Villages

    Much like Punxsutawney Phil, the Am O’Gansett St. Patrick’s Day parade, which kicks off on Saturday at 12:01 p.m., is for many residents a sure sign of spring. The fifth annual parade, which its organizers boldly claim to be the world’s shortest, will proceed west from Mary’s Marvelous to the Mobil gas station before returning to its place of origin.

    “At last we have had winter,” Richard G. Hendrickson, the United States Cooperative weather observer, wrote in his February report from Bridgehampton. “No record-breaking snowfall, no extra-thick ice on the ponds, never a squall of record-breaking wind speed, just nice winter weather.”

    But it’s not over yet, he reminded people late last week. “Often with March there is a large snowstorm, with northwest 50-mile-per-hour winds.” By the time the paper hits the newsstand that may already have come to pass . . . or not.

    The Sag Harbor Village Zoning Board of Appeals listened with apparent empathy on Feb. 19 to  neighbors who voiced opposition to plans for a historic house on Garden Street that they said would change the character of the neighborhood and exacerbate flooding, as well as to Dennis Downes, the attorney for the applicant, William Egan. “The neighbors have had a good time stalling this for five years,” Mr. Downes said.

    For the first time, Amagansett has a chamber of commerce.

    Lee Satinsky, owner of the Computer Shop, is spearheading the effort to organize the hamlet’s businesses. Twelve members had joined as of Friday, and a board meeting to plot the chamber’s initial activities is scheduled for today.

    Kirby Marcantonio, the publisher of the free weeklies Montauk Life and Hamptons Life, made a pitch at an East Hampton Town Board meeting in Montauk on Feb. 12 for free outdoor movies in Montauk this summer. Suggesting that the Hank Zebrowski Memorial Field on Edgemere Road, a public park, be used and that local organizations could sell refreshments to raise funds, he received a favorable response.

    A multicultural festival will celebrate diversity and the Sag Harbor community tomorrow night with an abundance of free homemade food, music, drumming, dance, and games.

    Building upon the success of last year’s event, Pierson High School will be filled with tastes of 28 countries from 5:30 to 9 p.m., with new contributions expected from El Salvador, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Sweden, according to Cheryl Bedini, an organizer.

    Changes in the permitted catch of cod from the Georges Bank, the stock that the local charter and party boat fleet depends upon during the winter months, are to take effect on May 1, but whether local fishermen will feel a pinch, and if so, what form the changes will take — whether minimum size limits, daily bag limits, closed seasons, or closed areas — has not been decided.

    Regulations now require cod to be at least 22 inches long. Private boaters may keep 10 per day. There is no bag limit for anglers fishing from licensed party and charter boats.

    The Montauk Lake Club and Marina on East Lake Drive in Montauk and the club’s contractor, Seacoast Marine Construction of Sayville, have been fined $50,000 by the State Department of Environmental Conservation for exceeding the permitted limits of the dredging project earlier this year.

    The club and marina are owned and operated by a holding corporation called Star Development Realty. The D.E.C. permit for the project, issued in October 2011, allowed the boat basin there to be dredged to a depth of six feet and approximately 4,000 cubic yards of material to be removed.

    Sag Harbor’s mayor, Brian Gilbride, and the village trustees Edward Gregory and Kevin Duchemin discussed a dilemma over repairs to the floating docks off Long Wharf that were damaged during Hurricane Sandy and the storm that followed.

    With time of the essence as the boating season approaches, Mayor Gilbride wondered at a special meeting on Friday if the village board should “bite the bullet” and accept the one bid received, in the amount of $201,000 from Keith Grimes, or readvertise in hopes of getting a lower bid.

    A free two-day holistic healing clinic organized by the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the South Fork will take place this weekend, starting tomorrow from 4 to 6 p.m.

    On Saturday, between the hours of 9 a.m. and 1 p.m., various healing practitioners will offer their services free of charge on a first-come, first-served basis.

    Richard Schneider, an East Hampton Village Police Department lieutenant and 35-year veteran of the force, has retired. The village board accepted his resignation on Friday, his last day on the job. The board also authorized a payment of $129,229.04 for accrued time.

    “Rich, we wish you the very best for whatever the future holds for you and your family,” Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. said. “Good health and longevity.” The lieutenant told the board that he was retiring with mixed emotions. “The Police Department is my family,” he said.

    In what was otherwise an uneventful meeting, the Sag Harbor Village Board erupted Tuesday night when the son of one of the board members was denied admission to the Sag Harbor Fire Department.

    Kevin J. Duchemin, a trustee who has been a member of the Fire Department himself for over 20 years and is an East Hampton Village policeman, said he was “blindsided” when Mayor Brian Gilbride announced that his son, Kevin J. Duchemin Jr., could not join the department.

    A week and a half ago as he wrote his monthly weather report for January, Richard G. Hendrickson was asking, “Where’s the snow?” The answer arrived on Friday and Saturday.

    The 13 Sea Spray Cottages at Main Beach will remain in the hands of their current tenants for the 2013 season, rather than having their leases auctioned as they were in 2010.

    The Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons has proclaimed it a “week of love” at its adoption center at 90 Daniel’s Hole Road. In celebration of Valentine’s Day and in hopes of finding homes for pets in its care, the center has extended its adoption hours by an hour, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Through next Thursday, those who adopt will receive a free 2013 ARF calendar, a flower pen, and a pet portrait. The adoption fees will be reduced, and tours of the facility will be given. Refreshments will be served as well.

Two events, one planned for Sunday, the other postponed a day because of Friday and Saturday's blizzard, will take place today.

    The life of Gregg Rickards, a musically gifted graduate of East Hampton High School who died last August at age 23, was celebrated at a fund-raiser held on Friday night at the high school.

    It was another rousing meeting of the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee on Monday. Beach erosion was a primary concern, and Steve Kalimnios, the owner of the Royal Atlantic Resort Motel, spoke passionately about his efforts to save it.

    Alena Antonovna Tsvirka, the daughter of Ina and Anton Tsvirka of Gorodeya, Minsk, Belarus, was married to Henry Charles Uihlein of Amagansett on Dec. 22 at the Montauk Community Church. The Rev. Bill Hoffman officiated, and a reception followed at Gurney’s Inn.

    A relative newcomer to the hamlet was crowned at the fourth annual Mr. Amagansett pageant, held on Saturday night at Stephen Talkhouse.

    Matt Schmitt, competing under the name Matt from the Meeting House, dashed out from that restaurant’s kitchen, just across Main Street, and onto the Talkhouse stage at the last minute to best the competition as $5,000 was raised for the Donald T. Sharkey Memorial Community Fund.

    Nonresident parking permits for East Hampton Village beaches are selling briskly.

    As of noon yesterday, some 600 permits had been sold since they were made available last Friday, said Sue Dayton, principal clerk at Village Hall. A total of 3,000 will be available, she said.

    Keri Lynne Marino and Leland Edwards Winslow were married on Sept. 9 at St. Therese of Lisieux Catholic Church in Montauk by the Rev. Michael Rieder. They celebrated with a reception afterward at East by Northeast restaurant in Montauk.

    The bride is a daughter of Joyce and Carmine Marino of Montauk. A music teacher at Crossroads Music, she graduated from East Hampton High School in 2004 and from Molloy College in Rockville Centre in 2008.

    A celebration of life service for two men who were presumed lost at sea aboard the Foxy Lady II, a commercial fishing vessel that frequently packed out in Montauk, will be held on Deer Isle, Me., on Feb. 24.

    A vision of Sag Harbor 10 years from now was imagined on Saturday afternoon by more than two dozen residents — lifers, newcomers, year-rounders, and weekenders — at a Sag Harbor Active Transport workshop held in the parish hall of St. Andrew’s Catholic Church. Asked for one word describing how Sag Harbor could be, responses included safe, progressive, quiet, athletic, peaceful, visual, innovative, healthy, green, enlightened, accessible, slow, and sociable.

    A contractor hoping to convert the second floor of his commercial building on Lumber Lane into two apartments for his sons, returned to the East Hampton Village Zoning Board on Friday with something to celebrate.

    A briefing for Congressional staffers on the H-2B visa program, which allows employers to hire a temporary foreign work staff, will be held in Washington, D.C., on Monday at 3 p.m. Members of the Montauk Chamber of Commerce are urging business owners to attend the meeting and lend support.

    “As you know, this program is very important to the seasonal employees in Montauk,” wrote Laraine Creegan, the chamber’s executive director.

    The actor Alec Baldwin, who has long taken an interest in politics of a regional and national nature, will speak about issues of importance to East Hampton Town residents at the East Hampton Conservators’ winter gathering at the Huntting Inn on Main Street on Feb. 9 from 6 to 8 p.m. Wine and hors d’oeuvres will be supplied.

The ideas of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were honored at Calvary Baptist Church in East Hampton on Monday, with the Rev. Michael Jackson of Triune Baptist Church in Sag Harbor as keynote speaker and that church’s choir joining in the celebration.

    “We will praise you for the rest of our days,” sung members of the Calvary Youth Choir. Young speakers including Jacarra Stephens read Scripture with words such as “thinkest no evil.”

    “Love never fails,” exclaimed Sharlene Hartwell, a minister who spoke of unity and forgiveness.

    Tom Lawrence, a code enforcement officer for East Hampton Village, has resigned effective Feb. 15. At its meeting last Friday, the village board accepted his resignation and authorized payment of $33,066.60 for “unused accumulated time, pursuant to employee agreement.”

    The owners of historic timber-frame houses in East Hampton Village will get a zoning bonus that will allow them to build or expand second dwellings on their property following the village board’s adoption on Friday of zoning code amendments designed to encourage preservation of those landmark structures.