Barnegat Light’s distinctive town hall is as historic as it looks in its stately presence on East Seventh Street. In the post-wartime generation of the 1940s and beyond, kids looked at it in awe as the place holding men of the U.S. Coast Guard as well as the only freezer in town, a treasure chest of ice cream, said Mayor Kirk Larson, who had heard stories from his late father.

This month a lift truck on the lawn and the stages of exterior paint removal are part of a contract to RWS Painting…