Government

The New York State Department of Transportation will begin repairing and resurfacing Route 114, from where it intersects with Stephen Hand's Path in East Hampton Village to the South Ferry terminal on North Haven, in the fall.

The East Hampton Village Board approved large increases in the cost of several permit fees, and discussed a plan to charge for additional hours of parking in the commercial district. Drivers could pay for the extra time via a smartphone app, and the fees collected could be used to help cover the cost of a centralize sewer system.

The air quality in a unit of the Manor House complex, a new affordable housing development on Accabonac Road in East Hampton that has been beset by safety problems, has significantly improved after modifications made to the heating, ventilation, and cooling system reduced the levels of the volatile organic compounds previously detected there, according a report Friday from FPM Group, an engineering firm hired by East Hampton Town.

Governor Cuomo and Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone both said they expect another surge in Covid-19 infections in the 10 days following the holiday, and looked ahead to what they each said they hope will be a more normal Thanksgiving next year.

A city planner hired by Sag Harbor Village to help develop a new zoning code for the village's waterfront area described its existing zoning regulations as "troubling," "puzzling," and "not up to the task" of guiding sensible development, and offered several suggestions for improvements at a board meeting on Monday.

As it was expected to do, the East Hampton Town Board adopted the town's 2021 budget last Thursday, along with a number of resolutions aimed at projects to improve water quality in Montauk. The board also appointed members to new committees and an advisory group and scheduled a public hearing on outdoor dining legislation for next Thursday. 

Orsted, the parent company of Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind, has announced a partnership with North America's Building Trades Union, which represents more than three million craft professionals. The partnership will create a national agreement designed to transition American union construction workers into the offshore wind industry in collaboration with the leadership of the 14 NABTU affiliates and the A.F.L.-C.I.O.

With approximately 100,000 paper ballots remaining to be counted, work came to a halt at the Suffolk County Board of Elections on Saturday after a worker tested positive for Covid-19.

The count of absentee, affidavit, and unscanned ballots began last Thursday. Newsday reported on Saturday that the part-time employee had shown symptoms of the virus before the positive test, and that the County Health Department had ordered seven other employees into quarantine.

The encampment site was chosen because of its proximity to two Shinnecock billboards, one unfinished, that have become symbols of contention between tribespeople and the town and state governments. The Shinnecocks say that the tribal land the billboards sit on is exempt from local, county, and state regulation, but the town and state have argued otherwise. 

President-elect Joseph Biden is expected to nominate Antony Blinken, who has a connection to East Hampton, to the cabinet position of secretary of state. Mr. Blinken's father is Donald Blinken of Lily Pond Lane in East Hampton Village, who is a former United States Ambassador to Hungary.

Ideas for addressing and mitigating climate change came fast at Monday's meeting of East Hampton Town's energy sustainability committee, with with Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, the town board's liaison, listing potential capital projects, including more solar arrays, pollinator gardens underneath them, and closed-loop geothermal heating and cooling systems for town buildings.

The count of absentee ballots sent by voters in New York's First Congressional District is expected to begin Thursday, an official at the Suffolk County Board of Elections said on Tuesday. 

Plans to create a wastewater management district for downtown Montauk took another step forward on Tuesday when an official from the East Hampton Town Natural Resources Department offered recommendations for the hiring of consulting and engineering services for the project. 

The activist group Progressive East End Reformers has set Dec. 1 at 3 p.m. as a tentative date to mobilize to support President-elect Joe Biden's apparent Electoral College victory. The group's gathering would take place at the Bridgehampton Community House.

Adopting a building construction code that would mandate greater energy efficiency and solar and electric vehicle-charging readiness would move East Hampton closer to the goal of achieving its energy needs from renewable sources and help New York State realize the steep emissions cuts mandated by the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, the town board was told on Tuesday.

The large lift boat that is conducting geotechnical survey work off the ocean beach at the end of Beach Lane in Wainscott is to move closer to shore on Wednesday evening, a spokeswoman for the developers of the proposed South Fork Wind farm said.

People visiting ocean beaches from East Hampton to Sagaponack on Sunday were surprised to behold the Loredo Brazos, a massive barge standing out of the water just offshore at the end of Beach Lane in Wainscott. The barge and a second vessel are conducting survey work for a transmission cable for the proposed South Fork Wind farm, to be situated approximately 35 miles off Montauk.

As soon as Monday, Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind and Eversource Energy will conduct geotechnical assessments that will involve soil borings and measurements of the sea floor off the ocean beach at the end of Beach Lane in Wainscott.

A reconfiguration of East Hampton Village government in which Marcos Baladron, the new village administrator, relinquished the post's former duties of clerk and treasurer, and Pamela Bennett, the deputy clerk, and Dominique Cummings, the deputy treasurer, assumed those offices respectively, was approved by the village board last Thursday. 

The East Hampton Town Board adopted a flurry of resolutions last Thursday that enable the town to implement a community choice aggregation program, revise its music entertainment permit, and, on the recommendation of its water quality technical advisory committee, allocate money for multiple remediation projects.

Citizens for the Preservation of Wainscott, a group formed in opposition to the plan to land the proposed South Fork Wind farm's export cable at the ocean beach at the end of Beach Lane in that hamlet, shared its views with the Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee on Saturday.

Reaction on the South Fork was muted, at least publicly, when the Associated Press and major news networks announced on Saturday that former Vice President Joe Biden had won the presidential election, voters having rejected the norm-shattering reign of President Trump after one term.

Though Representative Lee Zeldin has a commanding lead in his re-election campaign in New York's First Congressional District, Nancy Goroff, his Democratic Party challenger, has yet to concede, telling supporters on Sunday that the contest is far from over. The same is true in the race to replace State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle.

Items such as a nearly $500,000 police communications van, a $1.3 million tower ladder fire truck, and nearly $5 million for the purchase of public works vehicles and infrastructure improvements are on the lisst to be included in the village's five-year capital plan. 

Open-loop geothermal systems for a typical 2,000-square-foot house require about 15 gallons per minute, or more than 21,000 gallons per day of continuous water usage. Houses larger than 10,000 square feet can have systems that use in excess of 50 gallons per minute, or 72,000 gallons per day.

One year after the last election and one year ahead of the next one, the East Hampton Town Trustees took up the question of how the nine-member governing body is chosen, holding the first formal discussion of staggered election cycles on Monday.

With Suffolk County reporting a steady increase in the Covid-19 positivity rate, East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen announced on Monday that Village Hall will be closed to the public starting Thursday and through the end of the year.

If you're going to talk to someone in the aftermath of what's shaping up to be the most confounding presidential election in two decades, Julian Zelizer is your man.

The proposed South Fork Wind farm's export cable will not come ashore at Atlantic Avenue Beach in Amagansett, the clerk of the East Hampton Town Trustees flatly told the New York State Public Service Commission last week.

The East Hampton Town Board is expected to vote today to begin the process of adopting a community choice aggregation program. Community choice aggregation, or 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 the incumbent utility.