Government

Citizens for the Preservation of Wainscott, whose petition to force a vote to incorporate a 4.4-square-mile expanse of the hamlet was rejected by East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc last month, will prepare a new petition to present later this year. 

East Hampton Town's water quality technical advisory committee has issued recommendations to the town board to fund four projects using money from the portion of the community preservation fund allocated to water quality improvements.

Representatives from the New York Power Authority pitched the East Hampton Town Board on the New York Energy Manager utility bill integration platform on Tuesday. The subscription service, which allows users to access and view usage and billing data for all utility accounts in one place, is of interest to town officials in part as a tool for identifying and implementing energy saving measures.

An at-times furious argument ran throughout the Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee's meeting Saturday as a resident of the hamlet repeatedly accused the East Hampton Town Board of misleading the State Department of Environmental Conservation and the Suffolk County Health Department as to firefighting foam stored at East Hampton Airport.

Representative Lee Zeldin of New York's First Congressional District on Thursday announced he will seek the Republican nomination in the next gubernatorial election, which is in 2022.

Two members of the East Hampton Town Board expressed wholehearted support for the "decriminalization" of marijuana on Tuesday, one week after the New York State Legislature voted to legalize it for adult recreational use, but said that the board should move slowly in deciding whether to opt out of allowing its retail sale in the town.

Existing armor stones weighing 5 to 10 tons will be removed from about 1,000 linear feet of the sea wall in front of the Lighthouse, to be reused elsewhere. In their place, contractors will install 10-to-15-ton stones.

East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen introduced a new scaled-back proposal to charge for parking in the Reutershan and Schenck parking lots at a village board meeting last Thursday, and the board discussed plans to provide free Wi-Fi in the commercial district, to allow Tesla, the electric car company, to install charging stations in the small municipal parking lot on Osborne Lane, and to lift bans on drinking alcohol and smoking on village beaches.

A proposal that would allow outdoor dining to become a post-pandemic fixture in East Hampton Village's commercial district and at its historic inns was introduced at a village board meeting on Thursday and will be the subject of a public hearing on Friday, April 16. 

The theater provided a first glimpse of architectural renderings of the new complex it will build in Sag Harbor, and announced that Friends of Bay Street is seeking to purchase and tear down 2 Main Street, an adjacent building that is home to the K-Pasa restaurant and the Espresso Da Asporto and the Yummylicious! food shops. 

Nominating petitions for three East Hampton Town Democrats who hope to force a primary election in June — Jeff Bragman, John Whelan, and Rick Drew — were delivered to the Suffolk County Board of Elections last week, and the would-be candidates, two of them incumbents, were upbeat this week about their prospects. 

The East Hampton Town Trustees have given unanimous approval to the Friends of Georgica Pond Foundation, a group of pondfront property owners, to employ an aquatic weed harvester to extract plant material from the pond this summer, continuing an action that in the past has had measurable results in discouraging the harmful algal blooms that have fouled the 380-acre water body over the last several years.

A disagreement about safety has led to a standoff between the Bay Street Theater, which is seeking to hold its summer season in a tent in Steinbeck Park, and the Sag Harbor Village Board, which has thus far nixed the plan, citing concerns about noise, crowding, traffic flow, and other quality-of-life issues.

In a striking reversal of former President Trump's energy policies, the Biden administration announced on Monday a set of actions that would significantly expand offshore wind projects, including the creation of a new wind energy area in the New York Bight and the acceleration of the permit process for other projects along the Atlantic Coast.

State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. has introduced legislation to facilitate the development of community choice aggregation programs in the Long Island Power Authority's service territory. Community choice aggregation, C.C.A., allows a local government to procure electricity and/or natural gas on behalf of its residents, businesses, and municipal accounts from a provider other than its current utility.

The new owner of the Palm restaurant and Huntting Inn in East Hampton Village wants to add a pool with a hot tub, cabanas, and a patio to the property, and to renovate the building, which dates to 1699, to make it accessible to people with disabilities.

New rates for federal flood insurance that were to take effect today are on hold after Senator Charles Schumer of New York, the majority leader, objected. Mr. Schumer said that the rate changes, intended to more accurately reflect risk, would increase costs to residents of Long Island.

The New York State Legislature voted on Tuesday to legalize marijuana for adult recreational use, joining a growing cadre of states that see green in the leaves and flowers of cannabis. Local reaction ranges from concerned to "cautiously optimistic."

The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct has admonished East Hampton Town Justice Lisa R. Rana for “inappropriate political activity” during the 2019 election campaign. The matter was first reported in The East Hampton Star.

The East Hampton Town Board voted unanimously last Thursday, with one qualifier, to amend the town code pertaining to landscaping and gardening by restricting the use of leaf blowers. 

A recent cluster of Covid-19 cases in an East Hampton Town government department "really brings home the point that this is not the time to relax," Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said last Thursday, after Councilman Jeff Bragman asked for a discussion of the cluster at the conclusion of a town board meeting.

East Hampton Village's plan to establish paid parking zones at Main and Two Mile Hollow Beaches and its downtown Reutershan and Schenck parking lots had a virtual public hearing Friday before the village board. License plate-reading technology and an online payment service are planned in future to implement and enforce paid parking.

Representative Lee Zeldin of New York’s First Congressional District, who is mulling a challenge to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo next year, grew testy when asked on Politico Live if he would state unequivocally that Mr. Biden "had won the election." He had insisted for months that the election was illegitimate and voted to overturn the certification of election results in Arizona and Pennsylvania.

As the stratospheric price of real estate on the South Fork soars ever higher and the stock of affordable housing is commensurately diminished, the East Hampton Town Board looked approvingly on a proposal to build up to 56 attached apartments on a recently acquired parcel on Pantigo Road in East Hampton.

While an Assembly budget proposal threatens to take some of the teeth out of an executive order requiring police departments across the state to adopt reform plans by April 1, East End departments are moving toward meeting that deadline.

Long Island could generate more electricity than it consumes with mid to large-scale solar installations on developed sites, including parking lots, commercial building rooftops, and capped landfills, a new report says.

The East Hampton Village Board will hold a public hearing Friday at 11 a.m. on a proposed law that would establish paid parking zones in the village's commercial district and at Main and Two Mile Hollow Beaches.

The proposed South Fork Wind farm is on the New York State Public Service Commission's agenda when it meets Thursday.

In a major step forward for the proposed South Fork Wind farm, the New York State Public Service Commission voted unanimously on Thursday to issue a conditional Certificate of Environmental Compatibility and Public Need, a requirement in order for the project to move ahead.

Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind and Eversource Energy, developers of the proposed South Fork Wind farm, were to commence pavement borings in the roadway on Montauk Highway west of the intersection of Wainscott Northwest Road as early as Monday.