Government

Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. announced on Monday that he will not seek re-election to the New York State Assembly, signaling an impending conclusion to a 45-year career of public service in local and state government. 

Two large pumps buried near the Beacon restaurant on West Water Street were the unsung heroes after Superstorm Sandy, removing an estimated eight million gallons of saltwater from the parking lots behind Main Street, and even in less extreme situations the pumps play an important role in keeping the area dry.

For the 2024 season, fisheries along the Atlantic Coast (except in Chesapeake Bay) will continue to adhere to a one-fish daily limit of a striped bass between 28 to 31 inches. Commercial fishermen will also see a 7-percent reduction in their harvest quotas this year.

Georgica Pond has long been ecologically compromised, and the Route 27 rest stop, neighboring the pond’s Talmage Creek, has been identified as a source of significant runoff. Improvements are on the way.

A Suffolk County Supreme Court justice has dismissed a petition filed by Teresa Bertha on behalf of the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association that would have allowed Ms. Bertha to sue the village for taking over the association’s ambulance certificate and its bank account.

The downtown Montauk ocean beach is rapidly changing this week, this time not due to the coastal storms that have ravaged the shoreline this winter but to implementation of the federal Army Corps of Engineers’ Fire Island to Montauk Point reformulation project.

Sand Land, a mine in Noyac that has been the subject of litigation and controversy for several years, appears to have ceased digging at its Middle Line Highway site and has relocated its retail operation to a facility on Montauk Highway in Wainscott.

The New York State Department of Transportation is now designing a new bridge to replace the one that spans the Long Island Rail Road track at the western end of Cranberry Hole Road in Amagansett, which has been closed to all vehicles, pedestrians, and cyclists since July 1.

New York State Senator Anthony Palumbo, who has represented the First Senatorial District since 2021, announced on Jan. 31 that he will seek a third term. He has at least one challenger: On Monday, former Suffolk County Legislator Sarah Anker announced her candidacy for the Democratic Party’s nomination for Mr. Palumbo’s seat.

Town officials are urgently seeking funding to mitigate the effects of three storms in December and January that damaged both beaches, particularly at Ditch Plain, leading Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. and State Senator Anthony Palumbo to issue a formal request to Gov. Kathy Hochul on behalf of East Hampton.

In a first step toward a major overhaul of its zoning code, the East Hampton Town Board voted to revise the “purposes” section of the town code pertaining to zoning at its meeting last Thursday. The resolution marks the first concrete step in a process that began nine months ago with the board’s formation of the zoning code amendment work group.

The East Hampton Town Board has held an initial discussion about potentially amending the town zoning code to allow existing residences in flood zones, as designated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to be raised without their owners having to apply for a variance from the zoning board of appeals.

In a unanimous decision, the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals has granted Daniel and Pernilla Ammann permission to remove three 1950s-era beach cottages from properties they own on Sammy’s Beach Road and construct a new, glassy, 4,652-square-foot home.

The Economic Opportunity Council of Suffolk, which has operated the child care program at the Montauk Playhouse for 17 years, has announced it will cease operations there effective May 3, and while East Hampton Town is already seeking bids from other providers, many Montauk families are left coping with uncertainty.

East Hampton Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez has written to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to request an amendment to the Fire Island Inlet to Moriches Inlet, Downtown Montauk project to incorporate damages to the ocean beach caused by storms in December and January.

Kevin Gilbride had just turned south on Wainscott Northwest Road from Route 114 one day last month when a dead 75-foot pitch pine, one of thousands killed by the southern pine beetle infestation, fell on the roof of his truck. “There were branches everywhere. The dogs were freaking out. I thought it was a plane or something.”

The East Hampton Town Planning Board voted on Jan. 24 to advise the town board that it objects to the latter’s plan to take the lead on reviewing the town’s new senior citizens center, exempting it from oversight by the planning, zoning, and architectural review boards.

East Hampton Town is seeking a coastal morphologist to consult with the town to provide “the most effective short and long-term solutions” to help residents of Ditch Plain in Montauk mitigate storm surge inundation.

A New York State Supreme Court judge has denied the East Hampton Town Trustees’ motion seeking clarification of a May 2023 order that both the trustees and the town must pay $389,060 of the plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees as defendants in lawsuits brought in 2009 over ownership of a stretch of Napeague ocean beach popularly known as Truck Beach.

“For Windmill I alone, we have 130 people on a waiting list. For Windmill II, it’s over 450 people,” said the project development coordinator with the development for people 62 and older on Accabonac Road in East Hampton. Because of the swelling waitlist, its board wants to expand, and is seeking a path forward that would allow it to get federal grants but also meet town code requirements.

Anxious Sag Harbor residents did not get to have their say on Adam Potter’s 11 Bridge Street L.L.C. project this week, but there was news of a smaller plan at another property owned by Mr. Potter, where Michael Gluckman and his wife, Lila Beudert-Gluckman, are hoping to create a 23-seat “Smashburger”-style restaurant.

If a preliminary application heard by the East Hampton Town Planning Board on Jan. 10 gains any traction, Wainscott — known for Georgica Pond, farm fields, and its oceanfront — could soon add storage facilities to its list of attractions. There are three already, all full, and more proposed.

The East Hampton Town Board, acting on recommendations from the town’s special events committee, voted to update fees for special events, which have not changed since 2018.

With a sense of urgency, the East Hampton Town Board discussed the hiring of a surveyor to assess current beach profile conditions at Ditch Plain in Montauk and to determine the necessary volume and source of sand, its placement, and the cost to restore it to a healthy level.  

The East Hampton Town Trustees voted unanimously on Monday to grant a request from Christopher Gobler of Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences to grow sugar kelp in waters under trustee jurisdiction between Barcelona Point and Little Northwest Creek.

The most detailed justification to date of the size, design, and cost of East Hampton Town’s new senior citizens center was aired before the town board on Tuesday, as several residents continued to question and voice skepticism about the need for a 22,000-square-foot, $31.6 million building.

Long in the works, a plan to overhaul the way sewage and wastewater are processed at Montauk Shores Condominiums took a significant step forward in December when the Suffolk County Department of Health Services approved an application for a new sewage treatment plant there.

Representative Nick LaLota of New York's First Congressional District announced on Saturday that he is endorsing former president Donald Trump's campaign for president. 

In a petition started Monday, the Ditch Plains Association is gathering signatures to “urgently appeal to the East Hampton Town Board to take immediate and decisive action to address the critical loss of the protective dune . . . a consequence of two recent coastal storms.”

In the cross hairs of Adam Potter's plans for a large mixed-use building in downtown Sag Harbor Village are four structures that contribute to the village's historic distrct and, according to the village code, are not to be removed.