Government

Aidan Corish and Bob Plumb, Sag Harbor Village Trustees who are running to keep their seats in the June 15 village election, talked this week about their separate priorities. Mr. Corish, Mr. Plumb, and a first-time candidate, Bayard Fenwick, are vying for two seats on the village board.

Three weeks before a Democratic Party primary in which East Hampton Town Councilman Jeff Bragman will challenge Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc, a furious argument broke out among the town board, with Mr. Bragman seizing on a letter from the town's board of ethics that criticized town board members for having taken guests to a May 7 event at the Clubhouse in Wainscott honoring pandemic frontline workers and food pantry staff and featuring a performance by the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Jon Bon Jovi.

The recent introduction of paid parking in East Hampton Village has led to confusion about the use of the ParkMobile payment app.

East Hampton Town and the Marram Montauk resort, the former Atlantic Terrace motel located on the ocean beach near the hamlet's downtown, have settled a lawsuit brought by the town last year. The case stemmed from use of unapproved bar areas and a snack bar that the town said had been converted to a full-service restaurant without approval.

The East Hampton Town Board is expected to approve use of an aquatic weed harvester in Georgica Pond on Thursday. Used in the pond in the summers of 2016, 2017, and 2018, and on a limited basis last year, the harvester is part of a multifaceted effort to alleviate conditions that have promoted blooms of toxic cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) that have fouled the pond every summer for almost a decade.

Court records in a legal tangle between East Hampton Town and the owner of several Montauk resort and restaurant properties outline a series of secret conversations kept out of public view until now.

Sag Harbor Village Mayor Kathleen Mulcahy, who is running for a second term in the June 15 election, touted her leadership during the pandemic, and said that if re-elected she would continue her efforts to improve water quality and protect the village's waterfront from overdevelopment, and would initiate a village-wide traffic study. Ms. Mulcahy is running against James Larocca, a trustee making his first bid for mayor.

New legislation prohibits seaplanes from taking off, landing, taxiing, mooring, or taking on or discharging passengers on or from town beaches and waterways, trustee waters and beaches, or town docks or floats. The prohibition also applies to helicopters, making exceptions for Gardiner's Island, East Hampton Airport, and the Montauk Airport.

A proposal to reconfigure parking on portions of Newtown Lane and in parts of East Hampton Village's downtown Reutershan parking lot from parallel to angled, drive-in spaces was approved in a party-line vote. The lines will be restriped in the coming weeks, as soon as the temperature allows, Mayor Jerry Larsen said.

The East Hampton Independence Party submitted nominating petitions with around 500 signatures to the Suffolk County Board of Elections last week, far more than the 277 valid signatures required in order for its candidates to appear on the Nov. 2 ballot.

The League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island, and the North Fork will sponsor three virtual candidates debates for town and village elections next week.

The Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court has ruled that the Department of Environmental Conservation overstepped its authority in granting more width and more depth for the Sand Land mine in Noyac.