Government

When it comes to East Hampton Town's proposal to swap land it owns elsewhere for Hither Woods parkland in order to build a wastewater treatment plant, Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. and State Senator Anthony Palumbo will “take no action regarding sponsorship of park alienation legislation” until the town has undertaken a full state environmental quality review act analysis, Mr. Thiele wrote this week.

Ending two years of concerted effort, the Southampton Town Board voted on Tuesday to approve the use of community preservation fund money to buy the development rights for the John Steinbeck house on Bluff Lane in Sag Harbor Village, to turn it into a writers retreat.

East Hampton Town lawmakers are taking steps to address a longstanding problem relating to the protection of trees located on town-owned property that are either near or directly on construction sites.

The East Hampton Town Board is set to opt out of a new opportunity for hunters in Suffolk County to shoot turkeys in the month of May — if there’s time.

Following a destructive “Black Cat” ransomware attack on Suffolk County computer systems beginning in September, the Town of East Hampton set out to fast-track its own cybersecurity in December, and on Tuesday approved a $360,000 expenditure to VirtuIT Systems of Nanuet, N.Y.

Having received the unanimous support of the East Hampton Town Democratic Committee, Kathee Burke-Gonzalez will lead the Democrats’ 2023 ticket as its pick for town supervisor. The East Hampton Town Republican Committee has selected Gretta Leon, a newcomer to town politics, to run against Ms. Burke-Gonzalez.

At a Feb. 8 public hearing on the draft environmental impact statement and subdivision plan for the proposed Wainscott Commercial Center, 47 people spoke in person and by phone, almost all of them strongly condemning the project at the former sand mine.

Kathee Burke-Gonzalez will lead the East Hampton Town Democrats' 2023 ticket as their pick for town supervisor, with David Lys, an incumbent councilman, and Tom Flight of Montauk joining her at the top of the ticket.

The East Hampton Town Board is looking to adopt new language in the town code to guide the scope and construction of accessory dwelling units, as part of its push to encourage creation of more affordable housing.

The Trust for Public Land, working with Suffolk County, is moving forward on an ambitious and long-desired plan for a Long Island Greenway that could eventually bless bicyclists with 175 miles of Island-spanning trails, from Manhattan to Montauk.

Stargazing, bocce ball, and a continued landing site for medevac helicopters? Those are just three proposals for the 18.8-acre Amagansett Plains Preserve under a management plan being considered by the East Hampton Town Board.

Amid a flurry of resolutions on Tuesday that saw the East Hampton Town Board approve the services of myriad lawyers and law firms, there was one that will increase last year’s cap for legal services paid to Cooley L.L.P., one of its outside airport legal advisers, by about half a million dollars.

A day before the public descended on LTV Studios for a long-awaited hearing on the Wainscott Commercial Center subdivision, the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals had a hearing of its own Tuesday to consider whether the proposal would need a special permit as a planned industrial park.

The East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals voted unanimously to deny a second request by Farrell Builders for a natural resources special permit that would have allowed the developer to demolish a beach cottage at 175 Atlantic Avenue in Amagansett and build a new 3,240-square-foot residence, pool, and accessory structures in the dunes abutting the beach parking lot.

A public hearing on the proposed Wainscott Commercial Center, a 70-acre mixed-use development, is set for Wednesday at LTV Studios, at 75 Industrial Road in Wainscott.

With a 16-unit affordable housing development in East Hampton, the town hopes to put measures in place that ensure the houses there remain affordable well into the future, including a cap on the size of houses and accessory structures and a prohibition on pools or playing courts.

Last Thursday, Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. reintroduced a bill that aims to “address the statewide affordable housing crisis and incentivize property owners to construct accessory dwelling units where such units are permitted,” formally known as the Accessory Dwelling Unit Incentive Act.

Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. sounded optimistic last week as he addressed a crowd in the Sag Harbor Cinema, saying he’s looking forward to a change five years from now in the East End’s affordable housing landscape.

At 6 a.m. on Jan. 27, three hours before East Hampton Village opened in-person sales of its nonresident beach parking permits to town residents, 20 people in lawn chairs were already waiting at the Emergency Services Building for their chance at one of the coveted $500 passes. By 6 p.m., they were sold out.

The East Hampton Town Board has three public hearings on the schedule for this week's regular board meeting on Thursday at 2 p.m. -- new fees for projects in urban renewal areas, the acquisition of a Gerard Drive property with money from the community preservation fund, and a hearing on easements granted at a Three Mile Harbor-Hog Creek Road property. 

Money from the American Rescue Plan Act, passed last March, will be deployed to Montauk’s commercial fishing fleet to assist with the onshore storage of their gear.

Dave Calone, a former chairman of the Suffolk County Planning Commission who has a background in law and business, is officially the Suffolk County Democratic Committee’s candidate of choice for county executive. Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman, who told The Southampton Press late last year that he was considering running for county executive, confirmed Sunday that he has opted not to run.

East Hampton Village sent out approximately 2,000 surveys to village residents asking three questions: Are you in favor of installing pickleball courts in Herrick Park? Are you in favor of Wiborg’s Beach being protected by lifeguards? Are you in favor of having a dog park in Herrick Park? The results are in.

Representative Nicholas LaLota of the First Congressional District had quite a wild ride in his opening days as a freshman Republican in the 118th Congress. There was the epic and very public battle to name Kevin McCarthy as house speaker — and then there was George Santos, the newly elected representative from Nassau County whose résumé turned out to be a pack of lies and who now faces ongoing opprobrium from almost all quarters.

Organizacion Latino-Americana of Eastern Long Island will receive $600,000 from Suffolk County over the next three years for opioid abuse prevention work among young people, the group announced Friday.

At the recommendation of its project engineer, D.B. Bennett, the East Hampton Town Board has rejected the latest bids to complete Phase III restoration work at Montauk’s historic Second House and museum.

As a proposed plan to build a wastewater treatment plant in Montauk’s Hither Woods moves forward into what is sure to be a headline-grabbing 2023 of ongoing rancor and debate among a growing cadre of opponents, one tidbit has emerged from the flurry of meetings, emails, and presentations that have been associated with the proposal put forth by the East Hampton Town Board: To date, no detailed design specs of the proposed facility have been put into the public record by the town, even as a proposed conceptual diagram by the engineering firm that created it has become a key document motivating sewage plant detractors.

Those interested in preserving John Steinbeck’s Sag Harbor home as a writing center must have been buoyed on Tuesday afternoon as the proposal coasted through a public hearing during a Southampton Town Board meeting, with nary a single comment against it.

Ongoing litigation in federal court between East Hampton Town and East Hampton Village over the use and storage of controversial firefighting foam at the town airport by the village’s Fire Department remains in limbo even as the State Department of Environmental Conservation “continues to oversee the town’s remedial investigation” at the site, the agency said this week.

The East Hampton Town Board approved a suite of fee increases last Thursday that will affect about 60 services provided through the architectural review board, the zoning board of appeals, and the planning board.