A storied 210-year-old house on Union Street in Sag Harbor Village, long abandoned and called a safety hazard by officials, has a new owner who has promised to work with the village and restore the house to its former glory. As long as all the particulars that come with the purchase of a property at auction fall into place, the old Morpurgo house is about to get some long-needed attention.

Mitch Winston, an Amagansett resident and developer, emerged from the public auction, held under court order Friday morning on the steps of Southampton Town Hall as part of a foreclosure process that has spanned several years, as the next owner of the blighted property. The winning bid was $1.325 million.

The auction was neither swift nor simple. Despite its 10 a.m. start time, it did not begin for another 45 minutes, because neither the lawyer acting as the referee nor the lawyer for the mortgage lender could produce the required terms of sale. Joel Zweig, representing Atlantic View Holdings, the lender, made a trip to the Rogers Memorial Library, about a half-mile away, to print out copies.

Upon his return, Michael Ahearn began the auction by reading out the three pages, his soft voice all but lost amid the hustle and bustle on the steps of Town Hall. It was a far cry from the lively auction that had been held for the property in 2005, on the steps of the Sag Harbor Municipal Building.

“Are we supposed to be able to hear this?” asked Mia Grosjean of Sag Harbor, who was among several residents watching the proceedings.

The minimum bid — the amount of the outstanding mortgage on the 4,000-square-foot house -— was $1.146 million, but a principal of Atlantic View Holdings was able to drive the price up about $200,000 in a few tense minutes by bidding against Mr. Winston, who was his only opponent. The man, quiet and heavyset, standing next to Mr. Zweig offered $1.2 million after Mr. Winston’s opening bid. He declined to give his name.

Mr. Winston asked to see his certified cashier’s check, which was required of all bidders. It turned out, however, that the mortgage lender was exempt from the requirement.

Frustrated, Mr. Winston bid $1,000 more. The heavyset man then offered $1.25 million. Mr. Winston pressed the question about identification, asking for proof that this man represented the lender. Mr. Zweig and the referee both said it was not needed, and that Mr. Zweig’s vouching for him was enough.

After a brief conference Mr. Winston offered $1.325 million, which won him the property. Afterward, he said he hadn’t expected the lender to drive up the price, but did think there might be other bidders and had been prepared to spend more. He turned over a certified check for $135,000, a little over than the required 10 percent down payment. He has 30 days to close, or risk losing his deposit.

“The priority right now is to make sure the place is safe,” said Scott Strough, who, with Christian Lipp, both from the Compass agency, helped broker the deal.

“Amen, brother,” called out Ed Deyermond, a village board member. The board had debated whether to tear down the house, which, with its front porch in danger of collapse, an open septic tank, and crumbling roof, is considered a health and safety hazard. There is a chain link fence in front of the house and a fence separating it from one neighbor, but two other sides, including the one it shares with the John Jermain Memorial Library, have been left exposed.

Asked how quickly the new owner needs to address the safety issues, Mr. Deyermond answered, “Forthwith.” 

The challenge now, Mr. Strough said, is safe entry, in order to do an architectural assessment and document the interior photographically. “I think right now, the physical condition of the property may warrant at least some of the structure to come down,” he said. The new owner is committed to working with the village.

Jane Peterson, who lives on nearby Latham Street, asked Mr. Winston to try to save as much of the façade as possible. She suggested that Mr. Strough, who has been active in the sale of other historic properties such as the old Methodist Church on Madison Street, could do it.

Jason Crowley, who until recently was a director of the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities, has called the house a contributing resource to the local and national historic district, and said that every effort should be made to repair it, and that it should be demolished only as a last resort.

A two-and-a-half story, Federalist-Italianate structure, it has long been known as the Morpurgo house. Two sisters, Annselm and Helga Morpurgo, fought over it for decades while it fell into disrepair. Twice, a judge put it up for auction at more than $1 million, all of which created a buzz but no bids. One sister tried to sell it on eBay for $19 million. By 2007, when it had had no heat or running water for years, the village deemed it unfit for human occupancy, and the last sister finally moved out.

In November 2007, a limited liability corporation called Captain Hulbert House bought the house at auction for $1.46 million. Annselm Morpurgo had said the house was built by and for Capt. John Hulbert, hero of Ticonderoga and crafter of the Hulbert flag eulogized by Francis Scott Key in “The Star-Spangled Banner.” However, the sister also said it was build around 1810 for a Captain Vail, a whaler.

The property went into a lengthy foreclosure, made even longer by its being tied up in the phony mortgage schemes that landed former Suffolk Legislator George O. Guldi in jail.

Mr. Winston, who said he had several partners in this project, told those gathered at Town Hall that he was committed to restoring the house, saving what can be saved, and keeping the historic character of the neighborhood. While he has not worked before in Sag Harbor, he said he has developed homes elsewhere on the South Fork.

The officer overseeing labor crews from Suffolk County’s Riverhead and Yaphank correctional facilities has made his last work-related visit to the South Fork.

Sgt. John Whitehead, who established the program with Sheriff Vincent F. DeMarco, retired from the County Sheriff’s Department yesterday, three weeks shy of 35 years’ service. While he plans to take it easy for the next two months, his replacement, Sgt. Owen O’Neill, was already on the job at the American Legion Hall in Amagansett on Tuesday, as a crew performed landscaping work and washed the building’s cedar shingles.

Under Sergeant Whitehead’s watchful eye, the “working termers,” those serving sentences in county correctional facilities, have also performed work at the Springs Firehouse, Second House Museum in Montauk, the Amagansett Farmers Market, the Montauk Lighthouse, and the Amagansett Life Saving and Coast Guard Station.

“The termers usually get one-third off their sentence right from the get-go for good behavior,” said Sergeant Whitehead. “This is not any perk for them as far as getting released early, but they love it because they’re outside five days a week. We go all over Suffolk County, they eat a little better, receive a few benefits here and there.”

The crews, which typically perform such work as painting, building repair, and landscaping, have saved the American Legion thousands of dollars, Lee O’Toole, a legionnaire, said this week. Michael Cinque, the co-director of the committee charged with restoring the 1902 coast guard station, was similarly grateful for the crews, which he said brought surprisingly strong skills and enthusiasm to that project. Last summer, Mr. Cinque told The Star they had done “an absolutely amazing job” in twice-weekly visits. “There’s a guy on the crew who restores houses,” he said. “He has been coming up with some brilliant ideas, and a lot of these guys are pretty handy.”

Looking forward to retirement, Sergeant Whitehead, who lives in Shoreham, will nonetheless miss work-related visits to the South Fork now that Sergeant O’Neill has assumed his role. “I love it,” he said, standing in the sunshine outside Legion Hall. “This is the place to be.”

Some people give to charities that support environmental conservation or the welfare of animals. Educational causes are the choice of Pat McKibbin, who owns the Mary’s Marvelous stores in East Hampton and Amagansett with his wife, Mary Schoenlein.

“To me, that’s kind of where it all starts,” he said.

To support education locally, Mr. McKibbin and Ms. Schoenlein have offered the space next door to their Newtown Lane market to Project Most, the nonprofit organization that runs after-school and summer programs for children in the East Hampton and Springs School Districts. Project Most has the 350-square-foot space rent-free through the end of September, and in the month of June is using it to preview works of art that will be up for auction at its Eileen’s Angels benefit on Sunday.

“They are one of our favorite local nonprofits,” Mr. McKibbin said. “Retail has changed a little bit, and it wasn’t working out for us on that side . . . but we didn’t want an empty space, so we got in touch with Project Most to see if they wanted to use it as fund-raising headquarters.”

On display there now are pieces by artists including Scott Bluedorn, Peter Dayton, April Gornik, Hush, Dalton Portella, Toni Ross, Ellen Watson, and more, all of whom have donated works to the auction. The gallery presentation was curated by Pamela Willoughby, a longtime art adviser and dealer. (Not on display, perhaps needless to say, are the trees that will also be auctioned off on Sunday as part of the Eileen’s Angels benefit, to be held at the Landscape Details Sag Harbor garden.)

Susan Gentile Hackett, Project Most’s director of development, said July, August, and September will bring different exhibits and events to the space.

“Pat and Mary were always trying to figure out what they can do to for us. He calls it ‘fun raising,’ ” Ms. Hackett said. “He said, ‘Just be here all summer. Raise money from people. Tell your story.’ ”

She said Project Most hopes the exposure in East Hampton will give the benefit a boost. It lost a major source of support when the Hamptons Marathon moved from Springs to Southampton. The goal of Eileen’s Angels is to generate $150,000 for the nonprofit.

“Our goal was around $100,000 before we lost the marathon, so we raised our sights,” Ms. Hackett said.

Those who make a donation to Project Most at the gallery will receive coupons for cookies or coffee at Mary’s Marvelous.

The Eileen’s Angels benefit is planned for Sunday from 6 to 9 p.m. at 1796 Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike in Sag Harbor. The event will honor Michael Derrig of Landscape Details and Edwina von Gal of the Perfect Earth Project. Tickets start at $150 and may also be purchased online at projectmost.org.

Two locations in East Hampton Town are being considered as sites for a satellite emergency care center Southampton Hospital plans to build here.

One is part of 30 acres in the Wainscott School District, near the corner of Stephen Hand’s Path and Montauk Highway, now containing town recreation fields as well as the building housing the Child Development Center of the Hamptons, which is to close. The other, off Pantigo Road in East Hampton behind town office buildings, is the site of ballfields used by little leaguers and others.

East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said last Thursday that town officials had met with hospital officials and staff regarding the two town-owned properties and how they might accommodate the new center, which, it is anticipated, could be open in two to four years. The goal is to have the East Hampton satellite up and running before the hospital moves from its Southampton Village location farther west, to County Road 39.

New York State has promised a $10 million grant toward the center’s construction, and the hospital will raise money to cover the remainder of the cost. About $30 million will be needed for the project, it is estimated.

The hospital has “a pretty good idea of what they would need to build,” Mr. Cantwell said: a building of 15,000 to 20,000 square feet, with multiple emergency rooms, several rooms where patients could stay overnight, treatment and staff rooms, and, possibly, staff accommodations. A parking lot large enough for up to 150 cars would be needed, he said.

The center could also include laboratory and other services as well as doctor’s offices, Marsha Kenny, a hospital spokeswoman, has said.

The plan is to build at a site that is  strategically located with respect to emergency calls, enabling ambulances from all the town’s fire districts to reach it quickly.

The hospital is evaluating both sites, Mr. Cantwell said, “to see if either of [them] works for them,” and the town will do the same.

The Little League field site, the supervisor said, is adjacent to both the East Hampton Healthcare Foundation’s medical offices facility and the Pantigo Place office condominiums. A planned move and sale of town office condos there, once an old building on the Town Hall campus is renovated, could free up additional office space for medical providers and other related services. An analysis would be undertaken of the effect on traffic in the area, access to the new center, and whether a traffic light might be needed at the Montauk Highway intersection.

“I think this is one of the most important things to happen with respect to medical services in East Hampton,” Mr. Cantwell said last week.  A full-service medical care facility such as that planned has long been advocated by town officials and has grown in importance as traffic congestion has increased.

“For some time, we have been concerned that the distance between Southampton and the easternmost communities becomes longer still during the summer, when traffic is choking the local roads,” Robert Chaloner, the hospital president and chief executive officer, stated earlier this year.

As soon as the hospital is ready to discuss the plans, there will be an invitation to attend a public information session in East Hampton, Mr. Cantwell said.

Last week’s Amagansett School Board meeting took a contentious turn when it came time for public comment, after a resident alleged that the school district had improperly denied a Freedom of Information Law request.

Rona Klopman said she had asked the board to provide the full text of Paul Seversky’s February 2016 report on affordable housing. The district had responded, she said, with a heavily redacted version of the report, which is the basis for school officials’ opposition to a proposed affordable housing complex at 531 Montauk Highway. School officials have said the project would overwhelm the district’s financial resources and available space.

According to a letter sent to District Superintendent Eleanor Tritt by Jonathan Wallace, an attorney hired by Ms. Klopman, the district is withholding the full report as “intra-agency communications,” which is one of the few exceptions to the state’s Freedom of Information Law. “Clearly, the material in question does not fit within this exception,” Mr. Wallace wrote.

Ms. Klopman was not alone in her allegation. Catherine Casey, executive director of the East Hampton Housing Authority, said this week that she had requested the same information, and that it was improperly denied. The Housing Authority eventually appealed and received more of the report than it had at first, she said, but the report’s conclusion remained redacted.

The authority has also not received information on the district’s reserve fund balances that it had requested, Ms. Casey said. “I believe the district is withholding the Seversky report because the report is saying the district can absorb the students, no problem,” she said.

The school district has asserted that there may be as many as 72 students in the proposed 40-unit housing complex. The Housing Authority disputes that figure, saying a more accurate number is 37 students, some of whom may already be living in Amagansett. The school district has also said it may have to raise from $650,000 to $1.5 million more in taxes to educate those children, a figure the Housing Authority also disputes.

The school district paid $19,600 for the study, which, Ms. Tritt said in an email, was designed for “exclusive internal use for planning. That study is still under review by the board. . . . These redactions were made because those recommendations and analyses represent non-final agency determinations by the board, and [were] properly redacted.”

Also during the meeting, it was announced that an Amagansett School Board member had resigned. Steve Graboski, who beat out a longtime board member, Mary Lownes, for the seat in May 2015, notified the board by letter that he was resigning.

The letter, which was apparently unexpected, was “very brief. He wished us the best of luck and said he enjoyed the time,” Victoria Handy, the board president, said. “He did not give a reason. I don’t think he has to. It was kind of abrupt, but it’s a volunteer position and that’s his prerogative.”

Mr. Graboski, who has a daughter employed as a teacher at the school, did not return a call for comment.

The board, which could have held a special election to fill the vacant seat, instead took immediate steps to replace him, voting in Dawn Brophy, a real estate agent with Brown Harris Stevens who has been involved in the Amagansett School PTA as a member, officer, and event organizer for many years and has served on the shared-decision-making team at East Hampton Middle School and on the board of the East Hampton Little League.

Mr. Graboski’s resignation means that as of July 1, heading into the 2016-17 school year, a majority of the board will be new. Ms. Handy and Phelan Wolf did not seek re-election this year, and Hank Muchnic and Kristen Peterson ran unopposed for the two open seats on the five-member board.

Also during the June 14 meeting, the board promoted Maria Dorr, acting school principal, to the position of principal. She had taken a one-year leave of absence last summer from her previous post as pupil personnel services director to serve as acting principal, the school’s third principal in as many years.

It’s been about a year since The East Hampton Star last caught up with five students, originally all enrolled in the Kristen Tulp’s kindergarten class at the John M. Marshall Elementary School. 

During a recent visit to Herrick Park, Alonso Garcia, now 7, was still soft-spoken, and stayed close to his mother and sister.

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This ongoing series examines the changing face of East Hampton through a diverse group of students, getting to know their families and their interests — and documenting how they grow and change over time

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So far, he’s lost six teeth, with two more already loose.

A recent move meant that Alonso started first grade at the Springs School in September. Though his mother initially worried about the transition from John Marshall, Alonso quickly adjusted to his new surroundings.

Soccer is his obsession. He plays constantly, both during recess and every afternoon after school on two teams, one in Springs and another at the Ross School. Mondays are his only days off. Alonso is the youngest player on the Ross team, which competes across Long Island and has boys ranging from 7 to 9.

Together, his mother, aunt, and grandmother run Elegant Touch, a nail salon in East Hampton on Railroad Avenue. This summer, his sister, Valentina Sanchez, 16, will again sit at the front desk, answering its busy telephone. Valentina, soon to begin her senior year at East Hampton High School, is looking at colleges in North Carolina, where the family paid a visit earlier this year. She hopes to study either psychology or criminal law. Meanwhile, Alonso will attend the nearby Y.M.C.A. sports camp five days a week.

Recently, when an 8-year-old teammate told Alonso that he wasn’t very good at soccer, his response was to simply start practicing more. “I wanted to show him that I’m good,” he said. Alonso still loves to eat chicken and pasta. And he still doesn’t know what he wants to do when he grows up.

“He has a good heart and likes to help other people,” said his mother, Adriana Garcia, who says her son has become stronger and more disciplined in the past year. “I just want him to do something good that makes him happy.”

Ephraim Munoz, now 7, just finished first grade at John Marshall. At four feet two inches, he’s already lost four teeth.

During a recent end-of-year ceremony, Ephraim received a prestigious Martin Luther King Jr. award, given each year to one student in each grade who possesses character traits related to leadership and kindness.

“My parenting has been validated,” his mother, Marci Vail, said during a recent trip to Herrick Park. Ephraim was in constant motion, busy scaling playground equipment, but stopping to check in every so often. “Obedience and politeness are very important to us, but we’re also trying to teach him to think for himself.”

His father, Carlos Munoz, a native of Ecuador, works as a carpenter and a handyman. Ms. Vail grew up in East Hampton, in the house where she still lives. She works as a bookkeeper for her husband’s business.

Now a cub scout, over the past year, Ephraim has become more comfortable in the water and regularly swims at the Y.M.C.A. This summer, he will take swimming lessons, offered for free to local residents by the Town of East Hampton at nearby bay beaches. Ephraim is also enrolled in an eight-week summer basketball program offered through the town.

Pizza, popcorn, and pasta are among his favorite things to eat. Ephraim also loves shoes — the newer the sneakers the better. Shay, a dog his family adopted from the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons, is a somewhat recent addition to the household.

Come September, Ms. Vail hopes to enroll her son in a martial arts class.

“I think Ephraim is a natural pacifist,” she said. “Even though he’s a leader and kind and helpful to other children, sometimes he doesn’t know how to deal with kids who are aggressive. I think it will help him to know how to defend himself.”

Since starting the series in September of 2014, two of the five students who were profiled have moved away. Olivia Chapman’s family decided against participating this year.

Midway through kindergarten, Atilla Secim’s family moved to Florida.

Atilla, now 7, was born in Turkey. He speaks Turkish, Arabic, some French, and fluent English. His family moved to East Hampton in 2014, temporarily living in his aunt’s weekend home.

They now live in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where Atilla just finished first grade. He’s enrolled at a soccer camp and loves to swim and check out books from the local public library.

Starting in the fall, Atilla will once again change schools, “hopefully for the last time,” said his mother, Ayse Secim. She and her husband, Murat, work together running a home-security business.

Later this summer, Atilla will start second grade at a nearby elementary school. Over the past seven years, Atilla has lived in three countries and two states, building his resilience each time.

When his mother asks him to name the favorite place his family has lived, his answer is always the same: East Hampton. “I guess it’s something about the cold and the snow,” she said.

His former classmate, Madison Alvarez, now 6, moved to Ogden, Utah, in late May, when her father, Fernando Alvarez, who had been managing a large East Hampton estate, found a new job. Working as an airplane mechanic will hopefully provide his growing family with greater economic security.

Nearly two years ago, the Alvarez family moved to East Hampton from Seattle, looking for well-paid, year-round work. They hoped to raise their family in a safe community, living within walking distance to good public schools.

“So far, she’s adjusting,” Antonia Alvarez, a stay-at-home mother, said during a recent phone call. “She seems to be doing okay.”

Like many of her former kindergarten classmates, it’s been a big year of transition for Madison. A baby sister, Eva, named after their maternal grandmother, arrived two months ago. She joins their brother Isaac, now 3. Madison loves changing the new baby’s diapers.

Madison, who still wants to be a doctor, misses her John Marshall classmates and asks after them constantly. Already, she’s written a letter to her friend Olivia and anxiously checks the mailbox each afternoon, awaiting her reply.

A State Supreme Court justice may take until fall to determine the ownership of and access to parts of the Napeague ocean beach, but East Hampton Town is moving ahead in the meantime, come what may, with the process of condemnation, or eminent domain.

On Tuesday, the town board took comments on the potential environmental impacts should it acquire two stretches of beach, some 5,550 feet totaling just over 22 acres, on the eastern and western borders of Napeague State Park.

Attorneys for the nearby property owners’ groups that oppose four-wheel driving on what has come to be called Truck Beach were out in full force at Town Hall that day. The homeowners sued East Hampton Town and the town trustees over questions of title and the right to regulate vehicles on the beach. The trial concluded last week.

The areas to be addressed in an impact statement, said Daniel Russo, a consultant preparing the legally required document for the town, include adjacent land use, potential effects on the environment, traffic and noise, and whether condemnation is consistent with adopted laws and public policy, such as the town’s local waterfront revitalization plan, which addresses coastal issues. Once a draft of the statement is prepared, the public will have another chance to be heard, and the final version will include responses to substantive comments, he said.

Reading a letter from Cindi Crain of Safe Access for Everyone, a homeowner’s group that opposes beach-driving vehicles, Ken Silverman said that the impact statement should have a “far wider scope,” and address the consequences of having 73,000 vehicles driving on the beach in question — the number, he said, that would be expected to use it over the next 20 years. He based the number on increases in four-wheel driving permits, should the town acquire the land and continue to allow beach driving.

Continuing to speak on his own behalf, Mr. Silverman, one of the plaintiffs in the suit against the town, said that the impact statement “should clarify that the purpose of the condemnation is solely to protect beach driving.”

“The point,“ he said, “is the upland, and beach owners do not want the activity for which you are condemning the beach.” In preparing the impact statement, “I would ask you to do as extensive an analysis as possible,” he said.

In his introduction, Mr. Russo said that the point of the eminent domain procedure was threefold: to resolve the dispute over title of the land, to preserve public access, and to preserve town officials’ right to regulate use of the beach.

Steve Angel, who represents a number of the plaintiffs, called the current impasse “a trespass; it’s an illegal activity.” Should the town acquire the disputed sections of the beach, he said, and legally sanction four-wheel driving, it would have to make an exhaustive analysis of the impact on the environment.

Charles Voorhis, a consultant representing a group of homeowners and plaintiffs, described a “number of deficiencies” in the scope of the proposed environmental analysis. Unless corrected, he said, “it will fail to examine the full impact” of the town’s acquisition of the beach. The document should, for example, examine the effects of beach driving on the dunes and beach topography, he said, and other agencies, such as the state and county health departments and the state Department of Environmental Conservation, should be involved.

Jay Blatt, a fisherman representing the Montauk Surfcasting Association and the New York Coalition for Recreational Fishing, said that if beach driving were banned along the two shorefront stretches, fishermen following the fish along the beach in their four-wheel-drive vehicles during the fall run would have to bypass those areas, exiting onto neighborhood roads, and the effects of that should be considered.

The “intense use” of the area by vehicles takes place on only 10 or 12 days a year, and that should be taken into consideration, Tim Taylor of Citizens for Access Rights said. So too, he said, should the question of where four-wheelers would go if they were barred from Truck Beach. Mr. Taylor said his group believes that the “history and tradition” of local residents driving onto and gathering for recreation on that area of the Napeague beach “is very important when related to this site.”

From Atlantic Avenue in Amagansett east to Napeague, the number of town permits issued for beach driving and for public parking, along with the number of parking spaces within “a reasonable walking distance” from a public beach, should be documented, said John Courtney, a former lawyer for the town trustees, “to show the need” for the town to acquire the property for public beach access.

Comments on the proposed scope of the draft impact statement, which is posted on the town website, ehamptonny.gov, may be submitted to the town clerk through June 30.

Sean P. Ludwick, the driver charged with killing his passenger, Paul Hansen, in a drunken driving crash in Noyac last August, then fleeing the scene and leaving Mr. Hansen's body on the side of the road, will be put on trial within the next few months, New York State Supreme Court Justice Fernando Camacho said Thursday.

Mr. Ludwick is being held at the county jail in Yaphank and will be in custody until his trial. He had been free on a $1 million bond, but after allegedly plotting to escape by boat from Puerto Rico to a South American country with no extradition treaty with the United States, his bond was revoked and he was ordered held without bail. Shortly after that, his attorney, Benjamin Brafman, severed his relationship with Mr. Ludwick. He was represented in Justice Camacho's Central Islip Courtroom on Thursday by his new attorney, William Keahon.

According to John Scott Prudenti, the head of the Suffolk County District Attorney's vehicular crimes unit, Mr. Ludwick, 43, was drunk when he crashed his 2013 Porsche into a utility pole on Rolling Hill Court East, fatally injuring Mr. Hansen. Mr. Prudenti said Mr. Ludwick then dragged Mr. Hansen's body out of the car and left it at the side of the road. The prosecutor has not ruled out the possibility that Mr. Hansen may still have been alive when Mr. Ludwick drove off in the car, which at that point had four flat tires. Police reported that he only made it a couple of hundred yards. The crash was just yards from Mr. Hansen's house.

"I remind you, this case will be tried in the fall, this year, 2016," Justice Camacho told the attorneys, as he urged them along. Mr. Prudenti said the prosecution had shared all the evidence with Mr. Ludwick's attorney, including the toxicology and autopsy reports. All that the prosecutor is waiting for is the New York State police report on the accident scene recreation. Mr. Keahon then demanded the notes of the various investigators involved that led to the creation of those reports, something Mr. Prudenti indicated would be done. Justice Camacho put both sides on a short leash, setting a final conference date of Aug. 3, telling both sides he expected all pre-trial exchanges to be finished by then.

Mr. Hansen's family was in the courtroom Thursday, as they have been for each court date. Mr. Prudenti spoke with them for about 20 minutes afterwards. He told reporters that he expected the state police report would be ready by August, explaining the delay as a natural backlog due to the many cases across the county and state involving drunken drivers in fatal accidents that required similar reports.

Mr. Ludwick, who was the head of BlackHouse Development prior to his trouble with the law, was not in court on Thursday.

Brad Bender, who resigned as a Southampton Town councilman amid a felony charge of conspiring to distribute oxycodone last November, was sentenced in First District Court in Central Islip Friday to two years in federal prison. 

Before United States Judge Arthur D. Spatt handed down the sentence, Mr. Bender, 55, told the court that he had been an addict since his teenage years and that he had been abused as a child. Choking back tears through much of his statement, he said, "I am deeply remorseful and apologetic. I lost my job, my marriage, my reputation. But at last, I am receiving the help that I need." He told the judge he is in a 12-step recovery program. "I'm seven months, nine days clean," he said. "I believe I will be more valuable to society by remaining on the outside. I am truly remorseful and apologetic for my behavior." 

However, Allen Bode, the prosecuting attorney, painted a very different picture for the judge. "Taking cash for drugs is greed, not addiction, and this needs to be punished," he said. "We need to send a message to the public that public officials don't get a slap on the wrist."

Federal prosecutors recommended 37 months in prison. Mr. Bender had been hoping for probation. 

Judge Spatt went over the case. He said that between July 28, 2012, and June 15, 2015, Mr. Bender obtained 3,190 30-milligram tablets of oxycodone through prescriptions written by a physician assistant, Michael Troyan, in Riverhead, a codefendant in the case. "An elected official, getting involved in something like this. That is outrageous," Judge Spatt said. 

Brian DeSesa, Mr. Bender's attorney, pointed out afterwards that the government demanded, and received, $5,000 from Mr. Bender in forfeiture money, the least amount the attorney general's office can seek. "There was no real financial profit. It fed his addiction," Mr. DeSesa said about the transactions

Judge Spatt said that the sentencing guidelines, which are not mandatory, call for 30 to 37 months in a federal penitentiary. He noted that Mr. Bender, a Northampton resident, had done much for the community, and acknowledged Mr. Bender's childhood and ongoing drug addiction. Still, he said as he pronounced the sentence, Mr. Bender "has to be punished." He also said he wanted Mr. Bender, who will be sent to a prison in the Northeast, to be entered into a treatment program in prison. After serving his time, he will have three years of supervised release.

"We are disappointed with the sentence, but understand where the judge is coming from," Mr. DeSesa said outside of court. Mr. Bender will turn himself over to federal prison authorities to begin his sentence Sept. 15. He declined to comment afterwards.

He has been free on $100,000 bond since he first appeared in court in November, under the terms of a deal to plead guilty and cooperated with authorities. The terms of the deal did not include sentencing, however.

A member of the Independence Party who was also endorsed by the Democratic and Working Families Parties, he was elected to a four-year term on the Southampton Town Board in 2013, and was midway through his term when he resigned. He lost an initial bid in 2011. A self-employed building contractor, Mr. Bender was also a community leader, serving for several years as the president of the Flanders-Riverside-Northampton Community Association.

East, a magazine designed to reflect the best of the South Fork and published by The East Hampton Star, will debut June 23 with Biddle Duke as its editor. It will appear four times in 2016, with additional issues in July, August, and November.

“The magazine enables us to pull back and put everything in perspective, both from the journalism and writing perspective but also with photography,” Mr. Duke said.

He is the former publisher of The Stowe Reporter and Waterbury Record newspapers. Mr. Duke had previously been a reporter at the Evening Post Publishing Company in South Carolina, which publishes the Post and Courier of Charleston. He divides his time between Stowe and Springs.

East is expected to appeal to year-round residents, part-time residents, and visitors, David E. Rattray, the editor of The Star, said. Its stories are a mix of entertainment and hard news. It includes writing by Michael Shnayerson, a contributor to Vanity Fair and the author of several books, most recently, “Before I Forget: Love, Hope, Help, and Acceptance in Our Fight Against Alzheimer’s” with B. Smith and Dan Gasby; Carl Safina, a naturalist and author of “Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel,” and Iris Smyles, whose new novel, “Dating Tips for the Unemployed,” will be released by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt next week.

“East presents an opportunity for The Star to reach a broad audience and find new readers eager for a serious, in-depth take on the East End’s remarkable people, nature, and the arts,” Mr. Rattray said.

“There is a whole community of people who are powerfully connected to this place who don’t get featured in the array of other media that exists here,” Mr. Duke said. “A beautiful, local magazine, that’s the idea.”

Other writers include The Star’s Laura Donnelly, Irene Silverman, Jennifer Landes, and Amanda M. Fairbanks, whose in-depth profile of the Round Swamp Farm’s Lester, Niggles, and Snyder families is among the debut issue’s anchor features.

Photography for the first issue came from Andrew Blauschild, Philippe Cheng, Sunny Khalsa, Michael Halsband, and Tara Israel, and Doug Kuntz, Morgan McGivern, Dell Cullum, and Durell Godfrey from The Star’s regular roster.

“East represents an authentic coin, with real-life stories on one side and honest analysis of longstanding issues on the other,” Helen S. Rattray, The Star’s publisher, said. “Those on the East team are looking deeply into what makes this community second to none and at the same time they’re having fun.”

East had an initial print run of 20,000 copies, half of which will be distributed with the Thursday Star; the balance will be circulated for free pickup in North and South Fork retail businesses, public transportation hubs, and hotels, restaurants, and inns. East also will appear online.