Government

The federal Department of the Interior announced on Friday a proposed sale for offshore wind development on the outer continental shelf in the New York Bight, an area of shallow waters between Long Island and the New Jersey coast.

Turnout was light last weekend at Windmill Village on Accabonac Road in East Hampton, the site of early voting ahead of Tuesday's Democratic Party primary, in which there are races for the nomination for town supervisor, town board, and town trustee.

James Larocca, a Sag Harbor Village trustee mounting his first bid for mayor, pulled off an upset on Tuesday, unseating the first-term incumbent, Kathleen Mulcahy, with 379 votes to Ms. Mulcahy's 357. Aidan Corish and Robert Plumb, the incumbents running for the two open seats on the village board, were re-elected.

As throngs of people in East Hampton Village's commercial district pass the time shopping, dining, and doing errands, the village's high-tech parking enforcement vehicle scans the streets to make sure they haven't overstayed their welcome. Since the village started charging for parking in the Reutershan and Schenck lots last month, humans have been confused about the regulations, but the computer is programmed to know all.

On Tuesday, exactly one year, three months, and one week since the day that Suffolk County's first Covid-19 patient was admitted to Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced that more than 70 percent of adult New Yorkers have received at least one vaccine shot and lifted most of the remaining pandemic restrictions on retail stores, restaurants, offices, gyms and fitness centers, amusement and family entertainment centers, hair salons and barber shops, and personal care businesses.

Several members of the public called in last Thursday to support a plan to change the zoning classification of a Pantigo Road, East Hampton, parcel to allow an affordable housing development. Two other callers to the virtual town board meeting, however, voiced concerns about its impact on neighboring properties. 

"Don't fix what's not broken" was the message from several dog owners calling in to Tuesday's town board meeting about a 42-acre town property on Three Mile Harbor Road in Springs that is heavily used as a dog park.

Unlike the Democratic candidates for East Hampton Town supervisor, the three Democratic candidates vying for two seats on the East Hampton Town Board offered nary a contrary word during two debates last week. Rather, they professed a raft of similar goals and philosophies and offered only positive messages in their respective pitches to Democratic voters. 

East Hampton Town officials are enforcing a prohibition of vehicles on a 4,000-foot stretch of ocean beach on Napeague popularly known as Truck Beach, following Friday's injunction issued by the New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division reiterating its February affirmation that the property owners do, in fact, own the beach and that residents have no inherent right to drive or park vehicles there. 

East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc and Councilman Jeff Bragman, who is challenging him in a Democratic Party primary on June 22, argued at length about the since-vacated 2019 settlement with the owner of Duryea's in Montauk during a debate on Saturday sponsored by the East Hampton Group for Good Government, Mr. Bragman charging the supervisor with "at best misjudgment, at worst improper conduct" in the matter. 

Legislation to facilitate the development of a community choice aggregation program in the Long Island Power Authority's service territory has passed the New York State Assembly and Senate, and will be sent to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo for his signature. Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., who sponsored the legislation, announced its passage in the Assembly last Thursday and in the Senate on Monday.

Noyac residents contacted The Star on Monday to report seeing a chain across the entrance to the Sand Land mine -- with activity there apparently on hold -- after Southampton Town came down with a stop-work order on Friday. The order followed a state appeals court ruling the previous week that voided its most recent permit. 

East Hampton Village is no longer issuing daily parking permits on weekends for Main and Two Mile Hollow Beaches. Monthly passes for the beaches are nearly sold out for July and August, and halting the sale of daily permits is a way of ensuring ample parking for village residents and those who bought season-long and monthly passes.

Truck traffic has surged on Accabonac Road since the Long Island Rail Road trestle near its southern end was raised, residents of the road have told the East Hampton Town Board, and the effect, they say, is a diminished quality of life, between the noise and the large vehicles' threat to the safety of pedestrians, joggers, cyclists, children, and pets. 

Sag Harbor Village Mayor Kathleen Mulcahy, who is running for a second term in Tuesday's election, and James Larocca, a trustee making his first mayoral bid, offered starkly different opinions on paid parking, a proposed waterfront zoning code, and the most suitable location for Bay Street Theater's new home in a contentious debate on Friday.

The three candidates running for two open Sag Harbor Village Board seats on Tuesday shared their visions for the new Bay Street Theater complex and offered plans to improve water quality, rein in development, increase access to parking, and reduce traffic congestion in a debate on June 4. 

The Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council formally concluded on June 2 that plans for the South Fork Wind farm, including its 12 turbines and a $12 million fisheries compensation package, are consistent with the state's Ocean Special Area Management Plan.

Suffolk County Legislator Kara Hahn has announced her intention to seek the Democratic Party's nomination to represent New York's First Congressional District. She joins a fellow Democratic legislator, Bridget Fleming, who announced a bid for the seat last month, and already has the endorsement of last year's nominee.

The recent introduction of paid parking in East Hampton Village has led to confusion about the use of the ParkMobile payment app.

Three weeks before a Democratic Party primary in which East Hampton Town Councilman Jeff Bragman will challenge Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc, a furious argument broke out among the town board, with Mr. Bragman seizing on a letter from the town's board of ethics that criticized town board members for having taken guests to a May 7 event at the Clubhouse in Wainscott honoring pandemic frontline workers and food pantry staff and featuring a performance by the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Jon Bon Jovi.

Aidan Corish and Bob Plumb, Sag Harbor Village Trustees who are running to keep their seats in the June 15 village election, talked this week about their separate priorities. Mr. Corish, Mr. Plumb, and a first-time candidate, Bayard Fenwick, are vying for two seats on the village board.

East Hampton Town and the Marram Montauk resort, the former Atlantic Terrace motel located on the ocean beach near the hamlet's downtown, have settled a lawsuit brought by the town last year. The case stemmed from use of unapproved bar areas and a snack bar that the town said had been converted to a full-service restaurant without approval.

The East Hampton Town Board is expected to approve use of an aquatic weed harvester in Georgica Pond on Thursday. Used in the pond in the summers of 2016, 2017, and 2018, and on a limited basis last year, the harvester is part of a multifaceted effort to alleviate conditions that have promoted blooms of toxic cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) that have fouled the pond every summer for almost a decade.

Court records in a legal tangle between East Hampton Town and the owner of several Montauk resort and restaurant properties outline a series of secret conversations kept out of public view until now.

New legislation prohibits seaplanes from taking off, landing, taxiing, mooring, or taking on or discharging passengers on or from town beaches and waterways, trustee waters and beaches, or town docks or floats. The prohibition also applies to helicopters, making exceptions for Gardiner's Island, East Hampton Airport, and the Montauk Airport.

The East Hampton Town Board unanimously passed a resolution in support of a home rule request concerning companion bills in the New York State Legislature that would stagger the terms of office for the nine-member town trustees and increase the trustees' terms from two to four years.

Sag Harbor Village Mayor Kathleen Mulcahy, who is running for a second term in the June 15 election, touted her leadership during the pandemic, and said that if re-elected she would continue her efforts to improve water quality and protect the village's waterfront from overdevelopment, and would initiate a village-wide traffic study. Ms. Mulcahy is running against James Larocca, a trustee making his first bid for mayor.

The East Hampton Independence Party submitted nominating petitions with around 500 signatures to the Suffolk County Board of Elections last week, far more than the 277 valid signatures required in order for its candidates to appear on the Nov. 2 ballot.

The League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island, and the North Fork will sponsor three virtual candidates debates for town and village elections next week.

A proposal to reconfigure parking on portions of Newtown Lane and in parts of East Hampton Village's downtown Reutershan parking lot from parallel to angled, drive-in spaces was approved in a party-line vote. The lines will be restriped in the coming weeks, as soon as the temperature allows, Mayor Jerry Larsen said.