Government

The East Hampton Village Board will raise the price of nonresident beach parking permits from $500 to $750 next year. But if you're here in the winter, mark your calendars: There will be a one-day, in-person sale at the old price for town residents.

The renovation of the bathrooms at Herrick Park has begun, and at the other side of the park, when "The Platinum Bull" moves on after the holidays, Guild Hall will help choose future works for a pilot Art in the Park series.

In an attempt to get a handle on the impacts of the region's outsize deer population, East Hampton Town established a new fenced-in deer “exclosure” in mid-October in Northwest Woods. The idea of it is pretty simple: Deer are restricted from feasting inside the fence, so that the plant life inside “can be compared to vegetation outside of it to determine the impact deer 'browse' is having.”

“There is Christmas spirit,” said Rick White, president of the East Hampton Kiwanis Club, after he received 40 trees deemed too small by East Hampton Village to offer as part of the club's Christmas tree sale, which helps fund scholarships for local high school seniors, a holiday toy drive, and a donation to Katy’s Courage, among other causes.

The National Business Aviation Association, one of several entities to have filed a lawsuit to prevent East Hampton Town from privatizing its airport and enacting new restrictions on aircraft operations, has withdrawn its lawsuit. 

Demonstrating a supply issue that dates back to 2008, Canadian grower’s first shipment to Fowler’s Garden Center had no larger trees, so it offered East Hampton Village smaller ones at a discount. Now it will provide larger trees of a more expensive variety for the same price. “We don’t do this to make money,” said Rick Fowler. “This is our way to give back to the community.”

East Hampton Village has big plans for the holiday season, including a tree-lighting at the Hook Mill sponsored by Prada and Santa arriving by helicopter in Herrick Park, but those tiny trees that went up last week? Not planned.

The East Hampton Town Board formally adopted the its proposed budget of $90.355 million for 2023 at its meeting last Thursday. The adoption, by unanimous vote, followed a Nov. 3 public hearing.

For the second time in just under a year, the East Hampton Town Board held a public hearing on a proposed law that would give the town regulatory powers over mining, mulching, and composting operations and require the monitoring and reporting of the impact of such operations on groundwater.

The East Hampton Town Board voted last Thursday to raise the cap on money it could pay the Cooley law firm, its outside consultants on matters relating to the town’s effort to enact restrictions at East Hampton Town Airport, to more than $3 million for fiscal year 2022. The move came shortly after attorneys for three plaintiffs who have successfully prevented any such changes at the airport, petitioned New York State Supreme Court to compel Cooley and two other law firms to return to the town’s airport fund all fees they received for work performed after May 16.

The East Hampton Town Board’s vote this month to acquire 18.8 acres of vacant land at 66 East Lake Drive in Montauk with general municipal funds, and not community preservation fund money as initially intended, has prompted both suspicion that the land will be swapped with Suffolk County for property in Hither Woods to build a wastewater treatment plant, and, more recently, one accuser’s resignation from an advisory committee on which he has sat for more than a decade.

Since East Hampton Village's Town Pond was “mucked out” last year, it has had a difficult time holding water. It is also beset by an invasive aquatic plant, Eurasian watermilfoil, which workers are beginning to remove this week, but the effect will be largely aesthetic, as plant fragments and roots will remain in place allowing the invasive plant to spread in the future.