Women are givers, said Debra Boulanger, a full-time Sag Harbor resident and the president of the Great Do-Over, a life-coaching service she founded in 2013 to offer women, usually over 40, the chance for personal or professional reinvention. And that’s why, she explained, the Great Do-Over’s word for 2018 is “receive.”

“This is a benevolent world,” she said the other day, sitting in her light-filled, shabby-chic house in the village, which she admits is “overcushioned.” Women don’t have to keep giving to the point that they lose sight of their own needs, until one day they find themselves wondering, “Is this all there is?”

Ms. Boulanger should know. She was at that juncture six years ago, asking herself, as well as the health coach and personal trainer she had hired, that very question. Despite a successful career at Gartner, a Stamford, Conn., multinational information technology company, where she launched products and marketing programs that gained worldwide recognition, she felt drained and hopelessly unfulfilled. For six years she commuted week ly from North Haven, where her husband and young son were living, to Stamford, missing countless school concerts, sports games, and parent-teacher conferences. Her 25-year marriage began unraveling; the sacrifices she had made for that relationship and her career had taken their toll.

“I tuned into a source of guidance: my own internal conversation,” she said, and checked into the Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts for a 10-day silent Buddhist retreat. It was there that she discovered the ancient tradition of Vipassana, a method of self-awareness that allows one to face everyday tensions and problems in a calm and balanced way.

In 2012, Ms. Boulanger quit her lucrative job and got divorced. During the process of her own metamorphosis, she became acutely aware of a certain order of things, those steps she took en route to transformation. “There is a process,” she said. “There’s no end point with transformation, but there is definitely a starting point.” After crafting a tangible six-step process, she said, her vision to help other women undertake the same journey became clear.

She received her holistic health coach certification in early 2013 and hung up her virtual shingle for the Great Do-Over, which she began by coaching clients privately. It soon grew to an online group program. Her client roster includes women from all over the country.

“I teach women how to listen to their gut instincts. To become aware of patterns. To recognize who they really are. And how to love themselves first. When you change inside, it shows on the outside,” she said.

The inside-outside alchemy she extols is personified on her website, where a montage of enviable snapshots show Ms. Boulanger enjoying a moment with her now college-age son, in the loving arms of a man, sipping liquids from a cup that says “Good Morning, Gorgeous.” She is her own poster child, the best possible endorsement for a do-over.

Her six-step process ferries her clients through nutritional improvements, increased mindfulness, the creation of a physical and psychological space around oneself, healing, and the eventual transformation, a journey that takes about three to six months, she said. 

Cate Cammarata, who lives in Sound Beach and teaches theater arts at Stony Brook University, hired Ms. Boulanger last year to help her launch Create Theater, an online facilitating service for the theater community.

“I’m an artist, not an entrepreneur,” said Ms. Cammarata, who is also a producer and has worked at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor. “I had learned all the basics about starting my business with an online coach and a mastermind group, but it was during one-on-one sessions with Deb that she helped me formulate a business plan and guided me through a blueprint of next steps. It was like having a good friend hold your hand and walk you through every step.”

The Sag Harbor life coach also helps women navigate the daunting world of dating following a divorce or the death of a spouse. Whether looking for passion in the bedroom or boardroom, the same overarching rules seem to apply, as echoed by the Great Do-Over’s tagline: “Release Fear. Think Clear. Get Into Gear.”

Kim Eagan is Ms. Boulanger’s longest-running client, having signed on to work with her in 2013, when Ms. Eagan was going through a bitter divorce.

“I first hired Deb to help me get through a really bad time,” said Ms. Eagan. “Then she helped me though the dating period, when I was ready to give up on all the online stuff. She just listened, then she’d take me step by step through the process.”

Ms. Eagan, who lives on Cape Cod and has been in a happy relationship for the last 14 months, has met her do-over guru only once in person. Currently she is in consultation with her while trying to develop a new business. 

By Ms. Boulanger’s account, the Great Do-Over is a mashup of Buddhist tenets, psychoanalysis, cognitive behavioral therapy, and the law of attraction — that 19th-century belief based on positive thinking.

“She has an unbelievable ability to manifest what it is you really want,” Ms. Eagan said.

Life coaching has soared in the past 20 years, straddling a middle zone between the work of a psychologist and a really good friend. The practice has no regulation or licensing board. Anyone can be a life coach as long as she calls herself one. Unlike therapists, coaches don’t diagnose or treat anything. And unlike supportive friends, they don’t judge, but they do charge to listen. Nonetheless, the practice has become so popular that in addition to about 300 training programs nationwide, universities such as Harvard, Stanford, New York University, and Columbia offer coaching classes or certificates. 

For Ms. Boulanger, the next big do-over event is her biannual, three-day retreat in Southampton on May 11, which she describes as “psychological and emotional detoxing, and spiritual recalibration.” An Ayurvedic-trained chef provides nutritious meals — “to take you on your inner journey” — and there is yoga, an intensive course in the law of attraction, energy healing, stand-up paddleboarding, and even equine therapy. 

“The perfect people always show up,” said Ms. Boulanger. 

Luck of the draw or the law of attraction?  

The body of an Islip fisherman was pulled from the water north of Montauk Point shortly after 5 p.m. on March 28 after a surfer spotted him floating facedown in the water. 

Aaron Bruno, 29, “died doing what he loved,” his mother, Avida Del Genio, said yesterday. “Fish, fish, fish. That’s all he wanted to do. . . . He was born with a fishing pole in his hand.” 

While the family is still in shock over his death, Ms. Del Genio said she is “at peace with the way he died.” He had fished all over Long Island, from the Great South Bay to Argyle Lake in Babylon to the Connetquot River to Wading River, but “he loved Montauk, especially,” she said. 

Mr. Bruno, a chef, had interviewed for a job at Gurney’s Resort in Montauk earlier that day. “If he got the job, he was going to move out there,” his mother said. 

Cooking was his passion, she said, and one he discovered early on, while still in high school in Islip. He went on to attend the Lincoln Culinary Institute in Connecticut and to work at restaurants around the Island and at a Club Med in the Dominican Republic. 

“I’m a very young chef but at the same time very knowledgeable and willing to learn more,” he wrote on his LinkedIn page last year. He described himself as “a sous-chef looking for a greater opportunity,” and said, “My biggest achievement in the culinary industry is understanding the art in culinary arts.” 

“He was happy doing what he was doing and wanted to better himself with every job he had,” Ms. Del Genio said. “He was a big guy with a big heart.”

“He loved exploring restaurants and he cooked everything,” his mother said. Asian fusion was a specialty, as was Italian cuisine, “and, of course, seafood.”

She plans to visit Montauk on April 19 to place a wreath near the spot where he died. Her brother and sister made the journey there on Friday afternoon, she said. Greg Donahue, the director of erosion control for the Montauk Lighthouse, showed them the rocky area where her son was fishing and talked with them about how special the Point was to so many fishermen.

Ms. Del Genio had spoken with Mr. Donahue as well and had also talked with Dalton Portella, the surfer and photographer who made the initial 911 call on March 28.

“The waves were amazing,” Mr. Portella said last Thursday, and surfers were out in force. He was taking pictures of the surf when he noticed what at first appeared to be a dead seal in the water, about five feet offshore. When he got closer, he realized it was a person and called for help. As he waited to flag down first responders by the dirt road that leads to the beach, other surfers pulled Mr. Bruno from the water. 

“Lee Meirowitz was attempting CPR, but it was pointless; he was long gone,” Mr. Portella said. 

East Hampton Town police and Marine Patrol officers responded to the scene, as did Montauk emergency medical technicians. The matter was turned over to New York State Parks police, who are investigating, “although we don’t suspect any criminality,” a parks police spokesman said last Thursday morning. 

Mr. Portella said fellow surfers believe they spotted Mr. Bruno walking by the base of the Lighthouse toward Turtle Cove on the south side of Montauk Point about two and a half hours earlier. He had a fishing pole and tackle box in hand, they told him. 

“Sadly, he underestimated the strong force of the ocean and he drowned,” his mother wrote on Facebook.

Given the currents, Mr. Portella guessed that Mr. Bruno could have hit his head on a rock on the south side and been carried to the north side of the Point, where he was found on an incoming tide. “If there hadn’t been anybody surfing there he wouldn’t have been found for days.”

The official cause of death is under investigation by the Suffolk County medical examiner, a parks police spokesman said last Thursday morning.

A funeral Mass for Mr. Bruno was said on Monday at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Islip. He was buried at St. Patrick’s Cemetery in Bay Shore.

In addition to his mother, Mr. Bruno is survived by a stepfather, Andrew Del Genio, and two sisters, Lauren and Erica Del Genio, all of Islip, and by grandparents in Richmond Hill, Brooklyn.

The East Hampton Town Board will move to create a water supply district in Wainscott to address concerns over contamination in an area near the East Hampton Airport, where perfluorinated compounds have been found in several residential wells. 

Suffolk County Health Department officials began a survey of water from private wells in the area of the airport in August. The survey area was later expanded, and on Tuesday Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc told his colleagues on the board that the most recent survey indicated that nine wells had levels of the toxic chemicals above the federal health advisory level and 126 others, while contaminated, had tested at levels below the advisory level. 

The federal Environmental Protection Agency has identified the detected compounds — perfluorooctane sulfonate, or PFOS, and perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA — as “contaminants of emerging concern.” To protect the most sensitive populations, including fetuses and breastfed babies, against potential adverse health effects, the agency issued a health advisory level of .07 parts per billion. Studies on animals indicate that exposure to the two compounds over certain levels can also affect the thyroid, liver, and immune systems, and cause cancer, among other things. 

The town must confer with the State Department of Environmental Conservation and state Health Department to finalize the geographical boundaries of the district, Mr. Van Scoyoc said, but he predicted that it will extend beyond the survey’s present southern border at Wainscott Main Street.

Last month, the board declared its intention to pursue an inter-municipal water infrastructure grant, with the Suffolk County Water Authority as the lead agency in the partnership, to connect residential properties in the area of concern to public water. Given an expected lengthy timeline in which that could be accomplished, the town would make point-of-entry treatment systems available to homeowners with contaminated wells as soon as possible, board members agreed. 

Mr. Van Scoyoc said on Tuesday that it would take the Suffolk County Water Authority four to five months to extend water mains throughout the present survey area, which includes 398 properties, and that the water authority could simultaneously complete connections to residential properties as it proceeded along the mains’ route. “But the first order of business for us as a town board is to determine and designate a water supply district area, so we need to get that process started,” he said. This was the only course that would alleviate residents’ concern about the safety of their drinking water, he said.

Along with a designation of its boundaries, establishing a water supply district requires an engineering study, to be conducted by the water authority, the supervisor said. The town will seek grant money, he said, “and whatever the balance might be, we would pay out of general funds.” 

Creation of a water supply district would also be subject to a public hearing and, assuming the board passed a resolution in favor of it, a review by the state comptroller. Mr. Van Scoyoc said that, “if we move expeditiously,” that process could be completed by June. “Then we would begin construction as soon as possible after that.” 

However, he added, property owners would have to give consent to the water authority to connect their properties, and “to date, there’s still a number of homeowners . . . we’ve been unable to reach, to even let them know they need to get their water tested.” Officials including Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle, and Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming support the proposal, and he expected no obstacles to its completion. “Everybody recognizes the importance of getting this done,” he said. “We need to move forward as quickly as possible.”

Councilman Jeffrey Bragman, the town board’s liaison to the Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee, said that the board will continue moving to make point-of-entry treatment systems available to affected property owners in the event the timetable for connecting them to public water is longer than anticipated. “It’s a better timeframe than I had hoped for,” he said. “But I want to be prepared in the event that something delays us a bit, so we’ll keep working on that as well.”

Anger and frustration boiled over last week in a heated public meeting on a proposal to lower recreational black sea bass limits in New York waters for the 2018 fishing season. 

Well over 200 party and charter boat captains, as well as tackle shop proprietors and recreational anglers from as far away as Montauk and Staten Island, attended the March 27 meeting sponsored by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s division of marine resources. They were crammed in a conference room at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, and very few, if any, of them were happy. 

Fishermen, both recreational and commercial, continue to be frustrated by yearly cuts in quotas and limits to what many believe is a healthy and robust fish stock. In fact, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission 2016 benchmark stock assessment found that black sea bass are neither overfished nor had experienced overfishing.

With improved recruitment and declining fishing mortality rates since 2007, the spawning stock biomass has steadily increased. Spawning stock biomass in 2015 was estimated at 48.9 million pounds, 2.3 times the target of 21.3 million pounds. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is a regional body that oversees fishing on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. The commission comprises representatives of each state in the region, from Maine to Florida, and issues fishing allocations for various species including black sea bass, fluke, and porgy.

Despite these positive statistical points, New York State has been asked to take a nearly 12-percent reduction for the 2018 season. Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts will also likely experience a shorter season and a reduction in the amount of sea bass that can be retained. Under the commission’s current proposal, the earliest New York anglers could start fishing for the tasty and popular fish would be June 19, with a limit of two fish over 15 inches per person. At the same time, fishermen in neighboring New Jersey will see their limit increase for 2018, and anglers will be able to retain 15 fish with a minimum length of 12.5 inches starting on May 15. As recently as 2010, New York anglers could retain up to 25 sea bass per day. 

Sea bass allocations, which are calculated and approved by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and are subject to ratification by the Department of Commerce’s National Marine Fisheries Service, the federal agency with federal oversight over fishing in federal waters, determine the number of fish anglers in each state can catch each season. Those allocations are then taken up by each state agency, in the case of New York, the Department of Environmental Conservation, which then turns these allocations into a seasonal quota. The state has authority to determine season length, daily quotas, and size limits for each species.

“None of us here agree with what is being done,” James Gilmore, chairman of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, said in his opening remarks on March 27. “The sea bass stocks are completely healthy in my view.”

On March 16, New York joined with Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut in filing an appeal of the 12-percent quota reduction for sea bass. The appeal will be heard by the commission in the first week of May. If it is successful, New York’s quota would be reduced by only 6 percent. If the appeal fails, New York State plans to file an appeal with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries division.

Black sea bass are highly sought after by both commercial and recreational fishermen throughout the Mid-Atlantic region. Fisheries change seasonally with changes in fish distribution. Inshore and more southern commercial fisheries primarily use fish pots and handlines, and when fish move offshore in the winter, they are mainly caught in trawl fisheries targeting summer flounder, porgy, and “loligo” squid. Recreational fisheries generally occur during the period that sea bass are inshore. Since approval of the fishery management plan in 1997, the black sea bass commercial fishery has operated under a quota, while the recreational fishery is restricted by a coastwide recreational harvest limit.

Mark Woolley, district director for Representative Lee Zeldin of New York’s First Congressional District, addressed the crowd on behalf of the congressman and read a statement from Mr. Zeldin that vowed support for the fishermen. “With the vast majority of Long Island fishing taking place in waters shared with New Jersey and Connecticut, such as the Atlantic Ocean and Long Island Sound, it is unfair that New York anglers are, once again, being penalized with smaller fishing quotas than neighboring states,” Mr. Zeldin wrote. “For my constituents, who are both fishermen and small business owners trying to attract customers, the A.S.M.F.C.’s decision to once again cut New York off from its fair share while allowing New Jersey’s allocation to grow, is unacceptable. Two boats fishing next to each other with one allowed to catch up to double the amount of the other because they are landing the fish in New Jersey instead of New York is ridiculous and inequitable.”

Mr. Zeldin called for “tri-state parity.” He urged state representatives to “fight more aggressively within these regional bodies to advocate for New York’s anglers,” and added, “If our state representatives on the A.S.M.F.C., who supported this terrible proposal and failed to fully advocate for New York, aren’t willing to fight for our anglers, then they should step aside.” If necessary, he said, the allocations should be appealed all the way to the secretary of commerce. “Going into noncompliance is never the first option, but it may be the only one in taking a stand for New York anglers who year after year continue to get screwed.” 

“These options before us are garbage,” said Capt. Jamie Quaresimo of the Montauk party boat Miss Montauk. “We ought to go out of compliance.” Captain Quaresimo then asked people in the crowd to raise their hands if they would support that action. A large majority did just that. 

“We need to take a strong stand on this issue,” said Capt. Paul Ripperger of the Prime Time III, an Orient party boat. “Even if we win the appeal, none of these options before us make any sense. There are sea bass everywhere.” 

In a joint statement issued on Monday morning, New York State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. and State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle said, “The State of New York should utilize every legal and administrative tool at its disposal to overturn this ill-considered federal proposal.” They reiterated Mr. Zeldin’s assertion that “New York should not be at a disadvantage with other states on the East Coast,” and said, “Again and again, we have seen politics replace science to the detriment of New York State fishermen, whether they are recreational anglers, charter boat captains, or commercial fishermen. When the federal government is arbitrary and capricious, the state must state ‘no.’ ”

“If all other solutions fail, we agree with the commissioner that noncompliance is a legitimate remedy,” Mr. Thiele and Mr. LaValle wrote. “This has not been an isolated case of discrimination against New York State. Unfortunately this is part of a long history of federal action that has strangled the fishing industry in New York to the benefit of other states.”

Women's Equality Endorses Browning

Kate Browning, who is a candidate in the June 26 Democratic primary for a shot at the First Congressional District nomination to face Representative Lee Zeldin in November, has been endorsed by the Women’s Equality Party. 

In a release, Susan Zimet, the party chairwoman, said Ms. Browning had been “an unwavering voice for women and families.” According to the most recent figures from the State Board of Elections, there were 119 First District residents registered with the Women’s Equality Party out of 500,000 voters.

Reform Goes for Zeldin

Representative Lee Zeldin, a Republican who is seeking re-election for a third term in Congress, has gotten the endorsement of the Reform Parties of Nassau and Suffolk.

There are only 32 voters registered in the Reform Party in the First Congressional District, which Mr. Zeldin has represented since 2015, according to figures from November.

Brian Kelly of East Islip, the Reform Party’s Suffolk chairman, said in a release that Mr. Zeldin has been an advocate in Congress for tax relief and reducing regulations.

Representative Peter King, a Republican congressman for the Second Congressional District, also received the party’s endorsement.  

In an era when police fight crime with high-tech gadgetry — Tasers and license plate readers in patrol cars — a much lower-tech instrument now helps East Hampton Town police handle crowds at special events as well as in downtown Montauk during the summer season: the bicycle.

Two new bikes were deployed during the Montauk St. Patrick’s Day parade on Sunday for the second year. 

According to Chief Michael D. Sarlo, it was a department dispatcher, Dave Collins, whose expertise in the mechanics of bicycles led the chief to select a company in Washington State, Volcanic, as the manufacturer of the newest bikes in the fleet. Mr. Collins trained at the Barnett Bicycle Institute in Colorado Springs.

Volcanic sells its bikes exclusively to police across the country. Made in America, they are rugged, able to hop sidewalks and stairs, and to be used in mud or sand, while also being able to move quickly from one location to another. 

Volcanic’s bikes have disk brakes, meaning they do not squeal when braking. A squeaky brake would dash the element of stealth, the chief noted, which is one of the bike patrol’s main assets, particularly in downtown Montauk at night during the summer season.

They also are equipped with 29-inch tires, which are wide, and the front shocks can lock to increase speed. 

  The East Hampton Town department now has eight officers certified for bike patrol, Chief Sarlo said, after they took a course at the Suffolk County Police Academy. 

Officers are trained to dismount quickly in emergency situations, and the bikes can take a good amount of abuse when that happens, Mr. Collins said. Unlike other bikes, many of the key parts are of solid metal, instead of metal tubing. 

According to Mr. Collins, the bikes, which come with a lifetime warranty, should have a life span of at least 15 years. He estimated the cost of each

The body of a fisherman was pulled from the water north of Montauk Point late Wednesday afternoon after a surfer spotted him floating facedown just after 5 p.m.

Dalton Portella, who made the initial 911 call, was taking pictures of the surf when he noticed what at first appeared to be a dead seal in the water, about five feet offshore. When he got closer, he said, he realized it was a person and called for help. As he waited to flag down first responders by the dirt road that leads to the beach, other surfers pulled the man from the water, he said. "Lee Meirowitz was attempting CPR, but it was pointless; he was long gone."

East Hampton Town police and Marine Patrol officers responded to the scene, as did Montauk emergency medical technicians. The matter was turned over to New York State Parks police, who are investigating, "although we don't suspect any criminality," a parks police spokesman said Thursday morning. Parks police identified the man as Aaron Bruno, 29, of Islip.  

Mr. Portella said fellow surfers believe they spotted Mr. Bruno walking by the base of the Lighthouse toward Turtle Cove on the south side of Montauk Point about two and a half hours earlier. He had a fishing pole and tackle box in hand, they told him.

Given the currents, Mr. Portella guessed that Mr. Bruno could have hit his head on a rock on the south side and been carried to the north side of the Point, where he was found on an incoming tide. "If there hadn't been anybody surfing there he wouldn't have been found for days."

The official cause of death is under investigation by the Suffolk County medical examiner, a parks police spokesman said Thursday morning. 

Making its debut this year in the Montauk Friends of Erin St. Patrick's Day parade on Sunday is a float by the Eastern Long Island Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation constructed from marine debris collected during the group’s recent beach cleanups at Fort Pond Bay in Montauk and in Greenport and Hampton Bays.

Carolyn Munaco, a Hampton Bays artist and teacher who is also the Surfrider chapter’s volunteer coordinator, largely made the float herself. It features a figure of Neptune clad in plastic water bottles with shoulders built of tiny liquor bottles and discarded plastic cutlery. A three-foot-long duck made of shotgun shells emerges from half of an old mooring buoy. The shell of a sea turtle is outlined with hundreds of colorful plastic straws.

The message is unmistakable. “Plastic is a real issue,” Ms. Munaco said. “It doesn’t go away. We hope that this will get people to think about that.”

In its next life, Neptune, the duck, and the turtle may go to schools to help raise awareness about the marine environment. With threats to the world’s oceans increasing, there is a sense of urgency among coastal defenders. “It is a charged moment. There is a lot of energy there,” Ms. Munaco said.

Only a portion of the thousands of items collected by volunteers during the beach cleanups made it onto the float, Ms. Munaco said. “You have no idea how much stuff we got rid of.”

Democratic candidates seeking to unseat Representative Lee Zeldin in New York’s First Congressional District in the Nov. 6 midterm election sharpened their focus on the second-term congressman at a forum on Friday, attacking the Republican’s positions on guns, foreign policy, and his ties to President Trump.

The forum, hosted by the East Hampton Town Democratic Committee at St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in Amagansett, had been rescheduled from March 2 after a northeaster forced its postponement. On Friday, town residents listened as five of the six declared candidates repeatedly hammered Mr. Zeldin, in contrast to a forum held at Stony Brook Southampton in January, where nearly an hour passed before the congressman’s name was uttered. 

Mr. Zeldin “is too right-wing for this district,” said Perry Gershon, an East Hampton resident seeking the Democratic nomination. While many of his positions are “relatively standard Republican fare,” which he called “anti-environment, anti-choice, anti-consumer protection,” Mr. Zeldin is an extremist on important issues including guns and the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia to influence the 2016 election. 

“Wrong response to Parkland,” Mr. Gershon said of the mass shooting that killed 17 at a high school in Florida last month, citing Mr. Zeldin’s call to arm teachers and his sponsorship of legislation that would require all states to recognize any other state’s concealed-carry permit. “No one in New York is for that,” he said. Mr. Zeldin is “supporting Trump to the nth degree, at a level that we need to highlight,” he said. “That’s where we’re going to nail him. That’s where he’s vulnerable. 

Mr. Zeldin is “so wrong on the gun issue,” Kate Browning, a former Suffolk County legislator, said to applause. “We cannot have more guns in our schools to fight off the guns.” 

Vivian Viloria Fisher, another former member of the Legislature and a former teacher, said, “As a teacher, I cannot imagine asking teachers to bear weapons in classrooms.” 

All five candidates said they would not accept donations from the National Rifle Association, which they denounced, and pledged to work to ban assault rifles. 

David Pechefsky, a former senior staff member at the New York City Council, called Mr. Zeldin “an apologist” for the president who “is sponsoring egregious legislation” pertaining to immigration and health care. “He’s vulnerable on all these issues,” he said. On foreign policy, “what he’s saying is madness,” Mr. Pechefsky said of Mr. Zeldin, challenging policies he said are based on militarism. 

“What does coal do for Long Island?” asked Elaine DiMasi, a former project manager and physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory, referring to the president’s emphasis on fossil-fuel energy sources and denial of climate change. Air quality here suffers because of coal-fired power plants elsewhere, she said, and Mr. Zeldin, “with his piecemeal voting, doesn’t seem to understand that.” Renewable energy and smart-grid technology should be catalysts for “Long Island’s re-energized economy,” she said, but Mr. Zeldin “has not had any solutions or ideas. . . . His idea of protecting the environment is piecemeal, his idea of protecting human rights is nonexistent.” 

Along with Ms. DiMasi’s, the other candidates’ criticism extended to the president, and they sought to highlight the ties between him and Mr. Zeldin. 

“I’m running because I’m fed up with Lee Zeldin and what he represents — the right-wing politics, the personal profit, enablement of Donald Trump, who’s dividing our nation,” Mr. Gershon said. He condemned the president’s scapegoating of the media and immigrants, and his “renouncement of facts,” all of which he said leave him disgusted. “When Trump got elected, I said I have to fight back.” The best way do to that, he said, is by challenging Mr. Zeldin, who he said believes in trickle-down economics and “is doing nothing to help locate business” in the district. 

The candidates, pledging their support for marriage equality and a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy, also hit Mr. Zeldin on his vote in favor of a federal ban on abortions after the 20th week of gestation, which the House of Representatives passed but the Senate voted down. 

Brendon Henry, who was unable to reschedule another commitment, was represented at the forum by Kyle Cranston, a member of his campaign. Asked about loans or donations the candidate has made to his own campaign, Mr. Cranston did not have a ready answer, saying that “almost all” of the donations have come from supporters.

Mr. Pechefsky said that he and his wife have lent $100,000 to his campaign. Ms. DiMasi has lent her campaign $20,000. Ms. Browning said that she has not contributed to her own campaign, but her husband made a $1,000 donation. Ms. Viloria Fisher said that she and her husband have lent her campaign $110,000. 

Mr. Gershon, whose campaign announced last month that he had raised more than $1 million, said that $400,000 of that figure came in the form of a loan from himself and his wife. 

A confident attitude accompanied the sharper attacks directed at Mr. Zeldin on Friday, and events outside the district may justify the candidates’ collective mood. Yesterday, Democrats were celebrating the apparent victory, pending any legal challenge, of their candidate in Tuesday’s special election for Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District, which Mr. Trump won by nearly 20 percentage points in 2016. In recent months, many Republicans in Congress have announced their retirement, and pundits predict more to come if Tuesday’s results stand, the unpopular president potentially a greater liability than asset. 

“This is not the time for us to be cautious,” Mr. Pechefsky said. “It’s time to say we are Democrats, the party of working people, the party of fairness, of inclusion. If we stick to our principles, we will rally Democrats who feel disaffected, the people who don’t come out to vote. If we do, we will win and in a way that resonates across the country.”

Amagansett

A Stamford, Conn., man refereeing a soccer game at the Sportime Arena was punched in the face late Sunday afternoon by one of the players. Leonidas Pozo told police the player was angry over a call and began to argue. Mr. Pozo ejected the player from the game and was then punched in the mouth. Police were called, but Mr. Pozo, who did not require medical attention, declined to press charges. The player, whose name was not released because he was not arrested, was warned that a repeat performance would lead to permanent expulsion. 

East Hampton Village

A caller told police early Saturday morning that a Ford F-150 pickup with Texas plates was being driven erratically on Main Street. An officer clocked the truck moving at 45 miles per hour where the speed limit is 30, and pulled the pickup over. The driver, Marion Eliot Spearman Jr., was sober, the officer reported, and was issued a warning about speeding.

A David’s Lane resident dialed 911 on March 6 after hearing a suspicious message on her answering machine. The caller claimed to be from the Internal Revenue Service and said the federal agency would sue her if she did not return the call. The woman recognized the call as an attempt to defraud her, and wanted the incident documented.

A Manhattan woman called police on March 5 when a dog outside the Citarella market bit into her jacket, making a hole. When police arrived, the dog owner, a woman from Wainscott, was talking to the victim and animal control agents were on hand. The woman did not want to register a formal complaint against the owner and the dog, as it had not made contact with her flesh. The agents from animal control said they would look into the dog’s past to make sure there was no history of biting. 

Montauk

Four youths were caught inside the fenced-in area of the abandoned radar tower at Camp Hero Sunday. East Hampton Town police turned the four over to State Parks Department police officers. Christopher Tripoli, supervisor of the complex, told police that he would not press charges as long as the four left the area immediately. They were warned not to trespass again. 

Sag Harbor

Joel Kelsey, who had been at Murf’s Tavern on Division Street on Monday, returned to the tavern after leaving because he had left something behind. When he went back inside, he said, the bartender accompanied him to the door and pushed him out. He told police that he wound up with a broken nose. He did not press charges, but wanted the incident documented. 

The Sag Harbor Fire Department responded to John Schroder’s house on Division Street Monday and cleared its chimney. A passer-by had knocked on the door to warn that smoke and flame were coming from the chimney.  

Springs

Martin Drew called police March 5, complaining that signs he was putting up in the area of Old Stone Highway and School Street encouraging people to vote no on the proposed expansion of the Springs School were being stolen. Police told him that if he spotted someone taking down one of them, he should contact them immediately.