Government

New York State's hemp pilot research program has grown from two growers and 30 acres in 2016 to more than 500 producers and 20,000 acres this year, but is set to expire on Oct. 31, and participants in the state's budding hemp industry are nervous about changes in state and federal regulations that they say could have catastrophic consequences just as the industry is starting to thrive.

The angry exchanges resumed on Tuesday when the East Hampton Town Board again discussed Stony Brook Southampton Hospital's planned emergency room annex ahead of a vote on the proposal's environmental impact that is expected next Tuesday. 

A second public hearing on community choice aggregation, a program that allows a local government to procure electricity and/or natural gas on behalf of its residents, businesses, and municipal accounts from a provider other than an area's traditional utility, will happen during the East Hampton Town Board's meeting next Thursday. 

As this "summer like no other" neared its unofficial close, the East Hampton Town Board announced new phases of a communications campaign aimed at maintaining the suppression of Covid-19 transmission.

New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli has endorsed Laura Ahearn, the Democratic nominee for the First State Senate District.

In Suffolk County, eligible voters have three options for voting: absentee ballot, in person during early voting from Oct. 24 to Nov. 1, and at their polling places on Nov. 3.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee released a poll conducted last month that had Nancy Goroff leading Representative Lee Zeldin, 48 percent to 46 percent, in the race to represent New York's First Congressional District. 

Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle, and Assemblyman Anthony Palumbo have introduced legislation in response to the removal of the early voting polling location in the Town of Shelter Island.

Representative Lee Zeldin of New York’s First Congressional District was a speaker at last week’s Republican National Convention, during which he described President Trump’s efforts for New York State during the coronavirus pandemic as “phenomenal.”

With a nearly two-year fund-raising jump on the competition for East Hampton Village mayor, Jerry Larsen’s NewTown Party held the lead with contributions of more than $100,000 since July 2019.

In an effort to manage development and protect water views and character, the Sag Harbor Village Board has proposed a law that would suspend until March 1, 2021, the planning board’s authority to grant approval of site plans, special permits, and subdivisions.

The plan to build an emergency room annex in East Hampton, which has wended its way through multiple regulatory boards over the last four years, was the subject of several angry exchanges when it returned to the town board on Tuesday.