Government

Elected officials and school district leaders are lobbying the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to carry out much-needed train track improvements on the East End. They want the M.T.A. to include money in the next five-year capital plan, on which the agency is scheduled to vote in October, for a specific set of upgrades and repairs that would enable an expansion of the train program known as the South Fork Commuter Connection.

Jeremy Samuelson, the planning director for East Hampton Town since January 2022, is leaving the post for a job in the private sector as the director of human resources at Gurney's in Montauk.

A proposal to increase density on senior-citizen-only affordable housing developments in East Hampton Town from the current eight units per acre to 12 was met warmly at a town board hearing last week.

The $16.1 million project, paid for with a combination of town money, New York State grants, and an $8.25 million donation from the Montauk Playhouse Community Center Foundation, is on schedule, with construction expected to be complete by June 2025. Construction crews recently finished a major component: the "monolithic pour" of cement for the ceiling above the swimming pool.

Cilvan Realty, a limited liability company that owns 44 Three Mile Harbor Road in East Hampton, went before East Hampton Town Planning Board once again last week because of inaccuracies in its application, which was approved in October.

Tensions ran high on Monday at East Hampton Town Hall, where the Springs Park Committee met to go over plans for the future of the park.

Gov. Kathy Hochul visited the South Fork last week with good news not just for coastal resiliency in Montauk, but also for the Retreat, a domestic violence response and advocacy group in East Hampton.

There will be no basement at the new East Hampton Town senior center, or Center for Modern Aging, as Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez is calling it.

“We’re very pleased with the 2023 results,” Rebecca Hansen, the town administrator and budget officer, said after an independent audit showed "no material weaknesses" in the town's finances.

A proposed project at the old Stern’s site would see 32 to 48 units built for local workers — privately funded. Unlike regular affordable housing, there would be no financial involvement or oversight from any federal, state, or town agency.

Samantha Klein, intergovernmental relations coordinator for the town, announced its eligibility for a $100,000 grant from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority based on its work with the Clean Energy Communities program.

After a bumpy rollout back in April, the Suffolk County on-demand bus network in East Hampton appears to be running smoothly as it nears the end of its first summer in operation.

On a visit to the South Fork Friday, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that the state will contritibute $2.5 million toward the second phase of a dune replenishment project at Ditch Plain in Montauk. East Hampton Town has already budgeted $1.75 million for the project.

Forget the white pants or the crisp, sky blue shirts. Traffic-cone orange is the color of summer 2024 in East Hampton Village. “It’s a disaster. We want to make sure residents understand it’s not the village doing the work, it’s the D.O.T.,” Marcos Baladron, the village administrator, said about the multiple construction zones that have been impacting travel along Route 27, a state road that doubles as the village’s Main Street.

With mosquito samples from the South Fork so far testing negative for West Nile virus, East Hampton Town and other areas on the South Fork have avoided the county's aerial spraying this season, but that could change. “We’re still only halfway through the season. I would expect to see some West Nile virus activity in our traps in the coming weeks,” a Suffolk Health Department official said.

The application process for the Green at Gardiner’s Point, the East Hampton Housing Authority's newest affordable housing project, opened up only two months ago, but 543 applications for the Three Mile Harbor Road project have come in since. On Friday, Katy Casey, executive director of the housing authority, presided over a preliminary lottery, to assign the order in which applicants will be vetted.

Updated plans for what East Hampton Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez is calling the Center for Modern Aging, include a new location for solar panels, different siding, and lower ceilings in some common rooms, but some town board members are wondering if the town is missing some opportunities with even the latest proposed design.

Moody’s Investors Service Inc., whose credit-rating system is widely used by lenders working with municipalities and school districts, has once again awarded its best possible rating to East Hampton Town. 

Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine is lobbying New York State for the county to get its fair share of money and resources. With that push, he said, come plans to address some of the most pervasive issues on the South Fork: the suffocating traffic on County Road 39, gaps in public transportation services, water quality improvements, and long-term plans for individual towns to handle municipal solid waste.

Tommy John Schiavoni of North Haven, who is running on the Democratic ticket for New York State Assembly, picked up a big endorsement last week when Senator Chuck Schumer announced his support for the Southampton Town councilman’s candidacy. 

Former President Donald Trump will be traveling to Bridgehampton Friday afternoon, and Southampton Town has warned of extensive road closures and heavy gridlock as his motorcade makes its way from Gabreski Airport in Westhampton Beach to Bridgehampton.

On the website of the federal Citizenship and Immigration Services agency, these words appear in big letters, announcing an even bigger policy shift: “Process to Promote the Unity and Stability of Families.” For undocumented residents of the U.S. who have lived here for at least 10 years and are married to American citizens, that means there will be a new opportunity to lawfully obtain a green card.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation closes Three Mile Harbor to shellfishing before, during, and after the Clamshell Foundation’s annual fireworks show there, but have the East Hampton Town Trustees ever tested the water before and after the event to gauge the impact of the increased boat traffic?

A proposed 10,500-square-foot house with a rooftop kitchen and pool, to be built atop rare and pristine duneland on Napeague, got the unanimous approval this month of the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals, whose chairwoman called it a “significant environmental improvement” to a site that could accommodate three houses, three septic systems, and three driveways.

“I was shocked when I learned I was in a water recharge overlay, I had no information about this,” the owner of a property on Wainscott Northwest Road said at an East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals meeting where he was seeking to overturn a ruling by Joseph Palermo, the town’s chief building inspector, that the parcel had been overcleared.

The Eastville Community Historical Society has received an emergency $25,000 grant from the East Hampton Town Board to help pay for a new cedar shake roof at its headquarters on Hampton Road in Sag Harbor.

In the hours and days following President Biden’s announcements on Sunday afternoon that he was ending his bid for re-election and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris, Democrats here on Long Island and across the country have begun to largely coalesce behind Vice President Harris as they react to this political earthquake.

Southampton Town has announced that it is accepting applications from people living or working in town who are interested in buying a house or building an accessory apartment onto their existing home, “part of a broader strategy to address housing affordability,” the town said in a release.

The East Hampton Town Board has set Aug. 15 as the date for three important public hearings. One deals with adjustments to the town’s lighting code, another with the alienation of parkland at the intersection of Three Mile Harbor and Springs-Fireplace Roads in East Hampton, and the third with increasing the maximum density allowed per acre for senior citizen-only affordable housing developments. 

Playing out in the background of the rather apocalyptic and very visible destruction of the East End’s native pitch pines has been an equally devastating disease killing beech trees. With that in mind, East Hampton Town is working on ways to help residents remove dangerous trees, without running afoul of clearing restrictions.