Government

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.

A series of free workshops sponsored by the Town of East Hampton and Chase Bank will offer information designed to guide those purchasing a house through the process. Targeted to first-time buyers, the workshops are free and open to all, and will be held at LTV Studios at 75 Industrial Road in Wainscott.

       The State Department of Environmental Conservation has reclassified two East Hampton Town waterways, where the harvesting of shellfish from specific areas will be prohibited on a year-round or seasonal basis.

       The composition of the East Hampton Town Trustees will remain largely unchanged following Tuesday’s vote. Unofficial results indicate that all seven of the incumbent trustees were re-elected. With absentee ballots yet to be counted, however, the winners of the final two positions on the nine-member board are yet to be determined.

Those who have closely watched the campaigns or are big supporters of one or more of the candidates may want to join the Republicans or Democrats for the election night excitement on Tuesday.

Republicans will be gathering at Indian Wells Tavern in Amagansett to count the returns, celebrate their candidates, and congratulate winners starting around 9 p.m., when the polls close.

Democrats will make their headquarters at Rowdy Hall in East Hampton, where they will be poring over results.

Polls are open on Tuesday from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.

East Hampton Town

Budget, Land Buy Hearings

    The East Hampton Town Board held hearings last Thursday on legislation designed to address complaints  about commercial vehicles — work trucks and other equipment — parked on residential lots, largely in Springs. The board found, however, that its proposed solution — to allow two commercially registered vehicles of up to 14,000 pounds gross vehicle weight — did not sit well with a number of speakers.

    A second proposed law would prohibit the parking of commercially registered vehicles on residential streets between midnight and 6 a.m.

    Like most emergency services volunteers, Karen Haab, who has been an advanced emergency medical technician for 11 of her 12 years with the Springs Fire Department, is not one to toot her own horn.

But lately, others have been all too happy to do it for her.

    On Saturday, with friends, officials, and a good number of her colleagues from the Springs Fire Department on hand, Ms. Haab was presented with a medal of honor from the Firemen’s Association of the State of New York.

    Martin Drew of Springs, a political gadfly and frequent writer of letters to the editor, announced last Thursday that he would run a write-in campaign for East Hampton Town supervisor.

    A semi-retired contractor and real estate investor, Mr. Drew, 47, said he was undaunted by the prospect of trying to defeat Larry Cantwell, the popular former East Hampton Village administrator, whose name will be the only one on the ballot, under the Democratic, Independence, and Working Families lines.

Dems’ Campaign Rally

    The East Hampton Democratic Party has invited people to an “old-fashioned campaign rally” on Saturday from 4:30 to 7 p.m. at the East Hampton Neighborhood House. There will be live music, free food and drinks for adults and children, and the Democratic candidates for town supervisor and town board, Larry Cantwell, Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, and Job Potter, will be on hand. The Neighborhood House is on Three Mile Harbor Road.

Gansett Gathering for G.O.P.

    It was mostly quality-of-life issues in Montauk that were discussed at a candidates forum hosted by the Concerned Citizens of Montauk on Sunday at the Montauk Firehouse. The current East Hampton Town Board administration was harshly criticized for everything from approving the Shark Attack Sounds party permit for almost 4,000 people at the Montauk Yacht Club over July Fourth weekend to not hiring a coastal engineer to analyze the erosion issue in downtown Montauk.

    A house can be built at 85 South Edgemere Street in Montauk on a controversial vacant lot at the edge of  Fort Pond,  just not the exact house the owners had wanted, according to a 3-2 vote Tuesday by the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals. The lot is slightly over an acre, but with a very small building envelope due to surrounding wetlands.

    At its meeting tonight, the East Hampton Town Board is expected to approve scheduling a hearing for Nov. 7 at 7 p.m. at Town Hall on a proposed $69.9 million budget for 2014.

    A storage facility on Goodfriend Drive in East Hampton that was said to be for one man’s car collection seemed to be traveling along a smooth road until last week when it hit a massive pothole. During preliminary site plan review by the East Hampton Town Planning Board back in July, the applicant, Derek Trulson, said, “I have a collection of muscle cars. I want to store my cars there. My cars are toys, but they are also investments.”

    Property owners who have been receiving New York State’s Basic STAR exemption, relieving them of a portion of their school taxes, must register with the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance by Dec. 31 in order to continue to receive the exemption in 2014 and subsequent years.

    Until now, a one-time registration assured that the exemption would be applied year after year. The new requirement to reregister was instituted after the state comptroller found that numerous taxpayers had fraudulently obtained STAR exemptions for their properties.

Independence Buffet

    Candidates running on the Independence Party line in East Hampton Town will meet voters tonight from 6 to 8 in the community hall at the St. Michael’s senior housing complex in Amagansett.

    Hearings will be held tonight by the East Hampton Town Board on two additions to the town code that are designed to help officials better enforce the law against running businesses in a residential zone.

    The first would regulate the parking of commercial vehicles on residential properties. According to the proposed law, two commercially registered vehicles, each with a gross vehicle weight of 14,000 pounds or less (excluding fuel trucks) would be allowed to regularly park on a residential lot.

    Candidates for East Hampton Town and Suffolk County office will appear together at two major forums this week — a Concerned Citizens of Montauk meet-the-candidates event on Sunday and a League of Women Voters debate in East Hampton on Monday.

    The Montauk event, the group’s 43rd, will take place at the Montauk Firehouse starting at 1 p.m. Typically the only time when all candidates appear together in Montauk, it often draws a standing-room-only audience.

    State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle is among those named to head a Senate task force that will be charged with studying state and federal efforts to combat Lyme and other tick-borne diseases and make recommendations for a state plan to improve prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of them.

How it Was, How it Will Be

    Candidates for East Hampton Town Board will share their views on preservation following a screening at LTV tonight of a vintage film by the jazz age illustrator Hamilton King.

    The free program, from 5 to 7 p.m., is hosted by the East Hampton Historical Society and LTV. The film, which includes footage of East Hampton in the 1920s and 1930s, will serve as the springboard for a panel discussion with the candidates on the future of preservation in the town.

    LTV is at 75 Industrial Road in Wainscott.

    Larry Cantwell was the top vote-getter in the Republican primary for East Hampton Town supervisor, but Mr. Cantwell, the former East Hampton Village administrator who is running on the Democratic, Independence, and Working Families lines, has declined the nomination.

    Turnout was lower than 2 percent, and even in countywide Republican races, like those for sheriff or district attorney, less than 8 percent of registered Republicans showed up on Sept. 10.

On the 28th anniversary of Hurricane Gloria’s landfall on Long Island, the Village of East Hampton’s Zoning Board of Appeals held a second, lengthy hearing to consider whether or how to allow an oceanfront homeowner to protect her property from extreme weather events

    At the urging of Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has granted a six-month extension for Sandy-impacted homeowners to file flood insurance claims. The move follows a bipartisan call led by Ms. Gillibrand to extend FEMA’s Oct. 29 deadline for homeowners to file a Proof of Loss form under the National Flood Insurance Program the agency manages.

    Ms. Gillibrand and Mr. Schumer, along with New Jersey’s U.S. senators and members of both states’

    Candidates for East Hampton Town supervisor and town board will meet at the Emergency Services Building on Cedar Street Saturday afternoon for the first of several debates scheduled over the next five weeks.

    This one, sponsored by the East Hampton Group for Good Government, is likely to include questions on the airport, deer control, wastewater, code enforcement, and the merits of a town manager, the group’s president, Jeffrey Fisher, said Monday. The debate will start at 2 p.m.

    A meeting on East Hampton Town’s comprehensive wastewater management plan, which was to have been held in Montauk on Wednesday, will be rescheduled.

    Consultants hired to develop the plan, which will include recommendations regarding the town’s septic waste-treatment plant, individual septic systems, and ongoing water-quality monitoring, are planning a series of meetings to focus on the needs and issues of individual hamlets.