Government

While it is clear the building at 44 Three Mile Harbor Road in East Hampton, which for decades operated as a nightclub, will no longer be one, its reincarnation has nonetheless been a show. At a June 7 planning board meeting, members voted to hold a second public hearing on the project, setting the stage for yet another act on the complicated application.

New designs for the intersection of North Main Street, Springs-Fireplace Road, and Three Mile Harbor Road and at the intersection of Abraham's Path and Three Mile Harbor Road are among the ideas being floated as consultants take a close look at traffic, land use, and environmental issues in what the East Hampton Town Board is calling the Springs-Fireplace Corridor.

Organizacion Latino-Americana of Eastern Long Island has hired immigration and civil rights attorneys following a flurry of policy pronouncements, lawsuits, and rumors at the town, county, and state levels, resulting in fear and insecurity for some immigrants. The announcement came in the wake of the Suffolk Legislature’s June 1 vote to hire outside counsel to advise on blocking the arrival of migrants bused to the county from elsewhere.

The East Hampton Town Board filed a request with the New York State Supreme Court’s Appellate Division on June 14 to expedite its review of the town’s appeals regarding the future of East Hampton Town Airport. This came a month after a State Supreme Court justice held the town in civil contempt for violating the temporary restraining order he issued last year enjoining the town from converting the public airport to private status or imposing restrictions on flight activity.

Carl Irace, a lawyer and village resident, won 327 votes to beat out East Hampton Town Justice Steven Tekulsky, who ended with 141 votes, for a four-year term as Sag Harbor Village Justice. Mr. Irace will replace Lisa Rana, who is retiring.

LTV, East Hampton Town’s public access television station, saw revenue exceed expenses by $180,000 in 2022, a 27-percent increase over the previous year, its executive director, Michael Clark, told the East Hampton Town Board, and 77 cents of every dollar received is spent directly on programming, incuding thousands and thousands of hours of local government and education coverage each year. “Those are the kind of numbers that you want to see,” Mr. Clark said.

Across the road from the Deep Hollow Ranch in Montauk, a 21.7-acre parcel, much of it undevelopable, could be divided into three lots. One would include a reserved area and two existing horse barns, the second would hold an existing house and garage, and a third lot, which is now empty and zoned residential, could hold a large house.

From court appearances to public hearings, it’s been a busy couple of weeks for Rita Cantina, the embattled Mexican restaurant near Maidstone Park in Springs.

“Faced with access versus no access, access won,” East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc told the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee Monday night. The Cranberry Hole Road bridge to Lazy Point, a destination beloved of clammers, kite surfers, windsurfers, birders, and solitary seekers of peace and quiet, was recently reopened — though with no guarantee of permanence — after being shut down on May 7 when a large gap appeared in its wooden substructure.

The East Hampton Town Democratic Committee has rescheduled its campaign kickoff party for Friday night from 6 to 8 at the Clubhouse in Wainscott.

At a special meeting on Monday, the East Hampton Town Trustees gave themselves an Aug. 15 deadline to complete an inventory of docks and other structures in waterways under their jurisdiction.

Manny Vilar, the Republican Party candidate for Suffolk County legislator in the Second District, will hold his campaign launch event Thurssday night from 6 to 8 at the American Legion Hall in Hampton Bays. On Wednesday, the town’s Republican Committee will hold a fund-raiser from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Clubhouse in Wainscott.

“The only way to save what’s left of our culture is to offer as much affordable housing to our local families as we possibly can,” Prudence Carabine said at a June 7 East Hampton Town Planning Board hearing on the town’s proposed affordable housing development at 395 Pantigo Road.

While everyone seemed committed to reaching a workable solution, plans for a new outdoor pavilion behind the Jewish Center of the Hamptons, at the Woods Lane gateway to East Hampton Village, brought more than the usual amount of opposition at a public hearing on Friday before the village zoning board of appeals.

Attorneys for East Hampton Town and the town trustees described “vans full of nonresident people coming at night” and “taking bushels and bushels of shellfish out of Napeague Harbor” and other waterways including Georgica Pond, where people working alone or in concert have repeatedly poached blue-claw crabs. New deterrents to punish poachers might include fines starting at $1,000 and possibly even jail time.

The East Hampton Town Board voted on June 6 to approve six of its water quality technical advisory committee’s seven recommendations to fund projects, from a motel in Montauk to Clinton Academy, that emerged from the committee’s first request for applications in 2023.

Fifty years after Judith Hope was elected East Hampton Town supervisor, a woman running for supervisor is hardly noteworthy. But while women routinely run and win elections at the local and state levels, and a woman was elected vice president of the United States in 2020, the East End of Long Island has a particularly abundant crop of women seeking office in 2023.

The New York State Legislature has once again voted in favor of a bill to reinstate state recognition and acknowledgement of the Montaukett Indian Nation, a measure that was vetoed four times previously by a New York State governor.

Tim Garneau, an East Hampton Town trustee and volunteer for many civic-minded groups, was recognized by the town board last Thursday for his leadership in the relocation of Little League playing fields from Pantigo Place in East Hampton to the recreational facility on Stephen Hand’s Path in Wainscott, which opened in April.

The lawsuit brought by several residents of Merchants Path in Wainscott against the Maidstone Gun Club continues to wind its way through Suffolk County Supreme Court, meaning that renewal negotiations on the club’s lease of town-owned land on Wainscott Northwest Road, which expires in October, are on hold.

East Hampton Town Councilwoman Sylvia Overby suffered a medical event during the town board’s meeting on May 9 and has been absent from the board’s meetings since then.

The Julius D. Parsons Homestead, nearly 11 acres in Springs, includes the 1880 farmhouse of Julius Dayton Parsons, who also ran the Springs General Store, a circa-1880 two-story barn, a small family cemetery, and a cottage that was moved from the other side of the road, which an 1873 atlas identified as the residence of Henry Mitchell, believed to have been part Native American.

A campaign launch and fund-raiser for the campaign of Manny Vilar, the Republican Party candidate for Suffolk County legislator in the Second District, happens next Thursday from 6 to 8 p.m. at the American Legion Hall in Hampton Bays.

There were charges of class favoritism and redlining at an East Hampton Town Board meeting as Patricia Currie of Noyac and John Kirrane of Sag Harbor angrily denounced the impact of a recently reinstated flight path to the airport on people living beyond East Hampton’s borders.

The East Hampton Town Democratic Committee will launch its 2023 campaign next Thursday with an event from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Clubhouse in Wainscott. Those attending will be able to meet the Democratic slate in this fall’s elections.

Sand Highway L.L.C., a 14.49-acre sand and gravel mine on Middle Highway in East Hampton, is challenging a 2022 determination by the town’s principal building inspector that its mining activities have surpassed what the town allows. The matter was in front of the town’s zoning board of appeals on May 16. There is a lot of history.

The East Hampton Town Board will hold a public hearing this afternoon on the proposed acquisition of nearly 11 acres on Springs-Fireplace Road in Springs using community preservation fund money. Should the board approve the purchase, the town will pay $5 million for the 10.9 acres.

With about $2 million in hand for water quality improvement projects, East Hampton Town has put out a call for applications for projects that will improve wastewater treatment, abate pollutants, and restore aquatic habitats.

The House of Representatives voted 314 to 117 Wednesday night to suspend the debt ceiling for two years and set federal spending limits, sending the Fiscal Responsibility Act to the Senate, but Representative Nick LaLota was disappointed his SALT reduction amendment was not included.

Three weeks ago, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and its Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board voted to approve an emergency measure to lower the maximum striped bass size to 31 inches. The current “slot” regulation in New York allows anglers to keep one bass between 28 and 35 inches in length per day. However, there has been pushback from local political representatives on the reduced slot for the highly-prized striper before the New York Department of Environmental Conservation moves forward with a formal ruling.