Government

Oyster farmers denounced efforts to restrict their activities in Gardiner's and Peconic Bays and boaters pressed their complaints that the floating gear some farmers use presents a hazard to navigation and an aesthetic nuisance when the Suffolk County Shellfish Aquaculture Lease Program's 10-year review board met on Friday.

East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen announced a plan to reconfigure parking spaces on Newtown Lane and along the perimeter of the Reutershan parking lot from parallel to angled drive-in parking at a board meeting on Friday.

Disagreements about charging for parking in the commercial district, the financing of a centralized sewer system, and increasing fees for lockers at Main Beach erupted into heated discussions at an East Hampton Village Board meeting on Friday.

Projects that will protect or improve ground and surface waters may be eligible for funding under the water quality portion of the town's community preservation fund.

East Hampton Town's Anti-Bias Task Force condemned the Jan. 6 insurrection at the United States Capitol, rejecting "in the strongest terms possible the despicable symbols of hate on display that day, including nooses, Confederate flags, and neo-Nazi slogans."

A provision of East Hampton Village law that prohibited its inns from holding special events outdoors was struck down by State Supreme Court Justice Martha L. Luft in a Jan. 6 ruling in a lawsuit the owners of the Hedges Inn, a popular wedding venue, brought against the village.

Despite the lingering skepticism of one elected official and the opposition of some Wainscott residents, the East Hampton Town Board is poised to complete easement agreements with the developers of the proposed South Fork Wind farm to allow the wind farm's transmission cable to land in Wainscott and run to the Long Island Power Authority substation in East Hampton.

The governor appealed to Pfizer amid ongoing frustration with the Trump administration, complaining on Monday that the federal government dramatically increased vaccine eligibility last week while distributing fewer doses to the state.

Representative Lee Zeldin, one of President Trump's most loyal allies, is facing calls for his resignation in the wake of the Jan. 6 armed attack on the United States Capitol, an act of domestic terrorism intended to overturn the certification of electoral votes that was underway.

East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen scrapped a proposal to charge for additional hours of parking on the streets of the commercial district and in the Reutershan and Schenck parking lots, and is now proposing to charge non-village residents for each hour of parking in the lots, and to forgo allowing any additional hours for street parking.

Seeking to prod more East Hampton Village residents and business owners to replace conventional septic systems with low-nitrogen ones, the village board intends to require upgrades when a conventional system fails, upon property transfer, and when a business seeks site plan review of proposed construction. 

East Hampton Town's energy sustainability advisory committee has recommended requiring a warning sticker on fuel pumps, drawing a connection between filling vehicles with fossil fuels and climate change.