We don’t think of trees as flowering plants, but they are.  Oak flowers are just past peaking. The male flowers, called catkins, have shed most of their pollen and are dropping shriveled and brown en masse. This Monday morning my black truck had become yellow and black, as it was covered with the last pollen to be released from my scarlet and black oak trees, which have now turned their attention to expanding their leaves. Makes sense, doesn’t it? The flowers precede the leaves because the female flowers, the aments, are more efficiently pollinated when the leaves don’t get in the way of the wind-born pollen.

But wait, the breathing difficulties those of us have been experiencing from the oaks whose leaves have bristle-tipped edges, are far from over; the white oaks, which invariably flower and leaf out two weeks or more after, are just getting started. Then we must suffer the pollen from the pitch pines, hickories, and sassafras. It’s not pollen from shrubs and flowers that plagues allergy sufferers throughout the month of May; it’s the pollen from trees.

On Friday morning I heard my first Baltimore orioles. They time their arrival to the expansion of the oak and hickory leaves, and they were right on time. 

They weren’t the only bird species to fly in last week. Karen and Barbara Rubinstein went out on Friday and walked the Stony Hill trail in Amagansett.

They heard and saw the Baltimore oriole, but also nine different tropical warblers species, about half of which breed locally and half of which flies on to breed in New England, Canada, and upstate New York.

During several hours of listening and observing they encountered at least 44 different species in that relative small area of deciduous woods. Some, like the summer tanager, white-eyed vireo, parula warbler, indigo bunting, and yellow-billed cuckoo, are rarely seen locally. They also observed two other species which 10 or 15 years ago you would hardly expect to find in the area, the turkey vulture and fish crow. Birders almost never tally a fish crow by seeing it; it is a mite smaller than our common crow, but its distinctive nasal caw caws reveal its presence without fail. These days, you would be hard-pressed to find the common crow in downtown Sag Harbor, Bridgehampton, or Southampton Village. These busy areas have been all but taken over by the fish crow from the south.

If you traveled that same trail 45 years ago, you would have been hard pressed to find a mockingbird, tufted titmouse, cardinal, or red-bellied woodpecker, as these now-common birds from more southern climes had yet to set up camp here. The Rubinsteins found one or more of each, plus a house finch, a southwestern United States species, and one that supposedly escaped from a Brooklyn pet store during the first quarter of the 20th century, and then bred locally and spread throughout Long Island, until by the 1980s it had become as common as the house sparrow, another longstanding introduced species.

I couldn’t find the robin on the list Karen sent me, but thus far this year it’s been the most ubiquitous bird to cross my path. On just about every road shoulder or green lawn I’ve driven past during April and so far in May, there has been a male robin or two.

Among the prettiest birds the two encountered were the male rose-breasted grosbeak and scarlet tanager, two birds that are a bit rare as breeders here but which always pass through. The Stony Hill woods, Grace Estate woods, and Northwest Woods are good places to find and hear them during the nesting season.

It was also promising to see the wood thrush, which used to be a common breeder, on their list, as well as the ovenbird and eastern towhee. The latter two species, which nest on the ground, have become rare as breeders here over the past three or four decades.

There are two cuckoo species that visit us and sometimes breed here, the yellow-billed and black-billed cuckoos. Unlike the European cuckoos they are not nest parasites like the brown-headed cowbirds. Both cuckoos are great wormers and good to have around when gypsy moth caterpillars strike, as they just may this spring. Karen and Barbara recorded the yellow-billed cuckoo but not the black-billed one.

If Barbara and Karen, and the other wonderfully astute birders in the area like those two, keep sending me their observations, I will be able to vicariously see and hear those birds and never contract Lyme disease or babesiosis again.

Larry Penny can be reached via email at [email protected]

Pleasant Lane is to remain a two-way, dead-end street after East Hampton Village officials said last Thursday they would abandon an idea to make it partly one-way and open it up to the village’s long-term parking lot, which sits on the other side of a fence, a few trees, and a sidewalk at the end of the street.

Staunch opposition from several residents brought about the change of heart at last Thursday’s village board meeting, which was attended by about 20 people. The village had been considering making Pleasant Lane, which runs north-south off Newtown Lane near Railroad Avenue, a one-way street in the southbound direction heading toward the long-term lot. The proposal called for leaving the block a two-way street between Newtown Lane and the egress from the Suffolk County National Bank parking lot.

“This is a recipe for disaster,” Patrick Dellay, a resident of Pleasant Lane since January 1998, said. He said opening the block to the long-term parking lot would “utterly destroy the character of the neighborhood,” which he said already suffers from a difficult situation in which parking is only permitted along one side of the street, is not allowed overnight, and is often scooped up during the day by workers from nearby businesses and construction sites.

Francine Hanford, who has lived on Pleasant Lane most of her life, agreed with Mr. Dellay. “We have to jockey for parking spaces, and now we can’t park there overnight,” she said. “I can’t do anything, but everybody can take away from us. . . . It’s getting ridiculous. Leave our street alone.”

Matt Potz, a Pleasant Lane resident who works at Suffolk County National Bank, said if the street was opened up, the many pedestrians who walk on Pleasant Lane would have to dodge even more traffic. There are no sidewalks on the street.

“The kind of traffic you’re going to be introducing, the road was never meant to have,” Mr. Potz said. “It’s going to ruin the whole neighborhood. You’re going to have to change the name because it would be a cruel joke to call it ‘Pleasant Lane.’ I don’t think it’s safe.”

Others raised concerns about the removal of the trees at the end of the street, and the ability of two first responders who live thre to be able to get to the emergency services building in an efficient way. Opening the street would mean drivers would use it as a shortcut into the long-term parking lot, they said.

“We have certainly heard you,” Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach said, saying the idea would now be “off the table.” He then suggested prohibiting left turns from Pleasant Lane onto Newtown Lane either permanently or during the busy season.

“We’ve had some pedestrian accidents in that crosswalk that we’re trying to eliminate,” Richard Lawler, a board member, said. “It’s difficult to look left and right, integrate into traffic, and then keep your eye on the pedestrians.”

The suggestion was met with support from a few of the residents at the meeting, who also recommended more dead-end signs where the street begins. The village board made no formal decisions on these suggestions.

Also at last Thursday’s meeting, the village board gave Becky Molinaro, the village administrator, the green light to explore putting a charging station for electric vehicles in the long-term parking lot. It would be similar to one East Hampton Town installed at Town Hall late last year. The cost for charging would be similar, around $2.50 for a three-hour charge. The charging station would accept credit cards and could accommodate two vehicles at once.

The village board also voted, following a brief public hearing, to amend its town code to expedite permits for work done to houses to make them more accessible for elderly people or those with disabilities. The new law applies to “specific universal design features” in single-family homes, such as ramps, wider doors on ground floors, wheelchair-accessible bathrooms, stair lifts, and other adaptability elements.

The need for seasonal work-force housing is a crisis that only a multifaceted approach will resolve, according to those who spoke yesterday at a breakfast symposium organized by the East Hampton Business Alliance.  Loosening regulations on single-family houses, raising income levels for eligibility for affordable housing, and allowing dormitories and campers and trailers were among the ideas put on the table.

The gathering followed Monday night’s meeting of the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee, where a proposed 40-unit housing complex was debated. (A separate story on that meeting appears online.)

The business community supports housing for seasonal employees, while the Amagansett proposal, Jeffrey Freireich, the executive director of the Business Alliance, said, brought out “classic cries of NIMBYism,” or “not in my backyard.”

Taking a prominent part in the conversation yesterday at Cittanuova, a Newtown Lane restaurant, was Paul Monte of Montauk, where the problem of where to house seasonal employees is the town’s most extreme. But all of the town’s service industries depend on a seasonal work-force, Mr. Monte, president of the Montauk Chamber of Commerce and a longtime executive of Gurney’s Inn, said. “There is no affordable housing for those folks anymore. The stock that was here was never sufficient. As times, as demographics, and as the market has changed, it’s just gotten progressively worse.”

At the same time, however, Mr. Monte said there was no shortage of available property that could be used for new housing. “We need a combined will of the people, the political machine, and the business community joining together and creating a force that can look at this problem and deal with it, as many resort areas have. . . . There are solutions out there.”

Such solutions, he said, would have to include improved sewage treatment, without which higher density housing would be precluded. “We can’t bury our heads in the sand — no pun intended — anymore,” he said. “We’ve got to encourage improving systems that are currently in use, and we’ve got to encourage installing systems that will be better for the future. That will increase density in a controlled way.” He called for a town program that “incentivizes property owners to look at the possibilities that currently exist. . . . If you can put an apartment above your store, let’s not make it a three-year process of permits and fighting with individual departments. Let’s try to streamline that process, let’s issue some tax credits to encourage people to do it, and let’s try to work with what we have in hand right now and improve that way. That’s one small piece of the puzzle.”

Mr. Monte suggested vacant land near East Hampton Airport as a potential site for inexpensive housing, along with provisions for transportation to and from workers’ jobs.  Transportation, similar to that provided for senior citizens, would have to be a component in the housing of seasonal workers. “We don’t want to encourage them to come out here with cars,” he said. The Long Island Rail Road tracks are used just four hours a day, “and they can’t figure out a way to put a light rail system in between Hampton Bays and Montauk,” he said.

The only way to address the housing shortage, said Catherine Casey, executive director of the East Hampton Housing Authority, is through “diverse programs that create a variety of different types of unit, public/private partnerships, some in private homes, some on commercial properties, town-sponsored projects.” The more variety, she said, “the better chance of creating something that will have a direct benefit to the community. Housing is not one size fits all.”

Ms. Casey referred to state legislation introduced last year by Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. that would authorize the five East End towns to create a fund to help residents achieve homeownership. Residents with incomes at or under 120 percent of Suffolk County’s median family income would be eligible for the program. A $10-per-square-foot fee on residential construction in excess of 3,000 square feet would finance the fund, a scheme the East End committee of the Long Island Builders Institute quickly came out against. “We’ll see how that goes in Albany,” Ms. Casey said.

 Also taking part in the discussion was Tom Ruhle, the town’s director of housing. He disagreed with Mr. Monte about the availability of appropriate property for new housing and took aim at the community preservation fund. Most of the town “is either developed or preserved,” he said, creating tension between the need for low and middle-income housing and a tightening supply. “Buying land so nothing is built on there, making it a much more desirable community, which is good for everyone that owns property here, but more and more difficult to afford to live here.” He likened the town’s efforts to provide affordable housing to “a bathtub running with the drain open. . . . The more we build, it gets worse every day.”

 “This community cannot turn into a community that is only open from Memorial Day to Columbus Day and then stores are boarded up and everybody leaves, because that’s what the economy devolves into if we don’t have a year-round workforce that keeps the place running, that keeps the fire department running.”

Where do we start? Mr. Freireich asked the panelists. Mr. Monte replied. “You make a list and pick some of the easily attainable things and pursue those. Then you start to chip away at the ones that will take longer. The list is there. You need the political will, the will of the people, and the business community, “ he said. “You need to put together a coalition to address this, because workforce housing, affordable housing, these are community initiatives, not business initiatives. . . . These are things that make a community. If you have no seasonal business, especially here, you have no community,” the economy goes down the drain.”

The East Hampton Fire Department celebrated its first active member to reach 60 years of service at its annual inspection dinner at the Maidstone Club late last month. At nearly 91, Joseph DeCristofaro still shows up at fires and dutifully attends all meetings and drills.

“This is the guy that at three o’clock in the morning, when it’s snowing, he comes down the road,” Chief Ken Wessberg said. “That’s the kind of guy he is. You’re not going to find many people like this in the service that we belong to.”

“We’re kind of a unique group of people,” said David H. Brown, a 69-year-old former fire chief who was recognized at the same dinner on April 30 for his half-century of service. Only a handful of members of the East Hampton department, including Mr. Brown’s brother Ken Brown, have been serving actively for 50 years. “Unfortunately, a lot of people join too late in life and they will probably not make 50 years.”

While Mr. Brown joined the department right out of high school, Mr. DeCristofaro joined at 31, about three years after building his house on Buell Lane Extension. A neighbor talked him into it, he said. “I got to meet a lot of fellas here. I was new in town. I didn’t know anybody but a couple of neighbors.” In those early years the firehouse was on Newtown Lane.

Mr. DeCristofaro, a Bridgehampton native, was a veteran twice over when he became a firefighter. His family moved to Westhampton, where he attended high school but left at 17 to enlist in the Navy at the height of World War II. He saw action at Normandy as a gunner on the Liberty, an armed guard ship carrying 10,000 tons of food for the troops. He left the service after three and a half years in 1946 and married Lorraine Loris of East Hampton. They had started a family when, in 1950 during the Korean War, he was called back to duty. He served for a year before getting a reprieve in consideration of his family situation, just before his destroyer shipped out.

At the dinner, Mr. DeCristofaro was presented with commendations from the village, town, county, and Congress. Congressman Lee Zeldin’s office not only presented him with a certificate of Special Congressional Recognition, but also an American flag that had been flown over the capitol building in honor of his military and fire department service. Mr. Zeldin called Mr. DeCristofaro “a true American hero.” In a statement, he said, “It’s always an honor to recognize the patriots of our nation’s greatest generation who successfully defended our freedoms and liberties at such a critical time.”

The chiefs placed a chair by the side of the podium for Mr. DeCristofaro. “I figured they were doing some kind of joke, you know, but they figured there were so many awards they were going to give me, it was going to take a long time, I better sit,” he said. “I sat down at first and then I says, ‘What am I doing here sitting down?’ So I stood up for the rest of it.”

Mr. DeCristofaro said he feels good, and he certainly gets around, but he has no qualms admitting he isn’t able to do everything he used to. “I don’t do a heck of a lot anymore — they won’t let me,” he said with a laugh. While he still drives, he doesn’t get behind the wheel of the fire engines any longer. “I can’t make it down there in time anyhow,” he said of the Cedar Street firehouse. Red lights and traffic cause him to miss the engine most times.

Gone, too, are his days as an interior firefighter. He stays close to the trucks, grabbing tools, helping out wherever he’s needed. The younger generation watches out for him, he said.

“I don’t go in the building,” but make no mistake about it, he said, “if there’s a fire across the street, and it’s burning, I’m going in that house if there’s somebody in there. If they want to throw me out of the department, they can.”

Mr. DeCristofaro retired as East Hampton Town’s chief building inspector in 1989, and worked a part-time job as a housing inspector for another decade before retiring fully. He is also a past commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in East Hampton, and was its quartermaster for 34 years.

He’s pulled back on some things over the years and doesn’t like to go out much since his wife died a decade ago, but he has no plans to stop volunteering in the fire department. “No, not really. As long as I can get around,” he said. 

It’s a sentiment shared by Mr. Brown, who said it was always his goal to reach 50 years. “As long as I can get up and walk, I’ll keep going,” he said.

Though he too no longer packs up to go into burning buildings, he’s a mainstay at a fire scene, usually with a pair of coveralls under his turnout gear and a welder’s cap on his head. “Giving back, somebody’s got to do it,” he said, adding that it’s also a lot of fun for him. “You get a little adrenaline rush every time the whistle blows, so it’s pretty cool.”

Mr. Brown shows up at everything, Chief Wessberg said. He’s always been heavily involved with the department’s fleet, particularly the antique steam pumper and a “crash truck” that’s kept at the station at the East Hampton Airport.

Like Mr. DeCristofaro, Mr. Brown is a Navy veteran, a Seabee who served two tours in Vietnam. As a builder third class, he learned invaluable skills that he put to use when he returned home. After a short stint as a town police officer, he went to work for Schwenck’s Dairy as a mechanic and high-pressure steam boiler engineer. He was the last man out of the plant when it closed in the ’80s, and eventually became the town highway superintendent for 16 years.

Though he retired as the town’s clerk of the works and resigned his seat on the East Hampton Village Board a number of years ago, he still keeps busy. A certified welder, he works a construction job and volunteers with the New York Fire Boat, which is docked in Greenport.

“I figure I have a few more years left in me. The 70 is now the new 30,” he joked. After all, he’s got Mr. DeCristofaro’s 60 years to chase.

An aquatic weed harvester that is to begin removing macroalgae from Georgica Pond this month is of concern to the East Hampton Town Trustees, who own and oversee many of the town’s waterways and bottomlands on behalf of the public.

At their meeting on Monday, the trustees discussed the potential impact of the harvester on crabs and other aquatic life in the 290-acre salt pond, which has had dense cyanobacteria blooms, attributed to excessive nitrogen and phosphorous, in the last two summers. The trustees banned crabbing and fishing at the pond for much of those summers, and warned the public against exposure to its waters.

Use of the harvester to remove macroalgae is one component of a remediation plan developed by the Friends of Georgica Pond Foundation, a group of property owners. Macroalgae is believed to store excessive nutrients; it is hoped that its removal will cause dramatic reductions in nitrogen and phosphorous, which are needed to restore the pond to health.

In collaboration with the town, East Hampton Village, and the trustees, the Friends of Georgica Pond Foundation has also applied for permits to dredge the mouth of the pond and remove bottlenecks of sand and phragmites that have massed in Georgica Cove. The foundation advocates more frequent opening of the pond to the Atlantic, which the trustees usually do twice a year in the spring and fall, and the installation of permeable barriers on property surrounding the pond to intercept nitrogen from reaching groundwater.

The group engaged Christopher Gobler of Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, who has been monitoring waterways for the trustees since 2013, to study the pond and make recommendations for restoring it. 

  “My only concern is if this thing isn’t operated properly, it could act more like a dredge. I don’t think that was anybody’s vision,” Jim Grimes, one of the trustees, said. The effort would probably produce positive results, he said, “but are we just going to turn them loose?”

“There are crabs, and stuff that might not get along with the reciprocating blades” of the harvester, Mr. Grimes said. “I don’t want to say no, but we should monitor this thing.” He recommended that he and a colleague observe and perhaps ride on the harvester while it is in operation. “We’ve got to see what the impacts of this thing are on the bottom, and if there are any negative impacts, we’ve got to be prepared to step in and adjust the methodology.”

Tyler Armstrong agreed, saying that, in a video of a harvester operating elsewhere, “it seems to turn the bottom more” than he expected.

Richard Whalen, the trustees’ attorney, said he had spoken with a bayman who suggested that the harvester was only “a high-tech way to deal with an issue that historically you’d deal with by flushing the pond,” which increases salinity and quickly dissolves algal blooms. But Bill Taylor called the foundation’s plans “well thought-out and comprehensive,” with the macroalgae harvesting “just a small part of it.”

Mr. Grimes agreed. “We’re dealing with surface water from road runoff, from private residences, failed septic systems. A bunch of things have to happen” if the pond is to be restored to health.

The East Hampton Town Board adopted a resolution allowing the harvester’s use on weekdays, for seven- and-a-half hours a day, through August.

Citing financial constraints and continued declining enrollment, the Child Development Center of the Hamptons, the South Fork’s only charter school, formally announced on Tuesday that it will close at the end of the school year.

According to representatives of the school, which educates children in both regular education and special education programs, the staff is working to place its 54 students in kindergarten through fifth grade and 31 prekindergartners into other programs, whether in traditional public schools or other special education settings.

When asked for specifics about what went wrong, the fate of the C.D.C.H. building in Wainscott, and how many teachers and staff members would be losing their jobs, Andy Robles, a spokesman for the school, said yesterday that no further comment from the school would be given.

Late last week, C.D.C.H. began notifying individual school districts, including Springs and East Hampton, that the school would close. The impact of the closure will vary greatly across the South Fork. For instance, in East Hampton, Richard Burns, the superintendent, on Monday said the district will be able to easily absorb the district’s 13 children at C.D.C.H. back into its classrooms. The approximately $400,000 the district had budgeted for C.D.C.H. tuition will be reallocated to support other programs and services in East Hampton.

But the situation becomes more problematic in Springs, which had 26 children in kindergarten through fifth grade and another four children in prekindergarten at C.D.C.H. Space is already tight in the school, which now anticipates bringing the majority of those children back into its classrooms. During Monday’s school board meeting, Liz Mendelman, the school board president, said the district expects to need one more section of third grade next year due to this year’s burgeoning second-grade enrollment. Since the school has already run out of space for elementary classrooms, the district is considering converting the middle school computer lab into a regular classroom. Carl Fraser, the Springs business official, said the $724,760 that Springs had budgeted for C.D.C.H. tuition could then be used to hire a new teacher, outfit the new classroom, and cover other school functions related to the additional students.

In a statement on Tuesday, Gerard Cairns, C.D.C.H.’s interim school leader, thanked “everyone who helped make C.D.C.H. a wonderful place to learn for the last two decades.” He named the board, the teachers, the Charter School Institute, “the community for embracing our mission, and, most important, the families for trusting us with their children.”

Mr. Cairns is the vice president of education and youth services for Family Residences and Essential Enterprises (FREE), the nonprofit organization that manages the school. Reached by phone Tuesday, he declined to comment other than to say, “We’re really right now focusing on children, parents, and teachers.”

C.D.C.H.’s announcement followed a statement released Monday by the Gersh Academy, which had been in talks to take over management of the school, that it would no longer do so.

“After extensive review and having identified a number of factors beyond our control, all parties involved mutually agreed not to proceed with the transfer of management,” the statement read. “We, like many parents, are tremendously disappointed in this outcome and assure the public that best efforts were made in our attempt to successfully complete this endeavor.”

Word of the takeover by Kevin Gersh, the owner and operator of the Gersh Academy schools, a group of private schools and programs for children and young adults with autism, came to light in February. At that point, Mr. Cairns said FREE had helped C.D.C.H. stabilize its finances. But the damage had already been done. According to C.D.C.H.’s February 2015 board meeting minutes, the school reported losses of at least $350,000 between July and December 2014. “The school is experiencing financial difficulty due to the lower number of special needs children in attendance,” the minutes read. “Cash flow is also a problem, as expenses exceed revenue.”

The former head of C.D.C.H., Patricia Loewe, who had been with the school since the fall of 2012, lost her job in August 2015 because of the school’s finances.

C.D.C.H. officially opened as a charter school in 2001 after beginning in the mid-1990s as a program for a small group of toddlers in the house of a local parent, Dawn Zimmerman Hummel. It draws students from local school districts, with those districts paying tuition. Students may come from within 15 miles for the regular education program and 50 miles for the special education program. In November 2013, C.D.C.H. had 80 students in kindergarten through fifth grade. At its peak, it had 95.

Tuition for the school varies based on the per-pupil cost of education in a student’s home school; for instance, tuition for general education students would be $25,075 for a Sag Harbor student, $21,775 for Springs, or $57,998 for Amagansett.

Mr. Burns said that because charter school tuition costs can be burdensome to individual districts, many of them “have been really working hard to create and develop programs within district for children who would have opted to go to charter schools.”

The SUNY Charter School Institute found C.D.C.H. to be in good academic standing during the 2014-15 school year as it had in several prior years. In February 2015, the institute recommended a five-year renewal of C.D.C.H.’s charter.

The Charter School Institute was in the process of reviewing the Gersh Academy’s takeover of C.D.C.H. when the school’s closure was announced.

Despite strong winds, firefighters were able to quickly extinguish a fire before it could spread further and destroy a house that was under construction in the Beach Hampton section of Amagansett on Sunday afternoon. 

The Amagansett Fire Department was called to Marine Boulevard, on the north side of the street, after a neighbor reported flames were shooting through the roof just before 4:30 p.m. Chief Allen Bennett said the fire had started in a 30-yard Dumpster that was just four feet away from the side of the wood framed house. With 25-mile-per-hour winds coming out of the west-southwest, the flames spread to the cedar siding and then traveled up and into one part of the house. The house was unoccupied and no construction workers were there. 

                                                                                                                                                                           Amagansett Fire Department

Within 15 minutes of their arrival, firefighters were able to stop the flames from extending into the rest of the house. "Everybody did a great job fighting 25-mile-per-hour winds," he said. The second-story kitchen, a couple of decks, a staircase, and parts of the roof were damaged. However, Chief Bennett said the damage could have been a lot worse. "If this had been 2 o'clock in the morning? No doubt it would have been worse," he said.

One firefighter suffered an ankle injury during the fire as he was setting up a hose line near the hydrant. The chief was not immediately sure of its severity.

Firefighters remained on scene until about 6 p.m. to ensure there were no hidden pockets of fire behind walls and siding. "We just had to do a lot of overhaul. It took longer for the overhaul than to fight the actual fire," Chief Bennett said.

Chief Bennett had called in the East Hampton Fire Department to bring another engine and its rapid intervention team, in case Amagansett's interior firefighters needed rescuing. Springs stood by at Amagansett's firehouse. 

The East Hampton Town fire marshal's office is investigating the cause of the fire. Chief Bennett said he couldn't tell what started the fire, but said the Dumpster was about one third full. 

                                                                                                                                                                                   Tycho Burwell photos 

Tuesday night might as well have been Sag Harbor Village’s annual reorganizational meeting, what with all the resignations and hiring, even though the end of the village’s fiscal year is still a few weeks away and the village election is more than a month out.

After nearly a month without a village attorney, the board appointed David J. Gilmartin Jr., a partner at Farrell Fritz, to the position. He will fill the vacancy left by the sudden resignation of Fred W. Thiele Jr. on April 11. Denise Schoen has been acting as the board’s attorney since his departure, and she will remain the counsel to the village zoning and planning boards, as well as the village’s prosecutor in justice court.

Mr. Gilmartin, a lifelong resident of Southampton, works out of the firm’s Water Mill office. A Southampton Town attorney from 1996 to 2003, he maintained a focus on land use, municipal law, and related litigation when he went into private practice. With Eric Bregman, a former East Hampton Town attorney, he formed Gilmartin & Bregman in Southampton in 2003. In 2012, the firm merged with Farrell Fritz, which has more than 85 attorneys in offices across Long Island and Manhattan.

Like Mr. Thiele, a state assemblyman, Mr. Gilmartin has strong political ties. He is a former chairman of the Southampton Town Republican Committee. 

Also on Tuesday, the board appointed Robert M. Connelly, also from Farrell Fritz’s Water Mill office, as the attorney to the village board of historic preservation and architectural review. Mr. Connelly specializes in land use and municipal law. Before joining Farrell Fritz, he served as an assistant town attorney for the Town of East Hampton, where he worked with the zoning board of appeals and the architectural review board. He was also the town’s prosecutor. He began his career with the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office. The village will pay Mr. Connelly $250 per hour.

Mr. Gilmartin’s salary will be the same as Mr. Thiele’s, $52,500 annually. Earlier in the evening, the board officially approved Mr. Thiele’s resignation, despite the fact that it had met two times since receiving his letter. Mr. Thiele had cited other professional and personal obligations as his reason for leaving his village post after seven years.

Mayor Sandra Schroeder said Tuesday night that picking new attorneys had been difficult, with several qualified candidates stepping forward. She hoped that hiring attorneys that work for a firm would make it easier for the village to find alternate counsel should Mr. Gilmartin or Mr. Connelly not be available for a meeting.

Another attorney was also retained for the village’s board of ethics. Steven G. Leventhal of Leventhal, Mullaney & Blinkoff will be paid $225 per hour on an as-needed basis.

The board also voted Tuesday night to hire Nelson, Pope & Voorhis, a Melville firm for planning and environmental consulting services, as the village looks to find a replacement for Rich Warren and Inter-Science Research Associates. Mr. Warren also announced his departure last month. Citing health concerns, he opted not to have his contract renewed at the end of the fiscal year later this month. The mayor said Mr. Warren would work with the village on some special projects in the future.

The village will be looking for a new member of its zoning board following the resignation of Anthony Hagen, a longtime member, effective May 1. “It has always been my great pleasure to have the honor to serve as a volunteer to this community I love so much,” Mr. Hagen wrote the mayor in a letter dated Friday. “I look forward to resuming my services to Sag Harbor sometime in the future, when my circumstances allow it.”

Also of note, Austin J. McGuire officially has the title of Sag Harbor Village police chief. While he has been leading the department — and has even been referred to as chief — under Civil Service rules, he was considered the police lieutenant during a 12-week probationary period, Mayor Schroeder said. He took over when Thomas Fabiano retired in January. Having transferred over from the East Hampton Town Police Department as a lieutenant, he technically retained his rank until Tuesday, when the board was finally able to appoint him chief on a provisional basis. His salary was bumped up to $151,825. He still has to pass the Civil Service exam, which he is eligible to take in March 2017.

Sag Harbor Village officials are moving ahead with a plan to tear down the blighted, storied house at 6 Union Street. Following a renewed recommendation from the building inspector last month that the abandoned house be demolished, the board has scheduled a necessary public hearing for later this month.

Health and safety issues have been raised for years, but in a March report Thomas Preiato, the chief building inspector, asserted that the house, formerly owned by the Morpurgo family, had fallen into disrepair. The Federal-style house, about 210 years old, is in danger of collapse, he said. Parts of the ceilings and roofs have already collapsed, there’s an open septic tank, the porch is falling apart, and sections of exterior walls are missing altogether.

Without compliance from the current owner, recently identified as the Captain Hulbert House, a limited liability corporation, the village could deem the house a health and safety hazard and have it demolished. Costs would be passed onto the property owner in the tax bill.

A hearing must be held first. The board had planned to hold one on Tuesday, but it was postponed on a technicality involving proper notice and will instead take place during the final meeting of the village’s fiscal year, May 31 at 10 a.m.

Some residents who attended a board meeting last month were dismayed to hear that the house, once a prime example of a whaler captain’s residence, would be demolished, and asked that it be preserved. On Tuesday night, one member of the audience questioned why the board was deciding to tear it down without an engineer’s report.

Robby Stein, the deputy mayor, said the village could not send an engineer onto the property without the owner’s permission, but added that the real issue was safety. “It’s not just an eyesore, it’s also a health hazard.”

“I don’t know that an engineer would make me change my position,” Mr. Preiato told the audience. “It’s a health and safety issue when you can look through the wall and see the basement.” Whether parts of the building could be salvaged was not the primary concern, he said. “It is sad, but somebody getting hurt is much sadder.”  

Despite efforts last year, the board and its attorneys have been unsuccessful in getting the current owner to clean up the property, which was not only in the midst of foreclosure but was also involved in former Suffolk Legislator George O. Guldi’s mortgage fraud scheme. Mr. Guldi is currently serving prison time. The mortgage lender did place a fence around the property, but was reportedly barred from doing any further work until the proceedings were finalized.

“I’m personally done with this building,” Ed Deyermond, a village board member, said Tuesday night, adding that it had been the opinion of several building inspectors that it come down. “I think it’s got to go.”

In other village business, the board granted, as it does annually, outdoor dining licenses for Sen, Wolffer Kitchen, LT Burger, and Page at 63 Main, as long as their representatives sit down with village officials to address any outstanding issues. Mr. Deyermond said he has put aside two days next week to meet with the restaurants and go over such concerns as sewer utilization documents, outstanding fines and permits, certificate of occupancy, and fire safety issues. The building inspector and code enforcement officer will be brought into the meetings as well.

Only one of the restaurants, Sen, was represented at Tuesday’s meeting, to the dismay of Mr. Deyermond, who remarked that restaurateurs think “this is a given. I think this is a gift that we do this. It’s great for the village, but it can cause a lot of problems.”

East Hampton Town Police, along with code enforcement officers, raided a Springs-Fireplace Road residence on May 4 and arrested two men. Nine people, including the two, were given tickets to appear in court on a variety of charges related to the illegal conversion of a residence into a multi-unit dwelling.

Carmen Rocio Yamba Tenezaca, 30, Jaimo Uzcha Namina, 31, Wilson Guillca-Satian, 30, Melida Yamba Tenezaca, 33, Jose Donaie, 40, Angel Uzcha, 32, Angel Maza-Namina, 32, Rafeal Felix Llauri, 23, and Mancayo Arnulfo Rivera, 27, were charged with multiple violations of the town code, including exposed wiring, lacking smoke or carbon monoxide detectors in residential spaces, illegal change of use, overcrowding, lack of building permits and certificates of occupancy, litter and debris on the premises, and more, 39 citations in all. Besides the nine adults, four children were found to be living in the house.

The owner of the property, Leslie Cooper Life Estate, was also charged with 39 counts. All are scheduled for arraignment on June 13.

Mr. Namina and Mr. Rivera were taken into custody. Mr. Namina was charged with violating a court order of protection held by one of his housemates. Mr. Rivera was said to have failed to appear in court in answer to a drunken-driving charge. Both were later released on bail.

“This morning’s coordinated efforts by our public safety departments uncovered deplorable conditions inside a single-family house that was being used as a multi-family residence,” Betsy Bambrick, head of code enforcement, said in a release last week.

The nine individuals named, along with the property owners, will also be charged under the town’s new rental registry law. “The self-inspection checklist that is required as part of the rental registry process would have identified all the health and safety deficiencies at this house,” Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said. “The landlord’s failure to go through the process and register their rental property put all these tenants at risk, which is something the town will not countenance.”