Voters from Montauk to Smithtown will go to the polls on Tuesday as the campaign to represent New York’s First Congressional District culminates amid a frenzy of unprecedented spending, advertising — mostly of the negative variety — and frequent debates between Representative Tim Bishop, the six-term Democratic incumbent, and State Senator Lee Zeldin, his Republican challenger.

The race is expected to be close. Yesterday, the website electionprojection. com predicted Mr. Bishop winning by 3.6 percent. The political analyst Stuart Rothenberg and the conservative-leaning website realclearpolitics.com have also predicted a thin margin of victory for Mr. Bishop.

According to Oct. 15 quarterly finance reports filed by the campaigns, Mr. Bishop’s campaign committee had raised $700,000 and spent $815,000 in the quarter, while Mr. Zeldin’s had raised $659,000 and spent $391,000. Mr. Bishop had $1 million on hand to Mr. Zeldin’s $404,000. Outside groups, however, are spending heavily in the district. The American Action Network, a con servative group backing Mr. Zeldin, has pledged to spend $1.2 million in the effort to unseat Mr. Bishop. The Democratic and Republican parties’ Congressional campaign committees have spent a combined $4.7 million.

The Federal Election Commission reports $8.77 million in independent expenditures in the district, including for George Demos, whom Mr. Zeldin defeated in the Republican primary election. Ultimately, $10 million may be spent in the contest.

At a debate held at LTV Studios in Wainscott last Thursday, the candidates drew distinctions between their records and positions on issues pertaining to the South Fork.

Asked how noise from helicopter traffic to and from East Hampton Airport should be addressed, Mr. Bishop said that prior to his and Senator Charles Schumer’s urging that the Federal Aviation Administration approve a high-altitude, offshore northern route, and a South Shore route to defuse traffic, “the F.A.A. did not regulate helicopter traffic at all.”

Mr. Zeldin countered that Senator Schumer, Mr. Bishop, and President Barack Obama are Democrats and the Senate has a Democratic majority. “The administration, the F.A.A., everything is controlled by that party,” he said. “I don’t understand why this has been an effort that has been going on for such a long time without the results that the people of this district want.”

Mr. Bishop pounced on the comment. “Apparently my opponent doesn’t know how the federal government operates,” he said. “The United States Senate does not control what the F.A.A. does. . . . To suggest that simply because Schumer is a member of the majority and he ought to be able to get it done with the F.A.A. just shows no understanding whatsoever of how the federal government operates.” They agreed, however, on a home-rule approach to the airport’s operations and all-water routes for helicopter traffic.

Mr. Zeldin was similarly critical of what he said was the slow pace of Hurricane Sandy-related recovery projects. In response to Mr. Bishop’s remarks on the Army Corps of Engineers’ proposed project to protect downtown Montauk’s shoreline with geotextile bags and a larger, more permanent project he said would follow in 2016, Mr. Zeldin said that “the residents of East Hampton are expecting a much larger-scope project to protect the shoreline, and it is greatly unfortunate that we are here talking about that permanent fix still being two years away.”

Mr. Bishop again questioned Mr. Zeldin’s command of the facts. “My opponent is never one to let truth get in the way of a good attack,” he said. The Corps has prioritized recovery efforts, he said, focusing first on the most urgent and dangerous damage, then on repair of previously constructed projects. “The third level of activity is to deal with these interim projects,” he said, such as the proposal for Montauk.

Regarding employment on Long Island, Mr. Zeldin said that the cost of doing business has to be reduced, citing energy and healthcare costs. He criticized medical malpractice insurance rates and said he supports tort reform and a simplified tax code. Mr. Bishop said that, while the best job creators are in the private sector, “the public sector’s responsibility is to create the environment in which the private sector does what it does best, which is to create and innovate.” He cited the need to invest in education and job training “so that the young people of Long Island have the skills and training necessary to fill the jobs that exist on Long Island.”

Mr. Zeldin criticized the Affordable Care Act, relating reports of higher health insurance premiums and deductibles, cancelled policies, and longer wait times. “There is common ground to be found between the two parties,” he said.

“I would be delighted to be a part of a discussion in which we tried to improve on a piece of legislation that has already done a lot of good,” Mr. Bishop replied, “but that’s not happening in the United States Congress because the entire focus has been on repeal, and by the way with nothing to replace it. . . . Let’s stop obsessing on repealing it, and start obsessing on fixing it.”

Mr. Bishop said he has been endorsed by “virtually all of organized labor,” law enforcement, and environmental organizations. On Mr. Zeldin’s campaign website, a list of officials that have endorsed him includes East Hampton Town Councilman Fred Overton, Stephen Lynch, the town’s highway superintendent, Southampton Town Councilman Stan Glinka and Town Clerk Sundy A. Schermeyer, and State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle. 

The candidates for Congress are all the way to the right on column 16 of the ballot. Mr. Bishop is running on the Democratic, Working Families, and Independence Party lines. Mr. Zeldin is on the Republican and Conservative lines.

Also on the ballot is the contest for governor and lieutenant governor, pitting the Democratic incumbent Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and his running mate, Kathy C. Hochul (who also have Independence, Working Family, and Women’s Equality Party backing), against the Republicans Rob Astorino and Chris Moss, running also on the Conservative, and Stop Common Core lines; the Green Party’s Howie Hawkins and Brian P. Jones; the Libertarians Michael McDermott and Chris Edes, and the Sapient Party’s Steven Cohn and Bobby K. Kalotee. The incumbent State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli, a Democrat, is facing challenges from the Republican Robert Antonacci, the Green Party’s Theresa M. Portelli, and the Libertarian’s John Clifton. Eric T. Schneiderman, the Democratic attorney general, is running against the Republican John Cahill, the Green Party’s Ramon Jimenez, and the Libertarian Carl E. Person.

Voters will choose six New York State Supreme Court justices for the 10th Judicial District from the nine running. Two county court judges, a family court judge, and the county clerk are running unopposed. The Republican John M. Kennedy Jr. and Democrat Jim Gaughran are running for county comptroller.

Finally, while they do not face tough races, State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle, a Republican, and the Independence Party’s State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., who has Democratic and Working Family backing, are also being challenged. Looking to take Mr. Thiele’s seat are Heather C. Collins on the Republican ticket and Brian J. De Sesa on the Conservative line. Mr. LaValle’s challenger is Michael L. Conroy, a Democrat.

With Reporting by Carissa Katz

Parents of East Hampton High School students received an automated phone call yesterday morning informing them that the school had been evacuated after administrators discovered a threatening message scrawled on a bathroom mirror.

Although the school said the threat did not appear to be credible, police conducted a thorough search of the building. Around 10:45 a.m., conditions were deemed safe and students returned to class.

This was the district’s latest opportunity to put into action the security protocols it has been fine-tuning since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in December 2012.

Earlier this month, South Fork school administrators were on high alert after a Springs resident discharged a shotgun at his house and drove off with the gun in the car. A multi-jurisdictional manhunt ensued, with schools ordered to begin a lockout. No one was allowed to enter or exit school grounds until it ended, with the capture of the man, Valon Shoshi.

Jack Perna, superintendent of the Montauk School, went a step further. He promptly put his school on lockdown.

Lockdown is an added layer of precaution, when teachers and students are instructed to wait inside locked classrooms, away from windows, until the all-clear signal is heard. Mr. Perna used School Messenger, an emergency parent notification system that sends messages via email, text, and phone, to alert parents of the lockdown via text.

He then stood watch by the front door of the school until informed by the East Hampton Town police that the man had been taken into custody. Fifteen minutes later, he sent a second text to parents, informing them that the lockdown had been lifted.

Reflecting Monday on what he might do differently if it happened again, the superintendent said he’d likely wait a while longer to alert parents, hoping to avoid hysteria.

“I might hold off next time. It sounds terrible,” he said. “If, God forbid, there was a situation and the police were here, people who were panicked and coming to get their children, it could make matters worse. And it’s not like we are going to let them in anyway.”

Montauk School, like most local schools, now operates on a permanent state of heightened alert. Since September 2013, it requires that visitors be buzzed in at the front entrance not once, but twice. Motion-activated cameras stand at the ready. Mr. Perna, who has been the superintendent since 1995, is constantly balancing the need to protect his students and staff with the obligation to keep parents informed.

“These are their children. They should know what’s going on,” he said. “But what they need to know is that police have a plan and the plan works best without outside influences.”

Since the Oct. 3 manhunt, he and several other administrators have talked about what else they might have done, and might do in the future. While schools have held lockdown drills in the past (typically once or twice a year), this was their first real-life test.

Since the Sandy Hook shooting there have been at least 87 weapons-related incidents in schools, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, an antigun coalition run by Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City. The most recent incident happened on Friday when Jaylen Fryberg, a 15-year-old student at Marysville-Pilchuck High School in Washington State opened fire on five of his classmates before taking his own life.

Though schools have faced ramped-up security concerns ever since the shootings at Columbine High School in 1999, the Sandy Hook attack radically altered the landscape. South Fork districts, like others across the country, have since implemented rigorous defenses. Some have constructed new vestibules at front entrances, while others have ensured that classroom doors can be locked and that administrators, teachers, and visitors wear badges during school hours, for instant identification.

For Richard Burns, the East Hampton superintendent, the Oct. 3 incident proved an invaluable learning lesson, particularly insofar as communication is concerned. Mr. Burns was in constant contact with both town and village police that day, since East Hampton High School falls within East Hampton Town police jurisdiction while East Hampton Middle School and John M. Marshall Elementary School are under the protection of the East Hampton Village police.

Barring entry to outsiders proved especially relevant in East Hampton, since Mr. Shoshi, 28, had formerly worked as a paraprofessional in the district — and was, to many, a familiar face.

“I’m happy with the overall process and response in each of the buildings,” said Mr. Burns. Each principal was tasked with alerting parents via email. Since the day of the manhunt, said the superintendent, a few minor procedural changes have been put into place. Because of security concerns, he declined to elaborate.

“The incident helped make sure that all of our bases are covered,” said Mr. Burns. “We’re trying to question everything we do, and if we see a hole or a blip, we immediately work to correct it.”

Adam Fine, the high school’s principal, was not in the building on Oct. 3. He and two other administrators were at a conference in Melville. That morning he received a call from Mr. Burns, informing him of the situation.

Police judged that there was no threat to the high school building, so a lockout was imposed, where students are still free to roam within the building, but no lockdown. Students turned quickly to their smartphones as rumors began to spread on Facebook and Twitter.

“We did a great job, considering, but I would have liked more communication to the student body to set their minds at ease,” said Mr. Fine on Tuesday. “In a lockout situation, you’re free to communicate.”

From his phone, he sent a Google alert to parents, telling them that a lockout had begun and then that it had been lifted.

“Our number-one priority is to worry about the kids in the school and then be able to send a message to families to set their minds at ease,” said Mr. Fine. “It ended up being a great exercise as a district. No one was in jeopardy of getting hurt, and it was a great training to talk about what we can do better.”

Now in his 13th year as an administrator, he said the school conducts a lockdown drill twice each year. Following the Sandy Hook shooting, the principal himself completed an active-shooter training course with the town police. He urges other school administrators to consider taking the all-day course.

Besides the worry of unknown outside threats, Mr. Fine and others on his staff spend a lot of time focusing on what they can control — students’ mental health. “With most of these shooters, you start seeing patterns of mental illness that went for years unchecked and how it all ties together,” said Mr. Fine. During the more than 50 principal-parent breakfasts he has convened, he said that 90 percent of the questions he has fielded concern issues not of academics, but of students and their well-being.

Though the Ross School, Springs School, Bridgehampton School, and Amagansett School also went on lockout, police did not instruct the Wainscott School to follow a similar procedure. “We didn’t hear about the situation until later on. The person in question [Mr. Shoshi] was headed east,” said Stuart Rachlin, the district’s superintendent. “I guess there was a sense that we were out of harm’s way.”

Mr. Rachlin, an educator with more than 40 years of experience, has also witnessed a changed landscape where school security is concerned. The Wainscott School has implemented several changes in recent years, including more alarms, closed-circuit cameras, a secured front entrance, and a special notification system for anyone (including the physical education teacher) who leaves the building with students. Even parents who stop by during the day are routinely greeted and questioned.

No longer is anyone permitted on school grounds, unless it is after-hours. While in past years local residents with young children might visit the school playground during the day, they are now asked to come back after students have been dismissed.

“You don’t want to be alarmist, but it’s difficult to balance a sense of community and family while at the same time creating a safe environment that can quickly become more of a police state than not,” said Mr. Rachlin.

 

“I was in a bubble,” Valon Shoshi said yesterday, looking back on the day just over a month ago when he became the subject of a townwide police search after firing a shotgun at his house in Springs. “It was a dark bubble.”

Mr. Shoshi, 29, who was arrested on Oct. 3 and ordered by East Hampton Town Justice Lisa R. Rana to seek psychiatric treatment upon his release the next day, was back in court last Thursday. Although he had hoped to return to Kosovo, where he is in the midst of divorce proceedings, Justice Rana told him that he cannot do so.

 “Listen,” she told him, “I set bail at $25,000, and I took your passport from you. If I find out you have left the country, it will not be good for you. You cannot leave the country.”

A court date in Kosovo was put off after he was arrested, and Mr. Shoshi said his Kosovo divorce attorney had told him that he would not be allowed any further delays. He said he is working with his attorney there to set a new final court date.

Mr. Shoshi’s family came to the United States from Kosovo in 1999. Three years ago, he met his future wife, Paulina Nushi, there, moved back, and was married. He returned to the United States earlier this year, but was distraught over the breakup of his marriage, he said.

“I lost all desire to continue,” he wrote last Thursday on his Facebook page. On Oct. 3, Mr. Shoshi fired his gun three times at his house on Gardiner Avenue (his mother suffered minor injuries from debris). He then left in his car, taking the gun with him. His family called police, concerned he would hurt himself, and a three-hour search ensued. He was arraigned the next day on four charges, including reckless endangerment.

“I never wanted to hurt anybody,” he said yesterday, “especially my mother.” He had fired the gun away from her, he said, and then left the house with one shot left. In the moments before he was arrested on Oct. 3, he said, he was on the phone with East Hampton Town Police Capt. Chris Anderson and was driving to turn himself in to the captain when his car was stopped in front of One Stop Market on Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton. Armed officers surrounded him. On his Facebook page, Mr. Shoshi wrote that he had prayed that day that “the police will just end my life for me.”

Mr. Shoshi, who turned 29 last Sunday, had been a role model in the larger East Hampton community, a fact Justice Rana pointed to during his arraignment on Oct. 4. He worked as an aide at the John M. Marshall Elementary School and volunteered with the Springs Fire Department and the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association, where he was an assistant chief before he left for Kosovo.

“My joy is in helping others,” he said yesterday. “It is what makes me happy.”

Outside the courtroom last Thursday, Mr. Shoshi stood with his many friends and family who had come, as they did when he was first arraigned, to show their support for him.

He said he sees a brighter future ahead, and looks forward to rejoining the community he loves so much.

Mike Bottini and Tom Muse of the Eastern Long Island Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation appeared before the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee on Monday, hoping to persuade members to take a closer look at the Army Corps of Engineers’ proposed beach restoration project. The men, both of whom work in environmental fields, Mr. Bottini as a naturalist and nature writer and Mr. Muse as a landscape designer with his own firm, claim the plan will ruin the hamlet’s downtown public beaches.

They met with a frosty reception. They were accused of using scare tactics during their presentation, which included a slide show showing other primary dunes in Montauk that have been naturally sustained with sea grasses, some with strong rhizomes that anchor them to the dune and help prevent erosion. “Beach grass is nature’s great snow-fencing,” said Mr. Bottini.

The Army Corps project, which is expected to begin in the spring at an estimated cost of $9 million, calls for fortifying the beach with a 16-foot-high dune along 3,100 feet of shoreline, with a core of 14,000 “geotextile” bags filled with sand. The Town of East Hampton and Suffolk County have signed on and agreed to share the cost of annual maintenance, estimated at $157,000 each.

The two speakers said the project would consume most of the beach. They also said, and showed in pictures, other places in the nation where sand-filled bags used to stop erosion were uncovered and ripped apart in storms, leaving an unsightly mess. The type of sand used in the bags was another concern, and would most likely not be compatible with what is currently on the beach, they said. Mr. Muse said the bags would not only be exposed in a strong storm but would narrow the beach.

“You’re compromising the beach. You and your children are going to be walking and playing on geo-bags,” Mr. Bottini warned. He said motels should never have been built on a primary dune, and would not be subject to storm surges or full-moon tides had they been built farther back.

The speakers also said the town did not have the extra money it would need to maintain the artificial dune and asked where the funding would come from.

Aram Terchunian, a coastal consultant with the First Coastal Corporation, was at the meeting. Mr. Terchunian, who has worked previously with Montauk motel owners, claimed the men’s statistics and terminology were incorrect.

In a follow-up conversation yesterday, he said that the project would not take up the width of the beach as they had asserted. “They’re going to snuggle those bags up as close to the motels as possible,” he said, adding that the speakers had used incorrect terms to describe the bags, which are called geo-textiles. At one point, he said, they called them sand traps.

He said he had been happy to see the number of people in the room who agreed on the plan to fortify the beach. Montauk’s downtown beaches have been neglected for over 20 years, he said, and the motel owners have been the only ones helping to maintain them, to the tune of millions of dollars. “Now there’s a groundswell to solve the problem, and that’s what’s needed,” said the geologist.

Several committee members asked the men during their presentation what they would recommend. Mr. Bottini said that the natural dune should be replicated with sand and the motels should consider retreating from the site.

“The better way is to not build on these dunes, but we did, and now it’s our problem; it’s not just the motels’ problem. They’ve paid their taxes to the municipality and it’s now the municipality’s problem,” said James Grimes of Fort Pond Native Plants.

Andy Harris, a committee member, said the project was a temporary relief plan, and should be looked at accordingly. East Hampton Town Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc, the citizens’ committee’s town board liaison, agreed, calling the Army Corps project “a stopgap measure.”

Jeremy Samuelson, executive director of the Concerned Citizens of Montauk, recognized at the meeting and later said by email that his group's members are concerned about the type of sand that will fill the geotextile bags. They are worried as well, he said, about the town’s annual financial responsibility and think the $157,000 estimated is too low.

Mr. Samuelson said C.C.O.M. would like to know just how far seaward the proposed structure will extend and would like to see it moved closer to land. He said the project would not solve Montauk’s erosion problem. His group favors a soft solution, environmentally sound and economically feasible, backed by either a dune made of sand or geo-tubes covered in sand.

The project “may buy a few years to create a coastal resiliency plan that involves all stakeholders and creates incentives and financing mechanisms to reconfigure Montauk’s vulnerable infrastructure,” he said. “Downtown Montauk is going to look very different in 20 years, and we cannot leave it to fate to decide what those changes will be.”

Mr. Samuelson told the committee of an upcoming three-day conference called Climate Adaption for Coastal Communities that will be held at Stony Brook Southampton from Dec. 9 to 11. The conference, an intensive training program organized by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, will bring together national engineering and planning experts, providing them with a “climate adaptation tool kit” to address problems in the context of local government priorities. “We have to get the right people in that room,” Mr. Samuelson told the committee. 

“If we’re at this point in the process where all these questions are being raised, then the Army Corps needs to provide more information," he said. 

Correction: An earlier version of this article in print and online said that Concerned Citizens of Montauk advocates putting the Army Corps project on hold. According to C.C.O.M., that is not the organization's position.

The East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals is considering, for the second time in three years, an application to replace a decaying 1930s dock in Gardiner’s Bay, and this time, the Z.B.A. is expected to approve the application. Even the man who shepherded the town’s Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan, which in general recommends against hard structures, has given it his blessing.

The application is from the Broadview Property Owners Association, which represents the owners in a 1980s subdivision of what was once about a 550-acre estate in Amagansett owned by Dr. Dennistoun M. Bell.

 The bay beach from Barnes Hole Road to Albert’s Landing Road apparently was deeded to Dr. Bell by the East Hampton Town Trustees, and it is now shown on the town’s land database as owned by the association. The now-mostly landlocked dock, built to provide a deep water berth for Dr. Bell’s 70-foot yacht, is about halfway between those roads.

 Perpendicular to the shore, the dock was 110 feet long, with an upside down L running parallel to the shore for 125 feet at its end. The perpendicular section of the dock is now almost completely submerged, and sand has accreted along the beach and built up the dunes. That is because, according to Brian Frank, the East Hampton Town Planning Department’s chief environmental analyst, the dock was made of steel sheathing instead of open pilings, which are more frequently associated with fixed docks. Were the dock not in place, sand would drift naturally southward toward Albert’s Landing. Mr. Frank said the dunes had flourished as a result of the dock, creating excellent habitats for plants and animals.

In 2011, the association came before the board to replace the perpendicular section of the dock, while removing the L section. It also planned to put in 31 feet of rock armor at the seaward end of the new pier. At the time, it was thought that the association needed both a permit and a variance from the section of the town code prohibiting such structures.

The 2011 hearing was contentious, pitting association members against each other and prompting Philip Gamble, then chairman of the board, to express displeasure. He called the proposal “disingenuous,” saying the dock was simply a groin. “To this date, no one has ever asked to put in a groin or jetty or whatever you want to call it,” Mr. Gamble said. The board voted 4-1 to deny the application, with only Don Cirillo voting in favor.

The application is before the board again because in a recent re-examination of the code, it was learned that an obscure section was overlooked, according to Mr. Frank, that gives the town’s chief building inspector rather than the Z.B.A. jurisdiction over docks built perpendicular to the shore.

 The code also bans the Z.B.A. from issuing any variance involving perpendicular erosion control structures, unless they are to “ensure the safe navigability of a boat channel.” It also says the building inspector can approve the construction or removal of perpendicular groins, jetties, or other structures if the change “would result in a reduction of the size or length of the structure and a public or environmental benefit.”

Patrick B. Fife, an attorney with Twomey, Latham, Shea, Kelly, Dubin & Quatararo, made aware of this interpretation of the code, had brought a plan for a somewhat smaller dock to Tom Preiato, then chief building inspector, who rejected the application, prompting the association to present its case to the Z.B.A. by appealing his ruling.

The proposed reconstruction meets the demands of the town code, Mr. Fife said at a Z.B.A. hearing on Oct. 28 because the “overall size and length of the structure will be dramatically reduced.” It also was his opinion that the reconstruction would result in “public or environmental benefit.”

Although the beach is private property, the public has the right to walk on it between the low and high tide mean water marks, something that happens daily, he said. The new dock would largely be submerged, and the public would be able to cross it on foot.

Unlike at the 2011 hearing, there was no opposition to the proposal voiced last week. Besides members of the Broadview Property Owners Association, members of the Barnes Landing Association, owners of residences immediately to the north, spoke in favor of the plan. Furthermore, Rameshwar Das, who helped craft the Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan, submitted a letter in favor of the proposal. He had previously told The East Hampton Star that “the Bell dock is the only thing holding the Barnes Landing beach in place.”

The board received one letter in opposition to the proposal from an association member, Neal Gabler, who also opposed the 2011 application.

Despite the favorable comment, Mr. Frank suggested that the board uphold Mr. Preiato’s denial of a building permit so that the association could fine-tune the plan and resubmit it to the Building Department. However, Elizabeth Baldwin, the board’s attorney, told the members this week that they could act as building inspector in this case and allow a building permit to be issued.

David Lys, a member of the board, asked that the record be kept open and the association asked to submit the actual deed for the beach to make sure that the public has the right to walk on it in perpetuity. His request was granted.

Ahead of the opening of East Hampton Town waters to the harvesting of scallops on Monday, officials of the town’s shellfish hatchery, marine enforcement personnel, the town trustees, and baymen are hoping that a self-policing effort among those harvesting shellfish will bolster official efforts to thwart poaching.

A healthy harvest is in store, said John Dunne, director of the shellfish hatchery, where each year millions of larval scallops, clams, and oysters are spawned and then seeded throughout town waterways to supplement existing shellfish stock. “Napeague, for sure, looks good,” he said of Napeague Harbor, “reminiscent of two years ago. Maybe not quite as robust, but awfully close.” Scallop season opened in state waters this past Monday.

Last November, the 8,000-square-foot scallop sanctuary on the east side of Napeague Harbor, one of two shellfish sanctuaries in East Hampton waterways, was breached, with the buoys delineating its perimeter dragged aside and bottomland uprooted. Mr. Dunne and his staff seed waterways including the sanctuaries at Napeague and Three Mile Harbors, where commercial and recreational fishing is prohibited. “The sanctuaries are looking robust, but that would be expected,” he said. “It’s going be enticing,” he said of the upcoming harvest. He is preparing signs to erect around the sanctuaries. “Everybody seems to know about it. I’m hoping they will police themselves if the enforcement isn’t there.”

In September, Nat Miller, a trustee and 13th-generation bayman, warned his colleagues that the taking of shellfish without a permit or in quantities exceeding that permitted was a problem that was “spiraling out of control.” Fully half of the harvest, he predicted, would be lost through illegal practices, doing significant harm to the local economy.

“I hope people will play by the rules,” Mr. Miller said on Tuesday. “As I said before, you get an attitude of, ‘If everybody’s going to do wrong, I have to do wrong.’ We’ll see how the season goes. Maybe some people will think about it.”

The State Department of Environmental Conservation requires scallops to measure two and a quarter inches and show an annual growth ring. According to the town’s shellfish ordinance, commercial permittees are allowed to harvest five bushels per day. Two or more commercial permittees occupying the same boat while harvesting scallops are allowed up to 10 bushels per day. If only one person in a boat holds a commercial permit, only five bushels per day are permitted. Those with recreational permits are allowed one bushel of scallops per day.

Ed Michels, the town harbormaster, said on Tuesday that a meeting with the trustees and baymen to discuss enforcement had been scheduled but postponed. He said that he has held discussions with town officials regarding an increase in fines for code violations, but no changes would take effect before next year. “If I get to do what I want to, we’ll make those recommendations over the winter and get the code amended,” he said.

Diane McNally, the trustees’ clerk, said that she had discussed enforcement efforts with Mr. Michels after the trustees’ last meeting on Oct. 28. “In this day and age with cellphones, if you see an officer near Accabonac, you can call somebody and say ‘You’re free to do whatever you want in Napeague or Three Mile,’ ” she said. “Ed’s going to talk with his guys.” She said that she had suggested strategies to surprise those potentially poaching in town waters. “I think people going shellfishing are very smart,” she said. “If you want to break the law you can find a way to do it. We just do our best.”

Many praised marine enforcement efforts but decried what they called insufficient manpower. The department, Mr. Michels said, has two full-time and six part-time officers and has documented some 1,300 inspections and issued around 35 summonses related to shellfish this year. “It’s not marine patrol or the quality of the officers, it’s just that there’s not enough of them,” Mr. Miller said. “I notify them occasionally,” Mr. Dunne said. “I see something suspicious, and they’re right on it.”

While the harvest is expected to be a good one, efforts to maintain a healthy environment for shellfish are ongoing. In addition to providing coastal communities with protection from erosion, seagrass improves water quality and offers a safe habitat for shellfish and finfish. “The eelgrass in Lake Montauk is just gone,” Mr. Dunne said. “There used to be a nice bed just off the Gone Fishing Marina. Now it’s just barren.” 

The Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Marine Meadows program is one effort to protect and improve eelgrass beds. As part of it, eelgrass shoots are woven into biodegradable discs, which are then planted by divers in waterways including Napeague Harbor. The Save Our Seagrass Celebration, a fund-raiser for the Marine Meadows Program, will be held on Saturday at the South Fork Natural History Museum in Bridgehampton. Details can be found in the Bridgehampton notes this week. Freshly harvested bay scallops will be served.

With the blessing of the Montauk Lighthouse Committee, Jimmy Buffett, Bettina Stelle, and Russell Drumm, a senior writer at The Star, have launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $25,000 and create the Oceans Institute in a building on the Lighthouse grounds that was previously used to house a fog siren.

After a conversation on the beach with the other two, Mr. Drumm approached the Lighthouse committee, an arm of the Montauk Historical Society, with the idea in February. The 1897 building in question, with a cupola on its roof, sits between the Lighthouse and the World War II fire control tower and has been used for years as storage. Its original plans are stored at the Lighthouse.

Lighthouse officials were amenable to the project, provided the building is kept in or restored to the original design, in keeping with the Lighthouse’s status as a National Historic Landmark.

Gregory Donohue, a board member of the Lighthouse committee, will be the liaison between the two groups. “It’s absolutely an incredible opportunity,” he said, adding that the Lighthouse committee had been so busy with other plans it hadn’t had time to consider what the building could be used for. “It’s a positive thing to get it back to what it was, and once we do, the sky’s the limit,” he said.

If the money is raised, the building will house exhibits on surfing, its roots and history in Montauk; a virtual aquarium, and science exhibits on how the force of nature drives the ocean waters, geography, geology, weather, and marine life.

The exhibits will change frequently, said Ms. Stelle. “We will not allow it to be static,” she said, adding that a big part of the project is to get schoolchildren involved with environmental programs.

The group, which as of this week also included Joe Gaviola of the Lighthouse committee, is shooting for a Memorial Day opening, with the first exhibit to be created by Montauk School students. The hope is that Oceans Institute will become a popular destination for school field trips.

The Kickstarter campaign, which is listed at the site under Montauk Surf Museum, would fund the first phase of the project, a restoration of the building including two doors and four windows. Stephen Alesch is on board as the architect; John Hummell and Associates will do the work, which would eventually include a skylight in the cupola.

The overall restoration is expected to cost about $200,000. A performance by Mr. Buffett, the well-known singer-songwriter who lives on North Haven, is being talked of and would certainly help with fund-raising; it might be held on the Lighthouse grounds.

In addition to working with local schools, the three directors of Oceans Institute have plans to work with Stony Brook Southampton, the University of Rhode Island, and the Surfing Heritage Foundation.

The long-held plan to improve traffic safety at the intersection of Buell Lane, Route 114, and Toilsome Lane in East Hampton Village took a large step closer to fruition on Monday when State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. and State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle joined village and town officials to formally announce a $700,000 New York State Community Capital Assistance Program grant for construction of a roundabout there. The village will match the state legislators' contribution to the project, which will likely begin next year.

The roundabout will feature a raised, mountable and landscaped center island. Improved drainage structures, traffic calming, and enhanced pedestrian safety measures will also be part of the project.

The legislators were joined at the site by village officials including Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr., Deputy Mayor Barbara Borsack, Richard Lawler of the East Hampton Village Board, and Scott Fithian, the village's superintendent of public works, as well as East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell, who previously served for many years as the village's administrator.

"Anytime you can get community consensus for a project in dealing with a controversial and complicated intersection . . . that's where the hard work really is," Mr. Thiele said in congratulating village officials. The state's Department of Transportation, he said, "is fond of saying, 'We'll give you the permit but we don't have any money to pay for it.' We wanted to try to eliminate that particular problem, and that's why the senator and I were able to get $700,000 toward the cost of this, which is not the entire cost."

Calling it a "much-needed improvement for all the right reasons, Mayor Rickenbach thanked the legislators for their involvement. "This is one of those rare occasions when all levels of government have worked together," he said. "We applaud so very much the monies that you two at the state level have been able to come up with."

The proposed subdivision of a parcel with four houses on it in the Georgica Association, on the west side of Georgica Pond, caused a contentious East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals hearing earlier this month with an attorney for opponents of the plan charging that the board and the Planning Department were making a deal with the applicant.

The property, at 17 Association Road, is in a five-acre residential district and contains 5.621 acres. It is owned by Florence and Ken Joseph, who propose splitting off the largest of the four houses, which is about 10,000 square feet, from the rest of the property. Were that to occur, the remaining three acres would become a separate lot, with an existing boat house and two small cottages on it

Clifford Klenck Jr., who lives in Florida and sold the property to the Josephs, retained control of the three buildings, which are used as summer residences. Mr. Klenck rents all but the smallest of the three, where he lives in the summer. The Josephs plan to tear them down at whatever point Mr. Klenck relinquishes control of them, whether by choice or death, and replace them with a single 8,900-square-foot house. All four houses are legal because they pre-existed the five-acre zoning.

At the first hearing on the proposal, on March 4, Brian Frank, chief environmentalist for the East Hampton Town Planning Department, expressed concern about the land’s having been almost entirely cleared, except for several large old trees, and the board seemed to share that concern. On Oct. 7, however, Christopher D. Kelley of Twomey, Latham, Shea, Kelley, Dubin & Quartararo, the applicants’ attorney, presented the board with reasons why approval would be beneficial.  

“Ancient cesspools that are basically sitting in groundwater,” which undoubtedly contribute to the pollution of Georgica Pond, would be replaced with two state-of-the-art septic systems, he said. He also said the applicants would remove about 200 linear feet of a timber bulkhead.

He brought James Grimes, a Montauk landscape designer, to the hearing to present a revegetation plan. Mr. Grimes said fertilizer runoff from the vast lawn now runs right into Georgica Pond and that the waterfront was full of phragmites, an invasive plant species, that would be removed. Also speaking on behalf of the Josephs were Drew Bennett, an engineer, and Larry Penny, an environmentalist.

Mr. Frank told the board that the Planning Department, after reviewing the revised proposal, was now taking a neutral position.

This drew the ire of Theodore Sklar, an attorney for several neighbors. Saying he did not think the board had the right to divide the property into smaller parcels than zoned for, he said the board and Mr. Kelley made him feel “ambushed” because new witnesses had made presentations.  John Whelan, the board’s chairman, seemed taken aback.“You have your consultants here. Is there anything shocking that you have heard that you would like them to respond to?” Mr. Sklar said Mr. Frank’s environmental assessment had ignored the comprehensive plan. “I believe the question wasn’t asked and wasn’t answered in the case of this application, because it could not be answered in support of the application,” he said.

He pointed out that when another of his clients, Lou Clemente of Springs, had been among residents applying for a rock revetment, Mr. Frank had said the proposal appeared to be in conflict with the comprehensive plan and suggested the board require full environmental review. Mr. Frank took Mr. Sklar’s charges on directly, saying the board had to consider the variances on their own merits.

 “Ted said this is about making a deal. That kind of is a dirty way of saying trading nonconformities.” That is what they ultimately will have to consider, he said. “The nonconformities they are asking for, do they outweigh the nonconformities they presently have?”

A neighbor, Julie Murphy, also spoke in opposition to the plan, saying the proposed 8,900-square-foot house would loom over her property, and that the cottages and boat house, all of which are unheated, are in use only a couple of months of the year.

“The proposed new structure would be a McMansion,” she said. “All this talk of septic systems and doing the right thing for the environment. Yeah, let’s replace our septic systems. I replaced mine at my own expense.”

At one point, Mr. Sklar had referred to the three houses targeted for demolition as “three lousy houses.” Mr. Kelley said toward the end of the well over three-hour session that one of those houses, the boat house, rents for $250,000 a season.

The board agreed to keep the record open until Nov. 18 for additional comments from both sides and for any additional comments from Mr. Frank.

After long deliberations, the East Hampton Town Trustees are on the point of allowing a lessee on trustee-owned property at Lazy Point to move her shoreline house to higher ground.

The beach in front of Susan Knobel’s house on Shore Road has suffered extensive erosion. Suffolk County’s recent dredging of Napeague Harbor’s west channel, a project the trustees opposed, included the removal of the tip of Hicks Island, and Ms. Knobel fears that the project has left her house more vulnerable than before, exposed now to wind and water flow. One or two more extreme weather events, she feels, may leave the house in the water.

 On Tuesday, she submitted an application to the trustees to move it to a lot that, while still north of Shore Road, is farther from the water and less susceptible to flooding.

The trustees oppose “hard” protective structures, such as revetments, believing them more destructive than helpful. They have previously insisted that Ms. Knobel try alternative solutions, which she says have been ineffective.

Such a move would not be without precedent. Diane McNally, the trustees’ clerk, or presiding officer, said Ms. Knobel would be the fourth Lazy Point tenant to move her house to another lot, should her application be approved.

At the trustees’ meeting Tuesday night, two residents of the town spoke on her behalf. “The trustees have a tremendous amount of land on Lazy Point,” said Pat Mansir, a former resident of the area. “I think no other form of government has this advantage.” In the past, she said, the trustees have been amenable to suggestions about houses jeopardized by erosion. Likening the newly dredged west channel to a “bowling alley,” she told the trustees that “there is a history of trying to maintain what you own, but never at a detriment of other people . . .  I hope there’s something you can come up with in terms of letting her move.”

Ms. Knobel’s family has been at Lazy Point for almost 40 years, said Elaine Jones. “She will take care of that property,” Ms. Jones said. “She really needs help, it is dire straits.”

“We have a lot of thinking to do,” Ms. McNally said. “I know that Susan is in a particularly tricky situation.” But, she said, the trustees will proceed with an abundance of caution. “In addition to relocating, we want to look at everyone else in the area so it’s a fair decision,” she said. Past discussions have focused on landward retreat, farther south of the bay, she said, but wetlands and vegetation may preclude some areas. “There are things for us to look at, but most definitely we’re looking at Sue’s.”

“Susan, I think you can leave here feeling pretty upbeat,” said Brian Byrnes, a trustee. “We’re going in the right direction.”

“We just want to cover all our bases,” said Tim Bock, his colleague. And Deborah Klughers, a trustee, called the proposed move “a good example of coastal retreat.”

John Courtney, the trustees’ attorney, agreed that Ms. Knobel’s house is in danger, and that the recent dredging has exacerbated that danger. Nat Miller, a trustee, said he was not opposed to relocation of the house, but objected to a move that would keep it on a northerly lot, facing the bay.

Ms. McNally said the trustees should visit the site and determine the best available location for the house’s move. Approving it, Ms. Mansir said, would show “a government body that can act and get it done. That’s been a unique plus of the trustees, over the years, that’s different than other boards. It feels good.”