Government

Owners of four properties on Soundview Drive in Montauk found little support for their request to have the East Hampton Town Board grant a code change that would have made it easier for them to armor their properties with coastal erosion structures.

“For existing rooms in existing houses” was the common refrain at the Sag Harbor Village Board meeting Tuesday night, when a resolution allowing short-term room rentals in owner-occupied residences was unanimously approved.

Gov. Kathy Hochul has authorized East Hampton Town to remove, or "alienate," two acres of nature preserve from its parkland holdings with the hope that Suffolk County will further explore placing a roundabout at the East Hampton intersection where North Main Street meets Three Mile Harbor and Springs-Fireplace Roads. 

On Saturday, two days after President Biden and former President Trump met in Atlanta for the first presidential debate of the 2024 election cycle, the president and Jill Biden were in East Hampton for a fund-raiser at the home of Barry and Lizanne Rosenstein, co-hosted by several high-powered business executives and celebrities, all the while hearing calls from prominent members of the Democratic Party to step aside and let someone else lead the ticket.

Members of the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee grappled at their meeting Monday night with the fact that the long-planned dredging of the Montauk Inlet will in all likelihood be delayed still longer.

Former Representative Tim Bishop has endorsed Southampton Town Councilman Tommy John Schiavoni in his bid to represent the First District in the New York State Assembly — Fred Thiele’s seat.

Fireworks came early Monday to a packed Sag Harbor work session on the seemingly mundane topic of local development corporations. The meeting featured yelling among members of the village board and yelling from the audience at the board. A resolution to disband a committee failed on a split vote before Mayor Thomas Gardella resigned from the same committee, allowing another trustee to take his place, and there was seemingly unending public comment — all questioning the need for a Sag Harbor Improvement Corporation.

Legislation passed by East Hampton Village last month prohibits operations between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. at “late-night restaurant clubs,” which are defined as “a membership or subscription-based social, dining, and beverage venue, establishment, or association” on a membership, subscription, or dues-based system.

Searching for a fix to prevent speeding vehicles from flying into the Hedges Inn at the 90-degree turn where Woods Lane meets East Hampton’s Main Street, the village board contemplated a large metal net at its meeting on Friday.

With his Tuesday primary victory in New York’s First Congressional District, John Avlon of Sag Harbor will now face first-term Republican Representative Nick LaLota in the November election.

“There was a concerted effort to cut out all comment on this,” Aidan Corish, a Sag Harbor Village trustee, said of a barely averted vote to create a local development corporation at the June village board meeting. “It’s disturbing. We were one vote away from basically giving over financial borrowing authority to an unelected board in perpetuity.”

What was originally estimated to be a $2.4-million wastewater treatment project at the Montauk Shores Condominiums has swelled to $5.4 million, leading the community’s management to borrow money to make up the difference.

President Biden and Jill Biden, the first lady, are coming to town. An “afternoon reception” with the Bidens is to take place on Saturday in East Hampton, though its exact time and location is being kept under wraps for guests only.

John Avlon, who quickly rose to the top in a field of Democratic congressional contenders that numbered half a dozen just a few months ago, is the winner of Tuesday's primary in New York's First Congressional District, besting the second-time candidate Nancy Goroff.

On Friday, voters in the Village of Sagaponack rallied to steer their board of trustees in a new direction. Two challengers, David McMillan Jr. and Mark Landis, were elected, ousting the incumbents, Marilyn Clark and Lisa Duryea Thayer.

Long Pond in Bridgehampton, Poxabogue Pond in Sagaponack, Mill Pond in Water Mill, and Agawam Lake in Southampton were confirmed this week. It was also discovered earlier this month in Wainscott Pond.

The Suffolk County Department of Public Works has three main objectives for the turnpike: improving pedestrian safety, repairing the pavement of the road itself, including asphalt resurfacing, and repairing and adding new drainage systems to improve the flooding conditions.

A public hearing last week on Adam Potter’s planned development of a 64,429-square-foot, mixed-use building on Bridge Street in Sag Harbor Village brought out many critics.

At an East Hampton Town Board work session full of safety information for pedestrians, cyclists, and fire-pit lovers, the presentation that drew the most interest from the board was one on e-bikes, given by Lt. Chelsea Tierney of the East Hampton Town Police Department. “The biggest thing is that people just don’t know the laws,” she told the board.

The end-times landscaping job wrought by the southern pine beetle along Montauk Highway in Amagansett could seem pretty compared to how it would look after a fire. “It’s a giant tinderbox out there,” said Chris Beckert, who is in his fourth year as chief of the Amagansett Fire Department.

In a rare case of the Town of East Hampton removing an illegally built accessory structure, it took out a wooden walkway that connected a house on South Emerson Avenue in Montauk to the beach. According to the director of code enforcement, it was built without a permit and crossed over an easement seeded with beach grass meant to help prevent erosion.

Ditch Plain Beach will be more beach and less ditch this summer after a beach replenishment project that will bring approximately 200 truckloads of sand, about 1,000 cubic yards daily, began on Monday.

Jeanne Kane and Ed Haye, running as a slate to retain their seats on the Sag Harbor Village Board, were victorious Tuesday night over their challengers, Mary Ann Eddy and Ronald Reed.

Ahead of early voting for the Democratic primary election in the First Congressional District, a debate between John Avlon and Nancy Goroff covered many topics in only an hour, ranging from climate change, to social media, to gun violence and antisemitism. It was a polite affair in which the candidates often agreed with each other and didn’t engage in crosstalk.

Suffolk County announced Friday that it is planning to reconstruct part of County Road 79, better known as the Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike, on an approximately 1.5-mile stretch from Scuttlehole Road north to Brick Kiln Road.

On Friday, Justice Jerry Garguilo of the Supreme Court of Suffolk County ruled that the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association, a nonprofit that had served the village since 1975, could no longer exist, and ordered it dissolved. 

After receiving numerous complaints about “nuisance lighting” last year, Kevin Cooper, who heads the town’s Public Safety and Code Enforcement Department, sat down with the town attorney in January to brainstorm about changes to the code that would limit the wattage and hours of up-lighting.

There’s no contest for mayor or trustee in East Hampton Village, but voters can weigh in nevertheless when polls open on Tuesday at the Emergency Services Building on Cedar Street from noon to 9 p.m. 

Four experienced candidates are running for two places on the Sag Harbor Village Board, and the winners will be selected by voters on Tuesday. 

The deadline is Aug. 9 at 4 p.m. for community members, organizations, businesses, and other entities in East Hampton Town to apply for water-quality grant money.