Government

A week after Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc presented East Hampton Town’s tentative 2022 budget, he has proposed a modification that would see a regrading of almost 100 town employees and commensurate wage increases averaging 5 percent.

Residents who use the long-term lot off Lumber Lane are finding the daily charge too costly, Mayor Jerry Larsen said.

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.

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 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Burdened with outdated fire trucks for more than a decade, the East Hampton Village Fire Department will soon have the most state-of-the-art equipment on the East End now that the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. 

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.

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.

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."

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

A town board discussion about amending the town code governing ethics turned into a furious argument among members on Tuesday, largely over a May 7 event that honored pandemic frontline workers and food pantry staff but drew criticism from the town's board of ethics.

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.

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.