Government

The working group to implement recommendations for the Wainscott hamlet study reconvened on March 2, with progress still frustratingly slow for some participants but also with some consensus achieved for readily achievable goals, as well as actions to be avoided.

The Peconic Jitney, a passenger-only ferry service that operated a pilot program connecting Sag Harbor to Greenport back in 2012, is seeking to do so again, this time with a formal five-year contract with the Sag Harbor Village Board.

The federal Department of the Interior announced on Friday the results of the New York Bight offshore wind sale, the nation’s highest-grossing competitive offshore energy lease sale in history.

The Suffolk County Republican Party has endorsed Nick LaLota, chief of staff of the County Legislature’s presiding officer and a former commissioner at the Suffolk Board of Elections, as its nominee to represent New York’s First Congressional District in Washington, D.C. The move, coming right on the heels of Mr. LaLota’s announcing his candidacy, drew a rebuke from another contestant for the seat.

Consultants to East Hampton Town issued recommendations on Tuesday for a “new” airport on the site of the existing East Hampton Airport that they said could impact 40 percent of takeoffs and landings but address upward of 70 percent of complaints. The recommendations, if implemented, would impose a curfew and otherwise limit activity based on an aircraft’s operator, its noise, and its size under a prior-permission-required framework.

A complaint brought by Citizens for the Preservation of Wainscott against the East Hampton Town Board and developers of the South Fork Wind farm has been dismissed.

Unity was the theme at last Thursday’s forum for those seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination for New York’s First Congressional District, at a moment of both opportunity and peril for the party.

Construction relating to the South Fork Wind farm continues in Wainscott this week with trenching and installation of conduit on Beach Lane and on Wainscott Northwest Road between the Long Island Rail Road intersection and Montauk Highway.

uffolk County Legislator Al Krupski, who represents the Towns of Southold and Riverhead and parts of Brookhaven Town, has endorsed Legislator Bridget Fleming’s candidacy for the Democratic nomination to represent New York’s First Congressional District.

Representative Lee Zeldin of New York’s First Congressional District was named the Republican candidate for governor of New York at the State Republican Party’s convention, held in Garden City on Monday and Tuesday.

With Covid-19 transmission falling to levels not seen since last year, East Hampton Town has lifted a mask requirement for those entering town offices and other facilities. 

The Southampton and Brookhaven Town Democratic Committees will co-host a virtual forum featuring the Democratic candidates to represent New York’s First Congressional District on Thursday at 7 p.m. via Zoom video conference.

Trenching and vegetation removal has begun along a debated cable route.

In what attorneys and lawmakers have described as a rare occurrence, New York State’s highest court has decided it will hear an appeal from the Noyac mine known as Sand Land, which is trying to hold onto its operating permit.

The East Hampton Town Board voted last Thursday to postpone the planned temporary closure of East Hampton Airport and its reopening as a new, private-use airport following an executive session to discuss the plan, which has incited furious opposition and multiple lawsuits by interests from airport users and the aviation industry to residents who fear diversion of aircraft to their neighborhoods.

There is a new candidate for the Democratic Party’s nomination to represent New York’s First Congressional District, a consequence of the recent redrawing of the state’s Congressional districts that followed the decennial census.

Jackie Gordon, a United States Army veteran and teacher, had been a candidate for the Democrats’ nomination to represent New York’s Second District this year. She ran unsuccessfully in the Second District in 2020, losing to the Republican candidate, Andrew Garbarino, by seven percentage points.

East Hampton Village homeowners who rent out their houses for 120 days or less annually will benefit from an amendment to the village code, unanimously adopted by the village board on Friday, that will allow them to collect the rental fees in one lump sum, meaning that they will no longer have to worry about tenants who attempt to terminate a rental early, or those who don’t make payments.

In the contempt hearing in which property owners along the stretch of Napeague oceanfront popularly known as Truck Beach claimed that East Hampton Town failed to comply with last February’s New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division decision that barred driving there, Ed Michels, the town’s chief harbormaster, testified that the best he could do was block access at Marine Boulevard and advise people of the directive.

Amid the East Hampton Town Board’s planning to shift East Hampton Airport to a restricted, “private-use” facility, some residents concerned about diversion of aircraft to other parts of the town have focused their attention on a helipad at the Bistrian Materials supply yard on Springs-Fireplace Road.

The East Hampton Village Board acknowledged issues with the way nonresident beach parking permits were sold this year. The permits, which went on sale at midnight on Feb. 1, sold out in only 11 hours, a record. This rankled many residents of East Hampton Town, who will be unable to park this summer at their favorite beaches.

For the last 20 years, people have slipped into Accabonac Harbor behind a small stand of cedar trees next to the Springs General Store, a Town of East Hampton-historical site. Sage Island, Wood Tick Island, the Merrill Lake Sanctuary, and Louse Point were all just a paddle away. No longer.

Southampton Town’s planning board voted unanimously on Feb. 10 to accept a pre-submission application from Verizon Wireless for a 153-foot communications tower on Sag Harbor Village property directly adjacent to the Long Pond Greenbelt.

The struggle over the future of East Hampton Airport intensified on Tuesday with the filing of lawsuits seeking to prevent the town from carrying out its plan to close the airport on Feb. 28 and reopen a new, private-use airport on the site on March 4 with a prior-permission-required framework, under which advance clearance is required before a pilot may use the airport.

Fishermen and other residents of East Hampton Town who have been prevented from accessing a 4,000-foot stretch of Napeague ocean beach commonly known as Truck Beach have a new ally in an outside attorney for the town trustees.

The East Hampton Town Board voted on Thursday to postpone the planned temporary closure of East Hampton Airport to May 17. The planned reopening date is now May 19.

A New York State mandate that people wear masks or show proof of vaccination at restaurants, gyms, theaters, offices, and stores was lifted last Thursday. The decision, Gov. Kathy Hochul said at the time, was motivated by improving Covid-19 measurements, including the percentage of tests coming back positive, hospitalizations, the number of cases per 100,000 people, and vaccinations.

With the looming closure of East Hampton Airport and a plan to open a new one as a private-use facility with restrictions on flight activity, a provider of medical helicopters and fixed-wing air ambulance services has written to Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc to express its "extreme concern" about the plan.

Gov. Kathy Hochul and federal Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland were among the dignitaries on hand at LTV Studios in Wainscott on Friday for the ceremonial groundbreaking on the South Fork Wind farm, New York's first offshore wind farm, to be situated approximately 35 miles off Montauk Point.

The districts of New York State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. and Senator Anthony Palumbo will both grow smaller following the State Legislature’s vote last week to redraw state legislative and congressional district boundaries.

In the race for the Democratic Party’s nomination to represent New York’s First Congressional District, Suffolk County Legislators Bridget Fleming and Kara Hahn have each picked up new endorsements.