The marches and rallies that have sprung up since Donald J. Trump was elected president have brought together disaffected Americans who in the past would have been called liberal thinkers and who for the most part have supported movements for marriage equality, women’s rights, gay rights, and L.G.B.T.Q. rights.

In East Hampton on Saturday a lesser-known movement for a Third Reconstruction was advocated by the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber of North Carolina, who in impassioned oratory called for “an understandable moral agenda” fusing with the Poor People’s Campaign, which the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. initiated in 1968. 

“The Third Reconstruction: How a Moral Movement Is Overcoming the Politics of Division and Fear” is the title of Dr. Barber’s book, copies of which were sold on Saturday at a political gathering in Northwest Woods during a program that included upbeat singing by the Thunderbird Singers of the Shinnecock Indian Nation and a talk and performance by Peter Yarrow, of Peter, Paul, and Mary fame. Before the afternoon was over, partygoers joined him, singing “If I Had a Hammer.”

Dr. Barber is an activist preacher who is said to be walking in Dr. King’s shoes; his speech made that clear. He spoke with passion and at times anger, modulating his emotional voice from soft to loud as he called health care a right and decried poverty and war. His overall message was that right and left, black and white had to come together to create another Reconstruction.

Dr. Barber had a wide focus on this country’s ills and pulled no punches about what he said was “systemic racism.” Every country the United States has fought in the last decades is brown, black, and Muslim, he said. As for the federal policy that separated children from parents, which he called “hijacking,” he said, “Those are not children. They are brown children.”

Given that the First Reconstruction followed the Civil War and that the civil rights movement of the 1960s and ’70s is considered the Second Reconstruction, announcing that a Third Reconstruction is already underway seemed to be news, although in Washington, at the National Museum of African-American History and Culture, a new exhibition is titled “City of Hope: Reconstruction City and the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign.” 

In East Hampton, Dr. Barber, a religious man, said there was no messiah. “We have to do it ourselves. Get your boots on.”

Barbara Layton, the East Hampton woman who put Saturday’s program together, had brought Dr. Barber here. She drew a local and second-home crowd by reaching out to various churches and groups and Lucius Ware of the eastern Long Island branch of the N.A.A.C.P. She also called on Julie Ratner to be host. Ms. Layton had worked for a number of causes in the past, she said, but would now concentrate on bringing people together. 

“We have to step out of all our individual distinct silos,” she said. “The work is just beginning. It’s time for a brand-new story.”

’Tis the season to construct a swimming pool, if the applications before the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals on Friday are any indication. 

Alas, ’tis always the season of quarreling neighbors, often about encroachments, real or imagined, upon the peaceful enjoyment of one’s property. And while good fences may make good neighbors, a dispute played out on Friday among three neighbors over a proposed pool house for a theoretical swimming pool, and a similarly theoretical fence to shield noise from the proposed pool house. 

An application from Nonsuch Productions Ltd. of 75 Mill Hill Lane, signed by David Benevides, saw a presentation by an architect, objection from an attorney representing one neighbor, complaint from another neighbor, and exasperated protest by Georgia Benevides, who said she represented Nonsuch. 

The application is to install a pool house within a garage. The pre-existing nonconforming structure falls within the side and rear-yard setbacks on the 0.28-acre lot. The 155-square-foot pool house would feature a toilet and sink, and requires approval of the Suffolk County Health Department.

At present, there is no application for a swimming pool, said Nicole Adams, the architect. The garage is “a charming little accessory building for a small car,” she said. “The main idea is to have a bathroom there for people coming back from the beach. Hopefully a pool in the future.” 

  Andrew Goldstein, an attorney, said that he was representing the neighbor at 10 Borden Lane, directly south of the property. “I think the neighbor would be content with the grant of the variance if it could be conditioned upon the installation of a stockade fence on the property line of the applicant,” he said. “It gives the neighbor adequate protection from any noise.”

Then Virginia Coleman of 69 Mill Hill Lane spoke. “The garage is next to the bedrooms in my house,” she said. “So noise is of a concern.” 

The most recent survey shows a wood fence on the property line, Frank Newbold, the board’s chairman, said to Ms. Coleman. 

“There is,” she said, “but I’m taking it down” as it is “no good anymore” and not a stockade fence. 

Ms. Benevides then spoke. “Her pool equipment is on the other side of the fence,” she said of Ms. Coleman. “And plus,” she said, turning to her neighbor, “your fence is falling down.” 

No, it isn’t, Ms. Coleman said. 

“I’m assuming all this is for me to build a new fence,” Ms. Benevides said. She installed a pool fence “because we don’t know when we’ll build a pool but I wanted to do it so I could plant the vegetation,” she said. The neighbor at 10 Borden Lane has a pool but “did not have a pool fence to code. We had to put in a fence because we sometimes have small children at the house, so they won’t go into his pool.” 

She installed a fence and planted vegetation at significant cost, she said. “Then I get this phone call, they don’t like the fence I put in.” She said that she had agreed to install sound-attenuating material on her fence. “Mr. Goldstein first said that was okay, but I said I also want to put it in from his side because I don’t want to damage all my plants, because on their side, they don’t have proper landscaping, just wildwoods.” 

Now, Ms. Benevides complained, Mr. Goldstein “wants me to build a really expensive fence there that’s going to destroy everything. And now this is new,” she said of Ms. Coleman’s complaint. “All I want is a bathroom! I didn’t even want a pool house! I just wanted a bathroom so the kids coming back from the beach would not go through my house.” 

“There is the potential for neighbor detriment,” Mr. Goldstein said, and a stockade fence with sound-attenuating material would mitigate potential noise. “There is a pool fence on this property now. Secondly, it’s their fence, and they should put it up if they want a variance for something that is a noise producer.” That’s why the zoning code requires setbacks, he said. 

Mr. Newbold agreed that setbacks exist to protect neighbors from noise. “It sounds like there have been discussions, but the discussions haven’t reached a resolution,” he said. “Perhaps the wisest thing this morning would be to leave the hearing open, where the three parties can discuss further and come to a proposal.”

The existing fence was costly, Ms. Benevides said. “These guys are asking me to pay, without them contributing, to basically build a new fence for the two of them. . . . It’s going to benefit them, because she’ll take down her fence that’s falling down anyway and get a new pool fence, courtesy of me, and his fence is not to code.”

When the quarreling had subsided, John McGuirk of the board spoke. “I still don’t know what noise is going to come out of a pool house,” he said. 

“What we are talking about,” Mr. Newbold said, “is the disagreement between neighbors of what the appropriate mitigation should be.” 

“Right,” said Lys Marigold, the board’s vice chairwoman. “It’s a neighbor thing.” Mr. Newbold asked the neighbors to discuss the matter further and try to reach a consensus. 

“It just seems ridiculous,” Ms. Benevides said. “I’m not asking for very much. They’re asking for a lot.” 

Be that as it may, “discussion might be fruitful between the neighbors,” Mr. Newbold answered. The hearing was left open and will be revisited on Aug. 10.

Another hearing for a swimming pool, for Brian Bigos of 20 Stratton Square, featured little drama despite the lot’s being just .2 acres. This proposed 12-by-20-foot pool and ancillary equipment would also fall within side and rear-yard setbacks, and the applicant would require a lot-coverage variance. 

But here, the proposed structures would be far from the sole adjacent neighbor, who has submitted a letter supporting the application, said Laurie Wiltshire, representing the applicant. The property abuts vacant land to the southeast and a parking lot to the southwest, she said, and the backyard is already well screened. 

But the owner purchased the property just two years ago and knew that constructing a pool would be difficult given the setback requirements, Mr. Newbold said, and the variances requested are significant. 

“Because of this hot spell,” Ms. Marigold said, “we’ve been granting pools on small lots recently.” 

“Is that why?” Mr. Newbold asked. “We need to talk,” he said, drawing laughter from those assembled. 

To Ms. Wiltshire, he said that the board is sympathetic “because it is a very tight little puzzle, but the amount of variances requested are huge.” He asked that the applicant rethink the plans in order to reduce the number of requested variances, to which she agreed. The hearing was left open and is to be revisited on Aug. 10. 

Several determinations were announced at the meeting. Greg Blatt was granted a wetlands permit and variances to modify plans for a proposed swimming pool, pool house, and fencing at 14 Hook Pond Lane. The pool and pool house are to be constructed within the side-yard setback, fencing and stairs are to be installed within the wetlands setback, and a generator is to be installed within the front-yard setback. The variances were granted on the condition that the generator is sunk below grade and has a soundproof barrier installed around it. 

The board granted Gusty Folks variances allowing the construction of a swimming pool within the side and rear-yard lot lines at 7 Pleasant Lane. 

The Ellin Saltzman Family Trust’s application to alter the design of a new pool house, for which the board granted variance relief in 2017 but has yet to be constructed, and of a patio at 20 Spaeth Lane was granted on the condition that there be no cooking or sleeping in the pool house. Prior to issuance of a certificate of occupancy the applicant must record a covenant in the county clerk’s office to that effect. 

The board granted Michael Smith variances allowing 21,275 feet of coverage, where the maximum permitted at 93 Lily Pond Lane is 18,757 square feet, and for a shed to remain within the front and side-yard setbacks. The variance relief was granted on the condition that seasonal storage containers are removed.

Terri Rauch was granted variances to permit 2,345 square feet of coverage at 29 McGuirk Street, where the maximum permitted is 2,181 square feet, and to permit a patio and stairs to remain on the side lot line, where the required setback is 10 feet. 

Freshwater wetlands permits were granted to companion applications by members of the Tiedemann family at the adjacent parcels at 19 and 23 Chauncey Close to legalize the mowing and removal of vegetation within 125 feet of wetlands associated with Georgica Pond and the replanting of native vegetation. The permits were granted on condition that a wetlands buffer plan by Inter-Science Research Associates is implemented. 

Last, an April determination regarding the Creeks, the billionaire investor Ron Perelman’s nearly 58-acre estate at 291 Montauk Highway, was modified to allow existing lighting on six sculptures to remain. Mr. Newbold said that the board had received a letter from the Dark Sky Society, which fights light pollution, asking that the owner or manager of the property be reminded to shut off lighting whenever possible. 

“I’m sure it will be appreciated by all creatures, great and small,” he read. “The darker the sky, the brighter the stars.”

Item of the Week

From the East Hampton Library

Long Island Collection

Aside from its collection of historical materials, the Long Island Collection possesses quite a bit of literature by Long Island authors. The portrait at right is of George Sterling, a poet and playwright who was recognized in the San Francisco Bay Area as one of the greatest American poets of the early 20th century.

Born in Sag Harbor on Dec. 1, 1869, Sterling was the first of nine children of Dr. George A. Sterling, the village physician, and Mary Parker Havens Sterling. On his mother’s side, the Havens family was prominent in Sag Harbor and on Shelter Island, and his grandfather Capt. Wickham Havens was a whaler and master of the ship Thomas Dickinson. Sterling’s uncle was Frank C. Havens, who would come to have a big influence on his nephew’s life.

After graduating from the Union School in Sag Harbor, Sterling attended St. Charles College in Maryland, after which his father hoped he would enter the priesthood. Sterling, however, eventually followed his uncle to San Francisco, where Havens had established himself as a successful lawyer and real estate developer. 

While working as a clerk in his uncle’s real estate office in Oakland, in 1903 Sterling published a small volume of poetry titled “The Testimony of the Suns, and Other Poems” and quickly gained notoriety among the artists and writers there. It was shortly afterward that the portrait at left was taken by the photographer Arnold Genthe, known for his images of San Francisco’s Chinatown, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and various notable figures.

Between 1903 and his death in 1926, Sterling would go on to write 12 volumes of lyric poetry and five volumes of dramatic poetry. His best-known work was “A Wine of Wizardry.” Despite his successes, Sterling never became well known outside California, but it is important to remember this Long Island poet.

Gina Piastuck is the department head of the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection.

The Rev. Dr. William Barber, a minister and civil rights leader from North Carolina who is president of the nonprofit Repairers of the Breach, will be the guest of honor at a fund-raiser for that organization on Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m. in East Hampton. 

Dr. Barber, whom Cornel West described as “the closest person we have to Martin Luther King Jr. in our midst,” last year helped found the Poor People’s Campaign to carry on Dr. King’s mission to fight urban poverty. 

“We are being called, like our foremothers and fathers, to be the moral defibrillators of our time,” Dr. Barber said in his speech at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. He has taken up that call himself through his work in and out of the pulpit. 

Repairers of the Breach, a nonpartisan group, organizes, trains, and works with “a diverse school of prophets from every U.S. state and the District of Columbia who are rebuilding, raising up, and repairing the moral infrastructure of our country,” according to its website. “We declare that the moral public concerns of our faith traditions are how our society treats the poor, women, L.G.B.T.Q. people, children, workers, immigrants, communities of color, and the sick. Our deepest moral traditions point to equal protection under the law, the desire for peace within and among nations, the dignity of all people, and the responsibility to care for our common home.”

Barbara Layton, Patti Kenner, Julie Ratner, and Sam Eskenazi are organizing Saturday’s fund-raiser, which will also include music by Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul, and Mary, and the Thunderbird Sisters of the Shinnecock Nation. Tickets, which can be reserved by calling Ms. Layton at her East Hampton restaurant, Babette’s, start at $50. The address of the gathering will be provided upon reserving a spot.

 A small procession of people, some wearing stickers that read “Protect the Long Pond Greenbelt,” voiced concern at a Sag Harbor Village Board public hearing on Tuesday evening about the board’s proposed use of a 24-acre site off the Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike as an impound yard for vehicles seized by its Police Department. 

A site plan for the impound yard, which is in Southampton, had been approved by that town’s planning board on June 28. At the meeting, Elizabeth Vail, a lawyer representing Sag Harbor, said the village was only offering Southampton a chance to weigh in on the proposal as a courtesy.

“Technically, I don’t even think we had to submit to site plan review,” she said, citing a legal standard referred to as a Monroe test, which grants municipalities immunity from the zoning restrictions of an “encroaching governmental unit” when factors such as the public interest are at stake. “This is for an important police municipal need,” Ms. Vail said. “It’s going to benefit the health, safety, and welfare of Sag Harbor.” 

“We were alerted in advance that the village intended to use the Monroe test if we were not inclined to grant site plan approval or imposed conditions which they considered too onerous,” Dennis Finnerty, the chairman of the planning board, said via email this week. The planning board’s lawyer had determined that the village plan would meet the criteria of the Monroe test, Mr. Finnerty said, leaving his board with two options: approve the site plan and apply reasonable conditions or have the plan withdrawn, which would allow Sag Harbor to build the facility with no oversight by Southampton Town. 

“The lawyer threatened that from the very first time we met with her,” Dai Dayton, the president of the Friends of the Long Pond Greenbelt, said. “We met with her and the mayor at the beginning of this. We thought once we made it obvious to them that this was going to affect the Long Pond Greenbelt, of course they would try to find another place for the impound yard, but that has not happened.”

The village plan calls for paving an 80-by-60-foot area for 20 parking spaces on an already-cleared part of the site. The conditions added by the planning board include the installation of a six-foot fence, the designation of a village employee to check on whether any impounded vehicles are leaking fluids, the addition of a bioswale to contain runoff from the paved lot, and a prohibition against adding lighting without prior approval.

 The lot, the board said, must also have mountable curbs, so that the eastern tiger salamander, an endangered species, can navigate through the area. The location of the lot would put it far enough away from the nearest salamander breeding pond to comply with State Department of Environmental Conservation regulations. 

The village had previously used the parcel to dump leaves gathered during seasonal cleanups. It also has allowed PSEG, the utility, to use the property as temporary parking for trucks, and Southampton Town leases another part of the property for its recycling center. The impound yard, Ms. Vail noted, would take up just four-tenths of a percent of the 24-acre site.

Prior to the planning board meeting, the Southampton Town Conservation Board had registered its objection to the proposal. In a June 13 letter to Mr. Finnerty, Harry S. Ludlow, the chairman of the conservation board, listed reasons why the impound yard would “pose an array of threats” to environmental health and drinking water. 

The property lies within a “critical environmental area” over the sole-source aquifer, he pointed out. The Environmental Protection Agency defines a sole-source aquifer as one that provides at least 50 percent of the drinking water for its service area and for which there are “no reasonably available alternative drinking water sources should the aquifer become contaminated.”

Mr. Ludlow suggested that the village find a “less environmentally sensitive” location for its impound yard. Ms. Dayton echoed that sentiment. “You can find any place that’s already paved to put an impound yard,” she said. “But you’re never going to get another Long Pond Greenbelt.” 

Even after giving the site plan approval, Mr. Finnerty said that he believes that more investigation into a different location is warranted. In fact, he offered some suggestions, such as the light industrial areas off Route 114 or around East Hampton Airport.

Mr. Finnerty also recommended that an engaged group of citizens “bring pressure to bear on the village trustees” before construction of the facility begins. 

Ms. Dayton had attended the meeting armed with more than 500 petitions signed by opponents of the proposal, as well as a series of letters written by State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., and representatives of the Nature Conservancy, the Group for the East End, and the Southampton Trails Preservation Society, all of whom wrote in support of safeguarding the greenbelt. 

After hearing from the public, Aidan Corish, one of the village trustees, said that while the village has a legitimate need to find space for a new impound yard, he, too, was hoping an alternative could be found. “Right now we have a problem that we need to solve, but I’m not convinced the Long Pond Greenbelt is the solution,” he said.

A recent study of the impact of sea level rise on coastal communities in the continental United States predicted that, by the year 2045, billions of dollars of East End real estate will be at risk of severe flooding. The report, conducted by the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit science-advocacy group, laid out a dire domino-effect of repercussions that could befall at-risk regions, envisioning “persistent high-tide flooding of homes, yards, roads, and business districts” that would lead to “effectively unlivable” neighborhoods. 

“The long-term risk of sea level rise has been flying under the radar and we wanted to make homeowners and communities aware of it,” said Kristina Dahl, a senior climate scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists. “We are also advocating for a change in policies at the local, state, and national levels.”

The authors of the report based their research on three sea level rise scenarios of varying degrees of severity that were developed for the federal government’s 2014 National Climate Assessment. They localized the data, including results from a 2017 survey of areas prone to chronic flooding, and applied property values amassed by Zillow, the online real estate database, to their findings. 

In Southampton Town, they found that, in the most extreme scenario — one that assumes a continued increase in carbon emissions, ongoing loss of the Antarctic ice sheet due to global warming, and sea level rise of two feet  — more than $3.5 billion worth of property would be in danger of chronic flooding by 2045. The real estate loss estimates in East Hampton Town, however, were, surprisingly, far lower, amounting to just over $2 million within the same time frame. 

Addressing the discrepancy, Ms. Dahl said that the group’s research found far fewer houses at risk in East Hampton Town than in Southampton Town, but she added that since the study was national in scope, errors in local home pricing or chronic flood risk were possible.  

The report’s projected amount of real estate loss in East Hampton Town seemed particularly egregious in comparison to a 2017 survey, conducted as part of the town’s coastal assessment resiliency plan, which foresaw much more high-value damage. In that study, a firm of engineers and scientists assessed the market value of East Hampton Town properties at risk from sea level rise and storm surges. Its findings showed that sea level rise will have a greater impact on bayside properties, including areas such as Accabonac Harbor, Northwest Harbor, and the north side of Lake Montauk. The estimated market value of real estate at risk along the shoreline of Gardiner’s Bay in Springs, for example, came to $538 million; for the north of Lake Montauk it was $493 million.

In terms of storm surge damage, the firm’s data showed that East Hampton Village and Napeague “have the highest exposed dollar value, both in the short term and over the next 50 to 60 years.” The value of such properties along the shore in East Hampton Village was estimated at $1.5 billion, and along Napeague it was $2.1 billion.

The analysis was based on projections adopted by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, which, using the most extreme forecast, estimated that sea level would rise two and a half feet by 2050 and six feet by 2100.  

Kim Shaw, the town’s director of natural resources, said that a second phase of the study will begin this fall. “We’ve retained another engineering firm to wrap up the rest of the report,” she said, adding that the town is pondering what code changes need to be made in order to mitigate damage from sea level rise. “We’re looking to other coast states to see how they’re dealing with the issue and what we can implement,” she said.

Earlier this year, the consultants who conducted the recent hamlet studies for East Hampton Town recommended that Montauk undergo a coastal retreat by relocating downtown shorefront businesses further inland.  

The report by the Union of Concerned Scientists warns that an increasing number of properties prone to chronic flooding could have a devastating effect on an at-risk region’s real estate market. A housing market crash could emerge, it says, and unlike with previous crashes, after which home prices ultimately rebounded, “properties chronically inundated by rising seas” will continue to decrease in value.

The availability of insurance currently provides a hedge against buying a house in danger of flooding. “I don’t think people are going to stop buying waterfront property as long as they get flood insurance,” said AnnMarie Pallister, vice president and East End liaison of the Long Island Board of Realtors, as well as an agent with Douglas Elliman.

Likewise, mortgage lenders rely on insurance to offset their risk.  “A mortgage company doesn’t care if you buy a house on the water or in the water as long as you’ve got flood insurance,” said William Wright, an owner of the Par East Mortgage Company. 

Ms. Dahl cautioned, however, that an increase in chronic flooding could lead to high-cost insurance premiums, and pointed out that the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which creates the maps on which flood insurance is based, is not currently providing home buyers with all the information they need to make a sound investment decision. “They’re not figuring sea level rise into their flood maps, which is very meaningful when you have a 30-year mortgage,” she said. 

Laying out the worst-case scenario for the housing market, the Union of Concerned Scientists’ study posits that as chronic flooding worsens, “homeowners will begin to find themselves with mortgages that exceed the value of their homes.” Finding themselves stuck with houses that are unlivable and difficult to insure, it says, could lead owners to simply abandon the houses. 

Even those who are not homeowners could be affected by the crisis, the report states, as a diminishing property tax base could lead to a reduction in funding for a community’s public schools, emergency services, and infrastructure repair. 

In addition to raising awareness, “we’re encouraging people to put pressure on elected officials to get FEMA to update the flood insurance maps to incorporate sea level rise,” said Ms. Dahl. “When the risks are known, communities can have conversations about their options and what it means to live on the water.”

Rose Brown and Arthur Graham, who received the most votes in the June 19 election for two seats on the East Hampton Village Board, were sworn in at the board’s organizational meeting on Tuesday. Ms. Brown is a newcomer to the position, while Mr. Graham was re-elected after serving the final year of the late Elbert Edwards’s term.  

Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. paid tribute to the pair, noting that it would be Mr. Graham’s first four-year term, and welcoming Ms. Brown. “Rose is a very pretty addition to the board of trustees,” he said, telling her, “I think you’re going to find it exciting and challenging.”

The mayor also praised Bruce Siska, the former trustee who had been on the board for 11 years, including as deputy mayor since 2016, before losing a re-election bid. “We wish Bruce the very best and thank him for his service,” the mayor said. 

One of the first orders of business at the meeting was the appointment of Richard Lawler, a trustee since 2008, as the new deputy mayor. The board accepted Ms. Brown’s resignation as a member of the design review board, but did not announce who would take her place. The heads and members of the design review board, the zoning board of appeals, and the planning and ethics boards were reappointed. 

Michael Bouker, the deputy superintendent of public works, provided the trustees with a report on the village’s status relating to a state and federally mandated program governing stormwater runoff into separate sewer systems (known as MS4s). To prevent harmful pollutants, such as fertilizers, toxic chemicals, bacteria, and debris, from flowing into these systems, as well as into nearby bodies of water, municipalities are required to develop a stormwater management program. 

Mr. Bouker said the village was in compliance with the requirements, which include controlling stormwater runoff from construction sites, identifying and eliminating illicit discharges from storm drains into water bodies, and providing filtration systems that restrict or eliminate pathogens from entering the water. The requirements also include public education. 

The State Department of Environmental Conservation is developing new guidelines governing storm sewer systems, which will be announced this fall, Mr. Bouker said, “So we’re kind of on hold until we know what happens this fall. At that time, we will adjust our program to stay in compliance.”

Turning to an organizational matter, the board scheduled a public hearing on July 31 on a proposed law amending the residency requirements for full-time employees, not including police or other local officers. The current law requires full-time residency in either East Hampton Village or Town for a period of no less than one year prior to application for employment. The amendment will expand the range of candidates who have to have lived within Suffolk County for at least one year rather than the village or town. 

The amendment will not affect the positions of village administrator, highway superintendent, code enforcement supervisor, a public safety dispatcher, or department heads. The law would also require these employees to be “full-time residents of the Town of East Hampton throughout their employment.” 

With regard to equipment and vehicles, the board discussed a proposed new way to procure them, weighing whether to join a purchasing co-op comprising of New York municipalities. “Co-ops are offering much more competitive prices,” Becky Molinaro Hansen, the village administrator, said. Mayor Rickenbach said a decision would be made later in the month.  

In other organizational matters, the trustees approved the yearly salaries for appointed officers and noncontract employees. They will go into effect on Aug. 1. A notice to bidders will be advertised for services ranging from cleaning Herrick Park’s restrooms to tree trimming and removal. Bids will be opened on July 24 at 2 p.m. at Village Hall. And, a request from the Fire Department to hold its annual fireworks display on Aug. 25 or, in the case of rain, Aug. 26, was approved. 

Mayor Rickenbach ended the proceedings, which were held the day before the Fourth of July, on a patriotic note. “East Hampton represents all the good our country stands for,” he said. “God bless America, and God bless the men and women in uniform. So many of them have made the ultimate sacrifice. Because of many of those people, we have the democracy and the freedom that we enjoy today.”

Residents of Flaggy Hole Road in Springs who frequent the Gardiner’s Bay beach at Maidstone Park were surprised on June 25 to see East Hampton Town Parks Department workers installing a fence there, perpendicular to the beach, and complained that not only would the fence stop them from parking at the beach but also destroy their sunset views.

For the last few summers, signs and obstacles intended to keep trucks off the beach between Flaggy Hole Road and the jetty at the tip of Maidstone Park have consistently been taken down or removed. On May 15, the Springs Citizens Advisory Committee asked the town to replace them. Although the fence apparently was a response to this request, there was reportedly a 12-foot opening in it, big enough to drive a car through.

Both Kim Shaw, director of the Natural Resources Department, and Bill Taylor, an East Hampton Town Trustee and waterways management supervisor, agree that the fence was put at Flaggy Hole Road in error; it was supposed to be farther down the beach, near the eastern end of Maidstone Park. They said it would be moved soon.

Montauk has changed a lot in the last decade, and Tesla, Elon Musk’s top-of-the-line electric car company, has taken notice. The company is hoping to build charging stations at several spots around the hamlet, among them Kirk Park Beach and the town parking lot behind White’s on the Plaza — servicing not only its own vehicles but other electric cars as well.

Tesla already has “destination” charging stations, which are compatible with its own cars only, at two upscale locations in Montauk, Gurney’s resort and the Montauk Yacht Club. Edwin Ziao, a company spokesman, told the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee on Monday that the stations it is now proposing would be “universal, super-charging” models. The major difference is the rate of charge; destination chargers can fill a car overnight, universal super-chargers will do it in just over an hour, for all electric-car models. Currently, the nearest super-charger is in Southampton, off County Road 39 in the parking lot of the Cafe Crust mall.

Both the electricity and hardware would be paid for by Tesla. Kim Shaw, director of the Natural Resources Department, said East Hampton would be the first town in which the company has assumed the full costs of installation.

“Sounds good to me,” one advisory committee member said of the proposal, “if they put a free gas pump there too.”

The price of electricity fluctuates, but according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average price per kilowatt hour in New York State for May 2018 was 20 cents. Electricity for a full charge would probably cost between $20 and $25.

A Tesla representative will make a presentation to the East Hampton Town Board at its work session on Tuesday.

The Bridgehampton Child Care and Recreational Center’s Thinking Forward Lecture Series, which is presented in partnership with Guild Hall, will feature “Equality in the Hamptons: Burying Our Heads in the Sand?” — a dialogue about race and segregation with Khalil Gibran Muhammad moderated by Ken Miller — on Friday, July 13, at 6 p.m. at Guild Hall.

Dr. Muhammad is a professor of history, race, and public policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, a former director of the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and a professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard. His scholarship examines the broad intersections of race, democracy, inequality, and criminal justice in modern American history.

The lecture is free, but tickets are required. They are available from Guild Hall’s website or its box office.