A federal erosion-control and beach rebuilding project for downtown Montauk, which could include an 11-foot-high buried seawall or five rock groins, or jetties, jutting into the ocean along a more than half-mile stretch, will be discussed by the Army Corps of Engineers this morning at East Hampton Town Hall. The meeting begins at 11.

Details were few, and maps provided to town officials by the Army Corps were still being reviewed earlier this week.

The options apparently include, besides the buried seawall or groin field, several versions of a beach rebuilt without hard structures installed.

However, at a meeting with federal, state, and local officials in August, Army Corps representatives reportedly indicated that they had determined that merely rebuilding a beach and dunes in the downtown Montauk area would not be cost-effective.

The Army Corps has set a December goal for approval of a final plan, and work could begin in the new year. The project is included in a federal effort known as the Fire Island to Montauk Point Reformulation Plan, which has been five decades in the making, with federal funding of the proposed projects therein a perennial question.

However, federal funds became available following Hurricane Sandy, as part of a relief package approved by Congress, and the Montauk project would be 100 percent federally funded. Of a $700 million allocation for the Fire Island to Montauk stabilization project, $140 million has been earmarked for the reconstruction of vulnerable beaches in Montauk and on Fire Island, both considered emergency measures.

For “non-structural alternatives,” such as elevating shoreline buildings and roadways, $500 million has been earmarked, and $60 million of the total has been targeted for “green” infrastructure within “embayment” areas.

East Hampton Town’s local waterfront revitalization project plan, a state-approved coastal policy document, precludes the use of hard structures like seawalls or jetties along the Atlantic Ocean coast. Only the addition of sand or textile “geotubes” filled with sand is allowed in the ocean zone, according to that plan.

Earlier this year, with federal funding for a beach-rebuilding project in Montauk still a question, Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson had pressed the town board for a blanket approval of any Army Corps plan for the area. With the exception of Town Councilwoman Theresa Quigley, however, board members said that review of a proposed plan, perhaps by an independent coastal engineer, would be warranted.

Recommendations from a coastal erosion committee set up by the town this year included protecting the Montauk commercial district and the Ditch Plain beach by adding enough sand to create a 2.3-mile, 200-foot wide “engineered” beach.

“We don’t want to have an armor across the downtown commercial district,” Drew Bennett, a member of the committee, told the town board earlier this year. “We admit, if we fail, that’s what we’ll have.”

The committee also recommended that the town, in collaboration with the state and federal governments, develop a buyout plan for shoreline properties in peril, whose owners may be willing to sell. The program could use money from the community preservation fund, the committee suggested.

News of today’s meeting was circulated by several community groups that have urged residents to attend, including the Eastern Long Island Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation and the Concerned Citizens of Montauk.

“After 40 years of the Army Corps working on F.I.M.P., C.C.O.M. looks forward to finally seeing some of the details of what the Army Corps is proposing to do,” Jeremy Samuelson, the executive director of the Montauk group, said Tuesday. “It is critical to the public interest that the Army Corps spell out in detail what the timelines and opportunities for expert municipal and public input will be as a part of this process,” he said.

    The Town of East Hampton is set to give its approval to a $41 million Army Corps of Engineers plan that calls for dredging and enlarging the navigational channel into Montauk Harbor — to ensure safe access for the commercial fishing fleet, which has been coping with increasingly difficult passage — and to deposit sand on beaches along Block Island Sound to the west, create a new public beach there, and install three groins perpendicular to the shore.

    With federal money covering 70 percent of the cost, and state money thrown in, the town’s share was estimated previously at $1.5 million, though a new estimate has not been calculated. The plan is the most ambitious of three options presented by the Corps, which is completing a feasibility study for the future of the inlet. Work is not likely to begin until 2015, Brian Frank, an environmental analyst for the town, said at an East Hampton Town Board meeting on Tuesday, after a new Congressional delegation allocates funding.

    Although the plan would provide some shoreline stabilization to address chronic erosion along Soundview Drive, it requires the town to obtain deeded access over private property to the beach, or to condemn land if necessary. These costs would be borne solely by the town.

   There are also questions, town board members noted, during Tuesday’s work session, regarding the ultimate effect of the groins, responsibility for maintaining the beach, and the town’s liability should private properties be negatively affected after the Army Corps finishes the project and hands off responsibility.

    The board unanimously agreed to approve the “deluxe package,” as Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson dubbed it, provided the Army Corps allows for the ability to scale back the project should any of the requirements or components become problematic. Mr. Frank said the federal agency had indicated that it would agree to that concept, though town officials said they would seek written confirmation.

    Armoring the shoreline in the area is permitted under the town’s Local Waterfront Revitalization Project, but not hard structures perpendicular to the shore, such as the proposed groins. Mr. Frank said the three groins would initially be made of geotextile tubes and left in place for a trial period of 10 years so that their effect on downdrift could be observed. The groins’ size, height, orientation, and so on could be adapted before being permanently constructed out of stone or steel.

    The construction of the groins would require the town to obtain access to the beach from private property owners, a number of whom objected to the idea during a public comment period last year. They expressed concern about property values as well as the creation of a public beach, one of the federal requirements when a project includes beach reconstruction. Whether the reconstructed beach would be eligible for rebuilding by the Federal Emergency Management Agency after future storms, or whether the town would have to bear the cost, remains a question.

    Last year, Supervisor Wilkinson said that, in choosing the most ambitious Army Corps plan, the town “would be held up a long, long time, for a bunch of reasons.” The  Planning and Natural Resources Departments, Mr. Frank reported then, recommended choosing a lesser plan, citing “too many unanswered questions” associated with the dredging and beach restoration. But, he said, “If there were a viable option for restoring a sandy beach west of the inlet, that’s obviously in everybody’s best interest — for the property owners, for the public, for the environment.”

    Under a less ambitious “enhanced navigation” option, to which the town would revert should the larger effort fail, the inlet would be deepened to 17 feet below sea level and the basin widened to 100 feet. A new area of dredging at the southeast end of the inlet would be included, and the spoil would be deposited on the West Lake Drive beach to the west, which is closer to the inlet than the Soundview properties. Of a total projected cost of $26 million for that work, the town would be expected to pay $801,000.

    Another possibility, to maintain existing conditions at the Montauk inlet by periodic dredging to a depth of 12 feet, would be fully covered by federal funds, but it has been considered insufficient.

    The Army Corps, which recently completed its Fire Island to Montauk Point reformulation study, has imposed a Sept. 20 deadline for the town’s decision. Any action contemplated by the town is complicated by an ongoing lawsuit by some property owners along Soundview Drive and Captain Kidd’s Path against the town, New York State, and the Army Corps over the impact on their eroding shores of existing groins that mark the channel.

    Frank DeVito, a Captain Kidd’s Path homeowner who is one of the lawsuit plaintiffs, told the town board on Tuesday that the plaintiffs would like to reach a settlement with the town and to see long-term solutions for the shore. “It’s not your fault, or the board’s,” he told Mr. Wilkinson, who bristled at the suggestion that he had not been responsive to the waterfront homeowners and pointed out that he had personally helped Mr. DeVito get rocks installed when his house was in peril. “But we’re pleading for help,” Mr. DeVito said. “It’s been 15 years, and we’re still pleading for help.”

    Larry Wagenberg, the vice president of the Culloden Shores Association, which is not a party to the lawsuit, also appealed to the board on Tuesday to address the “major erosion issue.” 

    “I just know that something has to be done. And if we let a lawsuit get in the way of all these families . . . it’s not a very pragmatic position.”

    Nine years ago, when the Potter family relocated from the Upper East Side to live full-time in Amagansett, little did Nan Potter know that finding the right school for their young children would prove the family’s greatest obstacle.

    She had no idea how hard it would be to replicate the magic of P.S. 6, a public school on Madison Avenue and 81st Street, which she described as “big and crowded and progressive and open to new ideas.” The Amagansett School’s small class sizes, though seemingly ideal at first, quickly felt claustrophobic. The following year, the Ross School proved impractical when it came to footing private-school tuition bills for four children.

     “We didn’t want to pay for private schools. We wanted the public school experience. Everyone said Sag Harbor was so great. We figured, why don’t we just try it?” said Ms. Potter. “So, we did a winter rental in Sag Harbor.”

    Since enrolling her children in Sag Harbor schools, the Potters have not looked back. Over the past six years, they have lived, from September to June, in four rental houses, returning to their house in Amagansett in July and August.

    “You get to experience different types of architecture, different neighborhoods,” said Ms. Potter. “And you learn to live minimally. You realize that you don’t actually need all that stuff.”

    Now in the second year of a rental on Sag Harbor’s Main Street, she enjoys the easy access to shops, restaurants, and a vibrant year-round community. With their oldest child away at college, Ms. Potter and her husband, who jointly run a marketing and conference business, plan to keep renting until their young­est, now in seventh grade, graduates from Pierson High School.

    The Potters are just one in a growing number of relatively well-off families who rent in Sag Harbor during the off-season so that their children can attend the public schools there. Many of them close their houses in neighboring towns for the winter; some keep them open to return on occasional weekends.

    In recent years, Simon Harrison, who runs Simon Harrison Real Estate in Sag Harbor and has sold real estate for the past 25 years, has discovered a new product: the school-year rental, whose start and end dates coincide with the academic calendar. Mr. Harrison estimates that he gets at least a dozen calls each month from people asking after such properties.

    Susan Lahrman, an agent at Simon Harrison, said school-year rentals are often a bargain. While year-round rentals generally cost $2,400 to $3,300 a month, she said, school-year monthly rents may be as little as $1,200 to $1,800. That still leaves the owners with an empty house to rent over the lucrative summer months.

    Some South Fork families who neither own nor rent in Sag Harbor opt to tuition-in their children. Over the last five years, Matthew Malone, the principal of Sag Harbor Elementary School, has seen an uptick in the number of tuition-paying families. During the current school year, Mr. Malone said, 14 families will pay $16,622 for a child to attend Sag Harbor Elementary, a kindergarten through fifth-grade school that enrolls about 500 students. An additional 7 families will pay $21,607 for a child to attend Pierson Middle and High School.

     “It’s a public school with a private school price tag if you’re not in the district,” said Mr. Harrison, who has a son in the fifth grade at Sag Harbor Elementary. Since enrolling him there, he said he has seen the school grow by about 150 students.

     For families with more than one child, rentals generally create considerable cost-savings, not to mention the appeal of living closer to a child’s activities and friends. To register in the Sag Harbor district, renters must provide a copy of their lease and a utility bill. In some instances, a signed affidavit from the property’s landlord is required as well.

    But tuition-paying or not, Mr. Malone, who has worked at the elementary school for the past nine years as both its principal and assistant principal, sees many families drawn to its unique culture and strong academic reputation. This year, the school has already enrolled about 20 new students. “In a time when everything is very fast-paced and things are changing quickly, there’s this sense here that kids can be kids and maybe even grow up a little bit slower,” he said.

    For families occupying school-year rentals, Ms. Lahrman described the days following Labor Day as “crunch time,” when the houses are scrubbed clean, the keys handed over, and new occupants ready themselves in time for the start of school. 

    Early Monday morning, Laurie Gordon, a homeowner in Bridgehampton, moved into her new rental home in the Village of Sag Harbor. Ten years ago, Ms. Gordon moved from Manhattan to the South Fork when her oldest daughter was starting kindergarten. “We bought our house in Bridgehampton without any kids,” said Ms. Gordon, who works as a freelance editor and writer. Her husband works on Wall Street. “But we never thought we would live here full-time, or send our kids to school here.”

    After nine years, the tuition at Ross, coupled with changes in the economy and the need to save money for college, became prohibitive, she said. The Gordons began searching for affordable alternatives. Sag Harbor became the clear front-runner.

    After a bit of research, the couple determined that off-season rental rates were “significantly more affordable” than paying upward of $40,000 a year in tuition. Their daughters, now 15 and 11, just began their second year in the district. So far, the family has lived in three rental houses, after two of them were sold. Ms. Gordon remarked that the lifestyle was not for those afraid of change. “It also teaches your kids to be flexible and adaptable.”

    Recently she had to text her husband, who works and lives in the city during the week but comes home in time for dinner mid-week, the address of their new Sag Harbor rental. The family returns to Bridgehampton most weekends, generally packing up on Sunday nights for the trip back.

    Since moving to Sag Harbor from Summit, N.J., last summer, Antonia DiPaolo estimates that she has crossed the Shinnecock Canal fewer than a dozen times. Ms. DiPaolo has long had an affinity with the South Fork, having spent summers in her family’s 18th-century house near the ocean in Bridgehampton as a girl. She recalls never wanting to leave.

    After finding New Jersey “too conventional, too suburban, too safe,” the family packed up and headed east. “We knew friends and we knew the town, but the schools were the outlier,” said Ms. DiPaolo. For the past year, the family has rented a Sag Harbor house. Their twins attend Pierson, while the youngest is at the elementary school. “The schools have been the best surprise ever,” Ms. DiPaolo, a stay-at-home mother, said. “They’ve far exceeded our expectations.”

    Her husband, Evan, commutes a few times a week into the city, where he works in finance. The couple keeps an apartment on the Upper East Side. Come October, the family will move into a second rental house a bit closer to town. After falling in love with the schools, they are building a house in Sag Harbor Village that will be finished, they hope, by the spring of 2015. Until then, they will keep renting.

    Ms. Potter sees several families trying out different variations — schools, houses, sometimes both — until they find the right fit. In many ways, she said, the change of scenery benefits parents as much as children, a particular concern during the isolating winter months.

    “This is a community. You can’t sit on a bench on Main Street without running into someone you know,” she said, while sitting on a bench on Main Street. She paused several times to wave hello to passers-by. “You can go to the American Hotel any night of the week and there’s people sitting at the bar. It’s a very vibrant place to live.”

    Ms. Gordon, who sat next to her, agreed. “I feel really lucky on a daily basis to live here,” she said.

I was a production assistant at New York Fashion Week. A friend of a friend knew someone who knew the owner of a production company and that’s how I ended up lurking by the catering table with my eye on the mini croissants.

    Being a P.A. is the least glamorous thing you can do at Fashion Week. Aside from the fleeting importance you feel when you use the walkie-talkie for the first time, there is nothing unique or special about your position.

    You wake up at 5 a.m. to shower and drink a cup of coffee before getting on the train that will take you to the studio, art gallery, or tents where the show will take place. You spend the morning placing 500 chairs into rows 18 inches apart and five feet from the wall. Everything must be military straight for the client who looks at the chairs, then the runway, then the chairs again and decides that there should be 24 inches between the rows. You reposition the 500 chairs.

    Once the models, hair and makeup, P.R., photographers, reporters, bloggers, and editors arrive backstage there is not much to do except people watch. The models are elongated and beautiful aliens who tap away on their phones and look bored while stylists tease their hair. Clusters of people form around them like flies around fruit, and a makeup artist demonstrates his technique while a film crew captures it all and reporters scribble in their notebooks. Extremely tall men in slim pants are everywhere, air kissing and leaning casually against walls with cameras hanging from their wrists.

    You are wearing all black everything: sneakers, pants, a T-shirt. Everyone else is wearing caps-lock FASHION. They are engaged in a mating ritual, only the end product is not a child, but rather some intangible upward movement in the social hierarchy of People Who Are Chic and Important. In other words, they want to get as close as possible to Anna Wintour.

    People are taking their seats. The front row looks smug. There is more air kissing and posing for pictures in the middle of the runway. I am standing next to a sign marking row C. My job is to take the sign offstage with me before the show begins.

    Across from me are two women with curled hair extensions and 10 pounds of makeup. They both have on leather pants, black platform stilettos that resemble hooves, and strapless peplum tops out of which a generous amount of cleavage is threatening to escape. Their outfits are slightly different, but also exactly the same. This is FASHION.

    They ask the P.A. on their side of the runway if he will take a picture of them. They wrap their arms around each other and smile.

    There’s nothing for us to do once the show starts. We mill about the production area, or sneak off to a stairwell, or poke around the catering table hoping there are mini croissants left. It is finally quiet and relatively clear of people; everyone is over in dressing helping the models into and out of clothing. It must be a weird thing to have people touch you like that. The models are objects, clothes hangers, that have things done to them in order to present someone else’s idea of what people should be wearing. I don’t know if I could ever be comfortable with having all those hands in my personal space. But this is a moot point, since I’m 5-foot-4 and have my mother’s nose.

    Applause signals the end and now our work begins: breaking down hair and makeup, disassembling clothing racks, stacking the chairs that no longer sit in straight rows, collecting trash, ripping up the brown paper we laid down that morning to cover the dirty floor. We load the van with steamers and lights and mirrors and chair covers and ironing boards and drive to the next venue and unpack the van and set everything up for the next show.

    There was a photographer taking pictures of us stacking the chairs. I asked him what the deal was. “I work for such-and-such magazine and I’m doing a photo essay about the environment of Fashion Week.”

    “Like the backstage stuff?” I asked.

    “Yeah, the stuff that people normally wouldn’t photograph. I saw all these chairs, with the gold and the legs, and you guys in black, and thought it looked elegant.”

    I surveyed the cheap chairs that had been spray-painted gold. I looked at the legs. I looked at us, dusty and sweaty and tired. “Elegant?”

    After several seasonal workers living in Montauk motels were burglarized last month, East Hampton Town police obtained a video surveillance tape of a suspect. Photos of the man were circulated around the hamlet, leading to the arrest on Friday night of Franklin P. Guanga Sinchi, 30, of Montauk.

    He is charged with three Class C felonies, although police indicated that more charges may be added. Two of the burglaries are said to have occurred at the Ocean Beach Resort and one at Daunt’s Albatross. Police said “electronics, jewelry, and women’s undergarments” were stolen.

    Mr. Guanga Sinchi was arraigned late Saturday afternoon before Justice Catherine Cahill in East Hampton Justice Court. A cousin of his, who translated for him, told the court the defendant was a stonemason and has lived in East Hampton for four years. Also present in the courtroom were six men and three women, family and friends, all of whom hail from Cuenca, a mountainous state in Ecuador.

    No lawyer was there to speak for Mr. Guanga Sinchi. The Suffolk County Legal Aid Society does not send an attorney to East Hampton on weekends, even in cases involving serious felony charges.

    If convicted on any one of the felony charges, the accused man would serve mandatory prison time, from 1 to 15 years. “The bail the D.A. is requesting is $10,000 on each count of burglary, $30,000 total,” Justice Cahill told the family. “Is there any possibility that you might be able to post that?”

    The family indicated that it would be difficult to obtain that much money, especially on a weekend.

    “He will go to Riverhead. He will be in Riverhead until Thursday,” said the justice, at which time, she said, he would be released if the district attorney has not indicted him. But, she warned, “It is possible that they will indict him,” and explained that an indictment is “the first step of a felony prosecution.”

    The defendant was taken back to police headquarters to be driven to the county jail. The family group moved from the courthouse to the parking lot, gathering in a circle. A woman was sobbing. They spoke together quietly for some time, as the sun began to set.

    The next day bail was posted, and Mr. Guanga Sinchi was released.

    Two arrests in three days of a Springs 21-year-old resulted last week in bail being set by an exasperated Justice Lisa Rana at $7,000 during her second arraignment of Christopher S. Pulido.

    He was first arrested after a late-night domestic dispute on Boatheader’s Lane in East Hampton, involving a woman, also 21, who police say is the mother of his two children. According to the report, the powerfully built man grabbed her by the arms hard enough to leave bruises, twisted and bit her right arm, and threw her down by her hair. When her father intervened, Mr. Pulido punched him in the head, according to police, knocking him down.

    It was not the first such incident. The young woman held an order of protection against the man, so he was charged not only with criminal mischief, a misdemeanor, and two counts of physical harassment, but also a felony count of criminal contempt. Yet another felony charge against him, stemming from incidents in May involving thefts from parked cars, remains unresolved.

    Stephen Grossman, Mr. Pulido’s attorney, defended his client’s actions at his arraignment on Sept. 10. “Both families have a heated relationship,” he told Justice Rana. “There have been unreported incidents. To some of these charges, there is a defense.”

    “I’m not going to speak to unreported incidents,” the justice answered. “There are three previous cases, including a felony.” She set bail at $1,000. It was posted by an older woman who was seated in the courtroom.

    Two days later, last Thursday, Mr. Pulido was back before Justice Rana, facing a charge of possession of a stolen item. Thursday is criminal calendar day in Justice Court, so a Legal Aid attorney, Sheila Mullahy, was on hand. So were two county assistant district attorneys, Maggie Bopp and Dan Cronin.

    “Quite frankly, I just had him in here,” Justice Rana said.

    Mr. Pulido was charged with criminal possession of a Hewlett-Packard laptop, Mr. Cronin told the court. “Based on the nature of the charges, the people are asking for $25,000 bail.”

    Ms. Mullahy asked that Mr. Pulido be released without bail.

    “Bail is set in the amount of $7,000, cash,” the justice said. Mr. Pulido sat back down on the prisoner’s bench and looked out at the same woman who had posted his bail before.

    As of Tuesday he was being held in the county jail in Riverside, with a return court date here next Thursday to face a myriad of charges.

    A few days in that jail “was a big learning experience” for a Port Jefferson man, Derrick M. Dias, 27, who was turned over to East Hampton Town police on an arrest warrant Friday after posting bail UpIsland on unrelated charges. Mr. Dias was charged here on July 4 with misdemeanor drug possession, but failed to show up for an August court date.

    “You lost your bail,” Justice Cahill told the handcuffed man, who had posted $250 following his arrest.

    She examined his records. “You have an awful driving record,” she commented. “Speeding. Tailgating. Littering. There are a lot of tickets. And, you have a history of not coming to court. You have 19 suspensions of your license.”

    “Twelve,” Mr. Dias corrected. “My lawyer took care of it.”

    “You’re going to have to post $1,000 bail,” the justice said.

    “I did spend the last four days in Riverhead,” Mr. Dias pleaded. “It was a big learning experience.”

    “How much bail did you post in Port Jeff?” asked Justice Cahill.

    “Thousands.”

    “This is a bargain. I’m only looking for $1,000. One thousand, cash,” the justice said, adding, “I feel badly for you, Mr. Dias.”

    A woman entered the courtroom just then and told the court she was Mr. Dias’s aunt and that she would post bail. Justice Cahill asked her if she thought her nephew was a flight risk.

    “The whole family is involved now,” the woman answered. She posted bail later that morning.

    Stepping up to the podium on the deck of the Swallow East restaurant in Montauk last Thursday, State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman drew a laugh from fishermen when he introduced himself. “I’m his lawyer,” he said, nodding to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

    Funny, yes, but the business was dead serious. Mr. Cuomo brought his lawyer to assure fishermen that both he and Attorney General Schneiderman were prepared to sue the United States Department of Commerce unless the federal approach to managing the harvest of fluke, or summer flounder, in New York State is changed.

    Mr. Cuomo and Mr. Schneiderman were joined at the event by County Legislator Jay Schneiderman, County Executive Steve Bellone, East Hampton Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson, and officials from the State Department of Environmental Conservation. Two delegates to the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council were on hand, Lori Nolan of Montauk, who is involved with the local tilefish fleet, and Tony DiLernia, a charter captain who teaches at Kingsborough Community College. Bonnie Brady of Montauk, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, helped put the program together.

    Mr. Bellone set the stage. “The federal regulations are obsolete,” he said, telling the crowd from both the commercial and charter fishing industries what they already knew, that fluke was managed using the historic landing records of each coastal state. “The data is out of date, and has been too long.” He said that while the fluke population is good off Montauk, old data continued to give the Carolinas the lion’s share of the fluke quota and New York short shrift.

    “New York is the only state to be subjected to this bias, and it cannot stand,” the county executive said.

    The governor, who went fishing out of Montauk with Billy Joel and Capt. Richard Nessel the week before, said, “the message is simple: Montauk is a fishing port, not just for fun and good for the family, but it’s big business in the State of New York. When the economy is drifting as it is today, we do everything to get the economic forces to work and we’re not maximizing the fisheries. It’s economics.”

    “The limits for fluke are set by the federal government and regulated by the state,” Mr. Cuomo said. “The basic point is we’re being shortchanged by the fed. The fed sets the limits based on historic data that’s decades old, back to the ’80s. The fishery has recovered, but they’re using old data.”

    Mr. Cuomo said the fluke fishery should be a “regional fishery,” not one managed state by state. “I’ve got news for the fed. Fish swim. They don’t realize they are going from New York to Jersey waters. The fishery should be regulated equally among states in that region. Otherwise it’s an absurd result: New Jersey has a five-fish at 171/2-inch minimum size. Connecticut anglers get five fish at 171/2 inches, and New York gets four at 19. It’s wrong.”

    “This is clearly not fair and it’s costing millions and millions of dollars,” the governor said, pointing out that anglers will travel to ports where the limits are more favorable. “If the fed doesn’t do what’s right, we are willing to take a legal case. I hope it doesn’t come to that, but we are not going to take it anymore,” the governor said.

    Attorney General Schneiderman then reiterated Mr. Cuomo’s argument. “I’m not in the fishing business. I’m in the justice business,” he said, adding, “the law is based on a flawed 1993 study that used data going back to the ’80s. There is lots of new data. The Magnuson-Stevens Act [the body of federal fisheries laws] provides that the best data be used. We can show the fed that they are not using the best data. We have boats from other states fishing off New York that take their fish home, and then it’s brought back and sold in New York.”

    “This is a great tradition,” the attorney general said of the fishing industries. “They generate $1.4 billion for the state. But it’s not just economics, or a way of life. It’s above all about justice.”  

    In a land known for over-the-top baronial manses and quaint Shingle Style cottages, there have been few, dare we utter the word, condominiums, east of the Shinnecock Canal, that is, or west of Montauk, where a preponderance of motels can relatively easily be converted into condos, and even more easily into co-ops.

    But, given some recent developments most notably in Southampton Town, a condo trend is clearly afoot. City folk want country living, but they don’t necessarily want to deal with hedge trimming, roof repairs, and trash pickup. Isn’t that what supers are for?

   The biggest news is Bishops Pond, which is under construction as we speak. Within 10 weeks of going on sale in April, the 40 units in the project’s first phase, ranging in price from $830,000 to $3 million, sold out, according to the listing agent, Mary Slattery of Corcoran.

    The development boasts a whopping 77 units — villas (one story) and town houses — built on 13 acres surrounding a winding man-made pond. As a resort environment, it has the requisite clubhouse, pool, fitness center, billiards, tennis court, and, of course, concierge services. Never mind that it’s bordered by railroad tracks on the north; a prettily landscaped berm deletes that eyesore.

    To give buyers an idea of what they would get, five models demonstrating each type of unit were decorated by Mabley Handler Interior Designs, a Water Mill firm run by Jennifer Mabley and Austin Handler, a Bridgehampton husband-and-wife team. The designers used merchandise from Serena & Lily, a home goods and fashion shop that opened this summer in Wainscott. Because units were purchased “pre-construction,” buyers were able to customize options in such items as cabinets, countertops, tiles, and trims.

    “It was one of the easiest approvals we’ve ever gone through,” Steven Dubb, vice president of the Beechwood Organization, said of the zoning process. Straddling the town but mostly in Southampton Village, the “condo community” is situated between Bishops Lane and McGee Street south of County Road 39A. Just “a big hole” used as storage for a dock building company in its last incarnation, it was  “surrounded by a residential neighborhood” and its industrial use was “nonconforming,” according to Mr. Dubb. “We had nothing but support from the community, which is rare anywhere,” he said. Indeed.

    “There’s a real need for this kind of community in Southampton,” said Ms. Slattery. Buyers are a mix of young families seeking summer getaways who “live predominately in the city, northern Long Island, or New Jersey . . . baby boomers and empty nesters who don’t want to deal with maintenance . . . and want a place they can leave on Monday morning or for the winter and not worry,” said Mr. Dubb. He was “pleasantly surprised that we have a lot of year-round Hamptons residents,” which will make for an active winter community.

    The second phase, priced at between $1.5 million and $3 million, was released two weeks ago and is already 70 percent sold. What makes Bishops Pond so attractive? Though prices seem high for condos, compared to houses with similar square footage and amenities, they’re bargains. From 12-foot ceilings and white oak floors to stainless steel appliances and marble bathrooms “you wouldn’t know you’re not in a $5 million Sagaponack mansion,” said Mr. Dubb.

    Another Southampton condo project has sold out in the last two weeks: Pond Crossing (seems that ponds sell) located near Stony Brook Southampton. Built in 2008, according to Matthew Breitenbach, a broker at Corcoran who sold the last units, the development suffered in the economic downturn but has recovered in the current local real estate upswing. According to Mr. Breitenbach’s mother, Susan Breitenbach, who shared the listing with her son the past year, it’s impossible to find a house “that’s done as well or tastefully” for the units’ prices of “a million or under.” Ms. Breitenbach, also at Corcoran, who is known as one of the area’s top brokers, said: “People think I only [work in] the $20 million market, but I do this too.” She and her son also show Bishops Pond.

    Even Joe Farrell has gotten in on the act, having built six town houses with the aspirational name Polo Club in Southampton Village two years ago, and which some wags call “mini Farrells.”

    Interest in condos has “created a whole other market that I enjoy dealing with,” said Mr. Breitenbach, who mentioned an invasion of “young finance guys” seeking investment opportunities on the South Fork for condos or hotels. Topping Rose and the Montauk Beach House allowed investors “to see this whole other market,” he said. He’s even heard that someone is “trying to do a hotel in Sag Harbor.”

    By now most everyone has heard of what’s happening at the former Bulova watchcase factory in Sag Harbor. Condos there, which have been on the market a short time, are selling like proverbial hot cakes. Both Breitenbachs have sold units there. Ms. Breitenbach just sold one to a couple, one of whom can’t drive, so they required a village property.

    And more condos are planned for Sag Harbor on West Water Street, if they get the proper approvals. Another developer has plans for the parcel on Pantigo Road in East Hampton that the Crystal Room and Cricket Caterers once occupied, and where a sign touting “Clam Pies” lured customers. Bob Levin admits he “has plans for something” there, and rumor has it that it is condos. But he won’t say till the approval process is finished, which he estimates at about six months.

    In July Donna Karan, her daughter Gabby, and Gabby’s husband, Gianpaolo De Felice, bought the 10-room Enclave Inn in Bridgehampton from Michael Wudyka. They plan to renovate the motel, once owned by Martha Stewart’s daughter, Alexis Stewart, in Ms. Karan’s “signature style,” according to the Daily News. The question is: Will it remain an inn or be transformed into condos? Also in Bridgehampton, Continental Ventures Realty has broken ground on a development of 30 luxury condos on Barn Lane near Channing Daughters. Sales, at about $3 million, will get under way in February, according to a spokesman.

    Will the trend continue? Probably not. There is a large demand for luxury condos, according to Mr. Breitenbach. “But inventory is limited.” And zoning is strict. He’s worked with investors who, having found a potential property to develop, back down. They “don’t want to go to war.”

    An Office of Congressional Ethics report has questioned the way in which Representative Tim Bishop sought a 2012 campaign contribution in connection with securing permits for a private fireworks show.

    In May, the office, an independent, nonpartisan agency, recommended the allegation be reviewed by the House Committee on Ethics. In a statement issued on Sept. 11, the committee said that it would continue its investigation based on the office’s report.

    Responding to the office’s inquiry in a July letter, Brian G. Svboda of Perkins Coie, a Washington law firm retained by Mr. Bishop, called the findings “deeply flawed” and said that they did not require further examination.

    The complaint stems from May 2012 when Eric Semler, a New York hedge fund manager who owns an oceanfront house in Sagaponack, ran into difficulties securing the proper permissions for a fireworks display to be held during his son’s bar mitzvah and turned to a friend, Robert F.X. Sillerman, for help.

    Mr. Sillerman, had been the chancellor of the now-defunct Southampton College when Mr. Bishop was its provost, though Mr. Bishop’s time there predated Mr. Sillerman’s by a decade. They remained close, however, and Mr. Sillerman served as a Bishop campaign finance chairman during the 2012 election. He put Mr. Semler and Mr. Bishop in touch via e-mail.

    When Mr. Semler’s efforts were brought to the congressman’s attention, according to the Office on Congressional Ethics report, Mr. Bishop, a Democrat, quickly went to work, calling on the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, the State Department of Environmental Conservation, and a Southampton Town Trustee, among others, to smooth the way for Mr. Semler’s planned fireworks display, which was held up over concerns about nesting piping plovers.

    As the May 26 bar mitzvah rapidly neared, according to the ethics report, Mr. Bishop asked Mr. Sillerman to seek a campaign contribution of up to $10,000 from Mr. Semler and his wife, Tracy.

    In an e-mail to Mr. Sillerman included in the 27-page report and associated exhibits, Mr. Bishop wrote, “Hey, would you be willing to reach out to him to ask for a contribution? If he donates before June 26, he and his wife can each do 5 large — if it is after June 26, they can each do a max of 2,500.” June 26 represented the New York primary period cut-off date; individual donations of up to $2,500 can be made during both the primary and general election cycles.

    The ethics report says that it took Mr. Sillerman five minutes to send a request for $5,000 to the Semlers. Almost immediately, Mr. Semler responded, “Absolutely! How do we do it?”

    An exchange followed between Molly Bishop, Mr. Bishop’s daughter and his campaign’s finance director, and Mr. Semler, making arrangements for the contribution.

    Meanwhile, with Mr. Bishop sending messages to and working the phones with Fish and Wildlife and state officials, permission for the Fireworks by Grucci show was secured with a day to go, provided the launch site be set up on the Semlers’ roof and not at a nearby pond, as had been discussed earlier.

    Mr. Semler, by then a guest at the Wynn Las Vegas Hotel, made a $5,000 credit card donation through his company, TCS Capital Management, to the Bishop for Congress committee on July 9, according to the report. That donation may have exceeded the $2,500 individual maximum, the report said, noting that Mr. Bishop’s office had not been forthcoming with details about the donation or records that indicated a possible earlier contribution.

    Based on its investigation, the Office of Congressional Ethics wrote that there was “substantial reason to believe that Representative Bishop sought a campaign contribution because of or in connection with an official act in violation of House rules, standards of conduct, and federal law.”

    The United States Attorney’s Office has conducted its own probe. Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation interviewed several people locally early this year.

Conflicting Statements

    A picture emerges from the Office of Congressional Ethics report of two sides to Mr. Semler’s role.

    Two days after the May 26 fireworks show, Mr. Semler wrote to Mr. Bishop thanking him for “going out of his way to help us.”

    “The fireworks were terrific,” Mr. Semler wrote, “and I can’t really believe we pulled it off. It never would have happened without you.”

    He went on, “You give me renewed hope that convoluted political bureaucracy can be surmounted. . . . Your relentless focus on the task was so impressive.”

    Mr. Semler’s feelings apparently began to sour shortly thereafter. Documents included in the Office on Congressional Ethics report indicate that he had a dispute with the Grucci company over its bill and other aspects of the display.

    In a June 1, 2012, e-mail, he objected that the show was only five minutes in length, instead of the 15 minutes he had contracted for. He also noted that Grucci had promised in writing that there would be no damage to his roof — which he said there was. And, worse, he wrote, fire and ash “permanently damaged my neighbor’s new Bentley, which they are asking me to replace.”

    He asked for a full refund “plus further damages.”

    In an earlier e-mail to the Grucci company, apparently also pressing for a refund, Mr. Semler wrote that the Bishop campaign’s solicitations were, “really gross — they didn’t hesitate to solicit me in the heat of battle.”

    Once the matter reached Poltico.com, which covers Washington politics, and questions began to be asked, Mr. Semler appeared to backtrack, writing in an Aug. 8, 2012, text message to Mr. Bishop included in the ethics report that the congressman had “never asked me for a donation while you were trying to help me.”

    In another text from Mr. Semler describing his interview with a Politico reporter, he wrote, “I told him the bald truth that you did nothing wrong, that you are an outstanding congressman who gets things done in an era of gridlock.” The story first appeared online on Aug. 15, 2012.

    Mr. Bishop’s lawyer, Mr. Svoboda, wrote in his July response to the inquiry that Mr. Semler’s e-mails erroneously described a $10,000 donation he claimed to have made to the campaign.

    These messages, he wrote, were given to the campaign of Randy Altschuler, who was running against Mr. Bishop at the time, by the brother-in-law of Felix Grucci, whom Mr. Bishop had defeated in his first race for Congress in 2002. Someone from Mr. Altschuler’s campaign tipped off Politico, Mr. Svoboda wrote.

    In its report, the Office of Congressional Ethics made two recommendations: that the House committee look into whether Mr. Bishop sought the contributions in connection with an official act and whether he made sure that the ultimate, $5,000 donation was in compliance with federal rules.

    The committee’s leaders, Represenative K. Michael Conaway, a Texas Republican, and Represenative Linda T. Sanchez, a Democrat from California, said in the Sept. 11 statement that they would extend the committee’s review, making no further public comment until it was completed.

    In a statement issued Monday Mr. Bishop said that the allegations were “politically orchestrated, and I am confident that the ongoing review of this matter will show that I acted in good faith to assist a constituent in need.”

Eric and Tracy Semler's oceanfront house on Fairfield Pond in Sagaponack, where a May 2012 fireworks show set off from the roof damaged a neighbor's Bentley and touched off a political firestorm.   Doug Kuntz

    With share houses, taxis, and beer can-fouled beaches fading with the summer sun, the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee’s meeting on Monday night saw a smaller turnout than in recent months.

    The issue of a public restroom in Amagansett — which has become something of an inside joke among the committee what with a lack of action despite years of discussion — was abruptly pushed to the front burner when Britton Bistrian, a land-use consultant and member of the committee, announced that her client Randy Lerner, who owns the Amagansett Square complex, has proposed to construct a building there that would house two unisex restrooms and a retail space.

    Mr. Lerner is willing to shoulder a majority of the cost, estimated at $200,000 to $250,000, Ms. Bistrian said. “It’s very conceptual now,” she told the committee, but “we’ve worked out, somewhat, the design and layout.”

    Early in 2001, Pat Mansir, then a town councilwoman, worked on plans for a public bathroom at Amagansett Square, which she had proposed in 1998, Ms. Bistrian said. “Pat had done a huge amount of work,” she said. The project “requires a lot of approvals, but does not require a variance to town code.”

    The site proposed is between The Salon and Day Spa and the westerly side of the parking lot that wraps around the complex. Construction could be completed by May, Ms. Bistrian said, provided the public supported the project and full funding was secured.

    The proposal, Ms. Bistrian told The Star in an e-mail on Tuesday, calls for a 368-square-foot structure with a 96-square-foot covered porch. Each restroom would house one toilet and a sink. A 209-square-foot retail space would be attached to the facility.

    “Is there any reason we wouldn’t think this is wonderful?” Jeanne Frankl, a member of the committee, asked her colleagues. There was silence.

    The discussion then turned to the long-proposed restroom on the north side of Main Street, in the commercial district’s parking lot. Would a restroom on the south side of Main Street serve the businesses on the north side, asked Tom Field, a member of the committee. “Would it stop people coming to the library to use their bathroom?”

    “I imagine it would cut down some,” said Kieran Brew, the committee’s chairman.

    “Why would it be bad to have a bathroom in both parking lots?” Mr. Field asked.

    “It’s also a question of volume. Amagansett is much, much busier” than in the past, Mr. Brew said. “We should support Mr. Lerner’s plan, but [a second restroom] is a valid argument.”

    “The disparate setup is a good idea,” said John Broderick, of the committee. “If you think of what it’s like in the square in the summer, on a Saturday.

. . . I’m a fan of both sides of the street, just because of the volume.”

    After further discussion, Ms. Frankl suggested the committee let the town board know that it “strongly supports the idea of building a restroom in Amagansett Square.” The motion was seconded, and all in attendance agreed.

    “The idea of having a public bathroom in the square is great,” said Mr. Brew, “but at the same time, not in lieu of the plan to have one in the back,” on the north side of Main Street.

    Also at the meeting, Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, the committee’s liaison to the town board, relayed some thoughts about the summer. Conditions in the parking lot at Indian Wells Beach, she said, were improved by changes implemented before the season began, chiefly the placement of an attended booth at the entrance to the lot. Parents, she said, “felt their kids were safe. There weren’t so many cars. We know the parking issue was helped a lot on Saturday and Sunday for locals. That was a big step forward.”

    Less successful, she said, was the effort to control litter. “A lot of household garbage was found there at the trash cans,” she said. The young adults who hold large parties at the beach “love to drink and throw beer cans on the sand.”

    “The crowd was still there, but the effects weren’t bad. . . . For the most part, I thought it worked very well,” said Mr. Brew. 

   To stage or not to stage? That is the question. Angela Boyer-Stump, an agent at Sotheby’s, had a listing of an empty spec house on Phoebe Scoy’s Road in East Hampton that was on the market for a year, but sold a week after being decorated with such staging basics as a pair of white sofas, a couple of white-cushioned wicker armchairs, and a blue and white striped rug in the living room.

   Staging houses that are for sale — arranging furnishings so as to attract buyers — didn’t catch on on the South Fork until about 2000, when Liz Kramer and Deirdre Guest partnered to create an interior design and staging firm, Homework in the Hamptons. “Staging was big in Europe and on the West Coast,” said Ms. Kramer, who left TV production to move out east. “I think we were the first,” said Ms. Guest, who left a career in fashion design and met Ms. Kramer on the South Fork.

   Though slow to catch on, many agents now recommend that sellers stage their properties — both indoors and out. “Stagers are worth their weight in gold,” said Judi Desiderio, founder of Town and Country Real Estate, who has witnessed many a house “instantly” transformed from “unappealing to appealing to the masses.”

   However, it is often a challenge to convince the seller of staging’s value. Faced with many other fees, “they don’t want to spend a dime” on staging, but Ms. Desiderio and several other agents believe that an investment will be recovered, and even multiplied. “You can increase your investment five-fold,” said Ms. Desiderio. Ten thousand spent on staging, she believes, will net the seller $50,000. Sellers, said Ms. Desiderio, need to look at selling their house “as a business, and listen to the experts” on how to market it. “Sometimes I wish we could have the owner take everything out,” she said, so that it becomes “a blank canvas” for the stager “to paint.”

    But, what exactly is staging? Talk to stagers and agents and certain terms prevail: “neutralize,” “depersonalize,” “de-clutter.” In essence, stagers descend upon a property with the express purpose of deleting all the personality the homeowner has spent years assembling.

    In their “editing” process, one of the first things that the ladies from Homework do is to “take away family pictures . . . and as much furniture as possible.” Most of the time, said Ms. Guest, “people have too much.” Their goal “is to make it look like a W Hotel,” so that the prospective buyer “doesn’t feel it’s someone else’s space.” The key is creating a universally likable environment that buyers can envision living in happily ever after.

    Rooms are painted white, Benjamin Moore 01 White to be precise: “the whitest white there is,” according to Ms. Kramer. Colored bedding and towels are nixed in favor of white. Wool rugs are replaced with sisal for that “beachy” look. “A lot of houses are formal, but people have that in the city; they don’t want it here.”

    That is not to say that all staged rooms are reduced to blah palettes. “One of my trademarks is pops of color on a neutral background,” said Donna Dazzo of Designed to Appeal, a company that stages properties in both the city and on the South Fork. The throw pillow is to stagers what a wrench is to a plumber. While the rule is that walls and furniture must be neutral, artwork and decorative objects are allowed to express a certain restrained visual excitement. The challenge is to create a “warm feeling . . . without being distracting,” said Ms. Dazzo.

    Her mission is to “emphasize positive features while downplaying negative.” If there’s a “great view or a fireplace” she arranges furniture to “draw eyes toward it.” Vice versa for a defect. Sounding very much like a selling agent herself, Ms. Dazzo said, “You don’t want to leave buyers with objections. They need to imagine themselves living there.” She left a career in finance to become a stager.

    A primary objection is that a space feels too small, the culprit being all that aforementioned clutter. “If it doesn’t feel open, buyers are turned off.” Besides major changes, Ms. Dazzo will also “freshen up and update” minor details such as “swapping out a light or faucet fixture or cabinet knobs.” She has a warehouse filled with such necessities as linens, bedding, throws, decorative accessories, and bathroom and kitchen items. In defense of staging she offered the following analogy: “You don’t go to a job interview in a pair of jeans and sneakers.”

    Lilielle Bucks, president of Lett by Heiberg Cummings, a design firm, said she is called in about once a week to help when a property has been on the market a while and hasn’t sold because “it doesn’t look inviting.” Working primarily with the homeowners’ belongings as a way of saving money for the client, her job — like that of most stagers — is to first “eliminate,” then rearrange. “Sometimes it’s better if you put in pillows here or some candlesticks on a table.”

    But hold on, we are undergoing a technological revolution and “virtual staging” is a very real option. Anthony Cappa and Greg Baker, co-owners of Revel Inspired, work with developers and homeowners to create rooms that can be viewed online. “On new construction we work with developers to design and decorate rooms before they’re built so they can be marketed before even breaking ground,” Mr. Baker said.

    For homeowners, they attempt to “bring potential buyers peace of mind to see past outdated conditions,” he said. Going beyond staging, they can also help buyers achieve in real life what they’ve created in cyberspace. The average cost per room is $1,500 (which includes building a 3-D model). Lilielle Buck charges $2,000 for five hours while Homework charges $5,000 for furniture rearrangement and from $25,000 to $100,000 when furnishing an entire house. Though it may seem like a lot, more often than not, buyers prefer to move into a furnished house “just bringing their clothes and a toothbrush,” according to one stager.

    Though staging may be an agent’s (or seller’s) best friend, most sellers refrain. Only about 5 percent opt to spend the money, Ms. Desiderio estimated, this despite the urging of agents to look at it as an investment, not an expense.

    There is a risk, however. “If it’s done badly, you shoot yourself in the foot,” said Barbara Feldman of Hamptons Interior Design, an interior designer with 35 years of experience who has given up on staging because she feels that homeowners still haven’t embraced the concept enough to pay what the service is worth. “I’ve seen some pretty bad staging,” she said, referring to stagers who don’t hail from a design background and “take a short course and learn some tricks.”

    And her message to sellers is: Don’t try this at home. There are those, she said, who think: “I have good taste, I can do it.” But she insists “if it’s not done with a professional and objective eye,” it’s not an effective marketing tool. “Saying I have good taste is the same as saying I can cook that great

meal I had at a restaurant.”