Residents of Montauk delivered a catalog of complaints to the East Hampton Town Board at its work session at the hamlet’s firehouse on Tuesday, with year-round residents fuming that they were in the dark with respect to a hamlet study they fear is rushing toward implementation without the benefit of their input. 

But the board, and some residents, pushed back, noting that the hamlet studies began nearly three years ago, have been amply publicized in the media and on the town government’s website, and that some of those in attendance had even participated in discussions of the Montauk study. Further, board members emphatically stated that no components of the study, which they described as a vision statement, have yet been adopted. 

Several residents told the board that they became aware of the hamlet study only recently and that they vehemently disagree with many of the recommendations issued by the consultants engaged to conduct it. A sewage treatment plant is unnecessary, some said, and a planned relocation of oceanfront businesses would be astronomically expensive. Proposed roundabouts were also criticized, though some agreed that the intersection of West Lake Drive and Flamingo Avenue, entering the dock area, would benefit from one. 

A public hearing on the Montauk hamlet study was held on Dec. 6 at Town Hall in East Hampton. Reading from a letter that appears in today’s issue of The Star, Lisa Grenci asked that another public hearing be held in Montauk, in May, June, or September, “when the majority of our residents are available,” and not during the holiday season. 

It is apparent, Ms. Grenci said, “that the consultants as well as the board members do not live in Montauk and do not understand what the 898 families or 3,326 year-round residents who live here want or need.” The hamlet study, she said, could more accurately be called “How to Increase Development and Destroy Montauk.” 

Given sea level rise, a retreat from the ocean shoreline will be necessary, Ms. Grenci agreed, “But the reconfiguration of our existing hamlet is not acceptable. We all love what we have and if Mother Nature works her hand, so be it.” 

Bonnie Brady similarly complained that meetings, walking tours, and other essions were held during the summer, when owners and employees of Montauk’s service industries are too busy to participate. Reading from a letter to the board, she said there had been no attempt to meet with Montauk’s senior citizen community, which she said represents some 30 percent of our year-round community, or with parents of school-age children, or members of the fire department, “a group that represents so many of the tradesmen and business owners of Montauk,” whose opinions should have been solicited. 

“There are far too many changes being heralded without input from the year-round residents,” Ms. Brady said, “those that will be the most affected by those changes. Montauk’s year-round community deserves better communication and cooperation from the town board.” 

Jim Grimes, a Montauk business owner and a town trustee, said that “the community as a whole sits somewhat ignorant of what’s going on. It takes a moment like this to drag everyone to the table to see all the deficiencies in a project.”

But he disagreed with the recommendation for a planned retreat from the shoreline. “Wholesale relocation of our Main Street and retreat sounds good if we were in Connecticut,” he said. “We’re at the tip of Long Island. . . . Sea level rise has been going on for roughly 20,000 years here. It will continue until the next ice age, when it will be reversed. . . . Before we’re rushing to move hotels out of the downtown area, we should be dealing with things more immediate to our needs.” 

But Jessica James had a different view. “There are plenty of people who think the hamlet study is a great thing — I’m one of them,” she told the board. “The process is excellent, I’ve been engaged for three years. I don’t know where everyone else was. . . . Everybody should get engaged.” 

The board sought to reassure the residents, but seemed incredulous that they could have been unaware of the hamlet study. Comments were accepted for 30 days after the Dec. 6 hearing, Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said, and the board would review those comments “to help inform us as to what to leave in, what to take out.” There will be multiple opportunities, he said, for continued public engagement in the details of the study’s recommendations. After the meeting, the supervisor said that the board would consider all comments received, “whether within the public record or not.” 

“We want Montauk to look like Montauk, not Amagansett, because it is different,” said Councilwoman Sylvia Overby. “We’ll all have an opportunity to continue this process. This is not stopping now.” 

Implementing changes in the hamlet would require changes in the zoning code, said Councilman Jeff Bragman, which would require environmental review and further public input. 

The study, Mr. Van Scoyoc said, is “not a commitment to implement anything, more to be conscious of and consider when we talk about any development.” 

While addressing the board, Laraine Creegan, executive director of the Montauk Chamber of Commerce, directed a comment to her fellow residents. “We need to get involved.”

A lawsuit filed one year ago by the Devon Yacht Club in Amagansett that sought to bar leaseholders in Suffolk County’s Shellfish Aquaculture Lease Program from conducting oyster farming activity was settled last week, a county official said.

The club, founded in 1908 and incorporated in 1916, filed a lawsuit in State Supreme Court seeking to bar leaseholders situated near the club from undertaking or continuing any action related to oyster farming at lease sites granted by the county’s Aquaculture Lease Board in July 2017, or engaging in any other activity that would interfere with sailing.

Along with the Aquaculture Lease Board, the lawsuit named the Amagansett Oyster Company, based in Amagansett, the Suffolk County Planning Department and its director, individual leaseholders, the Town of East Hampton, and the State Department of Environmental Conservation.

DeWitt Davies, the County Planning Department’s chief environmental analyst, said on Jan. 9 that the Amagansett Oyster Company will withdraw from a lease site that the club’s officials said interfered with its members’ boating activities and posed a navigational hazard, and apply for a new lease site. The county has agreed to expedite that new lease application, he said.

Mr. Davies spoke at a meeting at East Hampton Town Hall at which county officials discussed the Aquaculture Lease Program’s 10-year review. The meeting, hosted by the town trustees, was for stakeholders to ask questions and submit comments on the program.

“I think in the overall scheme of things, this sets the right tone moving forward for the 10-year review,” Dorian Dale, the director of sustainability and chief recovery officer for the county, who sits on the aquaculture lease board, said on Monday. “It establishes the county’s understanding that there are many stakeholders and it was important to, at the end of the day, come to resolutions that are as mutually acceptable as possible. I don’t mean that will always be the case, but it is the spirit in which we want to move forward. We see how the world doesn’t function when there isn’t cooperation.”

Linda Margolin, an attorney for the plaintiff, said on Monday that her client was pleased with the settlement. The Amagansett Oyster Company would “apply for a different mooring that’s not intrusive,” she said, while “the rest of the lease sites turned out not to be at issue for one reason or another.”

The county agreed that the club will be notified “so we can be part of the stakeholder discussion going forward,” Ms. Margolin said, and its officials and members “are looking forward to what they hope and expect is a constructive conversation going forward.”

Recreational sailors, kayakers, paddleboarders, and other users of Gardiner’s Bay “weren’t scoped out as stakeholders in the conversation that should have been ongoing,” Ms. Margolin said.

Francis McMahon of the Amagansett Oyster Company said on Monday that the lawsuit and settlement had no direct bearing on his business, as he has yet to begin operating in the bay. “My lease was never finalized by the board, once the lawsuit by Devon was filed,” he said.

Once the Aquaculture Lease Board approves his new lease site, he must still apply for permits from the Coast Guard, the D.E.C., and the Army Corps of Engineers before he can begin operating in the bay. “It’s going to be a while,” he said.

The lawsuit initially surprised him, he said, but after meeting with Curtis Schade, the yacht club’s commodore, “I understood their concern. If we are going to coexist here, we’re going to have to reach consensus and compromise — that’s what Curtis and I were able to do. They’ve got a right to continue using that body of water as they have been. We have a right to farm and produce oysters in that bay. We need to figure out ways to come together, to see that mutually acceptable situations are worked out. That’s exactly what happened in this case.”

Mr. McMahon’s family has been part of the community since the 1940s and has owned property in the town since the mid-1950s, he said, and “the sustainability aspect of aquaculture is very interesting to me. The health of the bay and the rest of Long Island Sound is very important to me.”

The Aquaculture Lease Program was established after New York State ceded title to approximately 100,000 acres of bottomland to Suffolk County in 2004, and authorized the county to implement an aquaculture lease program for the region. Parcels are leased within a delineated zone for private, commercial shellfish cultivation. The zone includes D.E.C.-issued Temporary Marine Area Use Assignment locations, historically private oyster grants, and other contiguous areas where any impacts or conflicts arising from aquaculture activity have been deemed minimal, according to the program’s overview.

By the fall of 2017, members of the club and residents who live along Gardiner’s Bay had expressed their unhappiness about the changing seascape brought about by the appearance of 10-acre oyster farms offshore. In its lawsuit, the club cited vested property rights, past access, and navigability, among other issues.

Bivalves such as oysters, hard clams, and scallops filter the water as they feed. This helps to mitigate an overabundance of nutrients that promote algal blooms such as brown tide, which can kill shellfish and finfish. Dense shellfish populations on farm sites, according to the county, will also augment the spawning potential of native populations.

This article has been updated with the version that appeared in print on Jan. 17, 2019. 

Amagansett residents and business owners conjured images of John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" at that hamlet's citizens advisory committee meeting on Monday, decrying conditions resembling the Dust Bowl of the American prairies in the 1930s and what they called a public health emergency over the dust that has blown off the dry farm fields north of Main Street, blanketed the commercial core, and made its way indoors, sickening employees of Main Street's businesses.

“I feel it in my lungs, I feel it on my skin. You can taste it,” Michael Cinque, the owner of Amagansett Wine and Spirits, said Monday morning. “It’s the finest dust; it goes through the finest cracks. Every bottle in the store is dusty.” 

The absence of a cover crop is blamed for the silty top layer of soil’s windblown movement into the commercial core. 

The 10 parcels of farmland north of Main Street, totaling 33 acres, are owned by Bistrian Farms Corp., Bistrian Land Corp., Bistrian Cement Corp., and Fireplace Development Corp., the latter comprising generations of the Bistrian family. The land is leased to Peter Dankowski, a farmer. 

Twice last week, the dust blowing off the dry fields just north of Main Street created thick clouds of particulate that swirled over the hamlet, coating parked cars and sidewalks, finding its way through invisible cracks to settle on bottles at Amagansett Wine and Spirits, the pots and pans in the kitchen at Organic Krush, the bookshelves at the Amagansett Library.

On Monday, three days after the most recent dust storm, sidewalks and stoops on Main Street were still covered in a thick layer of fine golden dust. On the south side of the street it lay in piles almost to the top of the curb. In the public parking lot behind the Main Street businesses, even a gentle breeze blew eddies of dust off the barren field and into the public parking lot.

“This is not a new issue,” said Mr. Cinque, who has run his Main Street shop for 40 years and says the field north of Main Street has been without a cover crop for the past six or seven years. He has met with the Long Island Farm Bureau, town officials, and the town’s agricultural advisory committee.

On Monday, hours after it was reported on The Star’s website that residents were planning to raise the issue at the hamlet’s citizens advisory committee meeting that evening, the East Hampton Town Board said in a statement that “the conditions of these improperly secured agricultural properties is unacceptable” and that the town is “investigating every avenue to have these property owners and farmers remedy the situation immediately” before prime topsoil is lost and further damage is done. 

At the citizens meeting that night more than 50 people crowded the Amagansett Firehouse, many speaking anxiously about the fine dust and the contaminants it may contain.

Councilman David Lys, the board’s liaison to the committee, and Councilman Jeff Bragman, liaison to the town’s agricultural advisory committee, listened as speakers worried aloud about arsenic, used in pesticides in the late-19th and early-20th centuries, and other toxins in the airborne particulates. 

Before their comments, Mr. Bragman read the town’s statement. The town “will continue to monitor the properties at issue and will seek to require property owners and lessees of the properties to remedy the situation without further delay,” he read. “The town will work to develop a legal framework and policies to prevent similar issues in the future and to ensure that farmers are implementing best soil-management practices.”

“The last cleanup we did two days ago, we were removing from our property by the shovel load hundreds of pounds of material, literally,” said Jon Rosen, a co-owner of Tiina the Store Main Street. “A crew of a half-dozen guys.” 

“I’m asking the town board, what about the fact that we have 20-mile-per-hour winds forecast later this week? This is an immediate, short-term crisis that legislation isn’t going to fix,” Mr. Rosen said. As of yesterday, winds in excess of 20 miles per hour were forecast for Amagansett on Sunday and Monday. 

Mr. Rosen suggested that dry fields be covered with straw or hay bales, while others suggested fencing be erected, even if its effectiveness in keeping the particulates from settled areas proves limited. “Treat this like the water crisis in Wainscott, like the beach erosion crisis in Montauk,” he said. “I don’t want hundreds of pounds of arsenic dropped over the village this Thursday . . . or next week, or the week after that.”

Michelle Walrath, an owner of Organic Krush on Main Street who said earlier on Monday that her shop has been covered “from front to back and from top to bottom” after three dust storms in 10 days, told the councilmen and committee that several members of her staff had not come to work that day, complaining of severe sore throats. “This is hugely damaging. . . . We all know what silt and soil and dust and chemicals can do to people’s lungs.”

“If it takes a village, let’s be the village,” Ms. Walrath said. “I don’t think we’ll be able to open for business the next time this happens. I don’t think anyone will come to work.”

Kevin Boles, an owner of Indian Wells Tavern on Main Street, said that when the same thing happened a few years ago, damage to mechanical equipment, which is on the restaurant’s roof, cost around $3,500 to repair. Dust, he said, was in the basement, and enters the kitchen when its door is opened.

The dust is “almost like flour,” said Craig Wright of Innersleeve Records on Main Street. “I’m sure most air filtration systems are not stopping it. . . . I’m sure a lot of us carried it in here to this meeting.”

Nay Htun, a chemical engineer and professor of environmental engineering at Stony Brook University, confirmed residents’ fears. “From a human health point of view, the size of particle is most important,” he said. “Fine particles, there’s nothing that will filter or trap it. They can get into the whole body.” Particles less than 2.5 microns in size are the most dangerous, he said (a micron is a unit of length equal to one millionth of a meter). Any analysis of the particulates, he said, should include a measurement of their size.

Mr. Bragman said he had learned of the situation two or three weeks ago and had drawn up a zoning code amendment that “would require planting of cover crops by a date certain,” and had gotten “a little pushback” from the agricultural advisory committee. The discussion was postponed, he said, but he had also spoken with Liz Camps, a district conservationist with the federal Department of Agriculture, “to get objective expertise on the types of steps taken to prevent this happening again.” He is awaiting more information, he said. 

“I think we can accommodate the farmers, draft up something that makes sense for them,” Mr. Bragman said, such as the planting of cover crops while cash crops are still growing. “I hope we can deliver a solution that works for neighbors and farmers.”

The discussion spilled into Tuesday’s town board work session, where Dan Mongan told the board that parents of Amagansett School students report that their children tasted dust in their mouths after being outdoors during recess, indicating that they are inhaling it. This is a “present and immediate emergency,” he said, and the board must use emergency powers “to cause appropriate action to be taken.” 

He read a statement from the Amagansett Library’s board of trustees, of which he is a member. The dust has raised “extremely serious health concerns for library patrons and staff,” he said. “Irrespective of whether potentially hazardous chemicals are present in the dust, the extreme fineness of aerosol dust indicates a serious, immediate risk to human health, since it is impossible to avoid breathing in that dust.” 

Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said that the heavier rainfall in the Northeast was another symptom of climate change, one that left wet soil conditions, hindered last fall’s harvest, and threw off farmers’ schedules. “That did not allow for cover crops to be established in a timely way.” Similar conditions exist in Southampton and on the North Fork, he said. “We will continue to investigate what the appropriate action might be. The best we could hope for is snowfall.” 

“I disagree!” Mr. Mongan said sharply. Spraying the fields with water may be a simple solution, he said. “Tillage is often part of a soil conservation program. . . . There are dozens of spray materials of varying degrees of environmental friendliness that retain soil.” Snow fencing was another possibility. “It’s not going to be a perfect solution, I recognize that, but something needs to be done and it can be done quite quickly.” 

Mr. Bragman said that a statute requiring the annual planting of a cover crop by a certain date is not intended “to fine farmers for not planting cover crops. It’s putting them on notice that the town cares about this.” 

The Bistrians have long been interested in selling the development rights to the town, and the town has long been interested in buying them, but the two parties have failed to reach an agreement on a purchase price. The family, according to Britton Bistrian, is primarily interested in selling development rights to the land, but she cited discrepancies over the land’s value as well as access. 

Members of the Bistrian family sued the town and its Highway Department in 2017 to force construction of an access road from the farmland to Windmill Lane so that house lots could be developed on the acreage. They demanded that the town follow through on a promise they say was agreed to in 1971, when Peter Bistrian provided the town with land to create the municipal parking lot. 

Just over a year ago, a New York State Supreme Court judge ruled in the town’s favor, saying in part that the family had not provided evidence of the town formally adopting the three-acre strip of land as a public street. In a Jan. 2, 2018, decision, Justice Joseph C. Pastoressa wrote that questions of fact existed as to whether the Bistrians land actually was landlocked and vehicles might actually be able to access the parcels through the town-owned parking lot.

This article has been updated with the version that appeared in print on Jan. 17, 2019.

Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind has asked East Hampton Town for permission to conduct surveys related to its proposed South Fork Wind Farm and the installation’s transmission cable, which it plans to land at the ocean beach at the end of Beach Lane in Wainscott. 

The company, formed when the Danish firm Orsted acquired Deepwater Wind, plans to build 15 wind turbines approximately 35 miles off Montauk. It is seeking permission to conduct roadside archaeology surveys on Beach Lane to investigate the potential presence of “archaeological resources” along the preferred path of the wind farm’s transmission cable, from Beach Lane to the Long Island Power Authority substation in East Hampton. Shovel pits are to be excavated by hand at 50 or 100-foot intervals along both sides of the roadway. They are to be approximately 18 inches in diameter and three to four feet deep. Pits will be backfilled upon completion. 

Along with Beach Lane, affected roadways would include Wainscott Main Street, Sayre’s Path, Wainscott Stone Road, and Wainscott Northwest Road. A total of 194 pits are planned. Private property will not be affected. The work is expected to take up to 14 days, and will be conducted on weekdays during business hours. 

Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said at the town board’s work session on Tuesday that Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind will also need road opening permits from the Town Highway Department, and that it will be assessed a fee of $250 for each of the 194 pits. 

Separately, Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind is asking for permission to conduct two test borings and a percolation test near the site of proposed horizontal directional drilling, the technique to be employed offshore and under the beach to lay and bury the transmission cable at its preferred landfall site. 

The first boring is to be along the shoulder of Beach Lane, and the second within the beach’s parking area. This will take between 6 and 10 business days, the company said, and will be completed before March 31. The work will be done on weekdays between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. A work exclusion zone will be set up around the drill rig, but a travel lane will be maintained for access to residences and to the beach, and to accommodate emergency vehicles. The drill rig will be taken offsite at the end of each shift. 

The surveys are mandated by the New York State Public Service Commission.

The town board is to vote on the requests, either at its meeting tonight or early next month.

Seven members of the House of Representatives introduced legislation last week that would block the Trump administration’s plan to expand gas and oil drilling off most of the nation’s coastline. They are seeking a moratorium on new offshore oil and gas drilling.

On Jan. 8, Representatives Salud Carbajal and Jared Huffman of California, Kathy Castor of Florida, David Cicilline of Rhode Island, Joe Cunningham of South Carolina, Donald McEachin of Virginia, and Frank Pallone of New Jersey each introduced a bill that would block drilling off the coasts of their respective states or regions. All seven are Democrats. 

Additionally, Representative Francis Rooney, a Democrat of Florida, introduced a bill last week to permanently extend the moratorium on leasing in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

The federal Department of the Interior is expected to unveil a plan to auction off public waters for expanded drilling in the coming weeks. One year ago, the department had proposed allowing drilling off most of the nation’s coastline, a plan that has drawn bipartisan opposition.

A program that is getting increasing attention on the South Fork could allow local municipalities to band together and leverage their pooled demand to choose their energy supply and possibly negotiate lower prices for electricity.

All five members of the East Hampton Town Board as well as members of the town’s Natural Resources Department and Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming were on hand on Friday for a discussion of what is called community choice aggregation, or C.C.A. Linda James, chairwoman of the town’s energy sustainability advisory committee, hosted the event at her house in East Hampton. 

The community choice aggregation model replaces the utility as the default supplier of electricity, and gives municipalities the opportunity to find potentially better prices from private suppliers. It also allows municipalities to choose locally based renewable energy projects, such as solar, demand response, and microgrid projects, for their electricity supply. 

The Southampton Town Board has discussed a local law establishing a framework for a C.C.A., and Lynn Arthur, a member of Southampton’s sustainability committee, attended Friday’s meeting. 

Joan McGivern, of East Hampton’s energy sustainability committee, told the gathering that a model that East Hampton could emulate, perhaps in tandem with Southampton, is Westchester Power, a C.C.A. that is intended to lower costs and increase the use of renewable energy. Its participating municipalities have realized $15 million in savings, she said. Sustainable Westchester, a collaboration of local governments of which Westchester Power is one of several energy programs, has achieved flat electricity rates over a two-year period. 

Communities exercising home rule can enact legislation enabling residents to opt into the pool, with the provision that they can opt out without penalty, Ms. McGivern said. That would likely follow a lengthy public awareness campaign and public hearings, she said. Once legislation is enacted, the electric utility would then have to provide data with which to determine demand, and the C.C.A. could seek bids. The process typically takes 18 months to two years. 

Sustainable Westchester encourages the development of microgrids and solar farms, and has even negotiated bulk discounts for electric vehicles purchased by residents, Ms. McGivern said. 

Can Westchester’s model be replicated on the South Fork? Not yet, said Gordian Raacke, executive director of Renewable Energy Long Island. “It’s only applicable to the service territories of the private, investor-owned utilities in the state,” he said. While the New York State Public Service Commission has approved community choice aggregation upstate, the Long Island Power Authority is a state authority that would have to adopt the rules and regulations of the Public Service Commission’s 2016 order authorizing a framework for a C.C.A. and its opt-out program. “We would need to get LIPA to adopt a C.C.A. regime,” he said. 

Nonetheless, an excerpt Mr. Raacke read from the commission’s order suggests that community choice aggregation could happen here. “C.C.A. offers residential and small nonresidential customers an opportunity to receive benefits that have not been readily available to them,” he read. “C.C.A. programs can result in more attractive energy supply terms than can be obtained by individual customers. . . . More importantly, the C.C.A. construct provides substantial positive opportunity for meaningful and effective local and community engagement on critical energy issues and the development of innovative programs, products, and services that promote and advance the achievement of the state’s energy goals.” 

Moreover, a conversation about community choice aggregation with Tom Falcone, LIPA’s chief executive officer, was encouraging, Mr. Raacke said. Mr. Falcone, he said, seemed open to allowing community choice aggregation, as the utility’s revenue is derived from delivery; its own power purchase costs are passed through directly to customers. That, Mr. Raacke said, “doesn’t mean we have that regulation in place, but I was very surprised.” (A LIPA spokesman did not respond to a voice-mail or email message seeking comment.)

Ms. McGivern, however, tried to dampen any expectation that South Fork residents would see lower rates under this model. Delivery costs are high, in part, because “the Shoreham debt is baked into the delivery costs.” 

When LIPA took over part of the Long Island Lighting Company, Mr. Raacke said, it assumed 100 percent of the debt associated with the shuttered nuclear power plant at Shoreham, “an asset that didn’t provide any service to Long Island. . . . We are saddled now with the entire cost of that Shoreham nuclear power plant, even though it doesn’t provide a single kilowatt-hour of electricity,” he said, a cost that is collected through LIPA’s delivery and other charges. 

Whether or not a South Fork community choice aggregation can negotiate a lower supply cost cannot be known until it has been tried, Mr. Raacke said. It would have to be formed and seek bids to determine if the market is sufficiently competitive to offer rates lower than what LIPA customers pay now. A C.C.A. could also seek multiple proposals comprising different ratios of fossil fuel and renewable energy sources and determine the best, based on criteria such as cost and environmental concerns. 

Perhaps more relevant for a region threatened by climate change, he said, is the opportunity for self-determination community choice aggregation could allow. “If we were to go this route, we’re taking over the power procurement and power planning function of the utility,” half of the utility’s function. “It gives us the power to determine our energy future.” East Hampton could enter into contracts with renewable energy suppliers, or negotiate bulk rates for electric vehicles, he said. Ideally, as much of the supply would be sourced locally from renewable energy producers, he said, providing jobs and other, indirect economic benefits. 

Ms. Fleming told the gathering that she had recently submitted a bill that would establish a task force to examine community choice aggregation as an energy procurement strategy in the county. It is to issue a written report of its findings and recommendations with respect to the feasibility of a C.C.A. to each member of the Legislature.

The division of one of the most familiar stretches of remaining South Fork farmland, a 41-acre parcel on Montauk Highway in Sagaponack, moved one step closer to becoming a reality on Monday, when the Sagaponack Village Board accepted what is called a pre-application report. 

Kenneth Schwenk and his family, who own the property, have been meeting with the board for months to refine the details of the subdivision, which they call Meadowmere. Mr. Schwenk plans to create nine house lots clustered in the southwest corner of the property. More than half the property, 27 acres, is to remain an agricultural reserve. 

Eight of the lots will be approximately 53,000 square feet, one will be more than 56,000 square feet, and Mr. Schwenk’s existing house and accessory structures will remain on a 55,000-square-foot lot at the north end of the parcel. The map shows a proposed road that would provide access to the new houses from Montauk Highway.

Now that the board has accepted the pre-application report, Mr. Schwenk has one year to file a final application, Rhodi Winchell, the village clerk, said. A public hearing had been held on the application on Dec. 10, and comments were accepted for 10 days afterward.

At Monday’s meeting, Richard Warren, the village planner who provided the report, read a number of public responses, which were predominantly negative, and addressed why he thought each of the arguments against the subdivision was not realistic. 

Several residents, for example, suggested that money from the community preservation fund should have been used to buy the parcel. Mayor Louchheim had broached the possibility of buying the property’s development rights rather than making an outright purchase at a meeting in April, but Mr. Schwenk rejected the idea. “You have to have a willing seller,” Ms. Winchell said on Tuesday. 

Others objected to the access road from Montauk Highway to the nine proposed house lots, which, they said, would have a negative impact on traffic. Ms. Winchell said alternate entrances had been explored, but none were feasible because they would have either crossed private property or cut into agricultural fields. 

Mr. Warren’s report concluded that the board had done as much as it could to influence how the parcel would be developed. If and when the project moves forward, Ms. Winchell said, the board would be able to weigh in again on the final details. As it stands, however, if Mr. Schwenk sticks to the site plan he and the board have developed, the subdivision will come to fruition.

“I hate to see it done, but we really have no choice,” Mayor Louchheim said on Monday.

The East Hampton Town Board is moving forward on enacting a ban on the intentional release of balloons, citing hazards to wildlife, particularly marine life. 

NancyLynn Thiele, an assistant town attorney, read draft legislation to the town board at its work session on Tuesday, which she said was in response to the urging of environmental groups to take action. “No person shall intentionally release or dispose of any balloon except in public receptacles and authorized private receptacles, or designated areas within Town of East Hampton recycling centers,” she read. “You have to properly dispose of your balloons.” Weather balloons, hot air balloons, balloons released indoors, and accidental release, by a child, for example, will be exempted, she said. Penalties for violating the proposed legislation would match those for littering. 

The legislation is to be introduced at the board’s meeting tonight. A public hearing will be scheduled for next month. 

Suffolk County allows the intentional release of up to 25 balloons in a 24-hour span, and they are a popular accessory at celebrations such as weddings, birthday parties, and graduations, as well as at real estate firms’ open-house events. The legislation would compel those holding a wedding on the beach to remove any balloons at the event’s conclusion. “They can’t just cut them and walk away,” Ms. Thiele said. 

Earlier in the work session, Susan McGraw Keber, a town trustee, had delivered a presentation to the board urging a ban on intentional release. Included in the presentation were photos of birds and marine life entangled in balloon strings, which can injure or strangle them, as well as plastic and other debris that fouls the oceans. 

Last year, Ms. McGraw Keber, who serves on the trustees’ education committee, designed a “balloon fish,” an illustration made of balloons found on town beaches. The trustees print and sell T-shirts bearing the illustration, proceeds from which benefit its William T. Rysam Fund, a scholarship fund for students heading to college. 

She said she was thrilled that the town was moving ahead on the ban. “The balloon industry,” she said, “will say latex and Mylar are biodegradable. They are not.” 

“Even balloons marketed as biodegra­dable or ‘eco-friendly’ can still take years to disintegrate,” according to the online platform One Green Planet. “When balloons make their way into the water, their tattered ends and floating pieces can resemble jellyfish or other sea life consumed by marine animals such as sea turtles, fish, and dolphins.” Pieces of latex or Mylar, mistaken for food and ingested, can get lodged in the digestive tract, inhibiting animals’ ability to eat and causing a slow and painful death by starvation, according to One Green Planet. 

Along with the trustees, the Surfrider Foundation’s Eastern Long Island chapter supports the proposed legislation, Ms. McGraw Keber said.

Proving that an individual or group is violating the law may be difficult, the board agreed. Ms. Thiele suggested that photographic evidence, or a note tied to a balloon’s string, could demonstrate intent. But “the intent here is to discourage,” Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said. “Sending the message is really important. Hopefully we don’t have to get to the point where we’re actually needing to enforce this. Hopefully we can reverse the trend. I don’t know that this happens a lot in our township anyway, but we certainly don’t want it happening at all.” 

“I probably pick up 10 every time I walk the beach,” Councilwoman Sylvia Overby said.

Expanded weekday Long Island Rail Road service is set to launch on March 4, and now the Town of East Hampton is choosing which provider to use for the “last mile” shuttle bus service that is to take riders to and from train stations and places of employment. 

The Hampton Hopper, which has operated an app-based shuttle network using converted school buses since 2014, was recommended by a committee put together to evaluate respondents seeking to provide that service, Jeanne Carroza, the town’s senior purchasing agent, told the town board at its work session on Tuesday. 

Five reputable companies had responded to the request for proposals, issued in September in cooperation with the Town of Southampton, and the committee selected four to be interviewed. 

The board has not finalized its selection of the provider, but Ms. Carroza said that should the Hampton Hopper be chosen, it would cover routes using two 25-passenger buses. Exact routes are to be determined and subject to modification based on ridership.

The L.I.R.R.’s additional morning and afternoon trains will operate for a total of 260 days during the 13 months from March of this year through March of 2020. A $500,000 grant from New York State is to be split evenly between East Hampton and Southampton, each town independently choosing and contracting with a shuttle provider. The $1-per-ticket revenue will also be split between the towns. 

Shuttle service is to be divided into seven units to meet trains arriving at the East Hampton, Amagansett, and Montauk stations and cover routes to places where people work, including in Springs. 

One unit will meet trains arriving in East Hampton at 7:03 and 9 a.m.; another will return passengers to the station for westbound trains departing at 3:12 and 5:14 p.m. A shuttle will also take arrivals on the 7:03 a.m. train in East Hampton, where it will terminate, to Montauk. Another will meet passengers at the train arriving in Montauk at 9:05 a.m. Still another will return passengers to the Montauk station at 2:48 and 4:50 p.m. 

Units will collect passengers from the train arriving at 9:05 a.m. in Amagansett, and return them there for trains leaving the hamlet at 3:07 and 5:09 p.m.  

It is hoped that “ridership finds it convenient and efficient,” Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said, so that the service is widely used. “We know as a municipality, hearing from a number of businesspeople, it’s becoming more difficult to hire and retain workers, given long commute times on the highway. This is one way in which we can overcome some of that by creating a more efficient way” to get to and from work. 

A successful program would remove vehicles from the roads, alleviating “trade parade” traffic heading east in the mornings and west in the afternoons, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. “While we’re not certain how many will immediately take advantage” of the service, Mr. Van Scoyoc said, “we have a good proposal.” 

Ultimately, he said, “a dedicated light rail shuttle running back and forth between Speonk and Hampton Bays and Montauk could alleviate a great deal of traffic.” The service that will begin in March is “not a perfect solution,” but “we need to make the best of what’s being offered.”

The East Hampton Town Trustees elected a new deputy clerk at their organizational meeting on Monday. Jim Grimes, who was elected to the nine-member body in 2015 and re-elected two years later, was nominated to be one of the trustees’ two deputy clerks. Brian Byrnes made the nomination, which was seconded by Rick Drew, a deputy clerk who was also nominated. Bill Taylor, the other deputy clerk, was nominated for that role by Susan McGraw Keber. Susan Vorpahl nominated Mr. Drew. 

A vote by paper ballot followed. Mr. Grimes received seven votes, Mr. Taylor five, and Mr. Drew four. Mr. Grimes and Mr. Taylor will serve as deputies to Francis Bock, who was re-elected clerk, or presiding officer. The clerk’s annual salary is $23,201. Deputy clerks are paid $18,934. Each of the other six trustees is paid $8,060 per year. 

In other news from the meeting, the group set the annual lease for trustee-owned parcels at Lazy Point in Amagansett at $1,786 per year, representing a 2-percent increase over last year.