Government

On Dec. 20 President Trump signed a bill into law temporarily halting the sale of Plum Island via auction for at least one more year. The legislation received bipartisan support from both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Monday that an expansion of New York’s $175 million Workforce Development Initiative would include the launch of the Offshore Wind Training Institute at the State University at Stony Brook and Farmingdale.

While a challenge to the State Department of Environmental Conservation concerning the Sand Land mine in Noyac makes its slow way through the courts, Acting Supreme Court Justice James H. Ferreira has been asked to intervene in a dispute between the two sides.

Funding for a project on the East Hampton Town Board’s wish list was not among the nearly $7.7 million in New York State economic development money earmarked for the South Fork last month, but officials insist that the relocation of the town’s shellfish hatchery from Montauk to Gann Road in Springs is still the goal.

Representative Lee Zeldin of New York’s First Congressional District was among 168 members of the House of Representatives, all but two of them Republicans, who asked the Supreme Court last Thursday to consider overturning landmark rulings establishing a woman’s right to an abortion.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has vetoed legislation that would have allowed residents of the five East End towns to vote on imposing a .5-percent real estate transfer tax to create the Peconic Bay Community Housing Fund.     

Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind, which together with Eversource Energy is developing the proposed 130-megawatt South Fork Wind Farm and the 880-megawatt Sunrise Wind, will be busy in 2020, a spokeswoman predicted last month.     

Manifestations of climate change multiplied in 2019, with record air and water temperatures, wildfires, and floods occurring in multiple regions around the globe.     

Construction of a new electrical substation to replace the antiquated substation on Industrial Road in Montauk is to begin next week, PSEG Long Island announced on Monday.     

Skyler Johnson, a college student from Mount Sinai, has announced he will seek the Democratic nomination to run in 2020 for the New York State Senate seat held by Kenneth P. LaValle.

LTV, East Hampton’s local access television offering government, public, and educational programming, was recognized last Thursday on the 35th anniversary of its incorporation by the East Hampton Town Board.

At its final meeting of 2019 last Thursday, the East Hampton Town Board made several moves aimed at improving environmental conditions.

Linda James, chairwoman of East Hampton Town’s energy sustainability and resiliency committee, announced her resignation at the close of the committee’s Dec. 18 meeting. In the new year, Ms. James, of East Hampton Village, will join the advocacy group Renewable Energy Long Island as an associate. 

The Springs Fire District, which wants to remove a 150-foot-tall tower behind its firehouse on Fort Pond Boulevard and replace it with one 30 feet taller, has proposed relocating the new tower farther away from adjoining residential properties.

Among the statewide recipients of $761 million in grants are several local town and village governments, arts and cultural organizations, and programs in historic preservation and land conservation.

The East Hampton Town's energy sustainability and resiliency committee recommended a green light for Tesla Inc. and Electrify America to install 12 electric vehicle charging stations in a municipal parking lot on South Euclid Avenue in Montauk.

With New York State’s sweeping criminal justice reform law about to go into effect, the chief of the East Hampton Town Police Department and an assistant town attorney briefed the town board about impacts they predicted would be commensurately broad.

Citizens for the Preservation of Wainscott, a group that formed to oppose the landing of the South Fork Wind Farm’s export cable at the ocean beach at the end of Beach Lane in that hamlet, is mounting an online campaign urging people to tell the New York State Public Service Commission to reject the proposed 130-megawatt installation to be situated approximately 35 miles off Montauk.     

A New York State Department of Environmental Conservation conditional shellfish harvest program that was to open the northern section of Accabonac Harbor yesterday has been postponed at least until Tuesday because of the recent rainfall.     

The “four horsemen of the ocean climate change apocalypse” have arrived, a scientist told those attending a symposium Friday on the bay scallop die-off of 2019, and they pose a serious threat to the embattled species. 

Suffolk Legislator Bridget Fleming, who recently announced her intention to seek the Democratic Party’s nomination to challenge Representative Lee Zeldin in New York’s First Congressional District, rebuked President Trump for his criticism of F.B.I. agents yesterday.

Following last month’s vote to increase incentives for property owners to replace conventional septic systems with new low-nitrogen systems approved by the Suffolk County Health Department, the East Hampton Town Board voted on Tuesday to streamline the process, further encouraging replacement of the old systems.

The leasing of bottomlands has pro­ven controversial in East Hampton, leading to a lawsuit by the Devon Yacht Club in Amagansett claiming that floating oyster cages interfered with boating activities.

The East Hampton Town Board voted to purchase land on Pantigo Road here for $2.5 million for housing, recreation, or a preserve.

The day after voting to acquire 12 acres of land and designate a majority of it for "municipal and housing purposes," the East Hampton Town Board marked the completion of the 12-unit "manor house" condominium development in East Hampton, the first of its kind in the town's affordable housing program.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo asked the U.S. Commerce Department on Friday for federal action to help New York's scallop fishery following the massive die-off in Peconic Bay scallops. 

An apparent effort by the billionaire investor Michael Novogratz to enlarge one of his Amagansett properties by adding an unopened road to it was stymied last week by a stop-work order.

East Hampton Town officials will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the newly completed Manor House condominium apartments on Accabonac Road in East Hampton at noon tomorrow. The town oversaw construction of the 12-unit complex to create affordable housing opportunities for residents.

Less than two weeks after voting to award nearly $400,000 in grant funding for four water quality improvement projects, the East Hampton Town Board heard recommendations from its water quality technical advisory committee to fund upgrades to sanitary systems on municipal properties.

“We are in a deep hole, and we are still digging,” United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on Monday. “Soon it will be too deep to escape.”