Government

The League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island, and the North Fork will lead an educational program highlighting a new equal rights amendment to the New York State Constitution on Saturday from 1 to 5 p.m. at LTV Studios in Wainscott. The amendment will appear on the ballot in November.

East Hampton Town will seek New York State Pro-Housing Community designation as part of a program established last year by executive order of Gov. Kathy Hochul to reward local governments that are working to address the state’s housing crisis. Municipalities with Pro-Housing Community status that apply for grant funding are given priority by certain state agencies.

After its site plan was unanimously approved by the East Hampton Town Planning Board in November, work has begun on the expansion of Gardiner’s Marina on Three Mile Harbor.

The East Hampton Town Planning Board voted at its Feb. 28 meeting to advise the town board of its intent to declare itself lead agency for the proposed new senior citizens center, opposing the town board's plan to take the lead on reviewing the application.

“We’re looking at Ditch as potentially a two-phase project with the dune restoration to happen as quickly as possible, and we’ll reassess before Memorial Day to see if we need to have more sand brought in,” said East Hampton Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez. The immediate goal is to protect the neighborhood from flooding following a series of winter storms that took the beach down to the hardpan.

The beach infill component of downtown Montauk’s portion of the Fire Island to Montauk Point beach nourishment project was completed in 20 days, right on schedule, and sand fences and beach grass plugs are now being installed, but the Army Corps of Engineers has said that walkways over the dunes might not be repaired before summer.

The East Hampton Town Board is expected to vote tonight to raise its nonresident fees for beach parking and beach driving permits, adding a beach driving permit for co-op owners, who despite having property rights in the town are not technically residents.

Multiply the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's proposed congestion tolling plan by the tens of thousands of trips the Hampton Jitney makes into Manhattan each year, and that adds up to a challenge for the coach bus company even as the M.T.A. seeks to reduce congestion, improve safety, and begin mitigating the environmental impact of the volume of traffic flowing in and out of the borough.

More than 60 years in the making, the Fire Island to Montauk Point beach reformulation project will have arrived and departed from Montauk’s downtown in barely the blink of an eye. The beach-infill component of the project began on Feb. 6 and was completed on Sunday, with around 475,000 cubic yards of sand pumped from an offshore site by a 480-foot suction-hopper dredge called the Ellis Island.

Although his nomination is still considered unofficial until petitions are formally filed on April 16, Stephen Kiely has been named as the Suffolk County Republican Committee’s candidate to run for the New York State Assembly seat now held by Fred W. Thiele Jr., a Democrat who is retiring after a long career in politics.

It took six public hearings, and nearly a seventh, but the Sag Harbor Village Board finally passed a tree preservation law at its Feb. 13 meeting. Property owners who want to remove a tree with a diameter at breast height of 12 inches or more must now first obtain a permit from the Building Department.

Michael and Christine Aaron have begun fund-raising for the next phase of a legal battle to prevent Mill Hill Realty Corporation from opening Toilsome Farms Restaurant and Brewery on a property neighboring their house on Toilsome Lane. The attorney for Mill Hill said this “might delay the project by a few months, but ultimately, it’s not a factor.”