Villages

    A relative newcomer to the hamlet was crowned at the fourth annual Mr. Amagansett pageant, held on Saturday night at Stephen Talkhouse.

    Matt Schmitt, competing under the name Matt from the Meeting House, dashed out from that restaurant’s kitchen, just across Main Street, and onto the Talkhouse stage at the last minute to best the competition as $5,000 was raised for the Donald T. Sharkey Memorial Community Fund.

    A contractor hoping to convert the second floor of his commercial building on Lumber Lane into two apartments for his sons, returned to the East Hampton Village Zoning Board on Friday with something to celebrate.

    The actor Alec Baldwin, who has long taken an interest in politics of a regional and national nature, will speak about issues of importance to East Hampton Town residents at the East Hampton Conservators’ winter gathering at the Huntting Inn on Main Street on Feb. 9 from 6 to 8 p.m. Wine and hors d’oeuvres will be supplied.

    A briefing for Congressional staffers on the H-2B visa program, which allows employers to hire a temporary foreign work staff, will be held in Washington, D.C., on Monday at 3 p.m. Members of the Montauk Chamber of Commerce are urging business owners to attend the meeting and lend support.

    “As you know, this program is very important to the seasonal employees in Montauk,” wrote Laraine Creegan, the chamber’s executive director.

The ideas of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were honored at Calvary Baptist Church in East Hampton on Monday, with the Rev. Michael Jackson of Triune Baptist Church in Sag Harbor as keynote speaker and that church’s choir joining in the celebration.

    “We will praise you for the rest of our days,” sung members of the Calvary Youth Choir. Young speakers including Jacarra Stephens read Scripture with words such as “thinkest no evil.”

    “Love never fails,” exclaimed Sharlene Hartwell, a minister who spoke of unity and forgiveness.

    Tom Lawrence, a code enforcement officer for East Hampton Village, has resigned effective Feb. 15. At its meeting last Friday, the village board accepted his resignation and authorized payment of $33,066.60 for “unused accumulated time, pursuant to employee agreement.”

    The owners of historic timber-frame houses in East Hampton Village will get a zoning bonus that will allow them to build or expand second dwellings on their property following the village board’s adoption on Friday of zoning code amendments designed to encourage preservation of those landmark structures.

A modest snowfall overnight left about three inches of accumulation on the South Fork Tuesday morning. Most schools were opening on schedule. Montauk was the only district announcing a delayed opening.

    Jean and John Cowen of Sag Harbor have announced the engagement of Mrs. Cowen’s daughter, Jenna K. Brill, to Gary Cadwell. Mr. Cadwell’s parents are Floyd Cadwell and Mary and George Adams of New Mexico. Ms. Brill is the daughter of the late Jeffrey Brill of East Hampton.

    The couple live in Colorado, where an autumn 2013 wedding is planned.

    The wait is finally over.

    Last Thursday, a certificate of occupancy was issued and senior citizens, selected via lottery for the 40 newly constructed apartments on the grounds of St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in Amagansett, began to move in.

    Twenty-five years after Christian Wolffer established the Sagaponack vineyard and winery that eventually became Wolffer Estate Vineyard, his daughter Joey Wolffer and son, Marc Wolffer, announced on Monday that they will be the new co-owners of the operation.

    At a press conference held in the Sagaponack tasting room, the two said they look forward to continuing the legacy built by their father, who died four years ago in a swimming accident in Brazil.

    Elayna Martin, a daughter of Diane and Tom Martin of East Hampton, and Eban Ball, the son of Kammy and Donny Ball of Amagansett, were married on Sept. 28 at Martha  Clara Vineyards on the North Fork.

    The bride works for the C.D.C.H. preschool. Her husband is an East Hampton Village police officer. They live in Amagansett.

    The Greek Orthodox Church of the Hamptons will celebrate the completion of the Johnides Family Cultural Center on Sunday with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and blessing by Bishop Andonios Paropoulos, chancellor of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.

    The Sag Harbor Village Board has held a few “special” meetings recently in addition to its monthly session, with regard to village employees, committee members, and volunteers. One such meeting, held on Dec. 28 at 8 a.m., included a discussion of the village police force, which the board has talked of cutting or even disbanding.

    Members of the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee had an emotional exchange on Monday night about their hamlet’s future amid global warming and recent climate change, wondering what would happen if Montauk became an island and lost its beaches and economy.

    Some members wondered if anything could be done right now to stave off disaster and save the beaches, motels, Ditch Plain area, and the entire downtown.

    “Where is winter?” Richard G. Hendrickson, the United States Cooperative weather observer in Bridgehampton, wondered in his monthly weather report for December. Last month was a mild one, with temperatures reaching 50 degrees or higher on 11 days and hitting 61 on the 11th. The low for the month was 20 degrees on Dec. 7.

    All will be welcomed at the next community soup dinner at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church, on Wednesday from 5 to 7 p.m. There is no cost for the meal, which is sponsored by the East Hampton Clericus, an interdenominational organization of local religious leaders, and organized by Joe Realmuto of East Hampton’s Honest Man Restaurant Group.

    Church bells will ring villagewide on Saturday in Southampton in honor of the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on Jan. 1, 1863. Sponsored by many village organizations and businesses, events will include a public reading of the document, a round-table discussion of its meaning, and a party with poetry, jazz, and food.

    Jacqueline Beh and Charles Brian Clark were married on Oct. 6 in the Church of St. Lawrence the Martyr in Sayville. They are Suffolk County case managers who met on the job. A party for the families of the bride and bridegroom was held at Casa Luis in Smithtown, the site of the newlyweds’ first date.

    “It looks like it’s actually happening,” County Legislator Jay Schneiderman said of the county’s transfer of Long Wharf to Sag Harbor Village after the unanimous County Legislature vote Tuesday to do so. “It has been a couple of years in the works,” he said, “historically, a couple of hundred years,” he said.

    Though the transfer still needs County Executive Steve Bellone’s signature, Mr. Schneiderman said he doesn’t expect a veto. The next steps would then be the Sag Harbor Village Board’s approval and legal documents to transfer the deed.

    The Maidstone Club’s effort to implement its irrigation improvement project took a small step forward on Friday when the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals approved an outline for an environmental impact statement it has asked the club to prepare.

   On Monday the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Commmitee discussed lessons learned from Hurricane Sandy, which struck the region on Oct. 29, as well as a proposal to do away with the town’s architectural review board.

    Kieran Brew, the committee’s chairman, raised the topic of emergency planning. “I’m just trying to start the conversation,” Mr. Brew said. “You don’t really think about it until it’s too late.”

   Rachel Adele Kleinberg and Chad Michael Crills of Springs were married at the beach at Gurney’s Inn in Montauk on June 24 under a huppah built by the bridegroom. Rabbi Gloria Milner and the Rev. Habacuc Vargas co-officiated in Hebrew and English.

    Ms. Kleinberg, who is keeping her name, is the librarian at the Montauk School. The daughter of Lois and Larry Kleinberg of Amagansett and Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., she attended Duke University, North Carolina Central University, and Long Island University.

   Like the Pony Express with a pony gone lame, FedEx has removed Montauk’s one-and-only drop box, leaving residents with a 12-mile ride to the closest box in Amagansett. Poof, the trusty drop box pony that waited to be loaded up with important missives through all kinds of weather has vanished.

    Weather-wise, last month was noteworthy not for any storms we had, but because we had no severe storms, said Richard G. Hendrickson, the United States Cooperative weather observer in Bridgehampton.

    “November is usually the month for 60-to-70-mile-per-hour winds and severe coastal erosion,” Mr. Hendrickson wrote in his monthly weather report.

    John Jilnicki, the East Hampton Town attorney, told the members of the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee and quite a few guests on Tuesday evening that the town is in the process of overhauling several provisions of the town code to make them specific to the hamlet, including the law on mass gathering permits and noise violations. “The legislation we have now is difficult for most people to understand,” he said. The committee, concerned about whether summonses have been issued for code violations, had been trying for some time to get Mr. Jilnicki to a meeting

    Richard and Karen Brown of Washington Avenue in Montauk have announced the engagement of their daughter Amanda Marie Brown to Matthew Ryan Jarm. Mr. Jarm’s parents, Robert and Patty Jarm, live in Annandale, Va.

    Ms. Brown received a Bachelor of Science degree from James Madison University in Virginia and a Master of Education degree in curriculum and instruction from George Mason University. She is a second-grade teacher at Forest Edge Elementary School in Reston, Va.

    When their daughter, Mia Bella, was born, Francesca Buffo and Noah Zingarelli, formerly of Springs, were told she would live a month, maybe a year at most, but Mia defied the odds at many turns, and in February will celebrate her sixth birthday — a miracle her parents prayed for, but could never count on.

    “It’s horrible here,” said Linda Shapiro of East Hampton, after arriving in the Rockaways last Thursday with a van filled with pet supplies.

    Learning on the radio about what she called a “desperate need for pet food and litter” in the towns where she grew up, she called Andy Sabin of Springs, a friend and fellow animal-lover, to help. He immediately agreed, and a van was loaded with 1,000 bags of cat litter, 1,000 cans of dog food, and 1,000 cans of cat food.

    Nineteen days after Hurricane Sandy, Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr., at the conclusion of Friday’s village board meeting, estimated the village’s costs as a result of the hurricane at $400,000, citing damage to public property, debris removal, tree work, and emergency measures. Plans were being made to repair damage at Main Beach and Georgica Beach, he said.