Two former East Hampton political party leaders are among four people on the East End being charged with fraud related to signatures gathered on nominating petitions ahead of November's election, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office said.

Online records show that Amos Goodman, who resigned last week as the East Hampton Town Republican Committee chairman, and Pat Mansir, the former vice chairwoman of the East Hampton Independence Party and a former East Hampton Town Councilwoman, are facing felony charges.

Mr. Goodman, a 35-year-old Springs resident who ran for Suffolk County legislator in 2015, is facing 10 counts of criminal possession of a forged instrument in the second degree and 10 counts of offering a false instrument for filing in the first degree. He is alleged to have submitted nominating petitions, including for Green Party judicial candidates, that contained at least 43 forgeries, the D.A.'s office said late Tuesday night. One signature was of a person who is deceased, the D.A. alleged.  

He is scheduled for arraignment Wednesday morning in Suffolk County District Court in Islip.

Meanwhile, Ms. Mansir was arraigned Tuesday on eight charges — four counts of possession of a forged instrument and four counts of offering a false instrument for filing in the first degree. The D.A.'s office said she submitted nominating petitions for her party's candidate that contained eight forged signatures, including one person who was deceased. Justice Jennifer A. Henry released her on her own recognizance. 

"My client denies the allegations and looks forward to being proven innocent, though she never should have been put in a position to have to defend her good name," Carl Irace, an East Hampton attorney who is representing Ms. Mansir, said late Tuesday night. Ms. Mansir did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday night. 

Mr. Goodman could not immediately be reached Tuesday night. It was not clear who his attorney was. 

The D.A.'s office also announced the arrest of two other men, William Mann, 60, of Cutchogue, and Gregory Dickerson, 55, of Mattituck, who were charged with unrelated petition fraud, as well. Both are Suffolk County Board of Elections employees.

“Through their alleged actions, the defendants corrupted the democratic process and violated the public’s trust,” Suffolk District Attorney Tim Sini said. “This brazen scheme to get preferred candidates on the November 2018 ballot by any means necessary included the alleged filing of petitions with forged signatures, some of which included forged signatures of deceased individuals. In addition, one of the defendants is alleged to have used his position as a member of the Suffolk County Board of Elections to deceive voters into signing petitions they might otherwise have declined to sign. This kind of conduct is unacceptable; if you abuse your position of public trust and attempt to disrupt the integrity of the election process, you will be brought to justice.” 

The Republican Committee asked for Mr. Goodman's resignation two weeks ago, after it became aware of an investigation by the Public Integrity Bureau of the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office. The D.A.'s office said it received complaints from representatives of the Suffolk County Green Party, the East Hampton Town Republican Party and the East Hampton Town Independence Party.

The investigation was said to be focused on the validity of nominating petitions submitted by Mr. Goodman for the Republican Party’s candidate, Manny Vilar, in the special election for a seat on the town board. Elaine Jones, the chairwoman of the East Hampton Independence Party, had made allegations of fraudulent signatures after Mr. Goodman previously leveled the same accusation at the Independence Party.

David Lys, who had been appointed to the vacant seat in January, won the Nov. 6 election in a landslide, with unofficial results giving him 69 percent of the vote, versus Mr. Vilar's 31 percent.

The Independence Party had chosen David Gruber, a Democrat, over Mr. Lys and Mr. Vilar for its nomination. Ms. Mansir gathered signatures for Mr. Gruber's nominating petitions. The East Hampton Town Republican Committee challenged the petitions, and New York State Supreme Court Justice Carol MacKenzie ostensibly agreed with the East Hampton Town Republican Committee, which had challenged the petitions, writing in August that they were "replete with fraudulent dates and forged signatures and/or initials of signatories and/or subscribing witnesses."

Mr. Gruber's name did not appear on the ballot after the petitions were voided.

The investigation did not reveal evidence that any of the candidates were aware of or involved in the alleged schemes, the D.A.'s statement said. 

Ms. Mansir, 72, who lives in East Hampton, has long been involved in politics. She was a town councilwoman for 12 years and served for 10 years on the East Hampton Town Planning Board. She last held public office in 2017, when she resigned in her first term as an East Hampton Town Trustee, expressing growing frustration with colleagues who “diminish and restrict” other trustees and with what she described as the panel’s dysfunction. When she ran for town trustee she did so as a Democrat and was elected with Independence endorsement. 

Mr. Goodman runs a corporate advisory firm focused on the aerospace and defense industries. He assumed chairmanship of the Republican committee in 2017.

If convicted of the top count of criminal possession of a forged instrument, each defendant faces a maximum sentence of two and one-third to seven years in prison. 

With Reporting by Christopher Walsh

This article was updated since it was first published. 

With the resignation and subsequent arraignment of Amos Goodman, the now-former chairman of the East Hampton Town Republican Committee, the party must seek a new leader. 

Kyle Ballou, the committee’s secretary, said last month that he and other committee officials had sent a letter to Mr. Goodman asking for his resignation after learning of an investigation by the Public Integrity Bureau of the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office. That investigation burst into public view on Tuesday night when the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office announced fraud-related charges against Mr. Goodman and Pat Mansir related to signatures gathered on nominating petitions ahead of last month’s election. A separate story appears on the front page of today’s paper.

The committee’s vice chairman, Michael Jordan, is now its acting chairman. Mr. Jordan said on Tuesday, before the district attorney’s announcement, that the committee will move to elect a new leader in the new year, but he will not seek the position. 

“What you need is someone that will be very active on the committee,” he said. “We need younger people. Frankly, both parties here have a lot of elderly people in them. I’m not inclined to devote the amount of time that would be needed for someone who’s going to be actively running the party — preferably, someone who’s not as long in the tooth as I am,” said Mr. Jordan, who is 70 and retired. 

In a town in which Republicans are greatly outnumbered by Democrats — there are 3,739 registered Republicans in East Hampton versus 8,122 registered Democrats, according to the Suffolk County Board of Elections — a Republican candidate’s path to electoral victory is narrow. A 5-to-0 Democratic supermajority sits on the town board, although David Lys, who was appointed to the board and won election last month, changed his party affiliation from Republican to Democratic shortly before his appointment. In 2017, the Republicans’ candidates for supervisor and councilman — Manny Vilar, Paul Giardina, and Jerry Larsen — were defeated by substantial margins, and just two of nine Republican candidates were elected to the town trustees. 

“In terms of registration, our party is very much outgunned,” Carole Campolo, the committee’s former vice chairwoman, said on Monday. “Whoever’s going to run the party needs to decide how to proceed, given all the challenges it faces. That doesn’t mean the party should give up; the party has a really good message and needs to get it out there. The people that will run will have to make choices as to how to do that.” 

The message, said Ms. Campolo, a former deputy executive director of the New York City Campaign Finance Board, is “We stand for the taxpayers, for lower taxes, and for efficient government.” None of these, she said, are evident at the local level. “As a former Democrat, I think that Democratic policies are so contradictory to what is good for the middle class, it’s astounding to me that they get as many votes as they do. I think the Republicans stand for the working man in this town.” 

Fewer regulations and environmentalism are not mutually exclusive, Ms. Campolo said. “You can be for the environment, very much so, without some of the extraordinary things homeowners are asked to do — spending money on surveys, lawyers, an architect, just to get a piece of a deck put on.” East Hampton Republicans, she said, are “trying to mitigate hardships on homeowners while maintaining high environmental standards.” 

Finding and fielding candidates who can win elections in East Hampton will top next year’s agenda, Mr. Jordan said, once the committee’s new leader has been chosen. “Certainly, the Republican committee has its challenges in East Hampton, with demographics. It will be a challenge, and one reason we need someone younger who will devote time, effort, and energy. Hopefully that’s what we’ll do. . . . Once we have the committee lineup, we’ll go forward and discuss what our plan for the future will be.”

A recent move by the Trump administration could lead the way to oil and gas exploration and extraction off the Atlantic coast. 

The Washington Post reported on Friday that the National Marine Fisheries Service, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has approved five requests that will allow companies to conduct seismic surveys. The “incidental take” authorizations allow companies conducting such surveys — geophysical companies working on behalf of oil and gas corporations, The Post reported — to harm marine life as long as it is unintentional. 

Such surveys would be conducted using seismic air guns, which emit loud blasts on a recurring basis, 10 seconds apart for 24 hours a day, often for weeks at a time, according to the environmental group Greenpeace. The sonic blasts, or “pings,” penetrate through the ocean and miles into the seafloor and can harm whales, dolphins, sea turtles, and fish. They can result in temporary and permanent hearing loss, habitat abandonment, disruption of mating and feeding, beachings, and death, according to Greenpeace. 

On Tuesday, Representative Lee Zeldin, who is generally supportive of the administration, and dozens of his colleagues in the House of Representatives wrote to Ryan Zinke, the secretary of the Interior Department, and Wilbur Ross, the Commerce Department secretary, to “strongly oppose” the incidental-take permits and exploration off the Atlantic shoreline. 

Seismic air guns “can disturb, harm, and potentially kill not only marine mammals but also a wide range of marine life that support coastal economies from Florida to Maine,” the letter said. “Offshore oil and gas exploration and development, the first step of which is seismic air gun testing, puts at risk coastal economies based on fishing, tourism, and recreation. Numerous studies show the detrimental impacts seismic air gun blasting has on fisheries and marine mammals, thereby affecting the catch anglers bring dockside and the revenue generated by related businesses.”

The letter cites a 2014 study of North Carolina’s coast by NOAA, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Duke University that found that the abundance of reef fish declined by 78 percent during evening hours, when fish were most plentiful on the three previous days when seismic surveys did not take place. “The tertiary effects of this trickle down to fishing businesses, restaurants, and the visitors that flock to our coastal communities,” the letter said.

The members of Congress said that constituents, including business owners, elected officials, and coastal residents, have contacted them to register their opposition to oil and gas exploration and drilling in the Atlantic or eastern Gulf of Mexico. “Local chambers of commerce, tourism and restaurant associations, and an alliance representing over 43,000 businesses and 500,000 commercial fishing families strongly oppose offshore oil and gas exploration and drilling,” they wrote. 

The letter further complained that coastal communities impacted by drilling would not have access to data obtained from seismic surveys, as they are proprietary to the oil and gas industry. Even members of Congress would not have access, according to the letter. 

In December 2016, weeks before he left office, President Barack Obama announced a permanent ban on offshore oil and gas drilling from Virginia to Maine, and along much of Alaska’s coast. The East Hampton Town Board passed a memorializing resolution in August in support of a continued ban. 

“As I understand it, testing at this point is going to be taking place around Delaware [and southward],” said Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc, “but I think that given the deleterious effects of that on sea life, in addition to the fact that we need to be exploring alternatives to fossil fuels rather than further development of that industry, it’s a double insult.” 

The Trump administration’s move to promote oil and gas extraction, and to revive the coal industry, coincides with the declining costs of clean energy generation, primarily solar and wind power. Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind, formerly Deepwater Wind, plans a 15-turbine South Fork Wind Farm for a site approximately 35 miles off Montauk, and has several other offshore installations planned. 

Mr. Zeldin “is an advocate for clean and green energy,” Katie Vincentz, a spokeswoman for the congressman, said in an email on Monday, “and understands that there is a lot to take into account with any project on Long Island, including the possible adverse impact on our local fisheries. Any green energy proposal will not be viable if it devastates the waterways which have been the hallmark of our community for generations.”

Commercial fishermen are almost uniformly against the South Fork Wind Farm, fearing a detrimental impact on their livelihood. But Gary Cobb, an opponent of the wind farm who has publicly represented East Hampton’s baymen throughout Deepwater Wind/Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind’s proceedings as it seeks approvals from federal, state, and local regulators, said in an email yesterday that “there is absolutely zero difference between pinging the [ocean] bottom for offshore oil/gas and pinging the bottom for offshore wind.” 

Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Immediate steps should be taken and community preservation fund money allocated to alleviate runoff of contaminated water into Lake Montauk and the Atlantic Ocean in Montauk’s downtown, the East Hampton Town Board was told at its work session on Tuesday. 

Christopher Clapp of the town’s water quality technical advisory committee told the board that the committee recommends six high-priority actions deemed most feasible to achieve measurable improvements in Lake Montauk, where the Surfrider Foundation’s Eastern Long Island Chapter and Concerned Citizens of Montauk routinely measure dangerously high levels of bacteria. 

Three proposed projects would be at the southernmost part of the lake, at the road end of South Lake Drive, which was once a bathing beach and the site of children’s swimming lessons. There, “we know we have bacterial contamination of some sort,” Mr. Clapp said, “suspected from septic systems but probably due to stormwater runoff as well.” 

Mr. Clapp recommended construction of a wetland on the north side of Montauk Highway opposite Caswell Road to catch and filter stormwater before it flows into the lake. “The idea is to slow it down, let the plants and soils treat the water before it continues on,” he told the board. 

Permeable pavement at the parking area there, and a regraded pavement, would pitch stormwater runoff into a pervious bioswale in the lot’s center to catch sediment and bacterial contamination before it enters the lake at the road end. A permeable reactive barrier, a device comprising trench boxes filled with ground woodchips or another reactive substance that intercepts groundwater as it seeps into a water body, was also recommended at the southernmost part of the lake to alleviate stresses from failing septic systems. A permeable reactive barrier has demonstrated an 85-percent reduction in nitrogen seepage at Pussy’s Pond in Springs. 

“We’ll be looking at some engineering and porewater investigation of this south end . . . to try and find where the hot spot of groundwater contamination might be so that we can intercept that and begin to treat some of that water before it enters the saline waters and surface waters of South Lake,” Mr. Clapp said. “We think this may be a good opportunity to intercept a lot of the flow that’s coming from the Ditch Plains area by way of groundwater.” 

Similar projects are recommended along West Lake Drive and on Star Island. Permeable pavement is recommended at the boat launch at both places to reduce runoff from their respective parking lots. Bioswales and rain gardens were recommended at the intersection of West Lake Drive and Flamingo Road and the triangles formed by West Lake Drive, Star Island Road, and North Fernwood Drive, “where we’ll be relying upon those swales, the soils, and the plants to strip a lot of the nutrients, bacterial contamination out of the water before it enters either the groundwater or the surface waters,” Mr. Clapp said. A permeable reactive barrier was also recommended at the end of Duryea Avenue. 

Both areas of Lake Montauk, Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc noted, “are adjacent to extremely densely developed areas, with the idea that septics are contributing” to water contamination. 

A permeable reactive barrier “isn’t worth the effort in a lightly populated area,” Mr. Clapp said. “In order to make a permeable reactive barrier worth the effort, you want to identify where the highest-strength plume of contaminated groundwater is and at what depth it sits so you can engineer the product to fit the right spot. . . . This is the first step in engineering of the project.” 

Additionally, the water quality committee recommends an engineering study to map the drainage area around the pipe that collects stormwater runoff from an upland subdivision near Surfside Place at the eastern edge of Montauk’s downtown. C.C.O.M. and the Surfrider Foundation have measured high bacteria counts at the pipe’s outlet on the beach. 

Antimicrobial-coated stormwater filters in catch basins upgradient of the outlet pipe “should, in the short term, be able to drastically cut down the amount of bacterial contamination that’s coming out at the end of the pipe,” Mr. Clapp said. “It’s not to say it can strip everything, but the data that the company that makes these things has shown the committee have shown a drastic decrease in microbial as well as viral contamination in the water that passes through them.” 

Before Mr. Clapp’s presentation, Laura Tooman, president of C.C.O.M., told the board that the group is supportive of the water quality committee’s recommendations. C.C.O.M.’s water quality data at South Lake Drive, which consistently exceed the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s standards for public health, demonstrate the need for action, she said. “I wanted to provide scientific data you need to show that there is a problem and something needs to be done. This is an instance where we know we have a problem, we have the resources to fix the problem, and, hopefully, we have the political will to fix the problem.”

East Hampton Town Councilman David Lys, who won election to the town board in his own right on Nov. 6 after being appointed to the seat in January, earned an overwhelming 71.4 percent of the vote, according to the final results released this week by the Suffolk County Board of Elections.

In the final tally, which includes those who voted by absentee ballot or affidavit, Mr. Lys, running on the Democratic/Unity Party and Working Families Party tickets, won 7,912 votes to the 3,164 votes cast for his Republican and Conservative Party challenger, Manny Vilar. The board of elections’ unofficial tally on election night had Mr. Lys winning 6,177 votes to Mr. Vilar’s 2,728 votes, or a 69.3 to 30.7 percent. 

Mr. Vilar was elected chairman of the East Hampton Town Republican Committee last Thursday. That election is covered separately in this issue. 

Perry Gershon, an East Hampton resident who lost a bid to unseat Representative Lee Zeldin in last month’s election, closed the gap in the final results but still fell short. In the board of elections’ official tally, Mr. Gershon, running on the Democratic and Working Families Party ballots, picked up an additional 12,196 votes to finish with 127,991, or 47.4 percent of the vote. 

Mr. Zeldin, who was elected to a third term, gained 8,108 in the final tally, finishing with 139,027 votes, or 51.5 percent, down 1 percent from the election night tally. He appeared on the Republican, Conservative, Independence, and Reform Party ballots. His official margin of victory was far smaller than that of his 2016 re-election campaign, in which he defeated former Southampton Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst by 16 percentage points. 

Kate Browning, a former Suffolk County legislator who finished second among five candidates in the Dem­ocratic primary election, appeared on the Women’s Equality ballot despite having thrown her support to Mr. Gershon. She won 2,988 votes, or 1.1 percent, up from 2,756 in the unofficial total.  

When the 116th Congress is sworn in on Jan. 3, Mr. Zeldin will be in the minority for the first time, Democrats having taken control of the House of Representatives by gaining around 40 seats in the midterm elections. (The outcome of the race in North Carolina’s Ninth District is still pending the outcome of an investigation into fraud.)

In other races, State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle, on the Republican, Conservative, Independence, and Reform Party tickets, won re-election with 71,017 votes, or 56.9 percent, to the 53,790 won by his Democratic Party challenger, Gregory-John Fischer, according to the official results. Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele was also re-elected. In the final tally, he won 31,961 votes, or 61.57 percent, to Patrick O’Connor’s 19,953 votes. Mr. Thiele ran on the Democratic, Working Families, Independence, Women’s Equality, and Reform tickets. Mr. O’Connor was the Republican and Conservative Parties’ candidate.

Springs residents turned out last Thursday for an East Hampton Town Board hearing on the future of their hamlet, however their comments were dominated by worries about the future of a commercial area just beyond the official Springs line.

The Springs-Fireplace Road corridor that reaches from North Main Street to Abraham’s Path was by far the area of greatest concern of the roughly 60 people at Town Hall to talk about the last stage of a new Springs hamlet study that will be incorporated into East Hampton’s comprehensive plan. They shared a sense that the town has not adequately addressed the problems along that stretch of county road and that the new ideas in the hamlet study would make things worse.

A proposed redevelopment described in the study includes new retail shops on the roadside and continued industrial uses and a new truck parking and contractors’ services area toward the middle of the site. There might be “live-work” housing, parks and trails, a food production zone, farmland, and new replanted view “buffers.” The commercial vehicle parking idea would require a new zoning classification. Reworking the properties would take a committed dialogue between town officials and the landowner, the authors wrote.

“The studies do not go far enough to protect the gateway to Springs,” said Carl Irace, an East Hampton lawyer representing Citizens to Preserve the East End. “Springs wants the town to protect the Springs gateway the way it did at the gateway to Wainscott,” referring to a purchase of open space recommended in a separate study that called for aesthetic improvements along Montauk Highway, among other efforts at traffic reducing and environmental protection. He said the group opposed any new development around the recycling center entrance.

“Traffic congestion we should strive to eliminate rather than accept as the inevitable result of development,” Frank Riina, a Springs resident, said. 

“Uncharted commercial development is an existential threat to the surrounding community,” he said. Intensifying the use of the sand mine would create an additional 1,000 or more additional vehicle trips per day, he said. 

For Jim Cafaro, who said he and his wife spend more than half of the year at their Clearwater Beach house, traffic on Springs-Fireplace Road reminded him of southern Westchester, where at certain times of day it was nearly impossible to get anywhere.

Several speakers expressed opposition to the range of service businesses there and to “truck farms,” typically fenced areas where landscape companies and others can store vehicles when they are not being used.

Robert Pine, a 29-year resident with a house on Springs-Fireplace Road was one of many speakers who urged the town board to buy remaining undeveloped parcels of land around the recycling center, particularly one for which a carwash is in the planning stage.

Springs is a paradox, as the authors of the study, Peter Flinker of Dodson and Flinker, a Massachusetts consulting firm, and Lisa Liquori of Fine Arts and Sciences, a former town planning director, remarked. In places it retains the character of a 19th-century farming and fishing community; in others it carries the burdens of growth, including water pollution, residential crowding, and quality of life hurdles.

Following a series of meetings in May with Springs residents and others, the consultants prepared interlocking plans for better bicycle routes, a walking “district” at the Head of Three Mile Harbor, and for the existing business area where Fort Pond Boulevard meets Springs-Fireplace Road.

A strong preservation message had come out of the meetings between residents and the consultants. Priorities that emerged from those sessions included maintaining what is left of the hamlet’s rural character and historical locations. On the environment, there was support for improving water quality in Three Mile Harbor and Accabonac Creek. Doing something about the near-total lack of sidewalks and making roads safer for bicyclists were top issues, as was limiting commercial work truck parking and large equipment storage in residential neighborhoods. 

Several speakers last Thursday called for a master plan for the area bounded to the east by Accabonac Road and on the west by Three Mile Harbor Road. Tina Plessett was among those and said that a new committee be convened to take it on.

Martin Drew lamented that the Springs Park, a 40-acre town parcel accessed via a long driveway off Three Mile Harbor Road, had become a dog run while the board ignores the need for active recreation spots in the hamlet.

According to the Census Bureau’s 2014 American Community Survey, Springs has the highest population density of all of the town’s hamlets. About 5,800 people were said to live in Springs in 2014, up by a third since 2000. It had the youngest population, with a median age of 38.5, was about a third Spanish-speaking or Latino, and had a median household income in 2014 of $80,303.

Environmentally, Springs faces a number of challenges, the study’s authors wrote. These included habitat loss, water and light pollution, and the impacts of climate change. “As sea level rises, coastal erosion will likely change the shape of beaches and coastal wetlands. Storm surges from coastal storms and hurricanes, on top of these higher tide elevations, will create flood impacts that extend further inland than the same sized storms today,” they wrote.

The authors called strongly for more preservation fund purchases to help address critical environmental and quality of life issues. Bike and foot traffic might be accommodated with new multipurpose trails parallel with some of the main roads and marking bike lanes elsewhere.

Businesses at either end of Fort Pond Boulevard would eventually meet improved design standards and be reconfigured so customers’ vehicles did not have to back out into traffic, perhaps made possible by a new shared parking ordinance. The eastern end, nearest to the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, could be rethought to allow outdoor seating, benches, and walking access between properties so that it became part of a “public realm,” encouraging social interaction or even a place to sit for a while and watch the world go by — property owners would be nudged in this direction through a new business overlay district with its own rules and standards.

The report also called for more frequent service on the Suffolk Transit 10B bus loop, which now spaces service at untenable 90-minute intervals.

During the May forums and smaller meetings, participants agreed on the need for better pedestrian and bike safety, but were divided about how to go about this, the study authors said.

Ms. Liquori, the co-consultant for all the hamlet studies, took copious notes throughout the hearing. At some point, the work will be declared complete and its recommendations incorporated into the town’s 2005 comprehensive plan, with possible code changes to come.

The final hamlet study hearing will be the one for Montauk on Dec. 6 at Town Hall.

East End

C.P.F. Revenues Up

Revenues for the Peconic Bay Region Community Preservation Fund for the first 10 months of 2018 are up 3 percent over the same period last year. 

Through October, the C.P.F. had collected $81.27 million, versus $78.88 million in 2017. The fund collected $8.31 million in October, almost $800,000 more than the October 2017 figure, which was $7.53 million. Over the last 12 months, the fund has collected $97.6 million. 

The Town of East Hampton saw a 23.9-percent increase over the first 10 months of 2017, with revenue rising from $21.64 million to $26.82 million. Southampton Town, however, saw an 8-percent decrease, its share falling to $43.3 million through the first 10 months of 2018 versus $47.09 million from January through October 2017. Shelter Island saw an even greater decrease, to $970,000 from $1.35 million, a 28.1-percent decline. 

Among the five East End towns, Riverhead saw the greatest gain percentagewise through the first 10 months of 2018, revenue rising by 43.3 percent, from $2.82 million to $4.04 million. Southold Town saw a modest uptick in revenue, from $5.98 million to $6.14 million, or a 2.7-percent increase over the first 10 months of 2017. 

The community preservation fund comes from a 2-percent real estate transfer tax, proceeds from which are disbursed to the townships in which the transaction takes place. It is used to acquire land, development rights, and other interests in property for conservation and water quality improvement purposes. 

Cumulative C.P.F. revenue stands at $1.364 billion since the fund’s inception, in 1999. In 2006, voters in all five townships approved a referendum to extend the fund’s life from 2020 to 2030. In a 2016 referendum, voters extended the fund to 2050 and added the opportunity for the towns to invest up to 20 percent of the funds toward water quality improvement projects. C.W.

Suffolk County

Schneiderman Concedes

Jay Schneiderman has officially conceded the race for Suffolk County comptroller to the incumbent, John M. Kennedy Jr., three weeks after the election. Mr. Schneiderman, who is the Southampton Town supervisor and a former East Hampton Town supervisor, had been waiting for the absentee ballots to be tallied. 

He said on Tuesday that he finished 4,536 votes down out of more than 500,000 cast. “The margin was less than 1 percent,” he said. He ran on the Democratic ticket.

There are also 1,000 or so votes being challenged by Mr. Kennedy’s team, and those have not been counted yet, Mr. Schneiderman said. He estimated that in the end he will have lost by 3,000 to 4,000 votes. 

“I just called John Kennedy and conceded. I congratulated him on his victory and pledged to work together to help the county get through its financial challenges,” Mr. Schneiderman said. He plans to run for re-election as supervisor in the fall. 

New York State

Thiele Supports Solar Expansion Campaign

Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr. has announced his support for the Million Solar Strong campaign, an effort to power one million New York households, including 100,000 low-income households, with solar energy by 2023.

The coalition comprises industry, environmental, justice, and community organizations that are working toward a clean energy economy that benefits all state residents. The campaign strengthens the state’s Reforming the Energy Vision initiative, which seeks to develop the renewable energy industry, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and derive 50 percent of New York’s electricity from renewable sources by 2030. Accelerating the transition to a clean energy system will make energy and utility bills more affordable, create new jobs, reduce air pollution, and combat climate change. 

“These efforts will help combat climate change, reduce emissions, and build a more environmentally-friendly, resilient and affordable energy system,” Mr. Thiele said in a statement issued on Tuesday. “It is imperative that we reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, and support initiatives that seek to advance New York’s clean energy future — one that is available to all New Yorkers, regardless of income level.”

Without fanfare and with no public comment, the East Hampton Town Board voted unanimously on Nov. 20 to adopt amendments to its zoning code establishing parking requirements that could affect motels’ ability to add accessory uses such as a restaurant, bar, or retail store. 

The amendments were noisily debated, however, at an Oct. 4 public hearing, when Montauk residents and business owners weighed in emphatically on the proposal. The former group was unanimously in favor of a mechanism to control paralyzing traffic and what they called an out-of-control party atmosphere, while the latter pleaded with the board not to restrict their ability to offer amenities on which they said the modern tourist insists, and the executive director of the Montauk Chamber of Commerce complained that its 300-plus members had not been consulted in the drafting of the legislation. 

The board received public comment on the proposed amendments until Nov. 1. 

The amendments set an establishment’s parking requirement for its principal use, as calculated by the current code and not its preexisting nonconforming status, as a starting point. Adding an accessory use would compel the on-site addition of 50 percent of that use’s required parking as calculated by the code. That requirement can be reduced, however, if the planning board determines a reduced need based on conditions it imposed or through mitigation offered by the property owner. Properties seeking to add an accessory use are to be addressed on a case-by-case basis. 

Another amendment limits the floor area of a resort, motel, or club’s accessory use to one-third of the facility’s aggregate floor area. A third amendment limits any portion of such a business devoted to the sale of amenities such as T-shirts and other clothing and “logo” items to 100 square feet. 

Montauk residents at the Oct. 4 hearing had identified as problematic businesses including the Surf Lodge, Ruschmeyer’s, the Sloppy Tuna, the Montauk Beach House, the Atlantic Terrace, and Hero Beach Club, the latter two having recently changed hands, with their new ownership apparently seeking to add a restaurant or bar. Their quality of life has deteriorated, residents said, as Montauk’s popularity as a destination for young adults has soared. 

“We’ve had a public hearing on this,” Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, the board’s liaison to the business committee, said on Nov. 20. “We’ve received quite a few comments, and all the ones I received were in favor. The business committee also weighed in — it was not unanimous but was in favor of passing this legislation.”

A Southampton Town Board proposal on how the town’s citizens advisory committees operate drew harsh criticism from the Bridgehampton Citizens Advisory Committee at a meeting Monday night. The committees, appointed volunteers who represent the hamlets, have frequently opposed development projects.  

The proposed new rules are intended to limit the committees to commenting on matters before the town board rather than on land use issues before the planning board and the zoning board of appeals.

 “The board doesn’t interfere with the other boards, so it doesn’t make sense for the C.A.C.s to weigh in as a body, as individuals sure, but not as a body,” said Jay Schneiderman, the Southampton Town supervisor, at the board’s Nov. 1 meeting. Mr. Schneiderman also said C.A.C.s should avoid partisan politics. Committee members should be “advising the town board, not deciding who should be on it,” he said. 

But Pamela Harwood, the Bridgehampton committee chairwoman, said the consensus among members of C.A.C.s throughout town was that the proposal seemed to be a form of retribution for the opposition the groups have mounted against projects such as the expansion of T.J. Maxx, a chain store, at Bridgehampton Commons. “Since there have been so many overdevelopment issues and the citizens have been so vocal, many people see this as an attempt to stifle our feedback,” she said. “This does feel like a total shutdown,” Nancy Walter-Yvertes, another C.A.C. member, said.

The proposal lays out guidelines on everything from the number of members appointed to the advisory committees to the way their meetings should be conducted. 

Tommy John Schiavoni, a town board member who attended Monday’s Bridgehampton C.A.C. meeting, said that since the groups are an extension of the town board, it was a legal and ethical question whether they should be allowed to exert influence on officials making land-use decisions. 

“If we’re not encouraged to comment directly on planning and zoning cases that are before these boards, I think you can kiss the C.A.C.s goodbye,” said Peter Wilson, another longtime member. “Frankly, 99 percent of the reason people get involved in these things is because of what is going on in terms of development.”

Ms. Harwood said the town board had not included any of the committee chairs in the process of writing the new rules and that the proposal would leave the groups without clear purpose. “Everybody agrees that the big stuff going on in Southampton Town is all about zoning and planning and development and, minus that, what are we going to give feedback about?” she asked. 

The conversation then turned to whether it might be better for the Bridgehampton C.A.C. to reorganize as a civic association, which would mean it no longer had ties to or oversight by government and would therefore be able to advocate freely. 

“As a civic group, we’ll be able to raise money, and have lawyers show up to speak at every single town meeting, is that really what you want?” Peter Feder asked Mr. Schiavoni, who turned the question around and asked if that was what the Bridgehampton C.A.C. wanted. Mr. Feder replied, “If you’re going to limit what we can comment on and how we can interact then I would say, ‘What do we have to lose?’ ”

A town board vote on the proposal had been scheduled for Nov. 13, but it was pushed to Dec. 11 after Marlene Haresign, a member of the Water Mill C.A.C., also objected to being prevented from weighing in on land use. “We’ve never had anyone challenge the fact that we review site plans and offer concerns,” she said. “We’ve done it for 20 years and no one’s ever questioned it.”

Julie Lofstad, the board member who sponsored the proposal, said the intent was not to silence citizens groups or inhibit their participation. She promised that even if the new rules were put in place she would make sure the C.A.C.s continued to receive site plans and pertinent information from the planning and zoning boards.

Despite objections from farmers to a proposed law on the installation of eight-foot-high deer fences, which they said would be burdensome, the Sagaponack Village Board passed the measure without revision last week.

The village code had stated that deer fences were allowed only on properties in agriculture production; the new law defines agricultural production as a commercial enterprise and among other provisions, it requires applicants to demonstrate that an economic loss would occur without fencing.

The installation also would have to protect the “visual and scenic resources of the village.” It contains a sunset clause requiring such fences to be removed on agricultural land that has remained fallow for two years.