Despite an outburst earlier this month that the East Hampton Village mayor called “totally inappropriate and not in keeping with the high standard of professionalism” the village expects, Andrew Goldstein will continue to serve as chairman of the village zoning board of appeals, according to a statement issued on Monday by Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr.

    At a Sept. 14 zoning board hearing on the Maidstone Club’s irrigation overhaul, Mr. Goldstein told David Eagan, attorney for the club, to sit down or he would call security, and at the height of his frustration, requested that audio recording be stopped. It was not. Mr. Goldstein then apologized and Mr. Eagan accepted.

    In a closed-door session on Friday, “the board of trustees had a frank discussion with Mr. Goldstein in his capacity as chairman of our zoning board of appeals,” Mayor Rickenbach said in the statement. Mr. Goldstein admitted his error in conduct and apologized to the village board. “The board of trustees accepted Mr. Goldstein’s apology in good faith, with the caveat that it is understood similar conduct in the future will not be tolerated,” the mayor said in the statement.

    “I have no comment on Mr. Goldstein’s conduct or the village’s response,” Mr. Eagan said in an e-mail. And for the record, he said he felt the description in last week’s Star of his exchange with Mr. Goldstein on Sept. 14 as “heated” was inaccurate. “At no time was my behavior inappropriate. Anyone who was present or viewed the tape will see that I represented our client in a professional manner and was there to advance their interests and to defend their legal rights,” Mr. Eagan wrote. “Nothing that happened at the meeting will change my approach or that of my colleagues.”

    Mr. Goldstein declined to comment.

    Voters in the East Hampton Library District, which includes the East Hampton, Springs, and Wainscott School Districts, will vote on Saturday on a nearly $2 million budget for 2013, an increase of just over $120,000 over this year’s budget.

    According to the proposed budget summary, personnel expenses comprise the largest increase in spending, $105,000 more than this year for a total of almost $1.4 million.

    The library has begun construction on its 6,800-square-foot addition, which will include dedicated space for young adults. It plans to hire a part-time librarian to work with them. “That age group has never had its own place in the building,” said Dennis Fabiszak, the library’s director. “During finals, we would close the entire library for students to come in and study after school and there was a huge response.”

    Mr. Fabiszak expects construction of the new wing to be completed by Memorial Day 2013.

The library also plans to hire a part-time custodian.

    Materials make up the second highest increase in the 2013 budget, $10,900 more for a total of $135,000.

“When it’s broken down by the three districts, it’s only about a $7.50 rise in an individual’s tax,” said Mr. Fabiszak. “Since 1995, many residents and library board members have donated close to $15 million, which has lessened the need for taxpayer assistance.”

    “This is only the third time we’ve asked for an increase,” said Mr. Fabiszak. “We didn’t ask for an increase at all last year.”

    Voting will be from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the library.

     It’s likely that the standing room only crowd of over 100 people learned something new about disease-bearing ticks at the Concerned Citizens of Montauk’s annual meeting, which included a forum on Lyme disease, on Saturday at the Montauk Firehouse.

     The discussion was led by Dr. Joseph Burrascano Jr., an expert in the field of tick disease, who upon retiring from a private practice in East Hampton began further research on Lyme and related illnesses, and Jeremy Samuelson, the executive director of C.C.O.M.

    Dr. Burrascano went over the symptoms transmitted by ticks and said that 80 to 100 percent of the ticks on the South Fork are infected. It is a fallacy, he said, that a tick has to be attached to a person for 24 hours before it can transmit disease. Lone star ticks, the ones with the little spot on the center of the back, can transmit a disease within hours, he said.

    Lone star ticks are attracted to carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, which brings them to road edges and parking lot areas, Mr. Samuelson said. Disease symptoms are broad and they are often diagnosed as an arthritic condition, such as “Montauk knee,” rather than an infectious disease.

    Only 17 percent of people with Lyme disease remember a bite, Dr. Burrascano said, explaining that the blood test for it is worse than a coin toss. “The sicker you are the less likely it is to show up in blood work,” he said. Patients have to be their own advocates, he said, and suggested that if people think they have Lyme disease they should list their symptoms on a calendar or diary every day.

    “It’s a pattern of recognition. Keep going to your doctor even if you’re labeled as crazy. Make the most of your visit and open your mouth,” he said. “Doctors are not the kings of the world; don’t be afraid to speak up.”

    The longer Lyme remains undetected, the longer it will take to treat, he said.

    Dr. Burrascano also warned that one tick can transmit multiple infections. If you already have the disease and get another illness, it will make you even sicker, he said. Longstanding Lyme can damage nerve endings, and patients have to go through very strong antibiotic therapy to be cured. “A combination therapy is the way to go for a long-term Lyme,” he said.

    He also prescribed staying healthy, avoiding alcohol, exercising, sticking to a low-fat diet, and forcing yourself to rest and sleep well. “When you sleep is when your immune system comes back. If your body is telling you it needs rest, then rest. Take a nap if you can.”

    “Oh, and don’t forget to laugh,” Dr. Burrascano said. One piece of good news is that a new test that can detect the disease is now available in other states and will soon be offered in New York. “It is based on growing the Borrelia bacteria in the lab,” he said.

    Dr. Burrascano recommended going to the Web site of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society at Ilads.org to learn more about tick diseases.

    Mr. Samuelson offered suggestions on how to keep ticks from one’s home environment. Damp, overgrown vegetation is an invitation for ticks, he said. Japanese barberry shrubs are a deterrent. October is when adult ticks become more prevalent and last until they are buried under snow or frozen in the ground, he said.

    “You want to create a crisp, dry, sun-filled environment around your home,” he said, noting that mice, which carry ticks, seek wood sheds, wood piles, bird feeders, and stone walls when cooler weather comes.

   East Hampton Town Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc has gotten the ball rolling again, so to speak, on the renovation of the Montauk Skate Park on Essex Street.

    The East Hampton Town Board liaison to the Town Parks and Recreation Department, Mr. Van Scoyoc met on Sept. 19 with employees of the department to identify issues still needed to be addressed at the town-owned park.

The town has been sitting on $30,000 in grant money obtained by former Councilwoman Julia Prince for the work several years ago. The town also received a pledge of $32,000 for the project from a benefit in 2010 when artists and skateboarders joined forces to raise money through an art show and cocktail party at the Out East gallery in Montauk.

    Employees of the town’s Building and Grounds Department are expected to swarm the property today to repair the damaged edges of the north side of the site, which will be transformed to a basketball court from an open court that has been used in various ways, including roller skating, handball, and as a dog run.

    Mr. Van Scoyoc said this week that the first order of business after the cleanup will be to resurface the grounds. The work was not expected to begin until October, but it has been rescheduled and will start immediately. The Highway Department is supplying the materials.

    It was also reported this week that a new, appropriate boulder has been found for an already finished plaque in honor of Lars Simonsen, a young man who often used the park and was killed in a construction accident in June 2007. The park is to be dedicated in his name.

    The Sag Harbor Village Planning Board may hand down a decision involving Harbor Heights, the Hampton road service station that wants to add a convenience store, on Tuesday at its 5:30 meeting, after evaluating the project through State Environmental Quality Review Act guidelines. The board may be ready to declare a negative SEQRA evaluation, having in hand a new traffic study and modified lighting and landscaping plans.

    The original traffic report was unacceptable, as it analyzed the property as a convenience store only, rather than a gas station with a store as a subordinate use.

    Stonefield Engineering and Design, which did the second study, monitored the road for two weeks in July, including the July 4 holiday, and found about 16,000 vehicles on the road on a typical Tuesday-through-Thursday  weekday over a 24-hour period, distributed evenly in both directions. That is twice the average of off-season traffic, said Larry Perrine, a board member, at the board’s August meeting, referring to the original traffic study.

    According to current calculations, there are 54 vehicles stopping at the station during weekday morning peak hours, 61 at midday, and 50 during peak evening hours, with a noticeable increase on Saturdays.

    The planning board was also concerned about minimizing the impact of lighting on nearby properties while still providing safe access. The new lighting plan eliminates free-standing light poles, cuts in half the number of fixtures under the fueling canopy, and reduces the intensity of bulbs used to the lowest available.

    A new rendering shows 50- to 80-foot eastern white pines and 35- to 60-foot leyland cypresses, proposed as a double row to surround the “country market” style store and service station.

    The public hearing will be left open to further comment. A final decision may be made at the board’s October meeting.

    Not only was August free of coastal storms, it had no heavy 4-to-6-inch rainfall like has been seen in Augusts of past years, according to Richard G. Hendrickson, the United States Cooperative weather observer in Bridgehampton.

    Rain fell on four days last month, with the heaviest — .66 inch — coming on Aug. 19. The total for the month was 1.48 inches, well off the long-term average of 3.4 inches. In August 1952, the wettest August ever recorded in Bridgehampton, rainfall was a whopping 13.19 inches.

    Mr. Hendrickson recorded no rains with thunder and lightning last month. However, the weather observer, who has been keeping weather records for over 80 years and celebrated his 100th birthday just last week, recalled thunderstorms of years gone by when he was a farmer and lightning might kill chickens while they rested in the high grass or down milk cows “while waiting to enter the barn to be milked.”

    He remembered a time when the daytime farm help sought shelter in the machine shed and “witnessed electric lightning in all its glory, dancing all over the stored iron farm machinery.” As a 10-year-old, he wrote, he saw “a ball of St. Elmo’s fire rolling, hissing in the sky, going from telephone pole top to the highest lightning rod on the farm home to the ground.”

    The warmest day of August was the 8th, when the thermometer hit 90 degrees, Mr. Hendrickson reported. It was in the 80s or higher on 17 days. The coolest day of last month was the 1st, when it was only 70, and on the coolest night, Aug. 30, it was just 49 degrees.

    “These are low August temperatures for this period of years, because we are in a period of global warming, but such is weather,” Mr. Hendrickson wrote. “Mother Nature is boss.”

    “Local sweet corn and melons are now at their best,” he said, and described how coastal storms, “each laden with a small amount of ocean saltwater in their clouds,” have deposited their water on our sandy soil, “giving an impeccable flavor to the vegetables grown” here.

    Sister Ann Marino, the director of Cormaria, a retreat house in Sag Harbor, knows that people passing by often wonder about the mansion with a wraparound waterfront porch and extensive gardens barely visible from Bay Street. In celebration of her 30 years as director, Sister Ann will welcome the public to explore the compound on Sunday from 2 to 4 p.m.

    Sitting near a large picture window with a view of the bay in the building’s oversized dining room, Sister Ann said on Monday that she had no idea how long she would be at Cormaria when she arrived from a mission in Rome in September of 1982. She thought she had been sent to Sag Harbor to facilitate retreats, but learned upon arrival that she would be in charge.

    Knowing no one in the area, Sister Ann said she was embraced by women from Montauk, East Hampton, and Sag Harbor, who helped her settle in. Today, Cormaria offers retreats for persons of all religious faiths who are “looking for direction and a closer connection to their spiritual lives,” she said.

    The house was built in 1905 by Frank Havens, whose fortune was made in real estate. Before becoming a retreat house in 1946, the property had been a finishing school for young Catholic women. During her time as its director, Sister Ann has renovated the house and chapel, which is now connected to a small building with living accommodations, expanded the retreat programs, and worked with landscape artists to create calm and peaceful gardens.

    The gardens are dedicated to the many friends of Cormaria, including of a woman who lost her life helping others escape from the twin towers on Sept. 11. A block from one of the towers is in a meditation garden.

    Sister Ann speaks of the “very special sea” and the sunsets as part of Cormaria’s magic, and she enjoys sharing them with visitors. “You can see the stars at night and hear the whisper of the wind,” she said. No matter what religion, she said, you can meet your inner spirit at Cormaria.

     “We have a gift,” she said. “Summer people try to get that,” she said, which is why they come to the East End. She also loves the hamlets and villages here, where she said people support each other.

    Growing up in the Bronx, Sister Ann said she was not aware of the changing seasons. Nor had she ever known a farm stand. “For everything there is a season,” she said, explaining that she especially enjoys the beauty of snow, and hopes it for this winter.

    “I try to teach what is really important in our lives,” she said. “How to be at peace with ourselves in a world of chaos.” She said she had heard a loud voice early in life that told her to become a nun; she made the decision at 18.

    Now, 57 years later, after having had a varied career — she taught second grade internationally, was a school principal in Barcelona, and a teacher in a rough inner-city New York neighborhood for 12 years — she is pleased as she looks back at what she has accomplished.

    Cormaria offers a safe haven at which to recover from substance or domestic abuse and provides quiet contemplation time during lifetime transitions or difficult periods, including medical issues.

    It also runs 12-step programs, as well as retreats for young people and women, whom Sister Ann said she guides to “Walk tall in their truth, and realize they are a gift.”

    Cormaria can accommodate up to 72 guests. The facilities include several conference rooms and a professional kitchen. It has had approximately 4,000 visitors each year.

    With the recent closing of several retreat houses, such as St. Gabriel’s Passionist Center on Shelter Island and the Dominican Sisters complex in Water Mill, Cormaria is now the only retreat house on the East End with a year-round schedule.

    It is entirely self-funding, with an annual strawberry tea and fashion show, golf benefits, and small and large donations. Its newest fund is named for the director, the Sister Ann Marino Endowment Fund, which will be used for maintenance. Donations can be sent to Cormaria, P.O. Box 1993, Sag Harbor 11963.

    As for how long she will be at Cormaria, it will depend on what her Provincial order decides. She may go to Africa as an AIDS worker. For now, she stays focused on the present. “If I find myself bored, it will be time,” she said. “God of surprises calls the shots.”

    Sag Harbor has been missing a village trustee since the August resignation of Timothy Culver, and Mayor Brian Gilbride does not plan to appoint someone to fill his seat, preferring that the public choose someone at the next election.

    At the board’s last meeting there were only three members present. Dr. Robby Stein was absent, having been injured in a bicycle accident on Suffolk Street.

    Mr. Stein, who suffered a concussion, a broken nose, and fractured vertebrae, is now recovering at home. He is said to have no recollection of the accident or his Medevac airlift from Havens Beach to Stony Brook University Medical Center.

    The Amagansett Historical Association will host a “mini barn-raising” on Saturday at 2 p.m. on its property at 129 Main Street, at the corner of Windmill Lane. Volunteers have been invited to help raise the beams and hammer in the trunnels (oak pegs), using simple hand tools, the way they used to.

    The event is intended to demonstrate, albeit on a small scale, how post-and-beam structures are assembled, said Peter Garnham, the association’s director.

    “There’s quite a bit of interest in that type of framing now,” he said, “not just for historic-type structures but as houses, small houses, and barns. We thought it was an appropriate place to do it because we’re a historical association, and this is a historical method of framing houses.”

    Mr. Garnham noted that the Miss Amelia Cottage, which is on the site, was built by a similar method in 1725.

    David and Jeanie Stiles of Stiles Designs, authors and publishers of how-to books about similar structures, such as tree houses, sheds, and cabins, will be on hand at the event. The Stileses, who have written 22 books on wooden buildings, were inspired by a visit to an Amish community in upstate New York to design a timber-framed shed “small enough that it could fit on a flatbed truck, less expensive than adding on to your existing house, and simple enough to construct that it could be put together in a day simply by hammering in wooden pegs,” they wrote in a e-mail.

    The structure that will be assembled on Saturday could serve as an artist’s studio, a writer’s retreat, a pool house, a home office, a guesthouse, or a yoga-meditation sanctuary, the Stileses suggested. What the historical association will use it for remains to be seen.

    Refreshments will be served. The rain date is Sunday. 

    Taylor Kari Vecsey and Nicholas Bryan Hemby of Water Mill have announced their engagement.

    Ms. Vecsey, a former senior writer for The Star, is a local editor for East Hampton Patch, a news media Web site owned by AOL. She is the daughter of Joan and Peter F. Vecsey of Shelter Island and Manhattan and is a graduate of the College of Charleston and the Ross School.

    Mr. Hemby is the owner of Greenlife Solutions, which offers consulting and energy savings solutions and specializes in spray foam insulation and LED lighting. He also owns Hamptons Concierge, one of the first concierge services on the East End. He is the son of Doris and Cordis Hemby of Bridgehampton and Fuquay-Varina, N.C. Mr. Hemby attended Morrisville State College and is a graduate of Bridgehampton High School.

    The couple are volunteers in the Bridgehampton Fire Department, where Mr. Hemby is a captain and emergency medical technician. They met in passing in the 1990s and reconnected through mutual friends in 2007. They remained friends for several months, but Ms. Vecsey recalled that a class at the Loaves and Fishes Cooking School in Bridgehampton, called Date Night in Sicily, was a turning point. “I got to see him doing something he loved and his happiness and enthusiasm was contagious.” They began dating in 2008.

    The couple anticipates an October 2014 wedding.