The East Hampton Town Board has agreed unanimously to a proposal from Scott Wilson, the town’s director of land acquisition and management, to clear invasive plants, chiefly the autumn olive, from only an acre of the 40-acre Springs Park.

“The area is kind of like a tinder box, to a degree, and it wouldn’t take much to set off a fire,” East Hampton Fire Chief Duane Forrester said after a recent meeting with several town officials at the Northwest Woods Trail to discuss a plan for fire safety in the area.

The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation will hold a public meeting next Thursday at 6 p.m. at Montauk Downs State Park to discuss emergency work being completed at Napeague and Hither Hills State Parks in response to the southern pine beetle infestation.

Springs School performers have had a busy month. Middle schoolers have been rehearsing for the musical “Moana,” which they will perform for the community tonight at Guild Hall, and student musicians had a chance in January to perform at the Hamptons Music Educators Association Music Festival at Southold High School.

For the school break coming up in less than two weeks, Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor will have kids 7 to 13 creating their own stage production in My Life: the Musical, a weeklong winter vacation camp.  

The Sag Harbor Chamber of Commerce’s annual HarborFrost returns Friday and Saturday, bringing fireworks and winter activities like ice carving and fire dancing to Main Street and beyond.

The Joseph F. Gunster House, also known as the T.W. Morris House, on Hither Lane near Amy’s Lane, appears here covered in snow, off a snowy road. While the photograph is uncredited and undated, Gunster (1894-1979) and his wife, Ruth Harris Work Gunster, who was known as Harriette, owned the house for almost 21 years, between August 1943 and 1964.

A hundred years ago in The Star: Bad hootch so snarled up the feet and warped the brains of some of the people attending dances at the Chateau de Legion of Eugene Hand Post, American Legion, at Hampton Bays, that henceforth admission to the dances will be by card only.

In the blotter this week a Springs resident told police back on Dec. 5 that she’d received a video of herself, accompanied by a threat that the video would be shared unless she sent $500 to its unknown sender. The woman did not send money.

A Sag Harbor woman reported a scam that defrauded her of more than $200,000 to Sag Harbor Village police — and ultimately the Federal Bureau of Investigation — after a previously unknown individual contacted her on Instagram.

Carolyn Celeste Cerchiai “devoted her life to her family,” they wrote. “Carolyn’s warmth touched everyone who knew her.” Mrs. Cerchiai died at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital on Jan. 22. She was 80 and had a respiratory illness.

Liam Knight, a junior, led the East Hampton High School boys swimming team to a third-place finish in the League 2 championship meet at Sachem East High School on Jan. 27, accounting for 80 of the team’s 225 points in the four events he swam, the 100 and 200 freestyle races, which he won, and as a member of the second-place 400 free relay team and the fourth-place 200 free relay team.

Kieran Hildreth of Montauk, a 15-year-old sophomore at the Burke Mountain Academy in Vermont, dominated the Eastern Region U-16 circuit, winning the United States Ski and Snowboard Association Regional Performance Series super-G race at Copper Mountain, Colo., in December, which he followed up by winning all six giant slalom and slalom races at an annual RPS event at Whiteface Mountain in the Adirondacks.

A look back at athletic news from 25 years ago.

Playing its best game of the season, the East Hampton High School boys basketball team, at full strength at last, routed Harborfields 67-34 here on Jan. 27. In girls track, Greylynn Guyer set an indoor school record in the 3,000-meter race in 10 minutes and 48.90 seconds, and C.J. Echavarria ran a school-record 9.43 seconds in the 55-meter high hurdles.

This week's high school sports schedule.

An emotional East Hampton Town Board meeting Tuesday began with a two-hour public outpouring of support for the Latino community, mixed with confusion and countless questions about what ordinary people can do in the face of deportation threats from the Trump administration. Later, East Hampton and Sag Harbor Village officials and the East Hampton School District superintendent held a press conference emphasizing that all people should feel safe going to school or calling police and emergency personnel.

An emotional East Hampton Town Board meeting Tuesday began with a two-hour public outpouring of support for the Latino community, mixed with confusion and countless questions about what ordinary people can do in the face of deportation threats from the Trump administration. Later, East Hampton and Sag Harbor Village officials and the East Hampton School District superintendent held a press conference emphasizing that all people should feel safe going to school or calling police and emergency personnel.

The East Hampton Town Board is looking to change the parking rules for several municipal lots in Montauk, adding a time limit at some that currently have no limit and making it easier for police to enforce restrictions where they do exist.

A proposal by Gov. Kathy Hochul for the state to cover the cost of school meals for all children could have a major impact on the Sag Harbor School District budget for 2025-26, the school’s business administrator, Jennifer Buscemi, told the board last week. But the largest part of the school budget is salaries and employee benefits.