Government

As Covid-19 infection rates continue to either fall or plateau across the state, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has announced that pandemic-related restrictions on social gatherings, indoor dining at restaurants, and attendance at arts venues will be relaxed.

A proposal to offer monthlong nonresident parking permits at East Hampton Village beaches garnered broad support at a village board meeting on Thursday. A permit would cost $300, and expire at the end of each month.

Following the lead of 1,903 jurisdictions in 34 countries, the East Hampton Town Board unanimously approved a climate emergency declaration committing the board to making climate mitigation and the elimination of greenhouse gas emissions "a guiding principle of . . . all aspects of town business for the foreseeable future."

The East Hampton Town Trustees are throwing their support behind a proposal from the town's shellfish hatchery director to fund a pilot kelp-farming program in Three Mile Harbor. 

People at a well-attended virtual meeting of the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee Monday night cheered and applauded East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc as he relayed encouraging news about the numbers of town residents vaccinated locally over the weekend.

With six women so far coming forward to accuse Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of sexual harassment or inappropriate behavior and alleged cover-ups of nursing home deaths during the earlier days of the pandemic and safety concerns about the newly opened Mario Cuomo Bridge, support for an impeachment inquiry is growing among Albany lawmakers. 

As eligibility for the Covid-19 vaccines expands in New York, so too are the locations closer to home where people can get their shots. Last week, East Hampton Town administered first or second doses to nearly 2,000 people at its site, and still more were able to get vaccinated at the Greek Orthodox Church of the Hamptons in Southampton. In addition, the state is opening a mass vaccination site at the Stony Brook Southampton college campus.

After repeated assurances that downtown Montauk would be the first component of the long-awaited Fire Island to Montauk Point Reformulation Project, East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said last week that the Army Corps of Engineers had announced that the town is not slated to see renourishment of the ocean beach this fall, when the project is scheduled to begin, but rather in 2023.

"We need a more diverse police force," Sandra Dunn of East Hampton Town's Police Reform and Reinvention Committee told the town board on Tuesday. Just four of 65 officers are Latino, she said, and the department has just one African-American member, a detective. Nine officers are women.

East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc has found the petition for a vote to form an incorporated village of Wainscott legally insufficient.

The Suffolk County Shellfish Aquaculture Lease Program, SCALP, in which up to six 10-acre parcels are leased per year, has proven controversial on the East End, with shellfish farmers and yacht clubs at odds over the use of Peconic and Gardiner's Bays.

Representative Lee Zeldin is exploring a run for governor of New York, he said on Tuesday amid mounting trouble for Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, whose actions with respect to deaths from Covid-19 infection in nursing homes was recently compounded by multiple accusations of sexual harassment.