Consider ice: It can be a bulldozer that lifts a few thousand pounds of buoy off the bottom and carries it to new location a half mile away. It can be millions of tiny crystalline blades that scalp the terra firma from the face of a bluff. Ice can suck a piling from deep in a harbor’s clay as easily as pulling a toothpick from an olive in an ice-cold martini.

Montauk in the winter of 2015 has seen all of these things. It must be remembered that the South Fork’s easternmost hamlet remains a fishing village at heart, and its market fishermen have not taken this winter off. Federal regulations have set the weekly trip limit for fluke at 1,000 pounds — not much, but it helps. Longline tilefish boats head to sea in weather that sends most of us back under our blankets.

The fishing did come to a standstill, literally, when the harbor froze solid on Friday. Capt. Dave Aripotch made a few passes on his dragger to break it up. Capt. Bob Aaronson is warning other fishermen that ice has taken the Montauk Harbor Buoy and moved it to Inner Shagwong. Don’t trust it.

Not since the winter of ’93-’94 have we seen the likes of it. Jim Goldberg asks, can anyone remember who ran across the frozen Montauk Harbor inlet in front of the Viking Starship as it was returning from a cod trip? Goldberg also remembers that ice on the ocean side extended nearly 200 yards from shore that year.

During Sunday’s brief thaw I took a walk with a few friends down the beach at Ditch Plain to the Shadmoor bluffs. As we walked, the sun turned the ice crystals in the bluff face to water that spilled like tears down to the beach in rivulets of mud, chunks of earth, and rocks. More than storm surge, it’s thawing ice that eats Montauk’s headlands most hungrily. The light-brown mud crept like lava toward the sea in spidery patterns that mimicked the earth’s great river deltas as seen from space. Beautiful, but sad in Montauk’s case.

Surfers, fishermen, and other types of beachgoers name their favorite spots after landmarks. “Sewer Pipes,” “Alamo,” and “Dirt Lot” are a few examples. But time marches on like sand flowing through the neck of an hourglass, like headland melting in a thaw.

Another popular stretch of beach lies in front of the Shadmoor bluffs, a spot that older Montaukers call “Poles,” named for the pilings, long gone, that used to butt up against the bluff beneath the grand house of the Rheinstein estate. The Rheinstein house, with its magnificent windmill, is gone — mostly gone that is. Some plumbing remains, oozing slowly down what’s left of the bluff that the house once sat on. The plumbing includes terra-cotta drainage pipes from what was once the estate’s small, private golf course. The plumbing includes a bathtub.

As a result, the beach there, where the bluff continued to melt and surrender to the sea on Sunday, is now known as “Tubs.” The names will change until the word “landmark” is no longer applicable.

Which brings us to the ice-cold martini. I don’t drink them anymore, but it’s hard to imagine a better icebreaker in this winter of 2015.

Yoga and music, according to practitioners, have immense therapeutic power. While the former is popularly known as a physical exercise in the West, its origins are as a spiritual and meditative discipline. With music — for both performer and listener — one can be “in the moment,” sometimes to the point of a transcendental experience in which awareness of the material world can melt away.

Fighting Chance, a free cancer counseling and resource center in Sag Harbor, has incorporated both into its arsenal of tools with which patients can live and cope with their illness.

Dr. William DiScipio, a clinical psychologist with a private practice in Amagansett, where he lives, serves as a senior clinical adviser to Fighting Chance. Last month, he told his colleagues at the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee about the center’s weekly restorative yoga program, at present held at Yoga Shanti in Sag Harbor and in Westhampton. Starting next month, the program will expand to Mandala Yoga in Amagansett.

“There is mounting evidence that yoga is a very effective method of dealing with a number of different problems, not just cancer but for maintaining health,” said Mr. DiScipio, formerly an associate professor of psychology and assistant professor of urology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx. Yoga, he said, appears to improve a person’s ability to fight infections and is effective in circulating lymph around the body, which is important to maintaining immunity and removing toxins and wastes.

But empirical evidence also suggests a value in providing cancer patients an environment in which they are comfortable and relaxed, Dr. DiScipio said. One finding, he said, was that “it was the relaxation people felt after a session that was most critical, almost a moment of peace that they could not acquire any other way.”

The therapeutic yoga program grew out of the desire to provide a comprehensive support system, said Duncan Darrow, Fighting Chance’s founder and chairman. “Their need was to have what I would call an affinity group, because their cancer journey had been one of the very memorable, if not traumatic, chapters in their lives,” Mr. Darrow said of the roughly 1,200 residents of the five East End towns who are newly diagnosed or experience a recurrence each year.

Yoga Shanti provided a space free of charge for what was initially a monthly class. Instead of “talking about trials and tribulations,” Mr. Darrow said, patients perform gentle stretching and breathing exercises “that are doable for cancer patients, especially for those in primary therapy who may not even be ambulatory.”

Eight to 10 people are in a typical class, Mr. Darrow said, with more in the summer. The concluding portion of the class, in which participants are at rest and breathing deeply, “is the moment where maybe they can get some peace or tranquillity in their head, which makes a lot of difference.”

“One of the goals is to be present, in the moment,” Eric Pettigrew, who leads therapeutic classes at Yoga Shanti, said of the sessions, “be fully present, accepting your life right now.” Participants’ feeling of empowerment and sense of community are palpable, he said, as is their heightened energy level.

Mr. Darrow emphasized that there is no evidence that practicing yoga combats tumor growth. Nonetheless, said Joyce Racanelli, one of four oncology social workers at Fighting Chance, “when you’re treating someone holistically, there is a lot written to support that patients live longer and have a better quality of life.” Yoga, she said, “definitely contributes to a more positive outlook. It’s another modality to help people become able to cope with whatever they’re facing.”

The newest component of the support system is the Fighting Chance Choir, conceived when one of Dr. Di­Scipio’s patients, beset with anxiety over her illness, mentioned her lifelong appreciation for music and a desire to sing. The doctor suggested a choir, and today, “we have 12 professionally polished choir singers,” he said, a blended group of cancer survivors, caregivers, and “some really good voices” from the Old Whalers Church in Sag Harbor. The choir performed at the Fighting Chance Christmas party and the holiday concert at the church in December, and is to sing at the organization’s annual gala in June and, in December, the Lighting of the Vines at Wolffer Estate in Saga­ponack.

“Music heals,” Dr. DiScipio said, “and we think of it as another alternative therapy.” The choir, Mr. Darrow said, is “not what we’re really in the business of doing, but if it lifts their spirits and builds their self-worth and they want to do it in the office one week per month, let’s give it a try.”

A proposed subdivision that set members of the East Hampton Town Planning Board at odds when they first discussed it in October had a three-hour hearing on Feb. 3 before the zoning board of appeals, during which members asked hard questions of both sides.

The 48,984-square-foot property, a narrow strip of land at 38 Indian Wells Highway in Amagansett, runs west to Further Court. It has been in the family of the current owner, Thomas Onisko, for many years. It contains two houses, a large one that takes access from Indian Wells Highway and a smaller house behind it that is reached via a long driveway from Further Court.

Mr. Onisko proposes to split the property roughly in half, creating two nonconforming lots, each roughly a half-acre. The small house would be demolished and a new house built on the back lot.

The property as it now stands conforms with the neighborhood zoning, which calls for lots of at least one acre.

Should the subdivision be approved, Mr. Onisko’s representatives told the board, his overriding benefit would be financial. Britton Bistrian, a land planner, made that clear from the beginning of her presentation, and Rick Slater, a real estate broker with Town and Country, backed her up, suggesting that the property’s value would increase by 30 percent if it were sold as two lots. He estimated its current value at $3.5 to $4 million.

Assuming the subdivision is approved, Mr. Onisko already has a buyer, Todd Davidson, whose representative, Richard E. Whalen of Land Marks, made it clear that his client would back out if approval were not granted. Mr. Davidson intends to finance the purchase by selling the back lot, Mr. Whalen explained. “There is a substantial economic loss if the subdivision is not granted,” he said.

Theodore Sklar of Esseks, Hefter, and Angel addressed the board on behalf of the Further Court couple whose land borders the smaller house, Allen Lester Grebetz and Andrew Peters. They purchased their 1.3-acre property a couple of years ago not knowing there was any possibility of a subdivision next door, he said. Mr. Sklar also presented the board with affidavits from other neighbors opposing any subdivision, and suggested that the justification for “an unprecedented subdivision” was that there was a buyer in place.

Don Cirillo, a board member, seemed sympathetic. “Somebody buys a property in good faith, and all of a sudden there are two properties, with two houses for sale,” he said.

John Whelan, the Z.B.A.’s chairman, appeared a bit taken aback by the repeated discussion of money. “Just because something is presented by you or an applicant in a public hearing about something being on the market or not,” he told Mr. Sklar, “that does not mean that is what we are basing our determination on. This board is looking at the big picture . . . my judgment is not based on a real estate deal. It is based on zoning and the future of the land.”

The size of the potential houses if the property were subdivided was a focus for much of the evening. Mr. Whalen said that if the board turned down the application, the property owner could by right increase the size of both houses to almost 7,500 square feet of gross floor area.

Eric Schantz, an East Hampton Town planner, disputed that assertion, saying that it was counter to town policy. The figure used by Mr. Whalen, he said, was in fact the total that would be allowed for both structures on the one lot. If the application were approved, Mr. Schantz said, the two properties together would be allowed about 9,000 square feet.

An expert for Mr. Grebetz and Mr. Peters, Charles W. Bowman, presented the board with images of what a new house on the back lot might look like. They showed a three-story structure looming over the neighbors’ property.

Mr. Whelan objected, citing the narrowness of the property. The pyramid law would preclude such a looming presence, he said.

The planning board came in for some potshots later in the meeting. Mr. Sklar said it had met in October to prepare comments on the application for the Z.B.A. but had not sent any. Also, he said, the planning board should have done an analysis under the State Environmental Quality Review Act.

“The planning board did declare lead agency status. God knows only why,” Mr. Whalen said. “They need to relinquish lead agency status, or do SEQRA.”

Mr. Schantz assured the zoning board that the planning board would take up SEQRA at its next meeting, which took place last night.

With guidance from Elizabeth Vail, the town attorney present that night, the board agreed to keep the record open for written documents, including a SEQRA determination; additional comments from the planning board, a determination from the Building Department as to what the allowable gross floor area on the property would be if left as is and if divided, and floor plans for the existing houses.

Two years ago, when Dr. Nadia Persheff glanced around her daughter’s kindergarten class at Southampton Elementary School, she saw what many parents could not — large numbers of unvaccinated children.

“Day to day, I see they don’t want the vaccinations,” Dr. Persheff, a South­ampton pediatrician, said earlier this week. “But when they get into a group. Wow.”

Even she admitted to being more than a little astonished.

Dr. Persheff, who has been practicing on the South Fork since 1998, regularly encounters parents either delaying or refusing their child’s vaccines. Taken together, she estimates between 10 to 15 percent of her patients have zero vaccinations. The parents of unvaccinated children, she said, tend to be white, wealthier, and better educated than parents whose children are fully vaccinated.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from Jan. 1 to Feb. 6 of this year, 121 people from 17 states were reported to have measles. Recently, following two reported cases in New York, Dr. Persheff said, she’s been unable to sleep at night.

Immediately, her staff compiled a list of patients who were not vaccinated, or who were behind and in need of a booster, and made rapid-fire phone calls, urging parents to take in their children for the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. Typically, the first M.M.R. vaccine is given around 12 months, with a booster followed at the age of 4.

“This is a health emergency,” urged Dr. Persheff. “If Ebola didn’t throw us all over the edge, measles is much more contagious.”

On Monday, the New York State Department of Health sent a letter to school superintendents reminding them of state public health laws requiring the vaccination of children prior to attending school. Public and private schools may not admit unvaccinated children unless the student has been “legally exempted for medical reasons or because the child’s parents hold genuine and sincere religious beliefs which are contrary to vaccination practices.”

For a child to be considered fully vaccinated, he or she must receive age-appropriate doses for nine communicable diseases. Across the state, as the number of students opting out of such vaccinations has risen, some schools and districts are put at an increased risk for outbreaks of illnesses such as whooping cough and measles.

According to the state’s Health Department, more than 22,000 medical and religious exemptions were granted for the 2013-14 school year — an increase of 27 percent from the year before.

Data from the 2012-13 School Immunization Survey, which the state’s Health Department released in June of last year, shows that among kindergarten students across the state, Suffolk County had the highest number of religious and medical exemptions. Among the 35,173 kindergarten students in Suffolk County, 308 received religious exemptions and 83 received medical exemptions. Across Suffolk County, 96.5 percent of kindergarten students were fully immunized.

Statewide, according to the 2013-14 data, public schools had an average immunization rate of 98.5 percent and private schools had an average immunization rate of 88.8 percent. For measles, public schools had an average immunization rate of 98.9 percent and private schools had an average immunization rate of 90.6. Further, a Health Department spokesperson warned that measles vaccination rates need to be higher than 90 percent (since the virus can live outside the body for up to two hours) for a school to be considered safe from a potential outbreak.

Here on the South Fork, immunization rates vary considerably. The recently released 2013-14 immunization survey reveals a particular discrepancy among students attending public versus private schools — with far lower rates of immunization at private schools.

Among students enrolled in the East Hampton School District, 98.4 percent were completely immunized, with .43 percent receiving religious exemptions. In total, 99.2 percent were immunized against measles. Richard Burns, the East Hampton superintendent, said that districtwide, three families had decided against vaccinating their children. Currently, six students at East Hampton High School, four students at East Hampton Middle School, and one student at John M. Marshall Elementary School are not vaccinated.

It should be noted that students are counted in the district where they are enrolled. For instance, kindergarten through eighth-grade students residing in Springs would be included in the Springs School’s data until they enrolled at East Hampton High School.

In Springs, 98.1 percent were completely immunized, with about 1 percent receiving religious exemptions and 98.5 percent immunized against measles. Debra Gherardi, the school nurse, said that “a few students” had received medical and religious exemptions, but declined to give exact numbers.

In Montauk, 96.9 percent were completely immunized, with 1.56 percent receiving religious exemptions and 97.5 percent immunized against measles. Karen Theiss, now in her 16th year as the school nurse at the Montauk School, said that only two families had religious exemptions. Among parents, the only trend she has witnessed is that families are delaying vaccination schedules, particularly among younger children, but that such children eventually receive all required vaccines.

For 2013-14, Bridgehampton saw a total immunization rate of 95.7 percent and a religious exemption rate of 4.29 percent, with 95.7 percent immunized against measles. By contrast, in 2012-13, 92.9 percent of students in the district were completely immunized. Lois Favre, the Bridgehampton superintendent, said that three children were not vaccinated because of religious exemptions.

Meanwhile, in Amagansett, 95.8 percent of students were completely immunized, with 4.21 percent receiving religious exemptions and 95.8 percent immunized against measles.

In Sagaponack, 81.8 percent were completely immunized, with no religious exemptions and 100 percent were immunized for measles. For 2012-13, the total immunization rate was 100 percent.

In Wainscott, 100 percent of students were fully immunized, with no religious exemptions. For 2012-13, by contrast, 87.5 were completely immunized, with a religious exemption rate of 6.25 percent and a measles immunization rate of 93.8 percent.

In Sag Harbor, 96 percent of students were fully immunized, with a religious exemption rate of 2.69 percent and a measles immunization rate of 96.2 percent.

At the Child Development Center of the Hamptons, 95 percent were completely immunized, with a religious exemption rate of 2.5 percent and a measles immunization rate of 95 percent. By contrast, for 2012-13, religious exemptions held steady, with a 96.3 percent total immunization rate and a measles immunization rate of 97.5 percent.

Locally, immunization rates at two private schools were far lower by comparison. It should be noted that private nursery schools are not required to supply such data to the state. Only students in kindergarten through 12th grade are included in the survey data.

Both the Hayground School and the Ross School saw decreases in vaccination rates between 2012-13 and 2013-14. Among the 78 private schools in Suffolk County included in the 2013-14 data, Hayground had the fifth lowest vaccination rate and Ross had the 15th lowest.

Over the past two years, Hayground saw a drop in immunization rates of 5.4 percent. In the 2013-14 school year, only 63.6 percent were completely immunized and the same percentage were vaccinated against measles, with 33.3 percent receiving religious exemptions. By contrast, for 2012-13, 69 percent were completely immunized, with a religious exemption rate of 25.9 percent and 74 percent were vaccinated against measles.

Ross, meanwhile, saw a nearly 7 percent decline in vaccination rates. For 2013-14, 86.3 percent of students were completely immunized, with 1.4 percent receiving religious exemptions and 89.6 vaccinated against measles. By contrast, for 2012-13, 93.2 percent were fully immunized, with 97.3 vaccinated against measles.

Both Hayground and Ross officials declined to be interviewed.

Liza Tremblay, a mother of two young children and co-owner of Bay Burger and Joe and Liza’s Ice Cream in Sag Harbor, sees a potentially worrisome cluster forming on the South Fork — one made up largely of well-educated, wealthy parents who equate making natural and healthy choices with not vaccinating their children.

“Traditionally, kids not vaccinated were under-resourced and now it’s swung in the entirely opposite direction, with wealthy enclaves of college-educated parents making these choices,” said Ms. Tremblay, who observes a younger generation of parents, never having lived through a measles or whooping cough epidemic, becoming complacent. Growing up in Edgewater, N.J., her sister was hospitalized with whooping cough, or pertussis, at 6 weeks of age. “Everyone feels invincible.”

During a trip last week to Walt Disney World in Florida, Ms. Tremblay kept Rosie, her 10-week-old daughter, who is still too young for the M.M.R. vaccine, in a carrier. And when looking to employ a potential baby sitter, she only considers applicants whose vaccination history is up to date.

“There’s always that moment of panic when they get these shots. What if she gets a fever? What if she has a seizure?” said Ms. Tremblay, referring to Rosie, who recently received her diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis vaccine. “But there’s no good reason in the world not to do it, even if for a moment it might feel a little scary.”

Jennifer Haagen’s children, ages 10, 11, and 13, are among the 1.02 percent receiving religious exemptions at the Springs School. Her three children have not received vaccines in the time frames recommended by the current immunization schedule.

She describes her eldest daughter, who has autism, as a “vaccine-injured child.” Ms. Haagen believes that an M.M.R. vaccine at 17 months triggered a cascade of symptoms, rendering her previously verbal child suddenly unable to speak. A potential link between vaccinations and autism, which is not supported by prevailing scientific data, gives many parents pause about immunizing.

“I want an open and honest discussion,” said Ms. Haagen. “You’re either pro-vaccine and pro-science, but if you question the safety and efficacy, you’re labeled as a conspiracy theorist, anti-science, and irrational. If anything, I can be accused of being overly logical.”

Over the past 5 to 10 years, as the number of parents unwilling to vaccinate their children has continued to rise, Gail Schonfeld, a pediatrician who has practiced in East Hampton since 1982, has changed her policy: She no longer treats non-vaccinating parents and their children. A firm believer in the life-saving power of vaccines, Dr. Schonfeld reasons that if “parents don’t trust me with this, we won’t have a good working relationship,” she said, adding that “my reputation precedes me — people know what I’m going to say.”

While she allows parents to delay the vaccine schedule, with the same shots eventually administered (albeit on an elongated timeline), she now requires such families to pay for additional visits. Never one to mince words, Dr. Schonfeld urged that “we’re all at risk and no vaccine is 100 percent effective.”

Still, she sees rising rates of religious exemptions as particularly worrisome.

“You can raise your child however you want until you’re endangering your child and those around you,” she said. “That right, you simply do not have.”

Jury selection in the trial of Jason Lee, a former Goldman-Sachs managing director who police said raped a 20-year-old Irish woman in East Hampton during the early morning hours of Aug. 20, 2013, is expected to begin April 6 in the Riverside courtroom of New York State Supreme Court Justice Barbara Kahn.

"We are going to trial. And we are looking forward to it," Andrew Lankler, one of Mr. Lee's attorneys, said outside of the courtroom on Friday, after a final pre-trial conference with prosecutors and Justice Kahn.

Kerriann Kelly, the bureau chief of the Suffolk District Attorney's Major Crimes Bureau, said the alleged victim, known only by the initials, D.D., was going to travel from Ireland for the trial.

Mr. Lee was said to have raped the woman during a gathering at a rented house following a celebration of his 37th birthday at Georgica restaurant in East Hampton. He has denied the allegation.

Besides rape in the first degree, which carries a mandatory sentence of five years in prison, Mr. Lee is also fighting two misdemeanor charges, assault and sexual misconduct.

 

Fire officials are reminding resident to make sure their carbon monoxide detectors are working and to pay attention to them, especially during cold weather when heating sources tend to malfunction. On Sunday, two people in Southampton Village could have died from carbon monoxide poisoning after they ignored an alarm.

The Southampton Fire Department responded to a house on Heady Creek Lane for a smell of gas on Sunday at about 11:55 a.m. Two people inside the house were not feeling well, and one person had fainted, according to Chris Brenner, the first assistant fire chief. When the Southampton Village Volunteer Ambulance determined both occupants were suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning, and they were taken to Southampton Hospital for treatment. A toxic gas, carbon monoxide is odorless and colorless. 

Firefighters detected 950 parts per million of carbon monoxide on their meters in the basement of the house, Chief Brenner said. A reading of over 70 parts per million can cause headaches, fatigure, and nausea. Sustained concentrations above 150 to 220 parts per million can cause unconsciousness and death, according to information from the Consumer Product Safety Commission. 

A burner flu pipe that had rotted away was to blame, according to the chief. The fire department used fans to remove the carbon monoxide.

Fire Chief Mike Kampf and Ambulance Chief Ricky Fowler were informed that "the occupants had removed the carbon monoxide detectors the night before because they were beeping and thought they were faulty," Chief Brenner said. 

The fire department responds to a number of automatic carbon monoxide alarms, and about 90 percent prove faulty, Chief Brenner said, but all of them need to be taken seriously because of the danger. If a C.O. detector goes off, "Please call the fire department and get out of the house safely so the fire department could check," he said. "Also, please do not open any windows or doors as it makes it more difficult for the fire department to find any carbon monoxide."

The Centers for Disease Control offers tips on how to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning in your home. 

In the end, Dan White, who coaches Pierson High School's boys basketball team, thought it was Stony Brook's senior guards who made the difference in the final minutes of the county Class C championship game Monday, a hotly contested game that Stony Brook won by a score of 44-39.

"I thought we were there — we were up by 6 early in the fourth," White said with a sigh, "but their press took some of our momentum away . . . and [as for the guards] you've got to make the plays late, not look for others to make them."

Robbie Evjen, the Whalers' 6-foot-3-inch senior center, gave it his all, finishing with a game-high 20 points and, according to his coach, "15 to 20 rebounds," but he couldn't quite get it done.

The anchor of the Whalers' offense and defense had to come out after picking up his second foul late in the second quarter, and the Bears immediately took advantage by going on a 9-3 run. By the time Evjen re-entered the fray, about six minutes later, the Brooksters were leading 16-13. Moments later, after Evjen had missed a "gimme" underneath, they quickly tacked on 6 more points as the result of back-to-back 3-pointers by their senior sparkplug, Rob Colarusso, extending the margin to 22-13.

At the half, Pierson trailed 26-21, but, with Evjen leading the way — and not picking up any more fouls — came back in the third, a period during which Colarusso, who was to lead the winners with 17 points, went cold, failing to convert any of his seven attempts.

Assisted by Ben Kushner (Pierson's second-leading scorer, who was shut down by Stony Brook's defense that day), Evjen made a 3-point play as the third began, and soon after evened things at 26-26 with a nice move to the basket.

"He's a helluva player," White was to say later. "I knew he had the matchup advantage -- he has a great first step. . . . I just realized," he said, with another sigh, "that I won't have him anymore."

After Luke O'Connor, a left-handed junior guard who came off the bench, had made a 3, Evjen fed Stephen Musnicki for 29-28, and after the Bears' other senior guard, Luke Meyer, had missed at the other end, Evjen drew a foul from Chester Kayonga, and made good on both free throws, the second of which treated the Whalers to a 30-29 lead. He was to shoot 8-for-9 from the foul line that day.

The quarter ended with a basket by Evjen — after having grabbed the rebound of his own miss -- and a long 2 by Musnicki, again with Evjen assisting. Evjen kicked the lead up to 6 with two minutes gone in the fourth, but after that Stony Brook, with its guards in the van, launched the run that would win it the county Class C title.

When Evjen committed his fourth foul in contesting a rebound with a minute and a half left, Stony Brook's fans, whose team led then 40-38 as the result of a falling-down 3 by the aforementioned O'Connor, stood and cheered.

A rare basket by Stony Brook's biggest man, Jyles Etienne, to whom Meyer had alertly passed the ball from the baseline before it sailed out of bounds, increased the Bears' lead to 4, prompting White to call a timeout.

When play resumed, Andrew James, who had theretofore hit twice from long range, missed a 3-point attempt from the left corner, after which Stony Brook's guards dribbled about, taking time off the clock. Two free throws by Colarusso with 11 seconds to go put the game and the championship out of the Whalers' reach.

Laugher for the Bees

Before the Pierson-Stony Brook struggle, Bridgehampton's Killer Bees, who not only have their sights set on a state Class D championship (which would be that storied school's first since 1998), but also on an overall county title, routed Smithtown Christian for the third time this season, except that rather than 30, the margin of victory was 43 this time around.

Originally, Carl Johnson and his assistants, Joe Zucker and Kevin McConville, had expected that their high-flying charges, who went undefeated in league play, would automatically be crowned the county D champs. But the Section XI powers-that-be thought otherwise, even though Smithtown Christian had finished at 6-8.

With Charles Manning Jr. playing above the rim, and with Tylik Furman orchestrating and Josh Lamison anchoring the offense, the Bees quickly turned the game into a laugher.

Manning finished with a game-high 28 points; Furman had 15; Elijah Jackson, 13, Lamison, 12, Matthew Hostetter, 5, Ameer Brunson, 2, and Justin LaPointe and Max Cheng, 1 each. The final score was 77-34.

Johnson said later that neither Southampton (seeded second among the B schools) nor Bridgehampton had received the respect it merited at the county seeding meeting. Bridgehampton is to play Stony Brook in the county C-D game at William Floyd on Saturday at noon. The Southampton-Center Moriches winner is to play top-seeded Babylon for the Class B title there at 3.

On Feb. 24, the B-C-D game is to be played at Walt Whitman High School at 5 p.m. The county Class A championship game is to be played there that night at 8.

The Class A semifinals are to be played Friday at the sites of the higher seeds (the times had yet to be determined as of press time). One of those semis will match the East Hampton-Islip winner against the Harborfields-Amityville winner.

A man plowing snow at Stony Brook Southampton died Tuesday morning when he suffered a medical emergency during the storm. 

University police and Southampton Town police responded to a report of an unresponsive man in a running vehicle, behind the Montauk building, at about 6:45 a.m., Town Police Sgt. John Boden said. The man was employed by a vendor that the university contracted to perform snow removal operations on campus, according to Lauren M. Sheprow, a media relations officer with the university.

University police officers performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation while awaiting the arrival of medical personnel, Ms. Sheprow said. Southampton Volunteer Ambulance transported the man to Southampton Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

"The University was very saddened to learn that the contracted employee was unable to be revived at the hospital," Ms. Sheprow said by email Tuesday evening. The man's name was not released. 

No criminality is suspected, though police are investigating his exact cause of death. 

The Surfrider Foundation, an activist organization dedicated to protecting oceans and beaches, is vehemently opposed to the erosion-control project planned for the Montauk ocean shoreline, Mike Bottini told the East Hampton Town Trustees last week.

Mr. Bottini, an environmental consultant and naturalist who chairs the organization’s local chapter, appealed to the trustees on behalf of the 114-member chapter to publicly oppose the United States Army Corps of Engineers’ plan to construct an artificial dune from plastic-fabric sandbags, covered largely by imported sand and sand-filled “geo-tubes” at its seaward and landward edges. The project, which could begin next month, is intended to protect downtown Montauk, where several oceanfront motels are threatened by rising sea levels.

“The town trustees have always taken a hard look at coastal erosion-control projects with an eye toward protecting the beach, the beach being our most valuable asset out here,” he said. “Where there’s a conflict between protecting a structure, you’ve always taken a position that the beach takes priority. You’re not going to compromise our beaches to protect structures that were built on a primary dune, for example.”

While the trustees manage East Hampton Town’s beaches, waterways, and bottomlands on behalf of the public, the ocean beaches in Montauk are under the town board’s control. But when Mr. Bottini prefaced a comment by stating that the shoreline in question was not under trustee jurisdiction, trustees cut him off. “Be careful,” said Nat Miller. “We’ll decide our jurisdiction,” said Deborah Klughers.

Mr. Bottini continued. “This project in downtown Montauk sets a really bad precedent, and I think the town could use a little guidance from the trustees. It would behoove the trustees to inform the town board that this would not be looked on favorably by the town trustees.” He showed the trustees a document detailing eight case studies from around the world, all of which he said had detrimentally affected beaches.

The trustees oppose hard structures and are presently engaged in a lawsuit over a rock revetment built on the ocean beach off West End Road in East Hampton Village. They contend that such structures do more harm than good, resulting in scouring of adjacent shoreline and further loss of beach.

John Courtney, their attorney, voiced that position at the Feb. 10 meeting. “We have property to the west of that,” he said of the Army Corps project, “that we believe will be impacted by it. It’s going to interrupt the flow of sand from the east, down toward Napeague, toward Amagansett. It’s going to scour it. . . . It’s not going to come down the beach like it does naturally.”

Mr. Bottini asked that the trustees convey to the town board and the Natural Resources Department the position that “this kind of a thing would never be looked upon favorably elsewhere in the town.”

Diane McNally, the trustees’ clerk, said Tuesday that they had not yet addressed Mr. Bottini’s request as issues pertaining to trustee-owned land at Lazy Point in Amagansett have dominated their time and attention. “It is very concerning,” she said of the Montauk beach plan. “We had gone on record after Hurricane Sandy . . . as not being in favor of any shoreline-hardening structures in Montauk. We’ll probably come back to that at some point.”

The Springs School Board will have to cut more than $1 million from a preliminary 2015-16 spending plan unveiled on Feb. 9 in order to keep next year’s budget under the state mandated 1.62-percent cap on tax levy increases.

At the board’s first budget work session last week, school officials reviewed a $28.1 million budget, an increase of nearly $1.5 million, or 5.5 percent, from this year’s $26.6 million spending plan. Of that, just over $25.5 million would be raised through property taxes. If the district is to avoid piercing the cap, its maximum allowable tax levy is about $24.5 million.

“In a tax cap environment, under the proposed budget we have, it’s a $2.16 million revenue shortfall,” said Elizabeth Mendelman, the board president, who explained that the proposed budget assumes the transfer of $1.07 million from the district’s fund balance to reduce the tax levy and meet various state requirements for the second year in a row.

Looking ahead to next year, increased enrollment will continue to be an issue, whether at Springs School itself or of Springs students at East Hampton High School or the Child Development Center of the Hamptons charter school.

High school tuition payments for Springs students are predicted to increase by $1 million; 274 students are now enrolled, 292 are projected for next year. Meanwhile, tuition to C.D.C.H. is expected to cost an additional $270,000. Further, health insurance costs are expected to rise by nearly $100,000. Technology spending is to increase by about $20,000.

Ms. Mendelman also emphasized that “maintaining a well-rounded K-through-eight program,” would continue to be a priority, in addition to keeping most class sizes capped at 25 students or fewer.

Among the board’s stated goals, it hopes to maintain a strong fund balance while also keeping it to 4 percent of the anticipated budget.

Last fall, state auditors concluded that Springs had accumulated an unrestricted fund balance nearly four times the allowable amount. For instance, by the 2012-13 school year, the unrestricted fund balance, or rainy day fund, had ballooned to $3.8 million — or nearly 15 percent of the $25 million budget. State law requires that such funds be no more than 4 percent of the anticipated budget.

For the coming year, the board is projecting an unassigned fund balance of $1.7 million — or a decrease of more than $760,000.

In other news, the board approved an extension for Christopher Sarlo, the interim principal, from Feb. 1 to Feb. 28, while Eric Casale, the principal, is on an extended medical leave.

Also, John Grant’s open board seat expires at the end of the school year. Those interested in running for the seat have been asked to contact Fran Silipo, the district clerk. The annual budget vote and board election will take place on May 19.

Project Most, a local nonprofit, announced that 249 students (the most in its history) are currently enrolled in Springs’ after-school program. The Greater East Hampton Education Foundation, a local nonprofit, also announced three grant winners from Springs School: Melissa Knight, Sue Ellen O’Con­nor, and Colleen McGowan. Together, the three teachers received more than $3,300 in competitive grant money.

The board will next meet on Wednesday at 7 p.m., when budget items related to instructional programs, co-curricular activities, interscholastic athletics, and field trips will be discussed. The third and final budget session is planned for Mar. 9.