Villages

   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.

   Words of wisdom from Margaret Mead warned to “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

    Save Sag Harbor, founded in 2007, has taken those words to heart, making it its mission “to safeguard the scale and fabric of a historic village,” effecting positive change while preventing what it sees as negative, and backing the village’s commercial code, which the group helped push for.

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.

Drivers on Montauk Highway from Bridgehampton to East Hampton Village began to experience delays Wednesday as roadwork got underway. The New York State Department of Transportation announced Tuesday that a 2.3-mile section of the heavily used road between Stephen Hand's Path and the Route 114-Main Street intersection in East Hampton Village would be resurfaced.

    Mary Lou Kaler, an East Hampton horsewoman who 21 years ago adopted a young horse named Bubba — a Clydesdale that grew familiar to town residents, clomping peacefully in numerous parades and offering cart rides around town — reported his death on March 30, six weeks after a Star turn in a photo on the front page of this newspaper.

    Ms. Kaler said that she and a partner, Glenn Heigl, got the yearling horse in 1992 from a breeder in Jamesport. He was already named Bubba. “With a good Bonac name like that, he was destined to live in East Hampton,” she said.    

    Montauk will celebrate Earth Day on Saturday with a cleanup from 10 a.m. to noon starting at the Montauk Movie, where bags and gloves will be dispensed. Hosted by the Concerned Citizens of Montauk and the Group for the East End, the festivities will continue at 11:30 a.m. through 1:30 p.m. at the Montauk Playhouse Community Center with a program on everything you ever wanted to know about birds. There will be crafts for kids and materials for making bling-laden birdie gift bags.

    The Town of East Hampton is offering a boating safety course on May 18 at Town Hall, but early registration is necessary. Those interested can register by calling 324-4141. After registering, required reading will be provided so that participants will be able to come to the class prepared.

    The Sag Harbor Village Board waived a $206,575 fee Tuesday night for the renewal of the Bulova Watchcase condominium development’s building permit. The village attorney, Fred Thiele, reasoned that the developer, Sag Development Partners, had paid the fee once at a figure deemed “more than sufficient” and that collection of a second fee would constitute an illegal levy.

    William and Mary Kampf and Herbert Keith III and Pamela Anderson, all of East Hampton, have announced the engagement of their daughters, Kelly Kampf and Melanie Anderson.

    Ms. Anderson graduated from East Hampton High School and received her bachelor’s degree in security management from Coastal Carolina University in South Carolina. She is employed as a deputy sheriff with the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office in Virginia.

    March, as it turned out, really did go out like a lamb, with a high of 54 degrees recorded on the 28th by Richard G. Hendrickson, the United States Cooperative weather observer in Bridgehampton.

    Last month’s temperatures began in the 30s in the first week, then rose into the 40s and low 50s the next week, but a cool spell prevailed until the final week of the month, when it was 50 or higher on three days. The low for the month was 18 degrees on the 6th, Mr. Hendrickson wrote in his monthly weather report.

    Applications are being accepted through the end of this month to get on the waiting list for the affordable apartments at St. Michael’s in Amagansett, which are earmarked for senior citizens.

Those eligible must be age 62 or older, with an annual income below $37,500. Those with additional assets are eligible.

    At present there are no available units in the complex, which opened several months ago.

    Sag Harbor Village’s police chief, Tom Fabiano, pleaded yet again with Mayor Brian Gilbride on Tuesday evening to reconsider eliminating one officer from the force. The proposed village budget does away with the job. Should that in fact happen, said the chief, it would affect not only his department but “people that live, visit, go to school here, boat or drive here, have an event here, have a medical issue, fire, or criminal matter.”

    The Montauk Playhouse Community Center will have a generator by summer. The Village of East Hampton is to donate a used one that will be delivered within the month, Bruce Bates, the director of East Hampton Town’s emergency preparedness program, told the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee on Monday.

    The playhouse is one of three shelters in the hamlet, along with the Montauk School and the Montauk Downs clubhouse. Even though the latter have generators they were not open as evacuation centers during Sandy because the American Red Cross was unable to staff them.

    In recent weeks the buzz around Montauk is that Gurney’s Inn has been sold. Ingrid Lemme, the inn’s marketing director and spokeswoman, denied this in a press release issued on March 25.

    “Gurney’s Inn has not been sold. Currently conversations are taking place between Gurney’s timeshare owners and a potential investor. At this point we are not at liberty to discuss those conversations. It is business as usual at Gurney’s. The hotel, seawater spa, and restaurant are waiting to welcome you,” the release said.

    Navy Seaman Recruit Cheryl D. Scarlato, a daughter of Diana A. Scarlato of this village, recently completed eight weeks of Navy basic training at Recruit Training Command in Great Lakes, Ill. Ms. Scarlato is a 1999 graduate of Pierson High School and a 2004 graduate of the University of Delaware.

    Her training included physical fitness, classroom study, and practical instruction on naval customs, first aid, firefighting, water safety and survival, and shipboard and aircraft safety.

The area in question is now a driveway that can be accessed from Division Street between Murf’s Backstreet Tavern and the village police headquarters.

An effort to resolve building permit issues and bring aspects of the Chabad House on Woods Lane into compliance with village code, brought representatives of the orthodox synagogue, and some unhappy neighbors, to the zoning board of appeals.

    For kids this weekend, the Easter basket runneth over, with holiday fun and egg hunts aplenty tomorrow, Saturday, and Sunday.

    The Easter Bunny will make a stop at Agawam Park in Southampton tomorrow at 10 a.m. for the Police Benevolent Association’s hunt. In case of rain, kids will assemble at the park on Saturday at the same time.

    Things really get hopping on Saturday. At 10 a.m. there are dueling Easter egg hunts, with the East Hampton Town Democratic Committee hosting one at Herrick Park on Newtown Lane and another at the Maidstone Gun Club in Wainscott.

Visitors can come for as long or as short as they like, but silence has been requested.

Frank Trentacoste, who was an equities strategist and director at Macro Risk Advisors and worked before that at two New York hedge funds, has established Bhumi Farm, an organic vegetable farm, on land he leased from the Peconic Land Trust.

    Some were wrapped in blankets and others in woolly hats and gloves, but the chilly weather on Sunday did nothing to keep an estimated crowd of some 25,000 to 30,000 people from attending the Montauk Friends of Erin’s 51st annual St. Patrick’s Day parade, with Jack Perna, the district superintendent of the Montauk School, leading the way as grand marshal.

    At an otherwise uneventful meeting of the East Hampton Village Board, a public hearing date on a proposed amendment to a local law concerning dogs on village beaches was set for April 19 at 11 a.m. at the Emergency Services Building.

    With Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr., Larry Cantwell, the village administrator, and Richard Lawler, a trustee, all absent, Barbara Borsack, a trustee and the deputy mayor, presided.

    Since she first started seeing pediatric patients more than 30 years ago, Gail Schonfeld has bemoaned the dearth of mental health services for children and adolescents on the East End.

    With waiting lists stretching six months or more, not to mention the difficulty of transportation and the lack of clinicians who accept insurance, Dr. Schonfeld finally took matters into her own hands.

    Almost a year after Provisions Market’s application to expand first came before the Sag Harbor Village Planning Board, the market moved a step closer to its goal of taking over a neighboring space formerly occupied by Style Bar.

    The village zoning board of appeals approved an area variance that will allow Provisions to grow from 2,450 square feet to around 3,000 square feet. Some of the former spa’s square footage will be market space and some will be used for storage.

    Keri Ann Borowsky and Michael Peter DeLalio of Southampton have announced their engagement. A fall wedding is planned.

    Ms. Borowsky is a graduate of East Hampton High School and is a teacher at the John M. Marshall Elementary School in East Hampton. Mr. DeLalio, a Southampton High School graduate, is a personal trainer at Integrated Exercise Therapy in Bridgehampton.

    Ms. Borowsky is the daughter of Richard Byrne and Suzanne Byrne. Mr. DeLalio is the son of Gary DeLalio and Patricia Staker.

    Col. Frank Kestler and his wife, Chrystyna, the mother and stepfather of the late Lt. Joseph Theinert, a former resident of Sag Harbor and Shelter Island, are developing a property in the Magdalena Mountains of New Mexico that will become a rehabilitative ranch for veterans.

    The intent is that the facility will help veterans adapt to post-war injuries, both physical and otherwise. It is to be called Strongpoint Theinert in honor of their son, who was killed in action in Afghanistan in June of 2010.

    The East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals is expected to approve a resolution next week allowing two affordable apartments to be built on the second-floor of a warehouse building on Lumber Lane.

    The waterfront building at 21 West Water Street in Sag Harbor, where construction has been at a standstill for almost four years, will become luxury condominiums with a rooftop pool by fall.

    After receiving site plan approval from the Sag Harbor Village Planning Board in 2006 and beginning construction not long after, the developer, East End Ventures, filed for bankruptcy. Now, the company is before the board again to modify its plans.

    “I don’t see that as much of a change,” said Jack Tagliasachi, a board member.

    The contentious issue of dogs on East Hampton Village beaches, and specifically their owners’ rights and responsibilities, will be among the issues addressed at the East Hampton Village Board work session today at 11 a.m.

    Though the village’s trustees have invited a small number of people, including Diane McNally, an East Hampton Town trustee, to informally participate, today’s work session is not intended as a forum for residents to share opinions or air grievances.

    The Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee on Monday heard from two members of East Hampton Town’s coastal erosion committee on Monday. The committee has announced recommendations for shoring up the Montauk business district, although they have not yet been submitted to the town board.