At its meeting Thursday in Town Hall, the East Hampton Town Board is expected to approve the forthcoming phase of an airport noise study designed to convince the Federal Aviation Administration that the problem warrants restrictions on airport use in order to gain F.A.A. approval for the town to exercise its own authority over the airport.

That could include limits on takeoffs and landings within certain hours or by certain types of aircraft; a curfew, or perhaps even an outright ban on helicopters.

The $79,000 phase-three study by Harris Miller Miller & Hanson will provide more details about helicopter noise and a detailed definition of the problems, as well as an analysis of the effects of the alternatives. The results are to be presented to the board on Feb. 3.

Key to the town’s ability to enact local airport rules is maintaining a degree of autonomy from the F.A.A. by eschewing further federal grants. With the grants come “grant assurances,” the obligation to operate the airport according to F.A.A. rules.

At a town board work session on Tuesday, members of the airport finance subcommittee presented a report on airport revenue. Arthur Malman, the town’s budget and finance advisory committee chairman, and Peter Wadsworth, a member who prepared the financial analyses, said the committee had created a model that can be used to gauge the financial impact of any use restrictions, for example on landing and other fees. The calculation is key to determining whether airport repairs and capital improvements could be paid for without the F.A.A. grants.

Based on a review of airport operations during the first nine months of this year, and even should helicopter traffic be reduced by half, the group said that revenue from the airport would be enough to carry up to about $5.6 million in debt over the next five years, more than the $5.1 million that had previously been estimated. Counting in possible “revenue enhancements” such as a paid parking system and airport-property rentals, more than $9.7 million in debt could be carried, even with 50 percent fewer helicopter landings.

The calculation did not take into account expenses that could be incurred should the new regulations be challenged in court. The cost of litigation, the subcommittee warned, “could be substantial.”

Nonetheless, said the report, “it is now apparent that the airport, which has been neglected for many years, should be able to support substantial capital repairs and improvements.” Some key safety-related repairs are already under way.

The report said the town board “now has the opportunity to work with its new airport engineers to fashion a very robust five-year capital plan — without the need for any real estate taxes or other external revenues.” It recommended that the town institute paid parking at the airport right away, and negotiate contracts with rental car companies located there for their use of a portion of the lot by next summer of fall. The town should also discuss long-range plans with the rental companies, Mr. Malman said, and perhaps reassess their leases.. Hertz, for instance, currently pays just $750 per month, he said.

Depending on the daily parking fee that is established, and based on the expected number of vehicles over the course of a year, the town could see between $53,000 and more than $159,000 in income from the parking lot, the committee said.

In addition, the group recommended that the town lease airport land to provide additional hangars for locally owned aircraft, and seek a commercial real estate broker to oversee the rental of 35 acres of vacant airport land zoned for commercial-industrial use.

“We see that as a really major source of revenue,” Mr. Malman said. A professional broker could “actively market the property,” he said.

Under F.A.A. rules, he said, land within the airport footprint, if put to non-aeronautical use, must be rented at fair market value and the proceeds kept in the airport fund. However, he noted, the fair market value provision need not be applied to leases designating aviation uses, such as the new hangars.

“The town has talked for years about the potential for bringing in businesses and creating jobs” at the industrial park it created at the airport, but to little avail, said Supervisor Larry Cantwell. Consulting with a commercial real estate broker is “a professional way of going about it,” he said, that will, if all goes according to plan, yield results.

Improved collection of landing fees could also add to the airport revenue stream, according to the report. For every landing that is not recorded by cameras and other data-collection systems that allow fees to be assessed, the town loses money, Mr. Malman said. One move that could help would be to house the airport managerial offices in their originally intended position in the terminal, a rotunda that provides a view of incoming traffic. The offices were not placed there, he said, because of the cost of meeting federal handicapped-accessibility requirements.

Also in the report are recommendations for an upgrade to the aviation fuel farm and fuel operations, including the replacement of aging underground fuel tanks; a change in the format of financial accounting statements to provide better clarity, and a suggestion that the town support changes to state law that would allow 20-year bonds to be issued for airport projects. The committee is to return to the board for further discussion at an upcoming work session.

At tonight’s meeting, the board is also expected to approve a $260,000 bond for the purchase and installation of a new automated weather observance system, which Jemille Charlton, the airport manager, described to members on Tuesday. The system is needed to replace an outdated one from 2008, Mr. Charlton said. It will provide information on wind speed, direction, gusts, temperature, visibility, precipitation, and other weather data, all of which, he said, could be accessed by the public as well.

Although the East Hampton Town Planning Board at a meeting Wednesday night may have scheduled a second public hearing on the controversial subdivision of roughly 40 acres of former farmland in Wainscott, the East Hampton Town Board may play a definitive role in the final outcome.

The subdivision, on Wainscott Hollow Road, will divide the property into seven house lots, with about 70 percent of the acreage set aside as an agricultural reserve area. A new public hearing, if scheduled, would be on Jan. 7. But the town board, which is to hold its annual organizational meeting on Jan. 6, is expected to appoint two new members to the planning board at that time, which may tip the balance.

The property is being developed by Jeffrey Colle, whose plans (there have been five in all) date back to January 2013. Mr. Colle handed in a revised plan last Thursday, after listening to the planning board debate the plans the previous night. The new plan addresses an issue of concern to several neighbors as well as board members, which is that one of the lots was separate and on Sayre’s Path.

At its organizational meeting, the town board is expected to fill the planning board position that opened when Pat Schutte resigned after moving out of town. Mr. Schutte had declared his support for Mr. Colle’s plans. In addition, Nancy Keeshan’s term on the board ends Dec. 31.

Ms. Keeshan was appointed by a Republican-controlled town board in 2010. The current board, which has a Democratic majority, is not expected to reappoint her. She had opposed Mr. Colle’s previous plans, but indicated at a Dec. 10 meeting that she could support a revised proposal.

Two Wainscott neighbors, who are on the planning board, have been bitterly divided over the issue. Diana Weir has called it “bad planning,” opposing the placement of five houses across what is now an open vista. Bob Schaeffer, on the other hand, has advocated for Mr. Colle’s plans, frequently chiding fellow members for delaying action and saying, “Let’s get on with it.”

Another member’s approach has been close to Ms. Weir’s. Job Potter has said the new lots should be closer to previously developed land to preserve more open space. Reed Jones, the board’s chairman, however, has, after a good amount of debate, thrown his support to Mr. Colle.

Sixteen people spoke at the first public hearing, on Sept. 17, with 32 others sending in letters. The process has not only divided planning board members, but pitted neighbor against neighbor, depending upon whether they live closer to or on Sayre’s Path or Wainscott Hollow Road.

From the beginning, Mary Jane Asato, Mr. Colle’s lawyer, has insisted that at least six of the seven new lots have to be accessed from Wainscott Hollow Road. She told the board that an address on Wainscott Hollow makes the lots more valuable than an address on Sayre’s Path, according to the real estate experts she consulted.

The plan Mr. Colle submitted last week is markedly similar to the original 2013 plan, which did not have a house on Sayre’s Path. That proposed house lot has been moved away from Sayre’s Path. There are several key differences, however.

The new plan eliminates a 50-foot-wide, 1,200-foot-long road off Wainscott Hollow Road, replacing it with a much narrower driveway. The revision also freed up over an acre of land, which allows the buildable lots to be larger.

For example, one lot in the original plan was 66,876 square feet; it is now 97,589 square feet. Another has grown from 67,058 square feet to 88,594 square feet. Finally, the new plan moves one of the five proposed contiguous lots along the private driveway closer to Wainscott Hollow Road.

A new draft law to limit overnight parking of commercial vehicles and work trucks on residential lots was laid on the table at East Hampton Town Hall on Tuesday, after a previous attempt at legislation had been sent back to the drawing board.

At a hearing on the previous draft, which would have imposed a ban on certain types of vehicles at residences, contractors showed up at Town Hall en masse to tell the board how new rules could negatively impact their ability to make a living from their small, sole-proprietor businesses. Though business is conducted at their clients’ locations, they told officials, they use their work trucks to go to and from their residences. Having to obtain a commercially zoned property to park their trucks would be a significant burden, they said.

Pickup trucks with commercial or standard registration — and which do not have business signs or logos on them — would not be regulated.

The updated proposal, developed by Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell and Councilman Fred Overton after consulting with a committee of contractors and residents concerned about the commercialization of their neighborhoods, would place new limits on the size and number of trucks that could be parked on residential properties while providing an exception for those property owners who already have trucks that would fall outside the size limit.

It seeks to provide a “stricter standard going forward, and at the same time recognize some of the pre-existing conditions . . . to provide some recognition for those who have been doing it who own their own properties and are licensed contractors,” Mr. Cantwell said Tuesday.

The new standards would allow one commercially registered car or light truck (with a gross vehicle weight of 12,000 pounds or less) to be parked overnight at a residence, but only if the vehicle is owned by a licensed home improvement contractor (or their employee) who resides in the house. At least 75 percent of the vehicle would have to be invisible to neighbors or from the roadway, by parking it behind a fence, shrubbery, or other screening.

Standard pickup trucks with commercial or standard registration — and which do not have business signs or logos on them — would not be regulated.

An existing limit on rental properties, which says a maximum of four vehicles may be parked there overnight, would be maintained.

The new standard would be lifted for contractors that, as of a date to be set by the town board, are licensed, own and live on their property, and already own a registered vehicle that exceeds the size limit. Nonetheless, no vehicles over 14,000 pounds would be allowed.

To claim the exception, contractors would have to register with the town clerk within six months of the new law’s enactment. The vehicles would have to be screened in their parking spots, as dictated by the new proposed rule. They could be replaced in kind, as needed, but if contractors sold the property, they could not claim the exception at a new location. The exception would not apply to a business’s employees.

On properties of less than one acre, one vehicle that exceeds the new standards would be allowed. If a site is over an acre, two would be allowed.

The draft law also addresses utility trailers. It would allow one, whether open or enclosed, of 18 feet long or less, on properties of an acre of less, or two on lots of over an acre. They would also have to be largely screened from sight. On an acre or more, larger trailers would be allowed and would be counted as a commercial vehicle.

“I think this is a really good compromise,” Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc said on Tuesday. “I think it addresses the problem in very specific ways.” He recognized that it “won’t please everyone,” but said that the proposed law “addresses the visual aspects of these impacts on neighbors and neighborhoods” and includes “a sort of sunset, if you will, or amortization,” of the situations where contractors keep the larger trucks at home.

He suggested, however, allowing up to two standard or small pickups with business signs on them at a house, in case a couple each has one they use for work.

Other board members agreed that the draft law should be the subject of a hearing. Councilwoman Sylvia Overby suggested that, in addition to screening vehicles from sight, a setback from adjacent property lines for parking areas might be required. She said the board might also try to address situations where a local business gets passed down to a “direct heir,” and allow the parking of a nonconforming truck to continue.

Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez said that education would be needed about new restrictions, and that the board should ensure that the law addresses those in professions where trucks are used, but where town home improvement contractor licenses are not required.

A hearing date has not been scheduled.

Two men were seriously injured when their all-terrain vehicles collided head-on behind the Montauk recycling center on Sunday afternoon.

East Hampton Town police said Henry O. Sjoman, 24, and John R. Veitch, 31, both of whom are from Montauk, were riding four-wheelers when they hit each other on a dirt road between North Shore Road and the recycling center at about 3:25 p.m. The collision took place on town property, according to Lt. A.J. McGuire.

As of Wednesday morning, Mr. Sjoman was listed in critical condition and Mr. Veitch in serious condition, according to a Stony Brook University Hospital spokeswoman. Both men were wearing helmets, police said. They were riding with a third man, a brother of one of the men.

Montauk Fire Department personnel treated the two after they were found on the southeast outskirts of the old capped landfill, according to Chief Joe Lenahan. About 30 fire and emergency medical service members responded, including heavy-rescue volunteers.

They called for helicopters to transport them to Stony Brook University Hospital, the nearest trauma center. Mr. Sjoman’s condition deteriorated, however, and he was taken by ambulance to Southampton Hospital. He was later flown to Stony Brook.

State and town codes prohibit riding A.T.V.s on public land. “You can only ride on private property with permission of the owner,” Lieutenant McGuire said.

Chief Michael Sarlo of the town police said yesterday that his department has not received many complaints about off-roading in the area where the accident occurred. “Between state park land and town land, we do know there has been activity in the past,” he said. “There have not been many instances of A.T.V.s riding on town-owned property that we are aware of,” he continued, adding that there have been complaints about riding in some of the nature preserves.

Following the accident, the Police Department is looking at possible safety improvements, such as posting more signs and working with other town departments to address access. The men are believed to have started their ride from a house on North Shore Road.

“Obviously, the safety of the community is important, along with protection of town lands. However, typically when responding to complaints of A.T.V.s our officers attempt to locate the access points and find the vehicles that may have transported the A.T.V.s to the site,” Chief Sarlo said.

“We impound a handful of A.T.V.s every year that we are able to catch coming out of town property, and we issue summonses under the town code or Vehicle and Traffic Law whenever is applicable based on what responding officers observe.”

The battle over accessory structures and how they can be used continued at an East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals meeting Friday, as Alfred and Stephanie Shuman sought to legalize renovations to a pool house on their Windmill Lane property that left it with an extra bedroom and sitting room in what had been a storage room.

The Shumans are appealing a building inspector’s determination that a variance is required for the modifications, which the board considers to be unapproved bedrooms. With very limited exceptions, village code prohibits accessory buildings from being used for sleeping.

If the appeal is denied, the Shumans will apply for the variance. They also seek variances to keep a swimming pool with 2,225 square feet of stone deck and associated landscaping, and a new deck over the pool house with an elevated access ramp, and a generator.

The pool, deck, and pool house are approximately 80 feet seaward of the required setback. Pool fencing and deer fencing presently seaward of the coastal erosion hazard line are proposed to be relocated landward of that line. The property contains the Hayground Windmill, which the village has designated a timber-frame landmark.

Renovations to the pool house were in accordance with a 2004 building permit, said Richard Whalen, an attorney speaking on behalf of the Shumans. There was a bedroom in the structure’s second story and two sitting rooms downstairs, he said. When the Shumans’ children are in residence, one of those is used as a nursery. “The fact of the matter is, there is nothing limiting what you would do with them,” he said.

But a 2001 certificate of occupancy, said Frank Newbold, the board’s chairman, called the downstairs portion of the pool house “a partially finished basement with two changing rooms, each with sink, shower, and toilet, plus storage area.” Now, he said, one changing room has turned into a bedroom with a bath, and a storage area has become another sleeping area. “Don’t you see that as an expansion of a pre-existing nonconforming use?” he asked.

“No, because there was nothing saying you couldn’t use that room in the past for sleeping purposes,” Mr. Whalen said. As long as they have legal egress, he said, “you don’t regulate what goes on in the room.”

Mr. Newbold and Linda Riley, the village’s attorney, disagreed. A notice of violation dated July 30 specifically cited “extension of pool house adding a bedroom and sitting room to bottom floor where a storage room was,” Mr. Newbold read.

As long as there is legal egress, Mr. Whalen repeated, “I really don’t know you have a right to control how the room is used.” As a practical matter, he asked, “how would you ever do that?”

Larry Hillel, another board member, had a suggestion. “You could eliminate the heat,” he said. “What you’re saying is, once you have something, you can do whatever you want, and ‘What can you do about it?’ There are ways we could do it.”

Lys Marigold, the board’s vice chairwoman, was skeptical of Mr. Whalen’s argument. “Following your logic,” she said, “any pool house can be turned into sleeping quarters.” When the land was divided in 1975, she said, the property was described as having one single-family dwelling, a garage with apartment, a windmill, and a bathhouse, with the last two to have no living facilities. Somehow, she said, it has transformed “from that very commonly understood pool house into what you’re calling a residence.”

In the 2001 certificate of occupancy, said Mr. Whalen, “the building had a kitchen, a bedroom, and is described as a cottage. It’s a residential structure.”

Ms. Riley disagreed. “It’s not just expansion; it’s alteration,” she said of the structure’s use. “I’m not sure you would have gotten that 2004 building permit if it was clear that you were going to end up with three bedrooms.” In an informal poll, board members agreed that the downstairs bedroom with bath should revert to an unfinished storage area.

The board had already asked the applicants for a revised landscaping plan pertaining to the fencing, a shed that is to be removed, and revegetation. In light of that request, Mr. Whalen asked that the board give further consideration to the accessory structure rather than make a determination on the spot. The hearing will be revisited at the board’s next meeting on Jan. 9.

The board also announced three determinations. Dexter Goei of 207 Lily Pond Lane was granted coastal erosion hazard area, dune setback, zoning code, and freshwater wetlands variances for the renovation and expansion of a pre-existing nonconforming three-story house, including construction of an expanded basement lying almost entirely within the natural coastal hazard area. A project-limiting fence will have to be installed, and code enforcement officers will periodically inspect the site to ensure that no dune vegetation is disturbed.

Michael Minkoff of 11 Jones Cove Road was granted variances to keep a two-story house with attached two-story garage exceeding the permitted gross floor area and within the required front-yard setback, as well as a tennis court, pool equipment, pool house, and swimming pool within required setbacks. Mr. Minkoff originally got a building permit for the work in 2004, but did not complete it. Since then, according to Mr. Newbold, the village’s setback restrictions have become more restrictive and improvements already completed are in violation of the new setbacks. The board approved his request, but said that all sheetrock, insulation, and other interior improvements to the second floor of the garage are to be removed and the space used only for storage.

Michael and Treva De Leeuw of 41 Cross Highway were granted a variance to keep a generator within the required front-yard setback on the condition that its use be limited to power outages and a weekly 20-minute test period to be performed midweek.

One of the second wave of 20th-century artists who found their way to the South Fork and used the landscape as a chief source of inspiration, Jane Freilicher died on Dec. 9 at home in New York City of complications of pneumonia. She was 90.

She was versed in abstraction very early as an artist, demonstrating what she learned at Brooklyn College to Larry Rivers when they became friends in 1945. Through the recommendation of Nell Blaine, another artist, they both went on to study with Hans Hofmann. Yet she, like Rivers, ultimately found her natural artistic argot in figurative painting.

Her usual subject matter was a landscape or cityscape viewed from an interior that took in objects on the windowsill or table along the way. The objects were often flowers, stemming from a childhood fascination with the bouquets her father would purchase at the subway. “I pulled them apart, fixating on the petals,” she told The Star in 2008. The windowsill objects evolved over time and included her reproductions of subjects from old master paintings.

"Mallows," 1997

The landscape that most inspired her was her four-acre property in Water Mill that abutted what was once the 235-acre Henry Ford estate. With the subdivision and development of that surrounding land over the years spoiling her studio’s once-vast view out to Mecox Bay, she tried unsuccessfully to convince the Southampton Zoning Board of Appeals to allow her to raise and enlarge it so she could see past the houses. Instead, she said, her more recent paintings of that vista relied mostly on memory. She also painted in a studio in her Greenwich Village home, often with the same flowers grown from her garden on the windowsill overlooking the cityscape.

Freilicher was the last name of her first husband, Jack, whom she married when she was 17, just after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The marriage was dissolved a few years later. She met Joe Hazan in 1952 and married him in 1957. He died in 2012, and they have a daughter, Elizabeth Hazan, a son-in-law, and three grandchildren who survive them.

"Early New York Evening," 1954

Born in Flatbush, Brooklyn, on Nov. 29, 1924, to Martin and Birdie Kominsky Niederhoffer, she grew up in Brighton Beach and was valedictorian at Abraham Lincoln High School. In addition to art, she studied French literature and poetry in college. She then moved to West Point, where Mr. Freilicher was stationed and where he played in the West Point Army Band. Following the war, he joined the same band as Rivers and they played together that summer in Maine.

After attending Hofmann’s school, she studied with Meyer Shapiro at Columbia University, earning a master’s degree in 1948. During this time, she met the group of New York School poets who would become lifelong friends. These included Kenneth Koch, John Ashbery, and Frank O’Hara, who was the first to buy one of her paintings. She told The Star in 1997 they were a wonderful support group and she liked that there was “a directness, a lack of pretension” about them.

Jane Frelicher back in the day                                                                             John Jonas Gruen

While she earnestly tried abstraction, she was quite taken with a 1948 retrospective of Pierre Bonnard at the Museum of Modern Art as well as other retrospectives of Vuillard, Courbet, and Matisse. These artists became her influences, leading her away from Abstract Expressionism. “It’s true that I didn’t conform to the mainstream zeitgeist,” she said in 1997, “but it wasn’t so much a matter of choice — it’s just something that you do.”

"Still Life, Persian Carpet," 1955

Her first solo gallery show was in 1952 at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery, which was under the direction of John Myers. She eventually followed him to his own gallery. After some years of other representation, mostly at the Fischbach Gallery, she rejoined Tibor de Nagy in 1998 and exhibited there regularly until the present. Over the years, museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art have shown and collected her work.

This week, Eric Brown, director of Tibor de Nagy, said she was “one of the most important 20th-century painters to record the Long Island landscape.” While during much of her six-decade career landscape painting was “considered retrograde and out of fashion . . . in recent years Jane’s work has found a wider following among young artists, who unlike previous generations exist in a pluralistic contemporary art world.”

"Light from Above," 1982

Also in 1952, she met Fairfield Porter, who would become a great friend, mentor, and champion of her work. Even though she and her husband had visited East Hampton in summers prior, it was through visiting Porter, who lived in Southampton, that they decided to build the house and studio in Water Mill in 1960, she said in 1997.

These were the years of the summer beach and backyard parties captured in books such as “Hamptons Bohemia” and photos by John Jonas Gruen, who, with his wife, Jane Wilson, was counted among Ms. Freilicher’s friends for almost a half-century. A longtime art critic, he said this week that “Jane was a painter of very particular talent, and we loved the clarity and beauty of her landscapes and still lifes.”

While Ms. Freilicher said in 1997 that she valued the lack of “glitter and Hollywood infiltration” of the early days, there is one photograph Mr. Gruen took of Kim Novak, one of the famous actresses of that era, visiting her studio and looking very glamorous. In 1950, Ms. Freilicher did some acting herself, playing the role of the psychiatrist in Rudy Burckhardt’s film “Mounting Tension,” with Larry Rivers and John Ashbery.

"A Jar of Forsythia," 1990

Her friends loved her, as Mr. Gruen put it, for “her wit and drop-dead responses to people’s foibles and on-target beau mots about life in general.” She inspired endless devotion among her poet friends, who often chose her as a subject, prompting her gallery to devote a show to it in 2013, “Jane Freilicher: Painter Among Poets,” featuring poems such as O’Hara’s “A Sonnet for Jane Freilicher,” “Chez Jane,” and “Jane Awake,” to give just a few examples.

Although her paintings frequently had a brooding psychological mood, it was not something she liked to discuss. “When I paint a subject and then look back at the painting, how it goes together is often a mystery,” she said in 2008. “I don’t have a plan. People try to extract some meaning, but it is what it is.”

The Ross School in East Hampton is establishing a Jane Freilicher Scholarship to help students benefit from a Ross School education, regardless of economic circumstances. More information is available at 907-5214.

“Interior (With Jane)”

The eagerness of objects to

be what we are afraid to do

cannot help but move us    Is

this willingness to be a motive

in us what we reject?    The

really stupid things, I mean

a can of coffee, a 35¢ ear

ring, a handful of hair, what

do these things do to us?    We

come into the room, the windows

are empty, the sun is weak

and slippery on the ice    And a

sob comes, simply because it is

coldest of the things we know

— Frank O’Hara, 1951, from “Jane Freilicher: Painter Among Poets”

A proposed offshore wind farm to be situated 30 miles east of Montauk is in doubt in the wake of the Long Island Power Authority's decision on Wednesday to reject the proposed installation. LIPA will, however, pursue 11 land-based solar farms in Suffolk County. The wind farm, to be constructed and operated by the Rhode Island company Deepwater Wind, was prohibitively expensive, according to LIPA officials.

When completed and operational, the solar projects LIPA voted to pursue are projected to provide 122 megawatts of power, a figure that falls short of the 280 megawatts of clean, renewable energy the authority announced as a goal in 2012.

Reaction from stakeholders was swift. Jeffrey Grybowski, chief executive officer of Deepwater Wind, issued a statement on Wednesday in which he said that the power company had "missed an opportunity to build a 21st-century energy supply for Long Island and a new local industry employing hundreds for years to come."

Mr. Grybowski pointed to a report issued by Stony Brook University concluding that construction of a wind farm and LIPA's purchase of energy from it would have no impact on ratepayer bills. "Long Islanders suffer from some of the highest energy costs in the Northeast," he said, "and the region trails the rest of New York State in renewables." LIPA's decision, he said, "does little to prepare Long Island for the future energy needs, save ratepayers money, or put Long Island laborers back to work."

Last month, Mr. Grybowski announced a partnership with the Nassau-Suffolk Building and Construction Trades Council and the Long Island Federation of Labor, A.F.L.-C.I.O., to develop a local offshore wind industry. At that time, he said that he anticipated some 300 jobs would result from the offshore wind farm's construction project. "We believe offshore wind has the potential to start a new clean-energy industry on the island," he said.

Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, had a different take on yesterday's announcement. On behalf of commercial fishermen, Ms. Brady was concerned about the proposed project's potential impact on marine habitat, spawning, and migratory patterns.

It was hypocritical, Ms. Brady said, to fear environmental degradation through the burning of fossil fuels while damaging the environment that sustains an essential industry for Long Island's economy and many of its residents. "We've got a renewable resource in our fisheries," Ms. Brady said, "and it's not just for commercial guys, it's for the charter guys, recreational guys, lobstermen." The proposed 256-square-mile wind farm site, she said, "is a very important area. It shouldn't be 'alternative energy at all costs,' as in, 'destroy an ecosystem so we can have it.' "

"I'm relieved that LIPA made a measured decision," Ms. Brady said. "I want to believe it's based upon not wanting to degrade an environment in the name of green energy."

While recognizing the concerns of commercial fishermen, Mr. Grybowski disputed the degree of disruption or degradation construction of the offshore wind farm would have caused.

The Springs School Board convened a special session Thursday morning to unanimously appointed Christopher Sarlo as interim principal.

Eric Casale, the current principal, will undergo spinal surgery on Jan. 6. He is expected to return to his post in February.

Mr. Sarlo was a principal of East Hampton High School and in 2005 served as the interim principal of the Springs School. As interim principal this time around, he will serve from Jan. 5 until Jan. 31.

“I would like to assure you that we fully anticipate a smooth transition, with absolutely no disruption in the students’ educational experience during this time,” Elizabeth Mendelman, the board president, wrote in an email to parents. “Given his track record and history in not only our district but the surrounding area as well, the board of education has the utmost confidence in Mr. Sarlo and his ability to serve the Springs community.”

The Springs School begins its two-week winter recess on Monday. Classes will resume on Jan. 5.

East Hampton Town announced Thursday that it had won a $250,000 grant from New York State to develop a coastal assessment and resiliency plan.

In a release from the town, Supervisor Larry Cantwell said the plan will examine “erosion risks, storm vulnerability, and natural recovery.” He credited the Natural Resources Department and Concerned Citizens of Montauk with helping to secure the grant.

From the earliest days of his campaign for town supervisor in 2013, Mr. Cantwell spoke of the importance of developing “a mitigation and recovery plan to protect against the threat of coastal erosion and sea-level rise.”

The grant includes the $250,000 from the state and a matching $250,000 from “other private and public sources,” according to the release.

East Hampton Town was a co-sponsor earlier this week of a three-day climate adaptation training course at Stony Brook Southampton led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency’s office for coastal management and other experts in the field. The conference was also sponsored by Southampton Town, the Peconic Estuary Program, Concerned Citizens of Montauk, the Peconic Institute, and Stony Brook University.

A driver who struck and killed a Scottish golf caddy bicycling home from his first day of work in Southampton in May pleaded guilty on Friday to two felony charges, including manslaughter, for recklessly causing the death of Neil Fyfe, 28.

Jesse Werner Steudte of Southampton, 22, admitted that he was drunk and drove through a stoplight at about 6:30 p.m. at the intersection of Country Road 39 and Sandy Hollow Road while driving a 1990 Jeep when he struck Mr. Fyfe in a crosswalk. He also pleaded guilty to vehicular manslaughter and a misdemeanor driving while intoxicated charge,

Mr. Fyfe was returning from the Sebonack Golf Club when he was hit. People on the scene tried to revive him, but he was declared dead at Southampton Hospital.

Mr. Steudte is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 3 by New York State Supreme Court Justice Fernando Camacho.

Mr. Fyfe was originally from Aberdeen. According to the Glasgow-based Daily Record, he had been pursuing his dream of becoming a caddy on the PGA tour, and had been planning to return to Aberdeen to marry Jennifer Mouncy, 25. They had been dating for 11 years, The Record said.

The Record also spoke with Mr. Fyfe’s sister, Angela, in May. “I keep thinking he’s going to text, asking us what we’re all going on about 'cos he’s fine and well,” she said.