Government

East Hampton Town is expected to participate in a new and expanded demand response program this summer, with eight town-owned buildings reducing stress on the electrical grid during periods of peak demand by switching to on-site emergency propane generators for brief periods.

A process that began eight years ago came to a sudden ending last week, as the East Hampton Town Planning Board voted 5-to-1 to allow a 70-foot cell tower at St. Peter’s Chapel in Springs.

With all hurdles overcome, Southampton Town is poised to become the first municipality on Long Island to implement a community choice aggregation program, a model that replaces the utility as the default sole supplier of electricity or natural gas and gives municipalities the opportunity to seek lower prices from alternative suppliers.

The long-awaited renovation, which has been split into three phases by the East Hampton Village Board, is underway. First up: a new softball diamond, tennis courts, and walkways, all set to be complete by summer, along with the restroom. Left out of this early work are pickleball and the baseball field.

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s plan to address a statewide housing shortage by building 800,000 new residences over the next decade has been removed from the state’s 2024 executive budget. Widely panned here, it would have effectively eliminated “decades of work put into creating our own local zoning, building, and environmental regulations,” an East Hampton Town planner told the town board last month.

On Wednesday, when the East Hampton Town Planning Board holds a public hearing concerning site plan approval for Rita Cantina, a restaurant near Maidstone Park in Springs, the public may be a bit frustrated, because the hearing concerns only parking and the legalization of an existing fence.

End Citizens United has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging that Representative Nick LaLota of New York’s First Congressional District, his 2022 campaign for Congress, his campaign treasurer, and his 2020 State Senate campaign violated the 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act and F.E.C. regulations.

A couple who lives next to Herrick Park in East Hampton Village is seeking to stop the village from building lighted pickleball courts in the park and making other improvements there. Meanwhile on Friday, the village board agreed to amend the village code regarding pickleball courts and impose a six-month moratorium on conversion of tennis courts and other playing courts on residential property to pickleball courts.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has temporarily closed multiple waterways on the East End to the harvesting of shellfish and carnivorous gastropods because shellfish there have tested positive for saxitoxin, a neurotoxin that causes paralytic shellfish poisoning, or PSP, high levels of which can cause severe illness and death. To date, East Hampton Town waterways have not been affected by the neurotoxin.

The petition, in the form of an open letter to the East Hampton Town Board, calls for a reduction in allowable house size and clearing, review and amendment of the zoning code, and a moratorium on large construction. As of Wednesday morning, 300 people had signed it.

Mayor Jerry Larsen and the East Hampton Village Board finally got what they wanted: control of the operations of the East Hampton Village Ambulance via a newly created Department of Emergency Medical Service that was voted into existence at Friday’s village board meeting.

The Sand Land mine in Noyac has been an ongoing source of conflict between its owner and the community. In the last three weeks as the State Department of Environmental Conservation issued new violations, even as it allows the mine to operate under the terms of its 2013 permit, leading to confusion.