Government

Last week, mere minutes before the East Hampton Town Planning Board was to discuss the proposed Springs Brewery, an elephant squeezed into the room, in the form of a determination from Dawn Green, a town building inspector, turning what could have been a routine review of minor site plan inaccuracies into a snafu.

There will be a horse trough, but no horse, at a Further Lane estate that sold this winter for $70 million in one of the East End’s priciest real estate transactions of 2025.

Two years after a groundbreaking for the Montauk Playhouse Community Center’s new aquatic and cultural centers, Gov. Kathy Hochul led a jubilant gathering including East Hampton Town and New York State officials past and present in a ceremonial ribbon-cutting for the expansive new facilities on Friday.

As the 2026 midterm elections draw closer, a second candidate for the Democratic Party’s nomination to challenge Representative Nick LaLota in New York’s First Congressional District has emerged, Lukas Ventouras, who is 24 and attending St. John’s School of Law.

The East Hampton Town Architectural Review Board offered only anticlimactic comments to the planning board at its Aug. 14 meeting on an over 10-year-old application by the Springs Fire Department to erect a communications tower on its property at 179 Fort Pond Boulevard.

Wireless service in Sag Harbor Village would see a significant upgrade with the addition of two macro cell sites, which are typically found on towers, and at least four micro towers, or small wireless facilities, a consultant told the village board earlier this month.

Dangerous surf, rip currents, and the potential for dune erosion from Hurricane Erin are anticipated here, with the most significant impacts expected on Thursday and Friday, East Hampton Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzlez said on Tuesday. 

Cedar Point State Park, the marshes in Napeague State Park, and Beach Hampton will all undergo aerial mosquito larvae treatment sometime between Monday at 7 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon.

A $2.2 million forest management contract for Napeague and Hither Hills State Parks, where the invasive southern pine beetle has killed thousands of trees and sparked concern about wildfires, will focus on areas adjacent to Montauk Highway and nearby residences and trails while creating additional access for fire departments to help reduce the risk to human life or property in the event of a wildfire, the governor said during a visit to Montauk Friday.

A 1940s-era fisherman’s shack that overlooks Fort Pond Bay in Montauk will remain standing after the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals approved a nearly 50-percent expansion of the structure last week, despite its proximity to wetlands. 

Amid continuing frustration over uncleared piles of dead pitch pines along the Napeague stretch left in the wake of the southern pine beetle infestation, the East Hampton Town Board approved millions of dollars in new fire protection contracts at last Thursday’s meeting. 

A proposal to build a 4,373-square-foot house with about 3,000 square feet of decking, a pool, and attached garage at 20 Bendigo Road, the last parcel in a four-lot subdivision created in 1975 in the Devon area of Amagansett, was approved by the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals on Aug. 5, despite concerns about the extent of temporary clearing necessary for the construction.

“If you’re hit by a car at 30 miles an hour, you will live. If you’re hit by a car at 45 miles per hour, you will die,” Barry Liebowitz, M.D., a resident of Long Lane, said at the Aug. 5 East Hampton Town Board meeting. 

Worried residents of Napeague, who live in a part of East Hampton Town that’s next door to a vast state park littered with miles of dead trees, turned out in force to hear Chris Beckert, chief of the Amagansett Fire Department, address the hamlet’s citizens advisory committee about a recent fire in the park, which came scarily close to some of their homes. 

Gabrielle McKay, who was sworn in as the East Hampton Village clerk at the end of July, is among the youngest of municipal clerks.

The East Hampton Town Board again discussed draft legislation that would allow affordable multi-unit residences on lots as small as a half-acre.

“Our season has been an amazing season,” John Ryan Jr., the town’s chief lifeguard, said of East Hampton Town’s junior lifeguard program, which teaches children ages 9 to 15 the importance of water safety and ocean awareness.

The East Hampton Town Trustees heard a pitch for the construction of a fifth and sixth oyster reef in Three Mile Harbor on Monday, a plan they quickly approved. 

Nothing belongs in the public right of way, except maybe a mailbox, a utility pole, or a fire hydrant. That was the message in a joint presentation from Councilman David Lys and Kevin Cobb, a highway project inspector from the Highway Department, at the Aug. 5 East Hampton Town Board meeting. 

Representative Nick LaLota of New York’s First Congressional District has a potential challenger, Chris Gallant, a veteran, air traffic controller, union leader, and volunteer firefighter.

Blade Air Mobility, a name that became synonymous with many South and North Fork residents’ frustration over helicopter traffic and its attendant noise, has announced the sale of its passenger division to Joby Aviation.

While CNN reports that the federal government’s credit rating with Moody’s Investors Service fell this year, East Hampton Town’s own rating remains steady. According to its latest credit report, released on Friday, East Hampton has maintained its top rating of Aaa for the ninth consecutive year.

Immigrant advocates and the East Hampton Village Board were broadly in agreement that handling code violations vis-a-vis service workers could be streamlined in a way to ease deportation fears.

Gov. Kathy Hochul pledged on Monday to respond in kind to Texas Republicans’ move to redraw that state’s congressional districts to further advantage their party in the 2026 midterm elections.

Jaine Mehring, a member of the town’s zoning board of appeals and litter action committee, and the founder of Build.In.Kind/East Hampton, announced the formation of the East Hampton Community Housing Trust to help meet a persistent crisis.

It took 50 years, but the final two lots of a four-lot duneland subdivision, created in 1975 by the Gardiner’s Bay Corporation along Bendigo Road in Amagansett, will soon be developed.

Justice allows surveyors to enter the Maidstone Gun Club, while the club’s president says it’s “in good shape to open.”

Construction could begin as early as this fall on a new, Federal Emergency Management Agency-compliant, 20-foot-high dune at Ditch Plain in Montauk following the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation's approval of a permit for the coastal restoration project.

Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency Thursday for downstate New York and Long Island in advance of heavy rain and localized flooding forecasted to hit the areas in the evening. 

As temperatures rise in East Hampton Town’s waterways, algal blooms are appearing, growing, and, in at least one case, declining.