News

When the clock strikes midnight on Sunday and South Fork residents turn their attention to new beginnings, several matters of importance remain unresolved and are sure to linger in the collective conscience well into 2018 and beyond.

“There’s certainly nostalgia and reminiscences . . . a certain amount of sadness, and a certain amount of euphoria,” said Larry Cantwell, sitting in his office at Town Hall on one of his final days as East Hampton Town supervisor. Mr. Cantwell’s successor, Peter Van Scoyoc, will be sworn in on Tuesday.

Was it a poor breeding year in the north, or did many not migrate south to our latitude? Or did some migrate farther south than usual?

With a vote last Thursday, the East Hampton Town Board approved the $4 million purchase of an additional layer of development rights over almost 30 acres of farmland in Wainscott, allowing restrictions to be placed on the land that will permit its use solely for food crop production.

A man who was arraigned in East Hampton Town Justice Court on Saturday on a felony charge of drunken driving had been issued a license to drive a taxi in the town earlier this year despite having two prior convictions for drunken driving, one of which was a felony.

During a 48-hour period in June, roughly 22 people suffered opioid overdoses in Suffolk County, a figure that gives proof to a recent statement by Legislator Sarah Anker, a member of the county’s opiate advisory panel, who said, “Suffolk County is struggling with an overwhelming opiate epidemic of unprecedented proportions.”

A college student who found inspiration in a '60s movement spurred an offer of free breakfasts every Monday at Babette’s restaurant, a few doors down from the East Hampton Middle School.

As the 2018 midterm elections come into view, Democrats in New York’s First Congressional District, stretching from Montauk to Brookhaven and most of Smithtown, are feeling that Representative Lee Zeldin is vulnerable, despite the Republican’s re-election in 2016 with 58 percent of the vote.

Debra Foster, a former East Hampton Town official and preservation advocate, has written a deeply personal book as both a history and warning to future generations of leaders.

Last Wednesday afternoon was a clammer’s dream. Coming off a new moon and enforced by a cold, strong northwesterly wind, the tide that day would be extremely low. It was a classic “blowout tide” as old-timers around here would say.

The East Hampton Village Board declared its unanimous support for a resolution brought by the Suffolk County Village Officials Association regarding the sale of so-called “bump stocks” at its last meeting of the year.

Residents of the Springs School District will vote on March 6 on whether to approve the bonds necessary for the district’s $16.9-million expansion plan to go forward.

Four new and excellent illustrated books, self-published by locals — in the nick of time for St. Nick.

The Suffolk County Legislature approved a 2018 vector control plan on Tuesday that includes use of methoprene, a mosquito larvicide, but also acknowledges a pilot program launched this year at Accabonac Harbor that is intended to reduce and possibly eliminate the pesticide’s use.

Representative Lee Zeldin of New York’s First Congressional District was 1 of 12 Republicans in the House of Representatives to vote against the Republicans’ sweeping overhaul of the tax code.

As 2018 approaches, so does Deepwater Wind’s plan to submit applications to more than 20 federal, state, and local permitting agencies for the South Fork Wind Farm, an installation of up to 15 turbines it plans to construct approximately 30 miles east of Montauk.

A plan to add a 16-seat restaurant at the Hero Beach Club in Montauk is drawing mixed reactions from the East Hampton Town Planning Board.

Christmas comes but once a year. It’s the only day of the year when politicians take a back seat to everyday living and friends and families can rejoice in their absence.

One of the drivers involved in a collision between two commercial vehicles on Route 114 in East Hampton last Thursday remains at Stony Brook University Hospital, his condition upgraded yesterday from critical to stable.

An effort by Deepwater Wind, the Rhode Island company that plans to construct the South Fork Wind Farm approximately 30 miles east of Montauk, to alleviate the concerns of skeptical fishermen took an incremental step forward when the company’s president and vice president of development addressed a standing-room-only crowd at East Hampton Town Hall on Monday.

Security measures are a topic at the forefront of debate at many South Fork schools today. The issue was also raised during Monday’s work session of the Springs School Board.

A hearing officer appointed to make recommendations to the town board has found William Taylor, the Town of East Hampton’s waterways management supervisor and a town trustee, not guilty on each of 14 charges of misconduct and incompetence levied against him last year after he was injured while securing an aquatic weed harvester in Georgica Pond.

Landscaping companies involved in the design of what is known as a rain garden on the East Hampton Village green and the Eastern Long Island chapter of the Surfrider Foundation would like to see it expand.

East Hampton has denied reassigning the lease of the now defunct Child Development Center of the Hamptons building on Stephen Hand’s Path to Gersh Academy, based on the fact that the company is not nonprofit, as the previous school there had been.

East Hampton Village asked to retroactively approve improperly built structures at Ronald Perelman’s 58-acre Creeks on Georgica Pond.

The proposed merger of two lots on Isle of Wight Road in the Lion Head Beach area of Springs and the expansion an existing residence on one of the lots drew a crowd of 15 or 20 neighbors who argued against it at an East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals public hearing on Dec. 5.

Shakespeare wanted his work to be performed. And for 20 years, students at the Hayground School in Bridgehampton have kept the Bard’s intentions alive.

The Suffolk County Board of Elections certified results for the Nov. 7 election on Dec. 6, further confirming the Democrats’ dominance in East Hampton Town, where the party’s candidates won the races for town supervisor and town board and came away with a 7-to-2 majority on the East Hampton Town Trustees.

The New York Civil Liberties Union argued unsuccessfully in the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court in Brooklyn on Tuesday for the release of a man being held by the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department on a detainment request from Immigration and Enforcement.

Representative Lee Zeldin has taken strong exception to the characterization of Stephen Bannon, the White House's former chief strategist, as anti-Semitic. Mr. Bannon is to headline a fund-raiser for his re-election campaign in Manhattan on Thursday.