Government

East Hampton Town has been awarded a $250,000 grant for the installation of 20 Level-2 electric vehicle charging ports from New York State’s Drive Clean Rebate program.

The bathrooms at Herrick Park are about to get a much-needed overhaul, with new siding, impact-rated glass, and new lighting, among other things.

When a group established to work on implementation of the Wainscott hamlet study met for the first time last Thursday, some members expressed disappointment at the pace of progress, with one asking, “Is there a point where we’re going to start implementing something?”

In a contempt hearing last week, lawyers for Napeague oceanfront property owners who have been battling the town for years over an area popularly known as Truck Beach grilled East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc and other town officials about their handling of a June 2021 court order demanding the town prohibit all driving and parking on that beach.

East Hampton Town’s beach advisory committee has recommended that the town board ban smoking of all types, including vaping and the smoking of tobacco and cannabis, for a specified distance to be determined from lifeguard-protected areas during hours that lifeguards are on duty.

Amid winter’s icy grip, the East Hampton Town Board spent much of Tuesday’s work session thinking about summer, specifically how the board might better manage large gatherings and commercial activity on public property.

In a survey conducted by East Hampton Village in October, village residents who responded were overwhelmingly against permanently closing the East Hampton airport, a town property, but most respondents who want it open favor limitations on noise and landing times. And some who want it closed still want it open for emergency use or could tolerate it with no helicopter traffic. In fact, only roughly a third of respondents wanted “no limits” on the airport.

Members of the East Hampton Town Board agreed last week that the Little League fields that are to be relocated from 400 Pantigo Place in East Hampton to 110 Stephen Hand’s Path should be state-of-the-art, comparable to those in larger municipalities to the west.

The town board voted unanimously last Thursday to file the appropriate forms with the Federal Aviation Administration to deactivate East Hampton Airport. It will be permanently “closed” in its current model on Feb. 28, but will be opened anew as of March 4 as a private-use airport.

The East Hampton Village Board has approved a lease agreement with the East Hampton Historical Society for the Dominy Shops at 73 North Main Street, effective Feb. 1, 2023. A museum is the goal.

The legislation continues to allow New Yorkers to request an absentee ballot during the pandemic when there is a risk of contracting or spreading disease that may cause illness to the voter or other members of the public. This legislation first became law in July 2020; the law expired on Dec. 31, 2021.

“It’s a popular beach, a beautiful beach, and there’s no reason we should have an unprotected stretch of beach in the village,” East Hampton Village's deputy mayor, Chris Minardi, announced on Friday.

The politicization of masks and mask mandates to protect public health against the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic was manifested on Long Island this week, with a New York State Supreme Court judge in Nassau County ruling on Monday that Gov. Kathy Hochul’s mandate that masks must be worn in public places when social distancing cannot be maintained is unconstitutional.

The water level at Town Pond remains low, to the consternation of East Hampton Village officials. The new pump installed in early January is right now unable to pump properly, David Collins, superintendent of public works, told the village board at its meeting on Friday. Somehow, air is getting into the pump, preventing it from “holding the prime,” he said.

Beginning within six months of the South Fork Wind farm’s commercial operation, the developers are to make 25 annual payments, starting at $870,000 with subsequent payments increasing by 2 percent annually.

Residents of Toilsome Lane showed up in force at the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals meeting last week to discuss the Toilsome Farm Brewing Company proposed at the site of a long-vacant furniture warehouse.

After an uneventful public hearing at the Jan. 12 East Hampton Town Planning Board meeting, approval of Wainscott Chapel’s first bathroom in over 100 years looked to be a foregone conclusion. When the construction of the bathroom is complete, East Hampton Town will say goodbye to its last fully functioning outhouse.

The C.P.F. coffers here keep growing, and Governor Hochul signs a bill allowing open, public meetings to continue virtually.

The Suffolk County Department of Economic Development and Planning will hold an informational meeting for prospective applicants interested in applying for a lease under the county’s Shellfish Aquaculture Lease Program in Peconic Bay and Gardiner’s Bay on Feb. 3 at 6 p.m.

The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management approved the South Fork Wind farm's Construction and Operations Plan on Wednesday, the final federal approval needed for the project's construction to commence.

“I think this is a really important step that we’re making today, where we finally, as a town, will assert control over an airport that we own but had no ability to regulate,” East Hampton Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said after the town board’s vote on Thursday to file the appropriate forms with the F.A.A. to deactivate the airport.

The East Hampton Town Board discussed on Tuesday a change to the town code that would allow up to four single-family residences per acre in affordable housing overlay districts.

The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has announced a Feb. 23 auction for six lease areas totaling 488,000 acres in the New York Bight, a portion of the Atlantic Ocean off New York and New Jersey, for wind development.

East Hampton Town announced on Tuesday that it expects to temporarily "deactivate" East Hampton Airport at the end of February and then reopen it four days later as "a new, publicly owned private-use" facility. 

The developers of the South Fork Wind farm have announced that Haugland Energy Group of Melville will install the underground ducts for the onshore transmission line and head up the project’s connection facility here, leading to more than 100 union jobs, they said.

Wi-Fi connectivity at East Hampton Town’s public beaches and new informational signs using QR codes that beachgoers could scan with their smartphones to be directed to the town’s website were among the recommendations issued by the town’s Beach, Parks, and Recreation Recovery and Advisory Group on Tuesday.

Heavy machinery appearing this week at the parking lot of the ocean beach at the end of Beach Lane in Wainscott is for the East Hampton Town Trustees’ annual dredging of sand at the mouth of Georgica Pond.

The Sag Harbor Village Board launched an affordable housing initiative this week that will focus on "zoning, collaboration, and program administration."

Building along the Sag Harbor waterfront can begin again, now with a new code in place. In a unanimous vote, the village board adopted two new resolutions, one ending the moratorium and the other creating a new waterfront zoning overlay district.

The executive board of the Brookhaven Town Democratic Committee has endorsed Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming in her bid for the Democratic Party’s nomination to represent New York’s First Congressional District.