For Alda Lupo Stipanov, these are the cruelest months.

       If the decision were hers and hers alone, she would shutter the green doors of Astro’s Pizza and Felice’s Ristorante in October and not reopen them again until April. But every September, she finds herself on the losing side of the same argument.

       After immigrating from Italy, her parents started the Amagansett eatery 42 years ago. Ms. Stipanov now oversees the family-run pizzeria and adjoining restaurant alongside her brother, Tony Lupo, and her husband, Nado Stipanov.

       “Every year, it’s the same debate. I want to close. They want to stay open. Financially, it’s a drain. We’re not making any money,” Ms. Stipanov said during a recent afternoon lull. “In the summer, we make up for lost time. We really try to stay open for the community. Where else are they going to go?”

       Particularly during the off-season, it’s a quandary faced by many local shopkeepers — namely, the economic gamble of whether to stay open.

       Peter Honerkamp, a founder and managing partner of the Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett, a nightclub he’s overseen for the past 27 years, said that it has never made financial sense to stay open during January and February.

       “You can eke by in the winter, but just barely,” Mr. Honerkamp said, adding that most businesses that stay open do so for the staff and for the community — but never the bottom line.

       “There’s no way to make money in January and February. We make our money from May to October,” said Mr. Honerkamp. “It always sucks six months of the year. The rest of the time it’s always been a joke. It was a joke 27 years ago and it’s a joke now.”

       Over the years, though he’s seen more businesses attempting to stay open year round, he said that none do so without financial strain. Unlike in past years, the Talkhouse is now closed until early March, while it undergoes renovations. During the time off, Mr. Honerkamp said, he plans to compensate his small staff for any lost wages.

       Marina Van, the executive director of the East Hampton Chamber of Commerce, sees many shops closing midweek, particularly on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

       “As far as closing totally, many are calculating whether it’s worth staying open,” Ms. Van said. “Is it worth keeping a staff or better to just open again when the fishing is good?”

       Apart from building a ski mountain and becoming a winter destination, Ms. Van sees the South Fork as a destination in summertime, when the population roughly doubles. Though an exact summer figure is unknown, in 2010 the U.S. Census Bureau estimated East Hampton Town’s year-round population around 21,000.

       A recent midweek scan of Main Street in East Hampton Village yielded 10 empty storefronts, with several businesses, such as Lululemon Athletica and Steven Alan, closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and many others shuttered until warmer temperatures return.

       But Mark Smith, who owns Nick and Toni’s, La Fondita, Rowdy Hall, and Townline BBQ restaurants, sees the area as an increasingly year-round place, particularly in the years since Sept. 11, 2001.

       As his company has 100 employees on its payroll, he feels an obligation to stay open. Besides the “real, emotional, and philosophical” costs of hiring and then rehiring a staff every season, he can’t imagine starting again every spring from scratch.

       Rather than close entirely, some of his restaurants have cut back on days and hours. While La Fondita, for instance, is now open five days a week, Rowdy Hall stays open seven days a week. After Memorial Day, Mr. Smith said, the businesses will again open seven days a week, with most dropping back down to five days after the Thanksgiving holiday.

       As a year-round resident himself, Mr. Smith sees far fewer retail stores remaining open during the winter months. “It’s sort of a shame,” he said. “Some of the soul and character of East Hampton, the sense that we’re living in a village, has been lost by virtue of it.”

       Eighteen years ago, Mary Schoenlein, a food business veteran, moved here from New York City. Twelve years ago, she opened Mary’s Marvelous in Amagansett. A year and a half ago, she opened a second location in East Hampton. Both stores are open year round, with the Amagansett location currently closed on Wednesdays, its slowest day.

       “Because I am a local, I felt it was important to stay open,” said Ms. Schoenlein, a resident of Springs, during a recent afternoon break from overseeing the kitchen. She wore a white apron and black clogs, her hair tied back in a bandanna. “When I opened the business, that was the goal. We need local support in order to survive.”

       So far, local support has fueled the East Hampton location with a steady stream of devoted weekly clientele. Weekends are still the store’s slowest time, with Sundays particularly quiet.

       Between the two stores, Mary’s Marvelous now has 28 employees on its payroll, a mixture of full-time and part-time workers whose ranks swell during the summer months to meet the growing demand for coffee and baked goods, among other sweet and savory treats.

       Still, Ms. Schoenlein is the first to concede that these are difficult economic times. “The typical pattern for us is that we do very well in the summer, with the summer income paying for a few months, and then we hit a very lean time. From now until May, it’s tough,” she said. “Every customer counts. You can go to six different places to get a muffin and a cup of coffee.”

       Mostly, though, she can’t imagine closing every season only to hire and train a new fleet of workers. There’s also a sense of pride, being one in a dwindling number of locally owned businesses — the ones who continue to persevere and stay open, year after year.

       “We survive. We sustain ourselves. There are people who rely on us,” Ms. Schoenlein said. “There’s a warming feeling when you drive through town and the lights are on at Mary’s and you can stop in and get something to eat.”

       Applause broke out at Town Hall on Tuesday morning when the East Hampton Town Board took a step toward solar power by endorsing proposals for photovoltaic installations at 10 town-owned sites by three private contractors.

       The sites could generate up to 40 megawatts of alternative energy to be sold to PSEG Long Island and fed into the power grid. The project, which requires PSEG approval, could also generate more than $800,000 a year in income for the town.

       The proposals, developed for PSEG’s Clean Solar Initiative, must be submitted by Friday, Jan. 31, for technical review and possible approval.

       Sites under consideration, according to a press release issued by Larry Cantwell, the East Hampton Town supervisor, include “parts of the capped landfills in Montauk and East Hampton, unused town-owned lots, and rooftops on public buildings.”

       “I’m very excited to take this first step,” Mr. Cantwell said at a town board meeting on Tuesday. “I think this may be one of the most exciting renewable energy projects . . . in the country, really.” Not only would the project provide “the opportunity to generate renewable energy and reduce our carbon footprint, and provide the power that we need on the South Fork,” but, he said, it would also “increase non-tax revenue in a very significant way.”

       Gordian Raacke, a member of the town’s Energy Sustainability Committee and the executive director of Renewable Energy Long Island, said Tuesday that the project has the potential to make the town a leader in sustainable energy generation. “If these get built,” he said, “it will take East Hampton from the lower tier to the very top nationwide in terms of solar and renewable energy.”

       Thirteen proposals submitted to the town were vetted by members of the energy committee, which presented its recommendations at the Tuesday work session. They used 16 criteria to score each one, said Frank Dalene, the chairman of the committee. The top three proposals, he said, all scored “about the same on expertise, financial viability, and references.”

       Mr. Dalene commended the town board for pursuing the solar energy initiative — for “leading by example,” he said. Mr. Cantwell in turn thanked Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, who has been working with the energy committee, and Ms. Overby thanked Kim Shaw and Marguerite Wolffsohn, the heads of the Natural Resources and Planning Departments, and their staffs.

       The contractors, SunEdison, OnForce Solar, and Sustainable Power Group, would design, install, and maintain the solar panels for a 20-year period, after which they would be responsi ble for dismantling them. Under the PSEG program, however, the system could be kept in operation at that point under the current terms of its energy programs.

       In addition to rent on the installation sites, the town would receive a portion of the revenue from sale of the solar-generated power to PSEG.

       “We are excited about the potential to generate solar electric from underutilized town land, produce revenue for the town, and help reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and our carbon footprint,” Ms. Overby said in the release.

       Two mute swans hauled themselves out of the water at the East Hampton Nature Trail on Monday, stretching their wings wide with a flap that scattered the ducks surrounding handfuls of feed just spread by a visitor, a display of dominance that established them at the top of the flock.

       The swans, a non-native invasive species here, were, of course, unaware of a recent proposal by state wildlife officials to eliminate them in the New York State by 2025.

       Mute swans, according to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, display aggressive behavior toward people, destroy submerged aquatic vegetation, pollute waters with coliform from their fecal matter, and displace native wildlife species, such as the indigenous tundra swan and other waterfowl. In addition, says the D.E.C., they pose “potential hazards to aviation.”

       The adult mute swan is marked by its orange bill with a black knob on top, unlike the native tundra swan, or less common trumpeter swan, both of which have black bills and lack the knob.

       Under a management plan being considered by the D.E.C., mute swans could be shot, captured and euthanized, or sterilized, and their eggs and nests destroyed. Feeding mute swans would be prohibited, and a swan-hunting season would be considered.

       The agency is taking public comments on the plan through Feb. 21.

       The news of the state agency’s intent has further stirred up animal activists already roused by the Long Island Farm Bureau’s plan for an East End deer cull using sharpshooters to kill up to 3,000 deer in an effort to reduce deer damage to crops, collisions with vehicles, and the spread of tick-borne diseases. A large rally against the cull took place in East Hampton on Saturday.

       Like the deer cull, the mute swan elimination proposal has prompted online petitions in opposition, including one at Change.org, as well as a spate of shocked and furious comments on Facebook by local residents and others across the state.

       Several mention the swan pair that inhabits Town Pond, where the birth of cygnets is carefully observed by many each year, painting them as an integral part of East Hampton.

       Mute swans were brought to North America from Eurasia in the late 1800s for ornamental purposes — under the assumption, perhaps, that their gracefully curved necks and regal stature would be lovely additions to lawns, bays, and ponds.

       Around 1910, according to the D.E.C., some mute swans escaped or were released from captivity. Since then, the free-ranging population of mute swans in New York has grown to approximately 2,200 birds statewide, with separate populations on Long Island, in the lower Hudson Valley, and the Lake Ontario region.

       They can be found in coastal bays, marshes, and wetlands, and on inland lakes, rivers, and ponds, and are largely non-migratory, though some do move south during severe winter weather.

       The Atlantic Flyway Council, a collaborative agency comprising representatives from various agencies that manage migratory waterfowl along the Atlantic Seaboard, established a goal of reducing the number of mute swans in New York to 500 by last year.

       Instead, the D.E.C. said in its draft management plan, the population has expanded in size and distribution.

       “In the absence of human intervention, the number of free-ranging mute swans in New York is likely to increase until the species is common throughout most of the state,” the D.EC. draft says.

       However, the D.E.C. also says that while the upstate population of mute swans near Lake Ontario has “increased dramatically during the last decade,” the populations here and in the Hudson Valley “seemed to have stabilized” over that same period.

       The Flyway Council’s population control goal has been endorsed by several wildlife conservation organizations, including the National Audubon Society and the American Bird Conservancy, according to the D.E.C.

       Anyone who has visited a duck pond and been accosted by a sizeable swan impatient to get to a handful of old bread can attest to the “aggressive” label. It is not only prompted by food; swans will attack humans, especially small children, if they get too close to their nests or young.

       But less well known is the swans’ effect on aquatic plants. Instead of nibbling on parts of the plants, they remove the entire plant when foraging, eliminating a food source for other waterfowl.

       With only a couple of pairs of nesting mute swans here, Kim Shaw, East Hampton Town’s director of natural resources, said this week that no complaints about them had been received by residents, and that the degree of potential environmental damage posed was likely not as great here as in other parts of the state. There has been no inventory “to see if there’s been significant environmental damage,” she said.

       Nonetheless, she said, they do have an impact on water quality and aquatic plants. And, she said, “I do recognize them as invasive” — a species that could “outcompete other types of swans and birds.”

       “We do have more of a problem with resident geese,” Ms. Shaw commented. Some population-control techniques proposed by the D.E.C. for swans — such as shaking eggs, puncturing them, or treating them with oil to prevent hatching — are similar to those already used on geese, she said.

       A New York mute swan management policy adopted in 1993 prohibited the release of captive mute swans into the wild, allowed the swans to be removed from lands overseen by the State Division of Fish, Wildlife, and Marine Resources, and in other cases allowed permits to be issued for swan control on a site-specific basis.

       The new plan, which would allow some swans to be kept in captivity under state license, is similar to those in numerous other states including Maryland, Virginia, and Michigan.

       Bill Crain, the executive director of the East Hampton Group for Wildlife, which is among a group of plaintiffs suing to stop the deer cull, said in an e-mail yesterday that “the plan to exterminate the mute swans in the state is appalling.”

       “People expect our official wildlife agencies to be humane stewards, not destroyers of life. From what I know, the swans don’t seek to harm humans, only to defend their young when they feel their young are threatened. As to the swans’ damage to the aquatic environment, it’s nothing compared to what we humans inflict through pollution and runoff, as well as overdevelopment. Instead of mass killing, the D.E.C. should give thoughtful study to humane alternatives.”

       “On a broad level,” Mr. Crain added, “we all know that deadly violence is a critical problem in our society. I don’t believe it can be separated from the way we treat other living beings.”

       Comments on the draft mute swan plan may be submitted in writing  through Feb. 21 to the New York State D.E.C. Bureau of Wildlife, Swan Management Plan, 625 Broadway, Albany 12233, or e-mailed to fwwildlf@gw. dec.state.ny.us.

East Hampton Town police said Thursday that there had been a second outdoor death of a resident during the recent snowstorm and subsequent low temperatures.

On Thursday, police discovered the body of Catherine Dransfield, 67, buried in the snow outside a house she shared with her elderly, homebound mother on Hand's Creek Road in East Hampton.

A home aide arrived at the house that morning for a regularly scheduled visit with the mother and became alarmed when she could not find Ms. Dransfield. She called East Hampton Town police, who sent two officers. 

Capt. Chris Anderson said that it appeared that the cause of death was not suspicious and that Ms. Dransfield's mother was unaware that she was missing.

On Wednesday morning, a snowplow operator had called police when he noticed the body of Ralph E. Batalla, 84, in the snow in the yard outside his Springs house. Mr. Batalla had apparently died the night before.

The Suffolk County medical examiner's office is assisting town police in its investigation.

In neither case, Captain Anderson said, was there any indication that the victim had been doing a strenuous snow-related activity, like shoveling. But, he said, "without making a blanket statement," if you can avoid going outside during a winter storm, you should do so.

       A squash court incited lengthy and sometimes animated debate at a three-hour meeting of the East Hampton Village Board of Appeals on Friday when the owner of property on Further Lane sought permission to construct one in the basement of a new 3,600-square-foot structure that is being called a garage.

           The anonymous principal of three limited liability corporations that own 174 and 176 Further Lane and 29 Spaeth Lane also plans to build a house on the property designed by the noted architect Annabelle Selldorf. A house at 174 Further Lane was torn down after its purchase for $28 million in 2012.

       The Z.B.A. has struggled before with the uses of garages, which are the only accessory structures permitted by the village code to be larger than 250 square feet. An earlier Z.B.A. debate about the definition of garages involved a lot of less than 10,000 square feet on Conklin Terrace. The three lots owned by the L.L.C.s contain more than seven acres.

       The meeting Friday was the continuation of a hearing on the applicant’s request for multiple side-yard variances and permission to raise an existing fence from four to six feet. Also on the agenda Friday was a controversial project to install communication antennas on an oil tank at Schenck Fuels on Newtown Lane. It is covered in a separate story on A3.

       On Friday, Jonathan Tarbet, 174 Further Lane’s attorney, told the board that plans had been modified to minimize the “aggressiveness of requested variances.” The site of the house has been relocated, he said. “Any affected neighbors are in support — north, east, and west.”

       “Doesn’t he own east and west?” Lysbeth Marigold, a member of the board, asked. “No, they’re owned by separate L.L.C.s,” Mr. Tarbet said, adding that the ownership was insignificant. Ms. Marigold rolled her eyes. “Okay,” she said. “Whatever you say.”

       Mr. Tarbet said the applicant had a building permit for the garage which was allowed to expire. In asking that it be renewed, however, “we were told that squash courts were not allowed in garages. The code didn’t change; I guess there was a change in the way things are . . . ,” he said, trailing off. Frank Newbold, the board’s chairman, finished the sentence. “Interpreted,” he said.

       Mr. Tarbet continued. “There is no detriment that anybody can think of from a squash court in a garage. . . . Virtually the entire village won’t know it’s there.”

       Mr. Newbold then said that the 120-by-30-foot structure’s blueprint includes a pool house, an unenclosed walk-through corridor, room for three cars, and multiple storage areas.

       It was designed and situated in alignment with an existing tennis court, Mr. Tarbet said. “It’s meant to work in conjunction with the entire property.”

       “Can I just have a reality check?” Ms. Marigold asked. “When the village code was written, I don’t think anyone envisioned a 3,600-square-foot garage with a squash court with a viewing stand. . . . I feel like I’m being gas-lighted here.”

       Mr. Tarbet insisted a squash court was “100-percent permitted,” but Linda Riley, the board’s attorney, called that assertion debatable. The legislative intent, Ms. Riley said, was to prohibit people from renting residential space and storing commercial vehicles in garages. The intent was not to prohibit someone from putting lawn chairs, pool equipment, or bicycles in a garage, she said. “But to extend that to a squash court of thousands of square feet is a different animal than having space for bicycles.”

       Although there is no limit in the village code on the size of a garage, Mr. Newbold said, “There perhaps should be.” His concern, he told Mr. Tarbet, was setting a precedent.

       “I don’t think anyone ever anticipated that a quote-unquote garage would be proposed to be the size of a tennis court,” Ms. Riley said. “Where does the detriment come from?” Mr. Tarbet asked. “Who does that hurt?”

       It hurts the village code, Ms. Marigold answered. “We said this two weeks ago . . . why couldn’t the architect build something that is in the spirit of the village code?”

        “Isn’t there a way to do this that requires fewer variances?” Mr. Newbold asked. “If we voted today, it would probably not pass,” he said. The board, Mr. Newbold told Mr. Tarbet, does not accept the contention that a squash court is permitted in a garage and thinks the structure is too large. 

       “I appreciate the architect wanted to match it to the same size as the tennis court, because architects like to match the front doorknob with the North Star,” Mr. Newbold said, but going from a 250-square-foot accessory building to a 3,600-square-foot garage is “a very, very big leap.”

       When the hearing was opened to public comment, Eric Bregman, an attorney representing Beautiful Joy L.L.C., which owns nearby property at 38 Two Mile Hollow Road, stood. Calling the application “the classic ‘I want everything,’ ” Mr. Bregman upbraided Mr. Tarbet. “Why not a basketball court, or a bowling alley?” he asked. “It could be any of those things, which clearly isn’t the intent.” Mr. Bregman said the oversized garage would have  a detrimental effect on the character of the neighborhood.

       At that point what had been a series of tense exchanges escalated.

       “Just to put it into context,” Mr. Tarbet said, he had opposed a 2012 application for variances for a pool, deck, and spa at 38 Two Mile Hollow. “Apparently, this is the payback.”

       Mr. Bregman stood and angrily complained about Mr. Tarbet’s statement. Mr. Tarbet, at the lectern, waved him off. “You’ll have your chance,” he said. “I know, ‘you’re here to protect the environment.’ ”

       “I’m here to protect the character of the neighborhood,” Mr. Bregman answered. “You’re being glib and cute, and it’s unappreciated.”

       “It’s also accurate,” Mr. Tarbet told the board. “When Beautiful Joy came to you. . . .” 

       “Why don’t we just not talk about Beautiful Joy,” Mr. Newbold interrupted. “We’ll see you in two weeks.”                                   The hearing was left open and will resume at the board’s next meeting, on Feb. 14.

       Last week “Company Town” offered a list of the top 10 house sales in 2013 as compiled by Town and Country Real Estate. We reported on that list because it was the only one we had in hand at press time. Later, however, Sotheby’s sent out a preliminary list of high-end sales, which included several not listed by Town and Country.

       The most notable was Wooldon Manor at 16 Gin Lane in Southampton, a former Woolworth family estate. At $75 million, it was by far the biggest sale of the year. Another house on Sotheby’s list was built by Michael Davis at 79 Parsonage Lane in Sagaponack; it sold for $21 million. These properties knocked out two properties in East Hampton and Wainscott on the Town and Country list, each under $17 million.

       We had tallied the numbers based on limited data last week and owe Southampton an apology for reporting that East Hampton’s sales out-performed those of its neighbor. When all is said and done, Southampton is most likely to be ahead by more than $50 million.

       It would seem that Judi Desiderio, the chief executive officer of Town and Country, had a bit of mud on her face because she had sent out her list before two major sales in December were recorded with the county. Twenty years ago, when she was the only broker sending out reports, she was able to wait a month or so till all the information was in, she said. Because of today’s competition, however, she had begun to release her lists earlier. “To remain relevant, I had to pick a date.” That date, she said, is going to change next year. “I think next year I’ll wait till the end of January to do my top 10.”

       Sotheby’s didn’t provide a top 10, but it reported that 12 properties went for more than $20 million. Unlike Town and Country’s list, the Sotheby’s list included vacant land. An example is 322 Ocean Road in Bridgehampton, which sold for $25 million. Two separate sales, recorded together as 50 Hither Lane, East Hampton, sold for a combined $21 million. John Gicking of Sotheby’s said the sales were listed together because they went to a single buyer who planned to build a compound.

       “This is how it can get very confusing, and how different agencies can choose different properties,” he said.

       Another reason agencies have different data is the lack of a centralized multiple listing system, which would provide all deed transfers when they are recorded with the county. Mr. Gicking said agencies here share an unofficial M.L.S., which they all subscribe to. According to Mr. Gicking, this system is “only as good as the information agents put on it.” 

       Chris Chapin of Douglas Elliman said the result was that “everyone is going to have a largely similar, but substantially dissimilar picture of what is going on. There’s always somebody who misses something that everyone thinks is common knowledge.”

       The accurate deed transfer reports from the county, can take up to six weeks to show up. Mr. Gicking said some agencies “wait a period of time to see what late-breaking data comes in.” However, were he to publish early data, he would put a disclaimer on it: “Based on info we have at this time.” He noted that the Parsonage Lane property showed on the county compilation only last Friday.

       Ms. Desiderio called the Parsonage Lane house sale the “most glaring” example of the problem with obtaining timely data. “The closing was Dec. 10,” she said.

       Meanwhile, as of Monday, there were at least 10 or 12 real estate agencies alive and well on the South Fork. Additional lists of top sales were a distinct possibility.

       William C. Hurley of Sag Harbor pleaded guilty Tuesday to all charges stemming from an accident on Route 114 in East Hampton last July that left a 6-year-old with a fractured skull and sent the boy’s mother to the hospital as well.

       The most serious of the charges against Mr. Hurley, 61, was assault in the second degree, which carries a maximum penalty of seven years in prison. He was also charged with two felony counts of vehicular assault, one for each victim, misdemeanor driving while intoxicated, reckless driving, and recklessly causing a serious injury.

       On July 6, Mr. Hurley was driving a 2003 Toyota pickup truck north on Route 114 at a little after 6 p.m. when his car veered into the southbound lane, hitting a 2006 BMW driven by Elizabeth Krimendahl, whose son, Thaddeus Krimendahl, was in the back seat. While Ms. Krimendahl and Mr. Hurley were both hospitalized, their injuries were not considered as serious as the boy’s.

       “I’ve been up since 5:20,” Mr. Hurley told East Hampton Town police when first questioned, Robert Clifford, a spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Thomas J. Spota, said Tuesday, adding that Mr. Hurley also told police he had had two vodka-and-grapefruit drinks before leaving his East Hampton business, Peconic Beverage, for the drive home to Sag Harbor. His blood alcohol level was .14 at the hospital, police said. The legal limit is .08.

       “We are recommending four years,” Mr. Clifford said Tuesday. In Suffolk County Criminal Court in Central Islip that day, however, Justice Fernando Camacho said that he would cap the sentence at two years.

       Mr. Hurley’s attorney, Edward Burke Jr., would not comment about the case after he left the courthouse. He had been in negotiations with the district attorney’s office throughout the discovery process, during which the prosecutor shares with the defense the evidence likely to be produced during a trial. The case was adjourned four times.

       Mr. Burke has pointed out during previous court appearances that Mr. Hurley has no previous criminal record and has great support from the community. Justice Camacho will pronounce a sentence on April 22.

       The prosecution of Mr. Hurley was led by Elizabeth Miller of the Vehicular Crime Bureau, which Mr. Spota set up less than two years ago. The goal of the bureau, Mr. Clifford said Tuesday, was to have a small cadre of assistant district attorneys who would focus specifically on felony cases involving vehicles in accidents that cause serious injury or death, when alcohol or drugs, prescription or otherwise, are involved.

       The attorneys, Mr. Clifford said, are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, available to go right to the scene of such accidents to aid local police investigators from the outset and strengthen the likelihood of successful prosecution.

       Besides having to deal with the newly formed bureau, Mr. Hurley faced another hurdle: Justice Camacho was appointed as a temporary Supreme Court justice specifically to deal with the backlog of cases in Suffolk County Court. After four adjournments, Mr. Hurley apparently had run out of time.

       The East Hampton Historical Society’s 2014 winter lecture series begins tomorrow night with a reading of Capt. William King’s log of the whaling barque Concordia.

       “In their Own Words: Voices From East Hampton’s Past” is a four-part  program in which actors will read ships’ logs, diaries, and other records, along with additional performances and narration. All events will be held on the last Friday of the month and begin at 7 p.m., and free refreshments will be served before the lecture.

       “The idea for this whole series was to refrain from the way we normally do them — a traditional lecture where someone has done research and presents it to the community,” said Richard Barons, the society’s executive director, on Tuesday. “We thought it was high time that the people we were talking about do the talking. We chose them because they had left us a written record.”

       “Frozen in Hudson’s Bay: William King’s Log of the Whaling Barque Concordia” will feature Ken Collum, a village code enforcement officer and fire marshal, reading Mr. King’s log, and Mr. Barons, who will narrate.

       The log reads like a diary, Mr. Barons said, and illustrates a time in the history of whaling in which “the market really is for the whalebone, for corset-making in New England.” He promised a fascinating look into the period and the Concordia crew’s experience in the frozen Hudson’s Bay.

       The series will continue on Feb. 28 with “The Rustic Manners of Old East Hampton: John Howard Payne’s 1838 Recollections of his Boyhood.” Josh Gladstone will read Payne’s travelogue about the village, and a scene from “Clari, or the Maid of Milan,” in which the song “Home, Sweet Home” was first sung, will be performed. “Payne’s 1838 recollections of visiting his aunt in East Hampton are extremely rich,” said Mr. Barons.

       On March 28, the society will present “An Eagle Eye on East Hampton’s Main Street: Cornelia Huntington’s Vivid Diary 1820-1860.” Barbara Borsack, a member of the village board, will read from the diary of Miss Huntington, who lived in East Hampton circa 1801 to 1870.

       The diarist, the author of the novel “Sea Spray,” kept a diary throughout most of her life, Hugh King, the village’s historic site manager and the town crier, told the village board earlier this month. “That diary is a window into what it was like to live here in East Hampton.”

       “Just as in her novel,” said Mr. Barons, “she really does bring out a lot of things — the community, socializing, servants, summer people. She mentions in the late 1840s that ‘all the houses are filled this summer, there is no more room.’ People often think it wasn’t until the train came that this area became a very popular summer resort.”

       The series will conclude on April 25 with “From Cradle to Grave: The Rev. Nathaniel Huntting’s Extraordinary Records of East Hampton, 1696-1753.” Evan Thomas will read from the records and Mr. King will narrate.

       “We often forget that in the 17th and 18th centuries, the minister was in charge of keeping records of births, deaths, marriages. There was no clerk paid by the village.” The Rev. Huntting, said Mr. Barons, “takes it seriously enough that it is somewhat like [Mr. King’s log]. He gives us so much more information. We find out about this tidal wave of influenza, when a great number of people die.”

       Mr. Barons predicted an engaging series. “You’ll be hearing their words,” he said of the four writers. “That’s why we’ve chosen people to play that role, rather than me saying, ‘Let me read this to you.’ I think that will bring it alive.”

       Opponents of plans to thin the deer herd this winter are pressing forward with their efforts to avert any such action. In East Hampton, both town and village officials have indicated they will allow federal “sharpshooters” to cull the herd. 

       Last month, the New York law firm Devereaux, Baumgarten filed suit on behalf of the East Hampton Group for Wildlife, the Evelyn Alexander Wildlife Center of the Hamptons, and 15 residents to stop the cull. The town, the village, and the East Hampton Town Trustees are named as defendants in the complaint.

       This month, opponents are planning protests, both substantial and symbolic, to advance their cause. On Saturday they will hold a demonstration at 1 p.m. at Hook Mill in East Hampton. Carrying signs, they plan to walk from the windmill to Herrick Park, where they will face the Newtown Lane traffic for 30 minutes.

       A petition at the website change.org, launched by Wendy Chamberlin of Bridgehampton and Zelda Penzel of East Hampton, had 10,628 signatories as of noon yesterday. Ms. Chamberlin and Ms. Penzel lead the Wildlife Preservation Coalition of Eastern Long Island, which is co-sponsoring Saturday’s demonstration. Another animal advocacy group, Long Island Orchestrating for Nature, is also a sponsor.

       Bill Crain, who heads the Group for Wildlife, said he had received much email from residents expressing a wish to participate. “They use words like ‘appalling’ and ‘sickening,’ ” he said last week. “The residents on the whole are strongly opposed to this and have a deep feeling for the animals. That’s something that’s emerged from this impending atrocity.”

       Mr. Crain referred to a 2006 study commissioned by his group, which counted the deer population at 3,293, and the 2013 town-commissioned survey, using different methods, that estimated 877 deer, to dispute Village Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach’s use of the word “epidemic” in describing the deer population. He also challenged a correlation between the deer population and the prevalence of Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses, which the mayor and the village board have cited as an impetus for the cull.

       “There’s a real passion and empathy” among residents, Mr. Crain said. “The amount of emotional distress is enormous, and I don’t think the mayor or anybody understands this. They fell into this mass hysteria over the number of deer, which turned out to be false.”

       The kiosk constructed last year at the Nature Trail in East Hampton Village features wildlife photographs by Dell Cullum, who is from Amagansett and works in the rescue and removal of wildlife. Mr. Cullum, whose photography appears in The Star, has protested the planned cull by removing his photographs, one of which depicts deer, from the kiosk.

       Members of the Ladies Village Improvement Society’s Nature Trail Committee approached Mr. Cullum last spring, he said, to ask if he would donate photographs for display at the kiosk, which it maintains. After learning last month that the village board had voted to participate in the cull, “it didn’t seem proper to be donating them when they’re killing those very animals,” he said. “I took offense — not just me but the entire community — that it wasn’t put to a vote. It would be hypocrisy to leave my pictures there.”

       The removal of his photographs, Mr. Cullum said, was “a message to the mayor and the village board that I wasn’t going to donate my work to any village organization. This was going to hurt the village as a whole, because the village was responsible for it.”

       “He’s a wonderful photographer, so it’s difficult,” said Dianne Benson, chairwoman of the Nature Trail Committee. Members are replacing the pictures in the kiosk and having a new map made, as Mr. Cullum also provided the map accompanying the photos, all of which are changed periodically.

       Mr. Cullum is particularly disturbed by the possibility that the Nature Trail itself might be among the locations from which sharpshooters would operate. “Is that bizarre action actually going to be part of the reality too?” he asked.

       Ms. Benson said last week that the trail “seems to be” a site at which the culling program would take place. She said she and Janet Dayton, the society’s president, were meeting with the mayor “to discuss an alternative to using the Nature Trail.” That meeting took place Tuesday morning.

       Mayor Rickenbach said afterward, as he has said before, that no such plan was in place. He called the selection of shooting locations “a work in progress,” saying he did not want to address specific places “because of a lot of mechanics that are unfolding.”

       Mr. Cullum plans to attend Saturday’s demonstration, which falls on his birthday. “I’m absolutely committed to be there,” he said.

       The demonstration is “part of the democratic process,” Mr. Rickenbach said last week. “Fortunately, we live in a free and open society.”

       The mayor would not comment on the lawsuit. “Counsel has a copy and I’d rather respond after I hear their legal commentary,” he said.

       Meanwhile, Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell notified the State Assembly on Tuesday that the town supported a bill authorizing the five East End towns to adopt local laws related to the culling of deer. The white-tailed deer population, Mr. Cantwell wrote, “has been linked to an epidemic of tick-borne illnesses, degradation of natural resources, crop damage and other harmful impacts to the agricultural industry, as well as car crashes.”

       Simultaneously, town residents have been receiving a flier in the mail offering to lease their land for use by “2 mature, responsible, ethical bow-hunting brothers.”

       Chris Geraghty of Ridge said his mailing was coincidental to the planned culls in East End towns, though he was aware of them. “I’m always looking for different spots to hunt,” he said this week. “I consider myself a steward of the wildlife, we’ve got to sustain the population.” Deer, he said, “don’t have any natural predators.”

       Mr. Geraghty and his brother seek to hunt on private property. “I hate to see tax dollars going to this,” he said. “To me, there’s too much government in my life already.” He said the response to his mailing had been mostly positive. 

    The East Hampton Village police investigation of a male officer and a female village traffic control officer who allegedly used a Talmage Lane house without permission of its owner for a romantic tryst on Dec. 30 resulted in the officer being suspended with pay and the village board dismissing the traffic control officer, identified in the minutes of the meeting as Jennifer Rosa, 20. Both actions were retroactive to Dec. 30.

     A fellow traffic control agent, who asked that her name not be published, said that Ms. Rosa knew where the key for the house was because she had previously worked at the house as a cleaner.

     The officer, who has been identified by the New York Post as well as by multiple police sources as Mario Julio Galeano, has had his badge and gun confiscated by the force. In 2013, the officer was recognized by the department for his role in the arrest and conviction the year before of a man accused of having sexual relations with a child.

     The officer, a native of Colombia, is the only Latino officer on the force.

Gerard Larsen, the department's chief, would not comment today about the specifics of the current investigation or even confirm the officer's identity.

     However, he did talk about the steps in disciplining or removing an officer from the force. The first thing people need to realize, he said, is that "there is a process involved." He explained that process by saying, "When something happens that generates an internal investigation, if we find misconduct, we relieve the officer of duty. We have to do that with pay." The entire process, he explained, is part of the collective bargaining agreement between the village the Police Benevolent Association.

     The chief said that the police investigative side of the current action has been concluded, as far as he is concerned.

     When an officer is relieved of duty, he said, the matter is then brought before the East Hampton Village Board. That appears to be what happened on Friday. The officer, he said, could be suspended or even terminated. "People are getting off track here," he said about published reports. "It takes time. The officer has rights under collective bargaining." But he added, "I think, in the end, people will be satisfied with the outcome."

     "I run a very strict Police Department," he said. "If these allegations are true, it brings embarrassment to the entire Police Department."

     David Davis, an attorney representing the officer on behalf of the P.B.A., was unavailable for comment.