Week in Review: Hal McKusick Dies; Java Nation on the Move; Brush Fires

Review the week's top news and some headlines you may have missed. Click on the headlines for more on each story:

Sag Harbor resident and jazz teacher Hal McKusick died Wednesday after a prolonged illness, the Ross Head of School Michele Claeys informed the school community Thursday. Born June 1, 1924, in Medford, Mass., he was 87 years old. McKusick was an acclaimed saxophonist who was a member of the CBS Studio Orchestra and performed with many jazz legends during his long and distinguished career.

After 17 and a half years in the Shopping Cove in the heart of Sag Harbor Village, Java Nation will uproot and move to Bridgehampton, Curbed Hamptons reports.

A new zoning initiative would ensure the Stony Brook Southampton campus can only be used for higher education purposes for perpetuity.

The Department of Environmental Conservation has closed shell-fishing in Southampton and Riverhead on Tuesday after it has detected a marine biotoxin. It will be closed until further notice.

Suffolk County is in the midst of digging a 120-foot-by-280-foot recharge basin for stormwater runoff along County Road 39 in Southampton.

The Southampton School Board approved a $59.5 million budget April 3 to put before school district voters that is just under New York State’s new cap on tax levy increases and maintains all student programs and services as well as class sizes.

Gas prices on the South Fork rose 15 to 20 cents per gallon between March 2 and April 6, according to New York State Assemblyman Fred Thiele.

After more than two dozen speakers voiced opposition to an initial plan to limit traffic on Noyac Road, The Sag Harbor Express reports that a revised plan was announced on Tuesday that would ban most commercial traffic exceeding a 5-ton limit.

The most vocal critic of legislation in Southampton Village to amend the zoning code to allow a supermarket to be built in the Highway Business district, Abraham Wallach, addressed the Village Board Thursday evening to state in no uncertain terms that the board can expect to be slapped with a lawsuit as soon as the law is adopted.

March 30 was the first day Southampton Village residents could sign a nominating petition for village trustee, and candidates have until May 11 to collect 75 signatures and turn them in to .

Southampton Village Planning Board Chairman Michael Irving is throwing his hat into the village trustee race.

Two glasses of wine was two glasses too many for Charlotte DePersia, according to Judge William Condon, who ordered her jailed Tuesday for allegedly violating her probation by drinking. Prosecutors say that less than three months after pleading guilty to driving while intoxicated and vehicular assault, DePersia, 59, of East Hampton, admitted to the probation department that she had two drinks at Gurney’s Inn in Montauk on March 10.

North Haven Village Mayor Laura M. Nolan was arrested on a drunken driving charge following an accident in Sag Harbor Village on Friday afternoon. Detective Jeffrey Proctor was on patrol when he saw Nolan's Mercedes hit the back of a Corvette at the stop sign on Bay Street, near the intersection of Main Street, he said.

After hiding his million dollar home in Sagaponack while applying for housing assistance, concert pianist and piano instructor Antonio Fermin received a conditional discharge of one year and community service April 3 when he pleaded guilty to petty larceny in New York Criminal Court.

Southampton woman locked up for driving drunk with her child in the car, police say.

Also in the police files this week, multiple DWI arrests and a criminal marijuana possession arrest.

A 33-year-old Sag Harbor man was charged with DWI last Sunday.

Also in the week's police logs, a string of vehicle break-ins reported in East Quogue, and burglaries reported in Noyac and Bridgehampton.

A woman accused of stalking Alec Baldwin in New York City may have also shown up at his Amagansett home, and a man arrested for stalking Sean "P. Diddy" Combs 11 years ago was back at it, according to police.

More than 100 dogs were rescued from the overcrowded, filthy apartment of an animal hoarder in New York City earlier this month — and most had never been outside in their lives. Ed Fritz, the executive director of the Southampton Animal Shelter, said from all accounts, the situation was grim. "At night, she would throw away dogs that had died in there," he said. "It was horrible, just horrible."

The has been busy asking anyone who will listen to give them a click so they can win $100k through the ASPCA Rachel Ray Challenge.

Patch's up-to-the-minute coverage of the brush fire, and sidebard articles, day one.

Patch's up-to-the-minute coverage of the brush fire, day two.

Have you spotted the smoke plume? See and share photos here.

Only hours after being released from Stony Brook University Medical Center’s burn unit, Manorville firefighter William Hille, who was injured in , was back at the firehouse among his fellow firefighters on Wednesday, describing his traumatic experience.

Check our gallery of some of the most compelling photos from the major Brookhaven blaze.

If two things are clear in the wake of the large brush fires in Manorville and Ridge they are that the horseback riding community jumps to help one another out and that an organized horse evacuation plan is necessary for the equine-dense Suffolk County. An estimated and another 100 more could have been evacuated had the fire changed course.

Bella, an 8-year-old gray Appendix, only trusts a few people. In the midst of the raging brush fire in Manorville on Monday, the mare became even more nervous — pacing and running in circles as her fellow stablemates were loaded, one by one, on trailers. Annie's Acres, on Wading River Manor Road, evacuated a total of 58 horses, according to Elizabeth Johnston, of Mt. Sinai, whose family owns Bella and three other horses boarded there. Bella was the last one to be evacuated.

The legions of volunteer firefighters who risked their lives this week battling wildfires in Riverhead and Brookhaven will soon be shown a bit of love.

Southampton Fire Department members ride brush truck in wlidfire.

Dan Gerstl of "Drink This" interviews brewer and sales manager Spencer Niebuhr of at the second annual Great International Beer Expo on Feb. 4 at the Meadowlands Expo Center. Niebuhr talks about the Publick House's popular Double White, a Belgian witbier.

With a mounted video camera, Jeff Cully records an Easter Sunday drive in downtown Southampton.

Just in time for the boating season, , on Wednesday, posted a five-minute instructional video on YouTube that teaches boaters how to navigate the Shinnecock Locks, the only navigation lock operating on Long Island.

Shinnecock Hills birdwatcher Lorelei Galardi has been keeping an eye on a pair of ospreys since late March, when they nested on Dune Road in Hampton Bays.  When she went to photograph the nest on April 10 around noon, she saw a surprising sight — in addition to a fish, one of the ospreys caught a plastic bag.

Tuckahoe School fourth grader Aidan G., of Shinnecock Hills, captured photos of a seal release in Hampton Bays Thursday. The Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research & Preservation released rehabilitated gray seal pup Angelina on the bay side of Dune Road near the Ponquogue Bridge.