Government

       Larry Cantwell, the East Hampton Town supervisor-elect, has announced that he will appoint three new members of the town attorney’s staff after taking office in the new year.

       Elizabeth Vail will replace John Jilnicki as town attorney. Mr. Jilnicki, a graduate of St. John’s University School of Law, has served for 20 years as both East Hampton town attorney and assistant town attorney. He will stay on as an assistant town attorney.

Members of one of East Hampton’s founding families made emotional pleas last week to the town board, seeking to have the zoning changed and agricultural protections removed on their 19 acres of farmland so that it could be subdivided into more house lots than currently allowed

       An application to split a 15-acre property on the west side of Town Lane in Amagansett into two lots will be the focus of a Jan. 8 public hearing before the East Hampton Town Planning Board. The owner, Randy Lerner, has agreed, in accordance with town code,that over half the land be held in reserve, never to be developed.

Opponents to the proposed 555 development plan in Amagansett received an early Christmas present on Dec. 11 when East Hampton Town Planning Board’s chairman, Reed Jones, announced that the application had been withdrawn

       A hearing on an application to install 12 AT&T antennas on the face of a 180,000-gallon oil tank at P.C. Schenck and Sons at 60 Newtown Lane drew alarm from neighboring property owners after a lengthy presentation at Friday’s meeting of the East Hampton Zoning Board of Appeals.

       The East Hampton Town Democratic Committee feted its own during a holiday party at the Palm restaurant in East Hampton on Friday, honoring retiring Justice Catherine A. Cahill for her 20 years of service to the town and saluting a number of committee members for their work on this year’s campaign.

       Among the crowd of 95 guests were Supervisor-elect Larry Cantwell, Councilwoman-elect Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, and Steven Tekulsky, who was elected to take Ms. Cahill’s place on the bench.

East Hampton Town

Hunting Deadline Tomorrow

    Applications to hunt deer on East Hampton Town lands are due in the town clerk’s office on Pantigo Road by 4 p.m. tomorrow. Permits for individual hunters will be awarded in a lottery-type drawing. The 2014 deer-hunting season will open on Jan. 6 and last for the month, excluding Saturdays and Sundays. Guidelines are available from the clerk’s office.

New York State

D.E.C. Website Blackout

       The Sag Harbor Village Zoning Board of Appeals, which has spent the better part of the past three years reviewing an application to expand the Harbor Heights gas station on Route 114, announced at a work session on Monday that it needs a little more time before making a decision.

       The East Hampton Town Republican Committee looked to a familiar face for its new leader when it elected Tom Knobel as its chairman on Dec. 11.

       Mr. Knobel, a former town councilman and trustee, was the committee’s vice chairman. He will replace Kurt Kappel, who stepped down after a two-year term. Mr. Knobel previously served eight years as the G.O.P. chairman before giving up the post in 2005.

       The committee will elect a vice chairman in the coming weeks, Mr. Knobel said.

Beginning next Thursday, the New York State website through which hunting and fishing licenses are bought and big-game and turkey kills recorded will be unavailable while the system is overhauled.

Joe Martens, the commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation, said in a release that the move is part of a statewide effort to consolidate licensing operations. The changeover is expected to last one to two weeks.

       If all goes according to plan, solar panels could be cropping up next year on a number of vacant parcels owned by East Hampton Town.

       On Tuesday, the town board, acting at the request of Councilman Dominick Stanzione, agreed to seek bids from solar contractors to lease as many as 14  town-owned parcels, from Wainscott to Montauk. Mr. Stanzione said the project was the first step toward realizing a far-reaching objective adopted last summer by the town’s energy sustainability advisory committee, to which he is the liaison.

       It will soon be harder for business owners to park their commercial vehicles overnight on the streets and in the driveways of residential neighborhoods.

       On Tuesday, the East Hampton Town Board agreed to adopt a resolution banning the parking of big work trucks and other heavy equipment from residential streets between the hours of midnight and 6 a.m.

Four East Hampton Town Board hearings next Thursday on requests for changes to the town zoning code are expected to draw a crowd. Petitions have been circulating against all of the proposals.

    Health insurance costs for East Hampton Town employees will rise next year under the New York State Health Insurance Program much less than town officials had feared, just 1.8 percent.

    East Hampton Town property tax bills for 2013-14 will be mailed tomorrow, with the first half  due on Jan. 10. The second half will be due by the end of May.

    Property owners who wish to pay their taxes before receiving the bill may do so by visiting the office of the town tax receiver at 300 Pantigo Place, or by calling that office. Payments may also be made by phone or online using a credit card.  The address is officialpayments.com and the phone number is 800-487-4567. Those doing so will be asked to enter a jurisdiction code, which is 4216.

    A controversy is taking shape over 555, the proposed large housing complex in Amagansett. Both the developers and those opposed to the enactment of new rules that would pave the way for the 79 units to be built are making appeals in the court of public opinion.

       Good fences make good neighbors, wrote the poet Robert Frost — but when the fence is built on a neighbor’s property, not so good, according to the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals.

       The 5-acre-plus property in question, at 143 Town Lane in East Hampton, is owned by Caroline Lloyd, an equestrian who, according to her attorney, spends most of her time in West Palm Beach, Fla., when she is in the United States. But for three months a year the horse season moves to the Hamptons, and so does Ms. Lloyd.

       A pool patio on Cove Hollow Road was given an okay by the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals on Nov. 19, but an adjoining pool house got an emphatic no. James and Christine Weinberg bought their half-acre property, which contained a 3,800-square-foot house, a 648-square-foot pool, and a 592-square-foot pool house, in 2002. The latter structure pre-existed zoning and was allowed to remain in place. The Weinbergs’ application, which was heard on Oct.

       The East Hampton Chamber of Commerce will receive a $37,000 grant from the Suffolk County Legislature to be used for the construction of an illuminated crosswalk on Newtown Lane in East Hampton Village. The village will provide 50 percent of the cost in matching funds.

       As with the two lighted crosswalks on Main Street, the new crosswalk will improve visibility for and of pedestrians. It will be installed at the site of an existing crosswalk on Newtown Lane approximately 500 feet north of Main Street.

      A hearing on a five-year capital improvement plan for the East Hampton Airport drew questions about the price tag of the projects in it — which grew from $6 million in August to $9.8 million last month and $10.4 million in a final draft — as well as pleas from airport users to address neglected maintenance and repair.

       If the East Hampton Town Board votes to approve a new zoning classification for 555 Montauk Highway in Amagansett, it will do so without the approval of the town planning board, judging by its Nov. 20 meeting.

       The controversial action, which would establish a new “senior citizen housing overlay district” for a 23.5-acre parcel of former farmland, was discussed toward the end of a two-hour meeting.

       Representing the owners of Balasses House, who have applied to change the classification of the Amagansett antiques shop and gallery from limited business overlay to central business, allowing a broader use that he called “general retail,” Rick Whalen, an attorney, sought the support of the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee on Monday night.

       East Hampton Town Supervisor-elect Larry Cantwell announced on Sunday that he will reappoint Len Bernard as the town’s budget officer in January.

       “While it is the supervisor who makes this appointment, I have consulted with all members of the town board who will hold office in January and they all agree with this appointment,” Mr. Cantwell said in a press release.

       Mr. Bernard served under Supervisor Bill Wilkinson and was the budget officer during Jay Schneiderman’s two terms on the job as well.

East Hampton Town

Town Vehicles Up for Grabs

       East Hampton Town has placed a number of vehicles for sale online at auctionsinternational.com,  where bids will be accepted through Dec. 2.

       The cars and trucks include pickups, dump trucks, former police cars, and more.

Deer Project Collaboration

In a split vote on Tuesday, the East Hampton Town Board’s Republican majority approved a $69.4 million budget for 2014 over objections from the board’s two Democrats that an almost $500,000 reduction in the amount budgeted for employee health insurance, proferred by Supervisor Bill Wilkinson, could create a budget shortage next year.

      While the East Hampton Town clerk waits for delivery of a vault to store town records, to be placed in or adjacent to the new Town Hall building that opened four years ago, a storehouse of official records is moldering in the basement of the old Town Hall.

Contractors and homeowners who for years have avoided paying dump fees by leaving building debris and household castoffs in the woods along Town Line Road and Merchant’s Path, north of Montauk Highway in Wainscott, might want to think again: Someone may be watching.

The East Hampton Town Board on Tuesday agreed to let Highway Superintendent Stephen Lynch purchase low-cost video cameras that they hope will catch illicit dumpers in the act.

“There’s some feeling that this is a dumping area,” said Councilwoman Theresa Quigley.

       Residents of East Hampton Village and the portion of Sag Harbor in East Hampton Town have apparently been getting off easy when it comes to paying their share of the costs for the Montauk Playhouse and other town projects that were financed by bonds in 2005, 2006, and 2008.

       The East Hampton Aviation Association, the group that has vociferously defended East Hampton Airport against what it says are unreasonable efforts to limit its use and even shut it down, last week asked the East Hampton Town Board to delay a hearing on the airport capital plan until after the administration of Supervisor-elect Larry Cantwell settles in.

       Memoranda from two attorneys specializing in airport matters are expected to be on forthcoming agendas of the East Hampton Town Board, but, with Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson, Councilwoman Theresa Quigley, and Councilman Dominick Stanzione leaving office at the end of the year, a new board in January will be faced with making airport decisions. Mr. Stanzione, the town’s airport liaison, lost his bid for re-election on Tuesday.