The Suffolk County district attorney’s office has subpoenaed documents related to East Hampton Town’s $10.1 million community preservation fund purchase last year of 19 acres called Amagansett Farm, Supervisor Larry Cantwell confirmed yesterday.

Mr. Cantwell said the town was complying with the request, but that he had received no further information about the D.A.’s inquiry.

The property, along Montauk Highway in Amagansett, was targeted for an extensive market-rate housing development that was opposed by many community members and was derailed when the town purchased 19 of the parcel’s 24 acres.

“It was certainly a good purchase,” Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, the town board liaison on community preservation fund matters, said yesterday. “It was wanted by the community, and it certainly took off a zone-busting proposal.”

The Putnam Bridge company of Connecticut had proposed a 79-unit complex with units going for upwards of $1 million, and sought to have the town create a new senior citizens housing zoning district to accommodate the plan. Numerous community residents banded together to oppose the idea, which was counter to town zoning.

The property has a large barn set up as a stable and was to be leased by the town for agricultural use to an entity or entities chosen by the town board from among several that responded to a request for proposals last year.

Proposals have been under review by a committee that will report to the town board, and were reportedly narrowed down to two. Officials have said that negotiations between the two entities regarding a shared use of the land have been ongoing.

But, Mr. Cantwell said yesterday, the D.A.’s request complicates the matter, and “throws cold water” on a pending lease deal.

The town’s purchase of the barn along with the land is problematic in the eyes of New York State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., an author of the law creating the preservation fund and the 2-percent real estate transfer tax that supports it.

“What I’ve always said . . . is don’t buy buildings,” the Assemblyman said yesterday. “It doesn’t fit into the program.”

  The fund is earmarked for the preservation of open space, recreation, farm and, and historic structures, and Mr. Thiele said it should not be used for buildings unless they are historic, or are to be torn down in order to return a site to its natural state.

At an April 25 meeting last year, several weeks before East Hampton closed on the land, a regional community preservation fund opinions bureau, established to review questions regarding use of the fund, discussed purchases of parcels with buildings on them. According to Mr. Thiele, the group agreed with his stance, reiterating an opinion that “towns should not be purchasing buildings,” according to minutes.

However, Mr. Cantwell pointed out, the minutes also state that “an accessory building to agriculture is acceptable,” though state agriculture and markets law might apply.

“There’s no prohibition against the town acquiring land with buildings on them,” he said.

The advisory opinion bureau had discussed issuing a written opinion on the issue last year, Mr. Thiele said. 

That “would have been appropriate at that time,” Mr. Cantwell said.

A formal opinion may yet be issued, said Mr. Thiele.

Either way, said the assemblyman, whether the cost of the building should be covered by the land fund or not, East Hampton Town’s purchase of the Amagansett Farm site is not a misuse of the fund, nor a criminal matter for the D.A.

“I doubt there’s any relation to the D.A.’s subpoena,” he said of the barn issue.

The state comptroller, in a standard audit of the town, might weigh in, he said, and ask the town to repay the land fund for the cost of the building alone, but “it’s not a criminal issue.” Rather, Mr. Thiele said, “It’s an honest disagreement, or difference of opinion,” regarding the preservation fund’s mandate.

“Throughout the history of the program, there have always been issues of interpretation that come up,” he said. “If the town has a different opinion, and the comptroller agrees with them, that’s fine.”

Should there be a determination that the barn should not be a part of the preservation fund purchase, Mr. Cantwell said the town could reimburse the C.P.F. for its cost, or the barn could be demolished.

Several of those seeking to rent the property had floated the idea of a varied use of the building, for community events or rental office space, for example. At a town board meeting last week, Elaine Jones, whose property and farmstand is near the Amagansett Farm site, suggested the town move its senior citizens center, now housed in an aging building on Springs-Fireplace Road, to the farm building instead.

But Ms. Overby said yesterday that activities unrelated to agriculture would not be allowed.

Prior to acquiring the property, the town board had discussed the existence of the building and determined that it could be purchased along with the land, and used, if associated with the agricultural use of the site.

“I feel very confident that this was a really good purchase,” she said. “We asked all the right questions beforehand.”

With time running out before the busy summer season, an $8.4 million sandbag project planned for the Montauk oceanfront has been postponed. East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said on Thursday that the United States Army Corps told him that work could begin in October.

The Army Corps awarded the job in March to a Bay Shore company. It is intended to protect about 10 privately owned parcels, most of them motels and condominium residences. The work would involve as many as 14,560 plastic-fabric bags, each filled with about a ton of sand trucked in from an inland mine.

Money for building the seawall-like structure comes from a Congressional authorization bill passed following 2012's Hurricane Sandy. The cost of maintaining the completed structure and keeping it covered with sand would be shared by the Town of East Hampton and Suffolk County.

Defend H20, an environmental group, has been joined by several individuals challenging the legality of the project in court. They say that town and state law prohibits the use of sandbags for an indefinite period, as proposed by the Army Corps. Their action could put an October start in doubt.

Before the latest delay was announced, the town and Army Corps had planned to undertake the 3,100-foot-long project in two phases. An initial eastern portion was to have started in the spring and be finished by May 21, with the balance completed in the fall.

According to Army Corps project specifications, the sandbags would be placed in a sloped configuration, rising to about 16 feet above sea level and requiring elevated walkways for access to the beach. Sand mostly trucked in from elsewhere would be used to cover the bags and extend into what is presently water at high tide.

A dump truck fire on Sunrise Highway in the Westhampton area has closed the highway to all eastbound traffic.

Southampton Town issued an alert at about 2:20 p.m. announcing the road closure. The town said traffic would be re-routed at County Route 111 and C.R. 31. It was unclear whether the fire was caused by an accident. 

Westbound traffic was moving normally. 

The New York State police are handling the investigation, according to Southampton Town police dispatchers. No further information was available. 

Check back for information when the road is back open.

A motorcyclist and his passenger were seriously injured at 4:35 p.m. Sunday when the motorcycle struck a turning Chevy Tahoe on Montauk Highway in Bridgehampton.

The accident occurred as the sports utility vehicle, traveling east on the highway, was making a left turn onto Norris Lane, which is to the east of the Ocean Road and Sag Harbor-Bridgehampton Turnpike intersection. The motorcycle, traveling west, struck the side of the car. The Bridgehampton Fire Department ambulance and the Sag Harbor Volunteer Ambulance Corps were called to the scene.

The driver of the motorcycle was taken to Stony Brook University Hospital by helicopter, which landed on a playing field at the Bridgehampton School. The passenger, a female, was taken to Brookhaven Memorial Hospital, the nearest trauma center that can be reached by road. Their names and ages were not immediately reported.

The highway was still closed to traffic in both directions from the Ocean Road and Sag Harbor Bridgehampton Turnpike intersection to Poxabogue Road at 6:30 p.m.    

The Ross School student who was reported missing along with her mother after family members didn't hear from them for three weeks has been found safe in New York City, according to police.

Southold Town police issued a brief statement early Monday morning that said the New York City Police Department had reported finding the Greenport residents, 14-year-old Emily Costello and her mother Iona Costello, in "good health" at about 3 a.m. "No further investigation needed at the time," the statement said. 

Their location was not disclosed, nor were any further details about why they had been out touch with family, including Ms. Costello's mother on Shelter Island. However, New York City media reported they were found on the Upper West Side. 

Police had been trying to locate the pair since Tuesday when family members reported them missing. They had not been seen or heard from since March 30, when, according to family members they went into Manhattan to see some shows. The family thought mother and daughter went on a trip during Emily's school vacation, but when she failed to report back to the Ross School in East Hampton on Tuesday, a missing person report was filed with Southold Town police.

A car belonging to Ms. Costello, 51, was found in a parking garage on 42nd Street in New York City on Wednesday night. No foul play was ever expected, according to police. 

The Costellos are well known on the East End. Ms. Costello's husband, George David Costello Sr., was a partner in Costello Marine Contracting in Greenport before he died of a heart attack two years ago. 

The Costello family could not be immediately reached for comment Monday morning. 

A second round of bids by mobile food purveyors for the exclusive right to set up at prime East Hampton Town-owned sites, including the ocean beaches, was due today, after the first round was thrown out due to irregularities and omissions in a number of submissions.

Food trucks with required town peddling and Suffolk County Health Department permits may circulate to various places, with the length of stay at any one site limited. But those who wish to sell exclusively at such popular spots as Ditch Plain or Indian Wells Beach, must bid on and be selected to lease the particular site.

One aspiring food truck chef appeared before the town board on April 14 to ask for a waiver from the town law that limits the length of food trucks to 22 feet. Shawn Christman of Montauk told the board he is trying to get a new business, Sea Bean Mobile Catering, off the ground. But, he said, his new  truck is almost 23/4 feet longer than the maximum.  Mr. Christman and his attorney, Carl Irace, asked the board not to hold him to that standard.

Although Mr. Christman spoke as if he had won the bid for a concession site at Ditch, Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell corrected him, saying no contracts had yet been awarded.

“I’m personally not comfortable waiving a law to give preference to your client,” the supervisor told Mr. Irace. The issue, he said, aside from “the length of a parking space versus the length of a vehicle,” is that there “are other people competing for that same space who conform.”

“This is one of the few ways young chefs have to start a business,” Mr. Christman said, noting the overhead in establishing a restaurant and his status as a local who is starting a family.

“I’m not unsympathetic,” Mr. Cantwell said. But, he said, there had to be an “even playing field,” and others who submitted bids for the vending spots complied with the criteria. “Are you suggesting that we award a bid based on a law that your client falls outside of?” he asked Mr. Irace, “. . . arbitrarily deciding that doesn’t apply?”

Nevertheless, the board agreed to a field trip to see conditions at the Ditch parking lot after its meeting, which took place at the Montauk Firehouse. While parking there, Mr. Cantwell said Tuesday, is too tight to accommodate a longer vending truck, there may be other designated areas that could. But while a change to the 22-foot maximum truck length could be contemplated by the board, it would require a change to local law, he said, and would take some time. The current round of concession bidding will continue under the rules in place, he said.

The East Hampton Village Board will hold public hearings on May 15 on proposed amendments aimed at reining in outsized houses, accessory structures, and lot coverage, as well as basement living areas. All of the zoning code amendments were proposed in response to concerns relayed by the village’s historic preservation consultant and code enforcement officer.

Earlier this month, Robert Hefner, the village’s historic preservation consultant, warned the board of a trend toward burgeoning gross floor area and lot coverage on the larger parcels in many neighborhoods, and the possibility, under the present code, of still larger houses and coverage. In order to maintain a sense of proportion and the character that has developed in those neighborhoods over 350 years, Mr. Hefner recommended a graduated formula for lots larger than one acre, aimed at restraining construction or reconstruction projects that produce massive houses and numerous accessory structures, swimming pools, or tennis courts.

Similarly, cellars have begun to extend beyond the footprint of many houses’ ground-floor levels, Ken Collum, the village’s code enforcement officer, warned the board in February, adding additional habitable space, and density, sometimes at multiple levels.

The proposed amendments will revise the gross-floor-area limits of houses and accessory structures as well as lot-coverage limits, relating the maximum allowable to the size of the lot on which they are situated. Also to be added is a definition for “cellar” to state that it cannot exceed the exterior face of the wall of any building’s first-floor level.

With no comment from the public, the board voted unanimously Friday to institute new fees for a number of violations. Minimum fines pertaining to beaches, garage sales, noise, peace and good order, peddling and soliciting, littering, streets and sidewalks, and zoning will now increase after failure to pay for 30, 60, and 90 days.

The amendments, for such violations as failure to contain a beach fire in the proper receptacle or to clean up after a dog, for example, or the posting of illegal garage sale or real estate signs give the village the ability to follow up on unpaid summonses. Under the new laws, the village can prosecute a summons when someone fails to appear in court. The violation would previously have been dismissed.

Also as expected, the board voted to grant a sanitary easement to Starbucks so that the septic system at its Main Street location can be upgraded. Starbucks, like a number of other buildings along Main Street, has a septic system under the Reutershan parking lot that predates the village’s acquisition of that property as a municipal lot.

At a meeting held last month at Village Hall, representatives of the coffee chain told Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. and the board that because of planned interior modifications to increase storage space, the Suffolk County Department of Health Services is requiring a septic system upgrade. The work will likely be done in the fall.

The mayor ended the meeting by expressing the board’s support for the East Hampton Town Board’s vote, taken the previous evening, to enact an overnight curfew at East Hampton Airport, from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., to extend that curfew from 8 p.m. to 9 a.m. for planes in a “noisy aircraft” category, and to limit such aircraft to one takeoff and one landing per week from May through September. 

The board “is in accord with the resolutions that were passed by our colleagues at the town board level,” the mayor said. He called the measures “a work in progress,” but said that “we support the initial action, and it will continue to be monitored. We’ll see how it goes.”

After being without a permanent pastor for nearly two years, Calvary Baptist Church in East Hampton officially welcomed its new pastor, the Rev. Walter Silva Thompson Jr., with three days of special events culminating with an installation service on Saturday.

Mr. Thompson has been acting minister at the church since December.

According to Saturday’s program, Mr. Thompson has served as pastor at Morning Star Baptist Church in Jamaica, Queens, Calvary Baptist Church of Pittsburgh, and Mount Calvary Baptist Church in Springfield, Mass. He has also studied, lectured, and preached at the Ecumenical Institute at Chateau de Bossey in Switzerland, the University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica, the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, and the Buenos Aires School of Theology in Argentina, and has been a faculty member of the Congress of Christian Education both in the United States and in Germany.

The pastor holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Eastern University in Pennsylvania, and a Master of Divinity in practical theology from Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, also in Pennsylvania.

Here in East Hampton, Mr. Thompson may be recognizable to the broader community from Calvary Baptist’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. celebration in January, when he delivered a moving address urging those in attendance to remember King’s message and to “join in a cause of transformation in our own community. . . .”

He is a founding member of Empowered Queens United in Action and Leadership, and is a member of the National Association of Black Seminarians, the American Baptist Association, and the National Baptist Convention.

More than a dozen pastors from New York and Long Island joined in the installation service at Calvary Baptist on Saturday. Among them were the Rev. Dr. H.G. McGhee of the First Baptist Church in Bridgehampton, the Rev. Michael Jackson of Triune Baptist Church in Sag Harbor, the Rev. Dr. Connie Jones of Calvary Baptist, and Donald E. Butler of Community Baptist Church in Southampton.

The Suffolk County Water Authority hit an abandoned gas line, causing a gas leak while working on Toilsome Lane in East Hampton Village on Thursday morning.

East Hampton Fire Department Chief Richard Osterberg Jr. said the water authority workers were digging a hole to connect service for a house at 75 Toilsome Lane being built when they "sheered off" a one-inch gas line. The fire department was called at about 10:50 a.m. 

Firefighters responded with an engine, pumper truck, and the heavy rescue truck, which has specialized equipment, like gas clamps, to help remedy gas leaks. While Chief Osterberg was on his way to the call, he came upon a National Grid crew working on an ongoing problem on Dunemere Lane, and asked them to respond to the gas leak on Toilsome Lane. 

National Grid repaired the leak within a half-hour, during which time the fire department stoodby. 

Toilsome Lane between Wireless Road and Montauk Highway had already been shut down while the water authority was working, so traffic was not further disrupted when the gas leak occurred. 

At about the same time as the gas leak was reported, the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association was called to Railroad Avenue in the village for a separate incident in which a worker amputated his finger. That patient was medevaced to Stony Brook University Hospital. No further information was immediately available on how the injury occurred. 

This article has been updated to include numbers from the Springs School, whose administrators had not returned calls as of press time last week.

The test refusal movement has picked up momentum on the South Fork, with the number of students refusing to take the English language arts state tests in local schools this week up dramatically from last year.

The numbers vary widely by district and worry some school officials who are concerned that the state and federal money their districts receive based on test participation may now be in jeopardy.

The range of refusals goes from 2 students in Amagansett to 62 in East Hampton and 138 in Sag Harbor — up from either no refusals or just a handful this time last year.

State law requires school districts to administer the standardized tests to at least 95 percent of the students in third through eighth grades in order to be eligible for state funding. According to data reported by school administrators, that was not the case in many of the districts between Bridgehampton and Mon­­tauk.

“I was unhappy that there was such a flurry, especially in the middle school,” Richard Burns, superintendent of the East Hampton School District, said on Tuesday. “I’m not really sure what caused that . . . but I’m very concerned about funding. This year 9.3 percent of eligible students opted out of the test in East Hampton.

“We’re going to have to hold our breath to see what our governor and the New York State Department of Education have to say,” said Katy Graves, superintendent of the Sag Harbor School District, where 28.2 percent of students opted out. “We don’t know what that impact would be,” she added.

"Our job is to make sure we follow the regulations that the state provides us," Eric Casale the Springs School principal, said on Thursday. Referring to a potential loss of funding, he added, "I can’t worry about things that are out of my control at this point. . . . It would be hard for us to speculate what they’re thinking up in Albany." Seventeen percent of the Springs School's eligible students, or 79 students, did not take the tests. Last year, the number opting out was closer to 20 or 25, Mr. Casale said.

In Bridgehampton 22.4 percent opted out of the tests. In Montauk, it was 17.3 percent and in Amagansett 3.2 percent. 

While the numbers in most local districts were higher than last year, they did not reach the peaks that other districts in western Suffolk County and Nassau County experienced. In the Three Village Central School District, for instance, a school representative said 49 percent of the children refused the tests. In the Rockville Centre School District 60.5 percent of students opted out, according to Newsday. In Patchogue-Medford, Newsday data shows, 65.8 percent of students opted out, and The Washington Post reported that 82 percent of eligible students opted out in the Comsewogue School District.

In Sag Harbor, a forum held last Thursday night at the Old Whalers Church saw members of the Teachers Association of Sag Harbor explain to a crowd of about 40 people that the tests are part of a wider range of issues in modern public education.

Jim Kinnier, a high school math teacher and president of the association, said that refusing the state tests is the “last strategy” he sees to get the attention of state education officials.

He said he believes it’s wrong to tie 50 percent of teacher evaluations to student test scores, and that he believes the tests are flawed in a major way. While he liked some parts of the Common Core curriculum, he said, particularly the geometry, he believes its implementation was flawed and that the content of the tests does not correspond to the actual ability levels of the students. Mr. Kinnier also believes Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is using the tests — and the supposed failing schools and teachers he anticipates they will identify — as an attempt to mold public schools into charter schools. Those, he said, have not proven to be more effective than the traditional public schools.

“In my view, to let your children take the tests is to endorse the governor’s efforts to make public schools be like charter schools,” Mr. Kinnier said. “I don’t want to be here either, I don’t want to have this opinion, but I only see two possibilities. Either sit here and take it, or do this.”

At that forum, many parents said they chose to opt-out their children because they object to the Common Core curriculum, the national standards on which the tests are based, and because the tests cause so much anxiety for the kids.

Dawn Dunn, whose son refused the sixth-grade test in Springs, said she realized last year that the “hours of homework” he was bringing home every day were all for test preparation. “I felt that much of my child’s education was being wasted, and the teachers were teaching toward a test that they never get to see,” Ms. Dunn said yesterday. “The tests are really useless, and they’re abusive. I’m hoping that they rid us of these types of state tests. I’m all for testing children, but these are ridiculous.”

She also said she was opposed to the tests being used to evaluate the teachers.

“That’s not a great way to evaluate a teacher. Every child is different, and every class is different. I would also like to see the whole Common Core curriculum be reworked into something more recognizable by parents.”

By Tuesday, when it came time for the tests, more than 28 percent of Sag Harbor children had refused them. Ms. Graves said she was not surprised by the outcome.

“I think our teachers are very well respected here in the district, and our parents do listen,” she said yesterday. “I think this was really more about our parents supporting our teachers.”

She did agree with some of the viewpoints that others have expressed: Tying such a big percentage of test scores to teacher evaluations is unfair, she agreed, and the legislation passed alongside the state budget means a loss of local control.

But Ms. Graves lamented the loss of a tool she said was helpful in showing that Sag Harbor is a high-achieving district. On last year’s English language arts state test, out of the 64 school districts within Eastern Suffolk BOCES, Sag Harbor’s seventh-graders ranked third, fifth-graders ranked fourth, and the eighth-graders ranked fifth.

“These were always about taking a look at how our curriculum is doing . . . and how we’re moving along implementing the curriculum in our district,” Ms. Graves said. “They were never used to evaluate a specific teacher or the children in particular. It was the only measurement that we had that looked across the whole state. For Sag Harbor, we’ve lost that standardized measurement.”

But other school officials are not so concerned with losing that measurement. Bridgehampton’s superintendent, Lois Favre, and Amagansett’s superintendent, Eleanor Tritt, said their school districts have built in other methods of finding out how their students are progressing.

Some also say the testing system is flawed because results from one school year typically come after the following school year has already started.

“The state test simply tells us how we as a teaching team are progressing with the new standards,” said Ms. Favre, whose district saw 15 out of 67 eligible students refuse the test on Tuesday. “Data provided with regard to individual student performance from the state is generally too late to the party for any planning we need to do to begin instruction appropriately each September.”

Still, in Amagansett, where only two students refused the tests on Tuesday, Ms. Tritt agreed with those who have said the tests may not be valid due to their content.

“The tests should be used only for the purpose they were designed for,” she said. “They were not designed to evaluate staff, they were designed to assess student learning . . . and there are better ways to assess children than on a single state test that may not be reliable.”

In the case of all local districts, children who are not taking the tests have been allowed to read quietly in separate areas outside of the classroom while the tests are being administered.