Government

For the last 20 years, people have slipped into Accabonac Harbor behind a small stand of cedar trees next to the Springs General Store, a Town of East Hampton-historical site. Sage Island, Wood Tick Island, the Merrill Lake Sanctuary, and Louse Point were all just a paddle away. No longer.

In the contempt hearing in which property owners along the stretch of Napeague oceanfront popularly known as Truck Beach claimed that East Hampton Town failed to comply with last February’s New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division decision that barred driving there, Ed Michels, the town’s chief harbormaster, testified that the best he could do was block access at Marine Boulevard and advise people of the directive.

Trenching and vegetation removal has begun along a debated cable route.

There is a new candidate for the Democratic Party’s nomination to represent New York’s First Congressional District, a consequence of the recent redrawing of the state’s Congressional districts that followed the decennial census.

Jackie Gordon, a United States Army veteran and teacher, had been a candidate for the Democrats’ nomination to represent New York’s Second District this year. She ran unsuccessfully in the Second District in 2020, losing to the Republican candidate, Andrew Garbarino, by seven percentage points.

The East Hampton Village Board acknowledged issues with the way nonresident beach parking permits were sold this year. The permits, which went on sale at midnight on Feb. 1, sold out in only 11 hours, a record. This rankled many residents of East Hampton Town, who will be unable to park this summer at their favorite beaches.

Amid the East Hampton Town Board’s planning to shift East Hampton Airport to a restricted, “private-use” facility, some residents concerned about diversion of aircraft to other parts of the town have focused their attention on a helipad at the Bistrian Materials supply yard on Springs-Fireplace Road.

The East Hampton Town Board voted last Thursday to postpone the planned temporary closure of East Hampton Airport and its reopening as a new, private-use airport following an executive session to discuss the plan, which has incited furious opposition and multiple lawsuits by interests from airport users and the aviation industry to residents who fear diversion of aircraft to their neighborhoods.

East Hampton Village homeowners who rent out their houses for 120 days or less annually will benefit from an amendment to the village code, unanimously adopted by the village board on Friday, that will allow them to collect the rental fees in one lump sum, meaning that they will no longer have to worry about tenants who attempt to terminate a rental early, or those who don’t make payments.

The Southampton and Brookhaven Town Democratic Committees will co-host a virtual forum featuring the Democratic candidates to represent New York’s First Congressional District on Thursday at 7 p.m. via Zoom video conference.

The East Hampton Town Board voted on Thursday to postpone the planned temporary closure of East Hampton Airport to May 17. The planned reopening date is now May 19.

The struggle over the future of East Hampton Airport intensified on Tuesday with the filing of lawsuits seeking to prevent the town from carrying out its plan to close the airport on Feb. 28 and reopen a new, private-use airport on the site on March 4 with a prior-permission-required framework, under which advance clearance is required before a pilot may use the airport.

Southampton Town’s planning board voted unanimously on Feb. 10 to accept a pre-submission application from Verizon Wireless for a 153-foot communications tower on Sag Harbor Village property directly adjacent to the Long Pond Greenbelt.

A New York State mandate that people wear masks or show proof of vaccination at restaurants, gyms, theaters, offices, and stores was lifted last Thursday. The decision, Gov. Kathy Hochul said at the time, was motivated by improving Covid-19 measurements, including the percentage of tests coming back positive, hospitalizations, the number of cases per 100,000 people, and vaccinations.

Fishermen and other residents of East Hampton Town who have been prevented from accessing a 4,000-foot stretch of Napeague ocean beach commonly known as Truck Beach have a new ally in an outside attorney for the town trustees.

With the looming closure of East Hampton Airport and a plan to open a new one as a private-use facility with restrictions on flight activity, a provider of medical helicopters and fixed-wing air ambulance services has written to Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc to express its "extreme concern" about the plan.

Gov. Kathy Hochul and federal Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland were among the dignitaries on hand at LTV Studios in Wainscott on Friday for the ceremonial groundbreaking on the South Fork Wind farm, New York's first offshore wind farm, to be situated approximately 35 miles off Montauk Point.

The districts of New York State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. and Senator Anthony Palumbo will both grow smaller following the State Legislature’s vote last week to redraw state legislative and congressional district boundaries.

A new, online portal through which East Hampton Town residents could interface with town staff in departments like planning, code enforcement, animal control, and the town clerk is among the projects in a first draft of the town’s 2022 capital plan, the budget officer told the town board on Tuesday.

In the race for the Democratic Party’s nomination to represent New York’s First Congressional District, Suffolk County Legislators Bridget Fleming and Kara Hahn have each picked up new endorsements.

With control of the United States House of Representatives potentially hanging in the balance, the New York State Legislature voted last week to redraw the state’s congressional districts in a way that makes a Democratic gain of three seats more likely.

There will be no temporary cell tower in the Redwood area of Sag Harbor, at least not for now.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has announced a virtual public information session next Thursday from 2 to 4 p.m. about a new water quality study of Long Island Sound embayments.

“Why are they putting a tower in a hole?” Dai Dayton, president of the friends of the Long Pond Greenbelt, asked when reached over the phone about a Verizon Wireless plan to place a communications tower between the Sag Harbor Village impound lot and Southampton Town-leased transfer station to the north along the Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike.

One hundred and sixty-five rooftop solar systems have been installed in East Hampton Town since the Solarize East Hampton program was started in 2018, with 63 completed in 2021, the town announced last week.

“We want to get this right, rather than get it fast,” said Sag Harbor Mayor James Larocca, speaking at Tuesday night’s village board meeting of the village’s new affordable housing initiative.

Effective Thursday, a New York State mandate that people wear masks or show proof of vaccination at restaurants, gyms, theaters, offices and stores will be lifted, but individual businesses and municipal governments will be able to set their own policies.

The East Hampton Town Board has hit turbulence on its plan to briefly close East Hampton Airport and reopen it four days later as a private-use facility with restrictions on flight activity, following its receipt of a letter from the Federal Aviation Administration warning that “it may take approximately two years to restore the current capability to the airport if it is deactivated” depending on potential environmental analyses.

Because of a significant decline in demand for Covid-19 testing, East Hampton Town’s test site at the former Child Development Center of the Hamptons on Stephen Hand’s Path, operated by CareONE Concierge, has reduced its hours of operation.

The last 15 years have seen an almost 300-percent increase in the linear feet of bulkheads in East Hampton Town, a 600-percent increase in the linear feet of docks, and a significant increase in rock revetments in the same span, the town trustees were told last week.

East Hampton Town has been awarded a $250,000 grant for the installation of 20 Level-2 electric vehicle charging ports from New York State’s Drive Clean Rebate program.