Government

The Suffolk County Legislature voted 14-to-3 last week to raise its hotel/motel tax from its current 3-percent rate to 5 1/2 percent. The increase starts on June 1, just in time for the season. Legislator Bridget Fleming was one of the three who voted against the hike, along with Al Krupski of Cutchogue and Anthony Piccirillo of Holtsville.

Save Sag Harbor and a group of village residents scored a victory against the village this week when Justice Stephen Hackeling of Suffolk Supreme Court ruled in their favor, striking down two village laws that allowed for Adam Potter’s proposed 79-unit affordable housing and retail complex. Justice Hackeling agreed with the petitioners that the village had failed to comply with the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act when it crafted the laws.

Opponents of a new spring turkey hunting season pleaded with the East Hampton Town Board to opt out of the program until the last minute, but on Tuesday the board, as it had previously indicated it would, voted only to prohibit hunting during a five-day span around Memorial Day weekend.

A groundbreaking ceremony for a long-awaited aquatic center at the Montauk Playhouse is planned for July, Sarah Iudicone, the president of the Montauk Playhouse Community Center Foundation’s board, told a delighted East Hampton Town Board on Tuesday.

The East Hampton Town Board voted last Thursday to extend the time that developers of the South Fork Wind farm have to complete the restoration of Beach Lane in Wainscott, from April 30 to May 22.

The East Hampton Town Board last Thursday voted to promote Eric Schantz, the assistant planning director, to director of housing and community development, making him the fifth new town department head appointed since late December, following the retirement of several longtime key officials.

Nearly a month after an explosive public hearing on the creation of a new East Hampton Village Department of Emergency Medical Services to take control of the ambulance association, the corps is experiencing a shortage of volunteers to cover overnight shifts and its chief is asking the village to hire a paid emergency medical technician to fill the gaps.

Sag Harbor Main Street is scheduled to be repaved from Monday morning through approximately Wednesday, weather permitting. According to the village's Department of Public Works, no street parking will be permitted from 6 a.m. until 6 p.m. until the work is complete.

The federal Department of the Interior announced on Monday that the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement has completed a 60-day review of critical design and installation reports for the South Fork Wind farm, the final regulatory hurdle that clears the way for installation of the wind farm’s foundations and turbines.

In East Hampton Town, the massive geotextile sandbags that are used to protect waterfront properties from erosion are allowed on only a temporary basis — for just six months with the potential for a three-month renewal — but in reality those erosion-control measures have sometimes remained in place for years.

“The sentiment, I think, would range from discouragement to outrage right now,” the chairwoman of the Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee said, as discussion turned to the Maidstone Gun Club, which hopes to renew its lease on East Hampton Town land even as a group of residents is suing the town and the club in an effort to permanently close it.

The owners of a historic timber frame house on Montauk Highway in East Hampton Village appeared before the village’s design review board on Tuesday to seek a retroactive certificate of appropriateness after gutting the house during renovations.