Government

    Sean McPherson, the owner of the Crow’s Nest restaurant and motel in Montauk and a collector of exotic cars, wants to build a new, 600-square-foot garage on his Miller Avenue property in Montauk’s Ditch Plain neighborhood. His application was discussed at a June 25 public hearing before the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals.

    In a near-unanimous vote last Thursday, the East Hampton Town Board adopted a deer management plan for the town, after hearing the results of a March survey that identified only 877 deer living here, far fewer than is generally believed.

    The plan contains a number of possible actions and alternatives to further assess the deer population and monitor the herd, measures that could be used to reduce it, and other long-term management options.

East Hampton Town

Eye on Burying Power Lines

    East Hampton Town will look into the possibility of obtaining state funding to cover 75 percent of the cost of having utility lines from East Hampton to Montauk placed underground, as part of a New York State Office of Emergency Management program designed to mitigate the risks and impacts of future storms.

    A small building lot on an acre of waterfront property on Fort Pond in Montauk brought out a large group of neighbors at an East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals hearing on June 11.

    Timothy and Noell Twiggs, who own the undeveloped acre at 85 South Edgemere Street, had obtained several setback variances as well as a natural resources special permit in previous applications to the board. At their first hearing, in early 2012, no member of the public attended, a fact not lost on the board members.

    While the votes for the two candidates for Sagaponack Village trustee were close in number on Friday, the race was not.

    Joy Sieger and William Barbour were each re-elected for two-year terms. Ms. Sieger got 47 votes; Mr. Barbour 46.

    The village board holds public meetings on the third Monday of each month and meets on planning issues on the second Monday of each month. A monthly calendar and legal notices are posted on the village’s Web site, sagaponackvillage.org.

Meet a Lot of Candidates

    The East Hampton Group for Good Government will host a meet-the-candidates lawn party on Saturday at 4 p.m. at Laurie and Arthur Malman’s house in East Hampton.

    The nonpartisan group sponsors a number of forums on topics of interest to local voters as well as private get-togethers for members with a variety of leaders in local government.

    The owners of two neighboring properties facing Gardiner’s Bay in Springs, part of the Clearwater Beach Association, would like to install a revetment that would span both sites, but must first obtain a variance from the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals. Their application for a natural resources special permit, the latest in a series related to beach erosion caused by Hurricane Sandy, came before the board on June 4.

Sag Harbor Village Mayor Brian Gilbride won re-election by 11 votes on Tuesday night after a tense contest among four candidates.

    Sagaponack Village has two seats on its board up for grabs, and residents can cast their votes tomorrow at Village Hall between noon and 9 p.m. According to Rhodi Cary-Winchell, the village clerk, the only petitions filed for the two-year terms were from two incumbents.

    It will be Joy Sieger’s fourth term if re-elected. One of the first members of the village board, she has served since December 2006. William Barbour won his seat in 2011 in a write-in campaign.

    The Montauk Beach House, a motel and club in downtown Montauk, received a certificate of occupancy from the East Hampton Town Building Department on Tuesday, after the head building inspector agreed that the key issue — whether it was operating two different businesses — was a matter for the town’s Ordinance Enforcement Department.

    Keith Grimes, a Montauk contractor, unleashed a torrent of frustration about the East Hampton Town Board and other town officials at a board meeting on June 11, saying they owed him “a ton of money.” The dispute now appears to have been resolved, but not before Mr. Grimes had spoken his piece.

East Hampton Town will receive a $536,425 state grant to renovate its former town hall building, town and New York State officials announced yesterday.

     The East Hampton Town Board will hold a hearing next Thursday on revisions to the town noise ordinance.

    The changes are aimed at identifying potential violations according to how much they vary from an average ambient noise level in a particular area.

    After a hearing last Thursday, the East Hampton Town Board formally adopted new traffic rules limiting access to the parking lot at Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett.

    On busy days during the summer season, large vehicles and nonresidents would be stopped by town workers staffing a booth at the entry to the parking lot and asked to turn around.

East Hampton Town

North Main Traffic Circle?

    Members of the East Hampton-Sag Harbor Citizens Advisory Committee have asked town officials to revisit an idea for a traffic circle at the foot of Three Mile Harbor and Springs-Fireplace Roads, where they hit North Main Street in East Hampton.

    Potential actions to alleviate traffic back-ups in the area were originally addressed in a 2003 “North Main Street Corridor Study,” which became a part of the 2005 updated town comprehensive plan.

    A plan to limit access to the parking lot at Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett on busy days during the season, by staffing a checkpoint at the entrance where large vehicles and nonresidents would be stopped and asked to turn around, will be the subject of a hearing before the East Hampton Town Board next Thursday. The checkpoint booth has already been installed.

    Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. is sponsoring state legislation that would restore the right of local governments on Long Island to establish their own public utilities.

    A plan devised by a task force to “spread the pain” of helicopter noise over three routes into and out of East Hampton Airport was supported by a majority of the East Hampton Town Board on Tuesday, although officials acknowledged it would make no one happy.

The nomination of Zachary Cohen for East Hampton Town councilman from the floor at the Democrats’ nominating convention on May 15 made for some tense moments for Job Potter and Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, the candidates favored by the party’s screening committee. In the end, Mr. Potter and Ms. Burke-Gonzalez prevailed.

    They will share the top of the ticket with Larry Cantwell, the outgoing East Hampton Village administrator, who is also running on the Independence Party line.

    Southampton Councilman Chris Nuzzi was nominated by the Suffolk County Republican Committee last week to challenge the five-term incumbent Jay Schneiderman for Suffolk County legislator. Mr. Schneiderman, a member of the Independence Party, is seeking his sixth and final two-year term.

    Mr. Nuzzi is serving his second and final term as a member of the Southampton Town Board.

    In a split vote on Tuesday, the East Hampton Town Board decided not to grant a zone change request by the owners of the Napeague property that houses Cyril’s bar and restaurant.

    Bonnie and Michael Dioguardi, who own the site as well as an adjacent parcel, had asked that the properties, now zoned for residential use, be placed instead in a neighborhood business zone.

    With summer approaching, the Division of Vector Control in Suffolk County’s Department of Public Works will soon resume its battle against mosquitoes.

    “We’ll basically be conducting surveillance for mosquitoes and primarily treating breeding sites,” said Dominick Ninivaggi, superintendent of the county’s Division of Vector Control. It’s an approach similar to previous years and conforms to a long-term plan passed by the County Legislature in 2007, over objections of environmentalists and the county’s Council on Environmental Quality.

East Hampton Town

Seek Food Truck and Pool Bids

    East Hampton Town is soliciting bids from food truck vendors interested in leasing the exclusive right to sell at Gin Beach in Montauk. Bids must be received by 3 p.m. on Wednesday by the town’s Purchasing Department, which can provide specifications.

    Bids are also being sought for a rehabilitation — by marble dusting — of the pools at the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter. They are due by next Thursday.

    Both houses of the New York State Legislature have passed a measure that would allow the municipalities of East Hampton, Southampton, and Southold to transfer land, at little or no cost, to the trustees of those townships.

    The measure, which awaits Governor Andrew M. Cuomo’s signature, was championed by Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. of Sag Harbor and Senator Kenneth P. LaValle of Port Jefferson.

    Suffolk County’s public health clinic on Accabonac Road in East Hampton is slated for consolidation with a Southampton clinic, with both to be housed near Southampton Hospital, according to a plan being promoted by Suffolk County Executive Steven Bellone.

    As expected, the East Hampton Democratic Committee’s screening committee has recommended that Larry Cantwell, the retiring East Hampton Village administrator, should be the party’s nominee to run for town supervisor in the November election. The choices are in advance of an official nomination convention on Wednesday.

    Dick Cavett’s Tick Hall, one of seven McKim, Mead, and White houses on the Montauk ocean bluffs, and two houses on the waterfront on the other side of the Montauk peninsula, have made for interesting agendas at recent East Hampton Town Zoning Board meetings. The latter, an  application for erosion-control work on Soundview Drive, was approved on Tuesday. A hearing on Mr. Cavett’s application met with favorable response on April 23, although a decision is pending.

    East Hampton’s representatives in the State and County Legislatures came out this week in support of creating a town comprehensive wastewater management strategy and plan, an initiative that has drawn strong opposition from East Hampton Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson and Councilwoman Theresa Quigley.

East Hampton Town

Barn at Duck Creek Farm

    The condition of the barn at the East Hampton Town-owned historic Duck Creek Farm, which is the former studio of the painter John Little, will be evaluated to see if it can be used for a temporary art installation proposed by the Parrish Art Museum for the month of August.

    Three members of the East Hampton Town Board agreed at a work session on Tuesday to move forward on “parallel tracks” to implement both long-term and short-term recommendations made by a town committee on coastal erosion. Town Councilwoman Sylvia Overby and Councilmen Dominick Stanzione and Peter Van Scoyoc outlined the steps to be taken in the absence of Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson and Councilwoman Theresa Quigley, who did not attend.