The Sag Harbor Village Planning Board approved and expedited an application on Tuesday evening to allow Madison and Main, a new restaurant, tables for dining outside on Main Street. A restaurant across the street, however, Page at 63 Main, was not as fortunate. Its application for a permit to allow outdoor dining behind it was tabled until the next meeting, and the prospects aren’t good.

    Neil Slevin, the chairman of the planning board, took issue with the changes to the site planned by Gerard Wawryk, an owner of Page at 63 Main. “Eliminating a driveway is not in the interest of planning,” Mr. Slevin said.

    “It is not a driveway,” argued Dennis Downes, Mr. Wawryk’s attorney. “It is simply the rear portion; it is not required.”

    “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck,” Mr. Slevin said.

    “It doesn’t matter what it is called,” said Denise Schoen, the board’s attorney. “Circulation on the site is in your purview.”

    Mr. Slevin was concerned about trucks pulling over on Division Street for deliveries. “It is a fiasco when Clare Rose delivers,” he said of the Patchogue beer delivery company.

    Mr. Downes argued that most Main Street businesses do not have driveways and accept deliveries via hand trucks.

    “I have difficulty approving something that aggravates, even in a minor way, what is already a critical situation,” Mr. Slevin said.

    Meg Farrell, an attorney representing nearby Murf’s Backstreet Tavern, also opposed the application, mentioning the possibility of an increase in waste and sanitary flow resulting from more business at Page at 63 Main.

    “Sanitary flow has nothing to do with patrons on the site,” Mr. Downes responded. “The number of seats dictate the sanitary flow . . . we are not increasing seating capacity. The seats are moved in or out depending on market conditions.”

    The restaurant at present makes use of tables on Main Street that are removed every night, Mr. Downes said, adding that the difference is that the seating proposed for behind the restaurant would be on private property. The restaurant intends to put up fences on both sides of the outdoor dining area, he said, separating it from Murf’s, and there would be a gate for entry at Division Street, which Murf’s faces.

    Customers could come in the front door, place an order, and go out back to wait for the order, Mr. Downes said. They would also be able to eat takeout food there, but he clarified that there would be “no food service in the back,” as well as “no music outside, and minimal lighting.”

    “We want Page to succeed, but we do have concerns if the party gets too big,” said Gwen Waddington, a co-owner of another neighboring business, the Wharf Shop. Having already dealt with the outdoor bar scene at Murf’s, where people walk out and might drop garbage and occasionally “need to puke somewhere,” she said she applauds the restaurant if it actually establishes a legitimate dining area, but not “if it becomes a big party.”

    Larry Perrine, a member of the planning board, worried that it may become so popular that people would be “dying to be back out there in the waiting area.”

    When it was time for a motion, Mr. Slevin asked for one but did not receive it. “I’m not making a motion,” he said, citing again his reluctance to promote anything that might slow the flow of traffic on Division Street.

    Greg Ferraris abstained because a co-owner of Page at 63 Main, Joseph Traina, was a client of his accounting firm. Jack Tagliasacchi was not present, and was expected to abstain anyway, as he owns another restaurant in the village, Il Capuccino.

    The application was tabled until the next meeting, on July 23, when Mr. Perrine and the other board member, Nathan Brown, could decide and perhaps convince Mr. Slevin to change his mind, which would be Mr. Wawryk’s only hope.

Four Sidewalk Tables

    Madison and Main’s chef and owner, Eric Miller, had a much easier time getting approval for his application to have four tables on Main Street outside the large French doors he installed when he upgraded the space, which was previously the New Paradise Cafe. The approval came despite opposition from one neighbor and one board member, Mr. Brown, who said the tables might present a safety hazard in the event of an emergency.

    After some discussion, Mr. Miller said that Mayor Brian Gilbride had agreed to move two benches from in front of the restaurant so pedestrian traffic wouldn’t be impeded. The application was approved with the stipulation that the benches be moved.

    Mr. Perrine suggested that the application be expedited due to the nature of the business and start of the summer.

    Mr. Ferraris agreed, saying, “The season starts next weekend, can’t we do anything tonight?”

    “That would be my inclination too,” Mr. Slevin said. And so it was.

    “It’s a beautiful harbor town, people should be able to have outdoor seating,” Mr. Miller said, pleased with the decision. He also reassured the board that the restaurant would offer fine dining and that “safety is my number-one concern.”

    At the conclusion of an otherwise uneventful meeting on Friday, Andrew Goldstein, chairman of the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals, announced that the meeting would be his last.

    Reading from a prepared statement, Mr. Goldstein said, “It’s been my privilege to serve the people of East Hampton. Working on the zoning board, I’ve met and interacted with scores of people and each, to a person, makes East Hampton more exceptional.” He then thanked his colleagues on the board, Lysbeth Marigold, Larry Hillel, Craig Humphrey, John McGuirk, Chris Minardi, and Frank Newbold.

    Mr. Goldstein became an alternate member of the board in 1998 and chairman after 2000. He did not explain the reason for his departure at the meeting but told The Star on Monday that he had not been reappointed. “It wasn’t expected,” he said. 

    The East Hampton Village Board appoints the members of the zoning board, usually to five-year terms. It also chooses the chairman from among the members. At a particularly contentious zoning board hearing in September, Mr. Goldstein and David Eagan, an attorney for the Maidstone Club, had a heated argument with regard to the Z.B.A.’s asking the club to prepare a detailed environmental impact statement on the irrigation system overhaul it was proposing.

    As Mr. Eagan argued against the need for an environmental impact statement, Mr. Goldstein ordered him to sit down and said he would summon a security officer if Mr. Eagan did not. According to a report in The Star’s Sept. 20, 2012, edition, Mr. Goldstein had apologized to Mr. Eagan. However, Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. subsequently said the village board was “sensitive to the events that occurred” and would “review and discuss all available options.”

    On Tuesday, the mayor said the statement Mr. Goldstein read at Friday’s meeting summarized “a mutual feeling.” He added, “We did have a conversation with Andy at the time among all the board members. At that time, the record was set straight. Andy is finishing his term, he’s opting to move on, and we support that.” The mayor said a new chairman was likely to be chosen early next month.

    “As my direction changes,” Mr. Goldstein concluded on Friday, “I’ll be leaving this board, but it is still in the capable hands of my gifted colleagues sitting here today, who will continue to lead in the service to East Hampton.”

    East Hampton Bowl, where local residents and visitors to the South Fork have bowled competitively and recreationally for the last 54 years, will close next week.

    “We are definitely going to close the doors,” Craig Patterson, who has owned the establishment for 36 years, confirmed to The Star. Reopening under new management is a possibility Mr. Patterson called “very remote,” as is its reopening as another business.

    A fixture on Montauk Highway since 1959, East Hampton Bowl’s imminent closure comes as an unwelcome surprise to its patrons, who will have to travel to Riverhead or points farther west for their sport.

    “The business has changed dramatically over the years,” Mr. Patterson said. While bowling as a family activity is a vibrant and growing phenomenon, he said, participation in organized leagues has declined precipitously.

    “League bowling — what used to be the majority of participation — is now well under 50 percent nationally, and here it’s under 30 percent. Of the total business of bowling, when we first came into the industry it might have been as high as 80 percent league and 20 percent open, casual play. That is virtually reversed today.”

    Mr. Patterson also cited what he called a difficult environment in which to run a business. “The approvals, and things like that, have been a serious challenge, and it’s become more and more difficult with restrictions from all levels of government. It’s everywhere in the country, and it’s excessive.” Operational costs, he said, were also hampering his ability to remain open.

    Steve Graham, a record-holding league bowler who was a manager of East Hampton Bowl from 2001 through 2008, was surprised to learn of its closing. Yesterday, he recalled thriving leagues made up of 16 five-man teams, and rainy summer days in which bowlers might wait up to four hours for a lane. “I worked very hard,” he said of his years at the bowling center. “It’s sad to see all the effort that I put into that job go down.”

    Mr. Graham also remarked on the fixed costs of operating a bowling alley. “A huge amount of electricity is consumed,” he said.

    Pat Hand, the coach of East Hampton High School’s bowling team, said its members were “devastated” by news of the closing, which she believes will end the team’s existence. Southampton High School’s team, which used to come to East Hampton Bowl, now bowls in Riverhead. But that trip, Ms. Hand said, “is a whole 35 minutes shorter for them. For us to get on a bus at three o’clock, travel for an hour . . . we just can’t it make it work.” The team, she said, would have had many returning players this fall, including four seniors. “We thought we had a great chance at a league championship. It’s a tough blow for us.”

    Ms. Hand bowled in a women’s league at East Hampton Bowl. “We’re out of luck. A lot of local people are now out of luck,” she said. “It’s really a sad thing for the community.”

    Mr. Patterson, who told The Star in 2007 that he received a half-dozen to a dozen offers for the building every year, bought the bowling center from Leon Star, its original owner, in 1977. At the time, Mr. Star also owned a bowling alley in Southampton. Veterans of Foreign Wars posts in that town, in East Hampton, and on Shelter Island featured bowling lanes as well, and bowling facilities also existed at the Polish Hall in Southampton and the now defunct air force base in Montauk.

    Along with leagues catering to men, women, youth, and senior citizens, in recent years East Hampton Bowl added “cosmic bowling,” featuring loud music and Day-Glo balls under a black light, reminiscent of contemporary bowling facilities found in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village and Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood, where bowling has gained in popularity among young adults.

    However, “I always worked more on the leagues, and trying to promote bowling,” Mr. Graham said. “Not to say that the bar and nightlife isn’t important, especially now, with everything out there for people to do — you see what goes on in Montauk now. People are not afraid to spend their money for a good time.”

    But a still-sluggish economy, he suggested, meant fewer patrons at the bowling center. “When the cost of things go up — whether it’s your electric, food, heating oil, gasoline, insurance — the one thing you have to cut is recreational dollars.”

    Ms. Hand pointed to East Hampton’s tourist industry as a possible explanation for bowling’s decline among youth. The high school’s athletic department has had “many discussions about it,” she said.

    This year, she noted, “We didn’t have a [junior varsity] softball team, we didn’t have a JV girls lacrosse. What are kids doing? What we’re hearing a lot of is, they’re working. Out here, working on Memorial Day weekend at Rowdy Hall, you can bring home $1,000.”

    Michele Herger, Ms. New York America 2013, will compete in the Ms. America pageant on Sunday night in Costa Mesa, Calif. The competition, for women between 26 and 60, will see contestants judged on the evening gown and sportswear they wear, as well as an interview and on-stage question.

    A Babylon native, Ms. Herger, who was also Mrs. Suffolk County last year, went to Long Island University at Southampton. She lives in Hampton Bays and Queens, but said she considers herself an East Ender, given how much time she spends on the South Fork. Licensed in real estate sales, Ms. Herger works with Nest Seekers International, but said charitable work is closer to her heart.    

    Nest Seekers, which has an office in East Hampton Village, is a corporate sponsor, she said, of Kids Stock the House, a student fund-raising organization that benefits the Ronald McDonald House of Long Island, a “home away from home” for families of seriously ill children who are hospitalized. As an adult volunteer, she works with students across Long Island and helps with the organization’s international expansion.

    Ms. Herger is also active in the City Girl Beauty Project, which assists victims of domestic violence and human trafficking, and the American Cancer Society. Last year, she was honorary chairwoman for an annual Long Island VisionWalk in Wantagh, which supports the Foundation Fighting Blindness.

    Ms. Herger has been busy in preparation for the pageant, doing predawn runs at Main Beach in East Hampton. She is also a fan of the beach at Ditch Plain in Montauk, she said. “I’m competing against a bevy of beauties.”

    The pageant will stream live at msamericapageant.com at 7 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time. Fans of Ms. Herger can vote for her via the Web site until Sunday at 9 a.m. P.D.T. These votes will be combined with the judges’ votes to determine the winner.

    “No matter what happens,” she said this week, “I feel like I’ve won already.”

    With two Eds, two Bruces, and two Brians taking part, eight candidates running for mayor and trustee in the Sag Harbor Village election on Tuesday  spoke at a forum on the prominent issues — including the future of the Police Department and concerns about the waterfront. The event drew about 50 residents to Pierson High School on Sunday afternoon. Brian Boyhan, the editor of The Sag Harbor Express, organized and moderated the event.

    The four candidates for mayor, Sandra Schroeder, Pierce Hance, Bruce Tait, and Brian Gilbride, the incumbent, whose background and interest in running for office was described in these pages two weeks ago, made their positions clear.

    “I’ve seen some things I want to have changed in Sag Harbor,” said Ms. Schroeder. She had worked in Sag Harbor government under eight mayors and was the village clerk between 2002 and 2010.

    Mr. Hance, who had been Sag Harbor’s mayor from 1993 to 1999 and is a banker, financial analyst, and business consultant, said he wanted to return to office to “work on basics and transparency.”

    As chairman of the Sag Harbor Village Harbor Committee and owner of a yacht sales business for 32 years, Mr. Tait said it was time “to be more proactive in dealing with the same problems that people have been dealing with for 30 years.”

    Throughout the discussion, Mr. Gilbride, a 44-year member of the Fire Department who has had two two-year terms as mayor of the village, expressed forthright opinions and said, “We’ve gotten a lot of things done.”

    The hot topic of how many police officers are necessary in the village was a matter that Ed Deyermond, who is running for the board and was village mayor from 2003 to 2006, said he was conflicted on. What he was sure about, he said, is that “calmer heads have to prevail.”

    Mr. Deyermond has retired after 33 years in government, having been assessor for the Towns of East Hampton and Southampton for many years. A study done in 1993 when Mr. Hance was mayor, Mr. Deyermond said, had recommended that 10 officers and 1 chief were adequate. “We need to review the study,” he said. But Mr. Hance said the study was insufficient because the village had grown. “I don’t know what an analysis would show today,” he said.

    Mr. Tait agreed. “My gut tells me that if 10 and 1 was appropriate when Pierce was mayor, it’s hard for me to believe that would still be adequate.” The village is in a difficult spot, he said, because of its failure to finalize negotiations with police. That would have been preferred, he said, rather than solving budget problems with an “ax that cuts an officer.” He also suggested lobbying Albany with regard to mandated benefits.

    On the other hand, Mr. Gilbride, the incumbent mayor, said he had “on every front attempted to save the 11th position.” When pressed, he added, however, “I don’t believe 11 and 1 is the correct number . . . 10 and 1 gives us what we need.”

    Bruce Stafford, who served on the board for two years before losing the last election to Kevin Duchemin, and who has said he supports the mayor 100 percent, noted that he had been on the village “negotiating team with Ed and Brian.” In apparent reference to the costs of maintaining the force, he compared salaries to “single moms working for the village making $30,000.” He said he was satisfied with part-timers filling the void in the summer season. Those positions, he said, cost “a quarter of the money and no benefits. . . . If it proves wrong we have to do something else.”

    Edward Gregory, who is completing his 24th year as a trustee and seeks to remain on the board, said he trusted the mayor’s opinion that the department would work with the smaller number of officers.

    For his part, Ken O’Connell, a newcomer to politics who owns La Superica, the restaurant and bar at the foot of Main Street, said, “Proper staffing is essential for anything to succeed.” He was uncomfortable about officers being on duty by themselves, he said.

    In addition to the study done during the Hance administration, a New York State study of Sag Harbor police in 2007 was brought to The Star’s attention although it was not mentioned on Sunday. It indicated that the force at that time — 12 full-time officers, 3 part-timers, and 1 chief — was inadequate and recommended an additional two police officers, an expansion of supervisory staff, and removing a detective from patrol to focus on criminal investigations.

    When the future of Long Wharf was broached, opinions also varied. Mr. Stafford expressed relief that the village had acquired the wharf from the county, saying he didn’t want to see condominiums there. The wharf is “vital to the economy and people of Sag Harbor,” he said.

    Mr. O’Donnell said the village should work with the harbor committee to include electric and water hookups to bring in more yachts. “We spent a dollar” for Long Wharf, he said, “but it came with liability and maintenance.” He stressed that “Long Wharf needs to generate enough revenue to maintain itself.”

    The wharf currently generates $50,000 to $94,000 annually, Mayor Gilbride said. He noted that the wharf was always a road, although he added that it was uncertain now if it is a county or village road.  

    “It’s terrible for pedestrians,” said Mr. Tait. “Either you walk in the middle of the road or on the edge with no railing.” He said the lack of cleats and difficult access made it impossible to tie up more boats. “We have to be creative,” Mr. Tait said. He suggested a general village discussion, and perhaps eliminating 10 to 15 parking spaces to create a park. That might allow financing from the community preservation fund, he said.

    Mr. Stafford did not agree with reducing parking. “It’s the center of the village and open to all . . . that’s how it should stay,” he said.

    A reserve account to fix up the wharf and keep it in good repair is of the utmost importance, Mr. Deyermond said. With an estimate from the county of $600,000 for repairs, Mr. Gregory said the village planned to do its own study of the costs of needed work.

    “I agree with everything,” Ms. Schroeder said, including “big boating there.” But “I would like more grass. . . . I don’t like looking at black top.” She later added, “I want my grandchildren to be able to fish there.”

Drainage and Flooding

    Mr. Gregory addressed another waterfront issue, citing the recent public outcry about drainage on Garden Street. “These are the areas where we will have to put our resources,” he said, “without forgetting about other areas.”

Mr. O’Donnell, who is a resident of Garden Street, shared that concern, mentioning flooding. “Water quality in our cove” is something, he said, that needed to be addressed. Mr. Deyermond also expressed concern about the quality of the inner cove. He applauded the work at Havens Beach, where remediation of longstanding contamination is under way, but added, “We have issues with drainage on Main Street.”

    Mr. Deyermond said that a number of post-Sandy grant programs were available that could help to upgrade and protect the waterfront. “We do need a lot of repair and upgrading on village things,” Ms. Schroeder said.

    “The village has a storm-water runoff problem that is environmentally degrading to the bays,” Mr. Tait said. He accused the village board of failing to obtain available grant money. “We have to do more than pay lip service to it,” he said, noting that property is fertilized to the water’s edge despite his committee’s suggestion against the practice. Mayor Gilbride took issue with him. “We follow the D.E.C.’s law.”

    In wrap-up comments, Mr. Tait admitted his competitors had more elected government experience, but he added, “Sometimes it puts you in a rut.”

    “Get yourself and friends out on election day to vote,” was Mr. Gregory’s final thought. Those who do so will find the  polls open from noon till 9 p.m. at the Fire Department’s headquarters on Brick Kiln Road.

    Willie Nelson is coming to Montauk’s Surf Lodge for a concert on Sunday and a representative of the popular night spot tried to assure members of the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee on Monday night that everything would be under control. The crowds that the country-western star is expected to attract will be monitored by the East Hampton Town Police Department and fire marshal’s office, he said, who will be standing by on land and on boats in nearby Fort Pond.

    The news came late in the meeting and went on for almost two hours as committee members complained about some of the hamlet’s newest gathering places.

    “There isn’t one person who goes to a Willie Nelson concert that doesn’t try to get a hit of his joint,” said Anne Maegli, who often complains about noise on Second House Road in the vicinity of Ruschmeyer’s and Solé East. “A lot of this stuff just gets swept away,” she told the committee. John Jilnicki, the East Town attorney, attended the meeting but was mostly silent.

    “People are going to do what they want because there are not enough code enforcement officers,” Linda Barnds, a committee member, said. Another member noted that some of the newer places were touting themselves through social media as family resorts but are actually killing Montauk’s family atmosphere.

    Chris Jones, an owner of the Montauk Beach House, which got going last summer at the site of the former the Ronjo Motel in downtown Montauk, who was at the meeting, said the new places should not all be lumped together.  The Beach House, he said, tries to abide by town law. “This is a great opportunity to work with the community. But there’s a great danger of categorizing that runs the risk of destroying all of it,” he said. Mr. Jones said that guests are counted each night and when the maximum number is met, people are turned away.

    Chris Pfund, a sound engineer who works with several clubs, said he has lived in Montauk his whole life. He agrees that some issues need to be reined in but not shut down. “We cannot go back to 20 years ago. That economy doesn’t exist anymore,” he said.

    East Hampton veterans, volunteer firefighters and ambulance personnel, and the East Hampton High School marching band took part in a Memorial Day parade Monday on Main Street under a cloudless blue sky.

     The parade drew a strong turnout of flag-waving observers along its route from near Guild Hall to the Hook Mill green.

    East Hampton Town Clerk Fred Overton presided over a ceremony at a war memorial on the green following the end of the parade, where approximately 300 people had gathered, including a group of local elected officials.

    Mr. Overton, who is the commander of the East Hampton post of the American Legion and is running for town board in the November election, read the names of the officials seated in two rows next to the mill. The loudest applause was for East Hampton Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson.

    In his remarks, Mr. Overton said he rejected the views of some who said that war was never for the good, citing the American Revolution, the preservation of the Union in the Civil War, and the “toppling of fascist regimes” in more recent history. He pointed to a line of small flags, explaining that they represented the 47 East Hampton service members who had died during wartime.

    He recalled the story of Emil Kapaun, an Army chaplain who died as a prisoner of war in the Korean War but dramatically rescued one soldier  and ministered to countless others during that conflict. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

    “We owe it to him and to the nearly 1 million who have died in these wars to live life to the fullest,” Mr. Overton said. “We owe it to those who have died to make sure that their sacrifice is remembered and they are always honored by this nation,” he said.

    Toward the conclusion of the morning’s observances, members of a rifle squad conducted a somber “missing man” ceremony in which a white dress helmet was placed on an upturned rifle whose bayonet had been driven into the soil. The crowd watched silently as the seven-member squad fired a three-round salute.

    Ben Jones, an East Hampton resident, played taps and the high school band “The Star-Spangled Banner” before a formal benediction closed the ceremony.

    Changes are afoot in downtown Montauk in time for the summer season. One is a trash recycling pilot program; the other the institution of a two-hour parking limit in much of the area.

    The recycling program was initiated by Laraine Creegan of the Montauk Chamber of Commerce and Catherine Foley, the owner of the Air and Speed Board Shop on Main Street, a member and former director of the Montauk Chamber. Ms. Foley said she had noticed an increase in litter in the downtown area and at the same time some of her customers were shocked there was no recycling in public places.

    “We needed to do something; it’s become out of control, an emergency situation,” Ms. Creegan said on Tuesday at the chamber building. With the support of the East Hampton Town Board, they decided to do something about collecting recyclables. The result is that new bins, which will be marked, one for glass and the other for paper and cans, will be placed next to the town’s existing garbage receptacles along the sidewalks. The town will empty the bins and replace the plastic linings.

    A letter was sent out in April to business owners in the area asking them to buy a bin at $190 apiece and explaining that their business name would be printed on it. Within two weeks the chamber had received a good response, said Ms. Creegan. Of 52 bins made available only 17 are left. If the plan goes well it will be expanded to side streets and the harbor area next year. addition, the Concerned Citizens of Montauk and a number of residents contributed to the project.

    “We’re so proud of the response and how fast people are excited to say, ‘Yes, let’s take care of our town.’ It’s shown a real sense of community,” Ms. Foley said.

    Also among changes are new parking plans that are expected to alleviate crowding in the downtown area. Shop owners have complained that some people have parked in the business district and spent the day at the ocean beach, a deterrent to business.

    A subcommittee of board members of the chamber has worked with the town to get parking limited to two hours on roads from Coffee Tauk on South Edison to Amy’s Closet and around the bend on South Etna up to the Naturally Good Health Food Store. Across the street on South Etna, where there is now a strip of unpaved road near St. Therese of Lisieux, pavement will be poured and parking delineated by lines.

    When Ms. Creegan and East Hampton Town Councilman Dominick Stanzione brought the parking plans to a Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee meeting earlier this month, committee members thought it a good idea and wondered why it wasn’t also being implemented in other areas of the business district. That will come eventually, Ms. Creegan said.

    The subcommittee also had its eye on the Kirk Park parking lot, which is underutilized, Ms. Creegan said. Noting that the park has restrooms, she said that even though the nonresident parking fee of $10 had been eliminated, the lot sits half empty even on the hottest summer day. By Memorial Day, there is to be a sign at the lot, advertising free parking. Some parking spaces in the lot, which were designated for residents only, will become open to the public.

    The public parking lot behind Plaza Sports will also have some of resident-only spaces moved, and a two-hour parking limit will be imposed there except for residents with an East Hampton Town parking, or beach, sticker, who will be able to continue parking there for an unlimited time.

   Esther Laufer, who turned 100 on Tuesday, remembers trolley cars and horse-drawn wagons, silent movies, spinning tops in the gutter on the street, and egg creams at the local soda fountain.

    Mrs. Laufer, who lives in Northwest Woods, is the daughter of Russian immigrants who came to the United States to escape the pogroms of the czar. She was born Esther Murofchick in Brooklyn and grew up in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. “Everybody knew each other,” she remembered last week.

    Her parents were observant Orthodox Jews. If you wanted a light on on a Saturday, you had to plan ahead. “You had to turn it on Friday,” she said, because Orthodox traditions prohibit work, even the work of cooking or turning on a light, on the Sabbath. Her family kept a kosher kitchen, and she soon supplanted her mother as the primary cook. “I made pasta, bread, cakes, you name it,” she recalled proudly. Her father was a lather, laying the strips of wood inside a room’s framework before it was plastered.

    “I went to Girls Commercial High School, where I leaned to play the piano,” she said. She taught piano lessons to the neighborhood children, while continuing to play herself. She remembers playing in a studio one day with her piano teacher in the back of the room with another man, who smiled and waved at her. Her teacher later told her the visitor had been Sergei Rachmaninoff.

    Silent movies were the rage, and Charlie Chaplin’s tramp was her favorite character.

    In the summer, the family would go to Brighton Beach.

    Mrs. Laufer met her future husband at a social club at her temple. Leon Laufer was there with another girl, but he took one look at her blue eyes and said, “ ‘Wait here,’ ” she recalled. He took the other girl home, then returned to see her. A few months later, they were married.

    He was a cab driver, then a trolley car driver, before he went into business as a photographer, taking portraits on Flatbush Avenue. Mrs. Laufer joined him in the business. “I used to dress the high school girls” for their graduation portraits, she said.

    They didn’t have a telephone. Instead, she would pay a young boy in the pharmacy downstairs to knock on her door when a call came for the Laufers.

    “My husband worked the 1939 World’s Fair,” she remembered. “We were walking and we saw this big mob. What was going on? It was the first television.”

    World War II brought its share of tragedy for the family. Mrs. Laufer lost a brother. “It was terrible. We never told my mother and father when we brought him here from Normandy. . . . We buried him in Brooklyn. . . . It was very sad.”

    Her husband wanted to enlist to fight against Nazi Germany. He was even issued a naval uniform, but when they discovered during his processing that he had two children and a third on the way, he was told to go home. According to Mrs. Laufer, a father with three children or more wasn’t allowed to join up.

    In 1955, they moved to Cedarhurst to raise their three young children, and in the 1970s they began summering in East Hampton.

    They bought property and built a house with plans to spend winters in Fort Lauderdale, but they discovered they didn’t like Florida. “Too many yentas,” Mrs. Laufer said.

    So they returned to East Hampton and their house in the woods full time.

    Now, Mrs. Laufer enjoys sitting by the slider door to her back deck watching the wildlife that visit her yard throughout the day. Her family has grown to include five grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandchild.

    The world and East Hampton have changed, and not always for the better, in Mrs. Laufer’s view. “People are not as nice, now. Everybody is for themselves, here,” she said. “The world? I think it was better when I was younger. You knew everybody.”

    On Saturday, Mrs. Laufer celebrated her birthday with her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and friends at Gurney’s Inn in Montauk.

   With little public discussion of the matter among Sag Harbor Village Board members or residents, two police officer positions were written out of the village budget in a meeting last Thursday morning.

    As the newest hire, David Driscoll, who was honored in January as the department’s officer of the year, will be off the force at the end of May, to the chagrin of Police Chief Tom Fabiano, who voiced his disapproval and disappointment before, during, and after the meeting. The other position had been filled by Officer Michael Gigante, who left the department in December because of Mayor Brian Gilbride’s threat to use police from neighboring towns to patrol the village.

    The $8.78 million budget reflects a 2.57-percent increase over last year’s. It was adopted unanimously by the board of Mayor Gilbride, Deputy Mayor Edward Gregory, Kevin Duchemin, and Robby Stein.

    Any reduction in the number of officers will limit the ability to respond to emergency calls, Chief Fabiano said at an April 3 hearing, adding in an interview on Friday that he was sickened by the process and the outcome. He is concerned about filling the shifts, which is a challenge already, he said, with vacations, sick days, and disability. The remaining 10 officers on patrol include Jeff Proctor, a detective whose investigation time is usually not considered part of the on-the-street force, Chief Fabiano said.

    At last Thursday’s meeting, and repeatedly in interviews, Chief Fabiano said he was frustrated that no board member had discussed with him how the reduction would affect the safety of the village and his officers, from a lack of backup for one-man shifts to slower response times.

    Contract negotiations between the village and the Sag Harbor Police Benevolent Association have been unsuccessful for almost two years, and the matter is now in arbitration. Patrick Milazzo, a village police officer and P.B.A. representative, told The Star in an e-mail that if Mayor Gilbride’s assessment of the cost of an officer is correct, $187,000 per year including retirement and benefits, an average resident would pay $51.52 per year, or $4.28 per month, to keep that officer.

    Overtime, which, Chief Fabiano said at a March meeting, had already reached around $60,000 with one officer out, could be as much as $300,000, he estimated last Thursday.

    Mayor Gilbride disagreed with the figure, and with the fact that the reduction would regularly affect a two-person shift.

    “Medical has increased 10 or 12 percent for the last two years, with no raises,” Mayor Gilbride said at the April 3 hearing, suggesting that the void be filled with part-time officers and, if need be, overtime.

    Officer Driscoll went above and beyond his duties as a police officer, he told The Star on Tuesday. In addition to his work with Suffolk County’s East End D.W.I Task Force, he initiated projects that included state grants to buy child-safety seats, his certification as a technician to assist parents and caregivers in their proper installation, and providing seats at no charge to those who can’t afford them.

    Officer Driscoll worked on bicycle patrol in the summer months. He acquired free bike helmets for kids in need, and instructed students at the Sag Harbor Elementary School in their use.

    Chief Fabiano said yesterday that he wished Mayor Gilbride had tried to reduce expenses in the budget, “instead of just cutting two positions.”