Update, 2:34 p.m.: World Pie will be among the few East End restaurants not experiencing the Memorial Day weekend rush, after a fire badly damaged the restaurant Saturday morning.

A fire broke out in the basement of the eatery at 2402 Montauk Highway, in the heart of Bridgehampton, around 9:25 a.m. Though the flames were quickly extinguished, there was an extraordinary amount of heat, and firefighters discovered more fire behind walls, in the ceiling of the basement, according to Bridgehampton Fire Chief Gary Horsburgh. They had to cut holes in the first floor in the dining areas to vent the fire in the basement. "The floor by the bar started to give way, so we had to cut that to vent it."

"It's pretty bad," Chief Horsburgh said of the fire and smoke damage. "It's going to be a while before he's up and running. I felt sorry for him — it's Memorial Day weekend. It was sad, really, cutting the guy's place up, but we had to do it."

Montauk Highway, between Butter Lane and the Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike was shut down for about two and a half hours while firefighters were at work. Hoses stretched across the highway. 

When vehicle and pedestrian traffic was allowed back on that portion of Main Street, visitors found the mainstay closed. "From the outside, he's got the one door open and it looks like he's open for business," Chief Horsburgh said. The Southampton Town fire marshal's office is investigating the cause. 

No one was hurt, and the restaurant hadn't yet opened for the day when the fire broke out.

World Pie is not the only local restaurant recently damaged by a fire. On April 24, Rowdy Hall in East Hampton was damaged when an outdoor refrigeration unit malfunctioned. While the building next door, which housed J. Crew clothing store and a few offices, suffered most of the damage, Rowdy Hall had to close for repairs. Just two weeks later, it managed to reopen, with a thank-you party for the emergency workers who responded.

Originally, 9:38 a.m.: A blaze of unknown origin broke out at World Pie, a restaurant on Main Street in Bridgehampton, on Saturday morning, at the start of the busy Memorial Day weekend. 

The Bridgehampton Fire Department was called to the restaurant at 2402 Montauk Highway at 9:24 a.m. Police and firefighters confirmed there was a fire in the restaurant's newer section. Montauk Highway was shut down between School Street and the Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike to accommodate the engines. 

Meanwhile, in an unrelated incident, a medevac helicopter landed on the ballfield next to the firehouse on School Street to transport a stroke patient to the hospital.

The fire was initially extinguished, but at about 9:50 a.m., firefighters reported seeing flames in the basement and coming from the exterior. Chiefs then requested the Southampton Fire Department to assist and asked for an engine from the Sag Harbor Fire Department to stand by at Bridgehampton's headquarters. A rapid intervention team from the East Hampton Fire Department was called in as well. 

The Southampton Town fire marshal's office and PSEG-Long Island were asked to respond.

Breakfast was being still served at the Candy Kitchen across Montauk Highway, according to a person who answered the phone there. She said that the fire appeared to have been brought under control by about 10:20 a.m.

Firefighters quickly stopped a fire on the roof of an old Amagansett Main Street house on Saturday night, Fire Chief Allen Bennett Jr. said. 

The fire department was called to the house at 9:41 p.m., and dispatchers reported flames were coming through the roof, Chief Bennett said. Though the house was under renovation, the homeowners were inside and were using the fireplace. Chief Bennett found flames near the chimney on the three-story Victorian, located at 327 Main Street, across the street from the Amagansett School.

The house had a "tricky" roof line, he said. "We had to get creative with ladders," he said. Initially, he wanted to use the East Hampton Fire Department's ladder truck, but due to the location of the house, the truck would have been unable to get close enough Instead, firefighters set up ground and extension ladders to reach the flames. They had to tear off some of the wooden shingles to get to all of the pockets of flames, but were able to quickly extinguish the blaze, stopping its spread to the rest of the house. 

"We made a quick stop of it," he said. 

In addition to the roof damage, there is some water damage, the chief said. No injuries were reported.

The East Hampton Fire Department's rapid intervention team responded, in case firefighters had to be rescued from inside the building, and an engine from the Springs Fire Department stood by at Amagansett's firehouse. All firefighters were back at their headquarters at about 11 p.m. 

A portion of Main Street in Amagansett was closed until about 11 p.m. 

A mental health provider inappropriately charged more than $150,000 to the state Office of Mental Health, including for a "booze and sunset cruise" at a conference that was held at the Montauk Yacht Club Resort and Marina, according to the office of New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli.

PSCH, a Flushing-based company, had a five-year, nearly $30 million contract with the state Office of Mental Health to provide services and housing to people with mental disabilities and substance abuse. PSCH charged $152,680 in costs that could not be sustantiated or are not allowed under the contract, Mr. DiNapoli's office said in a press release on Wednesday; only part of that went to the Montauk event.

The board of directors and executive staff at PSCH atttended a two-day training conference at the yacht club in late October 2012. The company billed the state office $31,908 — more than half of the $62,858 spent at the conference. The comptroller's office said $10,723 was for alcohol and $5,064 was for attendees' guests. Some board members decided to stay an extra night after the conference ended, resulting in $13,378 for rooms and $2,743 for a sunset cruise, tips, and gifts. 

"The rules for conference costs are clear," Mr. DiNapoli said in the release. "And lavish parties with alcohol, cruises and extra guests are not allowable. State agencies must make sure that contractors are reimbursed for legimitate expenses only." 

About $1.6 million in expenses that PSCH claimed between July 1, 2012 through June 30, 2013 were examined. Nearly 10 percent in expenses failed to comply with the terms of the contract, worth about $6.8 million during that time period, the report said.  

The comptroller's office also found PSCH charged nearly $98,000 for other duplicate, unsubstantiated, or inappropriate charges, as well as $22,901 for a staff picnic in Queens. 

Following Mr. DiNapoli's report to the Office of Mental Health Commissioner Dr. Ann Marie T. Sullivan, dated Tuesday, the office greed to recover the amount they reimbursed the provider. PSCH staff will also receive training to recognize what are allowable costs and what are not. 

The Rev. Walter Silva Thompson Jr.’s arrival at Calvary Baptist Church in East Hampton marks a new chapter for the 61-year-old church, whose pastors until now had always been “bi-vocational.”

“Part of the prerequisite for my coming to help them was that they understand the importance of and need for a full-time pastor,” he said in his office late last month.

A pastor for 25 years, it was hard for him to see the job as a part-time one, but he said it took time for leaders of the church, where he was officially installed in April, to come around to his way of thinking.

“It is and was a struggle for this church,” he said, but he “walked with them through it,” serving in the post on an interim basis from December until all the details of the position could be worked out a few months later.

The parsonage next to the church is in the midst of renovations, and soon Mr. Thompson will be able to move in rather than commuting from outside Freeport. That’s a good thing, because he expects to be busy in his new post. “My goal is to be here as often and as much as possible,” he said.

“I plan to retire here. I knew that wherever I was going next, I didn’t want to go to a big church. I wanted to go somewhere I could make a difference, where I could love the people and be loved by the people and make a difference in the community.”

In addition to Sunday worship at 11 a.m. and Wednesday prayer and Bible study at 7 p.m., he will be in the office three to four times a week seeing people who need counseling. He will visit members of the congregation in the hospital, at home, even in prison, should the need arise, and generally “make myself available to the Calvary family,” which he is still getting to know. “My door is always open,” and through that, he added, “relationships are built.”

The differences between his new church and his former one, Morning Star Baptist Church in Jamaica, Queens — where he served for nine years — are many. In Queens he had a congregation of 800; in East Hampton “the congregation is maybe 150.” And despite the fact that Jamaica, Queens, is, as he said, “considered the most diverse community in the United States,” his congregations there and in previous posts had been predominantly African-American. In East Hampton, he said, he finds himself in a more multicultural church, with people from Ecuador, China, Germany, and the Caribbean, among other places, sharing the pews with African-American families who have been here for generations.

Mr. Silva has preached, studied, and lectured far and wide — in Argentina, Scotland, Jamaica, and Switzerland, as well as in New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. His mentor in graduate school at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania was the Rev. Dr. J. Deotis Roberts, a pioneer in black theology who had earned his Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. “One of his methods for teaching was to travel,” Mr. Thompson said.

He and a fellow student traveled extensively with him on a sabbatical year. With his mentor, he studied Latin American and African liberation theology — a once-controversial movement that calls for the church to take a strong role in social justice issues and advocating for the poor. They visited the Buenos Aires School of Theology, the University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica, the University of Edinburgh, and the Ecumenical Institute at Chateau de Bossey in Switzerland.

“He always taught us the importance of immersing ourselves in the culture, of being able to dialogue and intermingle with the common people,” Mr. Thompson said.

In East Hampton, he said, “I’ve had to be intentional in my presentation of the gospel on Sunday morning because of those various cultures within this congregation. . . . Those experiences of travel and learning prepared me for this moment.”

Mr. Thompson grew up in Houston. Seeing many young men and women in his community becoming involved with drugs, he started working with the Christian outreach program Teen Challenge as a Bible instructor. Eventually he was transferred to Philadelphia, where he “felt the call to go into full-time ministering.” After graduating with a degree in sociology from Eastern University in St. Davids, Pa., he earned a master’s in divinity from Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary. His first job as pastor was at St. Joseph Baptist Church in Philadelphia.

Although he had been accepted to do doctoral work at the University of Edinburgh, he instead took a job as pastor at Mount Calvary Baptist Church in Springfield, Mass., where he met his future wife. Linda Silva Thompson is now the dean of the Monroe College School of Business and Accounting in the Bronx. “She grew up on the Cape,” he said, so this part of Long Island, which is similar in many ways, feels a little like home already. Their teenage children, Maya and Ethan, are in boarding school.

He was at Mount Calvary for seven years and then at Calvary Baptist Church in Pittsburgh for two before taking the position in Queens. There, he didn’t just lead the church, he became a community leader and activist as a founding member of Empowered Queens United in Action and Leadership (EQUAL). “We sought to address the issues of lack of health care, lack of adequate schools in the community, lack of housing, and also to sit with community leaders, the city council, government officials on how we could address these issues.”

The group put pressure on authorities, landlords, and the powers that be to fix some of the problems, but also provided funding to help with things as simple as paying a delinquent electric bill and as multifaceted as establishing new charter schools. “We were kind of the vanguards, the individuals people called on to get things done. We provided funding — each church was responsible for a certain amount of money and we also got federal funding.”

“That’s my concept of full-time pastoring,” Mr. Thompson said. On any given Sunday, “I’m counselor, lawyer, doctor, economist, politician, civic leader — all of those things in my presentation.”

“What I see happening in East Hampton is there is this migration of different cultures into this community. . . . I’m having to deal with people coming here, especially from the Caribbean and other places — they’re living in homes with two or three families. It’s a challenge for them, it’s a challenge for the church, and it’s a challenge for this municipality. What impact does that have on the community and what role does the church play? I see my role as a pastor to work with those communities as well as the police department, the mayor, civic groups, and organizations to look at how do we live together as a community and create some kind of unity and peace and justice.”

He hopes to make the church more family-friendly by establishing a nursery with some religious instruction during services and by getting young people more involved. “How can the church become relevant in the life of our young people who are going to make a contribution in their homes and their community?” he asked.

With so much in the news over the past year to discourage young people of color, “we have to continue to instill hope that right is still stronger than wrong, that there are good policemen, that there is hope in the midst of hopelessness.”

It’s time to get out the calendars and save the dates for the South Fork’s annual round of summer benefits. Beginning with Planned Parenthood on Sunday and finishing up with the Box Art Auction for East End Hospice at a yet to be determined date in September, the season is full of opportunities to socialize and help out good causes. The following is by no means an exhaustive list of some of the larger events taking place this year; events will also be listed in The Star’s weekly benefits calendar as they draw nearer and all organizations have more information on their websites.

For home design and garden lovers, next weekend will have two delights. The Animal Rescue Fund Designer Showhouse and Sale will showcase several prominent designers and the donated treasures available at the organization’s thrift store. A preview cocktail party will be held on May 30 with tickets available at $250 and $150. All sales from the designers’ rooms will also benefit ARF. And the Southampton Historical Museum will have a house tour next weekend (a related article appears in the Habitat section of the paper).

The East End’s museums and art centers try to avoid scheduling conflicts for their annual fund-raising events, but there are only so many Saturdays between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Both the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill and Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor will celebrate on July 11, but in years past there have been enough philanthropic partygoers for both events to sell out.

The Parrish will follow its usual format with cocktails at 6:30 p.m., dinner at 7:30, and an after-party at 10. Some 600 people will enjoy dinner by Olivier Cheng Catering on the museum’s outdoor terrace before repairing to the theater to dance to Coleman Music. Dinner tickets start at $1,500.

Bay Street’s event will take place under a tent on Long Wharf and in the theater itself where, from 6 to 7:30, awards will be given to former Representative Tim Bishop and Joe Pintauro, the playwright, and a premiere concert reading of the first act of the stage adaptation of “The Prince of Egypt” will be presented. Cocktails in the tent will follow at 7:30, with dinner set for 8. Tickets start at $425.

LongHouse Reserve in East Hampton will take flight On Gossamer Wings, as its party is titled, on July 18, and diaphanous attire will be appropriate. Kiki Smith, whose bronze sculptures are on view, will be honored. After cocktails and dinner, guests can join the “silent disco and dance party,” which involves the use of headphones in order not to disturb neighbors. An auction will be available at Paddle 8 in early July. Tickets start at $1,000.

The Watermill Center’s benefit and auction, somewhat cryptically titled Circus of Stillness . . . The Power Over Wild Beasts, will happen on July 25, with cocktails from 6 to 8 and dinner to follow. As usual, installations and performances by the center’s artists-in-residence will take place throughout the more than eight-acre property. Cocktail party tickets are $500, $650 after May 31. The entire evening can be enjoyed for $1,250 and up.

Last but not least among the local arts centers will be Guild Hall, whose party, scheduled for Aug. 7 — a Friday — will celebrate its exhibition “Roy Lichtenstein: Between Sea and Sky.” A preview of the show will take place from 5 to 7. Cocktails, dinner, music, dancing, and a live art auction will happen from 8 to 11 at a private house. Cocktails-only tickets are $500; dinner tickets start at $1,200.

Benefits for charitable organizations span the summer, with the fund-raiser for Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic kicking off the season Sunday from 5 to 7 p.m. at the estate of Adam Sender in Noyac. Tickets start at $150, for those 35 and under. Individual tickets for non-millennials are $300 and up.

The Retreat’s party, billed as a Roaring ’20s Summer Soiree, will take place June 20 from 6:30 to 10:30 p.m. at the Ross School lower campus field house on Butter Lane in Bridgehampton. The flapper look will be fitting for women, and men in top hats or homburgs will pass muster.

Art for Life, another Roaring ’20s-themed benefit, will happen July 18. The celebration of Rush Philanthropic’s 20th anniversary at Fairview Farms in Bridgehampton will start with cocktails at 6, followed by dinner and the program at 7. Soledad O’Brien will host, and Dave Chappelle will be feted. Individual tickets start at $1,500.

The Ovarian Cancer Research Fund will again benefit from Super Saturday on July 25. The designer shopping extravaganza will take place from noon to 6 p.m. at Nova’s Ark Project in Bridgehampton. Tickets are $2,500 for the event, which will be hosted by Donna Karan and Kelly Ripa.

The Hamptons Paddle and Party for the Pink is a two-part benefit for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation set for Aug. 1. Those up for paddling can register in advance at hamptonspaddleforpink.org for $100. The race will begin at Havens Beach in Sag Harbor at 8 a.m. Anybody with enough energy left to party can do so at 6:30 p.m. at a private house. Tickets are $1,000 and up.

The Parrish Art Museum, ARF, and Guild Hall have garden programs lined up as fund-raisers as well. Landscape Pleasures consists of a symposium that will take place the morning of June 13, from 9 to noon at the Parrish, and a self-guided tour of gardens that will be open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on June 14. Tickets for both events are $225, $175 for museum members. For $350, a cocktail party at a private house on Saturday at 6 becomes part of the package.

ARF’s self-guided garden tour, which costs $85, will take place June 20 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. A cocktail party at 5 can be added for another $90.

Guild Hall’s Garden as Art tour will happen on Aug. 22. Titled Garden to Table, this year’s tour will focus on edible gardens and include estates committed to sustainable harvests of organic produce. In the morning, a panel discussion at Guild Hall moderated by Brian Halweil, editor of Edible East End, will include farmers and landscape designers. The self-guided tour will take place from noon to 5. There will also be an optional cocktail party at a private residence from 6 to 8 on Aug. 21.

Speaking of farm-to-table, there will be three food-related benefits this summer. On June 28, Estia’s Little Kitchen in Sag Harbor will host a party for Spring Seedlings and Project Most, which is committed to sustaining the edible gardens and greenhouses at the Springs School and John M. Marshall Elementary School. Cocktails and hors d’oeuvres from local purveyors, restaurants, and wineries will be served in the restaurant’s garden from 5 to 8 p.m. There will also be an art auction of works that will be on exhibition at the restaurant. The cost is $150.

Wolffer Estate Vineyard in Sagapon­ack will host the James Beard Foundation’s Chefs and Champagne benefit on July 25. A V.I.P. reception will take place from 5 to 6 p.m., the main event from 6 to 8:30, and a V.I.P. after-party from 8:30 to 10. General admission, which is $275, $200 for foundation members, includes tastings, a silent auction, and gift bag. Premium admission is $375, and tables for 10, which include everything, go for $4,000.

Peconic Land Trust’s Through Farms and Fields benefit will take place on Aug. 2 at McCall Vineyard and Ranch in Cutchogue. Most details were not available at press time, but ticket prices range from $250 up.

Three prominent local organizations, Southampton Hospital, the East Hampton Library, and ARF round out the calendar. The hospital’s summer party will enliven an air-conditioned tent at the corner of Wickapogue and Old Town Road on Aug. 1. Cocktails will begin at 6:30 p.m., and dinner and dancing will follow. The news anchor Chuck Scarborough will host. Tickets, which must be purchased in advance, are $500.

Authors Night will return to the East Hampton Library on Aug. 8. The cocktail reception and book signing, which always includes an impressive roster of writers, will take place at Gardiner Farm, 36 James Lane, from 5 to 7:30 p.m. Dinner parties at private houses, with authors in attendance, will begin at 8. Tickets range in price from $250 for the reception and signing to $2,500 for the entire event.

ARF’s Bow Wow Meow ball is the last of the big parties. It will happen at the adoption center in Wainscott on Aug. 15 and will include cocktails at 6:30, dinner at 7:30, and dancing. Ticket prices start at $500.

And these are only some of the many fund-raising fetes that will keep weekends lively from now through September.  

After recent contentious public hearings, the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals rejected applications from the owners of two mobile homes on the oceanfront in the Montauk Shores Condominiums at Ditch Plain and another from the owner of a lot with two houses on it between Indian Wells Highway and Further Court in Amagansett. However, the board approved variances for a house at Amagansett’s Cranberry Hole Road. The vote in each case was split, 3-to-2.

The Ditch Plain homeowners were seeking special permits to replace their structures with substantially larger ones. Variances were required because of the proximity to wetlands and a proposal that they be closer than the required distance from the bluff crest.

During a March 2 hearing, Richard Carvell, a neighbor, had expressed opposition, and asked, “When is big too big?” The answer, according to three of the five members of the board, was that the 870-square-foot trailers requested by the owners of the two lots, Tom and Peggy Dempsey and the Neubert Trust, were too big.

The board began debating the Dempsey application first on May 5. David Lys pointed out that the replacement trailers they wanted were 60 percent larger than the existing Dempsey one. In addition, Mr. Lys noted that the applicants were seeking to move their trailers a foot closer to the bluff crest, despite the fact that the current structures are well over 50 percent closer than the town code allows.

The danger of such structures breaking up in a major storm was a major concern, he said. “It would produce more damage. Is this the right design for a home in this location?” Cate Rogers concurred. “When you increase the mass, you increase the potential damage.”

Don Cirillo, a board member who was in support of the variances and permits, as was Lee White, argued that the board had allowed similar applications to go through. John Whelan, chairman of the board, agreed with Ms. Rogers and Mr. Lys. “These are all nonconforming,” he said. “I have no problem replacing them in kind. This is a major increase,” he said, adding, “Smaller is better.”

“It’s relative, John. You make it seem like it’s 3,000 square feet,” Mr. Cirillo said. He continued what had become a heated debate, arguing that if the condominium board had considered and approved the proposal, that the Z.B.A. should give its approval weight.

“I don’t know what their standards are,” Ms. Rogers retorted. “We have a job to do. We are adhering to our code.”

“They might want to get bigger, and that doesn’t interest me,” Mr. Whelan said. He also warned that if all the beachfront owners in the Ditch Plain complex were granted similar requests, the net result would be a wall between the rest of the units and the oceanfront. Both the Dempsey and the Newbert Trust applications were defeated 3-2

At stake in the equally contentious discussion the followoing week was an application to divide a narrow, slightly over one-acre property with two houses on it, with different alliances being struck. The driveway to one of the houses is from Indian Wells Highway, the other from Further Court, which is to the west. Two houses would normally not be permitted on one lot, but they both predate the town code by many years.

The property owner wants permission to divide the property into two lots, neither of which would conform to current zoning, which calls for minimum one-acre lots for single family residences..

Mr. Lys started off the discussion, saying the benefit to the applicant, Thomas Onisko, was mainly economic, as had been pointed out by his representative, Britton Bistrian, during the February public hearing on the application. In addition, five neighbors had spoken out against the proposal. The hardship claimed by Mr. Onisko was self-created, Mr. Lys said. “There has to be more than that in order to downzone.”

Mr. Whelan, the chairman, saw the application differently. “If this board does nothing, the owner can go to the building inspector tomorrow and do a couple of things,” he said, including replacing the houses with larger ones than would be allowed if the land were divided into two lots. Mr. White agreed with Mr. Whelan, pointing out that Mr. Onisko was willing to increase the setbacks to protect neighbors if the variance was granted. “They are cleaning up the site,” Mr. Whelan added.

“It creates substantially undersized lots,” Ms. Rogers said, however, joining Mr. Lys in opposition. If granted, the door might be open to many more people asking for lot size variances, citing financial gain as the reason. This left Mr. Cirillo with the deciding vote.

“Don’t be shocked,” Mr. Cirillo said, turning to Ms. Rogers, “I agree with you. This is a small parcel to begin with,” he said. “To reward the owner, to allow him to divide, is not the way to go. I don’t think it is fair. It is not something that is in the best interests of the neighbors or the neighborhood.” If he is allowed to expand on that legally, let him do that.” The application was rejected, 3-to-2.

Also in Amagansett, the board voted 3-to-2 to approve a new house at 320 Cranberry Hole Road. Jeffrey Locker plans a 4,180-square-foot one-and-a-half story house, along with a 600-square-foot detached garage, a 750-square-foot pool, and over 2,000 square feet of decking on low-lying duneland. Two hearings had been held, on Feb. 28 and April 14, and the town planning board had opposed the application, saying the footprint was too large. But Mr. Locker argued that the larger footprint allowed for lower visibility, due to the configuration of the dunes.

Mr. Whelan agreed with the planning board, as did Ms. Rogers. In particular, they called the deck excessive. However, Mr. Lys endorsed the application. “I believe the way he designed it, it will nestle into the dune,” he said. Mr. White joined Mr. Lys, pointing out that only a special permit was needed due to proximity to wetlands. While he would have preferred a different plan, “I don’t think there is enough to deny.”

Mr. Cirillo agreed with Mr. Lys and Mr. White, saying that he did not want to micromanage the proposal, and the vote to approve carried the day.

On the other hand, the board rejected an application for a walkway to the Gardiner’s Bay beach from 349 Cranberry Hole Road. The walkway was intended to be used to get Sam Isaly’s wheelchair down to the beach.

Cate Rogers told her fellow board members that the path chosen for the walkway, which runs through  dune vegetation, was not preferable. Board members pointed out that there already was a stepped walkway that could be used. Members also expressed concern about the fixed nature of the proposed walkway. The vote was 4-to-1 against, with Mr. Cirillo alone in approval.

Veterans and dignitaries will be on hand for Monday’s Memorial Day observances in East Hampton and Sag Harbor.

A 9 a.m. ceremony at Main Beach will include a flyover, said Bill Mott, commander of the American Legion Post 419 in Amagansett, which is organizing this year’s event. A parade will follow, beginning at Guild Hall and proceeding to the Hook Mill green. The East Hampton Fire Department and East Hampton Village Ambulance will participate, said Mr. Mott, who served two tours of duty in Vietnam, along with members of the local police departments, the American Legion, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. School groups and scout troops will round out the line-up.

Hugh King, East Hampton’s town crier and the East Hampton Village historian, will be the keynote speaker at the green. Mr. King will discuss the town’s monuments to war veterans as well as the histories of the American Legion, the V.F.W., and Decoration Day, as Memorial Day was formerly known.

The year's Memorial Day parade in Sag Harbor will start at the World War I monument at Otter Pond at 9 a.m. on Monday. The parade will stop in front of the Marine Lance Corporal Jordan C. Haerter Memorial Bridge and then continue to Marine Park on Bay Street. Martin Knab, commander of the Chelberg-Battle Post of the American Legion will speak, followed by Roger King, the commander of the Sag Harbor Veterans of Foreign Wars, and James Larocca, a village resident and veteran. 

There will be no Memorial Day parade in Montauk this year. A flag raising will take place on the green on Monday morning at 8 a.m. with members of the Boy and Girl Scouts and Coast Guard officials on hand. Later on Monday, the traditional burning of old, tatered flags will start at sunset. 

With the warmer weather on the South Fork comes a swell of visitors and increased traffic, as well as the expected uptick in calls for emergency services. In the seven New York State parks in Montauk, there simply will not be enough officers to answer calls, shifting the burden to local police.

“We have a dramatic staffing crisis,” said State Parks Police Sgt. Manny Vilar, the East End zone supervisor. He is the president of the Police Benevolent Association of New York State, the fifth largest union in the state, not including the New York City Police Department. It represents the state park police, among others.

State park police are responsible for the popular Hither Hills campground, Montauk Point, and the Montauk Downs Golf Course, among other spots in the town’s easternmost hamlet, as well as the Sag Harbor Golf Course. Campgrounds should be covered 24 hour a day, 7 days a week, and that would take five police officers rotating on single-person shifts, according to Sergeant Vilar. Going into the summer of 2015, there are three (not including him), and one officer is on family medical leave, bringing the grand total to two. That’s one less than last summer.

The staffing shortage is not unique to the East End. Statewide 263 officers work to patrol 128 parks. Of them, 28 are newly graduated recruits who cannot work on their own until at least the Fourth of July.

The New York State Department of Civil Service determined that the state park police should have 383 officers. “We’re 120 people short,” Sergeant Vilar said this week. “They’re just not hiring. They’re not even hiring to keep up with the losses” from retirements, which recently included Officer Roland Walker, who patrolled mainly in Montauk for over 30 years, he said.

The New York State Department of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation doesn’t deny the staffing shortage.

“State Parks’ utmost priority is the safety of our visitors,” Randy Simons, a public information officer with the department, said in an email yesterday. “State Parks has authorized full-capacity park police training academies for the past three consecutive years, steadily increasing park police levels from 207 officers to 263 officers currently. In addition, a fourth park police academy is already scheduled for later this fall.” The department anticipates hiring an additional 105 public safety rangers in the peak summer months. “New Yorkers should be confident that their State Parks are safe and thoroughly policed,” Mr. Simons said.

But those public safety officers are not only not trained in law enforcement, Sergeant Vilar said, but they don’t even work on the East End.

On Long Island, from Valley Stream to Montauk, there are 35 officers, where there should be about 115, by his estimation. Nine of the officers are recruits, who are working under a supervisor during field training. There are 62 million visitors to state parks across New York, about 19 million of them to Long Island parks. Jones Beach, the busiest park on Long Island, needs 20 or 30 police officers, he said. Montauk is the third busiest after Robert Moses in Islip.

Wildwood State Park in Wading River, the nearest state campground to Montauk, also has three officers assigned to it, but they cannot help pick up calls. “It’s unrealistic to think the guy in Montauk can cover for the guy in Wildwood. They’re 62 miles apart, not to mention our lovely traffic,” he said.

So what will happen when there’s no officer available to patrol the state parks in Montauk? East Hampton Town police will have to pick up the slack, Sergeant Vilar said. “I love my East Hampton Town Police Department,” said the sergeant, who lives in Springs. “But, I don’t want them policing a state park. . . . I want them on Main Street in Montauk. I want them closing a house party at 2 a.m.,” he said. “The state, in essence, is shirking their fiduciary obligation and passing it off to the town.”

Town police have always backed up state parks police officers, who usually work alone, and they are no strangers to answering calls in the parks, including Cedar Point County Park in East Hampton. “The state parks issue has always been a problem, as we have had to pick up coverage when their staffing dwindled. Now we will have to even more,” Town Police Chief Michael Sarlo said.

And the East Hampton Town Police Department is working at a deficit of its own, with 54 officers on the schedule when there should be 63 just as the population triples on the South Fork. Over the past 15 months, there have been several retirements and it has been difficult to keep up with hiring as there are not enough academy classes or part-time officers eligible, Chief Sarlo said. With six officers out with line-of-duty injuries — and another, Sgt. Daniel Roman, out for an extended period following an accident Friday —  staffing is not where it should be.

“We’re heading into summer pretty short-staffed,” the chief said. “We are asking a lot of our officers, and we are committed to not compromising response time, investigative efficiency, or safety.”

Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. is among the advocates in the Legislature who want to see the situation resolved come budget time. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has not supported such efforts, however. “I think that certainly the public needs to let the governor know that, especially on Long Island, public safety is important and the parks police are an important part of public safety, especially during summertime,” Mr. Thiele said.

The state police union is also pushing the state to allow officers to work overtime in an attempt to keep up with summer demand. Still, Mr. Thiele said, “It’s physically impossible to cover it with the amount of people they have.”

The number of state parks police has been steadily declining for years. In 2007, prior to the recession, there were a total of 317. There were less than 200 before the next academy class graduated four years later.

Retention has been a longstanding problem, Sergeant Vilar said. The state parks police officers are highly trained in areas most law enforcement are not, such as boating in the waters of Niagara Falls or traversing the snowmobile trails, but they often leave for better salaries in other departments, where pensions are offered after 20 years instead of 25, as in the Parks Department.

State parks in Montauk are not a hotbed for violent crimes, but the call volume, particularly for quality-of-life issues, is increasing throughout the town. With 150 campsites at Hither Hills, it is common to get calls about loud music or campers partying all night. Sergeant Vilar believes a police officer on patrol would act as a deterrent. “If you take care of low-level crime, it will mitigate the upper-level crime.” 

It will be another three weeks before a federal judge decides whether new access restrictions at East Hampton Airport can take effect. In the meantime, it will be business as usual at the airport.

On Monday morning East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell and Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, with lawyers for the town, met in Central Islip with District Court Judge Joanna Seybert, along with attorneys for a coalition of airport users and aviation business groups that sued the town over the restrictions.

The plaintiffs had applied for a temporary restraining order against the new laws, which were to have been imposed beginning Tuesday.

Instead, the judge will rule June 8 on a preliminary injunction, which could involve a hearing with arguments.

Robert Schumacher of the United States Attorney’s office represented the Federal Aviation Administration, which asked the judge for the delay in order to review the restrictions.

Mr. Cantwell and Ms. Burke-Gonzalez said the two sides met with Judge Seybert for about 45 minutes. Various aspects of the airport issue were discussed, they said, and the judge asked for three weeks to make a determination. “We agreed to that time schedule,” the supervisor said.

Town officials had hoped to have the laws, including an overnight airport curfew, in place before the Memorial Day weekend. Planes that fall into a “noisy” category would be limited to one takeoff and one landing a week from now through September and subjected to an extended curfew.

The town board enacted the three airport use laws last month to address the impacts of aircraft noise in response to continued complaints from across the East End, particularly about helicopters. An outright ban on helicopter use of the airport during the summer season was proposed, but dropped.

Opponents charge that the restrictions fall outside the town’s jurisdiction and F.A.A. regulations, and will have a detrimental effect on business.

East Hampton Town Police Sgt. Daniel Roman, who was airlifted to Stony Brook University Hospital Friday evening after a motorcycle accident in Montauk, was in fair condition Monday night, the hospital reported.

The East Hampton Town detective squad is wrapping up its investigation of the two-vehicle collision on Old Montauk Highway, which left Sergeant Roman with life-threatening injuries. According to an email sent out by Chief Michael Sarlo at noon on Tuesday, the driver of the 2012 Honda Accord that hit Sergeant Roman's 2005 Suzuki is being issued a citation for failing to yield the right of way. "It appears to be a simple case of the driver not being familiar with the area attempting to make a turn and not seeing the oncoming motorcycle. There are no other contributing factors," the chief said.

According to police, Stephen Lawton Weber Jr. and his wife, Megan Weber, who was in the front passenger seat, were in Montauk for a wedding and were on their way to a rehearsal dinner in the dock area when the accident occurred. The Webers are from Baltimore.

The chief expressed his gratitude to the Montauk Fire Department for its quick response and treatment, and to Ms. Weber, who immediately began performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Sergeant Roman, who had hit the front windshield upon collision and bounced over the car. He has "multiple serious broken bones, including his arm, leg, hand and some vertebrae compression issues," in addition to multiple lacerations, Chief Sarlo said. 

A 14-year veteran of the force, the sergeant has headed one of the five squads of officers who patrol East Hampton Town since early 2012. Two officers were recently promoted to the rank of sergeant, Barry Johnson and Chelsea Tierney. One of the two may temporarily replace him as he recovers.

"The care Danny received has been phenomenal," Chief Sarlo said. He said Sergeant Roman's wife, Julia Prince, "is very thankful for the support and care provided, and wants everyone to know how much she appreciates the well wishes."