Government

    The United States Department of Commerce issued a disaster declaration last Thursday for New York State’s fishing communities, one that could pave the way for financial relief for hard-pressed commercial fishermen.

    Reacting to the possibility of severe quota reductions in the Northeast and Southern New England groundfish fisheries, the state’s Congressional delegation joined last spring with the governors of four New England states to ask Washington for the declaration. Lawmakers requested $100 million in federal relief for fishing communities.

    Southampton Town Councilwoman Bridget Fleming defeated Jennifer Maertz by a wide margin in a Democratic primary on Thursday to determine who will represent the party in a bid to unseat Republican State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle in the Nov. 6 general election.

    “The voters have spoken loud and clear,” Ms. Fleming said after the announcement of preliminary results last Thursday, which showed 79 percent of votes in her favor. “They no longer want to allow their tax dollars to be distributed to the rest of the state,” she said.

    A four-year battle that began in the spring of 2008 with the construction of  a gate at 17 Beverly Road in Springs may finally be drawing to a close, as the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals began preliminary deliberations on the drawn-out affair on Sept. 11.

Southampton Town

Southampton Town Grants

    Applications are now available for certified 501(c)3 organizations to apply for annual grants from the Town of Southampton. Human services grants assist organizations that help people obtain employment, counseling, psychotherapy, health care, child care, and educational services. Cultural arts and recreational grants mainly assist organizations that encourage visual or performing arts and recreational programs.

    The Army Corps of Engineers is seeking a decision from East Hampton Town about what tack to take for future dredging of Montauk Harbor and erosion control along the nearby western shore.

    At a town board meeting on Tuesday, Brian Frank, an environmental analyst at the Planning Department, laid out the options and their costs, estimates developed in 2010. Three alternatives had been presented by the Army Corps to the town board and to the public at two forums in June.

    A meeting on the regional impact of helicopter noise and traffic out of East Hampton Airport took place in Southampton on Monday, hosted by Southampton Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst, Southampton Councilwoman Christine Scalera, and Congressman Tim Bishop. No representative of East Hampton Town, which owns the airport, was present.

    The Georgica Association has told the East Hampton Town Trustees they may no longer use the association-owned beach between Beach Lane and the Georgica Pond gut. The stretch has been the traditional access for trucks and excavators used to lett, or open, the pond to the ocean in the spring and fall of the year.

    The owners of cesspool-pumping businesses turned out en masse last Thursday night to tell the East Hampton Town Board hearing that closing the scavenger waste plant, in use in recent months as a transfer station only, would have a profound effect on them — in some cases, putting them out of business.

    Representative Tim Bishop will host an information forum tomorrow on the new immigration policy giving some undocumented young people relief from deportation. Starting at 7 p.m. at Bridgehampton National Bank in Bridgehampton, the forum will feature a presentation by a Citizenship and Immigration Services representative on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which went into effect in August.

    The proposed purchase of three properties with money from the community preservation fund will be the subject of an East Hampton Town Board hearing next Thursday night at 7, at Town Hall.

    One parcel, just shy of six acres, is at 41 Three Mile Harbor Road in Springs, just north of Halsey’s Marina, on Three Mile Harbor. It is owned by the Prand Corporation. The purchase price is $3 million.

    The second piece of land the town is looking to buy is at 20 Gloucester Avenue in Montauk, a .44-acre lot owned by Loretta La Ruffa. The cost is $190,000.

East Hampton Town

Beach Cleanup

    In conjunction with the Ocean Conservancy’s annual Coastal Cleanup on Sept. 15, the East Hampton Town Trustees will lead an effort to clean the town’s beaches.

    Between now and the 15th, those wishing to participate can stop by the trustees’ Bluff Road, Amagansett, office to pick up collection bags, gloves, and a special recycling decoder card used to identify recyclables from trash.

    “Ask the Mayors,” a free community forum where people can ask questions of Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. of East Hampton, Mayor Brian Gilbride of Sag Harbor, Mayor Mark Epley of Southampton, and Mayor Conrad Teller of Westhampton Beach, will take place on Monday at 7 p.m. at the Rogers Memorial Library, 91 Cooper’s Farm Road in Southampton.

   During the program, presented by the League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, the mayors will discuss the economic, environmental, and cultural challenges of their villages.

    The East Hampton Town Board will listen to comments tonight about the future of the town’s scavenger waste treatment plant, which is on Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton.

    The board suspended waste treatment at the plant earlier this year and has been operating the facility as a transfer station that allows haulers to unload waste there, which is then trucked to a processing facility upIsland by a carter paid by the town.

    The future of East Hampton Town’s scavenger waste treatment plant — specifically whether to temporarily close the facility — will be the subject of a town board hearing next Thursday night at 7 at Town Hall.

    For the last several months, the plant operated solely as a waste transfer station, with on-site waste treatment suspended.

    Hearings will be held by the East Hampton Town Board next Thursday on the proposed purchases of two parcels of land. Money for both purchases would come from the community preservation fund.

    In Amagansett, the town is discussing the $635,000 purchase of 6.2 acres of a 7.7 acre tract at 114 Fresh Pond Road. The Suffolk County Water Authority is installing a drinking-water well on the remainder of the site. The property is owned by the Bistrian Land Corporation.

    By a vote of 4 to 1, the lone dissenter being its chairman, the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals granted a variance on Tuesday that will allow Glen Pushelberg and George Yabu to keep their two-story house as is. The house lacks an interior staircase between the two floors, which is contrary to town code.

    Monday marked the start of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., where 2,286 delegates and 2,125 alternate delegates from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and five U.S. territories converged on the Gulf Coast city. Among them is Andy Sabin of Springs, a businessman who recently co-sponsored a $25,000-a-plate fund-raising lunch for the Republican candidate for president, Mitt Romney, at the Creeks, Ron Perelman’s estate in East Hampton.

    During a discussion last week at their August meeting, the East Hampton Town Trustees decided to once again deny the Devon Yacht Club’s application to create a “deposition basin,” a hole on the beach to fill with sand excavated from its marina inlet. The project had approvals from the zoning board of appeals and the Army Corps of Engineers.

    When the Clintons darken a restaurant’s door, everything stops, at least for a while. Flashing camera phones and applause filled the packed house, on Friday, when word spread that former President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and their daughter, Chelsea Clinton, an NBC news correspondent, were being seated for dinner at Almond in Bridgehampton.

    ­Indian Wells Beach was again on the radar Monday night at a meeting of the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee, though the talk was more temperate this month than last, when many members were hearing for the first time about the throngs of 20- and 30-something beer drinkers who have made the beach their own on weekends this season.

   The State Department of Environmental Conservation closed 490 acres of Sag Harbor Cove on April 26 to shellfishing due to detected saxitoxin, a biotoxin, in the water. The cove reopened in May, yet the incident has brought to the surface the issue of continuous water quality decline on Long Island.

    Many in the field believe it vital to spread awareness of the issue now in order to find solutions before it sinks to the bottom of the public agenda. Besides restaurants and fisheries, farmers and the general public are affected by degrading water quality.

East Hampton Town

County Money for Amagansett Rentals

    The St. Michael’s Senior Housing Project, under construction in Amagansett, has been awarded $300,000 of federal funding, which will come to it through through the Suffolk County Office of Housing and Community Development.

    The money comes in the form of a deferred payment loan from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development to the owner and contractor of the project, the St. Michael’s Windmill Housing Development Fund Corporation.

    Air traffic controllers have shifted helicopter traffic to and from East Hampton Airport onto an old route, along power lines and over Jessup’s Neck in Southampton, prompting complaints from residents living below. Some of them had some questions on Tuesday for Councilman Dominick Stanzione, the town board’s airport liaison.

    “Is there a new route?” Supervisor Bill Wilkinson asked. “How did the new route come about?”

    In preparation for the coming hurricane season and other potential emergencies, Southampton Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst has urged residents by press release to sign up for the town’s emergency communications services. The goal is to establish methods of contact for the dissemination of important and time-sensitive information.

    The East Hampton Zoning Board of Appeals had a busy session Tuesday night at Town Hall, holding three hearings for variance and special-permit applications  and handing down two decisions.

     In a release issued Tuesday, Representative Tim Bishop vowed to protect the mortgage interest and charitable contribution tax deductions that are slated to end next year.

Mr. Bishop said that curtailing or eliminating the mortgage interest deduction would reduce the value of housing nationwide, put more homeowners under water, and take the wind out of the recovery.

    With a unanimous vote last Thursday night, the East Hampton Town Board approved the $1.1 million purchase of a 1.2-acre parcel of land at 427 Cranberry Hole Road in Amagansett, which officials envision as a public access to the beach along Gardiner’s Bay.

    The vote came after a hearing at which a number of neighbors voiced concerns about the ultimate use of the land, particularly whether vehicles would drive onto the beach.

    East Hampton Town Councilwoman Theresa Quigley will ask for a vote tonight on a resolution directing the town’s airport manager and consultants to begin compiling the data that could help the town gain Federal Aviation Administration approval to restrict helicopter use of the airport.

    A third Montauk nightspot that has been cited for several noise violations this summer will be the subject of an East Hampton Town Board hearing to determine if its town music permit should be suspended. Ruschmeyer’s on Second House Road has received five citations for noise violations, two more than the number that triggers a permit hearing, according to the town code. The hearing will be scheduled for an upcoming town board work session.

East Hampton Town

Space for Cell Towers

    Using maps of the cellular communications equipment sites that the various cell companies have throughout East Hampton Town, Councilwoman Theresa Quigley has suggested the town board seek to pinpoint gaps in coverage areas and identify town lands where cell towers could be erected.