Government

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed an executive order last week extending the period for paying real estate taxes by 21 days, to June 21. Property owners in Suffolk County and elsewhere will be allowed to delay payment until then without interest or penalties. The move is intended to assist people who have been financially impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The campaign of Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming, who is seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination to challenge Representative Lee Zeldin in New York’s First Congressional District in November, has released the results of a poll that put her in a statistical dead heat with Nancy Goroff.

Restaurants can begin offering outdoor dining as part of phase two of the economic reopening, which will begin early next week, and municipalities will be given leeway to approve sidewalk and even street dining in order for businesses to meet state guidelines.

Voting for school budgets and board members will be by absentee ballot this year, and ballots must be returned by 5 p.m. on Tuesday, June 9. Here's what you need to know.

A State Supreme Court justice last month rejected New York State's request for a preliminary injunction to have the signs removed.

East Hampton Town has alerted business owners intending to reopen that they must file with New York State an affirmation that they will follow mandated safety protocols and prepare and post a safety plan.

Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman extended emergency orders closing the town's beaches to out-of-towners and restricting parking in beach lots and nearby roads through June 5.

With an assist from Mother Nature in the form of a gray, damp Saturday and windy Sunday and Monday, the “slow, soft reopening” to the summer season envisioned by East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc last week largely unfolded according to plan over the Memorial Day weekend.

The League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island, and the North Fork will hold an online debate among candidates for the Democratic Party’s nomination for New York’s First Congressional District on Monday via YouTube. Another debate, among Democratic candidates for the State Senate’s First District, will happen on June 8.

Two months of a nearly complete economic standstill came to an end Wednesday, when Long Island reached regional criteria necessary to reinstate some industries as evidence shows that the spread of Covid-19 here is increasingly under control.

In a significant development for the proliferation of renewable energy, LIPA’s board voted unanimously to adopt state rules and regulations authorizing a framework for community choice aggregation Islandwide.

East Hampton Village Mayor Richard Lawler appointed Ray Harden, a co-owner of the Ben Krupinski building company, as a village board member on Friday over the objections of two board members.