Paula Trachtman, an author, editor, teacher, and activist with a singular talent for bringing people together, died of a heart attack in her sleep on Friday, less than a week shy of her 88th birthday.

Arthur Carl Thommen, a longtime history teacher in the Sayville school district, died of congestive heart failure on July 17 at home in Moneta, Va. The East Hampton native was 76, and had been ill for 15 months.

Athos Zacharias, a Springs painter and longtime fixture on the East End art scene, whose long and notable career was launched during the prime of Abstract Expressionism, died of kidney failure on Aug. 18 at the Kanas Center for Hospice Care in Westhampton Beach.

James Russell Tompkins, a lawyer and businessman who founded the First Suffolk Mortgage Company, died of cardiac and pulmonary failure on Aug. 18 at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital. The longtime East Hampton resident was 88.

Cristina Isabel Albronda, who was born in Cuba and later moved to Montauk, where, her family said, she “found her piece of heaven on earth,” died of cancer on Feb. 8. She was 68 years old, and had been ill for less than a year.

Jeanne Comey Owen, whose volunteer work on behalf of children spanned more than five decades in Vero Beach, Fla., East Hampton, and elsewhere on Long Island, died of pneumonia on June 11 in hospice care in Vero Beach. A resident of East Hampton until 1998, she was 94.

Robert Ullman, a theatrical press agent who promoted more than 150 productions, including “A Chorus Line,” which he took from development to a Pulitzer Prize, died on July 31 in Bay Shore.

Henry William Breyer III, the owner of a high-end fishing tackle company, died on July 24 at home in Palm Beach, Fla. The former East Hampton resident was 88 and had been in declining health for several months, his family said.

An East Hampton Town police officer, who is also the Police Benevolent Association president, filed a lawsuit in State Supreme Court in Riverhead against an East Hampton family after he got hurt during a call at their house.

East Hampton Town police are investigating the death of a man in the parking lot at the Montauk Marine Basin on Thursday morning. 

At Friday’s East Hampton Village Board meeting, Police Chief Michael Tracey recognized members of his department and of the village volunteer ambulance service who had recently saved two lives.

AMAGANSETT LIBRARY
215 Main Street, Amagansett. 631-267-3810
Reading with Valentino the dog, today, 11 a.m. * Universe of Stories story time and project for ages 4 to 7, Monday, 3 p.m. 

East Hampton Town police reported that Deborah M. Fisher, a 79-year-old driving without a valid license, was headed north on Cross Highway in a two-door 2014 Ford sedan, which had stopped at the light at Montauk Highway.

In Montauk last week, a 21-year-old man, asked by East Hampton Town police to produce identification, pulled out drugs instead.

The Village of Sag Harbor gets it. In a ceremony marking its new Steinbeck Park, Southampton Town and Sag Harbor elected officials celebrated the creation of a public waterfront asset. Officials in other towns and villages should be watching this closely. This park might never have been a reality had the village, over many years, failed to resist pressure from developers.

The big field on Montauk Highway east of the Amagansett I.G.A. is quiet again following two large benefit events — the Soldier Ride fund-raiser and the East Hampton Library Authors Night book fair.

Tuna or chicken? Salad, that is. I’ve got a mania for tuna salad and have been known to even eat it for breakfast — deli-style, with lettuce and mayo on a hard roll — when I am rushing to work and have no time to cook (which is usually all the time). Chicken salad makes a fine sandwich, too, especially when on good bread, pumpernickel perhaps, and at this time of year with a slice of fresh tomato. But I wouldn’t dream of chicken salad for breakfast. That would be bananas!

The other morning, looking out toward Gardiner’s Bay, I saw two white-tail bucks browsing among the beach plum scrub. They were spectacular from a distance, sleek buff coats and high antlers still in velvet. But I cursed their existence.

When my parents made me, I got the shape of my father’s face. I got his dark hair and unfortunate eyebrows. I got both his sweet tooth and his love of vegetables. I got his talent for eight-ball, too.

While on foot patrol by Pizza Village on Main Street very early Sunday morning, officers were approached by “a highly irate female” who said there was a fight in front of the Memory Motel. Police found a Massapequa man bleeding from the mouth.