Government

Representative Nick LaLota of New York’s First Congressional District has joined the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus, a group comprising an equal number of Republicans and Democrats.

Auditors told the East Hampton Town Board on Tuesday that they found nothing amiss in a review of the town's finances. "Everything’s really in good shape,” Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said.

The Huntting Inn wants to add a swimming pool to its property, to which at least one neighbor has objected. “If the application is granted, I imagine the Maidstone Inn, Hedges Inn, Mill House Inn, and perhaps some B&Bs, will ask for [a pool], and the fresh precedent will be difficult to overcome,” Frank Morgan told the Zoning Board of Appeals on Friday.

Is your property overrun with invasive plants like honeysuckle and poison ivy? You may want to consider goats. That’s in part what Concerned Citizens of Montauk pitched to East Hampton Town for the roughly 40-acre Arthur Benson Preserve on Old Montauk Highway.

A lawsuit brought by four Wainscott residents challenging the onshore construction of the South Fork Wind farm, one of many efforts to stop its construction via the courts, was dismissed by a federal judge this week. 

Tom Flight, a Democratic Party candidate for the East Hampton Town Board, is on the road to recovery after spending four days at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital following a seizure on July 4. 

A proposed amendment to the East Hampton Town code would allow volunteer firefighters and ambulance workers with two years of qualifying service to apply for a partial tax exemption.

The first substantive discussion of progress made by a work group charged with amending East Hampton Town’s zoning code happened at the town board’s work session on Tuesday, and many of the dozen residents who spoke about it during the meeting’s 90-minute public comment period tied the effort to curb development to the myriad manifestations of environmental degradation and climate change throughout the United States and around the world.

In a pilot composting effort aimed at diverting, recovering, and reusing residential food scraps to create compost and return it to the soil, East Hampton Compost will receive food scraps at farmers markets in Springs and Sag Harbor to start.

Violations for the illegal taking of shellfish from East Hampton Town waters could be elevated to aggravated charges. The town board considered an amendment to the town code toward that end last Thursday.

East Hampton Town’s forests are under assault from multiple species, the town board was told on Tuesday, and while invasive insects are a major component of the ongoing threat to them, “more aggressive deer management” was the recommendation to alleviate forest degradation.

Stung, not by a wasp — which purportedly was a catalyst for Carl Icahn to build an unpermitted gazebo at his Nichols Lane residence — but by the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals’ March 14 refusal to grant retroactive approval for the structure, Mr. Icahn sued the village in April.

The East Hampton Town Trustees were agreeable to the proposed rebuilding of a bulkhead on Three Mile Harbor when they met on Monday. They were also amenable to a proposed installation, behind that bulkhead, of a permeable reactive barrier — typically a long, narrow trench filled with a material such as iron, limestone, carbon, or mulch to remove contaminants as groundwater passes through it — that would prevent an estimated 500 pounds of nitrogen from entering the water body annually.

A proposed teardown project on Oyster Shores Road in East Hampton, which came before the zoning board of appeals at a public hearing late last month, raised the question of whether more weight should be given to proposed improvements to a parcel and its surroundings, or to the dictates of the town zoning code.

The East Hampton Town Planning Board held a “wrap-up discussion” on June 28 about a stripped-down site plan application from Rita Cantina, the Mexican restaurant located in a residential neighborhood in Springs. In order to speed approval, the restaurant has removed several proposed points of contention, among them an outdoor patio with seating area, parking for catering trailers, grills, and lighting.

Temporary roadside informational signs are being placed in East Hampton Town to raise awareness and enforce the New York State Move Over Law, which aims to protect law enforcement officers, emergency workers, tow and service vehicle operators, and other workers stopped along roadways.

Congestion pricing, a new tolling plan that targets New York City’s Midtown Manhattan and aims to ease traffic congestion while simultaneously decreasing pollution, is on the horizon. The program will charge drivers a fee upward of $23 to enter Manhattan south of 60th Street.

The 5-megawatt lithium-ion battery energy storage system that caught fire at a Cove Hollow Road, East Hampton, substation on May 31 will be out of commission for an unknown length of time, but while its owners say there are no safety or power concerns for residents, proponents of renewable energy are concerned that the fire will fuel calls for a moratorium on further installations.

A new 185-foot tower to house emergency communications and personal wireless equipment, a component of East Hampton Town’s long effort to upgrade its emergency communications infrastructure, has been installed on the Camp Blue Bay property in Springs. The goal is for it to be operational by next spring.

“I am extremely concerned now about how it might affect public safety at the main artery to Montauk,” East Hampton Town Councilman David Lys said of the trees on Napeague killed by an infestation of southern pine beetles in recent years.

A newly installed 262-kilowatt solar system array is now operational at Hither Hills State Park in Montauk, the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation announced last week. It's projected to generate 360,000 kilowatt hours per year, covering the park’s entire electricity use and saving around $45,000 annually on electricity costs.

Following an inspection, the New York State Department of Transportation and the Long Island Rail Road have closed the bridge at Cranberry Hole Road in Amagansett due to structural problems. It is the second closure of the bridge in less than two months.

In recent months, judges have twice overturned East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals decisions regarding natural resources special permits, and that could have significant ramifications moving forward, as the town zoning code gets chipped away by the Suffolk County Supreme Court.

It was never going to be easy for the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals to rule against the Shagwong Tavern in Montauk. This week after wrestling with language and the weight of history it sided with the tavern, deciding in a split vote that the Shagwong is not a nightclub even when the tables are pushed aside for dancing, but that it still must comply with fire codes.

Thomas Gardella, who ran unopposed for Sag Harbor Village Mayor, seems intent on building bridges, which could be just what the village needs after a turbulent couple of years.

Restoring the east inlet, which closed in 2007 after an April northeaster, would improve water quality and habitat for shellfish, finfish, and eelgrass. It would also reduce water flow through the west inlet, and, potentially, shoreline erosion north of Lazy Point and on Promised Land. It is “a project beyond the scope of what the trustees on their own could finance.”

Before she was named to the Z.B.A., Jeanne Kane chaired the village’s historic preservation and architectural review board. “She’s familiar with the boards and working with the building department,” said the new mayor, Thomas Gardella. She will be sworn in on Monday, taking his unexpired seat on the village board.

“People are asking me, ‘Do you really want to do it?’ and ‘Are you prepared to be supervisor?’ ” the Democrats' supervisor candidate, Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, said. “And I just want everyone to know here and now, yes and yes. I am ready, and I’m excited. That is partly because, look at the tremendous team I get to work with. . . .”

Two outside agencies that assess the fiscal health and accounting practices of municipalities have recognized East Hampton Town for its financial health and fiscal reporting.

It was the East Hampton Village Board versus invasive plants at Friday’s meeting, and the board attacked with both legislation and action to reduce and remove the problematic plants from within its perimeters, especially Town Pond.