Now that it’s March, it may be safe to say it without jinxing ourselves into another dozen snowstorms: What a long, strange winter it’s been.

       All most of us will remember is snow and frigid temperatures, ice, constant shoveling, and days upon days, it seemed, of being housebound.

       In fact, this winter has not, overall, been record-breaking, but it certainly has been trying, and its impact is still being reckoned.

       By Feb. 18, according to The International Business Times, the metropolitan area had faced down 14 snowstorms and the seasonal snowfall in Manhattan’s Central Park stood at 56.6 inches. The all-time record for winter snowfall at the park, 75.6 inches, was set in 1995-96.

       According to records from the United States Cooperative weather station in Bridgehampton, there was no measurable snowfall here in December. In January, however, 20 inches fell, and in February, 18.5. January’s total far surpassed last January’s, almost 5 inches, but the totals for February, last year and this, were within an inch of each other. A bit more snow fell last year.

       Temperatures, according to the weather service, were all over the place, though record lows and cold days stand out, at least in our memories. In December, it was 16 degrees on the coldest day and a balmy 61 on the warmest. January temperatures ranged from 5 below zero to 55 above. A similar spread occurred last month.

       And so it went. Over nine inches of snow on Jan. 22, the most recorded in one day at the weather service site in Islip since 2000. A 52-degree day in early February. Back down to 9 degrees on Feb. 11. On Friday, 24 degrees, then half that on Saturday.

       With much of the country in a deep freeze, spiking demand for heating oil and gas, there was no similar fluctuation in the price for homeowners trying to stay warm — it just went up. According to the New York State Energy Research Development Authority, the average price on Long Island for propane, which was $3.12 a gallon at the beginning of March 2013, rose to $3.79 a gallon by the end of December. By Feb. 24, the per-gallon cost was $4.14, a more than 32 percent increase from the same time last year.

       According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, propane prices are influenced by several factors, in cluding supply and demand, and colder-than-normal weather puts the pressure on, raising the cost. Home heating oil prices rose by a much smaller margin between last March and the end of last month, beginning at $4.27 a gallon and ending at $4.45, NYSERDA’s website reports.

       Outdoor conditions made walking difficult for even the most able-bodied, although Rob Balnis of East End Physical Therapy in East Hampton said last week that his practice had not seen much of an uptick in patients with injuries caused by falling on ice or in snow.

       “Normally, we do,” he said. He theorized that with the weather so bad, more people stayed home rather than venture out into treacherous conditions. “In a sense, it’s a safe thing,” he said of the incessant storms.

       That may be true. Marcia Kenny, director of marketing and public affairs at Southampton Hospital, said the emergency room had seen “quite a few sprains and falls” over the winter, but that no one had been treated for other weather-associated issues such as frostbite or hypothermia. “I guess people have been cautious,” Ms. Kenny said. “Conditions being what they are, I think people have just stayed home.” 

       The hospital does not keep records that cross-reference injuries and the weather, she said, so it would be hard to say whether there were more ice-and-snow-related injuries this year than in other winters.

       Very cold days meant that schoolchildren were sometimes unable to get out into the fresh air and run around at recess. “Children need exercise and fresh air,” Beth Doyle, principal of John M. Marshall Elementary School, said in an email last week. “We take every opportunity to have outdoor recess. Even if the ground is wet, we have a modified recess on the blacktop. It helps with focus in the afternoon, especially for the little ones in kindergarten and first grade.” But on the worst days, recess was indoors.

       Because snow day closures and delayed start times resulted in the loss of three full days and almost eight hours as of last week, “our number-one concern is the loss of instructional time,” Ms. Doyle said.

       The cost of the winter, in tax dollars, was a little more than Stephen Lynch, the East Hampton Town Highway Superintendent, budgeted for, but he said the department could cover the increase. The budget contained $25,000 for snow removal costs; as of Tuesday, the costs had reached $49,355. Overtime for workers dealing with snow, for which Mr. Lynch had budgeted $28,000, has reached $49,000.

       Contractors trying to make headway on construction projects have had a hard time of it this winter, too.

       “The key word is ‘nightmare,’ ” said Marcus Kouffman, head of construction at MKL Construction in East Hampton. The good thing is, business has really picked up, he said, calling this one of the “busiest winters in the last four or five years, if not our busiest year ever.”

       The cold and snow, Mr. Kouffman said, brought the shutdown of concrete plants (temperatures too low to pour concrete) and problems, should the thermometer happen to cooperate, in gaining access to sites due to piled-up snow. In addition, it was often difficult for the trade parade, workers who live elsewhere and commute here, to get to job sites.

       “Every day I lost a day, the subcontractors lost a day” and got behind on their work lists, Mr. Kouffman said. “This winter, particularly, we never had a real melt. Everyone’s geared up and ready to go, and scheduled — and you can’t.” One suggestion that came up — a serious consideration, he said — was to tent an entire property to let construction proceed.

       When there is a break in the weather, the builder said, “it’s scramble time.” He said he needs a good 7 to 10 working days “of no interference” to catch up.

       “I have three weather apps on my phone,” Mr. Kouffman said. “I check them against each other every day.”  With high season not too far off, he said, “this is pushing the gray zone.”

       Those in the plumbing and heating trade have been much in demand. The unremitting freeze has taxed heating systems. “More issues come to light because they’re working so hard,” said John Grant, the owner of Grant Heating and Cooling in East Hampton. Some people have called in for repairs thinking their furnace or boiler has gone down, he said, when in fact they have just run out of fuel. It was gobbled up faster than normal in the bitter cold.

       Mr. Grant said frigid temperatures increase “the urgency of any type of heat call, because there’s more danger of a house freezing.” That has meant some late nights for his technicians, who have had to contend with their own problems in getting to a job, especially during storms.

       “It can be difficult to get out, but you have to,” Mr. Grant said. “We’ve had vans stuck, and difficulty getting into driveways.”

       The tough winter might have a silver lining for Mr. Grant and those in similar businesses, however, as “people kind of see the weaknesses in their systems,” he said, and might now decide to have a more efficient and money-saving system installed.

       Even though it’s still cold out, Mr. Grant is already in “transition time,” planning ahead for the coming season. “Even with snow on the ground, we have to think about air-conditioning,” he said.

       One might think the conditions would have stemmed the tide of house-shoppers or delayed decisions about summer rentals. “It’s almost an annual event that bad weather forecast on Wednesday or Thursday kills our weekend,” said Tom MacNiven, a broker with Douglas Elliman in East Hampton.

       But, he said, “people looking to buy or rent have really been troopers,” willing, if need be, to trek down long unplowed driveways in snow boots to see a property. “Things are selling; things are renting,” Mr. MacNiven said. “I really think people have said, ‘We’re done with this. Summer has not been canceled.’ ”

       As an investment banker, Susan Bratton found her work intellectually stimulating, but, she said, “I didn’t feel like I was helping anybody out. When you die and are gone, what mark have you left? I didn’t think I was leaving much of a mark.”

       Ms. Bratton, who lives in Amagansett and Manhattan, was a health care investment banker for 20 years, working with health maintenance organizations, nursing homes, and rehabilitation facilities. In 2010, she changed course and founded Meals to Heal, which delivers meals that are customized to the specific needs and tastes of cancer patients at home. The company was officially launched last year. But real-world, personal experiences were to have a deep impact on Ms. Bratton’s career path. 

       “My friend Eric got a brain tumor,” she said. “Going through that with him and watching him struggle with nutritional issues, I became really struck by the fact that the medical community was telling him to eat whatever he wanted and that it didn’t matter.”

       After her friend’s death, Ms. Bratton read “probably 400 or 500 peer-reviewed journal articles” on the role of nutrition in cancer treatment. “I didn’t realize that 50 to 80 percent of all cancer cases involve nutritional issues,” she said. “A third of all cancer deaths are due to severe malnutrition. It’s a huge, pervasive issue, yet there was nobody really providing solutions.”

       Because meals can be delivered to people who want to lose weight, she asked herself why meals couldn’t be provided for cancer patients, along with information about what is safe and nutritional counseling. “That was the genesis,” she said.

       Another personal experience both delayed the company’s launch and informed her business plan. Two weeks after leaving her job to start Meals to Heal, Ms. Bratton’s father was diagnosed with cancer and given six months to live. “The good news is, he responded to treatment and was able to have a bone- marrow transplant. Now he’s 83 years old and fly-fishing and doing all the things he loves.”

       Ms. Bratton added a food consultant to the start-up, Bryan Janeczko, who founded Nu-Kitchen, which provides meals for weight loss, and happens to have a house in East Hampton. Meals are now delivered in the 48 contiguous states via Federal Express, in cooler containers surrounded by ice packs and sealed. They engaged a company in Iowa to do the preparation and packaging. “In addition to having cost benefits just because they’re a much bigger company,” Ms. Bratton said, “they have two safety people on site daily, so they have a perfect safety track record.”

       Meals are based on the Mediterranean diet, replacing butter with healthy fats such as olive oil, and strictly limiting red meat in favor of fish and poultry. Within that framework, meals are customized. “It’s a well-balanced diet of macro and micronutrients. . . and then you tailor it,” Ms. Bratton said.

        Healthy diets were nothing new for Ms. Bratton, who became a vegetarian 30 years ago and would recommend that others do the same. “But what I learned with my dad was, if you want somebody to eat a well-balanced diet, you really need to have them eat the healthiest food they can that they want to eat. Then they’ll eat it and won’t lose weight.”

       Feedback has been positive, Ms. Bratton said, particularly from nurses, social workers, and other professionals who assist patients in all stages of cancer care. “They’re the ones that are really on the front lines with the side-effect management and nutritional issues,” she said.

       Nine dietitians serve as a customer service team. “They’re really smart about the clinical side of oncology nutrition,” Ms. Bratton said. “It was really important to me that whoever is on our end of the phone is kind and caring and empathetic, because people with cancer and people who are caring for people with cancer are so stressed out, so concerned.”

       It is too early to measure results, Ms. Bratton said, but a clinical trial studying a population of breast cancer patients who receive Meals to Heal foods is under way.  

             “Proper nutrition improves outcomes. It provides you with support so that you’re well nourished, you respond better to treatment, you don’t stop treatment, you don’t get admitted to the hospital, you don’t become malnourished,”she said.

     Because of an apparent lack of numbers and the unwelcome prospect of moving back up from Division IV (in which the Bonackers played in 2013) to Division III — the so-called "black and blue" division — there will be no varsity football team at East Hampton High School this fall.

     It's only the fourth time in 90 years of football here, dating to 1923, that East Hampton has not fielded a varsity team. There were no varsity games in the war years of 1942 and '43, and, because the budget failed to pass, triggering "austerity," there was no football in 1978.

     At a meeting last week with about 50 parents of 8th-through-llth-grade football players, Joe Vas, East Hampton's athletic director, said that faced with Section XI's insistence that East Hampton return to Division III given its increased enrollment figures, he had done everything he could to find a way forward, including a proposed merger with Southampton in the sport, but in the end concluded it would be better to forgo a varsity squad in favor of a junior varsity to be coached by Steve Redlus, who made his debut as Bonac's head varsity coach this past fall.

     Also among Vas's proposals submitted to Section XI, the governing body for high school sports in Suffolk, was one offering to forgo the playoffs should East Hampton be allowed to remain in Division IV.

     The proposed combined Southampton-East Hampton team, which would have played in Division III, fell through, according to one of the meeting's attendees, Don Reese (head of East Hampton's youth football and basketball programs), "because Southampton didn't want to play in Division III and because it didn't want to give up its identity. . . . There was a report that news of a possible merger resulted in a sudden large turnout there, but I was told by someone who knows that that was false."

     While Vas has said the hiatus is to be just for a year, Reese said he thinks it may last two.

     "There's no guarantee that this year's juniors — there are seven of them, and only three sophomores — who played varsity football last year are going to want to play with ninth graders on a jayvee, and, looking ahead, you don't want sophomores going up against the Islips and Kings Parks and Sayvilles. You'll need a budget for 15 wheelchairs if that happens."

     "I don't see light at the end of the tunnel," he said in answer to a question, "until this year's undefeated East Hampton Middle School champions get into the 11th grade."

     As to how this had come to pass, Reese, who will be recruiting youth players aggressively come late April or early May, ascribed it to "a lack of interest" on the part of those who had been Redlus's predecessors; a less than gung-ho attitude among the area's young people, and to "a change in demographics here — I've tried to tap into the Latino community, I spoke with about 50 parents at the John Marshall Elementary School last spring — but their children are focused on soccer, which, as you know, has become the major sport here. It's the same thing in Southampton."

     Asked if all the stories about concussions in football hadn't also contributed to an increasing wariness among parents, Reese, whose son, Jack, is an incoming freshman who quarterbacked the undefeated middle school football team, said, "We've had 750 players go through our youth program in the past five years, and there has been one concussion. They're really rare. I think they play a small part at the high school level."

     "If the kids who play jayvee this fall stick with it, we may be back in two years. Meanwhile, it's a shame that this was allowed to happen."

     An adult mute swan that was hit by a car near Town Pond in East Hampton Village on Monday suffered injuries too serious to repair and was euthanized shortly after at Dr. Jonathan Turetsky's veterinary office in East Hampton.

     The swan, one of a pair often seen at the pond, was hit on James Lane around noon. East Hampton Village police were contacted and several people called Dr. Turetsky's office, which in turn contacted the Evelyn Alexander Wildlife Rescue Center in Hampton Bays. Jane Gill, a transport volunteer, arrived on the scene to take the injured bird to the veterinarian's office. Its mate watched from a distance, uttering a shrill call.

     "Unfortunately, it's a pretty sad story," Dr. Turetsky said on Monday afternoon. "One of the swan's wings was badly shattered; it had a compound fracture above the elbow," he said. The wing could not be repaired and amputation, he said, was not an option as swans do very poorly in the wild after such surgery. It also had "nerve damage to its right foot and pretty significant head trauma," he said.

     In consultation with the wildlife rescue center, it was decided that euthanizing it was the most humane option, the veterinarian said.

     The dead swan's mate will likely remain on his or her own for now. "They do mourn for quite a while, but they will eventually take another mate," Ginnie Frati, the executive director of the wildlife rescue center, said Monday. He or she — Dr. Turetsky was unsure of the sex of the dead swan — "probably won't take a mate this year," Ms. Frati said. But the remaining swan could make its home elsewhere and a new swan pair may take the place of that pair on the pond, as has often happened over the years.

     Dr. Turetsky's office sees injured wild animals almost every day, he said, and he often performs surgery on those animals when their injuries are treatable. "We had a deer in yesterday that had two badly fractured back legs," he said. It had apparently suffered with the injuries for several days. It was pregnant, he said, but attempts to deliver the fawns and save the doe were not successful.

     Had it been possible to treat the deer or the swan, each would have been taken to the wildlife center to be cared for in its animal hospital, and then rehabilitated and released back into the wild, Ms. Frati said. If a controversial mute swan management plan put forward by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is adopted, the center would be prohibited from releasing mute swans back into the wild. Technically, the species is an invasive one, and the D.E.C., joining wildlife agencies in several other states, is calling for the total eradication of mute swans by 2025. The deadline for comments on this plan was Friday.

     If the plan had been in place and the swan could have been saved, "We would only have been able to release it to a swan sanctuary" and not into the wild, Ms. Frati said. She is not, however, aware of any swan sanctuaries. The wildlife center has weighed in against the D.E.C.'s proposed swan management plan, Ms. Frati said. "We can't ethically euthanize a healthy animal," she said. "If this passes, they would want us to put them to sleep."

       A 27-year-old Montauk man was arrested by East Hampton Town police Monday after confessing to a detective that he had had sexual intercourse on multiple occasions with a 14-year-old Montauk girl. The relationship started in 2013, when the girl was 13, Juan Jose Zhingri-Deleg had told Detective Tina Giles, according to a statement on file at East Hampton Town Court.

       Mr. Zhingri-Deleg, who was born in Ecuador, as was the victim, is now facing one charge of rape in the second degree, as well as a misdemeanor charge of endangering the welfare of a child, but could face several more counts after the Suffolk County district attorney presents the case to a grand jury, which is likely to happen in the next couple of days.

       Mr. Zhingri-Deleg told Detective Giles in Spanish that he had befriended the girl’s family early last year. The girl’s mother, he said, was not troubled by the friendship, which started when the girl, whose identity has been removed from all documents available to the public by both the police and the court, began teaching Mr. Zhingri-Deleg how to play guitar. Although both the mother and a grandfather encouraged the relationship, the mother had warned the two “that it was good that we were friends and can play with each other, but not to make a mistake,” Mr. Zhingri-Deleg told Detective Giles.

       The defendant speaks no English. The detective has, in interviews over the past year, declined to identify herself as fluent in Spanish but is at ease when speaking the language.

       Mr. Zhingri-Deleg described his first kiss with the alleged victim as “quick” and said that the two would communicate through Facebook.

       The first time the two had sex was in November 2013, he told Detective Giles, giving a graphic description of the act, which occurred in a room he had rented near the apartment the girl lived in in Montauk.

       He described several more sexual encounters between the two, with the most recent being Saturday evening, while the girl’s mother was at church. “We had told them that we did not want to go to church, and they trusted us to be good and do nothing wrong,” he told the detective, according to the statement.

       In the statement, Mr. Zhingri-Deleg says that the two exchanged Christmas gifts. “I gave her a pink bear and she gave me a white dog, which I have in my room now,” the statement, which is part of the public court record, reads.

       It was after the last encounter that the mother got in touch with police. She also called Mr. Zhingri-Deleg. “I called her back, and she told me that I had to call a detective named Tina, and she gave me her phone number. She told me the detective wanted to talk with me about her daughter. I told her okay, I would call.”

       Detective Tina Giles, who is on the verge of retiring from the East Hampton Town police after 28 years on the force, was named officer of the year on the East End of Long Island by the Kiwanis Club last year for her work in the investigation that led to the arrest and conviction of Fidel Castro-Brito.

       There are eerie similarities between Mr. Castro-Brito’s case and Mr. Zhingri-Deleg’s. Mr. Castro-Brito was arrested in 2012 and indicted on 76 charges stemming from his relationship with four young girls. Mr. Castro-Brito befriended the girls, keeping in contact through Facebook, as well as texting, as Mr. Zhingri-Deleg is accused of doing. He was known and trusted by the victims’ families.

       Mr. Castro-Brito was sentenced by Suffolk County Justice Barbara R. Kahn to multiple terms of 20 years to life and is now incarcerated in state prison.

       If indicted, Mr. Zhingri-Deleg will likely be tried in Justice Kahn’s courtroom in Riverside. She presides over most of the sex cases brought to trial on the East End.

       At the end of Mr. Zhingri-Deleg’s statement, he said he was speaking to the detective because he wanted to tell the truth. “I am in love with her,” Mr. Zhingri-Deleg is quoted as saying about the victim. “I do not want to lose her. I recognize that she is only 14 years old, but we get along very well together. We have talked about her continuing her studies at school to have a better life for us.”

       When he was taken to court late Tuesday morning, he appeared distraught. He stood in front of East Hampton Town Justice Steven Tekulsky, who slowly read the charges to Mr. Zhingri-Deleg in English, at the defendant’s request. Tamara Palmer, a court clerk, translated.

       There were spatters of paint on Mr. Zhingri-Deleg’s pants. He told the court that he worked as a mason, doing tile work, but that work was slow during the winter months.

       Justice Tekulsky read to Mr. Zhingri-Deleg an order of protection he was issuing for the alleged victim, who was standing in the hallway of the courthouse with her mother during the arraignment. When the justice came to a section of the document ordering the defendant to refrain from strangulation, a standard part of such documents, Mr. Zhingri-Deleg said to Ms. Palmer, “I would never do that.”

       “He just needs to listen to me,” Justice Tekulsky instructed, telling the defendant that the county district attorney’s office had requested that bail be set at $100,000, a level the justice agreed with.

       Mr. Zhingri-Deleg asked what would happen if he didn’t post bail and was told by Ms. Palmer that he would be taken to the county jail in Riverside. A town police officer attending Mr. Zhingri-Deleg told him he could post bail there.

       The defendant spoke to Ms. Palmer as he was being led away. “He is saying there is no way he can do that,” she said.

       “I’ve been surprised before,” the police officer said.

       As Mr. Zhingri-Deleg was led out the backdoor of the courthouse to a waiting squad car, he passed the alleged victim, who began sobbing uncontrollably. Her mother, holding the order of protection in her hands, led her out the front door of the courthouse.

       East Hampton Town’s protection of open space, farmland, or historic properties through use of the community preservation fund is off to a speedy start in 2014.

       “I think this board wants to be more aggressive in purchasing open space,” Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said Tuesday. “It’s moving the C.P.F. program forward at an accelerated pace.” The town board held hearings on four land deals last Thursday.

       According to Scott Wilson, director of land acquisition and management, 13 potential land deals are in process. The town has made offers on a number of properties, he said, and has commissioned appraisals on others. Two closings have taken place since the beginning of the year.

       “This board’s definitely hitting the ground running,” Mr. Wilson said yesterday. In a Jan. 16 resolution, the board voted unanimously to authorize up to $75,000 for appraisals, and, Mr. Wilson said, another authorization this year could be needed.

       All costs for land purchased through the preservation fund program are covered by the proceeds of a state-authorized 2-percent real estate transfer tax. The sales in each of the five East End towns generate the money to be spent.

       East Hampton’s fund totaled in the $56 million to $58 million range this week, Mr. Wilson said — more than enough to cover the cost of all of the purchases under consideration, debt service on previous purchases, and then some. Quarterly receipts from the real estate transfer tax will continue; there have been record increases of late in a post-economic slump correction. Last year brought close to a 29-percent increase in preservation fund revenue here, with just over $28 million flowing in.

       Wainscott farmland, and a bucolic view across a field stretching from the corner of Beach Lane toward the ocean, enjoyed by plein air painters, passers-by, and visitors to the farmstand there in season, will be preserved through the purchase of development rights over the 4.4 acres, which was approved by the East Hampton Town Board last Thursday.

       The town and the Peconic Land Trust will make the purchase jointly, with each paying half of the $7 million cost. The town will use money from the C.P.F., while the land trust will seek private donors for its portion, particularly among Wainscott residents, Melanie Cirillo of the land trust told the town board last week. The land is owned by Jane Weigley.

       A similar partnership enabled the town and the land trust to acquire development rights over almost 20 acres of the adjacent 24-acre Babinski farm, also for $7 million, in 2005. East Hampton contributed $5 million toward that purchase, while nearby residents, with the land trust’s help, formed the Wainscott Farmland Protection Fund and raised the other $2 million.

       The new purchase, Mr. Wilson said, will help accomplish the goals of the town comprehensive plan as well as those of the preservation fund. The land in question is designated a Statewide Area of Scenic Significance, and its owner, he noted, wanted to ensure that it would be available to the next generation of farmers.

       Also approved for purchase last Thursday night was a four-acre tract of “high-quality oak, pitch pine, and white pine forest, with a low-bush blueberry understory,” as Mr. Wilson described it. The site, at 143 Middle Highway in East Hampton, is north of more than 20 acres of town-owned parcels, and a well-used trail traverses the entire area. With the new public land addition, Mr. Wilson said, the trail could connect to a more extensive trail system at the end of Middle Highway. The acreage, which is in a county-designated groundwater protection area, is owned by Christopher Barnett and Christine Marra, and will cost $750,000.

       Also moving ahead after a positive vote from the town board last week will be the purchase of just over eight acres at 303 Town Line Road in Wainscott, owned by Wendy Fitzpatrick, for $885,000. The acreage is important to groundwater protection, Mr. Wilson said; it is located in both county and town groundwater protection areas, and in the Long Island Pine Barrens region.

       It is adjacent to 166 acres of preserved land, and could provide a new trail connection. “The town has made significant strides to protect lands in [the] Wainscott woods,” Mr. Wilson commented.

       “There are still some quality acquisitions, and we’re certainly trying to build on what we already have,” he said yesterday, noting that the addition of adjacent parcels to already preserved tracts furthers ecological and habitat protection.      

       A hearing on a fourth property, which the town has proposed to buy for $2.7 million, was held open after last Thursday’s meeting for written comment to be accepted through next Thursday, as a public notice of the hearing was printed without mention of a house on the land.

       The 16.5-acre lot, on Neck Path in Springs, is in the Accabonac Harbor critical environmental area, a harbor watershed and a county-designated key environmental area. “Reducing development [there] has the potential to positively impact the quality of groundwater and surface waters by reducing contaminants carried into the harbor,” Mr. Wilson said at the hearing.

       Although the center of the lot has been cleared and a house and pool constructed, “the majority of the parcel remains a woodland habitat area contributing to the ecological value of existing preserved lands,” he said, and provides a trail link between adjacent town parcels to east and west, connecting to trails on the Jacobs Farm property and the Paumanok Path.

       The purchase would provide both open space and recreational uses. The pool would be removed, Mr. Wilson said, but the house could be used for activities in conjunction with the Department of Parks and Recreation, though it too might  be removed.

       David Buda, a Springs resident who spoke at the hearing, questioned whether the purchase was a wise use of preservation fund money. A preliminary approval to subdivide the site into three house lots, which would be situated along Neck Path, would result in a reserve area of almost eight untouched acres alongside the neighboring open space, which, Mr. Buda argued, would provide the “same ecological benefit” as buying all 16.5 acres. An annual $25,000 in school and town taxes coming from the property would thus be continued, he said.

       Mr. Buda said he agreed with preservation fund purchases in general, but, he said, the town “should not become spendthrift just because the coffers of C.P.F. are overflowing.”

       “Unless you have some specific pinpointed recreational plan for this property,” he said, “I frankly don’t think it is the best use for C.P.F. money.”

       Debra Foster, another speaker, disagreed. “This is a critical parcel to preserve,” said Ms. Foster, who also lives in Springs. “It’s the only thing blocking a beautiful trail along Accabonac Harbor.” If the lot were subdivided, she said, the town might not be able to require a trail access through it.

       An adult mute swan that was hit by a car near Town Pond on Monday suffered injuries too serious to repair and was euthanized shortly after at Dr. Jonathan Turetsky’s veterinary office in East Hampton.

       The swan, one of a pair often seen at the pond, was hit on James Lane around noon by an unknown driver. East Hampton Village police were called, and several people called Dr. Turetsky’s office, which contacted the Evelyn Alexander Wildlife Rescue Center in Hampton Bays. As Jane Gill, a transport volunteer with the center, arrived on the scene to take the injured bird to the veterinarian’s office, its mate watched from a distance, uttering a shrill call.

       “Unfortunately, it’s a pretty sad story,” Dr. Turetsky said on Monday afternoon. “One of the swan’s wings was badly shattered; it had a compound fracture above the elbow,” he said. The wing could not be repaired, and amputation, he said, was not an option, as swans do very poorly in the wild after such surgery. It also had “nerve damage to its right foot and pretty significant head trauma,” he said.

       In consultation with the wildlife rescue center, it was decided that euthanizing it was the most humane option, the veterinarian said.

       The dead swan’s mate will likely remain on his or her own for now. “They do mourn for quite a while, but they will eventually take another mate,” Ginnie Frati, the executive director of the wildlife rescue center, said Monday. He or she — Dr. Turetsky was unsure of the sex of the dead swan — “probably won’t take a mate this year,” Ms. Frati said. But the remaining swan could make its home elsewhere and a new swan pair may take the place of that pair on the pond, as has often happened over the years.

       Dr. Turetsky said his office sees injured wild animals almost every day, and he often performs surgery on those animals when their injuries are treatable. “We had a deer in yesterday that had two badly fractured back legs,” he said Monday. It had apparently suffered with the injuries for several days. It was pregnant, he said, but attempts to save the doe and deliver the fawns were not successful.

       Had it been possible to treat the deer or the swan, each would have been taken to the wildlife center to be cared for in its animal hospital, and then rehabilitated and released back into the wild, Ms. Frati said.

       Interestingly, both species have been targeted for culling by various governmental agencies this year. A program overseen by the Long Island Farm Bureau and the United States Department of Agriculture would have placed trained U.S.D.A. sharpshooters in several municipalities, including East Hampton Town and Village, in an effort to reduce deer populations. Opponents of that program won a temporary restraining order to stop it in State Supreme Court, and the participating towns and villages on the South Fork called off the culls.

       Where mute swans are concerned, a controversial management plan put forward by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation calls for the eradication of the species in the state by 2025. Had that plan been in place, the wildlife rescue center would have been prohibited from releasing a rehabilitated mute swan back into the wild. Technically, the species is an invasive one, and, according to the D.E.C., the state’s mute swans, which number 2,200, displace native wildlife, destroy aquatic vegetation, degrade water quality, pose a hazard to aircraft, and are aggressive toward people.

      News of the D.E.C.’s grim plans for mute swans prompted a number of citizens’ efforts, including a petition drive, to oppose the elimination of the species.

       The deadline for comments on this plan was Friday, but some state lawmakers are challenging the agency to prove that the swan population is as detrimental as it claims.

       Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. is among the sponsors of legislation that would impose a two-year moratorium on declaring the mute swan a “prohibited invasive species” and eliminating them from the wild through trapping and hunting, or destroying their eggs.

       According to a press release issued by Mr. Thiele two weeks ago, “Wildlife experts, rehabilitators, and environmentalists do not unanimously agree that exterminating the mute swan population is justified. In addition, there is debate amongst such experts about whether the planned eradication of the mute swan population is even minimally beneficial to the ecosystem or to our environment.”

     “My office has not received one report in all my years in office that the mute swan is a nuisance or an environmental problem,” Mr. Thiele said in the release.

       If the plan had been in place this week and the Town Pond swan could have been saved, “We would only have been able to release it to a swan sanctuary,” Ms. Frati said. However, she is not aware of any such sanctuaries.

       The wildlife center, too, has weighed in against the D.E.C.’s proposed swan management plan, Ms. Frati said. “We can’t ethically euthanize a healthy animal,” she said. “If this passes, they would want us to put them to sleep.”

With Reporting by Joanne Pilgrim

       Buyers have held the cards in the real estate game here since 2008, but a slow switch to a sellers’ market began last year and is taking on steam. 

       The buyers’ market is “probably coming to an end in the foreseeable future,” according to Lylla Carter and Krae Van Sickle, a team at Saunders. The good news for buyers is that for the moment at least the scales are still tipped in their favor, with low interest rates, high inventory, and approachable prices. However, conditions can change with the speed of a Gulfstream V, so Ms. Carter and Mr. Van Sickle have a warning for buyers: The time to act is now.

       “We are moving through a rapid transition,” said Chris Chapin of the Lord-Chapin team at Douglas Elliman. “This place is so small and geographically constrained that it takes very few additional buyers to tip the whole dynamic into a sellers’ market. The same thing has been happening in the San Francisco peninsula and in Manhattan, he said.

       A look at the number of houses available is one indication that the market is generally on the upswing. Over recent weekends, when the weather has not been a deterrent, “We’ve been running from pillar to post,” Mr. Chapin said. Last weekend, he said, “Saturday was our busiest day for new customers in over a decade. . . . We received three different calls from the 917 area code within an hour. All new buyers. And we kept getting new buyer inquiries via email from Zillow, Trulia, and Douglas Elliman sites. It’s like spinning plates, just when I think I have my day planned, there’s another call. He said he’s had to push his workouts back to 7 a.m. 

       And apparently these are not window shoppers. They are buying, said Brian Blekicki, a member of the Lord-Chapin team who worked with clients in Sag Harbor on Sunday. “When I was setting the itinerary, it turned out that a quarter of the houses that I had planned to show had accepted offers, or were even in contract.”

       The inventory appears to be shrinking. “New listings are not keeping pace with the number of purchases,” Mr. Van Sickle said. Ms. Carter agreed, saying she was “struggling to find inventory” to suit buyers’ needs.

       Bruce Pellman of Brown Harris Stevens took a look at the inventory over the last five years. “We were glutted with it. If people needed to sell they were giving it away because there was so much competition. We’re more bullish for 2014.”

       The overall economic picture is also playing a role. “There are a lot of wealthy people here who have been capable of purchasing, who now feel secure . . . who now seem willing to buy,” Mr. Van Sickle said. There is also a fair number of investors scooping up multiple properties, according to Mr. Chapin. 

       Some say another reason buyers should reel in their lines now is that interest rates are expected to rise. Mr. Van Sickle does not believe that will affect the market as a whole, however. He has found that with strong demand, higher rates do not stop buyers from purchasing. But, he said, “It makes it difficult for buyers to get the caliber of property they want.”

       At any rate — at least at the high end — interest rates are irrelevant. “We’re dealing with an affluent buyer . . .  many buying in cash,” Ms. Carter said.

       Though most real estate pros are predicting an imminent sellers’ market, Mr. Van Sickle said “what’s unknown is the velocity, how fast will it happen.”

       Despite an increase in transfers and a 15 percent to 20 percent decrease in inventory in 2013 over 2012, prices have not risen. The Saunders year-end market report does not show an increase in prices, which Ms. Carter and Mr. Van Sickle said was surprising. “There are micromarkets where prices are being pushed up, but they are too small to be discernible,” Mr. Van Sickle said.

       So, while sellers are expected to have the upper hand, at least soon, Ms. Carter and Mr. Van Sickle caution them to not let their heads get too big. “We have observed sellers who, believing the market has turned completely in their favor, are being more cavalier than perhaps they should be,” they wrote in a recent report on 2013 results. 

       On the other hand, Mr. Chapin said several sellers, aware that the market is shifting, have put their ears to the ground and raised their prices. His partner Ray Lord had a buyer recently who had accepted an offer that was somewhat off the asking price. But when someone else came in at full price, the first buyer had to bid over the original ask. But all was not lost. “We got the house into contract.”

       A review of procedures in the East Hampton Town tax receiver’s office after a chaotic property tax bill season revealed that not only had nearly a quarter of the town’s tax bills never been printed and mailed, but that many tax payments sent to the office sat for two weeks in bins of unopened mail, neither logged nor deposited.

       In one case, a $3.8 million check from a mortgage clearinghouse for taxes on numerous properties remained in a FedEx envelope for three weeks, Charlene Kagel, the town’s chief auditor, told the town board this week.

       It was only after landowners began calling as the deadline for payment without penalty approached that the town realized that more than 5,000 of its approximately 23,000 2013-14 tax bills had not even been printed late last year.

       The original Jan. 10 deadline for payment of the first half of 2013-14 taxes was ultimately extended until Jan. 30. The second half is due by the end of May.

       This is the second year in a row that scores of residents have complained of not receiving their tax bills, even as the deadline approached. Their calls and emails deluged staffers, causing delays not only in providing bills but also in depositing payments that had been made.

       The remittances languished well beyond the three business days the town is given under state law to deposit residents’ checks.

       The situation was only exacerbated by the need to respond to the numerous complaints, until Ms. Kagel and other town staffers were sent in to take matters in hand. Neide Valeira, another town accountant, was appointed interim tax receiver on Jan. 14, and the next week, Monica Rottach, who had been the tax receiver, was granted a leave from her job under the Family Medical Leave Act.

       A glitch in the software used to sort and print the property tax bills resulted in several hundred of each batch failing to print, Ms. Kagel said at a board work session on Tuesday.

       Then, a lack of oversight and controls resulted in the errors going unnoticed, Ms. Kagel said. “There are multiple ways that you can check,” she said, including reviewing a computer report, tallying the letterhead and envelopes used, and checking the pieces of mail sent out under the town’s bulk mailing permit.

       Another problem that arose during tax season, Ms. Kagel said — this one prompting 600 or 700 calls from property owners looking for their tax bills — was a nine-month delay in entering data about new owners after a property sale took place.

       An account overdraft prompted an internal audit of the tax receiver’s office in October. Three problems unrelated to the tax bill issues were identified in the October review, conducted by the town’s in-house auditors along with Nawrocki Smith, an outside auditing firm, Ms. Kagel said yesterday.

       Two recommendations were made surrounding the procedures being used to reconcile accounts on the town’s computerized system, including one requiring that daily accounting take place.

       Another issue was the acceptance by the tax receiver of signed blank checks from taxpayers expecting to be out of town when tax bills were prepared. They were kept in a safe at the tax receiver’s office, which was opened at various times of the day, and were to be filled out with the proper amounts as payments became due.

       That practice was to have been stopped, Ms. Kagel said. The audit results were presented last fall to the former town board in an executive session called, she said, because personnel issues were involved. The board asked that the auditors perform a routine follow-up and re-check the practices followed by the department in six months.

       But when tax season arrived, Len Bernard, the town budget officer and head of the Division of Finance, said yesterday, “everything sort of snowballed and dominoed.” The audit team, headed by Ms. Kagel and other town accountants, was sent back to the tax receiver’s office on Jan. 6, along with other staff.

       “We’re going to get this straight,” Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said Tuesday, “to ensure this does not happen again.”

       He recommended increased training for town staff across the board on the Govern software program, which is used for multiple purposes. Ms. Kagel suggested that the board look into creating a way for property owners to access and pay their tax bills online.

       Mr. Cantwell took pains to thank Ms. Valeira for her work. “You stepped right in,” he said to her. “You worked six or seven days a week doing that, and I just want to applaud you for your effort.”

       The “personnel aspects” of Ms. Kagel’s report to the town board were to be presented in an executive session following the open portion of Tuesday’s meeting.

     An East Hampton couple were arrested in Hampton Bays yesterday by Southampton Town police on charges of endangering the welfare of two young children, who police said were left inside a car while couple went shopping at Macy’s. The car’s engine was off, and the temperature at the time was 39 degrees, the police said.

     Adrian Coria, 32, and Bertha Sanchez-Marquez, 31, of Oakview Highway were found by police inside the store at about 5:30 p.m., about 45 minutes after the police arrived and an hour after they received the initial call from a witness in the parking lot outside the department store who was concerned about the children. The couple were placed under arrest and taken to the nearby Southampton Town police headquarters, each charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor.

            They were released from police headquarters last night, and will be arraigned in Southampton Town Court at a future date.