To support both a homeowner’s right to rent and East Hampton Town’s proposed rental registry is not a mutually exclusive stance, the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee was told at its meeting on Monday, and something must be done to curtail illegal rentals that are detrimental to quality of life.

The town board will hold a public hearing on a revised rental registry law next Thursday, at the American Legion in Amagansett at 6:30 p.m., after tabling a proposal that was criticized for being overly intrusive.

“I’m really concerned that we’re developing a problem that’s not going to be an easy fix later on,” Frank Riina, a Springs resident who has been working with the town board to draft a rental registry law, told the committee. Along with added noise and congestion, he said, multiple families living in single-family houses, dormitory-type arrangements for summer-camp staff and other workers, and share houses occupied by dozens of young adults are creating dangerous conditions for their inhabitants as well as for emergency responders, and playing havoc with school taxes, septic systems, and groundwater. A registry, he said, would address those problems as well as safeguard real estate values and the “single-family character of our community.”

“More and more people seem to realize what we already know: East Hampton is a great place,” Mr. Riina said. But with that realization has come the belief that “there is big money to be made in rental housing on the East End,” and some real estate agents are exploiting the situation. “It’s a false illusion of what our community is about,” he said.

“Why doesn’t code enforcement do more?” he asked. “They don’t have a depository of information about which houses are rented.” A registry, he said, “is a tool for code enforcement . . . When the code enforcement has a body of information, investigations are a lot quicker.”

Mr. Riina distributed a draft registration form and an inspection checklist. The former seeks the name and contact information of the property owner and agent, if any; the address, tax map number, number of rooms, and square footage of each bedroom of the rental property; length of tenancy, and number of tenants if known. The latter form is a 22-item questionnaire on which details such as the existence of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, a swimming pool and gate, stairway handrails, and lower-level sleeping area are to be listed. Registration would cost property owners $125 per year to cover administrative costs.

“Some people find this an invasion of privacy,” Mr. Riina said, but, he said, the proposed registry is far less demanding than those of other communities. “Owners who rent illegally need to be stopped, and we have the power to do that. I think we can do a better job of stopping illegal rentals if we have the rental registry,” he concluded, to applause.

“This is definitely a massive improvement” over the previous proposal, said Kieran Brew, a committee member who is a real estate salesman. However, he said, “the only people who are getting rich on short-term rentals . . . own stock in Airbnb,” the website on which such rentals are advertised. “They’re a problem for us — for us as neighbors, and as real estate agents. The problem we’re having is trying to understand . . . how this is going to fix or help with that.”

Some landlords have worried aloud that they will be held liable for violations committed by tenants without their knowledge. Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell, the town board’s liaison to the committee, said that code enforcement officers “still have to do their due diligence. The fact that this law will enable them to do their job more efficiently doesn’t preclude the fact that they still have to ferret out the facts.” The proposed law is flexible enough, he said, for code enforcement personnel to “try to determine, based on the facts, who is responsible for whatever the illegality is.”

“We’re going to do the best we can to present the facts of this,” Mr. Cantwell said. “After that, it’s up to the community to decide.”

For Colin Mahar, it’s his third rent increase in as many years.

In 2012, Mr. Mahar moved from Paris to East Hampton to run Harper’s Books, a rare-book shop on Newtown Lane.

He soon settled into one of the eight apartments above Mary’s Marvelous, drawn to the nearby building’s central location, its proximity to the grocery store and train station, and above all, its affordability. For the first year that Mr. Mahar lived there, he paid $1,150 a month.

But when new owners purchased the building in 2013, his rent increased to $1,500, and late last year it went up to $1,650. Recently, he and several tenants received word of yet another rent hike. Come January, his one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment will cost $1,850, with newer tenants paying upward of $2,000 a month.

“Each time the rent increases, people leave,” said Mr. Mahar, 48, during a recent afternoon lull at the bookstore. “I can’t afford to move, and I can’t afford to stay.”

Apartments in East Hampton Village are few and far between, with the second and third floors of 105 Newtown Lane making it one of East Hampton’s only “high-rises,” whose location combines both urban convenience and rural charm.

The dearth of affordability, however, is an ongoing concern, with renters, caught in the crosshairs of a seasonal market, unable to gain a stable toehold.

“There’s a huge disconnect between the homeowners and those who do not own a place,” said Tom Ruhle, East Hampton Town’s director of housing and community development. “Renters are the people working two jobs to pay their rent, only to find that it’s going up again.” Mr. Ruhle sees the lack of affordable housing as detrimental to businesses in need of a local workforce.

Alejandra Lucci, 37, who co-owns East Hampton Flowers on North Main Street, has lived in one of the second-floor units since 2012. Over the past four years, her monthly rent has increased by $650. As a business owner, the affordable housing shortfall poses a very real worry. “What happens when a business can no longer find employees because they can’t afford to live here?”

105 Newtown Lane reminds the native of Colombia of old black-and-white movies she used to watch, when neighbors freely went etween each other’s homes.  On weekday nights, Mr. Mahar loves to cook impromptu meals, his door left ajar. And on weekend mornings, Ms. Lucci may knock on a neighbor’s door to borrow an onion for eggs or syrup for pancakes.

Apartment living allows for plentiful social interaction, a particular draw during the quiet winter months, when free refills of coffee at Mary’s are but one flight of stairs away. On nights when Ms. Lucci leaves her shop with extra flowers, she leaves small bouquets on her neighbor’s doorsteps.

“Maybe I don’t see the value money-wise, but there’s a social value to being able to walk anywhere and be around people,” she said. She plans to stay put. 

Simon and Ines Cruceta used to occupy one of the second-floor apartments and would often leave fruit or dessert on Ms. Lucci’s doorstep. For nearly 16 years, the couple called the building home. Once it changed hands and their monthly rent increased to $1,650, they could no longer afford it.

“If it hadn’t been for the rent increase, we would have still been there,” said Mr. Cruceta, 51, an employee at True Value Hardware in East Hampton for the past 15 years. Ms. Cruceta, 57, who cleans houses, said, “You work only to pay the rent and pay the bills.”

The building, which sits at the corner of Newtown Lane and Railroad Avenue, dates to 1923. In the two storefronts now occupied by Mary’s Marvelous used to be Bucket’s Deli, and before that, Cavagnaro’s Bar. Elegant Touch, a nail salon, occupies the third storefront.

Besides the commercial space and second and third-floor apartments, the quarter-acre property also includes a garage and four-bedroom house in the rear. In December 2013, Newtown Railroad L.L.C., which is registered with the Department of State as a Bridgehampton-based corporation, purchased it for $5 million.

Jack and Gusty Folks, who are among its owners, refused to comment, referring to the group of buyers as “under-the-radar kind of people.”

 For the Crucetas, the hunt for a new place to live was not easy. The couple eventually moved into a more affordable complex on Springs-Fireplace Road, where they have a one-bedroom apartment costing $1,380 a month.

They miss living in town, they said, and more than that, the open-door policy among a group of year-rounders who look after each other, whether in need of a cup of milk or a beach umbrella.

One of 105 Newtown’s newer tenants, Dominique Pontecorvo, 40, moved in with her 6-year-old son in early spring. Her “cute, clean, but tiny” apartment fetches $2,000 per month. Ms. Pontecorvo, who owns a restaurant in Montauk, enjoys living in close proximity to her neighbors. Other than the lack of a washer and dryer, her only complaint concerns parking; namely, that there is none.

 She and several neighbors alternate between parking in the long-term lot or behind Suffolk County National Bank, agreeing to move their cars early each morning.

“Coming from a house, some places were asking $3,000 or more per month,” said Ms. Pontecorvo. “I like the idea of having people you live near who have your back and help you to feel safe.”

Shaye Weaver, 28, formerly occupied a third-floor unit facing Newtown Lane. A native of Atlanta, it was the first apartment she had lived in on her own. In 2011, when she moved in, it cost her $1,100 each month. John and Barbara Cavagnaro, the previous owners, would increase her yearly rent in small, predictable increments. But when new owners took over, Ms. Weaver was living paycheck to paycheck, she said, and the rent increase became too much.

Though a group of residents banded together, signing and sending a formal letter to protest the sudden increase, their pleas were unsuccessful. Ms. Weaver, who was working as a reporter for The East Hampton Press, moved for a time to an apartment in Springs. She now lives in Brooklyn and works for DNAInfo, an online news service.

Besides Christmastime on Newtown Lane, she misses the community she found there, the bouquets that Ms. Lucci would leave at her doorstep when she was racing to meet a deadline, the open-door policy of Mr. Mahar, and the dinner parties he would frequently host.

With Christmas lights he never bothered to take down and guitars perched in the corner, Mr. Mahar calls his apartment “the most bohemian spot in East Hampton Village.”

Every resident of the building, current or former, fondly recalled the sounds of the nearby Long Island Rail Road, and the distinct preferences of two conductors.

“There’s a very enthusiastic driver who roars on his horn at 4 o’clock in the morning,” said Mr. Mahar. “Another driver gives a cursory toot-toot. It feels like the Old West when you hear the train coming. It’s kind of romantic.”

No matter the nostalgia, Mr. Mahar is now on the hunt for a more affordable option. “Come January, I will be earning just enough to live here, but I will just be breaking even,” he said. “At 48, I can’t be living hand-to-mouth.”

East Hampton school officials have come out against using schools as polling sites on Election Day, calling it a major security threat, but the Suffolk County Board of Elections defended its use of schools as a practice that promotes widespread voter access.

“I find it completely unacceptable that they are allowed to hold elections here. . . . I don’t only have to worry about 900 students who could do something, I now have members of the public walking in on a constant flow from 6 a.m.,” said Adam Fine, principal of East Hampton High School, which was a polling site on Nov. 3.

His comments were made during the Nov. 4 meeting of the East Hampton School Board, and he was among a number of administrators and school board members who shared the same opinion.

In some years, the district is closed to students on Election Day, depending on the way the dates of the school calendar fall. This year, though, district officials have said it was too tight a calendar to have off on Election Day.

J.P. Foster, the school board president, and Jackie Lowey, a school board member, agreed with Mr. Fine. In fact, Mr. Foster said, East Hampton school officials refused to sign the contract earlier this school year with the Suffolk County Board of Elections to allow the high school and elementary school to be used as a polling site. “We’ve asked the board of elections to not have it here,” Mr. Foster said. “We did not have a lot of choice. This doesn’t need to happen here. There are plenty of other municipal buildings.”

However, when it comes to voting for school boards and budgets, Mr. Foster called it “a double-edged sword.” It’s a different risk, he said, because most of the time there are fewer people coming to vote in school elections than general elections. “You still have safety and security concerns that you would have to deal with,” he said. “It’s a tough one. It doesn’t eliminate the concerns, but the mainstay is the volume is way different.”

Richard Burns, the district superintendent, explained following Tuesday’s special meeting that the board of elections threatened a lawsuit if East Hampton barred voting in the district.

“We were so stymied by them,” he said. “We’re very upset by that. In an era when we’re so concerned about school safety and making every effort to keep our kids as safe as possible, having unidentified adults in the building while school is in session doesn’t make sense to us.”

However, Ms. Lowey suggested last Wednesday that “we can turn the heat up.”

“Let them take us to court,” she said.

Colorado’s Jefferson County, the state’s third-largest county, banned the use of schools as polling sites after the 1999 school shooting in Columbine. The Associated Press reported in 2014 that election officials in Greenville County, S.C., struggled to find new voting places after eight schools were removed from the list of polling sites that year. After the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012, that school district restricted community access, including use of the schools as polling sites. A presidential commission explored the issue for several months in 2013, finding that a quarter of all voters in 2008 and 2012 cast their ballots in schools. The commission collected testimony from across the nation, determining that despite security concerns, schools were the preferred polling sites “with almost no exception.”

“Schools really fit that mold on what we’re looking for. We do try to alleviate any sort of interference with the schools’ activities,” said Mark Gallo, an assistant Republican commissioner of the Suffolk County Board of Elections.

State election law gives individual boards of election the authority to designate polling sites within their jurisdictions. Mr. Gallo said schools are ideal because they are compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, because their facilities are often large enough to accommodate several voting machines and lines of voters, and because most election districts have schools within them or nearby.

“To find alternative places is a feat,” Mr. Gallo said. “Not to say that we haven’t done it before if we have a situation in a school that doesn’t work anymore, but the fact is that there are times that we can’t. It’s the best option and we don’t want to disenfranchise the voters.”

The day after Election Day, East Hampton Village police initiated a lockout in all three East Hampton school buildings when a suicidal man thought to be armed with a knife had said he was heading to the nearby Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter. Had that actually occurred on Election Day and voters were prohibited from entering the building, the local Republican and Democratic parties would have had to go to court.

“If there is a reason why a polling place is very suddenly inaccessible, if it makes it so that the voters are unable to vote, candidates will go to court and ask the judge to write an order keeping the polls open at that one polling place for whatever period of time he or she thought was appropriate, extending the time voters may vote,” Josh Price, the senior assistant Republican commissioner with the Suffolk County Board of Elections, explained.

About 60 percent of Suffolk County’s 337 polling sites are schools, among them the Wainscott School District’s original school building and the Sag Harbor School District’s Pierson Middle and High School. Stuart Rachlin, the Wainscott superintendent, said that while the old building was used for voting, children were not permitted to go there. There were no security concerns. Pierson was closed this year on Election Day for professional development for its teaching staff, but Katy Graves, Sag Harbor’s superintendent, said the district is typically open on Election Day. She said she does not have any concerns over the use of the school building as a polling site.

“One of the greatest strengths that we have as a nation is polling that is free and accessible,” she said. “School buildings are very free and accessible places.”

Despite the infusion of more than $380,000 in donations from Republican supporters, including over $100,000 in the week leading up to Election Day, East Hampton Democrats won a decisive victory on Tuesday as Supervisor Larry Cantwell, Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc, and Councilwoman Sylvia Overby defeated their Republican challengers by comfortable margins.

At the same time, the town trustees, a nine-member body, appeared to shift from a Republican to Democratic majority as Francis Bock, a former trustee, Pat Mansir, a former town councilwoman, and Richard Drew and Tyler Armstrong, first-time candidates, all running on the Democratic line, were among the top vote-getters among the 18 candidates. While absentee ballots have yet to be counted, Deborah Klughers, Brian Byrnes, and Nat Miller, incumbent trustees, appeared to have been defeated in their re-election efforts.

The Republican candidates’ pros­pects were damaged by a sharply reduced Republican voter turnout, with Tom Knobel’s results the worst showing by any candidate for town supervisor since 1999.

Mr. Cantwell and his colleagues entered Rowdy Hall in East Hampton, where Democrats had gathered to monitor the results on the Suffolk County Board of Elections’ website, around 9:30 p.m. A formal announcement would have to wait until the full count, the supervisor said, but he predicted even then that “this was an overwhelming victory for all three of us,” as a cheer erupted throughout the restaurant.

With all districts reporting, Mr. Cantwell had won 3,611 votes to 1,715 for Mr. Knobel, his challenger, a 2-to-1 margin of victory, according to unofficial results from the board of elections. Mr. Van Scoyoc and Ms. Overby won 3,146 and 2,922 votes, respectively, to the 2,178 and 2,108 votes cast for Lisa Mulhern-Larsen and Margaret Turner, the Republican challengers for town board.

A number of issues characterized the campaign, including a proposed townwide rental registry and frustration over summer mayhem in Montauk, where residents have complained about rowdy crowds and a late-night party atmosphere that has been described as chaotic bordering on anarchy.

But the East Hampton Airport, over which the town board assumed greater control this year and quickly imposed restrictions aimed at alleviating the aircraft noise, was a dominant undercurrent fueling record-breaking donations in support of Republican candidates. By Election Day, an organization called the East Hampton Leadership Council, whose only identifiable officer was a Manhattan lawyer with ties to a New Jersey helicopter charter and fractional ownership company, had spent more than $200,000 in support of Republican candidates. Its activities included a controversial door-tag campaign that Democrats complained demonstrated collusion with the Republican campaign. Republicans denied the charge. At least three-quarters of the Republican campaign committees’ war chests had come from companies and individuals with ties to the East Hampton Airport.

On Oct. 26, Democrats announced a formal complaint with the Board of Elections, alleging contributions to the East Hampton Town Republican Committee in excess of legal limits and illegal coordination between it and the East Hampton Leadership Council.

“We saw just how nasty outside money can get,” Mr. Van Scoyoc told supporters on Tuesday night. He called the election results “a reaffirmation of our community.”

“In the face of an overwhelming amount of advertising, literature, road signs . . . an endless amount of negative advertising,” Mr. Cantwell said, “the people of our community supported, overwhelmingly, leaders who they felt were honest and thoughtful and working for them.”

“We can’t be bought,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said. “We know we have something special here. We want to keep it, we want to preserve it, we want to protect it, we want to make sure that people continue to enjoy this great place.” He promised to continue to “fight hard for the people of this community as we have for the past two years on the issues that we confront.”

The atmosphere was somber at Indian Wells Tavern in Amagansett, where the Republican candidates and their supporters watched the results. Republican voter turnout was particularly low, with Mr. Knobel winning just 32 percent of the 5,502 votes counted. In the last contested race for town supervisor in 2011, by comparison, 6,791 votes were cast. In 1997, Mr. Knobel had 3,346 election night votes in a losing effort to unseat Supervisor Cathy Lester.

Prior to conceding the race, Mr. Knobel was reflective. “It’s taught me you’ve got to pick yourself up and continue to work,” he said of the campaign. “To be running for office, obviously you’ve got to be a self motivator.”

Mr. Knobel, who is chairman of the East Hampton Town Republican Committee, said he would remain active on issues including public beach access and use of the community preservation fund. “I’m not looking to be a gadfly. I’m looking to show up on issues that are of concern to myself and the public,” he said.

Ms. Turner called the final portion of the campaign “enjoyable days, because I was out knocking on doors and talking to people.” She said that affordable housing topped the concerns of the people she spoke with. “I heard that 98 percent of the time,” she said, “and a general unhappiness with the way the town is right now. People are concerned.”

On the trustee board, Francis Bock and Ms. Mansir had won the most votes, followed by Timothy Bock, an incumbent Republican, and Bill Taylor, a Democrat who won a second term. Mr. Drew and James Grimes, the latter a Republican seeking his first term, were next in the vote tally, followed by Mr. Armstrong. Two incumbent Republicans, Diane McNally, the trustees’ longtime clerk, and Sean McCaffrey, a two-term incumbent, had won the eighth and ninth most votes, respectively.

Stephen Lynch Jr. apparently fell short in his campaign for a seat on the trustee board, as did Joe Bloecker, a former trustee who had sought to regain a seat.

With 664 absentee ballots still to be counted, however, “there is still a fight to be fought next week at the board of elections,” Mr. Knobel told supporters. “Several of the trustees may or may not be elected — it’s very, very close.” Mr. Lynch, Mr. Bloecker, Mr. Miller, and Mike Havens, a first-time candidate, were between 137 and 569 votes behind Mr. Armstrong, the lowest Democratic vote-getter among the winning trustees. “We certainly want to ensure that the Republican trustees, who have been so good for so long, retain a presence there, a significant presence,” Mr. Knobel said.

But the poor Republican turnout was glaring. Stephen Lynch Sr., the incumbent superintendent of highways who ran unopposed, had 1,512 Republican votes on Tuesday, while Town Justice Lisa R. Rana, who also ran unopposed, had 1,514 Republican votes. In 2011, when they last sought office, Mr. Lynch had 2,829 Republican votes, and Ms. Rana, 2,953.

The town’s incumbent assessors, Jeanne Neilsen and Jill Massa, also won re-election, both running unopposed.

Montauk residents who watched this week as bulldozers took out sand dunes and an excavator scooped sand from along the downtown shore where the Army Corps of Engineers is building a 3,100-foot long sandbag seawall filled Town Hall on Thursday night and asked the town board to stop the project.

While construction has just gotten under way, the project is “signed, sealed, and delivered,” Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell told them. Planning has been ongoing for more than two years, with numerous public discussions, said Mr. Cantwell, who was re-elected to a second two-year term this week. “We saw little opposition to this project, frankly, over that period of time, until fairly recently,” he said.

But Sarah Conway, among other Montaukers, said she had attended meetings about the project and that “it always seemed to me that people were speaking up against the project, and questioning.“

Close to 20 speakers -- many of whom said they were unaware of the Army Corps project until they saw the work begin on the beach in earnest this week, or were alerted to it through posts on social media by James Katsipis, a Montauk photographer -- displayed strong emotion, calling the artificial sandbag dune an unacceptable project that is “destroying Montauk.” Loud and sustained applause followed most of the speakers’ comments.

“The reality of this construction project is sinking in,” Mike Martinsen told the board.

“There’s a visceral reaction happening in Montauk now, when they see the equipment on the beach,” said Thomas Muse, one of the plaintiffs, with an environmental group called Defend H2O, in a lawsuit seeking an injunction against the project. “I haven’t heard any support for it,” he said.

“I’m not a scientist . . . I don’t think it takes a scientist to know that this is a horrible idea,” Mr. Katsipis said. “They’re going to get rid of perfectly good dune to build this artificial dune that’s going to get washed away,” he said. “I don’t want to see these structures there. This isn’t Rockaway; this isn’t Long Beach.”

Although “it’s clear that it’s a little late in the game,” said Tracy Stoloff urged the board to “be brave . . . change one’s mind and hit the pause button.”

With contracts signed and a long planning and regulatory process already completed, Mr. Cantwell said there would be financial and other repercussions to the town attempting to back out now. Besides, he said, “the Army Corps is making the decisions.”

The supervisor said he and other board members were, like many in the audience, taken aback by Mr. Katsipis’s photographs of the beach work, which showed the removal of a dune at the western end of the project, near the Oceanside Motel. “I was shocked, actually,” he said. “I don’t think any of the board members anticipated . . . visually, or otherwise. . . . That’s troubling; seriously troubling.”

The dune was being removed so that the edge of the seawall can be “tied in” to the existing dune, said Mr. Cantwell; dunes are not expected to be removed all along the project’s length.

Board members, like many of the speakers, would have preferred replenishing the beach with sand to the sandbag project, he said, but that was not an option offered by the Army Corps. The beach “stabilization,” as it is termed by the Army Corps, is being done at federal expense, though the town and county will be responsible for keeping the sandbag wall covered with three feet of fresh sand.

Taking on that expense, suggested some speakers Thursday night, is fiscally irresponsible. It could cost far more than the $150,000-per-year average estimated by the Army Corps, they said.

“I’m a taxpayer; I didn’t agree to do this,” Stacey Brosnan told the board. “I don’t want to pay for this. I don’t want to pay to protect some motels that are making money.”

“Contracts can be broken,” Gail Simons said.

Ms. Conway tried to initiate a pragmatic discussion of what could be done. “It may be signed and sealed, but not delivered, and we’re asking you to stop. We’re all here, right now, that’s what we want. So let’s look at the possibilities, let’s look at the next step, and the ramifications,” she said.

“I don’t know that the town board wants to stop,” Mr. Cantwell said. “I don’t know that the town legally could stop it; that’s a question. And there are financial questions.”

“I, for one, am not in favor of stopping this project,” the supervisor said. “We have put a lot of time and energy into this. It’s the best option available at this time. It’s a short-term fix,” he said. The project is meant to be an interim measure until a full beach reconstruction is done by the Army Corps under its Fire Island to Montauk Point beach plan, which officials refer to by its initials, FIMP. Town residents and officials should put their energies toward getting that accomplished, Mr. Cantwell said.

“Bypass this plan,“ said Ms. Conway. “You’re talking about this as a short-term fix, and it’s a long-term environmental disaster. It’s an economic and environmental disaster. We can say no.”

“In the event that the board decides it is unable to be brave and hit the pause button and stop this work,” Ms. Stoloff said, “then it will be up to us to show up and link our arms to stop the work.”

After the meeting, those in attendance began to spread the word via Facebook, Instagram, and other social media that they would gather Friday morning at 6:30 a.m., to, as Mr. Katsipis wrote on Facebook, “tie our hands together and form a human chain to stop the work. . . .”

Two more protestors were arrested Monday morning after breaching the oceanfront work zone on Montauk's downtown beach, where contractors for the Army Corps are building a sandbag seawall along an almost two-thirds-of-a-mile stretch.

Bess Rattray and Lisa Spellman walked onto the sand at just after 8 a.m. and descended into a pit already dug by an excavator working nearby. A construction foreman who asked them to leave called police when the two ignored his order. They were arrested several minutes later for disorderly conduct (refusing to disperse), taken to the Montauk police substation, and issued tickets ordering them to appear in court on Nov 18. Ms. Rattray's brother is the editor of The East Hampton Star.

The quiet and orderly protest was part of an ongoing campaign by opponents of the $8.4 million Army Corps project who say the line of 14,560, 1.7-ton sandbags will, through wave action and erosion, result in loss of the natural beach.

Several dozen protestors hit the beach on Friday after a dune was excavated earlier in the week, preventing contractors from starting work. James Katsipis and Sarah Conway of Montauk, and Tom LaGrassa of Sag Harbor were arrested, also on disorderly conduct charges.

Yesterday, a crowd of several hundred gathered on the downtown beach as surfers paddled out to form a "line of defense" against the seawall project.

Additional acts of civil disobedience are expected in the coming days, and opponents are planning to show up in force at a meeting of the East Hampton Town board on Tuesday, to be held at the Montauk Playhouse Community Center beginning at 10 a.m.

Monday morning, East Hampton Town Police Chief Michael Sarlo posted a message on Facebook regarding the Montauk protest arrests. In it, he said, "the mutual respect and cooperation being exhibited is admirable. We are proud of our department members, and we are proud of the community we serve that such a relationship exists."

"Our thanks go out to the polite and courteous people who have turned out to voice their concerns and opposition. An issue as important as our most vital natural resources is certainly worthy of the passion and commitment being shown," he said.

This article has been updated to include the new meeting place for the town board meeting on Tuesday. It had been scheduled for the Montauk Firehouse, but was since moved to the Montauk Playhouse Community Center.

Kathy Amicucci, East Hampton High School's new varsity softball coach, says she is looking forward to meeting the team, developing a culture of hard work, and playing some good softball this coming spring.

Ms. Amicucci was appointed by the East Hampton School Board on Nov. 4. The board once again hired Nicole Fierro, a standout East Hampton alumna who has also coached soccer here, as the team's assistant coach, and hired Molly Nolan, another former Bonac softball star and the school's current jayvee volleyball coach, as the jayvee softball coach. Their appointments were unanimous.

Some in the community have continued to push for the reinstatement of the former varsity coach, Lou Reale, who has said he was pressured to resign. Ms. Amicucci, who coached the Pierson High School jayvee softball team in 2007 and 2009, said by phone on Monday that she did not know anything about the situation with Mr. Reale, and thinks it is better that way.

"The bonus is, it's a completely new, fresh start, and that's what I'm looking forward to," she said. "We can say, that happened, and now let's go play ball. The girls can ask me a million questions about it, and my answer will be, 'I don't know. Let's focus on moving forward.'"

Ms. Amicucci played two seasons of softball at Bergen Community College in New Jersey, where she was a first baseman and an outfielder, in 1998 and 2000. A broken leg caused her to take a year off in between. She finished a degree in psychology from William Paterson University in Wayne, N.J., and moved to Springs 12 years ago. She has a son, 7, at the Springs School, where she previously worked as a substitute teacher before accepting a position at Picket Fences Day Care in East Hampton earlier this year. Ms. Amicucci plays on the Provisions team in the East Hampton Women's Softball League.

"I'm looking forward to being in the East Hampton program, maintaining enthusiasm, and just getting the girls excited to play and work hard," she said, adding that she likes "watching kids learn things."

"I like being a part of kids' learning, whether it's at the day care or up at the high school. . . . Just watching them 'get it' is very satisfying."

Joe Vasile-Cozzo, East Hampton's athletic director, said that Ms. Amicucci "came highly recommended" from Pierson.

"We spoke a long time and I thought that she was a good fit. I'm very happy to have her on board,"

A Sagaponack man questioned by police and then arrested after the disappearance of his wife last month proclaimed his innocence this week and said he believes she is still alive.

Lilia Aucapina, 40, was reported missing on Oct. 10, a little more than 12 hours after her husband, Carlos R. Aucapina, allegedly met her and a man she was with, Angel Tejada, in the parking lot of the Meeting House Lane Medical Practice in Wainscott. Police said there was an altercation between the two men, and that Ms. Aucapina did not get involved. Still, police said, the incident was a violation of a court order of protection she had against her husband.

Mr. Aucapina said he had provided the police with a full accounting of his whereabouts in the immediate aftermath of his last meeting with his wife.

He is a freelance carpenter, and after leaving the Wainscott parking lot, he went to pick up his work truck and met with several clients throughout the day, he said by phone yesterday.

The first sign that something was wrong, he said, was when his wife failed to pick up their 14-year-old daughter at 11 a.m. The girl was playing field hockey in Sag Harbor.

The couple’s 21-year-old son, Ronald Aucapina, reported his mother missing at about 9:30 that night. “Her car ends up in the driveway of her house, with her pocketbook and keys inside,” said Colin Astarita, Mr. Aucapina’s attorney.

Also troubling, he said, were the final two text messages that she sent to each of her children from her phone, telling them to always remember “that mommy loves you,” Mr. Astarita said. The phone has not been found.

While no crime could be proven, police immediately treated Mr. Aucapina as a suspect in his wife’s disappearance, Mr. Astarita said. They picked him up for questioning an hour after receiving the call from her son.

Ms. Aucapina was granted an order of protection against her husband in family court in Riverside just days before her disappearance, but Mr. Aucapina contends that the two were not in the process of getting a divorce, as had been previously reported. His wife had asked for the order, and he had consented to it, he said, because she needed “more space.” Mr. Aucapina was questioned throughout the night following his wife’s disappearance and into the morning, before he was finally placed under arrest, charged in Southampton with an earlier alleged violation of the order of protection, for driving by her house. Mr. Astarita said that the Aucapinas had agreed that the husband would move out of their house on Topping Lane, and into a house owned by a friend next door. He said the charge should never have been brought, since it was not possible for Mr. Aucapina to drive to and from work without passing his family’s house next door.

Mr. Aucapina’s truck, his car, and his trailer with his tools in it were seized by police, Mr. Astarita said, and have not been returned.

After being charged, he was arraigned on Oct. 11 in Southampton Town Justice Court, where bail was initially set at $15,000. It was Columbus Day weekend, and, according to Blanca Aucapina, Mr. Aucapina’s sister, who was also at the attorney’s office with him on Tuesday, the family could not immediately raise the money for bail.

Mr. Aucapina spent the next few days in county jail in Riverside, with East Hampton Town police obtaining a warrant on a second charge of violating the order of protection, this stemming from the alleged incident in Wainscott on Oct. 10. After his bail in Southampton was reduced, at the request of Mr. Astarita, to $10,000, and posted, Mr. Aucapina was then turned over to East Hampton Town police. He was arraigned on the second charge a week after his wife’s disappearance.

"We got him; let’s find the body” was the attitude of the police, Mr. Astarita said.

Mr. Aucapina posted bail at the East Hampton Town Justice Court after his arraignment and was released, having spent a week in jail.

Police have mounted manhunts for Ms. Aucapina using K-9 units, helicopters, and even harbor patrol, searching 200 wooded acres near the couple’s house, among other places, to no avail.

"I believe in my gut that Lilia is still alive,” Mr. Aucapina said Tuesday in his lawyer’s office.

He and his wife, who originally come from Cuenca, Ecuador, have been married for 21 years. They were members of the Ministerio Restauracion a las Naciones church in Southampton. Ms. Aucapina was described by both her husband and her family as very religious. Both said she had never disappeared or gone off alone before.

"She has been a very dedicated wife and mother,” Mr. Aucapina said.

Their extended families were very close. That day in the parking lot in Wainscott, Mr. Aucapina had even called his wife’s brother, Carlos Parra, who joined him there.

Mr. Tejada had told police that Ms. Aucapina had spent the night with him before the confrontation in Wainscott. He told them that Mr. Aucapina knew about his friendship with Ms. Aucapina, which he described as “close.” Mr. Aucapina denied this, but said he was aware the two were friends on Facebook. Mr. Aucapina said his wife had four Facebook accounts.

According to him, it was Mr. Tejada, who is from Guatemala, who was the aggressor, challenging him to a fight.

Since Oct. 10, a divide has opened between Mr. Aucapina and his wife’s family. That, Mr. Astarita said, is one of the reasons his client consented to take a polygraph test at Suffolk County Police headquarters in Yaphank on Monday.

It is his hope that the two families can work together to find the missing woman. He has released several new images of his wife, and said he will request that a bilingual detective be assigned to the case. “Lilia’s close friends speak Spanish and little English,” he said.

Results of the polygraph, which are not admissible in court, are expected to be available by Monday.

"I feel powerless,” Mr. Aucapina said. “I want to do something myself to search for my wife. I want to do more.”

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“Not great” was, in short, the disappointing assessment of the bay scallop harvest in the first days of the season, which commenced in New York State waters on Monday.

A survey of those in the know, including baymen and seafood retailers, pointed to a slow start to the hotly anticipated delicacy’s harvest, which is authorized in state waters on the first Monday of November. Waters under the jurisdiction of the East Hampton Town Trustees will open to the harvesting of scallops on the coming Monday.

“Horrible,” was Kelly Lester’s assessment, speaking from her family’s scallop house on Abraham’s Path in Amagansett at midday Tuesday. “No one has gotten their limit.” The state’s Department of Environmental Conservation sets a limit of 10 bushels per day for holders of commercial permits and 20 bushels per boat. In trustee waters, the limit for commercial permittees is five bushels per day.

Whatever the reason for the scarcity of scallops, Ms. Lester said, “something is not right.” Danny Lester, her brother, called the first day’s take in the state waters of Northwest Harbor “not that great,” compared to last year.

Amanda Hayward, who scallops with her father, Jim Hayward, owner of Commander Cody’s Seafood on Shelter Island, said that they too harvested fewer scallops on Monday than on the first day of last year’s season. “But they are out there,” Ms. Hayward said. “You’ve just got to work a little extra to get them.”

Barley Dunne, director of the town’s shellfish hatchery, had a mixed appraisal of the harvest’s first days. The extreme cold and ice of last winter, he said, led to poor survival rates of the shellfish he and his team seed in local waters, in contrast with the previous year.

That said, “I saw quite a few boats in Northwest” on Monday, which Mr. Dunne called a positive indicator, and he personally harvested a bushel in little more than an hour while snorkeling off Noyac on Tuesday, reporting a high density of the bivalves there. “It sounds like it’s spotty — just a few spots where it’s worth dredging,” he said. “I don’t think it’s going to be as stellar as last year, but I don’t think it will be a total loss either.”

In town waters, Napeague Harbor “looks pretty sparse,” Mr. Dunne said, “but the gulls are finding them — they’re dropping them on our barge.” He said that he had seen “a fair amount” in Three Mile Harbor in East Hampton, and has heard anecdotes pointing to a healthy harvest there. “But I don’t think any place is necessarily carpeted like in the last few years.”

Bay scallop sales were “not a lot” as of Monday evening at the Seafood Shop in Wainscott, said Alex Fausto. While some 40 bushels, harvested from Orient Harbor and Peconic Bay, were waiting to be shucked, Mr. Fausto estimated the sale of about 40 pounds’ worth, a figure he said was less than half of a first day’s take in previous years.

More inquiries had come on Sunday, the first of the month, Mr. Fausto said, which he believed stemmed from confusion as to the date that scallops could be harvested. “It’s not like previous years,” he said, but added that “last year was kind of quiet at the beginning, then we got more and more” buyers.

“They’re very scarce,” said Charlotte Sasso of Stuart’s Seafood Market in Amagansett on Tuesday. The market was due to receive its first delivery of bay scallops, from the North Fork, on Tuesday night. “Everybody is so hungry for them,” Ms. Sasso said of her customers, but early reports were “not promising.”

Bay scallops would be available as of yesterday morning, she said, “and we’ll have them regularly as best we can, whatever we have to do.”

The harvesting season ends on March 31, though both the D.E.C. and the trustees extended the season through April this past year to accommodate harvesters whose income had been affected by the harsh winter conditions.

“People will get their scallops, but I don’t think it’s going to sustain itself into the New Year like a few years ago,” Mr. Dunne said. “These things are naturally cyclical, so we might be in a bit of a trough. Hopefully it will pick up again next year or the year after.”

With Reporting by Taylor K. Vecsey

A fire ripped through one of the buildings at Hartman’s Briney Breezes Motel in Montauk early Friday morning, but firefighters stopped flames from spreading to other buildings in the complex and those next door.

The East Hampton Town fire marshal’s office ruled the cause accidental, blaming it on electrical malfunction caused by a loose connection at the pole.

“It was a very violent, very fast incident,” said Tom Baker, a fire marshal who was on the scene to investigate. There was no one inside the rooms on the first floor or second floor, where the fire began. “If this was Fourth of July weekend, depending on the number of people in the fire room, people would not have been able to get out,” Mr. Baker said.

He said a groundskeeper was asleep with his wife in a legal basement apartment when a sound woke him up. “He said it sounded like someone was dragging something very heavy. He jumped out of bed, looked out the window, and saw the flames above him.”

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The groundskeeper called 911 at 4:25 a.m. as he ran to the nearby house of the owner, John Hartman, who also called 911.

When Montauk Fire Department first responders arrived at the Old Montauk Highway complex, the two-story building was engulfed in flames, according to Chief Joe Lenahan. He knew it was bad even from a distance away. “When I crested Flamingo Hill on the other end of town, I could see the flames,” he said.

With the groundskeeper and his wife out and no guests staying in that building, firefighters turned their attention to evacuating the other motel buildings. About 10 people were found and taken to a safe place on the west side of the complex.

The roof was already on fire. Firefighters poured water on it from both the ground and from ladder trucks. The chief called for additional help from the Amagansett Fire Department’s rapid intervention team, brought in to back up interior firefighters, and the East Hampton Fire Department, which brought its tanker and aerial ladder truck. Tankers from Amagansett and Springs were also brought in. There were at least 120 firefighters in total, the chief said.

Firefighters worked hard to prevent the flames from spreading to other buildings, both in the complex and next door. The building ablaze, the second on the east side of the complex, is near several other commercial structures and on a sloping site overlooking the ocean.

Engine companies and water supply trucks were also given the task of protecting the nearby buildings, which were in danger thanks to a strong westerly wind. The flames burned hedges and bushes on that side, but there was no damage to any other buildings. “It was a great stop,” the chief said. “Everybody did an incredible job.”

The fire was fully extinguished in about an hour. Firefighters remained on the scene another hour looking for pockets of flame. No injuries were reported.

After sifting through the debris, Mr. Baker found a couple of burned electrical outlets on the second floor and then discovered that one of the refrigerators in the efficiency rooms had a hole in the back, caused by what he believes to be a “drop neutral,” a term for when the voltage fails to divide into electrical breaks. Appliances that only get 110 volts electricity, for example, would end up with 220 volts. “It really just blew this refrigerator apart,” he said.

Early in his investigation, he said he noticed “a glow” coming from the top of the electrical pole at the street. It turned out to be a small fire caused by a loose connection, he said, which is not uncommon, particularly down on the Old Highway along the water, due to the wind.

Jeffrey Weir, a spokesman for PSEG-Long Island, said that the electrical company was unaware of any issues at the pole. “On the night of the fire, we responded and made it safe for the fire department to extinguish the fire,” he said. “Service is still running and providing electricity to parts of the complex there that were not impacted by the fire, and when we receive the report from the fire marshal, we will investigate.”

A hotel manager declined to comment, and a message left for the owner was not returned.

Mr. Baker said the groundskeeper and the motel workers had not reported any malfunctions, such as lights flickering or a strange odor, leading up to the fire. In fact, the electricity in the groundskeeper’s apartment continued to function. However, Mr. Baker noted, “dropped neutrals can happen fast.”

The first two floors of the building were destroyed, and with the basement suffering water damage, the building will likely be torn down, according the fire marshal. “There’s not much there to save,” he said.