Government

Residents of Montauk spoke enthusiastically last Thursday as the East Hampton Town Board held a public hearing on acquiring the Dutch colonial manor house that once belonged to Carl Fisher, who purchased 10,000 acres in the hamlet in 1925 with the intention of making Montauk the "Miami Beach of the north."

The League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island, and the North Fork has confirmed three candidates debates next month, all via Zoom.

In the primary race for the Democratic nomination for the First Congressional District seat, Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. has endorsed Bridget Fleming, one of two Suffolk County legislators in the running.

Sag Harbor Village Mayor James Larocca has a vision for the waterfront that includes expanding John Steinbeck Waterfront Park, creating an affordable housing district in the commercial core to the west of Main Street, and maintaining control of a municipal parking lot that Bay Street Theater hopes to use for a new theater.

New York State Attorney General Letitia James has opted not to apply to the Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, to challenge a decision involving the State Department of Environmental Conservation and an embattled Noyac mine, Sand Land.

A proposal to build a 50-unit affordable housing complex off Three Mile Harbor Road in East Hampton received a mixed response at an East Hampton Town Planning Board public hearing on Sept. 22, as neighbors of the site expressed concern about traffic congestion and environmental impacts, as others lauded the effort to make more lower-cost apartments available.

Flood insurance rates are about to rise for many policyholders — in some cases, dramatically — while falling for others, when the Federal Emergency Management Agency's new system for setting premiums takes effect tomorrow.

A New York State law that prohibits advance rent payments greater than one month's rent was amended to exclude seasonal rentals, Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. announced on Sept. 21.

Proposals to create property maintenance requirements for East Hampton Village landowners, to allow the construction of cellars that extend beyond the exterior wall of a residence, and to establish the position of "village constable" will receive public hearings before the village board on Oct. 15.

More than 75 percent of people who responded to a wireless infrastructure poll conducted in East Hampton Town last month described network coverage where they live as poor or nonexistent. 

Representative Lee Zeldin of New York's First Congressional District, who is seeking the Republican Party's nomination for governor of New York, disclosed on Saturday that has been treated for chronic myeloid leukemia. 

A plan to revitalize the southern part of Lake Montauk and the beach at the end of South Lake Drive was presented to the East Hampton Town Board on Tuesday.

Seeking to speed up the process of developing a sewage treatment system for East Hampton Village, the village board on Friday hired a new consultant to oversee the project.  

Voter information tables will be scattered across East Hampton and Southampton Towns and on Shelter Island on Tuesday, which is National Voter Registration Day. 

The U.S. Department of Labor has ordered Dune Resorts and Ocean Bay Management, hotel management companies based in East Hampton, to pay $210,000 in back wages and penalties for violating terms of the H-2B guest worker visa program in 2017 and 2018.

Looking back on his first year in office, East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen, who was elected last September, cited the introduction of paid parking, improving the village's infrastructure, creating more community events, and shoring up the village's finances as accomplishments, and the lack of progress on developing a sewer system as a major disappointment. 

Upon expiration of Federal Aviation Administration grant assurances this month, the town will regain control over the airport. It could allow its operation to continue as-is, enact restrictions or curfews on air traffic such as the elimination of commercial flights, close the airport and reopen it with new restrictions in place, or close the airport permanently and put the site to a new use. 

A town board discussion about amending the town code governing ethics turned into a furious argument among members on Tuesday, largely over a May 7 event that honored pandemic frontline workers and food pantry staff but drew criticism from the town's board of ethics.

East Hampton Town has asked a state judge for permission to re-argue its case against digging at a local sand mine, after the State Department of Environmental Conservation allowed the mine to create an artificial lake by digging deeper into groundwater.

The southern pine beetle infestation that has killed thousands of pitch pines in East Hampton Town since 2017 is continuing its destructive march, with thousands more dead and dying trees identified this year.

Two years after East Hampton Town banned the intentional release of balloons, the town board will hold a public hearing on amending the town code to ban the sale or distribution of gas or helium-filled balloons.

A panel of three federal appellate judges last week reaffirmed a 2019 decision by United States District Judge Joanna Seybert dismissing all claims against the town and the federal government in connection with erosion caused by the jetties at Montauk Harbor.

Is Lake Montauk a "holdover" habitat for striped bass, an otherwise migratory species? The question was explored at a meeting of the East Hampton Town Trustees in July, and on Monday the trustees agreed to consider a donation toward the estimated $225,000 cost of a two-year study. While Lake Montauk is not under trustee jurisdiction, said Jim Grimes, "our interest in fisheries very much is."

"We all want this to be over," New York State Gov. Kathy Hochul said on Wednesday as she announced a mask mandate for child care centers, residential health programs, and other state-run health facilities as well as a vaccination initiative that will enable emergency medical technicians to administer Covid-19 shots.

The yearslong court battle pitting East Hampton Town and the town trustees against property owners along a 4,000-foot stretch of ocean beach on Napeague popularly known as Truck Beach ended on Tuesday, as the homeowners' associations prevailed in their quest to claim ownership of the beach adjacent to their properties.

As debate over the future of East Hampton Airport heats up with the looming expiration of Federal Aviation Administration grant assurances, allowing the town to control its future, a group aiming to see the airport closed announced its formation on Friday.

Three months after several residents of a southern portion of Accabonac Road in East Hampton complained of a surge in truck traffic since the Long Island Rail Road trestle was raised there, the town board voted last Thursday to prohibit commercial vehicles weighing more than nine tons between Collins Avenue and Floyd Street.

Air traffic at Montauk's single-runway airport, in a worst-case scenario, could rise by as much as 34 percent if East Hampton Airport were closed, consultants told the East Hampton Town Board on Tuesday, but a number of factors, including existing limitations there, make a surge of that scale unlikely.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Fisheries division has announced new regulations for the lobster and Jonah crab trap and pot fisheries in the Northeast to help save endangered North Atlantic right whales by reducing their risk of entanglement in fishing gear.

The League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island, and the North Fork will host several events between now and the Nov. 2 elections. First up, on Monday at 7 p.m. over Zoom, is "The Electoral College and the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact: What Every Voter Should Know."