An auditor delivered an upbeat report on the East Hampton Village government’s fiscal status on Friday.

At the village board’s last meeting of the year, Frank Sluter of the Jericho accounting and advisory firm Satty, Levine, and Ciacco summarized an audit of the village’s finances for the fiscal year ending July 31, 2018. 

Total revenues of $22.7 million exceeded budgeted amounts by $1.6 million, Mr. Sluter told the board. Licenses, permits, fines, forfeitures, and state aid, he said, accounted for most of the increase. 

On the expenditure side, the $20.4 million total was almost $559,000 less than budgeted amounts, “each major expense category contributing to the savings,” Mr. Sluter said. “That was really good.”

The village was able to allocate $270,000 to employee reserves, $250,000 to capital reserves, and $1.7 million into its capital projects fund. The village also paid down $840,000 of principal debt, Mr. Sluter said. 

His firm encountered no difficulties in its interaction with village employees, he said. “Best of all, in my opinion, we were happy to say we didn’t identify any deficiencies in the internal controls on the financial reporting process. That’s very good. Based on our audit as well as the financial statements, I think the village is in great shape.”

“We tend to be fiscally conservative in the application of our expenditures,” Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. said. “We have to take care of our infrastructure, and as is necessary and appropriate at times, we have to spend some money to maintain that high degree of responsibility that this board has. We don’t take that lightly, at the same time.”

If you happen to be at the annual Polar Bear Plunge at noon on New Year’s Day at East Hampton’s Main Beach, you will know Joan Tulp if you see her. She’s the octogenarian who has worn a tiara and tossed her mink coat to the ground in past years before running into the frigid water with East Hampton Village Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. and John Ryan Sr. (Mr. Ryan would be the white-haired gentleman with the plunger on his head, holding Ms. Tulp’s hand to steady themselves as they go.)

“We go in together because we’re the oldest,” Ms. Tulp said. “How old? Oh dear. How can I put it without really telling my age? Let’s just say I’m not 90 yet, but getting close. I’ve done the plunge three or four times now. When I told my doctor I went in, he said, ‘Are you crazy?’ But it’s just such a great and festive day. A real party atmosphere.”

The 300 or 400 people who participate annually at the Main Beach event, like the smaller throng who join the Wainscott Polar Bear Plunge at the end of Beach Lane at 2:30 on New Year’s Day, say they show up for a variety of reasons: Because it’s fun. Because it’s there.

But hardly anyone fails to mention it’s for a good cause.

The Main Beach plunge has a $35 registration fee and all proceeds benefit the East Hampton, Wainscott, and Amagansett food pantries. You can donate or sign up in person, or online at easthamptonfoodpantry.org or springsfoodpantry.org. 

Another New Year’s Day plunge, at 9:30 a.m. at Gurney’s Resort in Montauk, suggests donations for the Retreat, an East Hampton agency that serves victims of domestic abuse.

Colin Mather, founder of the Wainscott plunge and owner of the Seafood Shop on Montauk Highway, said the plunge has benefited a variety of causes over the years. This year, the donations will help one of his employees who has been diagnosed with cancer. Donations are also being accepted at the store.

Mr. Ryan, like his friend Mr. Mather, has participated since the East Hampton events started in 1999.

“Tips?” Mr. Ryan said. “Sure. Make sure you wear slippers, because the lone big problem is the cold sand that can hurt your feet, so I have my Crocs I can slide on and off — zip, bam, boom. After that? Bring a bathrobe. And a towel. And then I recommend you just run out to at least knee-high water before you turn around. And fall down.”

“Then, of course, the ocean rescue lifeguards are there to help you get up. Because at my age, I need help getting up.”

Most plungers cannot tell a lie about what it feels like once you’re in the water: It’s numbing, trending toward painful, they say, laughing. Last year was arguably the most daunting plunge on record, with an air temperature of 18 degrees and a water temp of 37 degrees as well as biting winds. It also happened to be the first year the Rev. Ryan Creamer of Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in East Hampton had chosen for his maiden dip. 

“I did jump all the way in — I even swam around and did the backstroke a little bit,” Mr. Creamer recalled. “Then I thought, ‘Okay. That’s enough.’ I think it was the Holy Spirit telling me, ‘Get out.’ ”

Even Mr. Mather, who believes in the restorative power of very cold showers so much he says he takes one 365 days a year, said, “Last year was so cold it felt like a bed of nails. But that’s rare. What I like to tell new people just before they’re about to go in is, ‘You’ll go in the water a man. And come out a woman.’ ” “And you know what I’m talking about.”

The Wainscott plunge typically draws 75 to 100 people. Participants can join Mr. Mather outside his shop at 2 p.m. for a 1.6-mile jog to the Beach Lane site. At 2:30, everyone hits the surf. Food, hot drinks, and soup are also there, as is a registration table.

Last year Mr. Mather said he was stunned as he left the frigid water when a man in “this big Eskimo coat and hood” ran up and clamped him in a bear hug, then held on, bobbing up and down in place and “yelling — excuse my language — ‘Oh my God! Oh my God! That is f—-ing amazing! That is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen! I’m going to  buy all my fish from you! Forever!’ ”

“When he pulled off the hood,” Mr. Mather said, “I saw it was Alec Baldwin. Only the funniest guy in the world. A guy who has taken the plunge with us a couple times before.”

How did those other years go? “He brought his wife one time, and I think she was pregnant,” Mr. Mather said. “As Alec was taking everything off and preparing to run in, she was looking at him like, ‘You better not leave our child fatherless.’ ”

Mr. Mather laughed again. He again insisted the anticipation is the biggest hurdle. And Ms. Tulp seconded that, adding, just don’t forget to have your car on, heater running.

“It’s really not that bad,” she said, “and when you’re done, you feel like you’ve accomplished something big the rest of the day. And you’ve helped a good cause.”

Frank Newbold, the chairman of the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals, who has said his 15 years on the board provided him with a front-row seat to East Hampton’s evolution, announced his resignation at a Z.B.A. meeting on Friday.

Appointed as an alternate member in 2003 and named chairman in 2013, Mr. Newbold offered a farewell address during the meeting, citing some fallacious reports in this newspaper in years gone by. “The early reports in The East Hampton Star in the 1880s that the railroad’s arrival had doomed us have proved premature,” he said as he extolled the village’s ability to adapt to change.

Over the years, he said the zoning board had grown increasingly concerned with the effect that construction and septic systems have on water quality and had tried to be consistent in a quest to protect empty parcels from being overdeveloped. “I think we’ve got a pretty clear track record that when it’s a clean slate, and you’ve bought it under the current zoning, then you need to abide by that zoning.”

  “Houses I remember being built are now being torn down and bigger houses taking their place,” he said, with homeowners now far more exacting about the size of their parcels. 

“When I first started, it was much more casual,” he said. “People would say, ‘Oh the property line goes from the apple tree to the garage,’ and now property has become so expensive that people are conscious of every square inch.”

As a result, he said the zoning board had grown in importance. Prior to meetings, board members pore over stacks of paperwork, he said, and applicants are more likely to have attorneys plead their cases. Even the general public is more tuned in to the board, Mr. Newbold said. “It’s amazing how many people watch it on LTV and come up to me with a jabbing finger and say, ‘You tell that lawyer blah blah blah,’ and I’m, like, ‘Thank you for caring.’ ”

Mr. Newbold credited the village board with tightening the zoning code, but said people often tried to find ways around it. “They’ll say, ‘Oh there’s a loophole, let’s drive a truck through that.’ ” 

 He also described basements being transformed into massive spaces featuring everything from wine cellars to a dog-washing station, calling it a recent trend. 

“People wanted to make the basement bigger than the house — take it out to the actual property line, so the village had to pass a rule limiting it to the footprint of the house,” he said. 

Then there was an applicant who wanted to dig two stories deep in order to build a squash court under a garage. “There was nothing in the code, so the village had to play a little catch-up,” he said. 

Mr. Newbold, who is also a manager with Sotheby’s International Realty, said he planned to scale back his professional life, spend more time visiting family in Southern California, stay at his house in Palm Springs, and do more traveling.

Weighing in this week on Mr. Newbold’s departure, Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. said, “We could not have asked for someone more knowledgeable, who has compassion and delivered the right product.”

This portrait of Mary Scott Moran (later known as Mary Moran Tassin) was sketched by her uncle, Stephen James Ferris. The image is inscribed “Uncle Ferris, Christmas 1880, To Mary Moran,” suggesting it may have been given as a Christmas gift or was a portrait undertaken during a holiday gathering. Mary was born in 1868 to the East Hampton artists Thomas and Mary Nimmo Moran and would have been about 12 years old in this picture.

The artist, Stephen Ferris, was married to Thomas Moran’s sister Elizabeth and lived in Philadelphia. Like Thomas Moran, he studied etching in Philadelphia with the engraver and printer John Sartain. Ferris taught art at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women for 26 years and was particularly known for his etchings of portraits and figures.

Much of the information we have on Mary Scott Moran Tassin is through the moments she shared with her more famous family members. For example, we know she and her sister, Ruth B. Moran, accompanied their father to the Grand Canyon around 1910, because we have a photograph of the sisters with Thomas Moran.

The East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection holds a few local sketches Mary Scott Moran Tassin made, and she clearly had artistic talents. In 1895, Mary married Wirt de Vivier Tassin, a prominent metallurgist, geologist, and chemist, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in East Hampton. Wirt worked for the United States Geological Survey, the United States Navy Yard, and the United States National Museum (now the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History) and later for the United States Navy Yard. The Tassins would live in Washington, D.C., following their marriage. When Wirt died in 1915, Mary chose to remain in Washington. However, when Mary died in 1955, she was buried in East Hampton with her siblings and parents. Following her death, many of her father’s materials were given to the East Hampton Library in what is now known as the Thomas Moran Biographical Art Collection.

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Andrea Meyer is a librarian and archivist in the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection.

A group of Montauk residents who are weary and fed up with the persistent mail and package delivery problems that have plagued the hamlet for two years reached out to Representative Lee Zeldin last week, hoping he could accomplish the corrective action they have been unable to effect themselves. On Tuesday, Mr. Zeldin promised to look into the matter.

Sally Ann Stork, a Montauk resident, was one of the first disgruntled mail customers who contacted Mr. Zeldin’s office last week with a formal complaint. Other Montaukers, including Wayne Schoenbrun and Melissa Berman, said they also sought to speak with his staff this week to ask for an investigation. Like them, numerous residents have told The Star that calls to the Montauk postmaster and personal visits to the branch have gone for naught.

“We’ve attempted to work with the local office over and over to no avail — that’s a nonstarter,” Mr. Schoenbrun said. “Now we need to go up the chain. We’re not blaming the individuals in the office. Any of them. They’re dealt a hand. That said, the problem still exists, and if they can’t fix it, we’ve got to go higher. Because it’s been pretty bad here for a while.”

Some residents say they get mail deliveries three or four out of the possible six days a week. Others say mail and packages go missing, mail is routinely delivered late in the evening or to the wrong address, and packages arrive late or damaged, if at all. 

Ms. Berman, who works in advertising, said she gets notifications that packages have arrived but often has to visit the post office two or three times before they are located. “They tell me they haven’t had time to sort the packages yet,” she said. Businesspeople in Montauk say they have not gotten time-sensitive payments or merchandise on time. Folks with medical issues also report not getting expected deliveries on schedule.

“When I heard some people weren’t getting their medication, that’s when I really thought ‘This needs to be fixed already — imagine the stress on those people,’ ” Ms. Berman said. “The problems are the talk of the town when you’re in line at the post office. In the summer, it really spiraled out of control. But it’s still bad,” she said. “I feel sorry for the workers there sometimes. You literally want to just jump over the counter and give them a hug. They’re so overloaded.”

Ms. Berman, like many Montauk residents, traces the delivery problems to the Postal Service’s agreeing to make Amazon deliveries a couple of years ago. As a result, Montauk simply doesn’t have the space or staffing to handle the added volume and work, and the retirement of four veteran postal workers also hurt. The Montauk office has had three new postmasters in the last year as well.

 Richard Brown, a retired mail carrier, said in an interview last week that the branch is short-staffed and new staffers are not adequately trained. 

“They’re thrown to the wolves,” he said.

“That just goes to show you the dysfunction,” Ms. Stork said. She said she took it upon herself to try to contact Mr. Zeldin last week because she was tired of the problems. In her opinion, politicians “very rarely come out here” unless “it’s to put up ‘I love New York’ signs.”

“So people should call them. Email. Fax letters back,” Ms. Stork said. “It does help.”

The statement Mr. Zeldin issued on Tuesday read: “The U.S. Postal Service provides a vital service to Long Islanders, especially those who live in less accessible areas, such as Montauk, that cannot rely as much on private shipping and postal companies. My office will be meeting with the U.S.P.S. Long Island regional office to ensure all of my constituents are receiving the postal services they need.”

Katie Vincentz, a member of Mr. Zeldin’s staff, stressed via email that Mr. Zeldin’s office had been contacted for the first time on this issue “less than a week ago.” She added that Mr. Zeldin’s constituents can contact the congressman’s district office in Patchogue, 631-289-1097, or East End office in Riverhead, 631-209-4235, and if they’re requesting that the congressman reach out to a federal agency such as the Postal Service, they can start the process by filling out a Privacy Release Form. 

The form and details about the process can be found online at zeldin.house.gov/services/help-with-a-federal-agency. William Doyle is Mr. Zeldin’s director of constituent services.

An application from the Jewish Center of the Hamptons for variances and permission to convert a garage into classrooms and legalize existing accessory structures, including a shed and a tent, was discussed at the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals meeting on Friday. 

Since the center is a religious institution, the Z.B.A. is required by the village code to grant a special permit to allow the extension or alteration of structures although the specifics are subject to review. Approval is also required by the design review board.

Andrew Goldstein, a lawyer representing the center, addressed the tent first, saying he had submitted an affidavit from Rabbi-Cantor Debra Stein stating the tent was there when she came to the Jewish Center in the early 1980s. Mr. Goldstein said the tent therefore predates the village law that limits the use of outdoor tents to 21 days a year. 

The 198-square-foot shed, which is used for storage and a workshop for a caretaker, is within five feet of the garage, a violation of the building code. To rectify that, Mr. Goldstein said, the center plans to attach the shed to the garage, thereby creating a 1,233-square-foot space for four Sunday school classrooms. Accessory structures are limited, however, to one room with a maximum gross floor area of 250 square feet. “Even I, in my boundless creativity, cannot make that an insubstantial variance,” Mr. Goldstein said. 

The new building would also require a coverage variance. The legal notice for the hearing stated that overall coverage would be 29,452 square feet, where the allowable amount is 21,064. Mr. Goldstein said the figures were misleading because more than 28,000 square feet of coverage was from pre-existing, non-conforming structures. 

“The overarching consideration is the religious use,” Mr. Goldstein said. The center’s requests, he said, were well within the precedent set by the board for additional structures used for religious purposes.

Frank Newbold, the chairman of the Z.B.A., inquired about how the center uses the tent. “After services it’s a place to congregate and have an informal libation, and usually pound cake and honey,” Mr. Goldstein said.

Lys Marigold, the Z.B.A. vice chairwoman, noted that the funeral for Jeff Salaway, the founder of Nick and Toni’s restaurant, had been held under a tent in 2001. “That could be,” Mr. Goldstein said, adding that a tent also might serve as a huppah for wedding ceremonies. 

“As you know we’ve had a lot of discussions about weddings under tents,” Mr. Newbold noted, referring to the recent Code Enforcement Department decision denying the Hedges Inn the right to hold outdoor special events. The hearing was closed after two neighbors raised concerns. 

Also on Friday, the board announced six decisions on earlier applications, including the Hedges Inn’s appeal of the code enforcement decision. 

John and Mary Pizzo, the owners of 37 Church Street, were denied area variances to construct a detached garage four feet from the rear lot line and four feet from the side lot line, where the required setbacks are 10 feet. A variance to permit a second curb cut, where one is permitted, also was denied. 

Clifford Ross, the owner of 47 and 41 Cove Hollow Farm Road, was granted a freshwater wetlands permit to remove phragmites and other nonnative plants from wetlands and adjacent areas by cutting and digging with hand-held equipment in compliance with a plan presented by B. Horwith on June 27, 2018. The permit was granted on the condition that Mr. Ross notifies the Code Enforcement Department two days before the work commences and two days after it is completed. 

The Kenneth Brown Irrevocable Trust and the Linda Brown Irrevocable Trust, the owners of 92 Meadow Way, were granted variances of 13.8 feet and 6 feet to legalize a shed that is 1.2 feet from the rear lot line and 9 feet from the side lot line; variances of 8.8 feet and 8 feet to legalize an addition to a shed that is 6.2 feet and 7 feet from the side lot lines; variances of 11.5 feet and 15 feet to legalize a brick patio that is 11.5 feet from the side lot lines, and variances of 10 feet and 9 feet to legalize two air-conditioning condensers 5 feet and 6 feet from the side lot line, where the required rear and side-yard setbacks are 15 feet. 

Michael DeFlorio, who plans to merge 18 and 30 Buell Lane, was granted a 397-square-foot variance to allow additions to an existing one-family house on the property, resulting in a residence with 7,908 square feet of gross floor area, where the maximum is 7,511 square feet; a 7-foot variance to legalize a patio 13 feet from the rear lot line, where the required setback is 20 feet, and a variance of 1 foot 11 inches to allow the roof to be 26 feet 11 inches high,

The summer rental of a coveted 613-square foot, one-bedroom, one-bath cottage at East Hampton Village Main Beach will be auctioned to the highest bidder next month, East Hampton Village officials announced last Thursday. The building is one of 13 Sea Spray Cottages — and a house built in the late 19th century on Main Street and moved to the beach for use as an inn. The house was destroyed by fire in 1978. 

Sealed bids will be received through 2 p.m. on Jan. 15 for number 14, a stand-alone cottage nestled behind trees and a fence just south of the Main Beach main parking lot. It apparently was cited as number 14 for reasons of superstition. The rental is from May 10 through Sept. 15. 

The village bought the cottages and the 16-acre property on which they sit, which abuts Hook Pond, for just over $1.3 million in December 1978.   

In 2010, the village held an auction for three-year leases for each of the cottages, which set a competitive rental rate. Since then the leases have been renewed‚ with an annual increase of 3 percent, until a tenant decides to leave, after which the property goes back on the auction block.

“The village feels that it is important to taxpayers to ensure that leases are getting the highest market value, which is why they are bid,” the village administrator, Becky Molinaro Hansen, said on Friday. 

The cottages differ in size, vistas (some have views of the ocean and the pond), and privacy (some are attached), and their rental rates reflect their desirability. Last year’s leases, Ms. Hansen said, ranged from just over $62,000 to nearly $129,000.

Inspection of the cottage is by appointment. Information and documents for bid submission can be obtained by writing the village‚ 86 Main Street, or by e-mailing [email protected].

Henry P. Dering, Sag Harbor’s postmaster, politician, and customs collector, carried on prolific correspondence with many of his relatives, including his cousin Charles Storer of Hingham, Mass. The letter seen here, from Storer to Dering and dated Dec. 5, 1821, is from a period when the two men wrote to each other once a week. Despite his weekly efforts, Storer realized that the mail service’s delays and interruptions would eventually result in multiple weeks’ worth of letters arriving all at once.

In their correspondence, Dering and Storer regularly discussed political news. As part of this, they shared letters from mutual friends, a common practice before more reliable access to news, and in his Dec. 5 letter Storer mentions one, referring to the “Sovereign People” and the still-new democracy, agreeing that they “may need a little more restraint — they are a many headed monster.”

Storer’s letter captures the period’s divisive and uncertain politics, which may feel familiar today. The phrase “sovereign people” speaks to the radical experiment of democracy and the doubts many Americans experienced as the Revolutionary War’s founding generation passed on. At this time, the Constitution was barely 30 years old, and the Industrial Revolution’s changes only added to the bitter divides and political rancor over issues like slavery and westward expansion.

Storer wraps up by asking after “your Canal,” meaning the Erie Canal, which was under construction at the time. The canal itself was part of the changes shaping the country at this point, and it would be important for industrialization, connecting western New York to the Eastern Seaboard. Storer reported hearing that the project was almost finished and asked whether it was funded by “Individual or State Speculation,” using what was then a term for investors.

The Erie Canal would finally be completed in 1825, although portions began to open in 1819.

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Andrea Meyer is a librarian and archivist in the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection.

“An extraordinary site deserves extraordinary care.” That was how Randy Parsons, a member of the East Hampton Town Planning Board, summed up his opposition to plans for the subdivision of the 41-acre Schwenk parcel on Montauk Highway in Sagaponack, one of the South Fork’s most high-profile farmland vistas, during a Sagaponack Village Board public hearing on Monday. 

Mr. Parsons said he was not speaking in an official capacity but his comments reflected an informal consensus among planning board members, who intended to issue a formal statement after discussing the subdivision at its meeting last night.  

Mr. Parsons was the only person at the hearing to speak negatively.  Sagaponack Village Mayor Donald Louchheim granted a request from East Hampton Town to allow a 10-day period for written comments.

Kenneth Schwenk and his family seek to develop nine house lots clustered in the southwest corner of the property, which would also contain nearly 27 acres of agricultural reserve. Eight of the lots would be approximately 53,000 square feet, with one more than 56,000 square feet. Mr. Schwenk’s existing house and accessory structures would remain on their 55,000-square-foot lot at the north end of the parcel. The site map for the project, which is called Meadowmere, includes a proposed road for access from Montauk Highway and a 50,000-square-foot area that could be used for agricultural structures.

State law mandates that Sagaponack Village provide the town with an opportunity to weigh in on the subdivision because the land is within 500 feet of the East Hampton border.

However, on Monday, Mr. Schwenk and Alice Cooley, his lawyer, disagreed with this measurement. Ms. Cooley presented the board with a survey that she said showed the town border nearly 600 feet away, a distance that would not require the village to notify the neighboring municipality and would not afford special status to East Hampton Town opinion. 

That opinion has been decidedly negative since the planning board first saw the Meadowmere site map earlier this year. At a March 14 meeting, Job Potter, the planning board chairman, called the proposal an “ugly subdivision of farmland,” and the board urged Sagaponack Village to find ways to stop the development, suggesting that community preservation fund money be used.

In his statement at the hearing, Mr. Parsons, calling the property “the last piece of preserved working farmland and scenic open space on Montauk ­Highway,” also suggested using C.P.F. money to buy the property although he said there were several other ways for Sagaponack to curtail its development.

Mr. Schwenk had previously dismissed the idea of selling the land and after the public hearing said he remained determined to maintain ownership because land, unlike money, appreciates in value.

Marguerite Wolffsohn, the East Hampton Town planning director, said on Tuesday that she expected, after the planning board discussed the subdivision on Wednesday, that its assessment would be just as negative as it was in March, and that it would quickly inform Sagaponack of its disapproval.

Mayor Louchheim said that once the comment period ended, the village’s planner would present the board with a pre-application report on the subdivision, which the board would have to adopt for it to move forward.

The East Hampton Village Board is getting ready to require updated wastewater treatment systems for all new residences and for existing ones that expand their floor area by 25 percent or increase the number of bedrooms. Board members, at a meeting last Thursday, also said they would soon consider making the replacement of failing residential systems a requirement. 

Before the discussion began, Billy Hajek, the village planner and a member of the East Hampton Town water quality advisory committee, summarized the latest revisions of the proposed village law, which now require a property owner to obtain a building permit prior to installing an advanced system and allow code enforcement officers to request a monitoring report to ensure systems were functioning properly.

The law provides that a property owner could be exempted from the mandate by receiving a variance from the zoning board of appeals. Variances would require “good cause,” which is defined as being unable to install an advanced system due to a property’s physical limitations. 

Kevin McDonald, conservation project manager for the Nature Conservancy, thanked the board for recognizing that faulty septic systems were contaminating ground and surface water, calling them just a “slight improvement over Roman technology.”

 Having attended a recent meeting of Suffolk County officials, Mr. McDonald said he was optimistic that the Legislature would soon pass a law increasing the financial assistance available for the installation of advanced systems. Homeowners, who now can receive up to $11,000 from the county, may soon be eligible for up to $20,000, he said. The county lists the  “average”  total cost for improved systems, including engineering, at a little more than $19,000. East Hampton Town also offers  residents up to $16,000 in incentives. 

Another vote of support for the proposed law came from Larry Cantwell, a former East Hampton Town supervisor who previously was the village administrator. He praised the board for going beyond the town’s septic law by requiring upgraded systems for houses that undergo 25 percent expansion, versus the town’s 50 percent. 

Mr. Cantwell also made one recommendation, suggesting the village require those who replace failing septic systems install those that are advanced. “Don’t see it as an expenditure for the homeowner because, to a large extent, it will be funded by the town and county’s programs,” he said. 

In previous meetings, the board had decided to exempt residences with suddenly failing systems for fear that the county’s cumbersome permitting process for advanced systems would leave owners unable to live in their homes for extended periods. 

Mr. McDonald said the county was looking for a way to issue emergency permits that would allow approval within a day. “They realized that somebody with a failed system is a readymade customer” for an upgrade, he said.  

Rose Brown, a village trustee, said on Tuesday that she was eager to add failing systems to the scope of the law, but that county officials had said  a process to expedite permits for them would not be achievable in the near future. She said the village planned to move ahead with the existing provisions and would add an amendment that applied to failed systems as soon as possible. 

In other business, the board appointed Ken Wessberg, a former East Hampton Fire Department chief, to the planning board. Mr. Wessberg’s father had served as the village’s mayor.