While residents of Montauk continue to push back against PSEG Long Island’s apparent plan to purchase 6.7 acres adjacent to Flamingo Avenue to relocate its electrical substation from flood-prone Industrial Road, the utility’s director of communications said yesterday, “no firm decision about the property has been made.”

For months, residents around the site — on a hillside north of the Montauk Firehouse and the Montauk Playhouse Community Center — have argued against putting a facility on land owned by the family of the actor Ralph Macchio. Opponents say the substation could pose a hazard to those around it. 

“Serious threats to water quality, adverse health issues, possible accidental emissions episodes, historical resource damage, and negative impact on community open space make the site an irresponsible, reckless undertaking that places the Montauk community at significant present and future risk,” according to a letter announcing a Jan. 30 meeting at the Montauk residence of Tom Bogdan, of a citizens group called Montauk United. Residents also spoke out against the plan at the hamlet’s citizens advisory committee meeting on Monday.

Those meetings followed a Jan. 23 meeting of the Long Island Power Authority’s board of trustees at which Montauk residents also spoke against the plan. PSEG Long Island manages the grid on LIPA’s behalf.

Residents believe that PSEG Long Island misrepresented and concealed its motives and actions, and charge that the East Hampton Town Board clandestinely worked with the utility, having made little serious effort to seek alternatives to the Flamingo Avenue site. 

“We agree with the town board that the new PSEG substation should not be on Industrial Road, absolutely,” Mr. Bogdan said yesterday. “Where we disagree is, it does not belong in the site that they favor, which PSEG fa vors also. There’s a variety of reasons why, primarily the fragility of the land.” Mr. Bogdan also noted that the present substation sits on one acre, whereas PSEG Long Island’s potential land purchase adjacent to Flamingo Avenue comprises nearly seven times that footprint. 

At the town board’s meeting on Tuesday, Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc acknowledged the concerns expressed at the citizens advisory committee meeting, which he attended with Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, the board’s liaison to the committee. These concerns, he said, come mostly from property owners in close proximity to the site who were concerned about a substation’s appearance and potential impact on property values and the environment.

He referred to a “frank and open conversation” with PSEG Long Island officials in January 2018, and “several missteps” on the utility’s part that marred its “initial entrance into our town as utility provider. . . . I said, ‘Don’t you guys make an effort to take into account community standards and concerns? When you develop something, pay attention to that.’ ”

PSEG Long Island, he said, “came back in October with an assessment of, I believe, 12 different potential locations in Montauk that would meet size and technical requirements, and for the most part, environmental requirements.” The Flamingo Avenue site, he said, was the utility’s first choice, “which they think they can build and screen.” The town preferred the former landfill on Montauk Highway, he said, but the utility’s officials “felt there were safety and technical issues they couldn’t overcome.” 

“We take a hard look at all alternative sites presented,” the supervisor said. “We go through an assessment to ensure they’re properly scored as to what the community feels should be the ranking.” A subcommittee will work with the town’s planning staff to review potential sites, and the citizens advisory committee “will engage with planning staff to act as a conduit to the public in terms of re-evaluating the original 12 sites, plus new ones.” 

A hypothetical substation on the Flamingo Avenue site, he added, is “not your great-grandfather’s substation from 1918,” but rather much more compact. Nonetheless, the onus is on the utility to convince the public that any impact of a substation on the proposed site would be benign. PSEG Long Island, he said, has indicated that it will present a plan by the end of this month. 

But, Mr. Bogdan said, “What we’re saying to the town board is, can’t you work harder on this? What have you done? The only answer we’re getting is ‘We talked to PSEG, they say they want it,’ and it is completely out of their control. . . . But they do have control: They certainly got PSEG not to build on Industrial Road.” 

Dave Gaier, PSEG Long Island’s director of communications, would only say that “We have still made no irrevocable decision. We’re still looking at that property, we’re still weighing our options. . . . Nothing really has changed, but I can tell you no firm decision about the property has been made.”

A celebration of East Hampton Village’s centennial, scheduled for Sept. 26, 2020, will include a parade, a fair, and a tour of historic houses on Main Street, which will be shut down from the post office on Pantigo Road to Mulford Farm, said Steven Ringel, the executive director of the East Hampton Chamber of Commerce, and a member of the village’s centennial anniversary committee.

“It’s going to be a major event,” said Mr. Ringel. “But the idea is not to flood the village with thousands of people from UpIsland. It’s going to be a celebration for locals.”

In August, Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. appointed the centennial committee, which is chaired by Barbara Borsack, a trustee, and includes her colleague Rose Brown, members of the Ladies Village 

Improvement Society, the Garden Club of East Hampton, the Village Preservation Society, the East Hampton Clericus, and the school district, among others.

 It was on Sept. 25, 1920, the mayor said, that village residents voted by a margin of 166 to 57 to break away from East Hampton Town. 

Throughout the anniversary year, said Becky Molinaro Hansen, the village administrator, lectures and art exhibits related to the village’s history will be held. A special curriculum will be created for students, and a time capsule will be buried.

The events planned for the big day will take place between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. and will incorporate a 1920s theme, said Mr. Ringel. People dressed in period costumes will ride in parade floats, 

Main Street shops will feature window displays that hark back to the era, and film shorts from the decade will be shown at Guild Hall. Village restaurants will offer $19.20 specials for lunch and dinner, as well as speakeasy-style cocktails. 

To cap off the day, there will be a concert at Herrick Park, the details of which are still to be determined, said Mr. Ringel, who has been encouraging some of the village’s most high-profile residents to participate. He said that “a famous comedian has shown interest in being the M.C.” for the concert. 

For those interested in volunteering for the event, riding a float in the parade, or participating in any way, Mr. Ringel suggested contacting him at [email protected].

Houses come and go, but some experience transformations that can be both commonplace and intriguing. 

The house that later came to be known as Spencecliff on Georgica Road in East Hampton was originally built as a summer residence in 1895 for Preston B. Spring, who was one of the founding members of the Maidstone Club. The Spring property was located directly behind a lot belonging to one W.H. Willis, which fronted Georgica Road. Spring’s lot ran to Baiting Hollow Road, and both property owners shared a driveway. 

The property contained a two-and-a-half-story wood-frame house known as Winklehawk, which was designed by the architect Joseph Greenleaf Thorp, as well as a windmill and a one-story outbuilding.

After Spring’s death in 1913, Winklehawk was sold to Walter Scott Roberts, who had it remodeled by the architect Howard Greenley in 1915. Aside from those structural changes, he increased his land holdings, had trees planted and tennis courts installed, and constructed a 40-by-50-foot brick bungalow in 1919. 

In 1925, the house was sold to Maj. Spencer Fullerton Weaver, an architect whose firm, Schultze & Weaver, drew the plans for the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. As noted in a July 12, 1929, East Hampton Star article about the house (illustrated with images of its exterior and pool, seen here), Weaver is credited with remodeling it and naming it Spencecliff, after his two sons, Spencer and Clifton. It boasted an additional wing, a 10-acre polo field and golf course, beautiful gardens, and a swimming pool.

Weaver died in 1939, and the house was eventually sold to William Seligson in 1949. He made his own modifications to it and subdivided the 12-acre property into multiple lots, having six new houses built in the 1950s. 

The final owners were the lyricist and playwright Adolph Green and his wife, the actress Phyllis Newman. In the summer of 1969 during a wedding, a caterer’s gas line sparked and the subsequent fire engulfed and ultimately destroyed the house. Oddly enough, the wedding ceremony was moved to the lawn, with about a hundred uninvited spectators.

Gina Piastuck is the department head of the Long Island Collection at the East Hampton Library.

As East End residents prepare 2018 tax returns, the repercussions of the tax reform law signed by President Trump in 2017, which takes effect this year, will affect local taxpayers, in particular those who have been able to deduct interest on home mortgages, according to Ronald Farnworth, a certified public accountant at East Hampton’s Kandell, Farnworth, and Pubins, an accounting and business advisory firm.

The legislation simplifies the federal filing process by providing a significant increase in the standard deduction, which is expected to be the most likely approach by taxpayers. The standard deduction allows taxpayers to submit taxes with “no questions asked,” Mr. Farnworth said. Married couples are allowed $24,000, and a single person can deduct $12,000, nearly twice last year’s amount. “The government expects that all but 8 percent of filers will use the standard deduction,” he said.

However, New York residents, who pay proportionally higher property and income taxes than residents of other states, are likely to be affected by a limit on the amount of state and local taxes — including property, income, and sales taxes — they can deduct on federal returns. The new law caps it at $10,000. Previously, taxpayers were allowed to deduct unlimited amounts. “For people in our area, their tax might be a little higher because of that change,” Mr. Farnworth said.  

To counteract any adverse effect of the legislation on New Yorkers, the state has decoupled its tax policy from the law, and is allowing deductions for state and local taxes regardless of the federal limit. Taxpayers will need verifiable documents and receipts for state taxes, even if they are not itemizing on their federal returns. “People say, ‘Oh I don’t need to send you that stuff anymore,’ but that’s not true,” Mr. Farnworth said. 

A possible side effect of the law’s incentive to opt for the standard deduction, which is likely to impact affluent taxpayers is that charitable organizations will not receive as many donations this year, he said. He is recommending that those who want to give to charities stagger their donations, that is, make a larger-than-usual contribution that exceeds the standard deduction this year and then wait a year and contribute again. 

“Another piece of the puzzle is the reduced withholding,” Mr. Farnworth said, referring to the money withheld by employers and sent to the government as partial payment of an employee’s income tax. Since the law has lowered tax rates, wage earners may be caught off guard by their tax bills if they have not taken the change into account, he said. “The less people have withheld in salary, the lower their refund will be, or the more taxes they’ll have to pay.” 

East End homebuyers also may be adversely affected by the new cap on mortgage interest deductions, which applies to interest paid on second homes as well as primary residences. A married couple who obtained a mortgage after Dec. 15, 2017, will only be allowed to deduct the interest on up to $750,000 of the debt; the previous amount was $1 million. “Given the price of homes in the Hamptons, and the number of second-home owners, that could have a real effect,” Mr. Farnworth said. 

Paul Brennan, the executive manager of sales at Douglas Elliman real estate, agreed with this assessment.  Lowering the deduction, he said, “will justify people’s fear that they won’t get the same benefit” from purchasing a house in the Hamptons as they have in years past. 

A personal deduction of $4,050 per taxpayer and per dependent has been eliminated in the current law. For couples with several dependent children, that will be an unwelcome change. The tax credit for dependent children under 17, however, has been increased from $1,000 to $2,000. “The hope is that the higher standard deduction and child tax credit will offset the loss of the personal exemption,” Mr. Farnworth said.

One addition to the tax code that could provide a boon for some families is the expansion of a savings program for college expenses. Money contributed to this program is not subject to federal tax. Under the new law, up to $10,000 also can be used to pay tuition to private or religious elementary and secondary schools.

Mr. Farnworth said business owners would be among the biggest beneficiaries of the law, thanks to a provision that allows them to deduct 20 percent of their income from their federal taxes. There are several rules regarding who can take this deduction, he said, “but in general, most trades and businesses should be better off under this tax plan.”

One of my favorite things about writing the “Item of the Week” is how it allows readers to see their connections to local history.

The digitized church program seen here came to us after a conversation regarding one of our previous items, which helped a resident realize just how much her family’s history was part of the narrative we try to preserve in the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection.

This particular program advertised the Third Annual St. Patrick’s Day Entertainment and St. Philomena’s (now Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church) Fiftieth Anniversary, which was dated March 15, 1944.

The combined celebration was divided into two parts, the first being “Memories of the First Fifty Years.” It featured schoolchildren singing songs that were popular during each decade of the parish’s existence, with selections like the 1910 “Come Josephine in My Flying Machine,” which was written in the early days of aviation. In recognition of St. Patrick’s Day, the first act concluded with an Irish dance routine performed by 10 local girls.

The second act was dubbed “The Dinner Club,” with Tom Ward serving as the master of ceremonies. This part of the evening mostly included a few nods to the ongoing war, with a high school senior, Evelyn Loris, singing “Say a Prayer for the Boys Over There” and the closing “Good Night Soldier.” Thanks to the newly built United States Navy Torpedo Testing Range (on Star Island) in Montauk, the audience also enjoyed a series of magic tricks performed by a Navy torpedoman named Burger.

The East Hampton Star reported that the event was quite popular, noting, “Once again, every seat was taken in the Edwards Theater.” That same enthusiastic support for the program produced 39 pages of advertisements from sponsors and local businesses, offering a snapshot of the community during World War II.

Andrea Meyer is a librarian and archivist in the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection.

Dayton, Ritz and Osborne Insurance has donated the final $5,400 needed for a 9/11 memorial that the Sons of the American Legion Squadron 419 in Amagansett has been working six years to complete, clearing the way for the sculpture to be finished and installed.

John McGuirk said he and his fellow partners at Dayton, Ritz and Osborne — George Yates, Fred Ritz III, and Jeff Brown — volunteered to make the contribution after reading about the effort in The Star earlier this month. After their application to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for a steel beam from the World Trade Center was approved in 2015, Tony Ganga and his brother, Bob, of the Sons of the American Legion, arranged for it to be transported to the legion hall in Amagansett, raised most of the $32,000 to pay for the project, and enlisted the pro bono help of Gustavo Bonevardi, a sculptor and part-time East Hampton resident who agreed to design the legion’s memorial after a chance meeting with Bob Ganga.

“My partners and I talked about it, and we thought it was just something we should do because it [the memorial] is important,” said Mr. McGuirk. “I have some close friends who are New York City firemen, and the number that always sticks in my head is 343 — the 343 firefighters who died.”

Mr. Bonevardi was among the artists who originally helped conceive “Tribute in Light,” the epic twin beams of light that are still projected into the sky from a site near the World Trade Center towers on every anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He can now move forward with fabricating the sculpture.

Tony Ganga has been the Amagansett Sons of the American Legion commander for 16 years and a member for 30. The group is for sons and grandsons of legion members. Tony Ganga is also a member of the East Hampton Fire Department and helps organize the Hamptons Soldier Ride to benefit the Wounded Warrior Project. He says his hope “if everything aligns” is to have the memorial installed by midsummer at the legion post’s grounds on the corner of Abraham’s Path and Montauk Highway, and to then schedule a formal dedication ceremony.

“The donation was kind of a surprise — it’s been a long road, it really has — but I’m proud, relieved, and thrilled, absolutely thrilled,” Mr. Ganga said.

The replacement of the railroad trestles that cross North Main Street and Accabonac Road in East Hampton Village, which had been scheduled for next month, will happen in October or November, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said yesterday. 

The trestles, which are renowned for being struck by trucks, will be raised from 11 to 14 feet high with the installation of new bridges.

Crews have completed the construction of new retaining walls east of Accabonac Road, said Aaron Donovan of the M.T.A., which operates the Long Island Rail Road and is in charge of the project. The retaining walls between the two bridges are now being installed. 

It is expected to take about 10 days to remove and replace the trestles. The North Main Street one will be first, followed by the Accabonac Road one five days later. During that time, Mr. Donovan said, whichever street is not being worked on will remain open.

Representatives of Make the Road New York, a citizens group that seeks legislation allowing New York residents access to state driver’s licenses regardless of their immigration status, appeared at a forum at the Bridgehampton National Bank last Thursday, explaining they will work with local groups such as Organizacion-Latino Americano of Eastern Long Island and Progressive East End Reformers to get the law reinstated after a 13-year lapse. 

Eliana Fernandez, a statewide lead organizer for Make the Road, and  Gabriela Andrade, who focuses on Suffolk County, described how the more progressive majority recently elected to the State Senate has encouraged activists in a coalition called Greenlight New York to think the time is right to revisit the driver’s license issue. 

The effort has languished since 2007, when then-governor Eliot Spitzer unsuccessfully tried three times to reinstate driving licenses for noncitizens. The privilege had been rescinded in New York in part because of security concerns in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Greenlight New York estimates such a law, if passed today, would affect more than 700,000 people in the state who are 16 and older. It also says it could be a significant revenue generator for the state, insurance customers, car dealerships, and other businesses that sell to undocumented residents or rely on immigrant labor.

In 2007, Mr. Spitzer estimated $120 million in insurance premium savings alone for New Yorkers, citing statistics that show unlicensed drivers are five times more likely to be involved in a fatal accident than licensed drivers. 

The Fiscal Policy Institute concluded $57 million a year in recurring revenue would be generated in New York, in addition to a one-time $27 million bump in state revenues for new driver’s licenses and registrations.

The legislation has widespread support. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he would sign the bill if it passes the Assembly and Senate, and Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand are among those in favor of the measure.

On the East End, Ms. Andrade said, such a law would particularly help families and workers who now struggle to complete routine obligations like getting to work, school, or doctor’s appointments because they have to rely on public transportation, which is spotty at best. 

She noted that these residents sometimes take the risk of driving without a license. But the fallout can be far more serious than just getting a ticket.

“The main pipeline that leads to deportation under this [federal] administration is driving without a driver’s license,” Ms. Fernandez said.

Minerva Perez, executive director of OLA, and Kathryn Szoka of PEER, which hosted last week’s event, said their organizations are committed to helping get the law passed. 

Ms. Fernandez and Ms. Andrade also pointed out that individuals and organizations can get involved in various ways, starting with joining a Greenlight New York petition drive, contacting state legislators and law enforcement, or urging local business people, community leaders, and chambers of commerce to publicly support the legislation. 

More details can be found at GreenlightNewYork.org.

“We’ve been hearing from a lot of elected officials that there’s not enough education about the driver’s license campaign, and so they want to hear more, not just from the immigrant community and affected people, but from everybody in the state,” Ms. Andrade said.

PEER, which describes itself as “a multi-issue grassroots organization committed to advocating for social, racial, environmental, and economic justice for all,” has emphasized immigrant rights this year, Ms. Szoka, a co-founder of the group, said. 

Speaking in an interview after the forum, she said one of the reasons raising awareness about the driver’s license initiative was vital is the many misunderstandings surrounding the effort.

   “One of the misconceptions is maybe these immigrant license holders would get all kinds of aid or help, and that’s not the case at all,” Ms. Szoka said. “The standard license would be strictly for driving. It doesn’t allow you to fly on an airline. It doesn’t allow you to go into a federal building. It doesn’t allow you to get any aid from state or federal governments. It just allows you to drive a car legally. And it would make it possible again for everyone to own a car legally, get insurance. So it’s very sensible.” 

On another level it’s also a human rights issue, Ms. Szoka added. “You should not face deportation for driving to your place of work — that’s way too high a consequence in the United States of America,” she said.

Ms. Perez said OLA already has been working with town boards and East End law enforcement, urging officials to recognize they and judges have discretion in how driving-without-a-license offenses are punished. OLA also has been seeking local legislation and formal commitments from authorities stating, for example, that they will not enforce administrative warrants for arrests that could throw unlicensed drivers into deportation proceedings because of the Suffolk County jail affiliation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

“We’ve actually had a good dialogue on this so far, and we will look to keep that dialogue going because we can’t afford not to,” Ms. Perez said. “This is an issue that affects the health and safety of everyone who lives here — Latino, non-Latino, young, old, families.”

Undocumented residents can get driver’s licenses in 12 states — Connecticut, Delaware, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Vermont, and Washington, plus the District of Columbia. The same was true in New York until 2002, or shortly after the 9/11 attacks.

Friends of Havens Beach, an advocacy group seeking to prod Sag Harbor Village officials into improving the condition of the village’s only bathing beach, listed the detritus recently found in the sand there at a public forum at the John Jermain Memorial Library on Sunday. The detritus included jagged pieces of corroded metal, glass shards, and chunks of coal.

The group believes the November 2017 dredging of the wharf, during which 10,000 cubic yards of sand were pumped from the bottom of the harbor onto the beach, is mainly to blame. 

Jean Held, a trustee of the Sag Harbor Historical Society, presented some of the history of Havens Beach at the forum, showing photos of the dredging (one was captioned “the event that brought Friends of Havens Beach together”). Another slide showed patches of what she said was heavy blackened sand. “This upsets me,” she said. “I don’t know what it is.” Ms. Held said on Monday that collecting the sand often left her hands stained. She has sent a sample to be tested.

During her presentation, she noted that three stormwater drainage pipes lead to the beach, one emanating from Bay Street, one from the Cormaria Retreat House, and one from the beach’s parking lot. 

Terry Sullivan, a member of the group, said the Suffolk County Department of Public Works, which had overseen the dredging, has maintained that clean sand was deposited on the beach at the time, but he showed a photo of what he said looked like “black sludge” issuing from the dredge pipe. 

Last January, John Parker, a member of the harbor committee, alerted village board members to the conditions at the beach by bringing three baseball-size rocks he found there to a meeting. Ken O’Donnell, a trustee, disputed the cause of the detritus was the dredge, but said, “We’re going to sift the beach to get rid of the rocks and shells.” The beach had indeed been sifted, but Mr. Sullivan said rain had subsequently caused more debris to be unearthed. 

Ms. Held made the same point to the village board during a public hearing on Nov. 13, at which the Friends of Havens Beach invited board members to join them in touring the beach. No one had taken the group up on the offer, Carol Williams, one of the founders said. “They didn’t respond very much,” she added, of her interaction with the board at the hearing. She had also invited the board to Sunday’s presentation, she said, but no one attended. “We really hoped that they would come,” Ms. Williams said. “What we’ve been asking for is to have one person on the village board who would be concerned with the environmental oversight of the beach.”

Walks on the beach yield many things; beach glass, a seal sunning itself, and, unfortunately, trash, but beachgoers Friday were surprised to find a few hundred feet of hydraulic dredge pipe stretched out on the surf at Georgica Friday.

Paul Vogel, who wrote to The Star Friday morning, said he was walking by the jetty to the west when he came upon a single section of pipe, approximately 400 feet long and 18 inches in diameter. There were no seams and it was capped off at the west end, he said. 

"My first thought was that it was part of a beach erosion project, but it wasn't anchored in place and the next high tide will most likely shift it," he said. "Any ideas on how it got there? I can't imagine how something that massive could be moved into place, or for that matter how it will be moved out."

The situation left police and government officials asking the same questions for several hours Friday.

East Hampton Village police got calls about it early in the day, and they reached out to the Village Department of Public Works, Chief Michael Tracey said.

"We we are eliminating, one by one, potential owners, but it is clear it came up in the surf," Chief Tracey said. He said they believe it is made of "heavy-duty polyethylene," so while it is not metal, it is still heavy and difficult to move. 

So where did it come from? Rebecca Molinaro Hansen, the village administrator, said the Department of Public Works told her it came off a dredge boat. "We believe it is from a dredge, and there is dredging currently going on at Moriches Inlet." She said the East Hampton Town Marine Patrol "is contacting them to come out," as "we do not have the equipment to remove it."

Ed Michels, the East Hampton Town harbormaster, said he is working with Coast Guard Station Shinnecock to find the owner of the dredge there to see if they lost any pipe. "I'm sure it's worth a lot of money, it's 400 feet long!"

He confirmed that whoever it belongs to is responsible for removing it. It could be removed with a tug boat if they brought in a bulldozer to push it back in the water. If the town ends up having to remove it, it will need to be cut into smaller sections on the beach, he said. 

"It's winter, I think I have some leeway," he said in regard to how quickly it has to be removed. "If it was July, that would be another story."