An East Hampton fire chief found "dangerous levels" of carbon monoxide in a house where three men were working Wednesday morning. 

Tom Bock, the East Hampton Fire Department's second assistant chief, said an automatic carbon monoxide alarm sounded in the basement at 166 Buckskill Road. While he was responding, a caretaker called the security company and said that even though he wasn't at the house, there were workers on scene and everything was fine. "I thought 'We better check this out anyway.' " Mr. Bock said.

When he went into the house, he got a reading of 135 to 140 parts per million on his CO meter while he was standing at the top of the basement stairs. A toxic gas, carbon monoxide is odorless. A reading of over 70 parts per million can cause headaches, fatigue, and nausea. 

Mr. Bock yelled downstairs to the workers, who had been using a gas-powered K12 saw to cut through the cement floor, telling them that they had to get out, and he called for an engine and a rescue truck, as well as the East Hampton Volunteer Ambulance Association just before 11 a.m. 

Before entering the house to bring in fans to ventilate the basement, firefighters donned air packs . By the time they went downstairs, the reading in the basement was 115, the chief said. No windows were open as the men worked. The men told the chief they felt fine, but emergency medical technicians still assessed them. No one was transported to the hospital. 

"They could have had all three guys on the ground," Mr. Bock said of the situation. "Luckily, no body got hurt." 

Reactions to CO exposure depend on the concentration and length of exposure, and can vary person to person, according to the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission. Symptoms of CO poisoning include headache, fatigue, shortness of breath, nausea, dizziness. Mental confusion, vomiting, loss of consciousness, and ultimately death result in a high level of CO poisoning.

Firefighters and E.M.S. personnel left the scene 45 minutes later. 

An Amagansett schoolhouse, built in 1802 by Samuel Schellinger and thought to be the oldest on eastern Long Island, is to be donated to the hamlet’s school district and relocated to the present-day school grounds. Eleanor Tritt, the district superintendent, made the announcement at a school board meeting on Tuesday.

 The building is on the Atlantic Avenue property of Huntington and Adelaide Sheldon. Mr. Sheldon, who is known as Skip, showed the building to a reporter and others on Tuesday. He said they had decided to donate it last summer after discussing it for a few years.

That the schoolhouse is to be moved is a familiar story. It was originally on “Amagansett Street,” now Montauk Highway, approximately opposite today’s school building. It was moved to the west side of Atlantic Avenue, at what is now the southern part of the East End Cemetery, in 1864, and moved again in 1881, when it was auctioned to Marcus Hand. Mr. Hand sold it to Capt. Joshua B. Edwards, who moved it across the street to his back yard, which is now part of the Sheldon property.

Capt. Edwards’s son, Dr. David Edwards, handled the sale to Mr. Sheldon’s mother, Magda Sheldon, in 1936 or ’37. At that time, the building was filled with fishing nets, a dory, and flensing knives, which were used to cut whale blubber. “This building was used by the girl scouts in the late ’40s as a meeting house,” Mr. Sheldon said. “There were some five or six girls who were committed to it, and not many more. They all went to the school here in town. That was the last public use that this building had.”

According to the 1997 book by Carleton Kelsey and Lucinda Mayo, “Images of America: Amagansett,” the school year “was often determined by the cycles of land and sea harvests.” The book quotes Samuel Schellinger’s brother Sylvester, saying he taught “30 scholars and expect more” at the schoolhouse. “They give me $2 to $2.50 per scholar. I pay $20 per year for house and garden. Cheap enough.”

Mr. Schellinger, a millwright, built the Pantigo and Hayground windmills in East Hampton, and possibly the Beebe windmill in Bridgehampton, said Hugh King, East Hampton Village historian and director of its Home, Sweet Home Museum. Touring the schoolhouse on Tuesday, Mr. King shook his head in wonder. “There’s nothing like it,” he said.

Moving the building to the school’s grounds will be subject to a State Environmental Quality Review Act assessment and approval by the New York State Education Department. Pending these approvals, the one-room schoolhouse will be put to rest in front of the school, near the playground and shrubbery.

“We’re very excited about the possibility of having it reside here,” Ms. Tritt said, “for the historic value to our community.”

 

 

Neighbors of the Maidstone Club, which received permits and variances from the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals in July to expand and upgrade its golf course’s irrigation system, have a lawsuit pending in State Supreme Court seeking to have the board require the club to take additional steps to mitigate noise from a pump house that is part of the project.

Theodore Sklar, an attorney representing Mort and Carole Olshan, whose property on Further Lane abuts the east edge of the course, appealed to the board on Friday to take action to avoid the suit. The Olshans, he said, would like the pump house buried underground.

Public hearings on the project began in 2012, and the board had accepted a final environmental impact statement that includes revised plans for the pump house, such as lowering its elevation from what was first proposed, partially burying or bunkering it on three sides, limiting access to one door, and installing a system that would disable the pumps if a door were left open.

This was inadequate, Mr. Sklar said. Failure to submit an alternative plan showing a pump house below grade and data indicating how much that would eliminate or attenuate noise, he said, “is a fatal flaw in the application.” At a minimum, Mr. Sklar said, “we ask that this be delayed until the court rules.”

 David Eagan, an attorney representing the Maidstone Club who also was at the meeting, called the legal proceeding “a desperate attempt to delay things when the process is about to be concluded.” The matter, he said, “will play out in the proper forum,” referring to State Supreme Court in Riverhead.

The club, said Frank Newbold, the board’s chairman, had agreed to virtually every request from the board. Further, he said, a certificate of occupancy would not be issued until it was demonstrated that no noise will affect the 207-acre club’s neighbors. “The sense of the board is that we’re satisfied with the proposed pump house plans,” he said.

Lys Marigold, the board’s vice chairwoman, said the pending lawsuit was “like being in the hot seat. I want to please the neighbors, but I think we looked at everything very thoroughly.”

Linda Riley, the village attorney, said she would prepare a resolution stating that all the board’s conditions had beenmet that could be approved at the board’s next meeting, on Oct. 24. But Mr. Eagan objected. “We submitted a set of plans that reflected the design parameters that were reflected in your approval,” he said. “All we need is a recognition that that occurred. I don’t think it’s reasonable to wait two weeks for that.”

Nevertheless, the club will have to wait. “We’ve never done a resolution on the spot,” Mr. Newbold said. “We have spent two-and-a-half years to get to this point and want to be very meticulous and precise.”

Restaurant Conversion

In another matter discussed by the board on Friday, it appeared that Michael Derrig’s Sag Harbor landscaping company, Landscape Details, is likely to be the next occupant of 103 Montauk Highway. That was the conclusion after the board closed a hearing on an application from Demar Holdings, the property’s owners, seeking permission to convert a pre-existing restaurant to commercial use. “It’s a quality business, and I’m all for it,” said Larry Hillel, a board member, whose statement was echoed by some of his colleagues.

Eight neighbors of the property, which had sparked numerous noise complaints when restaurants operated there, had objected to the conversion. They argued that the restaurant had been abandoned for more than a year and said the site should revert to residential use. However, attorneys for Demar Holdings and Mr. Derrig countered that even though the restaurant had ceased to operate, the business itself continued to exist and therefore the use was not abandoned.

The board agreed with the applicant, saying no official determination of abandonment had been made and that there had been “circumstances beyond the control of the owner,” including litigation with the building’s last tenant. With the board satisfied that the property did not have to revert to residential use, it considered such matters as parking, two cottages on the property, and the potential closing of a driveway to Cove Hollow Road.

Jon Tarbet, an attorney representing Mr. Derrig, submitted a covenant for the board’s consideration under which the business could plan for some of the parking spaces required by the village code, with the obligation to create them on instruction by the building inspector.

Neighbors had urged that the Cove Hollow Road exit be closed, said Frank Newbold, the board’s chairman. “I think their concern is, they want to maintain the residential feeling of the neighborhood,” he said, asking if there were a “compelling argument” to keep that driveway open.

“Wouldn’t it be nice to close it off and have it landscaped?” Lys Marigold, the vice chairwoman, asked.

Although, according to Mr. Tarbet, the driveway’s use would be far less intensive under the parcel’s use as an office and showroom for Landscape Details, Ken Collum, a building inspector and code enforcement officer, told the board that it would be advantageous that the Cove Hollow driveway as well as the two entrances on Montauk Highway remain open for emergency access.

The village’s design review board has also reviewed the application at a preliminary meeting. That board’s deliberations are now on hold pending the expected approval by the zoning board. The D.R.B. would then conduct final site plan review and make recommendations with regard to parking, lighting, and landscaping, among other factors.

As for the cottages on the property, Mr. Newbold asked Mr. Tarbet if they were to be staff quarters or rented to third parties. The former would be ideal, Mr. Tarbet said, but a determination has not yet been made.

Members of the Surfrider Foundation opposed to the Army Corps of Engineers’ plan to build a sand dune reinforced with sand-filled geotextile bags on the Montauk beach gathered there last Thursday in protest, holding signs saying “Don’t Bag Our Beach.”

In a press release, the Eastern Long Island Chapter of Surfrider Foundation said that the Army Corps plan is counter to advice from three respected coastal geologists who have reviewed the downtown Montauk conditions. They include Stephen Leatherman and Orrin Pilkey, who presented their findings in Montauk last year, and Robert Young. The geologists, the Surfrider Foundation said, have stated that sand-filled geotextile bags would have the same effect on beaches as hard structures such as bulkheads, and would accelerate beach scouring and erosion.

The plan is envisioned as an interim “emergency” measure to slow the effects of erosion until a more extensive beach-rebuilding project the Army Corps is planning under its Fire Island to Montauk Point study. According to the press release, the Army Corps proposal “prioritizes the value and protection of privately owned commercial structures over that of the public beach.”

The foundation says that the motels along the downtown beach “were constructed many years ago on top of the existing primary dune, destroying that precious natural resource,” and asserts that the proposed dune will “result in the destruction of the beach” and compound the earlier mistakes.

The $8.9 million Army Corps project would be paid for with federal money under a post-Hurricane Sandy emergency appropriation. In an analysis of options for the Montauk beach, the Army Corps determined that a “soft solution,” or placing sand only on the beach, was not feasible under the agency’s cost-effectiveness formulas.

A hearing tonight before the East Hampton Town Board could pit Napeague residents advocating a parking ban along Dolphin Drive against those who see a no-parking zone there as a barrier to the public’s access to town-owned lands.

The hearing, on establishing a no-parking zone on both sides of Dolphin Drive, where East Hampton Town residents may park now, will be held in conjunction with another, to designate a 37-acre, town-owned oceanfront parcel adjoining Dolphin Drive, known as the South Flora property, as a nature preserve.

Residents of the neighborhood near Dolphin Drive have asked the town board to extend a no-parking zone on surrounding streets to that road as well. The town’s nature preserve committee and the East Hampton Town Trustees, however, have come out in support of providing parking to allow people to get onto the South Flora acreage and the ocean beach, saying that prohibiting parking could, in effect, privatize that stretch of beach.

The nature preserve committee, in a Sept. 16 letter to the town board signed by its chairman, Zachary Cohen, said that “there has always been an assumption . . . that the public has the right to access preserves.”

The committee wrote that “all neighboring streets have no daytime parking allowed, at least from May 15 to Oct. 1.” Off-road parking along Dolphin Drive would provide access to a truck path to the ocean along that side of the South Flora property, the committee says.

In his own statement on the issue, Mr. Cohen concluded that “the only possibility of guaranteed reasonable access to the beach at South Flora is to provide parking along Dolphin Drive near the existing access points. ‘No parking’ on Dolphin Drive would set a new precedent of denying access to trails and waterfront on publicly owned land at a time when the town and trustees are fighting in court over whether private persons can own and control access to the beaches.”

The hearings begin at 6:30 p.m. at East Hampton Town Hall.

Owing to a recent elevation of the cyanobacteria first detected in July, the East Hampton Town Trustees have closed Georgica Pond for another 21 days, through Nov. 4. Harvesting of crabs or other marine life will not be permitted during that time.

The concentration of the blue-green algae in the pond is among the highest measured on Long Island, said Stephanie Forsberg, the trustees’ assistant clerk. She suggested the “odd weather patterns we’ve seen this year” as a possible cause of the algal bloom’s resilience into autumn.

Cyanobacteria can be harmful to people and animals. While there is no data confirming that shellfish, such as crabs, or other marine species would be affected, or that consuming them would be unsafe, the trustees maintain that it is in the public’s best interest to avoid crabbing, swimming, or having any contact with the waters of the pond.

Christopher Gobler of Stony Brook University has installed monitoring equipment in the pond to supplement his regular water-quality sampling, Dr. Forsberg told her colleagues. The trustees expect it to provide important data that will help them lobby the State Department of Environmental Conservation for an expedited excavation permit. While the pond is typically opened to the ocean in the fall and spring, increased flushing would make for better water quality.

The trustees also considered creating a town wide shell-recycling project. Deborah Klughers distributed a written proposal to her colleagues that would “harness a natural resource that is largely lost to landfills.”

The project would reclaim scallop, clam, and oyster shells from fishermen, restaurants, residents, and businesses. Once dried, to dispose of bacteria and any remaining muscle, the shells would be used for coastal and marine habitat restoration.

Shells are mineral-rich and can be used in oyster-bed replanting, reef-building, and dune rebuilding and restoration, Ms. Klughers said. They are also a natural buffer against acidity, a growing problem affecting shellfish growth. A mound of oyster shells in suitable water with good tidal flow will be colonized by marine organisms, she said, providing substrate and habitat for other marine animals.

Restaurants and fish markets would benefit as well, by reducing the cost of waste disposal, she said. Trustee-owned land at the north side of the Atlantic Avenue parking lot could serve as a recycling area. “It is a lot of work, but I think it’s worthwhile.”

Noting that most seafood consumed in America is imported, Ms. Klughers proposed that a pilot program concentrate on scallops harvested from local waterways while the trustees seek a grant to implement the program on a larger scale.

A meeting between the trustees, baymen, and Ed Michels, chief of the East Hampton Town Marine Patrol, was tentatively scheduled for yesterday to discuss enforcement during the scallop season, which opens on Nov. 10. Last month, Nat Miller, a trustee and bayman, warned his colleagues that thieves might take as much as half of what is expected to be a healthy harvest. On Tuesday, Sean McCaffrey told his colleagues that he had already witnessed poaching. When confronted, he said, the poacher grew angry. “The guy took off.”

The town needs more money for more enforcement, Mr. McCaffrey said. “It’s a very important part of East Hampton.”

Sag Harbor Village is considering a ban on plastic bags, just as the Towns of East Hampton and Southampton are mulling proposals to prohibit the single-use bags.

Mayor Brian Gilbride, who started the discussion at a board meeting on Tuesday night, said that Southampton Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst had raised the issue at the last East End Supervisors and Mayors Association meeting in an attempt to get all of the municipalities on board. East Hampton and Southampton Villages have already implemented such bans.

Editorial: 

Joining the Fight Against Plastic Bags

“Both Paul Rickenbach and Mark Epley spoke very well of it,” Mr. Gilbride said of his fellow mayors.

Village board members seemed in favor of the proposal, though they had some concerns. “It’s going to affect 90 percent of the stores downtown,” Ed Deyermond said. “I’m sure there’s going to be some sort of issue with them.” He pointed out that Bob Evjen, a former Sag Harbor Chamber of Commerce president, was in the audience. Still, he said, “I support it — I support that concept.”

Another board member, Robby Stein, said he would like to know how many stores in the village had already done away with using the thin plastic bags. He said he thinks there are several stores that already offer reusable ones.

The board’s Sandra Schroeder said she would like to give stores an opportunity to use up the plastic bags they have already bought, since they often buy in bulk. “They’ll be throwing them out otherwise,” she said.

Mr. Gilbride agreed. He said that Ms. Throne-Holst is hoping to celebrate bans throughout the South Fork by Earth Day 2015, which is April 22.

Fred W. Thiele Jr., the village attorney and state assemblyman, made the board aware that there is pending litigation against the Village of Hastings-on-Hudson in Westchester County from a national food organization over a similar ban. He was directed to draft legislation for the ban for next month’s meeting. A public hearing will be held at a future date.

In other news, the village accepted a proclamation recognizing Main Street’s designation as one of the “Great Streets in America.” Deborah Alaimo Lawlor, a nationally certified planner, made the presentation to the village board and members of the various advisory boards on behalf of the American Planning Association, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that honors 10 streets each year.

The board went on to discuss lowering the speed limit in the historic district from 25 miles per hour to 20. The village would need approval, in the form of legislation, from the state to do so, similar to the legislation created for NewYork City recently. The board also wants to ask the state’s Department of Transportation that the speed limit be reduced from 40 miles per hour to 25 at the entrance to the village from Route 114 in East Hampton.

Also during the meeting, a formal presentation was made to the public about plans for a new park on the south side of the Marine Lance Cpl. Jordan C. Haerter Memorial Bridge.

Ed Hollander, a Sag Harbor homeowner who is the head of Hollander Landscape Architects of New York City, donated his time to come up with a proposal to turn the unused area into a space the community can use.

The plans include a dock, paths, sitting areas, greenery, and a boardwalk to other waterfront spots, like Long Wharf.

“It’s a design that needs the input of everybody on the board and the community to flesh out the details,” Mr. Hollander said.

Lee Zeldin, who is seeking for a second time to defeat Representative Tim Bishop for a seat in Congress, was selected by House Speaker John Boehner to deliver a weekly Republican address.

Mr. Zeldin's online statement was released Saturday morning. It was taped on Long Island earlier in the week, according to Mr. Boehner's office.

In the statement, Mr. Zeldin delivers a message similar to that he has expressed in recent public forums in the First Congressional District, speaking about his time in the Army 82nd Airborne Division and his wife and twin daughters, Arianna and Mikayla. He also expressed several positions, including a call for private-sector jobs, repealing the Affordable Care Act, and a need to put "parents in charge of their kids’ education."

A press release from the Bishop's campaign said that the choice of Mr. Zeldin to deliver the weekly Republican address demonstrated his "ability to recite the far-right's talking points."

Mr. Bishop and Mr. Zeldin are expected to attend the Concerned Citizens of Montauk annual Meet the Candidates Forum on Sunday at 1 p.m. at the Montauk Firehouse. A debate in Westhampton Beach on Thursday drew a large number of supporters from both parties. 

Tom Preiato is leaving his post as East Hampton Town's chief building inspector for a position in the Village of Sag Harbor.

The village board held a special meeting Tuesday morning to approve several resolutions, including one to hire Mr. Preiato, who lives in Sag Harbor, as the senior building inspector. He will receive an annual salary of $75,000, the same as his salary in East Hampton. He will start Nov. 7.

East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said Tuesday morning that Mr. Preiato told him last week that he was considering the position, and that Mayor Brian Gilbride visited him on Monday to inform him of the village's decision to hire him. "My understanding is Tom will stay on for about two weeks, which will help in the transition. We have to follow Civil Service regulations, so it might take a bit to fill that position," Mr. Cantwell said. "My concern right now is to continue having an effective, operating Building Department that does its work in a timely basis."

There was already one vacancy in the department and another inspector, Robert Fisher, had been suspended for 30 days without pay last month. On Tuesday, the town board passed a resolution appointing Fred Lang Jr. as a part-time building inspector at an hourly rate of $30 an hour. If Mr. Fisher is not back on the job when Mr. Preiato leaves at the end of the month, the only other inspector left in the field will be Dan Casey.

"My primary objective is getting that department fully staffed," Mr. Cantwell said. "It's a very busy office, and any building department on the East End, at this point, is busy. There's a lot of activity. Chief building inspectors are always in a position to make tough decisions," the supervisor said.

Mr. Preiato became the town's chief building inspector on a provisional basis last October, but he had been acting as the lead inspector since the death of Don Sharkey, who had held that position, four years earlier. Mr. Preiato was appointed provisionally because there was no Civil Service list for that position at the time, according to Mr. Cantwell. The exam was offered since then and a list was generated recently. Mr. Preiato said he scored the second highest in the county on the Civil Service test in June.

The town was in the midst of following the Civil Service procedure and interviewing for the position, as well as the other vacancy. He said Mr. Preiato was being considered, but the board was not in a position yet to make a decision.

In the 2013 campaign, Mr. Cantwell and his Democratic running mates made reorganization of the Building Department a part of their platform and promised to "appoint a chief building inspector who holds that civil service title."

Mr. Preiato said Tuesday that he would not have taken the Sag Harbor position if the town board had already decided to make him the permanent chief building inspector.

In Sag Harbor, the village had a backlog of cases building up and the village board was looking to bring more experience to its Building Department. In June, the board hired Jose L. Escalante as the building inspector to replace Timothy Platt, who resigned, for a probationary period that is to expire in December. Mr. Escalante was given a salary of $42,500. Mayor Gilbride said the board was aware that Mr. Escalante did not have a lot of on-the-job experience.

The number of ongoing building projects, including large-scale projects like the condominiums at the old Bulova watchcase factory, proved to be too much, the board said. Sandra Schroeder, a village board member, said the previous inspector had been working on these projects since their inception. "This poor kid is closer to the end of the game. It's too overwhelming, some of these things," she said.

"Tom's experience -- 15 years or better -- and the job he's been doing over in East Hampton, it will be less of a baptism by fire. It's not a criticism of Jose, it's just that he hasn't had that field experience, that day-to-day experience," Mayor Gilbride said. "Hopefully, working under Tom a little bit will help."

Mayor Gilbride would not comment on whether the department would continue to operate with two inspectors. "If there's a need to keep two people working that's going to be a board decision we'll work through," he said.

Mr. Preiato had been one of three finalists for the Sag Harbor position in June, but said Tuesday that he had backed out because of a disparity in salary. The village board pursued him since then. "A good opportunity presented itself," he said. "I don't have anything bad to say about East Hampton; I'm leaving on very good terms."

A graduate of the University of Southern Florida, he first went into construction before taking the Civil Service test in 2000 to become a building inspector. In 2009, he passed the test that allowed him to take on the title of senior building inspector. When he first joined the town's building department, there were three office workers and four inspectors. "We scaled back," he said. Now, there are two office workers and three inspector positions, but, again, one of them is vacant.

"East Hampton needs to find a qualified replacement, and build a team of inspectors," Mr. Preiato said about the pending opening at the top of the department.

He had high praise for the department's office staff, Evelyn Calderon, a bilingual clerk, and Ann Glennon, the administrative assistant. "I would be nothing without my staff. They are so dedicated."

In a decision released last week on an application by the town for a preliminary injunction against the owners of Cyril's Fish House, New York State Supreme Court Justice Joseph Farneti wrote that Mr. Preiato "impressed the court as both professional and conscientious in the discharge of his official duties." It is a compliment Mr. Preiato said he takes great pride in. "I strive for consistency, not to be all over the board with decisions."

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This article has been updated since it originally appeared online on Oct. 21.

A Springs landlord who admitted using cameras to spy on his summer rental tenants was sentenced to five years' probation Thursday in the Riverside courtroom of State Supreme Court Justice Barbara R. Kahn.

Donald J. Torr, 71, now of Celebration, Fla., had pleaded guilty to 14 felony charges as well as nine misdemeanor charges of endangering the welfare of a child.

Two families who stayed at his $6,500-a-week rental in the summer of 2012 have brought civil suits against Mr. Torr and his wife, Astrid Torr, in New York State, seeking damages. He was indicted in May 2013 by a grand jury in Riverside and arrested a month later in Florida on a warrant. He was extradited back to New York two days later.

Justice Kahn agreed to transfer his probation time to Florida, allowing him to report to officers on a regular basis in what is now his home state. He will not have to return to New York unless there is a report of a violation of probation. The district attorney's office had recommended that Mr. Torr be sentenced to the maximum of two and two-thirds to eight years in prison.

Mr. Torr, originally from Montauk, is the former owner of the Crow's Nest restaurant there.