Government

East Hampton Town and its union workers had ratified a new contract. Under it, C.S.E.A. members will see a $2,000 across-the-board increase to their base wages in 2024, on top of a $3,000 base wage hike implemented in 2023. In addition, the union members’ new base wages will increase by 4 percent annually in the first three years of the contract, and by 5 percent in 2027, its final year.

In Southampton Town, Maria Moore, the Democratic mayor of the Village of Westhampton Beach, won the race for Southampton Town supervisor, and two Democratic town board candidates, Bill Pell and Michael Iasilli, also appear to have emerged victorious.

East Hampton Town’s preliminary budget for the 2024 fiscal year includes new expenditures and a 5.3-percent increase over 2023. The town’s budget officer detailed final modifications to a $95.46 million document last Thursday.

The East Hampton Town Board will hold a public hearing next Thursday on a management plan that calls for the use of goats as well as machinery to remove invasive species at the Benson reserve, a roughly 40-acre stretch of land between Old Montauk Highway and the Atlantic Ocean beach in Montauk.

After an anonymous phone call tipped off the town's director of ordinance enforcement that the façade at Rowdy Hall's new location in Amagansett had been painted black on Wednesday, just weeks after East Hampton Town's architectural review board had turned down a request to do so, the business was issued a stop-work order and a violation for not having a building permit. "They said it was primer. Doesn't matter. They got a ticket for no A.R.B. approval and another for having no building permit."

A resolution at a Sag Harbor Village Board meeting last month to appoint members to the Sag Harbor Open Space Advisory Group was approved without discussion, but the group’s ideas could have a visible impact on the village, including at the intersection of Main Street and Jermain Avenue, where it will revisit plans for a traffic circle.

All seven of the incumbent East Hampton Town trustees were re-elected on Tuesday, and two new Democratic candidates, Patrice Dalton and Celia Josephson, will join them on the board, according to unofficial results posted by the Suffolk County Board of Elections. 

In a big night for East Hampton Town Democrats, Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez was elected supervisor Tuesday and will become the fourth woman to hold that post in the town’s history. With all 19 election districts reporting, the Suffolk County Board of Elections’ unofficial tally had Ms. Burke-Gonzalez and her running mates, Councilman David Lys and Tom Flight, cruising to victory over their Republican opponents.

Tuesday night's unofficial results for Suffolk County races show Brookhaven Town Supervisor Ed Romaine, a Republican from Center Moriches, prevailing in his bid for the county executive's seat, while Ann Welker, a Democrat and a sitting Southampton Town trustee, appears to have won the county legislator race in the second district.

Five Democrats and five Republicans are facing off for the five Southampton Town Trustee seats, while Theresa Kiernan, the incumbent, and David Glazer are the candidates for tax receiver.

Tuesday’s general election ballot includes two proposals, so be sure to flip your ballot over to weigh in.

The East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals lost another Article 78 lawsuit last week, this time against 175 Atlantic L.L.C., controlled by Farrell Builders. It is the fourth time this year the Z.B.A. has been taken to court and has lost.

No matter who emerges the winner when the Suffolk County Board of Elections releases its unofficial vote count on Tuesday night, East Hampton Town will have a new supervisor and she will be a woman. Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, who is the deputy supervisor, is running on the Democratic and Working Families Party lines to succeed Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc, who announced earlier this year that he would retire from town government. She faces Gretta Leon, the Republican and Conservative Party nominee and a political newcomer.

The Atlantic Ocean and the sky above it were dull shades of gray as a steady drizzle fell on Monday morning, but with nary a utility pole or wire in sight, spirits were bright among the dignitaries gathered to mark the completion of a project to bury utility lines and remove utility poles at the entrance to Montauk’s downtown.

With Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman facing a term limit this year, two current trustees seeking a seat on the town board, and newcomers stepping up to challenge incumbents in multiple roles, Election Day in Southampton is shaping up to be a competitive one.

One incumbent and three newcomers are seeking two spots on the East Hampton Town Board. Councilman David Lys, running on the Democratic and Working Families Party lines, is joined on those ballot lines by Tom Flight, who is a first-time candidate. Opposing them are two other first-time candidates: Scott Smith and Michael Wootton on the Republican and Conservative Party lines.

The League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island, and the North Fork has announced that the League of Women Voters Education Fund’s online voters guide is live at vote411.org with nonpartisan information on Tuesday’s election.

New York State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, accompanied by Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., last week announced a $1.75 million state award for the Montauk Playhouse Community Center, where ground was broken last summer for its new aquatic center.

In August, when Adam Potter submitted updated plans for a mixed-use development at Bridge and Rose Streets in Sag Harbor, he said he was committed to taking it through the village’s review boards. Last week, however, he filed yet another plan, which removes a significant component of the August submission: the performing arts center with office space.

The owner of a Springs property wants to demolish his 1,600-square-foot cottage, built before zoning laws were established in 1957, and build a 2,160-square-foot house with a terrace, covered porch, and new sanitary system. Besides the requested special permit, five variances are needed.

For those who find a sample ballot useful before they head to the polls, here is what the front and back of the ballot looks like in East Hampton Town. 

East Hampton Town Hall's meeting room was standing room only on Thursday afternoon, and despite intense community pressure that nearly brought the chairwoman of the town's architectural review board to tears, the board voted 3-to-1 to deny an application by Rowdy Hall to paint the façade of its new location on Amagansett's Main Street black.

Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, the Democratic and Working Families Party candidate, and a sitting town councilwoman, is facing Gretta Leon, the Republican and Conservative Party candidate and a newcomer to town politics, in the 2023 race for the East Hampton Town supervisor's seat.

Suffolk County officials have delayed a plan to introduce an on-demand bus service zone to replace two East Hampton-area buses, the 10B and 10C, because of a manufacturer’s recall of the buses themselves.

Elected officials, utility contractors, and other interested parties will gather to celebrate the completion of a project to bury utility lines and remove utility poles at the “Montauk Gateway,” in front of 589 Montauk Highway, on Monday at 10 a.m. The public has been invited to attend.

This winter, the East Hampton Village Department of Public Works plans to shift hedgerows and remove a chain-link fence that separates a parcel at 8 Muchmore Lane from the neighboring Herrick Park. When the work is complete, village officials said, it will have the effect of making the park appear larger, as the lot has been hidden from view and inaccessible.

Seven of the nine incumbent East Hampton Town Trustees, six of them Democrats and one a Republican with Democratic cross-endorsement, are seeking re-election on Nov. 7. Altogether, there are 12 people running for the nine seats, including three Republican challengers, one Democrat, and one other cross-endorsed candidate.

The four candidates vying for two seats on the East Hampton Town Board agreed on some issues and differed on others in an Oct. 18 debate hosted by the League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island, and North Fork.

The East Hampton Town Trustees heard recommendations from a subcommittee Monday confirming their understanding that there are noncompliant structures in trustee waters that will have to be brought into compliance or removed, and that in some instances previously issued permits could be revoked.

Experts say food waste typically accounts for around 30 percent of a garbage truck’s load. That's changing in East Hampton Town, where some 2,782 pounds of food scraps were diverted from landfills or incinerators, eliminating the equivalent of 1,310 pounds of coal burned or 3,025 miles driven, through a pilot composting program launched over the summer.