Government

Montauk business owners and local musicians told the East Hampton Town Board last Thursday that proposed code changes covering music entertainment permits are far less objectionable than those debated at a contentious public hearing 10 months ago, but that some unreasonable provisions still remain.     

Representative Lee Zeldin of New York’s First Congressional District, which covers the South Fork, was appointed to President Trump’s impeachment defense team on Monday.     

The East Hampton Town Planning Board agreed to fast-track a proposal from AT&T to build a 185-foot-tall cell tower on land adjacent to an East Hampton Fire Department substation under construction in Northwest Woods, and inched closer to scheduling a public hearing of an application to build a car wash next to the East Hampton Town Recycling Center on Springs-Fireplace Road, at a meeting on Jan. 8. 

The East Hampton Town Board will soon issue a request for applications for water quality improvement awards, based on a recommendation from its water quality technical advisory committee.     

State Senator Kenneth LaValle, who will be 81 in May, will retire this year after serving the First District since 1976, he announced on Friday at a waterfront gathering in his hometown of Port Jefferson.   

With two of their three new members present, the East Hampton Town Trustees met for the first time in 2020 on Monday, and voted unanimously to reappoint several officers and staff.     

The environment — including preservation, mitigation, and adaptation to a changing climate — was the dominant topic of East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc’s State of the Town address Tuesday at the town board’s annual organizational meeting.

Two Suffolk County laws intended to reduce the use of plastics went into effect on Jan. 1.

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.