Government

The public weighed in on a proposal from the Peconic Land Trust to build a more than 4,100-square-foot barn on Quail Hill Farm in Amagansett at an East Hampton Town Planning Board meeting on Sept. 11.

Toward the end of a contentious meeting at which neighbors threatened legal action should the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals allow the replacement of a house at 33 Lily Pond Lane by a larger one with more amenities and lot coverage, the property’s owners told the board they would abandon their plans and renovate the existing residence instead.

The Victor D’Amico Institute of Art, also known as the Art Barge, has closed for the season, but a project critically important to the Napeague landmark’s reopening next year is intensifying.

The bulkhead protecting the retired Navy barge from Napeague Harbor is in need of reconstruction. It has severely deteriorated on its eastern side, with sand leaking through it and into the harbor, rendering it ineffective and the ground landward unsafe to traverse.

Tomorrow is the seventh annual Car Free Day Long Island, and on Tuesday the East Hampton Town Board adopted a nonbinding resolution in support of the designation.

The House of Representatives voted on Sept. 11 to permanently protect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and the eastern Gulf of Mexico from offshore drilling.

Tuesday is National Voter Registration Day, and the League of Women Voters of the Hamptons will use the opportunity to explain to people across the South Fork where, when, and how to register for the Nov. 5 election.

Residents and visitors alike are willing to pay for the preservation of Montauk’s ocean beaches, the East Hampton Town Board was told on Tuesday, and both groups are amenable to either a property tax or a lodging tax to finance a wide, healthy beach. 

One may not need a sleek, luxurious lake runabout to attract attention to energy sustainability programs, but it certainly seemed to help on Saturday, when members of Southampton Town’s sustainability committee signed up residents for free home energy audits and solar evaluations at Sag Harbor’s annual Harborfest event.

Perry Gershon, who seeks the Democratic Party’s nomination to challenge Representative Lee Zeldin in New York’s First Congressional District next year, has announced a series of events called the “Restore American Values Tour: 10 Town Halls in 10 Months.”

Win With Wind, a group that formed in the spring to advocate for the proposed South Fork Wind Farm, and Montauk United, a group advocating for quality-of-life issues in that hamlet, have joined forces to support a Wainscott landing for the proposed South Fork Wind Farm’s export cable.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority will host an open house to discuss the state’s efforts to advance offshore wind on Wednesday from 7 to 9 p.m. at Southampton High School.

The first of two forums on community choice aggregation, a model that replaces the utility as the default supplier of electricity or natural gas and gives municipalities the opportunity to seek lower prices from alternative suppliers, was held on Tuesday evening at East Hampton Town Hall.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has decided a proposal by an East Hampton mining company to expand a pit on Middle Highway will not have a significant negative impact on its surroundings, but the D.E.C. is still accepting public comments on the matter, through Sept. 27, before it formally decides on issuing a permit.

Howard Schultz, the former chairman and chief executive of the Starbucks chain and a part-time resident of East Hampton Village, has abandoned his independent campaign for president.

Legislator Kara Hahn, the majority leader of the Suffolk County Legislature, has endorsed Nancy Goroff in her bid for the Democratic Party’s nomination to challenge Representative Lee Zeldin in New York’s First Congressional District next year.

The efforts of Susan McGraw Keber of the East Hampton Town Trustees to persuade the Suffolk County Legislature to enact a ban on the intentional release of balloons paid off on Sept. 4, when that body voted unanimously to do so.

East Hampton Town Hall will be the site of two upcoming forums on community choice aggregation, a model that replaces the utility as the default, monopolistic supplier of electricity or natural gas and gives municipalities the opportunity to seek lower prices from alternative suppliers.

The East Hampton Town Board, having authorized a payout last month of $188,375.40 to Marguerite Wolffsohn, the planning director who retired at the end of July, voted to amend that resolution on Tuesday, citing an adjustment of her accrued vacation time based on the town’s department head employment policy.

East Hampton Town is moving toward modifications to its rebate program for septic system replacements in an effort to spur residents to replace aging or failing sanitary systems with new, low-nitrogen models and improve ecologically degraded waterways in the process.

Given a recent spike in cyberattacks on municipal governments and school districts across the country, local officials are on high alert about the security of their computer systems.

On Aug. 28, Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio brought his long-shot bid for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president to East Hampton, where for around two hours he spoke on topics both conventional and esoteric.

Decrying “this headache called politics,” Dell Cullum, an East Hampton Town Trustee who was elected in 2017 on the Democratic Party line but was not chosen by the party to be on its slate this year, said this week that he would not run for re-election.

On Aug. 13, the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals voted 4-to-0, with one recusal, to revoke the certificate of occupancy issued in February for Duryea’s Lobster Deck, the latest turn in a long-running controversy over the Montauk property that was purchased by the billionaire investor Marc Rowan in 2014.

A majority of the East Hampton Town Board told members of the East Hampton Group for Wildlife last week that it was disinclined to entertain a one-weekend-day ban on hunting, for which the group has been agitating.

Disappointed but determined after the East Hampton Town Board’s cool reception to the East Hampton Group for Wildlife’s request for a one-weekend-day ban on hunting, a member of the group is planning to communicate support for animal rights by recording a song.

The East Hampton Town Trustees, having determined that they should catalog their holdings and related properties in the area of Northwest Harbor, will engage two professionals with extensive experience in title research and historical records to do the job.

Anger over the East Hampton Town Board’s plan to relocate the town’s shellfish hatchery to a residential area in Springs spilled over to the town trustees’ meeting on Monday.

“Don’t shoot the messenger,” was the plea from Jim Brundige, manager of East Hampton Airport, as he told the town board on Tuesday that air traffic so far this year was up 7.5 percent over 2018.

Is the Trump administration attempting to halt the proliferation of offshore wind farms?

The East Hampton Town Board voted unanimously last Thursday to designate the Art Barge and the D’Amico Studio and Archive in Amagansett as local historical landmarks.