Concern about what has been described as an unusually large number of ticks this spring — and the potential for increased instances of Lyme disease — has given rise to a first-time fund-raising effort by stores and restaurants on the North and South Forks.  

 East End Shop and Dine to End Lyme Disease happens on Saturday, with participants having pledged a percentage of the day’s proceeds, or a fixed sum, to the Global Lyme Alliance, a nonprofit organization dedicated to conquering Lyme and other tick-borne illnesses through research, education, and awareness. 

Elizabeth Rasor, a teacher who lives in Sag Harbor and is one of the South Fork’s many residents afflicted with ­Lyme disease, is grappling with its effects more than three years after she was infected. She and Kinzey Fritz, who lives on the North Fork and in New York City and also has Lyme disease, have spearheaded the Shop and Dine fund-raiser. Businesses interested in participating have been asked to send an email to [email protected] or visit the Global Lyme Alliance website at globallymealliance.org. 

In Montauk, Gosman’s Restaurant, Shagwong Tavern, the Montauk Corner Store, and Deep Blue Vintage at the Montauket are among participants. Cavaniola’s Gourmet in Amagansett, the Smokin’ Wolf in East Hampton, Fairway restaurant at the Poxabogue Golf Center in Sagaponack, and Stand Wellness in Water Mill are also participants, as are Sagtown Coffee, Romany Kramoris Gallery, and Around Again in Sag Harbor. More than 10 businesses on the North Fork are taking part. 

“We encourage people to patronize these establishments on Saturday,” Ms. Rasor said. “We are very happy with the showing for our first fund-raiser and are confident that it will grow in the coming years.” A fall event is also being planned, she said. 

The Global Lyme Alliance holds events in Manhattan and Greenwich, Conn., where it is based, and has honored and received support from high-profile individuals, including the singer Rob Thomas and his wife, Marisol, who has suffered from Lyme disease for 15 years; the model and television personality Yolanda Hadid and her daughter, the model Bella Hadid, the fashion designer Joseph Abboud, and Ally Hilfiger, the  fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger’s daughter, who wrote “Bite Me: How ­Lyme Disease Stole My Childhood, Made Me Crazy, and Almost Killed Me.”

Residents of the Montauk Shores condominium complex were unnerved earlier this month to receive a letter from the United States Army Corps of Engineers informing them that “available information indicates military munitions may be present on or near your property.”

 Enclosed with the letter, which was signed by a Col. William M. Conde, was a pamphlet stating that bombs, rockets, small-arms ammunition, and practice grenades “were potentially used at the former Camp Hero,” which is about three miles from the condo complex. Camp Hero was a military installation near Montauk Point that first served as a coastal defense post during World War II and was used by the Navy, the Army, and the Air Force to train antiaircraft units.

The pamphlet included a map delineating, in bright red, the areas, both on land and at sea, that may have been on the receiving end of launched explosives.

“I thought one of these bombs went off somewhere in the country and that’s why they sent us this letter,” said Grace Bottari, who has lived at Montauk Shores for 32 years (but never come across any munitions). 

In fact, the letter and the pamphlet were sent as a precautionary measure and as part of the Department of Defense’s routine oversight of formerly used defense sites, said Gregory J. Goepfert, a project manager for the Corps of Engineers. He explained that a full investigation of Camp Hero, which was decommissioned in 1982 and has been searched previously for ordnance that may have been left behind, remains open, with more field work to be done. 

The intent of the letter, he said, was to “make people aware that we have not completed this process,” and therefore it was possible that a long-buried munition might yet surface. The evaluation of the site is in its middle-to-end stages, he said, and until a “decision document” is issued stating whether or not explosives might still be unearthed on the camp site or in nearby ocean waters, letters will continue to be sent periodically to neighbors and other concerned parties.

A key reason the pamphlet was included with the letter, said Mr. Goepfert, was to spread the word about the three “R’s” of safety that should be observed if one happens upon a munition: Recognizing it as a potential explosive, retreating from it, and reporting it to the police. 

Although the Montauk Shores complex is miles away, Mr. Goepfert said that its residents had been contacted in order to guard against “the worst-case scenario,” namely that a munition had been projected onto its grounds.   

When Josephine Albano, another longtime Montauk Shores resident, read the letter, she was unfazed by the possibility that a rocket might be hidden somewhere on her property, but she was shellshocked by the amount of money — $6.35 per letter — the government had spent to send the notice, which came by priority mail. 

“What a huge waste of money,” she said. “They could have just put it on a TV news show or put an ad in the newspaper.” 

When asked why the Army Corps had used such an expensive mode of delivery for the letter, Mr. Goepfert responded, “People’s safety is always considered a priority.”

The Montauk Playhouse Community Center foundation, which is hoping to renovate the west side of the playhouse, applied on Tuesday to the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals for the variances necessary to begin construction.

The project would include an aquatics center, meeting and gallery spaces, lockers, bathrooms and offices, an expanded parking lot, a handicapped-accessible entryway, landscaping, lighting, retaining walls, and a new sanitary system.

The renovation and expanded parking lot would cover 45 percent of the lot; 40 percent is the maximum permissible under the town code. But, according to the Town Planning Department, “the remaining naturally occurring vegetation on this lot is on the eastern side, behind a large retaining wall and adjacent to a freshwater wetland,” so the extra clearance would do only minimal harm to the existing ecosystem. 

Planners suggested that vegetated islands be built into the parking lot, as well as additional screening or plantings around the edges to soften its appearance from the street.

The lot, with 63 new spaces and a proposed Dumpster, would be closer by 12.7 feet than code permits to the adjacent lots (only 2.3 feet away). But the Planning Board memo noted that the most affected neighboring property is currently vacant, and the topography of the area makes it unlikely that the whole parking lot could be seen from that property. 

Zoning board members seemed most concerned that the larger parking lot might be unsightly from the road or other properties. Another concern was that the septic system on the east side of the building, the side not being renovated, would remain a high-nitrogen system rather than the new low-nitrogen systems now being phased in. The board will come to a decision in a few months.

In an uncharacteristically brief meeting on Friday, the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals closed three continued hearings and all six new hearings on its agenda. One continued hearing, for Edward Conard, a former managing partner at Bain Capital who seeks to build a tennis court that would fall within required setbacks at 30 west End Road, a plan that rankled the neighboring property owner, was adjourned to the board’s next meeting, on July 13. 

Friday’s hearings were not controversial, for the most part, and prompted few questions from the board. Among them was an application by the billionaire investor and philanthropist Ronald Perelman, who owns the Creeks, a nearly-60-acre estate on Georgica Pond at 291 Montauk Highway. 

A hearing for Mr. Perelman’s previous application, to legalize numerous zoning-code violations, had spanned four months, the board and Mr. Perelman’s representatives agreeing that some structures that had been constructed or expanded without building permits and in violation of required setbacks from wetland areas could remain in altered form in exchange for measures to mitigate detrimental impacts to the pond. 

Among the violations was a finding that more than 70,000 square feet of vegetation had been improperly cleared; among the mitigation measures was a stipulation that Mr. Perelman must, within one year, revegetate 133,756 square feet of the property, more than three acres, to create a vegetative buffer between it and the pond. 

On Friday, the hearing was reopened to discuss one condition imposed in the board’s April 13 determination: that there be no lighting on six sculptures for which the board had granted area and wetland setback variances. One sculpture straddles the rear-yard lot line and wetlands. 

“Unfortunately, survey and site submissions throughout the hearing process failed to indicate the lighting that was on these sculptures,” said Lenny Ackerman, an attorney representing Mr. Perelman. “We ask that that provision be omitted from the determination.” 

Although lighting had not been discussed, there was no indication of that in the record, said Frank Newbold, the board’s chairman. “Mr. Ackerman and his client are arguing that the statues have been lit for a substantial period of time,” he said, noting that no neighbors had issued a complaint.

The lights are in the revegetated buffer zone, which cannot be fertilized or mowed, Mr. Newbold said. “The question is, how does one maintain this without disturbing the natural buffer?” 

“How do you change a bulb?” Mr. Ackerman asked. “Very carefully, I suspect.” 

“I assume to change a lightbulb here and there is minimally intrusive and certainly not going to harm the environment, one would imagine,” said Mr. Newbold.

Billy Hajek, the village’s planner, agreed. “I’m less concerned with people changing lightbulbs versus underground utilities and wires and stuff,” he said. 

Removing the lighting and associated wiring, Mr. Newbold said, “would probably cause more disturbance than leaving it in place and just maintaining it.” The bigger picture, he said, was the substantial mitigation for the ecology of the pond, which also included a promise to replace existing septic systems with Suffolk County-approved nitrogen-reducing systems within two years of the April determination. 

The hearing was closed, and a decision will be announced at a future meeting. 

Two determinations were announced at the meeting. The board granted Ute Meirowitz a variance allowing 24,561 square feet of coverage at 19 Amy’s Court at one of nine detached condominium units. Site plan approval allowing 22,207 square feet had previously been granted. The applicant has a sale pending for which an updated certificate of occupancy is required. The current survey depicts 2,354 square feet of coverage greater than what was permitted when the original certificate of occupancy was issued. 

Douglas Fanning was granted variances to permit 256 square feet of coverage over the maximum permitted in order to construct a swimming pool, patio, and front porch, to make alterations to the house, and to convert a portion of a detached garage into a pool cabana at 50 Dayton Lane.

After losing his first bid, by just five votes, for a seat on the Sag Harbor Village Board in 2017, Thomas Gardella, the former chief of the village’s Fire Department, had a much happier election night on June 19 when he captured one of two seats on the board in an uncontested election. The other winning candidate, James Larocca, was an incumbent. 

Mr. Gardella, who will serve a two-year term, said on Monday that he had yet to have a meeting with Mayor Sandra Schroeder to discuss his assignments, but he said his priorities were protecting the harbor and water quality. “Our population is growing and we have to keep an eye on the impact that has on the environment,” he said. 

Robert Stein, the board member whose term just ended, had taken the lead on securing grants for the village, and Mr. Gardella said that as a former chief of the Fire Department, he had become well versed in the grant application process as well as crafting bud­gets. 

He said he was particularly looking forward to helping two major projects move closer to becoming a reality, namely the Steinbeck Waterfront Park, the proposed recreational area that will feature a beach, a fishing and small boat pier, and a pedestrian walkway, and the restoration and renovation of Long Wharf, which the village is seeking to make more pedestrian-friendly.  

Since the election, Mr. Gardella said he has been busy tending his plumbing business, which he plans to slowly hand over to his son. “I’m 53 years old and you don’t see a lot of plumbers my age. It’s hard work,” he said. He has also finishing a training course in emergency medical technician critical care. Even before being sworn in, he said he had been hearing opinions and getting advice from constituents.

 “People are already coming up to me on the street,” he said.

The Amagansett Life-Saving and Coast Guard Station on Atlantic Avenue was named this week to the New York State Register of Historic Places and nominated to the National Register of Historic Places.

The station, built in 1902 as part of a network along Long Island’s Atlantic Coast, is now a museum focusing on those who served there from 1902 to 1944 as well as the station’s role in East Hampton’s maritime history. 

The building is owned by the town and overseen by the Amagansett Life-Saving and Coast Guard Station Society. It was moved from its original site in 1966 to become a private residence on Bluff Road for the Carmichael family, which donated it to the town in 2007. It was moved back to Atlantic Avenue and restored over the course of several years, finally opening to the public in 2017. 

According to State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., the station’s state and pending federal recognition could be a boon to future restoration efforts. “State and National Register listings can assist property owners in revitalizing buildings, making them eligible for various public preservation programs and services, such as matching state grants and state and federal historic rehabilitation tax credits,” he said. 

The new honor should add an especially festive air to two upcoming events at the museum, a concert at 7 p.m. tomorrow and a lobster bake benefit on July 14 from 6 to 8:30 p.m.

Deborah Carmichael, a singer and member of the family that donated the station to the town, will be joined tomorrow by other singers and musicians at a concert featuring the music of Monteverdi and Bartók. Also singing will be Kinga Cserjesi, Marisa Michelson, and Sara Serpa, and, from the Choral Society of the Hamptons, Allen Fein, Janet Fensterer, William Gosman, Evan Harrel, Vivian Lindemann, and Susan Raymond. Nikita Morozov and Yuri Namkung will play violin, Valeriya Sholokhova will play cello, and Danica Borisavljevic will play piano. A $25 donation has been suggested, and a reception will follow.  

The annual lobster bake benefit is a family-friendly evening with live music. Tickets cost $150, $75 for children 12 and under, and can be purchased in advance at amagansettlss.org or at Amagansett Wine and Spirits on Main Street.

The past few months have been mercurial for cryptocurrency, once used largely in the digital black market. Valued at less than a dime in the years following its invention in 2008, bitcoin’s worth has skyrocketed to over $19,000 in recent months. To put the currency’s dramatic rise into perspective, Business Insider recently stated that 10,000  — the amount needed to buy a couple of pizzas in 2010 — would now be more than enough to buy a couple of pizza franchises. Recently, a Lake Tahoe, Calif., estate sold for 2,739 bitcoin — the equivalent of $1.6 million at the time.

It follows, naturally, that bitcoin owners can also buy laptops, space flights, pay for  Uber rides, and purchase whatever they fancy from Overstock, the first major retailer to accept bitcoin. 

And now, the world of digital currency has landed in the Hamptons. Wampum First, a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency exchange, has launched a cryptocurrency “wallet” to sell memberships in a new archery range on Old Point Road in Southampton, opened by Edward Gumbs, a member of the Shinnecock Nation. Membership in the Straight Arrow Archery Club costs $1,000 for the year or $60 for a day pass. 

“If you have bitcoin then the transaction is seamless with no banks involved. If you don’t have bitcoin, then you can also pay cash, and we’ll do the conversion,” said Scott Lewis, a Southampton resident, who wanted to be known only as a “colleague” in Wampum First’s hierarchy. “We’re all colleagues because that’s the new norm in organizations. There’s been a real paradigm shift. We’re all just compatriots.” 

In reality, his is one of two names on the patent pending for Wampum First’s technology, known as the Super Duper Smart Crypto Deposit Card, making him a key player and co-developer of the digital wallet.

The $1,000 annual archery range membership, he said, is roughly the equivalent of 67 bitcoin today, although its value fluctuates, as does flat currency.

Wampum First, which launched its Straight Arrow Archery card last weekend at the U.S. Open golf tournament, also has Hamptons Fit, an on-demand training and fitness service, under its umbrella. Using existing cryptocurrency, or cash that can be converted, anyone can book tennis lessons, personal trainers, or swimming instructors, the same way you would with a credit card. 

Mr. Lewis’s goal is to attract more East End companies into the Wampum First network. For him, the future of cryptocurrency is clear; he is convinced cryptocurrencies are anything but speculative bubbles and that they will actually transform our financial system. “Once you get bitcoin proficient, you won’t want to go back,” he said. “Paper money is governed by politics. Bitcoin currency is governed by algorithms.”

At its core, bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are a digital asset not tied to a bank or government, created through a combination of encryption and peer-to-peer networking. People can use it to buy things from each other or businesses and a network of computers tracks and verifies the transactions.

Bitcoin advocates, like Mr. Lewis, will point to a number of possible advantages, which are for the most part met with skepticism or a lack of understanding by those not versed in financial tech. But the biggest advantage, and the only one everyone agrees on, is that bitcoin is decentralized and therefore extremely resistant to manipulation.

In this new financial norm, Mr. Lewis would like to be a cryptocurrency “miner,” that is, someone who provides the computing power to verify, control, and add transactions to the public ledger, known as the blockchain, the means through which new bitcoin are released. But this is not a possibility, he said, because of the high electricity rates on the South Fork.

“China charges the equivalent of 8 cents a minute for electricity while Long Islanders have to pay 21 cents a minute,” Mr. Scott said, making it prohibitive for him to mine in the bitcoin industry.

Mr. Lewis had actually sued Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo for “permitting the sale of critical infrastructure (i.e. telephone, electric, and gas companies) to none other than the Queen of England” he wrote in a paper titled “Dark Age Charter,” which he published in Dan’s Papers in 2017. “My [Dutch] ancestors kicked the British out of Port Washington to land at Conscience Point to prevent a land grab and taxation without representation. It is our turn to take back our utilities from the British.”

To this end, Mr. Lewis, who has worked for IBM and in technology with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority — “I’ve been connecting computers forever” — has declared his candidacy for a trustee on the board of the Long Island Power Authority. The election will take place in January 2019.

In another collaboration of sorts, he has helped develop what he calls a Quantum Electromechanical Generator, which, once approved, he promises will increase the quality of life tenfold because it does not require fuel.

“We will live in a universe of abundant energy,” he said. His goal is to make it freely available to those who wish to mine it for all it’s worth.

Until then, he is happy with the initial success of Wampum First, which he said he named after the original currency in North America. His various digital currency cards are all stored in a soft leather pouch, stitched in Native American style with a wampum shell in the middle. The pouches will soon be available for $35 dollars or .0052 bitcoin.

Philip Cammann, formerly of Bridgehampton, and Cathy Taldone of Shoreham were married last Thursday at the Old Field Club in Setauket. The Hon. Linda J. Kevins, a Suffolk County Supreme Court justice, officiated. 

Mr. Cammann, who graduated from a paramedic program at Stony Brook University, is a paramedic supervisor with the Southampton Volunteer Ambulance. His parents are Fred Cammann of Greenport and the late Nora Cammann. 

His wife is the director of school and community partnerships for the Three Village Central School District in Stony Brook. She holds a Ph.D. in educational administration from C.W. Post, a master’s degree from Stony Brook University, and a bachelor’s degree from Adelphi University. 

Mr. Cammann wrote that their connection was a “Match.com success story.” 

His best man was George Ryan of Greensburg, Kan., formerly of East Hampton. The bride was attended by her daughters, Laura Taldone Novetti as maid of honor and Michelle Taldone Novetti, and by her son, Jason Thomas Taldone Novetti, who walked her down the aisle. 

There was a double-ring and sand-blending ceremony with Debbi Rakowski officiating. The couple wrote their own vows. 

After a wedding trip to Alaska, the couple are living in Mattituck.

In July of 1776, William Floyd became one of 56 men to sign the Declaration of Independence. The 41-year-old from Mastic Beach joined the other signers in pledging his life, his fortune, and his “most sacred honor” for our liberty.

For most of the next seven years, the Floyd family would be separated by the war and William’s congressional duties. Following George Washington’s defeat in the battles for New York City, the British Army occupied Long Island, targeting families of the signers and rebel leadership. The Floyds were evacuated to Middletown, Conn., among hundreds of other patriot families seeking refuge. Many of them left Long Island from Sag Harbor, according to Frederic Mather, the author of “The Refugees of 1776 From Long Island to Connecticut,” published in 1916. 

In May of 1781, William’s wife, Hannah Jones Floyd, became ill and died while still a refugee in Connecticut. British troops surrendered five months later at Yorktown, Va., but the war continued for another two years, with peace an uncertainty.

Despite all these struggles, William Floyd managed to write the letter, above, dated Christmas 1782, to his Middletown neighbor Thomas Dering (of Sylvester Manor), expressing hope for peace and the reunion of families. Though his latest news from Philadelphia is weeks old and unreliable, Floyd is optimistic that the American and British governments would proceed with peace negotiations. He also wrestles with false rumors of the British evacuation of Charleston, S.C., and promises to send Dering newspapers, as old news is better than no news at all.

Within a year of this letter, the British evacuated New York, allowing William Floyd and his remaining family members to finally return to their Suffolk County home. During their exile, the Floyd house in Mastic Beach was plundered, occupied, and trashed. Supporting American independence came at a steep cost for William Floyd. It was not all fireworks and parades.

Andrea Meyer is a librarian and archivist at the East Hampton Library.

A 27-year-old woman was found dead in the back seat of a car in Montauk on Sunday afternoon, the victim of a possible overdose, police officials said. 

East Hampton Town police were called to 117 South Forest Street at 1:46 p.m., records show. The woman was found in the back seat of her landlord's car that was parked on the street, according to Suffolk County Police Detective Lt. Kevin Beyrer, who is with the county's homicide squad. 

Detective Beyrer said that the county department assists an East End agency upon request, but added that involvement of the homicide squad does not indicate a criminal case.   

"It looks like an overdose," he said on Monday. The woman's roommate found needles in her room, though no drug paraphernalia was found in the car. Police do not know yet what kind of drugs she took and will await toxicology reports.  

He declined to release her name, stating that police do not typically release a victim's name in a non-criminal incident.  

The woman had lived in Montauk for several months, possibly a year or so, he said.