As the East Hampton Town Board entered the fourth hour of Tuesday afternoon’s meeting, Councilman Tom Flight called on the board to hold a public session to offer updates and answer questions about the long-simmering situation at the Building Department.
He also criticized Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez for taking part in a private forum about the department in April, shortly after arrests involving bribery were announced there. The moment came during his liaison report, as he read from a memo from the business committee to the town board.
“The key piece coming from the business committee, we have to start reporting on how many C.s of O. we’re putting out on a monthly basis versus how many permits we have coming in,” he said. “How many transactions are we getting through, versus what we have coming in, and how we’re addressing this. That public reporting is really being requested.”
Mr. Flight said the committee wanted clear performance goals set regarding the timing of improvements and asked for transparency through a public dashboard. He said the data-reporting capabilities of the OpenGov system, through which all applications to the Building Department have been routed for the last year, are underutilized.
Ms. Burke-Gonzalez seemed taken aback.
“I spoke with Rich [Normoyle, the town’s chief building inspector] this morning. We’ve hired, this year, five new positions,” she said, reading through the recent appointments. “Earlier today I met with a potential candidate to be our Spanish-speaking building inspector; we’re waiting on approval from Civil Service and that resolution could go on.”
“I would add that it would be beneficial to listen to the Express Sessions where Kathee and Rich outlined remote offices and other goals,” Councilwoman Cate Rogers said.
“The committee did review that,” Mr. Flight said. “That is something that committee members feel we should be doing at Town Hall, because this is such a major issue. It shouldn’t be something where people have to get tickets to go and ask questions.”
The event, hosted by the Express News Group, cost $49.87 per ticket.
“They can hear it. They can listen to it,” Ms. Rogers said.
“Right,” Mr. Flight said, but added that all members of the public should be able “to ask the questions” and that the board should “give the public the opportunity to speak to this issue, because it’s so widely impacting.”
“The Building Department falls under public safety. We didn’t have them today” — the Police, Fire Marshal, and Code Enforcement Departments all had presentations at the board meeting Tuesday. “It’s one of those issues; it would be healthy for us to allow them to come in and hear their concerns.”
“We have public comment five times a month,” Ms. Burke-Gonzalez said, “and our doors are always open.”
It has been difficult to gauge whether the staff hired by the town, including outside contractors to help review building applications, is making a dent in the backlog of applications. Wait times of up to nine months were reported as recently as the winter, but the town hasn’t publicly provided statistics showing improvement.
Mr. Normoyle, the chief building inspector hired by the town in September, has referred all questions from The Star to Patrick Derenze, the town’s public information officer. He did, however, attend the ticketed event last month.
Ms. Rogers told Mr. Flight that she would happily attend the next business committee meeting. “I can’t speak for the chief building inspector,” she said. “I just want to note that any time taken away from what he’s doing reduces the time to clean up the backlog.”
According to a lawsuit filed Tuesday, long wait times are still an issue.
Joseph Macari and Kim Staller, who own 20 Bendigo Road in Amagansett, filed an Article 78 lawsuit against the Building Department for failing to provide them with a building permit in a timely fashion. They filed their application on Dec. 24, 2025.
However, since that time, according to the lawsuit, “The Building Department has neither approved nor disapproved the application. It has issued no written response of any kind, has not identified any deficiency in the application, and has not requested additional documentation.”
It’s the second time in a year the pair is suing the town. In April 2025, they sued the zoning board of appeals and the Planning Department, alleging that the boards were “improperly delaying” a public hearing on a natural resources special permit application. A settlement caused that hearing to be held.
“The issuance of a building permit upon a completed application, where zoning approval has been granted and all code requirements are met, is a ministerial act,” the lawsuit continued. “The Building Department exercises no discretion in these circumstances. Its sole obligation under town code is to approve or disapprove the application within 15 days. It has done neither.”
Meanwhile, Diane Gosman feels like suing the department herself. She called The Star’s office this week to tell her story. Her parents died, leaving two houses to her and her siblings. However, it hasn’t been easy to get updated C.s of O. to sell them. “It shouldn’t be too hard, but I’ve been at it for months,” she said by phone.
“You talk to half a dozen people. They each give you a different answer, and you think, ‘Maybe I need to hire an attorney.’ ”
