Government

"Make no mistake, East Hampton Town Board, we will not take this sitting down," Jacki Esposito said on Monday evening, as around 50 of her Springs neighbors murmured in agreement during a backyard meeting on Crandall Street, where a campaign to thwart the town board's proposal to site a 185-foot monopole for emergency and wireless communications equipment in an adjacent wooded area was gathering strength.

Nighttime paving of Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton and Springs will begin next week, the Suffolk County Department of Public Works announced this week. 

It seemed that few, if any, were happy when the East Hampton Town Board finally concluded a six-hour meeting that saw scathing criticism from residents on a proposal to erect a 185-foot emergency and cellphone communication tower on a wooded parcel in a residential area in Springs.

Following a public hearing last month, the board voted to acquire three parcels on Gardiner's Bay near Albert's Landing in Amagansett, together comprising about five acres of vacant waterfront property. Two were bought with community preservation fund money; the third was donated by its owner, who has also pledged a sizable amount toward the purchase of the other two. 

East Hampton Town could convert all of its streetlights to light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, before next Memorial Day weekend, realizing both energy and cost savings as well as improved visibility, less glare, and reduced light reaching nearby properties.

Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee members discussed real estates advertising with "extensive computer-generated imaging of very oversized houses and landscapes," suggesting to prospective buyers that plans and permits are already in hand when they are not. 

By a split 3-2 vote, Riverhead became the first East End town to pave the way for retail sales of adult-use recreational marijuana and cafes for on site consumption. "If we don't regulate this, the black market is going to thrive, and the black market is not where we want people to buy it; that's where you start having issues," a town councilman said.

The site plan for a 50-unit affordable housing complex the East Hampton Housing Authority will build off Three Mile Harbor Road received a positive initial review from the East Hampton Town Planning Board.

A tagging study could explain where juvenile bass are coming from.

An overhaul of East Hampton Town's emergency communications system is well underway, but additional towers are still needed for it to achieve comprehensive coverage. Meanwhile, the town's overtaxed wireless communications infrastructure is causing poor-to-nonexistent cellphone service in Springs and other areas.

Board members and the public addressed the lingering tension between the village's new mayor, James Larocca, and Bob Plumb, a trustee who had supported former mayor Kathleen Mulcahy's bid for re-election and clashed with Mr. Larocca during the campaign

New York State has $110 million available to fund community-based mobility and environmental initiatives. The money will support projects focusing on safety and accessibility in public transportation as part of the Transportation Alternatives Program and Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program. 

After being sworn in as mayor of Sag Harbor Village at a ceremony in John Steinbeck Waterfront Park on Tuesday, James Larocca asked residents to leave the "hard-fought election" behind them and rally together to focus on issues such as protecting the waterfront and water quality, developing affordable housing, and addressing the village's longstanding lack of parking.

Representative Lee Zeldin of New York's First Congressional District is the Republican Party's presumptive nominee for governor of New York, following the state party's straw poll of county Republican committees last week. The congressman, who declared his candidacy in April, won more than 85 percent of the vote.

At the start of last Thursday's meeting, Mayor Jerry Larsen apologized for the village's failure to put out American flags on June 19 in honor of the first observance of Juneteenth — a day that commemorates the end of slavery in the nation — as a federal holiday.

In this closer-to-normal summer than during pandemic-impacted 2020, many residents are pleading with the town board to close the airport or severely restrict flights when Federal Aviation Administration grant assurances expire in September.

The Southampton Town Board approved a ban on helium and gas-filled balloons on June 22, and is giving businesses a year to pivot away from them before it goes into effect.

A public hearing on a proposed code amendment that would prohibit trucks greater than nine tons from a stretch of Accabonac Road in East Hampton drew three speakers urging its adoption, and one opposing it, as the East Hampton Town Board met in person for the first time in 16 months last Thursday.

The New York State Public Service Commission will hold a virtual public statement hearing on Wednesday at 1 p.m. regarding a petition filed by the developers of the South Fork Wind farm. The deadline for registering for public comment is Tuesday at 3 p.m.

An ongoing boom in the real estate market produced nearly $94 million in revenue for the Peconic Bay Region Community Preservation Fund in the first five months of 2021, the highest five-month total in the program's history, Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. announced last week.

The public will have a chance to comment on the "revisioning" of East Hampton Airport, in person or remotely, at a town board work session on Tuesday at 11 a.m. The meeting will be broadcast live on LTV and via its website.

The Suffolk Board of Elections certified the results of East Hampton Town's June 22 Democratic primary on Tuesday, with little change to the outcome.

After absentee ballots had been counted on Tuesday, Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc, who is seeking a third term, had held off a challenge by Councilman Jeff Bragman, winning the primary by 1,102 to 864 votes, or 56 percent to 44 percent.

The East Hampton Town in-person meetings will resume at Town Hall today, with a 2 p.m. town board meeting, but some officials, citing the more contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus and compromised immune systems, are not ready to return to the format.

The site, at climatechangeresources.org, is to serve as a one-stop portal for anyone seeking information and wanting to take action on climate change. It was founded by Lena Tabori, an East Hampton resident and a member of the town's energy sustainability advisory committee, and Mike Shatzkin, a media consultant.

In an organized act of civil disobedience, East Hampton baymen and their supporters drove a caravan of 39 trucks onto what is popularly known as Truck Beach on Napeague on Sunday morning to assert what they believe is their right to use, and drive on, the ocean beach there. 

East Hampton Town will buy 32.6 acres of farmland in Amagansett from the Bistrian family using $28 million from the community preservation fund, the town announced on Tuesday. The acquisition, following years of discussion and negotiation, is the town's largest of farmland to date.

"I'm excited, you can tell," Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming said about the new Suffolk Transit On-Demand service along Noyac Road from Sag Harbor to Southampton Village. The project has been at the heart of Ms. Fleming's work since her election in 2015, shortly after which eight bus routes were cut from service because of budgetary constraints.

The East Hampton Town Board approved the immediate addition of sand to the ocean beaches at Ditch Plain in Montauk as well as to the hamlet's downtown beach following a Memorial Day weekend northeaster that rendered the former beach unsafe and partially exposed geotextile bags installed to stabilize the downtown beach several years ago.

Free Wi-Fi is up and running at East Hampton Village's Main Beach and is coming soon to its other beaches and commercial district but with a requirement that did not sit well with two village trustees.

The East Hampton Town Board's plan to begin implementing recommendations from the Wainscott hamlet study, adopted and incorporated into the comprehensive plan last year, got off to a bumpy start with last Thursday's public hearing on a proposed amendment to the zoning code that would reclassify a stretch of Montauk Highway in the commercial district from central business to a single-family residence designation with limited business overlay.