Government

After news last week from the East Hampton Town Board that the Lake Montauk Inlet could undergo emergency dredging by the end of the month, Representative Nick LaLota confirmed Friday that "he has secured a commitment" from the Army Corps of Engineers to begin the work "as early as February 14." 

To mitigate coastal erosion, Southampton Town has contracted the largest dredging company in the United States to place 1.2 million cubic yards of sand along a stretch of coastline between Bridgehampton and Sagaponack, following a referendum within the beach erosion control districts.

A new application for a house in the dunes on Beach Lane in Wainscott seeks to stand the test of time, and will be built to “velocity flood standards,” with a raised first floor over “breakaway walls” that will allow water to flow underneath it “if we ever hit that 100-year storm.” That aspect pleased town planners but upset neighbors.

At the top of the ticket, Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez got the uncontested nod, along with both Councilwoman Cate Rogers, first elected in 2021, and Councilman Ian Calder-Piedmonte, fresh off his first year on the job. And Michael Hansen was nominated to run for town clerk, following Carole Brennan's announcement that she will retire after more than a decade in the post.

Gerard Drive, regarded as one of the more environmentally sensitive areas in East Hampton Town, jutting out as it does into Gardiner’s Bay and protecting Accabonac Harbor, has only one pool along its 1.4-mile length. Soon there will be another.

At its Jan. 14 meeting, the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals approved a pool, additions that would add a second story and more than double the size of an existing house, and a natural resources special permit for the property at 101 Gerard Drive.

An emotional East Hampton Town Board meeting Tuesday began with a two-hour public outpouring of support for the Latino community, mixed with confusion and countless questions about what ordinary people can do in the face of deportation threats from the Trump administration. Later, East Hampton and Sag Harbor Village officials and the East Hampton School District superintendent held a press conference emphasizing that all people should feel safe going to school or calling police and emergency personnel.

The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation will hold a public meeting next Thursday at 6 p.m. at Montauk Downs State Park to discuss emergency work being completed at Napeague and Hither Hills State Parks in response to the southern pine beetle infestation.

The East Hampton Town Board has agreed unanimously to a proposal from Scott Wilson, the town’s director of land acquisition and management, to clear invasive plants, chiefly the autumn olive, from only an acre of the 40-acre Springs Park.

The East Hampton Town Board is looking to change the parking rules for several municipal lots in Montauk, adding a time limit at some that currently have no limit and making it easier for police to enforce restrictions where they do exist.

After years of effort, accelerated recently because of dangerous conditions, the inlet at Lake Montauk will undergo emergency dredging, perhaps by the end of the month. At the East Hampton Town Board meeting on Tuesday, Councilman David Lys announced the development during his liaison reports, saying he was "very pleasantly surprised."

Concerned that there could be "chaos in our community" because of deportation threats by President Trump, East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen announced a press conference on Tuesday evening at 6 in the Emergency Services Building to ease fears. The public is invited.

With plans to remodel her father’s 35-year-old Hampton Auto Collision shop on Springs-Fireplace Road next door to Springs Pizza, Lindsay Reichart and her partner, Gunnar Burke, quickly won over the East Hampton Town Planning Board with their idea for “a year-round location for people to socialize.”

The Cranberry Hole Road bridge in Amagansett, closed since July 2023, will remain closed for the foreseeable future, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority confirmed earlier this month.

The first people in line to get one of the 1,600 coveted nonresident East Hampton Village beach passes made available to town residents at an in-person sale Tuesday arrived at 5:45 a.m. “It’s like an event, and we look forward to it every year,” one woman said.

“I know there are some folks out there that are concerned about the price, and I’m concerned about the cost too,” Kathee Burke-Gonzalez said, but compared the project, slated to cost around $30 million, to the $23 million expansion of the Springs School, completed in 2021, or the $56 million renovation and expansion of East Hampton High School, completed in 2010. “We support our kids. We need to be able to support our seniors.”

Oyster survivorship in Georgica Pond over the last five years is 40 to 50 percent, which Stony Brook’s Gobler Lab deems “really quite amazing.”

The Federal Office of Management and Budget’s temporary pause Tuesday on grants, loans, and federal financial assistance programs that are targeted by President Trump’s executive orders was rescinded only 24 hours later, but not before sending local organizations into a panic.

They say the wheels of justice turn slowly, but if so, no one told County Supreme Court Justice Paul Hensley. Just days after 84 Wainscott Hollow Road L.L.C. submitted a lawsuit against the East Hampton Town Architectural Review Board seeking an annulment of the board’s Dec. 12 denial of its application, the judge granted the petition “in all respects.”

In a sort of reintroduction to a largely new planning board, the East Hampton Town Planning Department gave a short recap of what has happened since a 2023 hearing on the Wainscott Commercial Center, the largest development proposal in the town, at a 70.4-acre former sand mine.

After a difficult debate that ended in compromise, the East Hampton Town Board agreed at its work session Tuesday to bring an updated formula that links house size and lot size to a public hearing in early March. The board settled on a maximum house size of 7 percent of lot area plus 1,500 square feet. Right now, the formula is set at 10 percent of lot area plus 1,600 square feet.

President Trump’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency comes in for praise and skepticism in a Senate confirmation hearing.

At its first meeting of the year, the East Hampton Town Planning Board, under the new chairmanship of Ed Krug, chose not to pursue an Article 78 lawsuit against the town board for passing a resolution to exempt the new senior citizens center from town planning and zoning regulations.

Tommy John Schiavoni was sworn in as the new assemblyman for the First District of New York on Friday night in Sag Harbor, with his wife, acting Suffolk County Supreme Court Justice Andrea Harum Schiavoni, administering the oath of office. He became only the fourth person to hold that post since 1969.

Fans of village beaches, mark your calendars. The village’s in-person sale of nonresident beach parking permits to East Hampton Town residents who live outside village boundaries will take place on Jan. 28 at the Emergency Services Building on Cedar Street. The sale will begin at 9 a.m. and continue through 6 p.m. 

In a split decision, the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals approved a nearly 9,000-square-foot house to be located at 325 Bluff Road, adjacent to the Atlantic Double Dunes Preserve in Amagansett. “This is a model application, and I applaud this application,” said Roy Dalene, the zoning board’s chairman, who voted for approval.

John Aldred will take over for Bill Taylor as a deputy clerk of the East Hampton Town Trustees, the group decided on Monday. Jim Grimes will continue as the other deputy clerk.

A law that would have protected horseshoe crabs in New York State from harvest for bait or biomedical purposes starting Jan. 1 was vetoed in December by Gov. Kathy Hochul, leaving many environmentalists dismayed.

The Sag Harbor Village Board held a hearing Tuesday night on legislation that would change the fee for holding events on village property and require that people planning events at commercial, residential, or public properties submit requests 60 days in advance of the event as opposed to the 30 days now required.

With some commercial fishing vessels unable to get into Montauk Harbor during low tide, Suffolk County Executive Edward P. Romaine has asked Col. Alex Young of the United States Army Corps of Engineers “to utilize emergency funding to dredge the Montauk Inlet and deepen the channel to at least 17 feet.”

The East Hampton Town Board discussed myriad topics related to Montauk, from boat slips to beach parking to traffic and drainage along Fort Pond.