Government

East Hampton Town

Stop-work Order Upheld

The East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals has upheld a stop-work order issued in January by Tom Preiato, the town’s chief building inspector, rejecting an appeal from the owners of Cyril’s, the bar and restaurant on Napeague. The board concluded on June 17 that Mr. Preiato was correct in finding that “the applicant did not have the proper permits and approvals to remove two 2,000- gallon underground fuel tanks from the subject premises.”

The East Hampton Town Trustees own and manage the town’s waterways on behalf of the public, as set forth in the Dongan Patent of 1686. They have debated the proposed ban on alcohol in several of their meetings, and have split on whether to support any ban, with a majority opposed.

East Hampton Town will seek proposals for the use of its new tract of public land in Amagansett, 19 acres of open space and farmland along Montauk Highway where a luxury senior citizens housing development had been planned.

The property was purchased this spring with $10.1 million from the community preservation fund for “the preservation of agricultural open space and recreation,” according to a town board resolution approving the deal.

Frustration boiled over as a group of commercial shellfishermen confronted the East Hampton Town Trustees Tuesday about the efficacy of the town shellfish hatchery’s annual seeding program, which the trustees help fund. The meeting was marked by multiple angry exchanges and those in the small room in the town’s Lamb Building on Bluff Road, Amagansett, talking over one another. When the shouting was over, all agreed that a survey after the seeding was completed would be in everyone’s interest.

A per-gallon fee added to the cost of aviation fuel at East Hampton Airport will be doubled, to 30 cents per gallon, beginning Tuesday. An East Hampton Town Board majority agreed to increase what is known as the “flowage” fee at its meeting last Thursday despite repeated pleas from Cindy Herbst of Sound Aviation Services, one of two businesses that sell fuel at the airport. The fee had remained static for 22 years. 

Last week, the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals considered a six-foot-wide boardwalk. Next week, it expects to come to terms with bodies six-feet deep.

East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell has suggested a countywide ban on disposable plastic shopping bags.

Mr. Cantwell said he had proposed the idea at a recent meeting of the East End Supervisors and Mayors Association. “That is a more comprehensive way to do it,” he said. “I’m hoping that the supervisors are going to support that request to the county.”

It isn’t usual for the East Hampton Town Planning Board to actually welcome an application for site plan review of commercial construction, but that was the reaction on June 11 when a proposal for a two-story building in the downtown area of Montauk came up. Two other site plan applications also were on the agenda, and in those cases the board called for more narrative.

The Town of Southampton earned the highest rating possible from Standard and Poor’s Rating Services on Tuesday, when it was upgraded from AA+ to AAA. Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst said the new rating was the result of fiscal discipline at Town Hall over the past four years.

According to a statement from S&P, the rating reflects the agency’s view of the town’s economy, management, budgetary flexibility, liquidity, budgetary performance, debt and contingent liabilities, and institutional framework, which were identified as being “strong” or “very strong.”

The Republican Party’s primary election to determine the candidate who will face the incumbent, Representative Tim Bishop, will take place on June 24. The primary pits Lee Zeldin, a two-term state senator from Shirley, against George Demos, an attorney formerly  with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission who lives in Stony Brook.

Mr. Bishop, who is seeking a seventh term in what is expected to be a closely contested election, does not face a primary challenger.

The Army Corps of Engineers has agreed to adjust its estimated value of the benefits of rebuilding a stretch of downtown Montauk beach — and thus the potential extent of a beach reconstruction project it will undertake, at federal expense — by half again as much as its original $103.8 million estimate, Aram Terchunian of First Coastal Corporation told the East Hampton Town Board this week.

Additional revisions may be forthcoming, said Mr. Terchunian, based on further analysis.

A hearing last week on revisions to East Hampton Town’s 2006 “smart-lighting” law, designed to reduce nighttime sky glare, centered on the Kelvin level of outdoor lighting, a measure of the light color spectrum of a particular bulb.

Blue light, speakers agreed, creates more glare, interrupts night vision, and is less desirable. Speakers disagreed, however, on where the line should be drawn: a provision in the legislation sets a “goal” of lights at no more than 3,000 Kelvin, but would allow the planning board to approve Kelvin levels up to 3,500.

The chairman of the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee easily withstood a challenge when the group re-elected officers on Monday. Of the 21 members who cast ballots, 17 voted for Kieran Brew to remain as chairman, with 4 votes for Rona Klopman, a former chairwoman and vice chairwoman. Michael Diesenhaus and Susan Bratton were unanimously re-elected vice chairman and secretary.

A hearing in State Supreme Court in Riverhead this week may have been the beginning of the end of an ongoing battle between East Hampton Town and the owners of Cyril’s Fish House, the popular eatery and bar on Napeague, but the case is not over yet. The town is seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent the owners, Michael Dioguardi and Cyril Fitzsimons, from operating a business in any other form than existed in 1984, when it was a small roadside cafe. They, in turn, have brought suit against the town for what they say is malicious prosecution and abuse of process.

East Hampton Town

Hearing on Beach Drinking

The East Hampton Town Board will hold a hearing next Thursday on a law that would ban drinking at Indian Wells and Atlantic Avenue Beaches in Amagansett during the hours that lifeguards are on duty, on the beach within 1,500 feet of the road endings.

Sagaponack Village is considering revising its code as it relates to construction after some residents asked village leaders to put a stop to work on weekends and holidays.

An informational meeting will be held to hear residents’ opinions on the subject on Saturday at Sagaponack Village Hall at 9 a.m.

East Hampton Town’s scavenger waste treatment plant, which has been operating since 2012 solely as a transfer station for waste trucked elsewhere to be treated, will be decommissioned and closed for good by the end of November, according to a resolution passed by the town board last Thursday.

The owner of an 11.8-acre parcel at 8 Five Rod Highway in Wainscott received final approval to build two houses on it from the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals at June 3 meeting at Town Hall. Two houses on a single lot are prohibited under the zoning code, but an exception was made in this case because the lot was itself created in the subdivision of a 19-acre parcel approved by the town planning board in 1983.

The owner of three properties at Ditch Plain in Montauk has been before the East Hampton Town Zoning Board on consecutive weeks, seeking variances for construction at two of the sites.

Sean MacPherson, a New York boutique-hotel developer, bought the house on Miller Avenue where he still lives in 2007, according to Tyler Borsack of the Town Planning Department. It is a small house, at 864 square feet, on a 37,081-square-foot parcel.

Air traffic at East Hampton Airport during the Thursday-through-Monday period surrounding the Memorial Day holiday increased by 20 percent over the same period last year and generated numerous complaints.

Jim Brundige, the airport manager, told the East Hampton Town Board Tuesday that there were 872 takeoffs and landings over the long weekend and 475 complaints about noise and disturbance. During last year’s holiday period there were 248 complaints.

East Hampton Town

Survey for Senior Citizens

A committee appointed by the East Hampton Town Board to evaluate the needs of senior citizens in the community, and resources available to them, is polling older residents through a survey, which can be completed online at easthamptonsurvey.com. Survey forms can also be found at various public buildings throughout the town, including Town Hall. Responses must be submitted by June 19.

Suffolk County

Nitrogen Reduction Efforts

An East Hampton group that has been fighting against the installation by PSEG Long Island of a high-power electricity transmission line on new and higher poles filed suit on Wednesday in New York State Supreme Court in Riverhead in an effort to stop the project.

Ride to Montauk, a planned Manhattan-to-Montauk bicycle trip on Saturday encountered a pothole this week when both East Hampton Town and East Hampton Village denied permits for the event.

Cyril’s Fish House, the popular roadside restaurant on the Napeague stretch, received the okay to open for the season last Thursday, when acting Su­preme Court Justice Joseph Farneti lifted a temporary restraining order that would have required the restaurant to operate in conformance to its layout in the mid-1980s, when the establishment was much smaller.

Garages that contain apartments have drawn the attention of the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals in recent years and continued to do so on Friday when a hearing on one was postponed and another was granted approval.

East Hampton Town

Push for Airport Noise Complaints

With the summer season under way at East Hampton Airport, the Quiet Skies Coalition issued a press release this week urging “aircraft-noise-affected residents” to log complaints by calling the aircraft noise complaint line at 800-476-4817, or posting complaints online at plane­noise.com/khto.

Recent storms have claimed some 20 feet of bluff, and several residents have proposed a sand-covered rock revetment to hold back the waters of Gardiner's Bay.

    A consultant’s assertion that East Hampton Town has nothing to gain by fixing and reopening its scavenger waste treatment plant, which has been offline since 2012 and used solely as a transfer station, went unchallenged at a hearing held by the town board last week.

East Hampton Town

Complaints Online

    Complaints to the East Hampton Town Ordinance Enforcement Department, regarding, for example, possible town code violations from overcrowded housing to illegal summer rentals, litter, or businesses operating in residential zones, may now be lodged online through the town’s website at www.ehamptonny.gov.

    Taxi drivers in East Hampton Town will be fingerprinted and checked for criminal convictions under a new law passed last Thursday.

    Before being issued a town taxi license, drivers and principals in taxi companies will be vetted by state and town officials.