Government

A drive-through Covid-19 testing site is scheduled to open at East Hampton Town Hall on Wednesday. The outdoor site, which will be open seven days per week from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., has been established in response to the surge in coronavirus transmission across Long Island and in New York State. 

Representatives from Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind and Eversource Energy will take part in a virtual meeting to address questions and concerns about the turbine installation's onshore and near-shore footprint.

By year's end, East Hampton Town's Human Services Department was on track to have provided around 57,300 meals, more than in the prior three years combined. It also makes thousands of wellness calls, coordinates with the Family Service League to provide free mental health counseling, provides virtual activities, and offers a support group via teleconference for those caring for a loved one, all in the service of keeping the town's senior citizens safe, nourished, and healthy. 

The East Hampton Town Board concluded its 2020 meeting schedule with public hearings on curbing the use of gas and diesel-powered leaf blowers, opponents of which decry the ubiquitous landscaping equipment's noise and environmental pollution.

With many parts of the Town of East Hampton at moderate, high, or extreme risk of flooding, the planned October start of the project's implementation was prominent in "Montauk's Coastal Resiliency and the Future of Our Beaches," a Dec. 16 webinar hosted by Concerned Citizens of Montauk.

The developers of the South Fork Wind farm will conduct site assessments and soil borings as part of survey work having to do with the wind farm's onshore transmission cable installation starting as soon as Jan. 4.

Federal lawmakers on Monday passed a $1.4 trillion general appropriations bill that includes a provision to halt the public auction of Plum Island, the pristine 840-acre island that is officially part of Southold Town but is owned by the federal Department of Homeland Security.

New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli announced last week that the state's $226 billion Common Retirement Fund will transition its portfolio to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040. A review of investments in energy sector companies is to be completed within four years, using minimum standards to assess transition readiness and climate-related investment risk.

Significant changes are in store in Wainscott, the "gateway" to the Town of East Hampton. One already visible manifestation of change is the Wainscott Green, the 1.1-acre park that was dedicated in a Dec. 6 ceremony to the late Rick Del Mastro, a former chairman of the hamlet's citizens advisory committee who died in April.

Representative Lee Zeldin, who as a member of Congress swore to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and 125 of his Republican colleagues in the House of Representatives filed an amicus brief last week supporting a lawsuit that asked the Supreme Court to disenfranchise some 20 million voters in four states.

An agreement that would see the Town of East Hampton reap an almost $29 million payment from the developers of the South Fork Wind farm in exchange for allowing a 138-kilovolt cable to be buried under town highway rights of way, from Beach Lane in Wainscott to the Long Island Power Authority substation in East Hampton, was unveiled this week. 

Governor Cuomo’s announcement on Friday that indoor dining in New York City would be curtailed as of Monday is the latest manifestation of a worsening Covid-19 crisis in the state, which now has an overall positive infection rate of 4.9 percent, but he emphasized that “living room spread” represents the majority of new infections.