Government

Martin Culloton's short tenure as East Hampton Town's director of code enforcement will come to an end on Wednesday.

Some businesses on Amagansett’s Main Street took a financial hit from Metallica’s late-August concert, and residents complained.

Mayor Jerry Larsen took umbrage at comments made by the East Hampton Town Democratic Committee chairwoman, Anna Skrenta, that the town Democrats were under no obligation to support his campaign should he win the primary.

J.P. Foster, a Republican candidate for town board, faced sharp questions and skepticism over remarks he made to The Star regarding the Maidstone Gun Club when he spoke to the Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee on Saturday.

Revolution Wind, owned by Orsted and Skyborn Renewables and under construction in federal waters not all that far from South Fork Wind, has sued the Trump administration following an August stop-work order. The 65-turbine installation is 80-percent complete.

The Coast Guard has unveiled the buoys it plans to eliminate in a modernization plan, drawing negative reactions from commercial fishermen and other boaters, the chief harbormaster, and the town trustees.

East Hampton Town made multiple hires this week to address its recent staffing shortages, from the Building Department to the tax receiver’s office.

The sole bid that the Army Corps of Engineers received to dredge the Montauk Inlet as part of the long-awaited Lake Montauk Harbor navigation improvement project was well over the anticipated price and left the federal government $1.1 million short. East Hampton Town opted this week to fill the funding gap with money received through its host-community agreement with South Fork Wind.

The Suffolk County Legislature unanimously passed legislation on Sept. 3 that aims to protect “working waterfronts” from further development.

Eighteen months after Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that “Today, at long last, we flip the switch and turn on the future,” the Trump administration is systematically switching that future off in favor of the past, in the form of fossil-fuel energy.

Last week, four days after 287 members of the Devon Yacht Club met to discuss the club’s long-projected relocation, expansion, and rebuilding, the East Hampton Town Planning Board determined that the ambitious plan will not require a detailed environmental review. The board’s decision came against the backdrop of a yacht club membership in revolt.

East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen, who is rumored to be mulling a 2026 run for East Hampton Town supervisor, said last week that he had not “made a final decision” and won’t do so until after the election this November. Supervisor Kathee-Burke Gonzalez, a Democrat, is running unopposed on this year’s ballot. When she wins, however, it will be only for a one-year term because of a change in the state election calendar.

The East Hampton Town Board has negotiated “important provisions” in connection with a lease renewal for the Maidstone Gun Club in Wainscott, which has been closed for almost three years and remains the subject of litigation brought by several residents who say bullets fired from the club have hit their houses.

A lawsuit and a countersuit between the two architects behind R2 Architecture, the venture that designed the East Hampton Town senior citizens center planned on Abraham's Path in Amagansett, have further delayed the long-stalled project and could result in cost increases for the roughly $30 million project.

Faithful followers of government and school board meetings on LTV’s government and education channel in East Hampton Town or fans of LTV’s public access shows like “Hello Hello,” “Two Jews Making Food,” or “Meet the Mayor” may have been bewildered this week to find the programming suddenly gone from Altice/Optimum’s Channels 20 and 22.

The East Hampton Village Board intends to extend the hours in which parking at two of its beaches is limited to residents and nonresidents who buy a beach parking permit.

Two competing narratives have emerged from the East Hampton Town Tax Receiver’s Office after four of its five employees abruptly left the department a month ago.

A group of six neighbors who own properties adjacent to and near 370 and 372 Further Lane in Amagansett have had their eyes on a new hedge that blocks views of those properties. In June they sent a letter to the town board and the town attorney letting them know that if they didn’t do something, they would be held liable.

A paramedic who was employed by East Hampton Village has sued the village along with the village’s fire and emergency medical services administrator, Suffolk County, the medical director of the county’s emergency medical services division, and the Montauk Fire District’s medical director following his suspension in the wake of a 2024 call for medical assistance in East Hampton’s Northwest Woods.

Jeff Miller, the Republican candidate for East Hampton Town clerk, on Friday retired from his position as heavy-equipment operator at the East Hampton Village Department of Public Works, where he spent 36 years.

Last week, a notice on the East Hampton Town website alerted visitors that “To better serve our residents, the Building Department office will be closed to the public on Wednesdays.” Department employees will still be at work behind the closed doors, however, reviewing and processing applications to attack a growing backlog.

An East Hampton Town Board whose motto has been “All hands on housing” was divided 3-to-2 over two aspects of draft legislation that would create a new affordable multiple-residence housing use. Councilmen Ian Calder-Piedmonte and Tom Flight balked at the inclusion of what they characterized as “environmental restrictions” in the legislation, continuing a disagreement that began the previous week.

Last week, mere minutes before the East Hampton Town Planning Board was to discuss the proposed Springs Brewery, an elephant squeezed into the room, in the form of a determination from Dawn Green, a town building inspector, turning what could have been a routine review of minor site plan inaccuracies into a snafu.

There will be a horse trough, but no horse, at a Further Lane estate that sold this winter for $70 million in one of the East End’s priciest real estate transactions of 2025.

Two years after a groundbreaking for the Montauk Playhouse Community Center’s new aquatic and cultural centers, Gov. Kathy Hochul led a jubilant gathering including East Hampton Town and New York State officials past and present in a ceremonial ribbon-cutting for the expansive new facilities on Friday.

As the 2026 midterm elections draw closer, a second candidate for the Democratic Party’s nomination to challenge Representative Nick LaLota in New York’s First Congressional District has emerged, Lukas Ventouras, who is 24 and attending St. John’s School of Law.

The East Hampton Town Architectural Review Board offered only anticlimactic comments to the planning board at its Aug. 14 meeting on an over 10-year-old application by the Springs Fire Department to erect a communications tower on its property at 179 Fort Pond Boulevard.

Wireless service in Sag Harbor Village would see a significant upgrade with the addition of two macro cell sites, which are typically found on towers, and at least four micro towers, or small wireless facilities, a consultant told the village board earlier this month.

Dangerous surf, rip currents, and the potential for dune erosion from Hurricane Erin are anticipated here, with the most significant impacts expected on Thursday and Friday, East Hampton Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzlez said on Tuesday. 

Cedar Point State Park, the marshes in Napeague State Park, and Beach Hampton will all undergo aerial mosquito larvae treatment sometime between Monday at 7 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon.