South Fork residents were among an estimated 75,000 people who participated in Sunday’s March to End Fossil Fuels in Manhattan, at the conclusion of the hottest summer since global record-keeping of temperatures began and amid multiple signals around the world that climate change is happening now and getting worse. “I’m here personally because my granddaughter is also here, and I want a livable planet for her and her generation, and, in fact, all living beings,” said Francesca Rheannon of Springs, who is on East Hampton Town’s Energy and Sustainability Advisory Committee.

After two years of silence, the Springs Fire Department has filed updated plans to build a cell tower at its headquarters at 179 Fort Pond Boulevard. It marks the beginning of a new chapter in what has been, at times, an acrimonious battle over the tower. A lot has changed since July 2020, when it was ordered that the previous application for a 185-foot tower, which required 30 variances, needed to undergo an extensive environmental review.

How busy was the summer of 2023 on the South Fork? There are some interesting metrics out there. Wastewater is one: The amount treated in Sag Harbor during June, July, and August was up roughly six percent over 2022 levels. On East Hampton Village beaches, lifeguards recorded 376 saves. But summer rentals were down on the real estate market, and certain restaurants experienced less traffic than they'd hoped.

When it arrives at the Bridgehampton Museum on Sunday for display, one particular car, a Lola T70 Eagle, will have come full circle, as race cars tend to do. Fifty-seven years ago, the legendary driver Dan Gurney drove it to win the 1966 Can Am race in Bridgehampton. On Sunday, the historically significant car will be on view for the public for two hours only — 9 to 11 a.m. — during the museum’s annual Cars and Coffee event.

The outside counsel representing East Hampton Town in its long-running dispute with Duryea’s Lobster Deck on Fort Pond Bay in Montauk asked a New York State Supreme Court justice last week to vacate a 2019 order allowing a certificate of occupancy for the restaurant. Recently posted photos showing indoor seating led to a charge that it has “illegally converted a limited outdoor food service establishment into a full-blown restaurant and event space.”

Every morning, thanks to a new policy enacted for the start of the academic year, pupils at Pierson Middle and High School slip their cellphones into pouches that are then magnetically sealed, preventing the students from using their phones during the school day. “Yondr appears to be cutting down on the number of distractions to learning,” said Anthony Chase Mallia, the president of the faculty union, the Teachers Association of Sag Harbor, during Monday's school board meeting. Students are “getting more done in groups” and are “actually talking to one another again in the hallways and lunch room.”

After opening its Sept. 13 meeting with a quote from a Grateful Dead song, the East Hampton Town Planning Board revisited three applications that they’ve discussed multiple times, making sure they were ready for a vote.

An amended town zoning code that would reduce allowable house size, clearing of vegetation, and lot coverage will get a public hearing on Oct. 5.

The East Hampton Town Board looked favorably on a proposal to install three small “stations” in coastal areas within the town that are meant to document site changes such as sea level rise and changing coastlines.

More than 600 “cobra-head” streetlights and around 10 historical streetlight fixtures will soon be converted to light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, reducing both costs and energy consumption in East Hampton Town by around 60 percent, the town board was told on Tuesday.

The New York League of Conservation Voters has endorsed Ann Welker for Suffolk County Legislature in the Second District.

Gov. Kathy Hochul urged New Yorkers last week to get the new Covid vaccine when it is available, and this week the latest vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, tailored to target the dominant Covid-19 variant, are being delivered to pharmacies and physicians’ offices. The federal Food and Drug Administration approved the new vaccine last week, and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that anyone 6 months and older receive it.

Other than the occasional loud talker in the quiet area, the John Jermain Memorial Library is a pretty chill place. Next Thursday, however, from 2 to 8 p.m., registered voters in the Sag Harbor School District can show up to vote in a contested library board race, in which three candidates are vying for two spots, and weigh in on the budget proposal.

On Tuesday, it was decided to postpone the East Hampton Town Trustees’ 33rd annual Largest Clam Contest until Oct. 8 because of a forecast of inclement weather on Sunday. Until then, clams beware! The contest is both a celebration of the town’s maritime heritage and a means for the trustees, who have jurisdiction over many of the town’s beaches, waterways, and bottomlands, to inform the public as to their role in the town’s governing.

The Journalism Club is back in session at the Springs School, and a new assistant principal has arrived: Springs students report the news.

The A&G Dance Company has returned to the Southampton Cultural Center for another year of dance and art education. Plus: a baby-gear swap at CMEE, art and STEM projects, kids' movies, and more.

Capt. Jeff Erickson, who has been with the East Hampton Village police since he graduated from the police academy in 1991, was named acting chief of the department at Friday’s village board meeting.

On Saturday afternoon, Harbormaster Joseph Vish responded to a report of an unknown material — what looked to be either a pile of 10 “horse manure patties” or “granola cookies with hard candies pushed inside them,” according to the official report — in the parking lot of Sammy’s Beach. He cleaned up the mess.

Town and county police are seeking the public’s help in finding three men who they say engaged in criminal mischief at Marshall and Sons Service Center on Sept. 2.

A scuffle at Innersleeve Records in Amagansett on the afternoon of Sept. 10 left one man with “substantial pain, swelling, and bleeding” and landed another in court facing three criminal charges.