Government

Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming and Nick LaLota, vying to succeed Representative Lee Zeldin in New York’s First Congressional District, clashed over the economy, abortion, gun policy, and crime in a debate at Newsday’s studio in Melville on Oct. 19. They also disagreed about aiding Ukraine, which included a gaffe by Mr. LaLota that Ms. Fleming seized on. 

East Hampton Village is seeking to formalize its relationship with the East Hampton Ambulance Association with code changes that could be implemented by January. It's unclear whether that would alter operation of the associaton, which has been run by its own bylaws for decades.

The East Hampton Town Trustees' 32nd annual Largest Clam Contest officially ended on Friday, almost two weeks after the event that drew hundreds to the Lamb Building in Amagansett. At their meeting on Monday, the trustees announced both a new venue and a date for next year's contest. 

On Friday, Suffolk County Supreme Court Justice Carmen Victoria St. George said Michael and Christine Aaron’s attempt to stop a brewery from being built on Toilsome Lane in East Hampton Village was “not ripe,” agreeing with the village’s zoning board of appeals that an official determination on whether the brewery is compatible with the village’s code has yet to be made.

Many agree that preserving John Steinbeck's house in Sag Harbor for use as a writers retreat is a good idea, but there are tensions over the specifics of the plan.

A New York State Supreme Court justice has prohibited East Hampton Town from closing and reopening East Hampton Airport as a private facility with restrictions on aircraft operations in place pending an environmental review, dealing another blow to the town board's plan to address what many residents complain is a ruined quality of life.

The search for the largest clam in Three Mile Harbor, Hog Creek, and Accabonac Harbor has resumed after heavy rains kept those water bodies closed in advance of the East Hampton Trustees Largest Clam Contest on Oct. 9. Weigh-ins for mammoth specimens from those spots happens Friday at the trustee offices in Amagansett.

The East Hampton Town Trustees approved the construction next year of two oyster reefs in Accabonac Harbor, and an East Hampton High School student will be the primary caretaker of one of them.

The Huntting Inn, originally built in 1699 but purchased in 2020 by Landry’s of Houston, owner of the Golden Nugget Hotel & Casino, is once again before the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals and Design Review Board, asking for approval of a pool and hot tub behind the inn. Their original application was withdrawn in June 2021, after strong neighborhood opposition.

The candidates challenging incumbents in District 1 of New York State’s Assembly and Senate, one a Republican, one a Democrat, and both in their 20s, were aggressive in attacking their opponents in back-to-back debates on Monday night, but the incumbents were largely if not entirely successful in fending off those attacks while portraying themselves as experienced and capable public servants.

It’s been nearly six weeks since a malware infestation crippled Suffolk County’s computer systems, and while the county has adopted numerous workarounds to address the ransomware attack since Sept. 8 — there’s a long way to go before it’s business as usual, especially when it comes to real estate transactions.

“The goal here can be narrowed down to ‘we need to get carriers to provide complete cell coverage throughout the town and local waters,’ ” said Eric Schantz, the assistant planning director, who called cellular service “substandard and unacceptable,” with poor coverage and poor capacity not just in the summer months but throughout the year.

Rita Cantina, a popular Mexican restaurant in Springs, was dealt a blow last week by the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals, whose members agreed with a determination by Ann Glennon, the town’s chief building inspector, that catering businesses on the restaurant premises are operating illegally.

Fourteen East Hampton Town residents who were issued summonses for trespassing during a protest at what is popularly known as Truck Beach on Napeague last October had their case summarily dismissed in Southampton Town Justice Court in Hampton Bays on Tuesday, in what their attorney called a victory for all residents of the town.

As Representative Lee Zeldin of New York’s First Congressional District touts the website RealClearPolitics’ status change of his campaign for governor of New York from “leans Democratic” to “tossup,” his opponent, Gov. Kathy Hochul, is emphasizing Mr. Zeldin’s role in attempting to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election.

Spurred by opposition to a large-scale development proposed for downtown Sag Harbor, Save Sag Harbor and a group of residents filed suit against the village on Friday in an effort to annul parts of its affordable housing legislation passed by the village board in June. 

Ever since he first appeared on the political scene, Lee Zeldin, the long-shot Republican nominee facing New York Gov. Kathy Hochul in the November election, has consistently pointed to his military record among his qualifications.

The League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island, and North Fork will host virtual debates between candidates for the New York State Assembly and State Senate’s First Districts on Monday from 7 to 8:30 p.m.

East Hampton Town’s Aquaculture Department has been busy in recent months seeding local waters with oysters, overseeing a pilot program growing sugar kelp in Three Mile and Accabonac Harbors, and shepherding the town's oyster-gardening program, and its getting some help from high school interns working with the nonprofit South Fork Sea Farmers.

The Sag Harbor Village Board of Trustees proposed a new law on Tuesday, which would create an overlay district in what the board called its “historically black beachfront communities.” Before the proposed amendment to the village code can take effect, however, it will have to go through a public hearing, on Nov. 8.

Two teenagers were shot on Sunday near the Shirley residence of Representative Lee Zeldin of New York’s First Congressional District while he was campaigning in the Bronx. His teenage daughters were home, and he said later that a bullet was found about 30 feet from where they had been sitting.

The East Hampton Village Board is looking at a speed limit change on village roads, allowing dogs on leashes in Herrick Park, and pickleball court installation regulations.

Wireless communication in Springs will be the hot topic at three meetings this week. There's an East Hampton Town Planning Board hearing on an application for a 185-foot-tall tower at Camp Blue Bay; the town board will discuss the subject at its work session on Tuesday, and the lobbying group Accabonac Strategies will update people that evening on its advocacy for activation of the 150-foot-tall tower on Springs Firehouse grounds.

A proposed .5-percent real estate transfer tax to fund community housing will be on the ballot in East Hampton in November and the town board and pro-housing community groups are getting the word out about the proposal and its anticipated benefits.

East Hampton Town’s 2023 budget, still in its tentative form, continued to take shape this week, with minor adjustments to funding for community organizations and for the Marine Patrol, Highway, and Land Acquisition and Management Departments among the tweaks being considered.

Advertising of the construction contract for long-planned improvements to the navigational channel in Montauk Harbor is expected to happen early in the summer of 2023 and the deepening is expected to be completed by the end of that year.

The campaigns of Gov. Kathy Hochul and her challenger, Representative Lee Zeldin of New York’s First Congressional District, touted dueling polls last week. Both put the incumbent in the lead, but by widely differing margins. 

Informational forums on the Nov. 8 ballot proposition that will ask voters to approve a .5-percent real estate transfer tax that would go toward a community housing opportunity fund will be held in East Hampton Town Friday and on Oct. 15.

At the Long Island Power Authority’s quarterly board of trustees meeting last week, Friends of the Long Pond Greenbelt handed the board a petition with over 3,000 signatures in opposition to a plan to drill through the greenbelt to lay a transmission line between Sag Harbor and East Hampton. “In the process, they’d destroy something you can’t put a price on," said Dai Dayton, the group's president.

The new owners of the Springs General Store are eager to get to work converting a storage shed on the property into a tiny wine store, but questions about accessibility for the disabled and exactly what type of drinking would be allowed at the site have slowed the progress of their application before the East Hampton Town Planning Board.