Government

Margaret Turner bundled up in a warm coat on Monday afternoon, ready to spend a few hours walking door-to-door in East Hampton as part of her campaign for a seat on the town board. She forgot to bring a pair of gloves, though, and by the time she finished a walk down Conklin Terrace, a dead-end street with perhaps 20 houses, the chill of the 40-degree afternoon had gotten to her.

Concerned about a dearth of year-round, affordable housing, East Hampton Town officials are working on changes that encourage more legal apartments in existing buildings.

In an event hosted by Concerned Citizens of Montauk at the hamlet's firehouse, Tom Knobel, the Republican Committee chairman and its candidate for supervisor, said several times that the town board had worked too often on new laws behind closed doors and held too many executive sessions.

The state’s Department of Environmental Conservation’s Shellfisheries Section has downgraded approximately 20 acres of bottomland in Accabonac Harbor in Springs from seasonally uncertified to uncertified year round, meaning that the harvesting of shellfish is prohibited. The areas were previously uncertified from May 1 through Nov. 30. The reclassification took effect on Tuesday.

The campaign for East Hampton Town Board and supervisor intensified this week with Democratic Party officials suggesting that the Republican candidates have coordinated with a new political action committee with ties to an out-of-state helicopter charter service. Republicans deny any coordination.

A housing complex planned for a five-acre property on Montauk Highway in Amagansett is expected to provide affordable living space for community members of mixed income.

The commisssioners of the Springs Fire District came under a barrage of fire at a hearing before the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals Tuesday, concerning a cellphone tower erected behind the Springs Firehouse on Fort Pond Boulevard in April.

The height of the water table, adjacent wetlands, and allowing a house to be demolished without appropriate approval had all sides in a controversial application before the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals seeing red on Sept. 29. The immediate question was whether a property owner could take advantage of variances and permits that had been granted before the structure was demolished.

The idea that the federally owned Plum Island should be preserved and protected, not sold to the highest bidder and developed, found widespread support on Monday during a public hearing on the island’s future.

The Ocean Colony Beach and Tennis Club, which occupies a six-acre site  east of the Lobster Roll restaurant on Napeague, wants to enlarge all but one of its units’ decks, but needs an East Hampton Town Zoning Board decision before it can proceed.

Gordian Raacke, a member of East Hampton Town’s energy sustainability advisory committee, has encouraged the public to attend its twice-monthly meetings.

The committee’s meetings are open and take place at 11 a.m. on the first and third Thursday of the month at Town Hall.

Tentative budget numbers released last Thursday by East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell call for a 2.76 percent increase that will be offset in part by $910,000 in savings.

Affordable housing advocates who have been working on the creation of a 48-unit apartment complex for low-income residents that they had hoped could be built on town land in Wainscott have so far not seen support from the East Hampton Town Board, which has been asked to provide land for the project, as has been done for other affordable housing efforts.

One sure sign of summer in recent years is the chokepoint on Montauk Highway on Napeague in the vicinity of Cyril’s bar and restaurant, where patrons parking up and down the highway shoulder and looking to cross the highway, which has a 55-mile-per-hour speed limit, cause a slowdown — and concern.

Members of the East Hampton Town Board and candidates for their seats participated in a debate hosted by The Star and the East Hampton Group for Good Government on Saturday.

A Montauk restaurant and bar will no longer be allowed to have bands playing on its patio or to use speakers outdoors for the next year.

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.