Paul Monte, the general manager of Gurney’s Inn, has been chosen as the next grand marshal of the Montauk Friends of Erin St. Patrick’s Day parade, to be held this year on March 23 starting at 11:30 a.m.

    The announcement was made at a pub quiz hosted by the Friends on Jan. 24, fittingly at Gurney’s Inn. Cheers filled the room when his name was called.

    “I’ve always believed that being named the grand marshal is the highest honor a Montauker can receive from the community,” Mr. Monte said. “As a resident of this magnificent community for the last 45 years, I am extremely proud, honored, and humbled to join the previous grand marshals,” one of whom was his uncle, Nick Monte, the original owner of Gurney’s Inn.

    Each year, about two weeks before the announcement, the Friends meet to comb through the candidates. Some years there have been at least five or six, Joe Bloecker, the group’s president, said. Several votes are taken until one or two stand out, and then the group usually unanimously decides who the grand marshal will be.

    “We’re very lucky in Montauk that we’ll never run out” of candidates, Mr. Bloecker said. “There are so many good people doing good things for Montauk.”

    There are now 22 members of the Friends of Erin. In November the group elected a new slate of officers. Ken Giustino, the publisher of The Montauk Sun, is vice president, Brian Matthews, an attorney for Eagan and Matthews, is secretary, Marc Remmes, an owner of the Point Bar and Grill, is treasurer, Patrick Moloney, a custodian for the Montauk School, is the secretary of technology, and Richie Weiss, a commercial property manager, is sergeant-at-arms.

      A New York State Department of Environmental Conservation representative reported this week that the agency is negotiating with Montauk Shores Condominiums, which runs an oceanfront trailer park at Ditch Plain, in an effort to settle alleged violations in connection with a massive rock revetment built there last spring. The negotiations would determine if any monetary penalties would be applied, Aphrodite Montalvo of the D.E.C. said.

       A notice of violation, issued by the D.E.C. on June 18, states that the mobile home park’s officials failed to submit notice of the work to be done by the required 48 hours before starting it, and that the revetment exceeded the approved height of six feet, the approved width of 12 feet, and the approved weight limit of 150 pounds per individual rock.

       Moreover, the site was reached by the Keith Grimes company, which did the work, by driving its machinery through the East Hampton Town-owned dirt parking lot east of Ditch Plain beach — rather than the center road of the condominium development, as had been approved.

       Montauk residents complained at several Montauk Citizen Advisory Committee meetings after the revetment was installed, saying access to the shoreline, which is popular with surfcasters and beachcombers, was hindered, and the Concerned Citizens of Montauk, an environmental group, filed a formal complaint. Town employees sitting in trucks nearby during the revetment’s construction said, when asked by a reporter, that they didn’t know what was going on.

       “Any meaningful resolution will only be effective if it includes both significant fines and a full-scale remediation to remove illegal structures,” Jeremy Samuelson, the executive director of C.C.O.M., said this week by email. He said that the D.E.C had worked on the case for the last nine months. That effort will have been wasted without stringent consequences for the violations, he said.

       “C.C.O.M. believes the D.E.C. has sent a strong signal that repeat violators will be held accountable,” he said.

       A Montauk Shores manager did not return a call seeking comment.

       Deer management and the noise of leaf blowers dominated the conversation at the East Hampton Village Board’s first meeting of 2014 on Friday. A good report on village finances and a conservation easement were also on the agenda.

       With a protest against the planned culling of deer barely 24 hours away, the board voted to authorize Joel Markowitz of Lamb and Barnosky, a Melville law firm, to represent the village in a lawsuit filed last month by wildlife advocates. Later, Kathleen Cunningham of the Village Preservation Society addressed the board, as she has several times in recent months, to ask that a sterilization program be employed in conjunction with a cull.

       “We had hoped that by embracing a sterilization program we might avoid the very litigation that you had to deal with this morning,” she said. “While relatively expensive compared to other options, it is something the village  can afford to do.” She said her organization supported the cull relunctantly, and added, “We really did hope the sterilization program would go forward because that is where we see the most success, and the most support from the community. We’re wanting that commitment from the board.”

       The board is committed to multiyear culling, Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach answered, “but you are definitely in the program as it unfolds further. We’re trying to deal with the problem at the immediate moment.”

        “What are we going to do from this point on to implement a sterilizion program?” Barbara Borsack, a member of the board, asked the mayor. He replied that it could be married to the culling program.

       Noting that the State Department of Environmental Conservation has control over any deer management program, Ms. Cunningham said, “For us to implement a sterilization program for this fall — that’s when it should happen, in November and December — all of the permitting and so forth must begin  now. . . . We need a landmark.”

       The village will work with the D.E.C. where applicable, the mayor said, but he added that he was against any immuno-contraception program that would be in conflict with the cull.

       There would be no conflict, Ms. Cunningham said. “In fact, the D.E.C. requires that a lethal component be present in order to permit the sterilization permit. Which is why this is an opportune moment to apply for those permits.”

       The Village Preservation Society had conducted its own research, she said, which indicated that both culling and sterilization are necessary to establish a sustainable herd. “We’re just eager to get something started that isn’t going to rend the community in two.”

       Noise in residential neighborhoods came up earlier in the meeting. John Tuohy of Borden Lane read a statement in which he described the modifications made to the village code with respect to noise from construction and landscaping as falling short of what a committee he had served on wanted.

       “I submit that the landscaper noise from gasoline-powered leaf blowers and also gasoline-powered hedge clippers is more pervasive, ubiquitous, and bothersome than ever, and particularly disturbing in the morning and evening,” he said. Mr. Tuohy urged the board to consider further modifications in time for the next summer season, which he noted starts on May 1. He proposed a ban on the commercial use of gasoline-powered leaf blowers and further restriction on gasoline-powered hedge clippers. Short of a ban on the latter, from which he said individual homeowners should be exempted, he suggested restricting their use to Monday through Friday between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. as a compromise or interim step.

       “The current level and cacophony of gasoline-powered leaf blower noise in the village is worse than ever and particularly inconsistent with the tranquillity and the serenity to which we all aspire and deserve,” he said.

       As it happens, the mayor told Mr. Tuohy, he had asked Ms. Borsack to chair a subcommittee to review the problem. He proposed that Mr. Tuohy, the Village Preservation Society, and the East Hampton Group for Good Government hold a meeting to consider solutions.

       “Your comments this morning did not fall on deaf ears,” the mayor said, “and I assume that within two weeks you will get notification that the first meeting” of the subcommittee will happen.

       The meeting had started with a report by Frank Sluter, a certified public account with Satty, Levine, and Ciacco, on his firm’s examination of the village’s finances. “This year you received an unqualified opinion, which is a clean opinion,” Mr. Sluter told the board, “which means that the financial statements definitely show the finances of the village without any major changes to them.”

       Overall expenses, Mr. Sluter said, were $440,000 less than budgeted, with a decrease of $206,000 in employee benefits a major part of that decrease. Revenues, however, increased by $1.2 million, including a $380,000 increase in fines and a $229,000 increase in licenses and permits.

       Mayor Rickenbach called the report “a continuing manifestation as to the way the village is conducting its finances. We want to be fiscally prudent and try to continue in that vein,” he said.

       The board held a hearing on the acceptance of a conservation easement on a parcel of more than five acres at the intersection of Cove Hollow Farm and Ruxton Roads. Last month, Becky Molinaro, the village administrator, told the board that the Trust for Public Land had reported that it could no longer meet its obligation to visit the property annually and had offered to give the village an easement.

       The Peconic Land Trust, which has title to the property, had expressed an interest in letting it revert to its natural state. With no comment from the public or members of the board, the hearing was closed and the board voted unanimously to authorize the easement’s acquisition.

       The board also agreed to seek bids for the Newtown Lane lighted crosswalk project, which it had approved last year. Bids are to be opened on Feb. 25 at 2 p.m. at Village Hall.

       The ongoing work to upgrade electricity transmission lines at the Long Island Power Authority’s Amagansett substation has residents upset about the aesthetic character of the facility near the hamlet’s Long Island Rail Road station.

       The upgrade project, intended to improve service reliability by making the transmission grid more resilient to extreme weather, necessitated the removal of much of the vegetation on and around the 2.34-acre site, leaving it and a chainlink fence that now rings 20,130 square feet of it highly visible to passers-by. 

       Currently, two 23-kilovolt transmission lines running on a single power line supply electricity to East Hampton and areas to the east, said Jeffrey Weir, a spokesman for PSEG Long Island, which assumed operation of LIPA’s electrical transmission and distribution system on Jan. 1. “In a severe storm with high winds, there is the potential to lose that single line, which would result in a complete loss of power to those neighborhoods,” he said.

       To prevent blackouts in the event of existing transmission infrastructure failure, a new transmission circuit between East Hampton and Amagansett is required, Mr. Weir said. The upgrade also calls for replacement of existing distribution poles with poles that can withstand winds of up to 130 miles per hour. “This project will strengthen our system and decrease chances that the system will fail during a storm,” Mr. Weir said. Work is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of this year.

       Members of the Amagansett Village Improvement Society are among the residents upset with changes to the property, which they feel is unsightly. “I think it’s awful looking,” said Joan Tulp, of AVIS and the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee. “I hope they will agree to put trees around there and pay for them.”

       Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, who was until recently the town board’s liaison to the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee, said at the board’s work session on Tuesday that the Planning Department had created a suggested landscaping plan, calling for indigenous and deer-resistant plantings both inside and outside the perimeter of the chain-link fence, and that the electric company had indicated a willingness to do the work.

       She said she would be meeting at the site with PSEG representatives in the coming weeks. “In the long run, we’re going to get a landscape plan that’s going to work for the town,” she said, “and not look quite so urban.”

       “We are absolutely working with the town and community of Amagansett to discuss landscaping elements of the project,” Mr. Weir said on Friday. “We are having those dialogues now to make sure that it is done well.”

       Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc said he and Supervisor Larry Cantwell, along with Highway Superintendent Steve Lynch, have met with PSEG officials, who are reviewing the power system and would be trimming trees close to the primary power lines. The company’s protocol, he said, calls for branches to be cleared around the lines in an eight-foot diameter.

       To protect trees from permanent damage, town officials asked that the power company consult an arborist before doing trim work, and were assured that one would be called in.

       The company also said that it would remove the old utility poles in places where lines are being transferred to new poles, as soon as possible, Mr. Cantwell reported.

With Reporting By Joanne Pilgrim

Organizers of the Hamptons Marathon have been on the go this month, handing out $75,000 of their 2013 marathon and half-marathon proceeds to local nonprofits, including the after-school program Project MOST and Southampton Hospital.

Amanda Moszkowski and Diane Weinberger, founders of the marathon, presented $30,000 checks last week to both Project MOST and the hospital.

“This gift will enable the hard work of our program to continue and for the children of East Hampton to flourish,” Rebecca Morgan Taylor, Project MOST’s programming director, said in a release. The program offers after-school enrichment activities to elementary students at the John M. Marshall and Springs Schools, serving more than 275 children at the two schools combined.

The marathon has donated more than $350,000 to local charities since it began in 2007. This year, its organizers are planning the first Bridgehampton half-marathon for May 10. The Hamptons Marathon will be held this year on Sept. 27.

       On what the bride’s mother described as “a glorious October day with aspens still golden on the hillside” and the “Rockies covered in snow in the background,” Jenna K. Brill and Gary Cadwell were married on Oct. 26 at Devil’s Thumb Ranch in Tabernash, Colo.

       Ms. Brill, who will keep her name, is the daughter of Jean Cowen of Sag Harbor and the late Jeffrey Brill. Mr. Cadwell’s parents are Floyd Cadwell and Mary Cadwell, both of Albuquerque.

       The bride wore a Watters strapless washed organza gown and carried a bouquet of flowers native to Colorado. Her attendants, led by her maid of honor, Jessica Plocher, and “best lady,” E.C. Michaels, wore cobalt blue Watters dresses.

       The bride was also attended by Wendy Beh-Forrest, Ann McNeel, Carla Cadzer, Megan Maxwell, and Cristin McKay. The bridegroom’s niece, Sophia Ward, was the flower girl.

       Mr. Cadwell’s best man was Ted Wallace, and his groomsmen were the bride’s brother, Harry Cowen, and Davis Linden, Mikkle Montano, Kyle Sweetland, Matthew Ward, and A.J. Weddington.

       Peggy Cadwell, the bridegroom’s sister, Lauren Pincus, and Christopher Mansour gave readings, and the bride’s aunt Judy Linker’s Jack Russell terrier, Gibbs, served as ringbearer.

The couple live in Denver. Ms. Brill, who earned a master’s degree in social work from the University of Denver and a bachelor’s from Wheaton College in Massachusetts, is a marriage and family therapist at the Denver Family Institute. Mr. Cadwell, an analyst for Comcast, graduated from the University of New Mexico.

       As of New Year’s Day, the task of providing Long Island and the Rockaways with electricity has been assumed by PSEG Long Island.

       The change was set in motion two years ago, when the Long Island Power Authority awarded the company, a subsidiary of the Public Service Enterprise Group, which is based in Newark and the largest utility in New Jersey, a long-term contract to manage Long Island’s electrical grid. PSEG Long Island replaces National Grid, a London company that has been criticized for its customer service and especially its response following major storms such as Hurricanes Irene and Sandy.

       PSEG plans a four-step process focusing on exceptional customer service, reliability, improved responses to storm outages, and involvement in the community, according to Jeffrey Weir, the company’s director of communications.

       “Our top goal is to give the people of Long Island what they deserve,” he said.

       PSEG in New Jersey has been cited as a top performer in terms of customer satisfaction, and Mr. Weir said its new Long Island subsidiary had set a goal of being “in the top quartile” for customer satisfaction among utilities nationwide by the end of its first year in operation.

       The utility will begin with a three-year rate freeze, take steps to improve customer communications through the use of smartphone applications and social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, and introduce what Mr. Weir described as a “more aggressive” tree trimming program that would clear power lines from tree limbs while protecting the health of the trees.

       “We have to get growth pruned away from those wires. It’s the top cause of power outages on Long Island,” he said.

       PSEG Long Island experienced its first storm response test when a blizzard dumped about 10 inches of snow and brought frigid temperatures to the region last Thursday and Friday. Fortunately, Mr. Weir said, “Hercules wasn’t quite so Herculean,” referring to the name bestowed upon the winter storm.

       He said PSEG Long Island responded to a total of approximately 2,200 power outages during the storm, with no more than about 800 people without power at any one time. The average outage, he said, was less than an hour.

       State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. said PSEG would be a “welcome change” from National Grid.

       “It will do a better job as far as customer service,” he said. “It would be hard to do a worse job.”

       Mr. Thiele said legislation intended to reform and scale back the Long Island Power Authority, signed into law last summer by Governor Andrew Cuomo, fell short of the mark.

       Mr. Thiele said that LIPA continues to operate with a board whose members are appointed by the governor and state legislative leaders and that the state Public Service Commission still has no regulatory authority over it.

       LIPA, he said, has too long kept electric rates low by borrowing money to cover costs and, despite recent efforts to encourage green energy, had still not done enough to reduce Long Island’s reliance on fossil fuels to generate electricity.

       “PSEG is a good company, but their responsibility is to their shareholders,” he said. “There still isn’t proper oversight of the electrical system on Long Island.”

December’s weather brought “no ice-skating, no sledding, no snowballs or snowmen. Sorry, but that is weather,” Richard G. Hendrickson, the United States Cooperative weather observer in Bridgehampton, wrote at the close of last month.

That was soon to change, and he knew it. He wrote: “From now on there should be the snow for the children and some ice-skating. Our wind should be from the northwest; 40 m.p.h. and higher is not unusual for January. Maybe Mecox could freeze for a few days for ice-boating.”

December was very mild, Mr. Hendrickson said, with temperatures in the 50s on 13 days and as high as 69 on Dec. 2. He recorded a low of 14 on the nights of Dec. 11 and 23. There was measurable precipitation on eight days for a total of 3.78 inches. Snow fell on two days for a total of 2.5 inches. The wind was from the northwest on 11 days, and Mr. Hendrickson recorded 18 cloudy says.

       Kiley Sabatino wants you to be healthy in the new year. That’s why the former social worker has organized Hamptons Wellness Week, a weeklong community celebration of health and wellness. The event will take place from Jan. 12 to 17, from Westhampton to Montauk, to “kick the new year off on the right foot, a win-win for both local folks and businesses alike,” said Ms. Sabatino, whose website onehealthyhamptons.com is described as “a destination for all things healthy and happy in the Hamptons.”

       The idea was born while the Sag Harbor resident was having coffee with Anastasia Gavalas, founder of the Wing It Project, a local organization to benefit children’s education worldwide, who wondered aloud “How great it would be if you could try all different fitness classes for like $5?”

            The concept started there before expanding to include lectures, a kids’ event, gift bags, a raffle, and both opening and closing celebrations, and more. Participants will be able to experience fitness classes at a number of studios for $5 as well as attend events throughout the week for free. Wellness Week will kick off at Hampton Coffee’s new Experience Store in Southampton, on Sunday, Jan. 12, from where participants will receive a schedule of events, vouchers for a complimentary fitness class, and (for the first 50 sign-ups) a healthy gift bag. The week will end with a celebration at Fresh Hamptons restaurant in Bridgehampton on the evening of Friday, Jan. 17. More information can be found at hamptonswellnessweek.com.

       East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell and Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc received a warm welcome, and an earful, from the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee on Monday.

       Mr. Van Scoyoc replaces former Councilman Dominick Stanzione as the town board’s new liaison to the committee.

       Mr. Cantwell told the group that he will not be able to make every meeting but would like to occasionally drop in. He spoke of the beach erosion problem in downtown Montauk and said it is a project he would like to get everyone working on as fast as possible. He was disappointed, he said, that the former town board had taken so long to get the project moving.

       He noted that it might take awhile to work out all the kinks in Town Hall, including learning its new phone system. But, he said, “We’re going to hit the ground running.”

       The new supervisor sat in the audience but stood to address the group and then returned to his seat. Mr. Van Scoyoc took his place at the head table facing the committee of about 25 members and guests that attended on Monday. The councilman said that code enforcement will be the top priority for the new administration, which is looking to take a broader approach and work with other departments, such as the police and fire marshals, to get people and businesses to comply with town rules.

       He spoke of a new taxi task force, which was formed in the fall in response to the large influx of cab companies operating in the town in the summer and the high fares some were charging customers. Town officials would like to get a wider range of people on the task force, including a town attorney, a police representative, and taxi company owners. The town’s current taxi legislation needs to be clarified, Mr. Van Scoyoc said, saying that the permitting process allowing cabs to operate in the town should be tightened and requests strictly scrutinized when they reach the town clerk’s office for approval.

       Committee members asked that cab companies be required to have a physical address in town and not just a post office box. Last summer, committee members who studied the situation found that many out-of-town companies were using the same post office boxes or addresses on their permit applications. They also suggested raising the permit fee so the town could profit from the influx.

       “These guys are making money and we’re making nothing on it. You want to play, you need to pay,” said Lisa Grenci, a member and former chairwoman of the committee. Another member suggested the town also initiate on-the-spot drug testing for cab drivers.

       Illegal share houses came up next, with Ms. Grenci, who is a real estate broker, telling the committee that quite a few people lie to brokers when looking for a summer rental. She said customers will claim they’ll be sharing the house with family and will probably have grandma and grandpa visiting.

       “Next thing you know there are eight to nine cars in the driveway and they’re all Greenwich Village hipsters living in the house,” she said.

       The town is looking into developing a rental registry, said Mr. Van Scoyoc, and is consulting with Southampton Town officials on how to do so. A rental registry would allow the town some judicial intervention, he said. “It would be a real deterrent.”

       Members also complained that downtown Montauk is too dark and is unsafe, a recurring issue for many, who say the bulbs in the downtown lights are not bright enough and are not cleaned regularly. 

       The committee also discussed its own membership numbers at length. With almost 40 members, the Montauk group is said to be the largest of any of the town’s advisory committees, yet even with such a large group, half of the members have to be in attendance in order to have a quorum and pass any resolutions. Members agreed Monday that if someone missed more than half a year of meetings, they will be removed from the committee.