Government

Tuesday is National Voter Registration Day, and the League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island, and the North Fork will be educating the public at tables across the East End.

After completing a third work session in four months on proposed changes to the East Hampton Town zoning code, the town board agreed Tuesday that the next step was to bring the changes to a public hearing. Many members of the public and others directly involved with the zoning code amendment work group, a mixture of government and industry players who developed the proposals, spoke of the need to quickly move forward.

After a public hearing two weeks ago on removing the nature preserve designation from the triangle at the intersection of Springs-Fireplace and Three Mile Harbor Roads in East Hampton, the town board is set to vote Thursday evening on a resolution concerning the future of the property.

So many of her customers who’ve stopped to buy produce at Vickie’s Veggies this summer have complained to Vickie Littman about the still-closed Cranberry Hole Road bridge that she was inspired, she said last week, to start a petition.

A proposed administrative change to Gibson Lane Beach prompted backlash from longtime beachgoers after the Sagaponack Village Board voted on July 17 to notify Southampton Town of the village’s intent to take over maintenance of the beach next summer.

East Hampton Town hopes a two-acre plot it bought last April — a dairy farm until 1959, home to cows that produced for a milk delivery business — will become a public park and community gathering space.

An East Hampton Village resident has sued the village for revoking his permit to park in one of the lots at Main Beach and ordering him to clear out his locker at the Main Beach pavilion, claiming that the village violated both state and federal due process and equal protection laws.

“Everyone believes some revisions are necessary,” said Tim Treadwell, senior harbormaster with the East Hampton Town’s Marine Patrol, the enforcement agency on the beach. “It has become problematic. There are so many dogs.” And lifeguards trying to enforce restrictions are often harrassed or ignored by dog owners.

A mosquito sample from East Hampton Town was one of 26 new samples to test positive for the West Nile virus in Suffolk County, the County Health Department announced on Aug. 19.

In Sagaponack residents continued last week to push back at plans to erect a 100-foot cell tower just south of Sagaponack Village Hall off Montauk Highway, with residents calling it an “eyesore” that cuts against village character and others raising concerns about the health effects of the 5G technology it would support.

The mud flat at the terminus of Cove Hollow Road in East Hampton Village is often occupied by Wilson’s snipe, a secretive bird of bogs; green-winged teal, killdeer, and greater yellowlegs. Somehow they favor this place, despite the presence of a 24-inch pipe that drains untreated stormwater into Georgica Cove.

Debris from a 115,000-pound, 300-foot-tall GE Vernova wind turbine blade, which fell from the Vineyard Wind farm off Nantucket in mid-July while it was being tested, may end up at southern-facing beaches in Montauk during the coming days, East Hampton Town officials warned Wednesday.

Removing nature preserve status from the triangle at the intersection of North Main Street and Springs-Fireplace and Three Mile Harbor Roads would make “the property available for installation of highway improvements,” according to a notice a hearing, thus paving the way for a possible roundabout there. Residents have mixed feelings.

Elected officials and school district leaders are lobbying the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to carry out much-needed train track improvements on the East End. They want the M.T.A. to include money in the next five-year capital plan, on which the agency is scheduled to vote in October, for a specific set of upgrades and repairs that would enable an expansion of the train program known as the South Fork Commuter Connection.

Jeremy Samuelson, the planning director for East Hampton Town since January 2022, is leaving the post for a job in the private sector as the director of human resources at Gurney's in Montauk.

A proposal to increase density on senior-citizen-only affordable housing developments in East Hampton Town from the current eight units per acre to 12 was met warmly at a town board hearing last week.

The $16.1 million project, paid for with a combination of town money, New York State grants, and an $8.25 million donation from the Montauk Playhouse Community Center Foundation, is on schedule, with construction expected to be complete by June 2025. Construction crews recently finished a major component: the "monolithic pour" of cement for the ceiling above the swimming pool.

Cilvan Realty, a limited liability company that owns 44 Three Mile Harbor Road in East Hampton, went before East Hampton Town Planning Board once again last week because of inaccuracies in its application, which was approved in October.

Tensions ran high on Monday at East Hampton Town Hall, where the Springs Park Committee met to go over plans for the future of the park.

Gov. Kathy Hochul visited the South Fork last week with good news not just for coastal resiliency in Montauk, but also for the Retreat, a domestic violence response and advocacy group in East Hampton.

There will be no basement at the new East Hampton Town senior center, or Center for Modern Aging, as Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez is calling it.

“We’re very pleased with the 2023 results,” Rebecca Hansen, the town administrator and budget officer, said after an independent audit showed "no material weaknesses" in the town's finances.

A proposed project at the old Stern’s site would see 32 to 48 units built for local workers — privately funded. Unlike regular affordable housing, there would be no financial involvement or oversight from any federal, state, or town agency.

Samantha Klein, intergovernmental relations coordinator for the town, announced its eligibility for a $100,000 grant from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority based on its work with the Clean Energy Communities program.

After a bumpy rollout back in April, the Suffolk County on-demand bus network in East Hampton appears to be running smoothly as it nears the end of its first summer in operation.

On a visit to the South Fork Friday, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that the state will contritibute $2.5 million toward the second phase of a dune replenishment project at Ditch Plain in Montauk. East Hampton Town has already budgeted $1.75 million for the project.

Forget the white pants or the crisp, sky blue shirts. Traffic-cone orange is the color of summer 2024 in East Hampton Village. “It’s a disaster. We want to make sure residents understand it’s not the village doing the work, it’s the D.O.T.,” Marcos Baladron, the village administrator, said about the multiple construction zones that have been impacting travel along Route 27, a state road that doubles as the village’s Main Street.

With mosquito samples from the South Fork so far testing negative for West Nile virus, East Hampton Town and other areas on the South Fork have avoided the county's aerial spraying this season, but that could change. “We’re still only halfway through the season. I would expect to see some West Nile virus activity in our traps in the coming weeks,” a Suffolk Health Department official said.

The application process for the Green at Gardiner’s Point, the East Hampton Housing Authority's newest affordable housing project, opened up only two months ago, but 543 applications for the Three Mile Harbor Road project have come in since. On Friday, Katy Casey, executive director of the housing authority, presided over a preliminary lottery, to assign the order in which applicants will be vetted.

Updated plans for what East Hampton Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez is calling the Center for Modern Aging, include a new location for solar panels, different siding, and lower ceilings in some common rooms, but some town board members are wondering if the town is missing some opportunities with even the latest proposed design.