Villages

As the South Fork population and summer visitors’ numbers continue to grow, pressure on the natural environment builds. An expert panel of environmentalists and farmers assembled by The East Hampton Star’s East magazine will consider how policymakers and individuals are responding to the challenges next Thursday at 5:30 p.m. at the Mandala Yoga Center for the Healing Arts in Amagansett Square.

The central questions for the participants are whether the South Fork is a paradise lost and, if it is not quite lost yet, what can be done to save it.

Farming in East Hampton is increasingly taking center stage, and there are opportunities for those interested but new to the field to get involved.

North Haven Village residents and officials are gearing up to fight taller utility poles that PSEG-Long Island plans to erect as part of a federally funded project to strengthen the electric grid across Long Island.

The East Hampton Village Board reduced the speed limit from 25 to 20 miles per hour on several streets and adopted a few uncontroversial laws at its first regular meeting of 2017 on Friday.

The Sag Harbor Village Board brought its code in line with a state law on hunting last week, authorizing bowhunting on private property with the owner’s permission.

The Jan. 10 decision came after hunters challenged a bowhunting ban the board had enacted two years ago. On advice of counsel, the board decided against continuing the ban because it was inconsistent with New York’s Environmental Conservation Law. The Department of Environmental Conservation’s regulations on bowhunting allow the discharge of a long bow on private property as long as it is 150 feet from a house.

The Village of East Hampton is once again the recipient of an upbeat assessment of its fiscal health.

At its last meeting of the year on Friday, the East Hampton Village Board scheduled a public hearing next month on a significant amendment to the zoning code and other hearings on a few parking and traffic issues.

The proposed zoning amendment is designed to reduce the mass of houses on small lots, a change similar to amendments adopted in 2015 that were aimed at houses on parcels of one acre or more. The amendment is based on recommendations from the planning and zoning committee, which were detailed in a November presentation by Billy Hajek, the village planner.

The fire in Sag Harbor on Friday ravaged buildings and closed businesses, but at least two people, Fred Kumwenda and Michael Lynch, lost everything they owned when the blaze ripped through their second-story apartment above Compass real estate on Main Street.

Their building was between the Sag Harbor Cinema and the one that housed Sagtown Coffee. While Mr. Kumwenda was not at home at the time the fire broke out, Mr. Lynch was awakened by a village police officer and escaped with only the clothes on his back.

Craig Dershowitz, the founder of Artists 4 Israel, a nonprofit that uses the arts to “beautify the land, uplift the people, and enhance the understanding of Israel through creative humanitarian aid projects,” according to its website, will talk about his organization’s work in a public program on Sunday at 10 a.m. at the Jewish Center of the Hamptons.

The East Hampton Village Board is poised to lower the speed limit on five streets from 25 to 20 miles per hour, following a discussion at its work session last Thursday.

The 55-foot steel-hulled dragger that ran aground in Montauk on the morning of Nov. 27 was finally pulled free Tuesday by the tugboat Judy M., the hole in her hull having been patched by an underwater diver the day before.

The Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee named its yearly award winners — the East Hampton Town Board, Simon Kinsella, and Sara Davison — at its monthly meeting Saturday.

A building on one of the busiest and most prominent corners in Bridgehampton, once planned to house a CVS pharmacy, is now complete and ready for occupancy.

Steven Ringel assumed the role of executive director of the East Hampton Chamber of Commerce on Nov. 1, succeeding Marina Van.

The East Hampton Food Pantry collected about 1,200 pounds of food and raised close to $1,300 in cash donations during Saturday’s annual Harvest Food Drive at the East Hampton Middle School.

The event’s coordinators said the nice weather was a boon and that the help of local girl scouts, who staffed a table at the nearby Stop and Shop and encouraged shoppers there to donate by handing out shopping lists of needed items, was also key.

Philip O’Connell, the chairman of the East Hampton Village Planning Board, was welcomed as a member of the village board at a work session last Thursday, replacing Elbert Edwards, a longtime board member who died last month.

The East Hampton Presbyterian Church welcomed the Rev. Scot McCachren as its 21st pastor in a service of ordination and installation on Sunday.

The federal government has selected the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority to compete for the right to develop a new wind energy site off Long Island’s coast, a move Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo called a significant development in the state’s goal to generate 50 percent of its electricity supply from renewable sources by 2030.

Representatives of the Maidstone Club continued to press the contention that constructing a wooden bridge spanning a narrow section of Hook Pond north of Dunemere Lane is essential to public safety when the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals met on Friday.

Historic structures were afforded greater protection when the East Hampton Village Board adopted a code amendment on Friday, and two long-serving members of the community were honored.

In a July 10 wedding held in the Lyons Farmette garden near Boulder, Colo., Perry Santanachote and Alistair Coy Wallace, a Manhattan couple who spend many weekends in East Hampton, were married.

Bryan Staubitser, a son of Thomas and Marlene Staubitser of Montauk, and Miken Souza were married on Oct. 1 at the Hui No’eau Cultural Arts Center in Makawao, Maui. Rennette Pacheco Bishaw of Hilo, Hawaii, known as Aunti Rae, a kahu, or Hawaiian minister, officiated. 

The bride is a daughter of Kennethy and Mike Souza of Wailuku, Maui, in the Hawaiian Islands. 

Family and friends from Maui, Oahu, Molokai, and the Big Island, as well as New York, Maine, California, Minnesota, Florida, and Costa Rica, joined the couple for their celebration. 

The East Hampton Food Pantry is moving to the Hampton Country Day Camp at 191 Buckskill Road in East Hampton.

Joseph Malik-Atkinson and Olivia Stevens of Montauk were married on Sept. 17 at Camp Hero State Park in Montauk.

Gregory Alvin Burns and Kelsey Rebecca Edwardes were married on Sept. 17 at the Montauk Lighthouse, in an intimate ceremony for family and close friends. Their friend Christian Karolus officiated.

White’s Apothecary announced on Friday that it is sponsoring a new, mobile “big red med drug disposal box,” in which people can discard unused or unwanted leftover medications, for use by local law enforcement agencies at community events.

Need to get rid of the leftover paint from that project five years ago? Out-of-date solvent? Mercury-containing compact fluorescent lightbulbs? Rusty cans of what-was-this-stuff-anyway?

A free workshop on sustainable practices for house and garden will be held on Sunday at 10 a.m. at the Nature Conservancy on Route 114 in East Hampton.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has signed legislation granting the Village of Sag Harbor authority over waterways beyond the present 1,500-foot boundary, expanding its jurisdictional reach into an additional area in East Hampton Town waters.

Voters in the Sag Harbor School District approved the John Jermain Memorial Library’s 2017 budget last Thursday with a final count of 159 votes in favor and 17 in opposition.