Government

East Hampton Village will spend $61,634 to repair the ivy-covered trellis in Millstone Park on Main Street after it fell over during a storm last month. 

The Long Island Commercial Fishing Association is among the groups calling for a renewed halt to the construction of the Empire Wind 1 offshore wind farm, which was the subject of a stop-work order in April that was lifted just a month later. 

While rumors abound, and a real "if there's smoke there's fire" sense descends across the East End, so far, "We have no confirmation of any formal ICE activity within our jurisdiction," East Hampton Town Police Chief Michael Sarlo said in a statement Thursday.

As the pace of events in Los Angeles quickens this week, with the Trump administration and Gov. Gavin Newsom of California facing off over the former’s deployment of National Guard and United States Marine troops to quell protests against immigration enforcement actions, East Hampton Town and municipalities throughout the country will see what is being called a nationwide day of defiance. 

Elections for Sag Harbor Village mayor and two village trustees will take place on Tuesday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the Sag Harbor Fire Department headquarters off Brick Kiln Road, but in each case, incumbents are running unopposed. 

The tallest structure in East Hampton Town, a 352-foot tower near the intersection of Abraham’s Path and Springs-Fireplace Road, could soon be removed, and there are no plans right now to replace it. 

The East Hampton Town Board passed a resolution last Thursday to hold a public hearing on July 3 on a planned $16 million community preservation fund acquisition at 43 Mile Hill Road in the Northwest area of East Hampton. 

Updated plans for the proposed Toilsome Farm Restaurant and Brewery are circulating at the East Hampton Village Design Review Board, and a neighbor who has already sued over the proposed project is raising alarms again. 

The Atlantic hurricane season officially started on Sunday, and with predictions of an above-average year amid substantial staffing and budget cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, East Hampton Town, like the entire East Coast, enters a perilous six-month span. 

As paid parking in Sag Harbor Village has begun for the season and will continue in many lots until the fall, it’s time to take a closer look, particularly at the lot off Meadow Street and the gas ball lot, where payment is newly required.

A Sag Harbor property owner, the first to run afoul last year of a new village law aimed at protecting trees of a certain diameter, had her case back in Sag Harbor Village Justice Court on Tuesday, and this time progress was made toward a resolution of the case. 

An application to subdivide the privately held Montauk Airport on East Lake Drive into four residential lots is making its way through the East Hampton Planning Department and could get an initial airing before the planning board in early July. 

A United States Department of Homeland Security webpage published Friday to "expose sanctuary jurisdictions" included East Hampton among more than 500 other municipalities, Suffolk County among them. It caught local officials off guard and prompted swift response from immigrant advocates. It was removed by Monday morning.

Despite holdouts, there are comfortable majorities on both the East Hampton Town Planning Board and the Zoning Board of Appeals that favor allowing the 108-year-old Devon Yacht Club, at 300 Abram’s Landing Road in Amagansett, to proceed with its plans to renovate and reconstruct its buildings and amenities.

It’s been a bad news/good news month for at least two pairs of ospreys that had nests under construction removed, one likely by a homeowner, the other by PSEG Long Island.

An application to raise an oceanfront house in the Beach Hampton section of Amagansett nearly 10 feet, ostensibly to meet FEMA regulations, was met with circumspection at the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals last week.

Opponents of Adam Potter’s proposed mixed-use building at 7 and 11 Bridge Streets in Sag Harbor lined up to denounce the project during a village planning board hearing Tuesday, repeating complaints voiced last month about flooding, parking, traffic, and contamination from incomplete environmental remediation at the site.

A resolution to schedule a June 18 public hearing on a $30.7 million village budget was passed Friday at a meeting that saw sniping about tax rates levied on village residents by the town.

The East Hampton Town Litter Action Committee offered several recommendations for how littering could be reduced: an anti-litter campaign, a code amendment that would strengthen rental registry trash-hauling requirements, engaging with the State Department of Transportation about improving litter removal along Route 27, and adding temporary signage, in English and Spanish, near recently cleaned areas and at the town transfer stations.

At an otherwise quiet East Hampton Town Board meeting, a decision about a special permit for surfing lessons in Montauk drew the most attention.

Nearly 200 “small cell” towers, each 42 feet tall, will be deployed across East Hampton Town, with over 150 slotted for Northwest Woods and Springs alone. The large majority, 129, could be operational by the end of the year.

The whiplash resulting from policies announced and quickly reversed by the Trump administration continued this week with the surprise announcement that construction of the Empire Wind 1 offshore wind farm, which was halted last month by a stop-work order issued by the secretary of the Department of the Interior, could resume.

The United States House of Representatives passed President Trump's spending bill early Thursday, sending it along to the Senate. In it is a quadrupling of the cap on the State and Local Tax deduction, known colloquially as the SALT deduction, which Representative Nick LaLota said in a press release early Thursday is "a significant win for Long Island taxpayers."

“This is a town project that’s on time and under budget,” said Maureen Cahill, a board member of the Montauk Community Playhouse Foundation, where a new aquatic and cultural center is on track to open before summer’s end. “It’s a really good model of town, state, and private funding that put this together. Without those three it doesn’t work.”

Trevor Darrell has been appointed East Hampton Town’s prosecutor, and Brittany Toledano has been hired as deputy town attorney, both effective as of Monday, according to a statement issued from Town Hall this week.

Word that the United States Coast Guard has proposed to remove hundreds of navigational markers along the Northeast coast, including buoys, day beacons, and lights, is drawing a mostly negative reaction among mariners in East Hampton Town, with commercial fishermen and others warning that their removal would worsen already dangerous conditions.

A long-discussed roundabout at the intersection of Stephen Hand’s Path, Long Lane, and Two Holes of Water Road in East Hampton has begun operating, despite the continuation of work on the inside part of the circle.

Some ocean beaches, including Indian Wells and Atlantic Avenue in Amagansett and South Edison and Ditch Plain in Montauk, will be staffed by lifeguards beginning on Saturday, May 24, during the Memorial Day weekend, as will Big Albert’s on the bay in Amagansett. They will remain open on weekends until mid-June, when all beaches will be staffed full time.

With a $338,000 grant from the East Hampton Town Community Housing Fund to help cover “soft costs,” the Windmill I senior citizen housing development is honing plans to add 20 new units to its property on Accabonac Road.

The East Hampton Town Trustees heard and approved a request by South Fork Sea Farmers, a nonprofit educational arm of the town’s shellfish hatchery and its community oyster garden program, to implement a program aiming to establish eelgrass meadows in Accabonac Harbor.