Government

The Sag Harbor Village Board took a first step toward returning to the planning board authority over special exception use permits for buildings greater than 3,500 square feet in the newly created Waterfront Overlay Protection District. It reverses an action that dates back to January 2022.

The East Hampton Housing Authority’s five properties will soon see the installation of solar panels that are estimated to produce a combined 927 megawatt hours annually. Once the buildings have been solarized, residents will receive at least a 15-percent reduction in their electricity costs.

Suffolk County Supreme Court Justice Joseph Santorelli dismissed Michael Bebon’s lawsuit against East Hampton Village regarding pickleball at Herrick Park last week, but that didn’t stop Mr. Bebon and a phalanx of lawyers from showing up at Monday’s village board meeting to draw another line in the park’s sandbox.

Adam Potter has tabled controversial plans for a 79-unit downtown affordable apartment building with 34,000 square feet of retail space, and said he will instead submit plans to Sag Harbor Village for a building with 39 residential units and a third of the retail space originally proposed.

East Hampton Town is "leading by example with upgrading our town-owned municipal facilities to innovative alternative, low-nitrogen sanitary systems,” according to the environmental analyst with the Natural Resources Department. Five upgrades have been completed and many more are in the works.

On a visit to the East End last week, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand announced proposed legislation that would regulate perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances — of a class of chemicals known as PFAS — which have been determined to be dangerous at any level of exposure.

A representative from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s Build Ready program pitched a study to the East Hampton Town Board on Tuesday that would identify potential sites for solar farms and battery storage systems on town-owned properties.

The New York League of Conservation Voters has endorsed East Hampton Town Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez in her bid for supervisor, as well as Westhampton Beach Mayor Maria Moore, who is running for supervisor of Southampton Town. Both are Democrats.

End Citizens United, which works to elect Democratic candidates and to combat the influence of money in politics, has filed a second complaint against Representative Nick LaLota of New York’s First Congressional District, this one alleging that he violated federal election law by failing to file complete financial disclosure reports.

The Suffolk County Legislature voted 10 to 7 along partisan lines to recess and close its hearing on Tuesday without acting to put the Suffolk County Water Quality Protection Act on the Nov. 7 ballot, which would have let voters decide whether or not the county sales tax should be increased by one-eighth of a cent to create a Water Quality Restoration Fund.

The East Hampton Town Board is in discussions with the Long Island Rail Road about the Cranberry Hole Road Bridge over the railroad tracks, which was has been closed since July 1 because of structural problems.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs who have successfully thwarted East Hampton Town’s plan to briefly close East Hampton Airport and reopen it as a private airport have told the New York State Supreme Court that they calculated nearly $295,000 in fees associated with a May motion holding the town in civil contempt, fees the judge in the suit had ordered the town to pay. The town's attorneys say those fees are excessive and that the court should reject them.