Government

    On Monday, the United States Senate passed an amendment to the 2012 Farm Bill that will help commercial fishermen obtain disaster relief loans.

    Kirsten Gillibrand, a senator from New York, announced passage of the measure yesterday. Ms. Gillibrand, a Democratic member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said the amendment had bipartisan support. The amendment adds commercial fishermen to a bill that otherwise provides a safety net to farmers in the event of a natural disaster.

East Hampton Town

Beach Business

    The East Hampton Town Board has put on hold a number of requests from surf camps and others seeking permission to give classes or tours to paying customers on public beaches. Under current town law, a commercial mass gathering permit is needed to do so.

     Catherine Casey, who has served for approximately 10 years as the assistant director of East Hampton Town’s Office of Housing and Community Development, has been appointed head of the East Hampton Housing Authority, an autonomous agency that often works with the town to provide affordable housing. She replaces Maureen Murphy, the authority’s longtime director, who has retired.

    The Sagaponack Village Board is considering a law that would seek to rein in development in the village by addressing lot coverage, gross square floor area, and accessory structures in backyards.

    The board discussed a draft of the law at a meeting on Monday, but agreed that much work remained before the changes could be brought to a public hearing.

    A building permit for a property on Abraham’s Path in Amagansett that was rescinded, then reinstated, was again rescinded, this time by the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals. The board voted 5 to 0 on Tuesday night to make the permit issued by the town’s acting chief building inspector, Tom Preiato, null and void, at least for now.

    After holding scheduled public hearings on June 12, the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals went into a work session and debated the proposed development of three contiguous lots located on the border of the Montauk Downs golf course on South Fairview Avenue, Montauk.

    Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson placed 14 items on the agenda for an East Hampton Town Board work session on Tuesday, all of which, he told the board, “We have to take action on or kick aside.”

    All had been previously discussed. Some were left hanging because of issues that arose during initial talks, or board members’ questions or requests for more information.

    Following a failed attempt to gain town board approval to issue a request for proposals to outsource East Hampton Town’s information technology services, the town’s internal audit division has distributed a survey to all town employees to assess the performance of the Information Technology Department.

A storm of e-mails followed news of a new sign, specifically in response to the plan to include on it the names of the East Hampton Town supervisor and town board members.

    Not to be outdone by Jerry Seinfeld, who just got the go-ahead to install a solar power system at his Further Lane, East Hampton, property, Alec Baldwin has submitted plans to the town for a wind turbine on his five acres off Town Lane in Amagansett. He will become the first homeowner in East Hampton to have one, should the town board approve his request.

Former G.O.P. leader cites his commitment to veterans

    “It’s such an important idea that it deserves a chance,” County Legislator Jay Schneiderman said yesterday, speaking in support of the county’s authorization of a ferry license for Hampton Jitney, operating as the Peconic Bay Water Jitney, to run a passenger service between Greenport and Sag Harbor.

East Hampton Town

Airport Tower Here Soon

    An air traffic control facility  — commonly called a tower but actually a modular building to house equipment and traffic controllers — could be up and running at East Hampton Airport by June 18, Town Councilman Dominick Stanzione said on Tuesday.

    The East Hampton Zoning Board of Appeals entered the labyrinth of logic inside a barn on Abraham’s Path in Amagansett Tuesday night as it began its initial deliberation on a challenge to a Nov. 3, 2011, reinstatement of a building permit by the town’s acting chief building inspector, Tom Preiato, who had revoked the permit five weeks earlier.

    Two attorneys active in town zoning affairs are squaring off against each other following an East Hampton Town Planning Board April 4 decision giving William Babinski, a Wainscott farmer, site plan approval to build a second barn. Litigation has begun even though the matter is headed for a public hearing before the town board at 7 p.m. next Thursday and even though the barn is 80 percent complete.   

    The 20th anniversary of the Peconic Estuary’s being named an estuary of national significance by the federal Environmental Protection Agency will be celebrated on Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., at the Long Island Science Center, 11 West Main Street in Riverhead. The estuary also has been called “One of the Last Great Places in the Western Hemisphere” by the Nature Conservancy.

    Contributions to the Peconic Bay Community Preservation Fund, from a 2-percent real estate transfer tax on most land sales, for last month are up from April, 2011, totaling $6.1 million this year versus $5 million last year.

“Hopefully, this is an indication that we are entering a robust period for real estate sales,” New York State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. said in a press release this week.

    The East Hampton Town Board will hold a hearing next Thursday on a $60,000 project designed to correct problems with the streetlights in downtown Montauk. The lights, which meet dark-sky friendly standards, have become dimmer over time, prompting complaints to the board that it is difficult to see in the downtown area at night.

    According to Councilman Dominick Stanzione, the globes on the fixtures have been weathered by the elements, causing the problem, and will be the only thing that will be changed.

    Recent tests that revealed the presence of a dangerous form of marine plankton in shellfish taken from Sag Harbor Cove have prompted the East Hampton Town Trustees to invite the scientist responsible for the testing to share his knowledge.

    Dr. Christopher Gobler of Stony Brook University will give a talk tomorrow at 5:30 p.m. in the East Hampton Town Hall meeting room on “Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning and Red Tides in East End Waters,” addressing the causes, effects, and distribution.

    East Hampton Town’s first attempt to create a road improvement district, taxing residents of certain subdivisions to pay for improving their roads so that they can be taken into the town highway system, is proceeding, though not without some dissension.

    Jeffrey Bragman, a zoning and planning attorney since the 1980s, was asked recently to elaborate on his views about East Hampton Town’s proposed music-entertainment legislation and his concerns, more generally, about town policy, and planning and zoning regulation.

Following a heated exchange at an East Hampton Town Board work session Tuesday over a controversial proposal to deal with large crowds gathering outside at restaurants or bars, Councilwoman Theresa Quigley, who offered the legislation, challenged the two Democrats on the board to produce a proposal of their own to address the problem.

    A fence war broke out during the East Hampton Town Planning Board’s May 9 meeting, pitting the owner of the Amagansett I.G.A., also called Cirillo’s Market,  against a long-vacant building and parking lot next door.

    Fran Cirillo, the market’s owner, is expanding it, on both the east and west sides of the building, by about 5,000 square feet, to over 20,000 square feet. She received site-plan approval from the board last August.

    With only 17 days remaining to Memorial Day weekend, East Hampton Town’s Ordinance Enforcement and Animal Control Departments are both short-staffed, Patrick Gunn, the town’s public safety division administrator and an assistant town attorney, told the town board on Tuesday.

    Four full-time officers and one part-timer are assigned to code enforcement.  A senior ordinance enforcement officer — “probably the most productive one,” Mr. Gunn told the board — was injured while fighting last month’s wildfire, and could be out of work indefinitely.

East Hampton Town

Issue $1.7 Million in Bonds

    With a unanimous vote last Thursday, the East Hampton Town Board authorized the issuance of almost $1.7 million in bonds to cover the costs of a variety of capital projects. After postponing the adoption of a capital budget until prior financial accounting problems were ironed out, the board drafted a three-year capital plan this year.

    East Hampton Town Trustee Debbie Klughers has secured a federal grant that will not only make it possible for fishermen to dispose of used fishing gear but also allow them to turn the gear, including line, lobster pots, nets, dredges, and buoys, into energy.

    The Fishing for Energy program is a partnership of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Covanta Energy Corporation, and Schnitzer Steel Industries. All four organizations are working together to reduce mountains of derelict fishing gear nationwide.

East Hampton Town

Assessors Rolls Available

    The latest property tax assessments for the Town of East Hampton are available for review at the assessors office at 300 Pantigo Place weekdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. On Mondays there will be evening hours from 6 to 8. The board of assessment review will meet in Town Hall on May 15 from 10 a.m. to noon, from 2 to 4 p.m., and from 6 to 8 p.m. to hear grievances and requests for changes.

    A hearing will be held tonight before the East Hampton Town Board on a proposed law requiring bars and restaurants that offer live music or other entertainment to obtain permits. The permits would be subject to certain provisions, such as a limit on the number of people allowed to gather for outdoor entertainment. They would be issued by the town clerk without review, carry no fee, and be valid for a calendar year. One-year renewals would be automatic.

    The Surf Lodge, Montauk’s hot summer spot, will be mellowing down a bit this summer with a new ownership group, Montauk Properties L.L.C., it was announced Monday. The new team will still feature Jayma Cardoso as its day-to-day manager and public face, but Rob McKinley, Jamie Mulholland, and Steve Kamali, other former owners, are out of the picture, according to Montauk Properties.

    Ms. Cardoso sees this as a chance to reassess and reinvigorate the Surf Lodge, focusing more on the hotel and dining experience, as opposed to simply being a nighttime destination.

    The East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals debated two controversial applications Tuesday night, making a decision on one and tabling the other for a week.

    The first involved three and a third acres on Napeague, between Montauk Highway and the beach, where the owners, Mindy Nam and Mark Dehnert, have asked for a natural resources permit for a 2,000-square-foot lawn, a 6,050-square-foot tennis court, a 640-square-foot pavilion, a 100-square-foot shed, along with 831 square feet of deck and parking. The sticking point was the lawn.