Villages

The brothers Richie and Jacob Nessel are probably the most reluctant oldtimers to be honored tonight at the annual Old Timers dinner hosted by the Montauk Chamber of Commerce.

“I’m not old,” said Jake Nessel.

“It’s wonderful. Can I leave now and go home for dinner?” asked Richie Nessel when the two met with a visitor for a photograph on the docks near the Ebb Tide, the boat Captain Jake runs.

Gen. Michael Hayden, a former director of the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency, was the guest speaker at Monday’s Memorial Day parade and services in East Hampton. Mr. Hayden, a retired Air Force four-star general, began his speech by mentioning his father, who will be 93 in 10 days, and whom he called “the real veteran in the Hayden family.”

An Isuzu box truck struck the overpass on Accabonac Road in East Hampton, less than 24 hours after the Long Island Rail Road repaired damages from a truck strike at the North Main Street bridge.

    The Amagansett Fire Department’s annual Classic Car Show will have a special purpose this year. Proceeds from the event, which happens on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., will benefit a July 12 parade that will mark the department’s 100th anniversary. The rain date is Sunday.

    Twelve trophies, including one for a people’s choice award, will be conferred upon the winning vehicles in various categories, said Steve Graboski, a member of the fire department and chairman of the car show. Nat Raynor III, also of the department, will head the panel of judges.

    Larry Zimmerman of Springy Banks Road and Ellen Zimmerman of Sherrill Road, both in East Hampton, have announced the engagement of their daughter, Marti Laran Zimmerman, to Stephen Kenneth Lynch Jr. He is a son of Stephen K. and Regina Lynch of East Hampton.

    Ms. Zimmerman graduated from Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla., and is a manager at the Gap in Bridgehampton. Mr. Lynch, a 2001 East Hampton High School graduate, became a partner in the family contracting business after high school. His father is now head of the East Hampton Town Highway Department. 

As expected, the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals voted on Friday to grant variances and a special permit for AT&T to install 12 antennas on a 44-foot-tall oil storage tank at the P.C. Schenck and Sons facility on Newtown Lane. The hearing had stretched over several months during which neighbors had voiced concern about noise and potential health impacts of radio frequency emissions. 

Events through Friday, May 16

Richard Malik Atkinson, 20, became an Eagle Scout, the highest award in scouting, at a ceremony on Sunday at the Montauk Firehouse.

Boy Scouts who reach that level must create a project that will benefit the community. Mr. Atkinson built and erected 20 bat houses, which could mean fewer bothersome insects in Montauk this summer. Bats catch mosquitos, spiders, flies, and other insects.

The National Association of Letter Carriers will hold its annual Stamp Out Hunger food drive on Saturday, and “participation couldn’t be easier,” the president of the association said on its website.

Postal patrons have been asked to do their part by placing bags of nonperishable food by their mailboxes before their letter carriers’ scheduled pickup time on Saturday. The bags will be collected and delivered to food distribution charities. This is the 22nd year for the food drive, and letter carriers across the country are taking part.

Members of the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee let it be known on Monday that they are not too happy with the fix the Army Corps of Engineers announced last week to curb erosion on downtown beaches.

The Rev. Robert Stuart, pastor emeritus of the Amagansett Presbyterian Church, will be honored on the occasion of his 80th birthday on Sunday following the 11 a.m. worship service. The Rev. Steven Howarth, the church’s present pastor, has invited Mr. Stuart to preach in the pulpit.

Mr. Stuart served as pastor in Amagansett for 17 years, retiring in 1998. Born in Minneapolis and raised in suburban St. Louis, he earned a master’s degree in American history at the University of Wisconsin before graduating from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1962.

East Hampton Village Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. presented a tentative  budgetof almost $20.3 million for the fiscal year, which begins on Aug. 1, at a village board meeting last Thursday, which would pierce the state-imposed 2-percent increase in property taxes. If the budget is approved by the board after a public hearing on June 20, spending would increase by 2.75 percent, or $542,870.

“It is with a heavy heart and deep regret to inform you all that this year, 2014, Pantigo Farm Co. will no longer be operating.”

Thus began a Facebook post by Sam Lester, who has been operating a small farm and farm stand on a two-acre parcel at the junction of Pantigo and Skimhampton Roads. Known for fresh produce and preserves such as blackberry and beach plum jams, the farm stand will be no more.

When Grace Lightcap attended a Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy conference in February, it revved up her mama bear instincts. Ms. Lightcap, whose 20-year-old son, Terence Lightcap, has Duchenne muscular dystrophy, realized that aside from her monthly donations to the advocacy group, she has not done anything lately on a larger scale to raise money for research into the disease.

She decided to hold a community yard sale on Memorial Day weekend to raise money to help speed approval for therapies that could help her son and others with Duchenne.

The Montauk Fire Department is looking for people willing to train as volunteer emergency medical technicians for its ambulance squad. An informational meeting will be held at the firehouse on Wednesday at 7 p.m. to explain what the position requires and how much training is needed for certification.

The Save Second House committee, a brand-new arm of the Montauk Historical Society, has four members and some big ideas for restoring the run-down building, which houses a museum.

The committee includes Honora Herlihy as its chairwoman, Nora Franzetti as secretary and treasurer, Lawrence Cooke, who has been working to establish an Indian Museum on the north side of the property, and Kathryn Nadeau, who replaced Elizabeth White last month as president of the historical society.

Pets and their people friends will be welcomed Saturday, May 3, from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. for a 40th anniversary party for the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons at 90 Daniel’s Hole Road. A highlight of the event will be a dog agility and obedience competition. Those bringing animals have been reminded to keep their dogs on leashes and cats in appropriate carriers.

For several weeks this month, the Suffolk County Water Authority has been working in Montauk to add 3,437 feet of a new 12-inch water main to connect pipes from the intersection of Montauk Highway to Caswell Road, near the Ditch Plain area. The new pipes from east to west of the site will provide additional pressure and protection against service interruption for residents of East Lake Drive.

Andrew Duggan Wetzel and Jennifer Leigh Slay of Portland, Ore., were married under the rotunda at the historic San Francisco City Hall on March 31, with Judge Robin Whirtlin officiating.

Responding to a spate of applications before the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals involving outsized accessory structures that some homeowners have labeled garages, the East Hampton Village Board introduced an amendment to its code last Thursday that would tighten the definition of a garage to a structure designed or used for, and accessible to, motor vehicles.

Donations of antique objects dating from the 1880s through 1920 are being sought by a committee working to establish a farm museum at the former Lester farm at North Main and Cedar Streets in East Hampton, which is owned by East Hampton Town.

The group is also seeking volunteers who would staff the museum during open hours once a week, on Saturdays.

He is a carpenter and he has long hair, traits he shares with the person he portrayed on Good Friday at St. Therese of Lisieux Catholic Church in Montauk

The Montauk Library has released its operating budget proposal for 2014-15. At $774,198, the total is slightly higher than last year. If approved, taxpayers will pay $24.27 (up from $22.93) per $1,000 of assessed property value, roughly $121 for an average house.

The bulk of the library’s revenue comes from property taxes and such fees as fines, copy and computer charges, and grants, estimated at $19,603.

Loida Lewis, the widow of America’s first African-American billionaire, appeared Friday at a meeting of the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals  to request permits and variances for a construction project at her 165 Lily Pond Lane property.

Serve Sag Harbor, a new nonprofit organized to tackle problems in the village, has a plan to tame traffic by narrowing the roadways with the help of sidewalk landscaping and large planters.

The Montauk Fire Department began its celebration of its 75th anniversary on Sunday with an ecumenical memorial service at St. Therese of Lisieux Catholic Church honoring all those who have served the department who have since died. A roll call of the deceased firemen and ladies auxiliary members was read, with the church bell rung after each name.

Until an attorney for the East Hampton School Board stepped in, it appeared on Friday that a decision was imminent on P.C. Schenck and Sons’ application to install AT&T antennas and ground-based equipment at its oil distribution facility on Newtown Lane in East Hampton Village.

Work briefly came to a halt at the East Deck motel in Ditch Plain, Montauk, last week after Tom Preiato, East Hampton Town’s chief building inspector, issued a verbal stop-work order after receiving a report that concrete drainage rings were being installed on the beach there.

The property’s new owner, a limited liability company headed by Scott Bradley, had received a go-ahead from the zoning board of appeals to add up to 6,000 cubic yards of sand to buttress the five-acre oceanfront property’s dune and bluff crest.

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service will close the beach above mean high tide at the Amagansett National Wildlife Refuge, which runs from Atlantic Avenue almost to Indian Wells Beach, and most of the Jessup’s Neck peninsula in the Elizabeth A. Morton National Wildlife Refuge in Sag Harbor on Tuesday to protect nesting shorebirds.

To the surprise of many in the audience, Tom Sperry, an employee of the Meeting House restaurant in Amagansett Square who had just delivered a vocal performance uncannily reminiscent of Frank Sinatra, was not crowned Mr. Amagansett at last Thursday’s fifth annual pageant.