Government

With plans in the works for bathrooms at the beach, the East Hampton Village Board is mulling where to put them and hammering out the fine details.

After years of planning and fund-raising, the East Hampton Village Board finally voted to approve the first phase of the renovation of Herrick Park. It will incorporate the southern portion of the park and includes the playing fields area.

The East Hampton Town Trustees and 12 fishermen filed a class-action lawsuit last Thursday on behalf of themselves and all residents of the town, asserting that the five homeowners associations whose members’ deeds were determined to extend to the mean high water mark on a stretch of Napeague beach are unlawfully depriving them of access.

Mindful of what some have called a creeping commercialization of the town’s beaches, the East Hampton Town Board is likely to amend the town code pertaining to peddling ahead of the 2022 summer season to get a handle on businesses that rent beach chairs, umbrellas, and watersport equipment and set up and maintain beach fires.

Friday at 4 p.m. is the deadline for public comment on the scope of a draft environmental impact statement associated with the May 17 deactivation of East Hampton Airport and the opening, 33 hours later, of a “new” private-use airport on the same site.

Drivers in New York State may soon be paying around 46 to 50 cents less per gallon for gasoline. A bill making its way through the State Legislature as part of the state’s budget could provide that relief in the form of a temporary gas-tax holiday through the end of 2022.

The East Hampton Town Trustees have authorized the Friends of Georgica Pond Foundation to once again use an aquatic weed harvester this summer as part of the ongoing effort to alleviate conditions that have promoted the growth of harmful algal blooms, particularly that of toxic cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, in the pond.

A relaxation of outdoor dining rules for restaurants, put in place during the Covid-19 pandemic, could become permanent. East Hampton Town officials have been working on changes that would allow most restaurants to double their seating capacity, but with one catch: the total numbers of patrons would have to remain the same. A three-year trial period is planned.

Two years and two days after East Hampton Town declared a state of emergency because of a surging Covid-19 pandemic, Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc announced on Tuesday the rescinding of that declaration and of its accompanying executive orders, saying that he was "really excited that things are looking up, finally, after two very long years."

“It’s not just buildings we’re preserving here, it’s heritage, it’s who we are.” said Irwin Levy, a member of the town’s nature preserve committee who recently led a hike at the town-owned property in Springs that belonged the late Abstract Expressionists James Brooks and Charlotte Park. He urged the town to "seize this moment now” by preserving and restoring the structures on the property.

When East Hampton Airport reopens on May 19 with a new, private status, landing fees may at least double for most types of aircraft, according to a proposal unveiled this week during a town board work session.

Remarks from the public during two East Hampton Town Board hearings relating to affordable housing provided stark illustrations of the far-reaching impacts of the ever-spiraling cost of real estate on the South Fork.

The Peconic Jitney, a passenger-only ferry service that operated a pilot program connecting Sag Harbor to Greenport back in 2012, is seeking to do so again, this time with a formal five-year contract with the Sag Harbor Village Board.

The working group to implement recommendations for the Wainscott hamlet study reconvened on March 2, with progress still frustratingly slow for some participants but also with some consensus achieved for readily achievable goals, as well as actions to be avoided.

The long-awaited resurfacing of Route 114 from the South Ferry on North Haven to Stephen Hand’s Path in East Hampton began this week. The work will take place between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., Monday through Friday.

Construction relating to the South Fork Wind farm continues in Wainscott this week with trenching and installation of conduit on Beach Lane and on Wainscott Northwest Road between the Long Island Rail Road intersection and Montauk Highway.

The Suffolk County Republican Party has endorsed Nick LaLota, chief of staff of the County Legislature’s presiding officer and a former commissioner at the Suffolk Board of Elections, as its nominee to represent New York’s First Congressional District in Washington, D.C. The move, coming right on the heels of Mr. LaLota’s announcing his candidacy, drew a rebuke from another contestant for the seat.

Unity was the theme at last Thursday’s forum for those seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination for New York’s First Congressional District, at a moment of both opportunity and peril for the party.

Consultants to East Hampton Town issued recommendations on Tuesday for a “new” airport on the site of the existing East Hampton Airport that they said could impact 40 percent of takeoffs and landings but address upward of 70 percent of complaints. The recommendations, if implemented, would impose a curfew and otherwise limit activity based on an aircraft’s operator, its noise, and its size under a prior-permission-required framework.

uffolk County Legislator Al Krupski, who represents the Towns of Southold and Riverhead and parts of Brookhaven Town, has endorsed Legislator Bridget Fleming’s candidacy for the Democratic nomination to represent New York’s First Congressional District.

The federal Department of the Interior announced on Friday the results of the New York Bight offshore wind sale, the nation’s highest-grossing competitive offshore energy lease sale in history.

A complaint brought by Citizens for the Preservation of Wainscott against the East Hampton Town Board and developers of the South Fork Wind farm has been dismissed.

Representative Lee Zeldin of New York’s First Congressional District was named the Republican candidate for governor of New York at the State Republican Party’s convention, held in Garden City on Monday and Tuesday.

With Covid-19 transmission falling to levels not seen since last year, East Hampton Town has lifted a mask requirement for those entering town offices and other facilities. 

In what attorneys and lawmakers have described as a rare occurrence, New York State’s highest court has decided it will hear an appeal from the Noyac mine known as Sand Land, which is trying to hold onto its operating permit.

For the last 20 years, people have slipped into Accabonac Harbor behind a small stand of cedar trees next to the Springs General Store, a Town of East Hampton-historical site. Sage Island, Wood Tick Island, the Merrill Lake Sanctuary, and Louse Point were all just a paddle away. No longer.

In the contempt hearing in which property owners along the stretch of Napeague oceanfront popularly known as Truck Beach claimed that East Hampton Town failed to comply with last February’s New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division decision that barred driving there, Ed Michels, the town’s chief harbormaster, testified that the best he could do was block access at Marine Boulevard and advise people of the directive.

Trenching and vegetation removal has begun along a debated cable route.

There is a new candidate for the Democratic Party’s nomination to represent New York’s First Congressional District, a consequence of the recent redrawing of the state’s Congressional districts that followed the decennial census.

Jackie Gordon, a United States Army veteran and teacher, had been a candidate for the Democrats’ nomination to represent New York’s Second District this year. She ran unsuccessfully in the Second District in 2020, losing to the Republican candidate, Andrew Garbarino, by seven percentage points.

The East Hampton Village Board acknowledged issues with the way nonresident beach parking permits were sold this year. The permits, which went on sale at midnight on Feb. 1, sold out in only 11 hours, a record. This rankled many residents of East Hampton Town, who will be unable to park this summer at their favorite beaches.