LI briefs: LIRR adding extra trains to MLK holiday schedule

The Long Island Rail Road plans to add trains to its holiday schedule on Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday, officials said.

The railroad will operate on a "modified Holiday Schedule," with extra trains running on five branches. In total, there will be 32 extra eastbound and westbound trains on the Babylon, Montauk, Port Jefferson, Port Washington and Ronkonkoma branches, in addition to those offered on a regular holiday or weekend.

Off-peak fares will be in effect all day Monday.

For more information, customers can consult their LIRR branch timetables or visit mta.info/lirr.
-- ALFONSO A. CASTILLO

EAST END
Southampton and Southold turn 375 years old

Southold and Southampton, Long Island's oldest towns, are celebrating their 375th anniversaries with parties, lectures and historical exhibits in 2015.

Southold's celebration begins with a cocktail party Saturday in Greenport. Southampton's anniversary kickoff event is scheduled for March 7.

Historians in the East End towns, both founded by English settlers in 1640, have long debated which was first.

"There's been a friendly rivalry," said Tom Edmonds, director of the Southampton Historical Museum. "It's one that's been brought to the surface every 25 years."

Southold's cocktail party is scheduled from 5 to 7 p.m. Saturday at Brecknock Hall in Greenport, which was built between 1851 and 1857 and was once owned by shipping magnate David Floyd, grandson of U.S. founding father William Floyd.

Southampton's 375th Convocation Celebration on March 7 will begin with speeches at 3 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church and then move across the street to the Southampton Historical Museum at 4 p.m.

Suffolk Leg. Al Krupski (D-Cutchogue) will represent Southold at Southampton's convocation. Edmonds said it's a tradition to allow a North Fork figure to argue Southold was settled first.

The Southampton Historical Museum will also host a series of 12 lectures throughout the year. The first is scheduled for Jan. 27 at 3 p.m. at Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton. The topic will be the Southampton hamlet of North Sea, a sleepy residential area that was once the third-largest port on the East Coast after Boston and Philadelphia, Edmonds said.
-- WILL JAMES

HUNTINGTON
NAACP to celebrate MLK birthday

The Huntington Branch of the NAACP will host an event Monday night to celebrate the birth of Martin Luther King Jr. and the 152nd anniversary of the announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation.

The Martin Luther King Jr. and Jubilee Program festivities take place at Bethel A.M.E. Church, 291 Park Ave., at 7 p.m.

The keynote speaker will be Huntington Town Board member Tracey Edwards, who is also the Long Island regional director for the NAACP and a regional president at Verizon.

"We're very excited to host this program as we do every year, highlighting two very important events in American history," Betty Miller, president of the chapter, said. "It's especially important for our young people to remind them of the gains we have made and of the things we are still striving to achieve."

The event is free and will also feature the Evergreen Baptist Church Choir and participation by the chapter's youth group, including a reading of the Emancipation Proclamation. Refreshments will be served following the program.

For more information, contact Miller at 631-421-4292.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this brief gave the incorrect day of the event. The event will be held Monday, Jan. 19, not Friday, Jan. 16.
-- DEBORAH S. MORRIS

FREEPORT
Village OKs budget with no tax increase

The village has passed its annual budget, which is $66,768,768, compared with last year's adopted budget of $65,420,095 but carries no property tax increase, Mayor Robert Kennedy announced Wednesday.

The budget, passed Monday, is for the fiscal year that runs from March 1, 2015, to Feb. 29, 2016. The proposed tax rate for the average homeowner remains unchanged at zero percent, which translates to $62.296 per $100 of assessed valuation, Kennedy said in a statement on the budget.

"Since coming in to office [April 1, 2013], I have challenged all village departments to scrutinize and change the method in which the village tax dollars are utilized. This process continues.

"Village departments were held to zero increases in their budget lines. Only necessary and mandated increases were permitted."

He added that the collaborative process involving him, the board of trustees and village department heads produced a budget that returns tax dollars to village residents by such things as reducing the mayor's office expenses and legal costs.

Approved budgets are frequently adjusted upward. Freeport's 2014-2015 adopted budget has been adjusted to $68,026,538. But so far it has only spent $55,471,706, according to village budget data.
-- SID CASSESE

ISLIP
Restoration projects get funding support

The Town of Islip's efforts to restore the historic Brookwood Hall and Islip Grange have received a significant funding boost.

The Greenport-based John C. Dunphy Private Foundation is donating $50,000 to each building project. Brookwood Hall in East Islip will receive $25,000 for the Islip Arts Council to mount cultural and historical programs as well as to hire a landscape architect to work on restoring the estate's grounds. The Islip Grange in Sayville will receive $25,000 to restore the 200-year-old Ockers Main Barn, the 1880 Percy Williams Office, and the 1920 Stucco Cottage. The town is also using some of the funding to apply to have Brookwood Hall and Islip Grange added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Brookwood Hall, a 41-room mansion built in 1903 and once home to an orphanage, is still used to house town offices and the Islip Arts Council. The Islip Grange is a town park that houses historic buildings.

Councilman Steve Flotteron said the funding will help restore Brookwood's vast estate to its former glory.

"This money is going to help hire the landscape architect to give us the proper blueprint," he said, noting the estate has never been divided into smaller parcels.

With a landscape plan, the town can bring in the services of contractors and landscapers who have volunteered to work with the town, Flotteron said. "The check is going to open the floodgates to $200,000 of donated services," he said.

Karlyn Grasso, public relations director for the Dunphy Foundation, said in a statement that "the foundation recognized the need for financial support at Brookwood Hall and was pleased to lend a helping hand."
-- SOPHIA CHANG