Government

East Hampton Village Mayor Richard Lawler appointed Ray Harden, a co-owner of the Ben Krupinski building company, as a village board member on Friday over the objections of two board members.

“We in E.M.S. are completely in the dark on what the plan is for the coming months and what to expect,” the Montauk Ambulance Company wrote in a letter to the town board. “We need clarity and, more importantly, to have our thoughts heard.”

The East Hampton Town Trustees, meeting by videoconference on Monday, heard a proposal to remediate erosion at Mulford Lane, where the beach on Gardiner’s Bay has been eroding by several feet per year for decades.

Due to concerns about the economic impact the Covid-19 pandemic may have on East Hampton Village’s finances, village board members made it clear last Thursday that they will adopt a budget for the next fiscal year that will prohibit spending on any major capital improvements, public works projects, or equipment upgrades.

Earlier this month a federal judge reinstated the Democratic primary, rescheduling it to June 23, the date on which New York voters, both Republicans and Democrats, will choose their parties’ candidates for Congress and State Senate and Assembly.

The East Hampton Town Board voted unanimously last Thursday to add business district hamlet studies to the town's comprehensive plan, leaving out a controversial long-range plan to relocate Montauk's oceanfront motels and other businesses.

Owners of the former Atlantic Terrace, a 96-room oceanfront resort situated in a residential neighborhood in Montauk, applied in early March for a liquor license from the State Liquor Authority, a move that quickly drew opposition from East Hampton Town government.

The New York State Department of Transportation has proposed allocating $13.1 million of state money to repave nearly eight miles of Route 114 next year, Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. and State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle announced on Thursday. 

Several local officials were among those urging the Long Island Power Authority on Monday to authorize municipalities to enact community choice aggregation, which would allow them, singly or together, to issue competitive bids to choose suppliers of electricity.

The long wait that buyers of the 12 “manor house” condominium units on Accabonac Road in East Hampton have experienced because of the discovery of elevated levels of volatile organic compounds in the units’ cellars may be nearing an end, but the director of East Hampton Town’s Office of Housing and Community Development is taking a cautious approach to the contractor’s assertion that the issue has been resolved.

The committee agreed at its first meeting last week to “make sure we don’t have a second wave” of Covid-19 infection “by opening too soon, by being careless when we open, by not looking at social distancing,” said Deputy Town Supervisor Sylvia Overby.

The Nassau/Suffolk Joint Summer Operations Task Force was established to offer hope for the summer, albeit one unlike what Long Island’s residents and visitors are accustomed to.