibility to another government such as the Town of East Hampton or Southampton. East Hampton Town has worked closely with a similar entity, the East Hampton Housing Authority, to provide affordable housing opportunities.

    A nonprofit might have more flexibility to give preference to assisting emergency personnel or teachers who have trouble obtaining mortgages, Mr. Ferraris explained. Money from the Bulova sales could be used as collateral or loan guarantees for those who have trouble getting mortgages. Other options would be to use the money to construct affordable housing or to provide financial assistance to local families to access the existing housing stock, he explained.

    Mayor Brian Gilbride agreed that the group should try to get “three or four more people involved in the next month or two.”

    East Hampton Village Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. announced last week that Moody’s Investors Service has assigned an Aa2 rating with a positive financial outlook to the village’s proposed $3.3 million serial bond offering, and affirmed the Aa2 rating on current outstanding obligations. The rating represents an assessment of high quality and very low credit risk.

    “I am pleased Moody’s has recognized the ‘conservative budget practices, modest debt burden, and stable financial operations’ of the Village of East Hampton,” Mr. Rickenbach said in a release. “In reporting on the village’s ‘stable financial operation and increasing general fund balance’ Moody’s noted the estimated general fund balance is expected to grow to $4.1 million or 21 percent of revenues at year end 2013.”

    The Moody’s report noted the village’s sizable, affluent tax base. The credit-rating and analysis firm’s report also predicted an improved near-term financial position for the village given a projected $500,000 operating surplus in the fiscal year, “driven by improved nonproperty tax collections, including an increase in building permits and mortgage taxes.”