Government

East Hampton Town scored a victory in State Supreme Court on Monday when its request for a temporary injunction against a local sand mine was granted.

Residents of East Hampton, across the East End, and from as far away as Queens have long pleaded with the board to close or at least enact curfews and other restrictions on flights, citing the incessant noise of jet and helicopter traffic, particularly in the summer.

A boom in East End real estate sales has generated nearly $145 million in revenues for the Peconic Bay Community Preservation Fund in the first eight months of 2021, more than double the amount collected during the same time last year.

Two residents of Toilsome Lane in East Hampton Village are trying to prevent a brewery from being built next door to their house by contesting a determination by the village's chief building inspector that such a use is permitted on the property.

The town's tentative 2022 budget was unveiled this week. The $85.33 million plan would bring a spending increase of around $2.64 million, or 3.2 percent, over this year's adopted budget and a tax levy that stays below the New York State-mandated tax cap by about $5,000.

A significant expansion of electric vehicle charging stations at the East Hampton Town Hall campus, to be powered by solar energy, was one of three proposals brought to the town board on Tuesday, each aimed at moving the town toward its goal of achieving its energy needs entirely from renewable sources, thereby reducing the greenhouse gas emissions fueling climate change.

Burdened with outdated fire trucks for more than a decade, the East Hampton Village Fire Department will soon have the most state-of-the-art equipment on the East End now that the village board has approved the $4.5 million purchase of five new vehicles.

Perfect weather greeted the large crowd attending the East Hampton Town Trustees' 31st annual Largest Clam Contest on Sunday, a sharp rebound to the early-autumn tradition from last year's pared-down, pandemic-afflicted event. 

The League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island, and the North Fork has confirmed three candidates debates next month, all via Zoom.

A New York State law that prohibits advance rent payments greater than one month's rent was amended to exclude seasonal rentals, Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. announced on Sept. 21.

Sag Harbor Village Mayor James Larocca has a vision for the waterfront that includes expanding John Steinbeck Waterfront Park, creating an affordable housing district in the commercial core to the west of Main Street, and maintaining control of a municipal parking lot that Bay Street Theater hopes to use for a new theater.

In the primary race for the Democratic nomination for the First Congressional District seat, Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. has endorsed Bridget Fleming, one of two Suffolk County legislators in the running.

Residents of Montauk spoke enthusiastically last Thursday as the East Hampton Town Board held a public hearing on acquiring the Dutch colonial manor house that once belonged to Carl Fisher, who purchased 10,000 acres in the hamlet in 1925 with the intention of making Montauk the "Miami Beach of the north."

A proposal to build a 50-unit affordable housing complex off Three Mile Harbor Road in East Hampton received a mixed response at an East Hampton Town Planning Board public hearing on Sept. 22, as neighbors of the site expressed concern about traffic congestion and environmental impacts, as others lauded the effort to make more lower-cost apartments available.

New York State Attorney General Letitia James has opted not to apply to the Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, to challenge a decision involving the State Department of Environmental Conservation and an embattled Noyac mine, Sand Land.

Flood insurance rates are about to rise for many policyholders — in some cases, dramatically — while falling for others, when the Federal Emergency Management Agency's new system for setting premiums takes effect tomorrow.

Proposals to create property maintenance requirements for East Hampton Village landowners, to allow the construction of cellars that extend beyond the exterior wall of a residence, and to establish the position of "village constable" will receive public hearings before the village board on Oct. 15.

More than 75 percent of people who responded to a wireless infrastructure poll conducted in East Hampton Town last month described network coverage where they live as poor or nonexistent. 

A plan to revitalize the southern part of Lake Montauk and the beach at the end of South Lake Drive was presented to the East Hampton Town Board on Tuesday.

Representative Lee Zeldin of New York's First Congressional District, who is seeking the Republican Party's nomination for governor of New York, disclosed on Saturday that has been treated for chronic myeloid leukemia. 

Seeking to speed up the process of developing a sewage treatment system for East Hampton Village, the village board on Friday hired a new consultant to oversee the project.  

Voter information tables will be scattered across East Hampton and Southampton Towns and on Shelter Island on Tuesday, which is National Voter Registration Day. 

The U.S. Department of Labor has ordered Dune Resorts and Ocean Bay Management, hotel management companies based in East Hampton, to pay $210,000 in back wages and penalties for violating terms of the H-2B guest worker visa program in 2017 and 2018.

Two years after East Hampton Town banned the intentional release of balloons, the town board will hold a public hearing on amending the town code to ban the sale or distribution of gas or helium-filled balloons.

A panel of three federal appellate judges last week reaffirmed a 2019 decision by United States District Judge Joanna Seybert dismissing all claims against the town and the federal government in connection with erosion caused by the jetties at Montauk Harbor.

Looking back on his first year in office, East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen, who was elected last September, cited the introduction of paid parking, improving the village's infrastructure, creating more community events, and shoring up the village's finances as accomplishments, and the lack of progress on developing a sewer system as a major disappointment. 

The southern pine beetle infestation that has killed thousands of pitch pines in East Hampton Town since 2017 is continuing its destructive march, with thousands more dead and dying trees identified this year.

East Hampton Town has asked a state judge for permission to re-argue its case against digging at a local sand mine, after the State Department of Environmental Conservation allowed the mine to create an artificial lake by digging deeper into groundwater.

Upon expiration of Federal Aviation Administration grant assurances this month, the town will regain control over the airport. It could allow its operation to continue as-is, enact restrictions or curfews on air traffic such as the elimination of commercial flights, close the airport and reopen it with new restrictions in place, or close the airport permanently and put the site to a new use. 

Is Lake Montauk a "holdover" habitat for striped bass, an otherwise migratory species? The question was explored at a meeting of the East Hampton Town Trustees in July, and on Monday the trustees agreed to consider a donation toward the estimated $225,000 cost of a two-year study. While Lake Montauk is not under trustee jurisdiction, said Jim Grimes, "our interest in fisheries very much is."