Government

East Hampton Town's water quality technical advisory committee issued recommendations to a supportive town board on Tuesday to fund six projects using money from the portion of the community preservation fund allocated to water quality improvements.

The East Hampton Town Board voted on Tuesday to appoint Kevin Cooper, a 32-year veteran of the New York Police Department and New York City Transit Police, as director of code enforcement.

Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming, flanked by Democratic and labor leaders, announced her candidacy for the Democratic Party’s nomination for New York’s First Congressional District on Monday.

Citing continuing downward trends in New York State’s Covid-19 infection and hospitalization rates and seven million of its residents being fully vaccinated, an upbeat Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Monday “a major reopening of the state” on May 19. 

Sag Harbor Village residents weighed in on Bay Street Theater's plan for a new theater, the departure of the 7-Eleven, and proposed restrictions on waterfront development at a public hearing held in John Steinbeck Waterfront Park last week. "We cannot control who can buy what, we can't control who can sell what, but what we can do is control the use, the size, the scale, and most importantly, the character of what is put on any property," said Mayor Kathleen Mulcahy.

Following C.D.C. guidance, New Yorkers who are fully vaccinated will no longer be required to wear masks outdoors, "except in certain crowded settings and venues," and to make it easier to get the vaccine, the state is opening all of its mass vaccination sites to walk-ins. 

President Biden's announcement on Earth Day that the United States will cut greenhouse gas emissions to 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels by the end of this decade was hailed by South Fork activists this week as commensurate with the urgency of the climate crisis.

The solar array is to be situated at the North Sea Transfer Station, a former landfill. The town announced the request last Thursday, Earth Day.

As downtown Montauk continues to wait for a long-promised federal government effort to protect its eroded ocean beaches, the Army Corps of Engineers has delayed the project to 2023. This has spurred Concerned Citizens of Montauk to gather almost 1,200 signatures on a petition demanding the project start this year, as the Army Corps had previously signaled it would.

A request from State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele and environmental advocates that East Hampton Town allocate 2 percent of funds it receives from the Peconic Bay Region's Community Preservation Fund to the Peconic Estuary Partnership was endorsed by the town board on Tuesday.

A multiyear effort to save the Springs house and studios of the Abstract Expressionist artists James Brooks and Charlotte Park may yet have a happy ending, despite a demolition permit, approved by the architectural review board in January 2020, that is "still on the table," according to a co-chairman of the East Hampton Arts Council.

A renewed push to seek a not-for-profit entity to manage the property follows Preservation Long Island's issue of an "alert" status as to the structures' potential demolition, and the organization has asked the town to rescind the demolition permit.

Seeking a site for the construction of a sewage treatment facility, the East Hampton Village Board narrowed the options down to two village-owned properties at a meeting on Friday. In the running are a vacant lot just north of the railroad trestle on North Main Street, and the Accabonac Road parcel that is home to the Department of Public Works.