Government

A dozen or so Springs residents, along with the hamlet's board of fire commissioners and attorneys for various property owners, protested to the East Hampton Town Board Tuesday over its plan to site a 185-foot monopole for emergency and personal wireless communications in a residential area.

The terms of East Hampton Town's nine trustees will increase from two to four years, with the five candidates receiving the most votes in November serving the first four-year terms.

After another barrage of complaints about East Hampton Airport from fed-up residents from the South Fork to Queens -- with one describing a region in "full 'Apocolypse Now' mode" because of incessant helicopter noise -- the East Hampton Town Board got a sense of what can and cannot be done with respect to redeveloping or repurposing the property should it decide to close the airport or restrict flights when Federal Aviation Administration grant assurances expire in September.

While he continued to maintain that he had done nothing wrong, an increasingly beleaguered Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo faced calls for his resignation from lawmakers at all levels after State Attorney General Letitia James announced Tuesday that an independent investigation had concluded that he had "sexually harassed current and former state employees in violation of both federal and state laws."

Consultants to the East Hampton Town Board will deliver a presentation on East Hampton Airport’s environmental conditions and planning and zoning during the board’s work session on Tuesday at 11 a.m.

The long-running dispute between East Hampton Town and the owner of Duryea's Lobster Deck on Fort Pond Bay in Montauk continues, with the most recent focus an effort to expand a dock and a contract with a boat share company.

A new downsized plan for an emergency room annex Stony Brook Southampton Hospital will build in East Hampton received a mixed reaction from East Hampton Town Planning Board members, who expressed concern about traffic snarls the facility could create.

East Hampton Town has gotten a $5,600 grant from the Preservation League of New York State to fund a cultural resource survey of cemeteries. 

Sag Harbor Village Mayor James Larocca announced an initiative to develop affordable housing on Tuesday. "Preserving, protecting, and nourishing the community requires making it possible for our young to be able to afford to live and prosper here," he said in a statement. 

"Make no mistake, East Hampton Town Board, we will not take this sitting down," Jacki Esposito said on Monday evening, as around 50 of her Springs neighbors murmured in agreement during a backyard meeting on Crandall Street, where a campaign to thwart the town board's proposal to site a 185-foot monopole for emergency and wireless communications equipment in an adjacent wooded area was gathering strength.

Anna Throne-Holst, a former Southampton Town supervisor and the Democratic Party's 2016 candidate to represent New York's First Congressional District, has endorsed Suffolk County Legislator Kara Hahn in a bid for the Democratic nomination in 2022.

The East Hampton Town Trustees approved a special season and designated areas for harvesting soft clams by a technique known as powering, or churning, last month.

Two lawsuits involving local sand mines, one in Noyac and one in East Hampton, are making their way through the state court system, with two recent rulings appearing to conflict with each other.

A notice from Eversource Energy, which is developing the wind farm with Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind, said that 23 test borings will be made using a track-mounted drill rig at locations along the Long Island Rail Road right of way between Wainscott Northwest Road and Cove Hollow Road.

It seemed that few, if any, were happy when the East Hampton Town Board finally concluded a six-hour meeting that saw scathing criticism from residents on a proposal to erect a 185-foot emergency and cellphone communication tower on a wooded parcel in a residential area in Springs.

Nighttime paving of Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton and Springs will begin next week, the Suffolk County Department of Public Works announced this week. 

Following a public hearing last month, the board voted to acquire three parcels on Gardiner's Bay near Albert's Landing in Amagansett, together comprising about five acres of vacant waterfront property. Two were bought with community preservation fund money; the third was donated by its owner, who has also pledged a sizable amount toward the purchase of the other two. 

Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee members discussed real estates advertising with "extensive computer-generated imaging of very oversized houses and landscapes," suggesting to prospective buyers that plans and permits are already in hand when they are not. 

A tagging study could explain where juvenile bass are coming from.

Board members and the public addressed the lingering tension between the village's new mayor, James Larocca, and Bob Plumb, a trustee who had supported former mayor Kathleen Mulcahy's bid for re-election and clashed with Mr. Larocca during the campaign

An overhaul of East Hampton Town's emergency communications system is well underway, but additional towers are still needed for it to achieve comprehensive coverage. Meanwhile, the town's overtaxed wireless communications infrastructure is causing poor-to-nonexistent cellphone service in Springs and other areas.

The site plan for a 50-unit affordable housing complex the East Hampton Housing Authority will build off Three Mile Harbor Road received a positive initial review from the East Hampton Town Planning Board.

By a split 3-2 vote, Riverhead became the first East End town to pave the way for retail sales of adult-use recreational marijuana and cafes for on site consumption. "If we don't regulate this, the black market is going to thrive, and the black market is not where we want people to buy it; that's where you start having issues," a town councilman said.

East Hampton Town could convert all of its streetlights to light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, before next Memorial Day weekend, realizing both energy and cost savings as well as improved visibility, less glare, and reduced light reaching nearby properties.

In this closer-to-normal summer than during pandemic-impacted 2020, many residents are pleading with the town board to close the airport or severely restrict flights when Federal Aviation Administration grant assurances expire in September.

After being sworn in as mayor of Sag Harbor Village at a ceremony in John Steinbeck Waterfront Park on Tuesday, James Larocca asked residents to leave the "hard-fought election" behind them and rally together to focus on issues such as protecting the waterfront and water quality, developing affordable housing, and addressing the village's longstanding lack of parking.

New York State has $110 million available to fund community-based mobility and environmental initiatives. The money will support projects focusing on safety and accessibility in public transportation as part of the Transportation Alternatives Program and Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program. 

The Southampton Town Board approved a ban on helium and gas-filled balloons on June 22, and is giving businesses a year to pivot away from them before it goes into effect.

At the start of last Thursday's meeting, Mayor Jerry Larsen apologized for the village's failure to put out American flags on June 19 in honor of the first observance of Juneteenth — a day that commemorates the end of slavery in the nation — as a federal holiday.

A public hearing on a proposed code amendment that would prohibit trucks greater than nine tons from a stretch of Accabonac Road in East Hampton drew three speakers urging its adoption, and one opposing it, as the East Hampton Town Board met in person for the first time in 16 months last Thursday.