Villages

When Ram Dass, the onetime proponent of hallucinogenic drugs turned spiritual seeker and New Age guru, died on Dec. 22 in Maui, Hawaii, Rameshwar Das of Springs was at his side.     

At the Montauk Library, preparations are underway to move books, staff, equipment, and programs into four large trailers that will serve as temporary quarters as the library undertakes its first expansion since construction of its current building in 1991. 

Jack Brinkley-Cook may well have solved some of Sag Harbor’s perennial summertime problems: traffic congestion and a scarcity of parking during the village’s busiest months of the year.

An acrimonious exchange on Friday between the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals and an attorney ended in the board’s abruptly adjourning a hearing.

An anonymous donor in December gave $1 million to the Montauk Playhouse Community Center — its largest private gift to date — as the nonprofit organization continues to fund-raise for the aquatic and arts center it first envisioned in 1999 in partnership with East Hampton Town.

“We are not protesters, we are protectors,” Margo Thunderbird, an elder, told a crowd that gathered outside the Shinnecock Nation Cultural Center and Museum on Tuesday morning to prepare for a demonstration in front of a construction site on land that the Shinnecock Indian Nation considers the site of sacred burial grounds. 

Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead celebrated the completion of its new $67.8 million facility on Friday. 

The Corey Critical Care Pavilion and Kanas Regional Heart Center on Roa­noke Avenue at the hospital offers more lifesaving services on the East End, according to officials with Northwell Health, which Peconic Bay Medical Center joined in 2016.

More than 350 elite musicians from East End middle schools will gather in East Hampton on Saturday for the annual Hampton Music Educators Association concerts.     

The East Hampton Village Board is set to appoint Richard Lawler as mayor and Barbara Borsack as deputy mayor at its meeting on Friday.

Item of the Week From the East Hampton Library Long Island Collection

The East Hampton Village Board decided last Thursday to appoint a new mayor to fill out the term of Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr., whose resignation took effect on Dec. 31. The board will vote on an appointment at its next meeting on Friday, Jan. 17, and will then grapple with the question of whether to also appoint someone to fill the vacancy on the board.

Climate activists are starting the new year with a redoubled effort to generate action, with one local group set to hold a daylong event aimed at doing just that.