Katie Beers, who grew up in Springs after a 16-day kidnapping ordeal that began just before she turned 10 in 1993, reacted this week to the death in his cell at upstate Sing Sing prison of John Esposito, the Long Island building contractor convicted of holding her prisoner.

    He was discovered shortly after a parole hearing, and died of natural causes, according to the state’s Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. He was serving 15 years to life for imprisoning Ms. Beers inside a soundproof dungeon under his Bay Shore house.

    A friend of the family, he was a key suspect in the investigation into the whereabouts of Ms. Beers and finally confessed and led police to her.

    Neglected by her biological mother, the young girl was also sexually abused by the husband of a woman who cared for her, Sal Inghilleri.

    After placement with a foster family in Springs, she was counseled by Mary Bromley, an East Hampton psychotherapist, and testified at Mr. Inghilleri’s trial, with a teddy bear in hand. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison, where he also died after being returned to jail for a parole violation in 2010.

    “It’s time to close another chapter in my life,” Ms. Beers tweeted on Sept. 4, using a hashtag of Courage Always.

    “I received a phone call today shortly after 5 p.m. from the N.Y.S. Parole Board,” she wrote. “Today was the day that John Esposito had his parole hearing. The [parole] board let me know that at about 3:30 p.m. today, after his hearing, John was found unresponsive in his jail cell and pronounced dead.”

    “Within 24 hours, we have lost two monsters — Ariel Castro, who committed suicide, and John Esposito, who has died of unknown reasons,” she wrote, referring to the Ohio man in jail for holding three women captive in his house for more than a decade.

    “One more monster is gone!” she wrote about Mr. Castro in another tweet, expressing hope that the news would give the young women held captive by him “some peace of mind, and [aid] in their recovery.”

    “Definitely, John’s death was the close of another chapter,” Ms. Beers said in a telephone interview yesterday. And, she said, “finding out that he died of natural causes — that puts me a little more at ease, knowing that he didn’t take the cowardly way out.”

    With the suicide in jail of Mr. Castro just hours earlier, and Mr. Esposito’s scheduled parole hearing the same date of his death, there was much speculation about its cause.

    Ms. Beers said that she knew Mr. Esposito would be up for parole this month or next, but was not aware of the scheduled hearing and had not planned to speak. “I never, honestly, thought that he would be released,” she said. Mr. Esposito was jailed solely on abduction charges, maintaining that he had not assaulted her.

    It wasn’t until 2007, before a parole board considering Mr. Esposito’s release, that Ms. Beers told the details of her rape and sexual assault. Before that, she said, “I wasn’t ready.” With that testimony, she said, “I feel like I closed his cell once and for all. Nothing — not 20 years of good behavior — could erase what he did to me 20 years ago.”

    Nonetheless, she said, “From an early age, I’ve been preparing myself mentally for either him being released on parole, or him dying.”

    Though his death closes a door, Ms. Beers, now a wife and mother in Pennsylvania with a full-time job in the insurance industry and an inspirational-speaking career — said it has not had a profound impact on her life. “Because the man has basically been dead to me since the day he kidnapped me and sexually assaulted me,” she said yesterday.

    “I’m saddened for his family; they lost a loved one,” she added, noting that a person’s death has an impact “regardless of how much of a monster they’ve been.”

    “Katie’s public response was sensational,” Ms. Bromley said this week, pointing out her ability to empathize with his family. She said she had received a call from Ms. Beers right after she had heard from the parole board, and was expecting to hear that Mr. Esposito had been given parole. “That same night, I must have called Katie three times,” Ms. Bromley said. “We just needed to keep talking. I almost could not believe it.”

    Ms. Bromley said she also spoke about the news with Bill Ferris, the assistant district attorney on the Beers case, Anna Audion, the district attorney’s victim advocate, with detectives who were involved, and with East Hampton Town Police Chief Ed Ecker, who was among the East Hampton police and community members who rallied around Ms. Beers when she came here to live.

    “As you can imagine . . . for everyone involved in this case, it has been a very emotional and intense time,” Ms. Bromley said this week.

    Early this year, at the 20th anniversary of her abduction, Ms. Beers released a book, “Buried Memories: Katie Beers’ Story,” co-written with Carolyn Gusoff.

    She is now booking dates, through her Web site at KatieBeers.com, for appearances and upbeat speeches about recovery from childhood traumas, and said yesterday that she had let it be known to Ariel Castro’s victims that she is available to speak to them. “I’m here for them, if any of them want to reach out to me,” she said.

   The taxicab situation in Montauk was so out of control this season that the local cab companies and drivers are asking East Hampton Town officials for help.

    “It’s bad, it’s really bad,” Mike Sparks, a cab driver, told the members of the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee on Monday.

    A driver for Pink Tuna cabs for the last 10 years, Mr. Sparks said the town had to do something to tighten regulations and either cap or reduce the number of permits it issues.

    Larraine Creegan, the executive director of the Montauk Chamber of Commerce, is part of a subcommittee formed in July to address cab complaints; Diane Hausman and Marilyn Behan, the chairwoman and secretary of the advisory committee, are the other members. Ms. Creegan reported on Monday that the three have only just begun to scratch the surface of the problems.

    “There is a lot of the law that we still need to delve into,” she said. “It’s been quite a learning curve.”

    But they have found that over 600 permits to operate in the Town of East Hampton were issued this year to cab drivers, about 35 of whom all used the same address to get by the town’s requirement that a local address be listed on the permit application.

    Ms. Creegan explained the difference between livery cabs and commercial cabs: Livery cabs are prohibited by state law from parking on the state highway, Route 27, and from soliciting or picking up random passengers who might try to wave them down, which often happened in Montauk. Livery vehicles are not allowed to operate in Southampton, so they all came out east, Ms. Creegan said.

    Bill Mavro, the owner of Montauk Clothing on Main Street, said he had a problem with cabs taking up parking spaces in the commercial lot behind his store, sometimes for hours with no one in them. Another business owner complained that the cabs were “commandeering” parking spaces on Main Street in front of other businesses. “This is a major situation here,” Mr. Mavro said.

    Paul Acevedo, the owner of Best Taxi, confirmed it, in a phone interview yesterday. “They are not only using the lot as a hub, but also working on vehicle maintenance there,” he said. And, he said, gypsy cab drivers park for the weekend in the Montauk Point State parking lot to sleep.

    “The only thing that can change this is East Hampton Town,” said Mr. Acevedo, who thinks the town should adopt Southampton’s laws. “They are very strict there, and it works,” he said, predicting things might improve if the town were to require background checks and drug testing, limit the number of vehicles per business, and enforce existing laws. Officials should meet with the local cab companies and work from the inside out, he said. “It can be corrected easier than they think. We would be more than willing to work with the town.”

    Other members of the advisory committee said cabs were driving maniacally, causing fights, and price-gouging customers. “It’s like an unregulated free-for-all,” said Lisa Grenci, the former chairwoman and a member. “If there’s 600 permits this year, there’s going to be 1,200 next year.”

    Local cab companies and drivers were reluctant to have their names published. One driver said the others might put sugar in his gas tank or flatten his tires in retaliation. Another said the outside cab companies were coming from UpIsland and Manhattan and did not follow the protocol that local cabs have unofficially established and get very aggressive when called out on it.

    They charge ridiculous prices, according to some. One driver told of five women who were driven to Gurney’s Inn at a cost of $20. When they were ready to return to downtown Montauk they grabbed a cab nearby and asked how much. The driver said $20. The women reportedly chipped in $24, including tip, and handed it over at their destination. The driver turned around and said it was $20 apiece and he wanted $100 for the fare.

    All the local cab drivers interviewed said the town had to tighten regulations and reduce the number of permits approved. One suggested that undercover officials jump in a gypsy cab and see what happens. Another said patrons should ask drivers for a receipt, which reportedly the gypsy cabs do not give.

    “They are ruining it for the rest of us,” one driver said. “Their prices are so high that no one tips anymore. Manhattan people just don’t tip. I used to love going to work and now it’s become a job.”

    The herds of cabs in downtown Montauk also contributed to the hamlet’s litter problem, he said. He blamed an article in a spring issue of French Vogue that called Montauk “the new St. Tropez.” “It’s a beautiful spot, the driver said, “but it’s not so beautiful anymore. There’s garbage everywhere.” He works the night shift and said the late-night weekend crowds spill out of the downtown gin joints tossing glasses, napkins, pizza boxes, and plastic cups all over the place. “It looks like a war zone the morning after.”

    Ms. Creegan said the subcommittee wanted to get it right before it makes any recommendations and it could take months. The advisory committee voted to ask the town to form a task force to look further into the situation, and to include Montauk residents.

    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.”

    A woman whose car was damaged beyond repair on Main Street in East Hampton Village on Aug. 11 will not receive what she believes is her vehicle’s full value from Mortimer Zuckerman’s insurance company, although Mr. Zuckerman struck her car with his 2010 Lexus, and then drove away.

    This was not the first time recently that Mr. Zuckerman, the publisher of the New York Daily News and U.S. News and World Report, struck a vehicle in the village and did not stay at the scene.

    On July 14, according to East Hampton Village police, Mr. Zuckerman, driving the same Lexus, side-swiped a 2009 Chevrolet at the intersection of the Montauk Highway and Baiting Hollow Road. He has been charged with leaving the scene of an accident in this instance but was not ticketed in the August incident. On both occasions, both on Sunday afternoons, conditions were described as clear and bright.

    In addition to the two accidents, it was learned this week that Mr. Zuckerman was issued a ticket by East Hampton Village police for allegedly running a stop sign on June 4, also a weekend afternoon. That day, he was said to be driving a 2001 Mercedes-Benz.

    Charlene F. Peele of Quogue, a single mother of two who manages the Starbucks on Main Street in East Hampton Village, has been told in e-mails from Mr. Zuckerman’s insurance broker, Bedford Insurance, that she will be paid $13,055 for her now-useless 2009 Ford Fusion, although she has $17,700 outstanding on its loan. “I’m going to work in Coconut Grove in Miami. I’m screwed,” she said.

    On Tuesday, the driver of the 2009 Chevrolet that Mr. Zuckerman struck on July 14, Matthew E. Kirch of Amagansett, explained what happened.

    He and his wife, Florence Kirch, were approaching the end of a long drive east from Kennedy Airport, where they had dropped off their grandson. Mr. Zuckerman’s Lexus was behind their vehicle when the traffic light at the intersection turned red. Mr. Kirch said he put his foot on the brake. “I stopped. He went off to the right. He grazed the side of our car. When the light turned, he pulled out, in front of us.”

    “It shocked us,” he said.

    “Follow him, follow him,” Ms. Kirch told her husband, who did just that. Mr. Zuckerman drove down Woods Lane, then made the left turn onto Main Street, with Mr. Kirch in slow pursuit. “We were right behind him. I kept beeping my horn. I didn’t understand why he wouldn’t pull over.”

    The two cars went through the village on Main Street, until an officer pulled the Lexus over at Pantigo Road and Egypt Lane, where Mr. Zuckerman was charged with leaving the scene of an accident. The police accident report states that Mr. Zuckerman knew he had hit the other vehicle, and it blames Mr. Zuckerman for “driver inattention.” It also states that Mr. Zuckerman was following the car in front of him too closely.

    Mr. Kirch said he has since received a check from Bedford to completely cover the damage to his car.

    In the more recent episode, Mr. Zuckerman was said by police to have left either a business card or a note on the wrecked Ford Fusion, then left the scene. The accident was logged at 3:30 p.m.

    According to Chief Gerard Larsen, a witness followed Mr. Zuckerman after he drove away to Lily Pond Lane, with police arriving at his oceanfront house almost immediately afterward.

    “Police pulled into the driveway right away,” Chief Larsen said, and an officer spoke with Mr. Zuckerman, who did not appear intoxicated. The report says that Mr. Zuckerman told the officer that he had “looked away from the roadway” in the moments before the accident. While the officer reported that carelessness led to the accident, it was not an offense that required ticketing.

   “We’re going to recommend that Mort Zuckerman have his driver’s record reviewed,” Chief Gerard Larsen said this week. He had discovered the July accident report, as well as the June moving violation, he said on Monday, as he prepared to make just such a request of the Department of Motor Vehicles. Each of the incidents was handled by a different officer.

    In an interview last Thursday, Ms. Peele said, “I parked in the morning, 7:30, 8 o’clock. That’s typical for me on the weekends,” Ms. Peele said in an interview last Thursday. “I got a phone call in the afternoon from the Police Department saying my car had been hit. An officer was waiting for me at the car. The car was totaled,” she said.

    Photographs Ms. Peele took of the Ford Fusion with her cellphone that afternoon show the trunk crushed inward, with the point of impact appearing to be on the right rear of the car, which was parked near the curb. Notations on the accident report indicate that the left front of Mr. Zuckerman’s Lexus struck the rear right of Ms. Peele’s Ford.

    Ms. Peele said one of the witnesses to the accident happened to be a co-worker, who didn’t realize whose car had been hit. The woman, a seasonal worker who has since left the area, described the crash to Ms. Peele.

    “She said that he veered off the road and hit the car. She said that an older man got out of the white car and looked at my car, and that is all she saw because she was going to work.” The impact pushed Ms. Peele’s car, which was parked opposite the East Hampton Presbyterian Church, several feet forward.

    Ms. Peele met with a sergeant at village police headquarters on Cedar Street the next day and was handed Mr. Zuckerman’s business card. She said she had no idea who Mr. Zuckerman was.

    “I wanted to contact his insurance company,” she said. She spoke to Mr. Zuckerman’s assistant the next day. “No problem. We’ve been expecting your phone call,” she said she was told.

    Last week, Ms. Peele received a packet from Bedford Insurance saying she would be paid at the book rate for the car, $13,055. She has been renting a car since the accident, first through her own insurance company and then through Mr. Zuckerman’s.

    “It is the principle of the thing. Now I have to pay $4,000, and I don’t have a car.”

    Ms. Peele said she does not blame Mr. Zuckerman. “He may not even know this is going on.” Numerous phone calls to Mr. Zuckerman’s office over the past week have not been returned.

    Ms. Peele’s Ford, which was taken to the East Hampton Village impound yard after the accident, was hauled to a salvage yard in Brookhaven after being declared a total loss by the insurance company. She went to Brookhaven on Friday to pick up the personal items she had left in the car, and reported that it took two men with crowbars to pry open the trunk.

    Ms. Peele has worked for Starbucks for 15 years and at the East Hampton branch for four years. She is about to be transferred to Florida by the company.

    Less than a week after the Aug. 11 accident, Mr. Zuckerman was the starting pitcher for the annual Artists and Writers Softball Game in East Hampton despite nursing what was described on the sidelines that day as a cracked rib.

    Accusations flew and voices were raised during a disagreement between Sag Harbor Mayor Brian Gilbride and village board members last Thursday over policing the village. The exchange came after an agenda item on the hiring of a part-time police officer, an action supported by the mayor, but the discussion really began before the meeting with an e-mail from Kevin Duchemin, a board member and an East Hampton Village police sergeant, who expressed concern that a part-time police officer who was not very familiar with the village had been on duty by himself at one point last week.

    The special meeting last Thursday was expected to be about this weekend’s HarborFest events. Tom Fabiano, the village’s police chief, was the only one in attendance aside from the press.

    At the meeting, Mr. Duchemin asked the mayor why he would hire a part-time officer with so few days left in the summer season when he had refused to hire David Driscoll in that capacity after Officer Driscoll was let go as part of the mayor’s efforts to downsize the department earlier this year.

    Ken O’Donnell, another board member, agreed with Mr. Duchemin that it was a bit late to hire a part-time officer. He said later that the mayor’s decision on Officer Driscoll, who was named cop of the year, along with threats to disband the force, were the reasons he got involved with village government.

    “Can we agree that this whole situation has to be addressed before we hire someone?” he asked the board. Going forward, what makes sense, he said, is a long-term plan including “how many part-timers we need.” The board should look 5 and 10 years down the road, taking into consideration additional policing that might be required when developments at the Bulova watchcase factory, 21 Water Street, and Ferry Road are complete and occupied, he said.

    “There is no plan,” he said. “Foresight is needed.” He also expressed concerns about nine recent burglaries in the village.

    When Ed Deyermond, another board member, asked Chief Fabiano about the need for a part-timer, the chief said that he was all set with the staff he had scheduled for now with two part-timers.

    “We’ve always had three people,” said Mayor Gilbride. Mr. Duchemin mentioned that he saw Nicole Petykowski, another part-time officer on the list for backup, at work recently.

    “She worked for us for years,” but she “is not sworn in, not on our civil service rolls,” said Mayor Gilbride.

    Pushing for the hiring of the new part-timer, Garett P. Lake, Mayor Gilbride said of Ms. Petykowski, “We helped her out, she worked a few shifts . . . disappeared for years.”

    “Here is a guy that is qualified. I happen to think we need him,” Mayor Gilbride said, adding later that he did not know the candidate but that he is working as a police officer assigned to Sagaponack.

    Mr. Deyermond agreed there should be a discussion about scheduling, and why the village wouldn’t use the “girl that used to work for us,” and who Chief Fabiano confirmed had been on duty last month.

    “She has not worked for the village for years,” said Mayor Gilbride. Chief Fabiano confirmed that Ms. Petykowski had been on duty recently.

    “It’s bull,” said Mayor Gilbride. “You continue to play these games.” The mayor then accused Mr. Duchemin of “acting like a P.B.A. president.”

    “Want me to talk as a P.B.A. president?” asked Mr. Duchemin. “We use part-timers as beach patrol and foot patrol, that’s it.”

    Mr. Deyermond agreed that the village needs a long-term plan before moving forward with any changes to the department. “It’s the end of the summer. . . . I am not ready to do anything on this. . . . There are a lot of questions here.”

    “It’s my purview,” said Mayor Gilbride. “I’m Tom’s liaison.” He explained that the part-time hire would be “another person who can jump in . . . someone else to call. . . . It keeps overtime down,” he said. “Overtime is $90 an hour, this is only $23 an hour.”

    Chief Fabiano said that he is not comfortable replacing a full-time position with a part-timer, who may not even be able to use a car and is limited by civil service laws to working only 20 hours a week.

    The chief also expressed his frustration that his detective, who also works on patrol, has been having to make trips UpIsland for a confidential case. It is creating overtime, the chief said, because he cannot investigate while working the midnight shift. He said later that the mayor had also prohibited the detective from taking a car home, calling it a “perk.”

    “This is not time sensitive,” Chief Fabiano said of the part-time hire. “Let’s think about this.” But he also insisted that it was a non-issue. “We’ve always had part timers.”

    “But not replacing full-timers,” said the chief.

    Robby Stein, a board member, said that even if the village hired a part-timer, Chief Fabiano would be under no obligation to put him or her on the schedule. While conceding that there are “bigger questions” at hand and agreeing that a larger discussion was necessary, he asked the chief, “Would it be to your advantage to have another part-timer to call if you needed?”

    At this point, Chief Fabiano said, it’s not necessary.

    “I’m not prepared to vote on this, I will make motion to table,” said Mr. Deyermond. “Tom said it’s covered . . . Harborfest, music festival . . . chief said he is prepared.”

    Mr. O’Donnell seconded the motion, saying he wanted a “game plan.”

    “I’m opposed . . . it’s bull,” repeated the mayor. To Mr. O’Donnell he said, “You’re talking out of both sides of your mouth,” referring to his mention of recent break-ins. 

    Chief Fabiano said he was willing to continue the discussion, “whenever you want, pick a day and do something.” No date was set for further discussion.

    Two members of the East Hampton Town Board opposed to the development of a comprehensive wastewater management plan for the town continued to voice objections this week, criticizing a consultant’s presentation at last week’s project kickoff meeting to outline the work.

    Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson and Councilwoman Theresa Quigley were outvoted by the board majority when consultants were hired to develop a science-based plan. Mr. Wilkinson said Tuesday that he “sat through most of the hearing” and watched the remainder in his office, and Ms. Quigley, who did not attend but said that she watched a tape of the proceedings online, expressed their conviction that the study — an examination into water quality protection and wastewater management, including both the town’s scavenger waste treatment plant and the effect of individual septic systems — will result in a mandate by the town that residents install new septic systems.

    But other board members said that, with the consultants’ process of collecting and analyzing data just beginning, they are far from conclusions, and that potential solutions to whatever pollution issues are identified will be weighed and decided in the future, based on the information presented to the board.

    “Some people are fear-mongering about what this is going to mean for the town,” Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc said during the board’s work session on Tuesday. “You’re perpetuating this idea that everybody’s going to have to reach deep into their pockets. I’m far from that conclusion,” he said.

     Mr. Wilkinson said that he has a six-year-old septic system with a 135-foot separation from groundwater, but that he “left the meeting [last week] thinking it could cost me $10,000 to fix this system.”

    Mr. Wilkinson broached the topic during the Tuesday session, saying that he had sent an e-mail to other board members “reflective of my personal disappointment in the meeting.”    

    He criticized Pio Lombardo, one of several consultants who made the presentation, which was taped and aired live on the town’s public access provider, LTV, and reported on in last week’s issue of The Star.

    Both Mr. Wilkinson and Ms. Quigley have criticized the choice of Mr. Lombardo, who is working along with experts from two other engineering consulting firms, the FPM and Woods Hole Groups, which specialize in hydrogeology and similar fields. Mr. Lombardo’s company, Lombardo Associates, has developed a high-tech septic system called Nitrex that is highly effective at removing nitrogen from wastewater. As part of his contract with the town, he has signed two statements attesting that he would not receive royalties should sales of the system result from development of the town’s wastewater plan. He provided copies of those statements to the press last week.

    “I sensed obfuscation of the issues, and cost,” Mr. Wilkinson said Tuesday. “I just didn’t feel that the residents were getting the answers that were due.”

    At last week’s meeting, residents had asked what steps the town would ultimately take according to a wastewater plan developed by the consultants. Mr. Lombardo explained that policy decisions would be made by the town board after the consultants deliver their data and recommendations in January.

    “I felt it was slippery,” Ms. Quigley said of Mr. Lombardo’s presentation. “The difficult questions never got answers.” Why even do the study, she asked, if board members are set on mandating the installation of new residential septic systems? “You have hired a consultant — you hired him, because I voted no — whose sole purpose is to get people to use Nitrex systems,” she said.

    “I heard no conclusions at this meeting,” Ms. Overby said. “It was a beginning meeting. Mr. Lombardo laid out the plans. I thought it was professional. I don’t get where you get from Point A to Point Z so rapidly, without steps in between.” Ms. Overby told Ms. Quigley she was venturing into “dangerous territory . . . [that] doesn’t get us any further into studying the problem.”

    “I do feel that some of the statements you have made, Theresa, are libelous,” she said. “You’re putting us in jeopardy. . . . I know you didn’t like it; you didn’t vote for it. But that doesn’t mean you can continue to trash everything that’s going on.”

    “We have a problem; we know we have a problem,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said. “We have algal blooms; red tide. We have paralytic shellfish disease. If we do nothing, our waters . . . will be in jeopardy.”

    “We acknowledge the problem and we’re going to pursue ways to address the problem,” he said. “We don’t really have an option to avoid the problem.”

    Recommendations regarding upgrades to sub-par individual septic systems may well be a part of the overall plan for water protection, Mr. Van Scoyoc said. “Addressing known causes of pollution is one of the ways to get to a solution.”

    Ms. Quigley appeared to do some quick math as she spoke, saying that if even half of the town’s 22,000 residential parcels require a new Nitrex system, “we’re up in the hundreds of millions of dollars.”

    And, she said, “This $600 million fix is only the septic systems.” The consultants are to examine and make recommendations about the town’s scavenger waste treatment plant and about water quality monitoring.

    “So that’s my reaction to the meeting; I didn’t understand it,” Ms. Quigley said.

    “What troubles me most was the reference to other studies,” Ms. Quigley said. In describing the scope of the consultants’ work in the coming months, Mr. Lombardo had suggested that additional studies, if needed or desired, could be done to look at certain issues in more depth.

    “How the heck much money are we going to be spending on studies?” Ms. Quigley asked.

    She urged residents to watch the meeting and draw their own conclusions. It can be seen on the LTV Web site, ltveh.org. A Web site has also been set up to provide the public with up-to-date information on the process of developing the wastewater plan, ehwaterrestore.com.

    Ms. Quigley reiterated her opinion that the town should have turned over its scavenger waste treatment plant to a private company and taken no further steps. She and Mr. Wilkinson, who had met with representatives of the one company that submitted a proposal to take over the plant after the town sent out a request for bidders, were voted down on that course of action over a year ago.  “I believed in that course of action, and I still believe in that course of action,” she said.

    A Labor Day fire at an oceanfront property once owned by Lee Radziwill, on East Dune Lane in East Hampton Village, was stopped in its tracks thanks in large part to the quick thinking of a 17-year-old guest, according to Thomas Baker, an East Hampton Town fire marshal, who said the boy’s action saved the house from severe damage and possible destruction.

    Ms. Radziwill, the sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, sold the house in 2001 to Thomas H. Lee, a New York City financier who heads his own firm, Thomas H. Lee Capital. He was in the city at the time, according to East Hampton Village Police Chief Gerard Larsen. His wife was at the house with their son Nathan, 13, and family friends including Henry Allman, 17.

    Thanks to the heavy rains on Monday, Nathan and Henry had been inside all day, when the older boy, apparently looking for a late-night snack, went down to a food pantry in the basement and opened the pantry door.

    He was greeted with “heavy smoke, and some flame,” Mr. Baker said.

    The teenager’s next move was the key to containing the blaze, said the fire marshal. He did not panic, but immediately slammed the door closed, thus preventing the fire, which appears to have been caused by an overheated fluorescent light fixture, from spreading.

    There was extensive smoke damage throughout the basement, which looks more like a first floor because the house, just off the Wiborg’s Beach dunes, stands on sloping grounds. The first floor had extensive smoke damage as well, though no flames.

    The fire alarm was triggered, and Alert Security called the fire department at 10:28 p.m. Firefighters arrived soon after.

    “The fire department was fantastic,” Mr. Lee said on Tuesday. It was a terrifying experience for those inside the house, he said, all of whom got out safely through blinding smoke. “When there is smoke throughout the house, it is pretty scary. I have only high praise for the fire department. They were superb.”

    The firefighters initially had to figure out how to gain access to the blaze, as the pantry was built resembling a safe room, of concrete with metal walls. Once they got the door to the room off its hinges they were able to battle the blaze, Mr. Baker said. The pantry was destroyed.

    Mr. Lee rented the house from Ms. Radziwill in 2000 for a reported $500,000 before buying it the year after for $19 million. It was torn down not long after and rebuilt to the same exterior specifications but with a brand-new infrastructure. It sits on three acres of land and has extensive views of the Atlantic and of the Maidstone Club golf course.

    Asked if it was true that Mr. Lee had given the Village Police Department two new Harley-Davidson motorcycles in 2008, Chief Larsen said yes, it was. And, said the chief, the financier replaced them last year with 2012 models.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation early Wednesday ordered East End bays and harbors closed to all shellfish harvesting following heavy downpours during Tuesday's thunderstorms.

The order covers enclosed water bodies from Moriches Bay in the Town of Brookhaven east to Lake Montauk and will remain in place until the Conservation Department announces that unsafe conditions have dissipated.

The closed areas as listed by the department are:

1. Town of Brookhaven: All the area of Moriches Bay lying east of a line extending northerly from the northeasternmost point of land at the eastern end of Smiths Point County Park on the west side of Moriches Inlet, including the inlet, to the southeasternmost tip of land at Tuthill Point on the west side of Tuthill Cove.

2. Town of Southampton: All the area of Moriches Bay, Quantuck, Shinnecock Bay, Cold Spring Pond, North Sea Harbor, Noyac Creek, AND all that area of Sag Harbor and its tributaries.

3. Town of East Hampton: All the area of Three Mile Harbor, Hog Creek, Acabonac Harbor, Napeague Harbor, Montauk Harbor (Montauk Lake), Sag Harbor and its tributaries, including all the area of Sag Harbor lying south of a line extending easterly from the northernmost tip of the large stone breakwater in the outer portion of Sag Harbor to the northernmost tip of Barcelona Point, AND all the area of Northwest Harbor lying southeast of a line extending northeasterly from the westernmost point of land at the entrance to Northwest Creek to the foot of Mile Hill Road.

Updates and changes to the list can be found at dec.ny.gov/outdoor

According to National Weather Service data, 1.43 inches of rain was recorded in a three-hour period Wednesday at Montauk Point. At Gabreski Airport in Westhampton Beach 3.42 inches of rain fell between approximately 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Update: As of Friday, East Hampton waters had not reopened for shellfishing. Conservation Department staff took samples in several locations, for which lab results would be forthcoming. The earliest East Hampton waters could reopen is sunrise on Saturday.

    A tussle between the East Hampton Town Trustees and the town’s Natural Resources and Planning Departments over fencing installed on town beaches was a topic of heated discussion at the trustees’ Aug. 27 meeting.

    With the conclusion of the nesting season of the piping plover, which the state lists as endangered, and the least tern, which the state considers threatened, the trustees were surprised to see photographs that had been provided by an East Hampton Village police officer. The photos, taken at Georgica Beach, depicted string fencing on metal posts in the sand.

    Diane McNally, the trustees’ clerk, sent an e-mail to town employees who monitored the plover nesting areas this year, in which she asked whether the fencing had been erected by the town. According to Ms. McNally, reading to her co-trustees, the e-mailed reply stated, “We are currently conducting a survey for protected beach vegetation on all beaches for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.”

    “Not on our beach,” said Joe Bloecker, a trustee, a comment loudly seconded by several of his colleagues.

    Mr. Bloecker’s title, and those of his fellow trustees, was created and granted authority over the town by King James II through the Dongan Patent of 1686. As such, the trustees manage the town’s common lands, including beaches.

    Ms. McNally read aloud her subsequent response, which stated that the trustees “will have many questions regarding the Town of East Hampton employees conducting a survey for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife [Service] on trustee beaches without having first communicated with us. It’s absolutely mind-boggling that you and your colleagues have not yet grasped the fact that the trustees want to know and approve of any initiatives on the beaches.”

    The e-mail went on to ask why the town was utilizing its limited resources to assist the federal agency, insist that the fencing be removed from all beaches immediately, and instruct the town to refer the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to the trustee board for a discussion of vegetation.

    The flora in question are seabeach amaranth and seabeach knotweed, said Juliana Duryea of the town’s Natural Resources Department. The state and federal governments list the former as endangered. “We were approached by U.S. Fish and Wildlife to conduct these surveys,” Ms. Duryea said. The species, she said, are generally found within areas the town protects for the plover and tern, “so it makes sense that while we’re taking down fences, we’re surveying for plant species.”

    That the town did not consult the trustees or refer the federal agency to it is a problem, the trustees said. The larger problem, said Stephanie Forsberg, a trustee, is the threat of extreme weather such as the hurricanes that struck Long Island in 2011 and 2012. It isn’t about string fencing per se, “it’s string strung along many, many, many metal posts,” she said. “If we wait much longer, we’re going to be in a hurricane and these things are going to end up as trash. I think we’re at the point that, even if we have to foot the bill, we’re going to need to hire someone to take them out,” she said.

    Mr. Bloecker suggested that the trustees notify the town’s code enforcement officers. “They don’t have a trustee permit to put that stuff on the beach, period,” he said. “And when U.S. Fish and Wildlife puts their fence down there next year, have them written a violation. If they say it’s their beach, prove it. Otherwise, pay the violation.”

    “Let’s at least ask for a violation,” said Ms. Forsberg, reminding her colleagues that extreme weather could arise with little warning. “We’ve been asking for these to come out,” she said. “And being ignored,” said Sean McCaffrey, a trustee, completing the sentence.

    “And next year, all fencing must be permitted by the trustees, piping plover or otherwise,” said Mr. Bloecker. “A permit from us,” he repeated.

    Steven Papa of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Long Island field office in Shirley wrote in an e-mail that his agency works with other federal, state, and local agencies to conduct an annual census of seabeach amaranth on the south shore of Long Island beaches. East Hampton’s Natural Resources Department, he wrote, “participates in this survey for lands that they manage. In some cases, seabeach amaranth plants are protected with ‘symbolic fencing’ by land managers to protect plants from destruction due to off-road vehicles, beach nourishment, recreational activities, etc.” Mr. Papa defined symbolic fencing as string fastened to posts and said it is widely used by land managers on Long Island to delineate plover breeding and seabeach amaranth growing areas.

    Ms. McNally said that management of the birds’ nesting areas, developed jointly by the Natural Resources Department and the trustees, was until recent years a successful effort. She complained that other governing bodies, such as the State Department of Environmental Conservation, have sought to prohibit vehicular access to beaches during the plovers’ nesting season, to which the trustees are adamantly opposed.

    State and federal agencies, she said, rely on local authorities and resources to implement their programs. “And then [they] get angry when you don’t do enough?” she asked. “The reason we’re doing this is to keep our beaches open as much as we can. That concept seems to have gotten skewed in the last couple years, and we need to get it back.”

    Adding insult to injury, “Out of the blue, this popped up,” she said. “I’ve never heard of us leaving fences up for vegetation.”

    Marguerite Wolffsohn, director of the town’s Planning Department, would not comment on communications between town employees and the trustees, but did explain that the program to protect plovers and terns was transferred from the Natural Resources Department to the Planning Department a few years ago. With Kim Shaw now serving as the town’s director of natural resources and Ms. Duryea working in Ms. Shaw’s department, the program is in the process of transferring back to that department. The two departments shared the program’s management in 2013, Ms. Wolffsohn said.