Government

Representative Lee Zeldin of New York’s First Congressional District, which covers the South Fork, was appointed to President Trump’s impeachment defense team on Monday.     

Elements of a stump speech were peppered throughout Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming’s remarks to a gathering of Democratic voters in Springs on Friday.     

A long-hoped-for new senior center that would replace the aging facility on Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton was the topic of a somewhat acrimonious town board back and forth last Thursday. Board members, often sounding irritated, finally voted to form a building committee on the project.     

The East Hampton Town Board will soon issue a request for applications for water quality improvement awards, based on a recommendation from its water quality technical advisory committee.     

The East Hampton Town Planning Board agreed to fast-track a proposal from AT&T to build a 185-foot-tall cell tower on land adjacent to an East Hampton Fire Department substation under construction in Northwest Woods, and inched closer to scheduling a public hearing of an application to build a car wash next to the East Hampton Town Recycling Center on Springs-Fireplace Road, at a meeting on Jan. 8. 

With two of their three new members present, the East Hampton Town Trustees met for the first time in 2020 on Monday, and voted unanimously to reappoint several officers and staff.     

State Senator Kenneth LaValle, who will be 81 in May, will retire this year after serving the First District since 1976, he announced on Friday at a waterfront gathering in his hometown of Port Jefferson.   

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Monday that an expansion of New York’s $175 million Workforce Development Initiative would include the launch of the Offshore Wind Training Institute at the State University at Stony Brook and Farmingdale.

While a challenge to the State Department of Environmental Conservation concerning the Sand Land mine in Noyac makes its slow way through the courts, Acting Supreme Court Justice James H. Ferreira has been asked to intervene in a dispute between the two sides.

Funding for a project on the East Hampton Town Board’s wish list was not among the nearly $7.7 million in New York State economic development money earmarked for the South Fork last month, but officials insist that the relocation of the town’s shellfish hatchery from Montauk to Gann Road in Springs is still the goal.

On Dec. 20 President Trump signed a bill into law temporarily halting the sale of Plum Island via auction for at least one more year. The legislation received bipartisan support from both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Two Suffolk County laws intended to reduce the use of plastics went into effect on Jan. 1.