Villages

    “It is most unusual that we have gone through May and at this writing on June 1 there was very little rainfall. Agriculturally it is dry, but I am sure, as long-term records show, rainfall will be here soon.” So wrote Richard G. Hendrickson, the United States Cooperative weather observer in Bridgehampton, in his monthly report for May.

    There was light rain on seven days last month, the heaviest — just over half an inch — coming on May 28. The total for the month was 2.13 inches, as compared to a long-term average of 3.5 to 4 inches, Mr. Hendrickson said.

Willie Nelson is coming to Montauk’s Surf Lodge for a concert on Sunday and a representative of the popular night spot tried to assure members of the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee on Monday night that everything would be under control.

Four candidates make a bid for village mayor

    Despite the ravages of Hurricane Sandy and a northeaster that followed, East Hampton’s Main Beach has been named the best beach in the United States on the 23rd annual Top 10 Beach list, as ranked Dr. Stephen P. Leatherman of Florida International University.

    East Hampton veterans, volunteer firefighters and ambulance personnel, and the East Hampton High School marching band took part in a Memorial Day parade Monday on Main Street under a cloudless blue sky.

     The parade drew a strong turnout of flag-waving observers along its route from near Guild Hall to the Hook Mill green.

    East Hampton Town Clerk Fred Overton presided over a ceremony at a war memorial on the green following the end of the parade, where approximately 300 people had gathered, including a group of local elected officials.

    While beachgoers can still pay by the day to park at Two Mile Hollow Beach this season, there will be no parking attendant on duty at the parking lot there. Those without a village beach permit who wish to park in the lot between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. will have to purchase a daily permit from the office at the Main Beach pavilion before heading to Two Mile Hollow.

    Good news was the order of the day at the 91st annual meeting of the East Hampton Historical Society, held recently at Clinton Academy.

     Arthur Graham, president of the board of trustees, reported that between fund-raising, memberships, and events such as house tours and parties, the society raised $560,000 in 2012 and now has net assets of $2.5 million. The money helps to fund its school programs, collections, exhibitions, and the upkeep of various buildings — in particular last year, the Mulford farmhouse and the Town Marine Museum in Amagansett.

    Memorial Day observances begin Monday morning at 9 with a ceremony at Main Beach in East Hampton for those members of the United States armed forces who were lost at sea.

    At 10 a.m. veterans and others will begin to gather near Guild Hall for a 10:30 parade along Main Street. Traffic will be diverted onto Dunemere and Further Lanes for the duration.

    Fifteen two-person teams made up of members of all branches of the military, veterans, and first responders will carry a United States flag 136 miles in about 26 hours from the Montauk Lighthouse to Ground Zero in Manhattan on Saturday to remind all in their path of the reason for the Memorial Day holiday.

    “As the parent of a fallen marine, every day is Memorial Day,” said Christian Haerter of Sag Harbor, whose son, Lance Cpl. Jordan Haerter, was killed in Iraq in 2008 at the age of 19.

    Montaukers will proudly wave the American flag this weekend in honor of Memorial Day. The hamlet’s three-day event is in its third year. The services begin at 5 p.m. on Saturday at the Montauk Coast Guard Station, where a fish-and-chips dinner honoring veterans will be held on the grounds overlooking Lake Montauk. Veterans eat free. Guests will be asked for a $20 donation, $10 for children 10 and under.

    “As we look through the weather records from April 1 to April 30, we go through the temperature range of sometimes the 20s to the 60s by the month’s end,” Richard G. Hendrickson wrote in his April weather report from Bridgehampton. “This great variation is due in part to our location — 100 miles out in the Atlantic Ocean, yet but a few miles from the mainland on the north.”

    Changes are afoot in downtown Montauk in time for the summer season. One is a trash recycling pilot program; the other the institution of a two-hour parking limit in much of the area.

    The recycling program was initiated by Laraine Creegan of the Montauk Chamber of Commerce and Catherine Foley, the owner of the Air and Speed Board Shop on Main Street, a member and former director of the Montauk Chamber. Ms. Foley said she had noticed an increase in litter in the downtown area and at the same time some of her customers were shocked there was no recycling in public places.

    The storage building used by lifeguards at East Hampton Village’s Main Beach, damaged by Hurricane Sandy last October, will soon be demolished and reconstructed.

    After winning election to the Montauk Library’s board on April 27, Perry Haberman learned that he was ineligible for the position. The board took action at a meeting on Monday to declare the election null and void, leaving Mr. Haberman, who was elected with 62 votes, off the board.

    Mr. Haberman had switched his voter registration to reflect a New York City residence in order to vote in the presidential election, which meant he was no longer considered a Suffolk County resident for a full year prior to the library election, as mandated under New York State election law.

    New parking regulations in downtown Montauk are planned for this season in an effort to free up parking spaces near businesses close to the beaches, which are often tied up all day by beachgoers.

    The East Hampton Town Board will vote tonight to set a hearing for May 16 on a proposal developed by a parking committee of the Montauk Chamber of Commerce. It would limit parking to two hours in much of the area south of Main Street surrounding Edison Beach, including along South Etna Avenue and South Edison Street.

    A funny coincidence brought Marcus Mumford and Kirsty McGaul and the tandem bike they had ridden from Boston to the Ladies Village Improvement Society’s headquarters in East Hampton on April 23.

   Esther Laufer, who turned 100 on Tuesday, remembers trolley cars and horse-drawn wagons, silent movies, spinning tops in the gutter on the street, and egg creams at the local soda fountain.

    Mrs. Laufer, who lives in Northwest Woods, is the daughter of Russian immigrants who came to the United States to escape the pogroms of the czar. She was born Esther Murofchick in Brooklyn and grew up in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. “Everybody knew each other,” she remembered last week.

   Words of wisdom from Margaret Mead warned to “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

    Save Sag Harbor, founded in 2007, has taken those words to heart, making it its mission “to safeguard the scale and fabric of a historic village,” effecting positive change while preventing what it sees as negative, and backing the village’s commercial code, which the group helped push for.

With little public discussion of the matter among Sag Harbor Village Board members or residents, two police officer positions were written out of the village budget.

Drivers on Montauk Highway from Bridgehampton to East Hampton Village began to experience delays Wednesday as roadwork got underway. The New York State Department of Transportation announced Tuesday that a 2.3-mile section of the heavily used road between Stephen Hand's Path and the Route 114-Main Street intersection in East Hampton Village would be resurfaced.

    Mary Lou Kaler, an East Hampton horsewoman who 21 years ago adopted a young horse named Bubba — a Clydesdale that grew familiar to town residents, clomping peacefully in numerous parades and offering cart rides around town — reported his death on March 30, six weeks after a Star turn in a photo on the front page of this newspaper.

    Ms. Kaler said that she and a partner, Glenn Heigl, got the yearling horse in 1992 from a breeder in Jamesport. He was already named Bubba. “With a good Bonac name like that, he was destined to live in East Hampton,” she said.    

    Montauk will celebrate Earth Day on Saturday with a cleanup from 10 a.m. to noon starting at the Montauk Movie, where bags and gloves will be dispensed. Hosted by the Concerned Citizens of Montauk and the Group for the East End, the festivities will continue at 11:30 a.m. through 1:30 p.m. at the Montauk Playhouse Community Center with a program on everything you ever wanted to know about birds. There will be crafts for kids and materials for making bling-laden birdie gift bags.

    The Town of East Hampton is offering a boating safety course on May 18 at Town Hall, but early registration is necessary. Those interested can register by calling 324-4141. After registering, required reading will be provided so that participants will be able to come to the class prepared.

    The Sag Harbor Village Board waived a $206,575 fee Tuesday night for the renewal of the Bulova Watchcase condominium development’s building permit. The village attorney, Fred Thiele, reasoned that the developer, Sag Development Partners, had paid the fee once at a figure deemed “more than sufficient” and that collection of a second fee would constitute an illegal levy.

    William and Mary Kampf and Herbert Keith III and Pamela Anderson, all of East Hampton, have announced the engagement of their daughters, Kelly Kampf and Melanie Anderson.

    Ms. Anderson graduated from East Hampton High School and received her bachelor’s degree in security management from Coastal Carolina University in South Carolina. She is employed as a deputy sheriff with the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office in Virginia.

    March, as it turned out, really did go out like a lamb, with a high of 54 degrees recorded on the 28th by Richard G. Hendrickson, the United States Cooperative weather observer in Bridgehampton.

    Last month’s temperatures began in the 30s in the first week, then rose into the 40s and low 50s the next week, but a cool spell prevailed until the final week of the month, when it was 50 or higher on three days. The low for the month was 18 degrees on the 6th, Mr. Hendrickson wrote in his monthly weather report.

    Applications are being accepted through the end of this month to get on the waiting list for the affordable apartments at St. Michael’s in Amagansett, which are earmarked for senior citizens.

Those eligible must be age 62 or older, with an annual income below $37,500. Those with additional assets are eligible.

    At present there are no available units in the complex, which opened several months ago.

    Sag Harbor Village’s police chief, Tom Fabiano, pleaded yet again with Mayor Brian Gilbride on Tuesday evening to reconsider eliminating one officer from the force. The proposed village budget does away with the job. Should that in fact happen, said the chief, it would affect not only his department but “people that live, visit, go to school here, boat or drive here, have an event here, have a medical issue, fire, or criminal matter.”

    The Montauk Playhouse Community Center will have a generator by summer. The Village of East Hampton is to donate a used one that will be delivered within the month, Bruce Bates, the director of East Hampton Town’s emergency preparedness program, told the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee on Monday.

    The playhouse is one of three shelters in the hamlet, along with the Montauk School and the Montauk Downs clubhouse. Even though the latter have generators they were not open as evacuation centers during Sandy because the American Red Cross was unable to staff them.

    In recent weeks the buzz around Montauk is that Gurney’s Inn has been sold. Ingrid Lemme, the inn’s marketing director and spokeswoman, denied this in a press release issued on March 25.

    “Gurney’s Inn has not been sold. Currently conversations are taking place between Gurney’s timeshare owners and a potential investor. At this point we are not at liberty to discuss those conversations. It is business as usual at Gurney’s. The hotel, seawater spa, and restaurant are waiting to welcome you,” the release said.