Government

The East Hampton Village Board is seeking ideas for the future management of the 13 Sea Spray Cottages at Main Beach, and has already received several submissions, including one from a West Palm Beach, Fla., company, and others from current tenants.

Three weeks after the East Hampton Town Board heard from residents urging it to opt out of the May turkey hunting season announced last year by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, some 30 people were in the main meeting room at Town Hall Tuesday, many of them applauding speakers who urged the board to opt in.

The rough road near the Rough Riders Landing housing complex in Montauk has a smooth future ahead of it: Last week the East Hampton Town Board approved the issuance of $285,000 in bonds to pay for improvements to Tuthill and Fort Pond Roads.

Lee Zeldin, who represented New York’s First Congressional District from 2015 through 2022 and was the Republican Party’s nominee for governor of New York in the November election, has launched a political action committee to support Republican candidates “who are committed to advancing" his "efforts to grow the diverse coalition of first-time Republican voters” who helped to make the race for governor so close in 2022.

The long-planned improvement to the navigational channel in Montauk Harbor remains on track for completion this fall, representatives of the federal Army Corps of Engineers told the East Hampton Town Board, but a delay to fall 2024 is possible.

Legislation introduced at last week’s East Hampton Village Board to create a standalone Ambulance Department “to provide a municipal paid and volunteer general ambulance service in the village and contracted-for areas of the Town of East Hampton” so alarmed a faction of the ambulance corps that it scheduled an emergency meeting. The law will be the subject of a public hearing on March 17.

After two stop-work orders were either ignored or slow-rolled earlier this year, the Town of East Hampton is suing The Landings in Montauk, a marina-condo complex located at 408 West Lake Drive, alleging that the complex has exceeded construction-related approvals and committed other violations of the town zoning code.

Candidates for Suffolk County’s elected offices have officially been nominated by the Republican and Democratic Committees, with Brookhaven Town Supervisor Ed Romaine and Dave Calone leading the Republican and Democratic tickets, respectively, for the county executive seat. Manny Vilar of Springs, a Republican, and Ann Welker of Southampton Town, a Democrat, are running for the County Legislature.

In their deliberations to date over proposed new special permitting rules, town board members had emphasized the recent uptick in outsize parties taking place at town beaches and how to rein them in while not spoiling the sun-soaked fun for would-be revelers. But one caterer wondered if such parties were a concern at more isolated beaches.

Marcos Baladron, who has served as East Hampton Village administrator for just over two years, will receive the Hon. Paul F. Rickenbach Distinguished Service Award from the Suffolk County Village Officials Association next month. If he weren’t so modest, he might admit to feeling vindicated.

While it’s still a mystery as to who actually founded the organization Political Transparency — which has been running ads in The Star and on social media that are highly critical of the current East Hampton Town Board — a spokesman for the related StopEHTownBoard.com did offer some insight into the organization and its goals this week.

An East Hampton Town proposal to build a sewage treatment plant in Montauk appears to be dead in the water for now following a unanimous 8-to-0 vote by Suffolk County Parks Commission trustees last week to reject a proposed town-county land swap that was key to the project’s getting off the ground.