Government

As Election Day approaches, the East Hampton Environmental Coalition is working toward two goals: Making sure candidates in local races do not forget about environmental causes, and making sure the general public knows which way they stand.

A proposed $73.5 million East Hampton Town spending plan would result in a 1.8-percent tax increase and add funding for police and code enforcement.

Georgica Pond will remain closed to crabbing until further notice, the East Hampton Town Trustees decided at their meeting on Tuesday, because of the persistent bloom of cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, which appeared last month. Meanwhile, cochlodinium, or rust tide, which is toxic to shellfish and finfish but is not harmful to humans, has appeared in Three Mile Harbor.

The federal government’s plan to sell Plum Island, a former animal disease research center off Orient Point, will be subject of a public hearing on Monday.

Michael Davis of Michael Davis Design Construction, a builder of high-end houses, proposes merging properties in Wainscott, clearing them, and building a new structure for his business.

The League of Women Voters of the Hamptons will observe National Voter Registration Day on Tuesday by distributing registration forms and absentee ballot applications in both English and Spanish at 10 sites between Montauk and Westhampton. Those who have not registered previously, have moved, or have changed their name must fill out a voter registration form in order to vote in the upcoming election.

Six separate legal actions challenging the policies and laws adopted by the town this year to reduce the impact on residents across the East End of noise from aircraft using East Hampton Airport will cost close to $1 million, or even more, in legal fees this year.

The East Hampton Star and the East Hampton Group for Good Government will co-host a debate with candidates for supervisor and town board on Saturday from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Emergency Services Building in East Hampton.

Tom Knobel, the Republican Party’s candidate for supervisor, along with Margaret Turner and Lisa Mulhern-Larsen, the party’s candidates for town board, will join Supervisor Larry Cantwell, Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc, and Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, incumbent Democrats facing re-election.

A resolution that would withdraw funding for future maintenance of the artificial dune the Army Corps of Engineers is set to build on the downtown Montauk beach beginning next month could reach the Suffolk County Legislature at its next general meeting, on Oct. 6.

Montauk was the focus at the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals meeting Tuesday when members voted to hold a second public hearing on an application for construction on the oceanfront at Ditch Plain and approved an application from National Grid for work at its substation on Industrial Road.

Amagansett’s decades-old call for a public restroom in its town-owned parking lot behind Main Street, the existence of which would relieve not only tourists but the staff of the Amagansett Library, the business district’s only public facility, remains in limbo, but there may be other hope ahead.

Shoppers who have grown accustomed to taking their own reusable bags into the grocery store will have to put those hard-working totes to more extensive use as a ban in East Hampton Town on the use of thin, “single-use” plastic bags goes into effect Tuesday.

An analysis of East Hampton Town’s coastline and the potential impact of future storms, which is about to get under way, will “help determine the town’s response with regard to sea level rise, storms, and erosion,” Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc announced on Tuesday. The town’s Natural Resources Department is coordinating the work, and it will be paid for by two separate grants.

Lisa Mulhern-Larsen, one of the East Hampton Republican Party's choices for town councilwoman, will also run on the Independence Party line following her victory in that party's primary on Thursday.

Lengthy negotiations between the East Hampton Town Trustees and residents of Lazy Point in Amagansett, who lease the lots on which their houses sit from the trustees, should soon produce a new set of rules and regulations.

A Montauk restaurant called before the East Hampton Town Board for a review of its music entertainment permit after being cited five times over the summer for violations of the town noise code has “made a decision to close” for good.

While those afflicted by airport noise from helicopters and other craft using East Hampton Airport had hoped for relief after an overnight curfew was enacted in July, many told the East Hampton Town Board last week that the measure fell short, and that noise problems continued and had even grown worse this summer.

Rebuilding or replacing a trailer in the Montauk Shores Condominium usually stirs controversy when applications come before the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals.

A proposal for East Hampton Town’s first solar energy farm surged closer to reality on Sept. 2, after a site plan review before the town’s planning board produced little static.

When the next New York State legislative session begins in January, Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. will once again propose a new fund for affordable housing on the East End.

East Hampton Town’s Civil Service Employees Association voted down a four-year contract with the town on Aug. 6 in a landslide, 139-to-6, “no thanks” tally, just as town board members were ready to ratify it at a meeting the same day.

Local Democrats and businesses welcomed Hillary Clinton on Sunday for a jam-packed day of fund-raising.

Next Thursday is Primary Day, and Independence Party voters here will see a contest for the two town board seats up for re-election in November. Three candidates are vying for the party’s endorsement for the two seats.

The status of a music permit issued to Ciao by the Beach, a Montauk restaurant that was cited five times this summer with violations of the East Hampton Town noise ordinance, is to be ruled on soon, following a hearing before the town board on Tuesday.

East Hampton Town Board members stepped back Tuesday from an effort to reaffirm a town ban on bedrooms in basements, which has been on the books but not recently enforced, with one official calling it a “knee-jerk reaction” to a recent uproar over the construction of two eight-bedroom houses on half-acre lots in Springs.

Would-be condo developers say lots on Ferry Road are not for sale.

The question of whether East Hampton Town should continue to bar bedrooms in basements with tighter rules than those in place under the New York State building code was discussed at Town Hall last week.

Two lots on Squaw Road in East Hampton will be bought by East Hampton Town from the Nature Conservancy, following a vote of the town board last Thursday night.

Supreme Court Justice dismissed a countersuit by the restaurant’s lawyers, Jordan & LeVerrier, against the town, which sought damages in connection with an ongoing lawsuit the town has brought against Cyril’s.

Owing to the continued presence of cyanobacteria, Georgica Pond will remain closed to the harvesting of crabs, the East Hampton Town Trustees determined at their meeting on Tuesday.