Given Suffolk County and New York State's success in suppressing the transmission of the novel coronavirus, East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc announced on Tuesday the cessation of the "unified incident command" structure that went into effect on March 27.
Unified Incident Command represented a reorganization that authorized Mr. Van Scoyoc, in conjunction with Bruce Bates, the town's emergency preparedness coordinator, and Town Police Chief Michael Sarlo to "take whatever actions are deemed necessary to protect public health and safety." New York State Executive Law provides local chief executives "extraordinary authority during the course of a disaster," according to "The Authority of a Municipal Chief Executive During an Emergency," a publication of the State Conference of Mayors and Municipal Officials. "In the event of a disaster, the local chief executive is authorized to declare a local state of emergency within the municipality and to issue local emergency orders to protect life and property or to bring the emergency under control."
The state's positive infection rate had remained below 1 percent for 10 consecutive days, Mr. Van Scoyoc said on Tuesday. In the county, 26 of 3,839 Covid-19 tests administered on Sunday were positive, a rate of 0.7 percent, and just 43 people were hospitalized with Covid-19 sickness.
"We broke up the existing town structure in order to better communicate and effectively deal with the crisis during this emergency," Mr. Van Scoyoc said, thanking Chief Sarlo, Mr. Bates, and his colleagues on the town board. Now, he said, "I'm confident we can go back to our existing town structure" and return to a semblance of normal operations at Town Hall.
As Long Island has moved through the state's four-phase reopening without a resurgence of Covid-19 transmission, "municipalities are starting to hold in-person public meetings again," Mr. Van Scoyoc said. "I think we will be looking to do that here, potentially beginning in September."
The board's next meeting is on Sept. 1. "We will make an assessment as to how that will take place," the supervisor said. "We will want to restrict the number of occupants to that which can be socially distanced." Those wishing to attend meetings will likely be asked to register beforehand, he said, and the board would maintain the option to call in to meetings remotely, a policy that has been in place since the board began holding them virtually.
The board's meetings are broadcast live on LTV's Channel 22 and on its website, ltveh.org.
