Government Briefs: 04.25.13

East Hampton Town

Town Hall’s New Phone System

    A new phone system at East Hampton Town Hall allows callers to use a central number, 324-4141, for transfer to most town departments and employees. It also provides access to citizens’ complaint lines for housing and litter issues.

    Direct numbers to various town offices can still be used. Airport complaints continue to be logged in at a separate number, 800-376-4817, and the East Hampton Town Police Department retains its separate phone number at the Wainscott headquarters, 537-7575. In emergencies, 911 can be used.

Hearing on Historic Buildings

    The East Hampton Town Board will hold a hearing next Thursday on accepting facade easements over two privately owned historic buildings in Amagansett.

    Dr. Huntington Sheldon’s Atlantic Avenue property contains the 1868 Joshua B. Edwards house and a barn built that same year, as well as the former Amagansett schoolhouse, which was built by Samuel Schellinger in 1802. It was moved from the middle of Amagansett’s Main Street, near where the school is now, to the corner of Atlantic Avenue in the 1870s. When a new school was built in 1881, Captain Edwards had it moved to his property.

    According to Robert Hefner, a historian who serves as a consultant to the town, Captain Edwards, who was a whaler, used it to store his whaling equipment. It is “very intact,” Mr. Hefner said.