Government

Two pumpout boats owned and operated by the East Hampton Town Trustees were in particularly heavy use this summer, especially the one based at the Star Island municipal marina in Lake Montauk. The coronavirus pandemic, the trustees maintain, is behind the surge in boating activity, as well as boaters’ eschewing of showers and other public facilities at marinas in favor of those on board. 

Jerry Larsen was elected East Hampton Village mayor on Tuesday, bringing to a close a campaign that was unusual both for its length and frequent conflict among the top-line candidates.

Deputy Mayor Barbara Borsack and Trustee Arthur Graham came in second and third, respectively, when the absentee votes were counted. 

With hours to go before the polls close, Jerry Larsen, a candidate for East Hampton Village mayor in Tuesday's election, has signaled that he intends to contest the results of the election and ask that all ballots, voting machines, and objections to ballots be impounded.

New York State's hemp pilot research program has grown from two growers and 30 acres in 2016 to more than 500 producers and 20,000 acres this year, but is set to expire on Oct. 31, and participants in the state's budding hemp industry are nervous about changes in state and federal regulations that they say could have catastrophic consequences just as the industry is starting to thrive.

Elections for East Hampton Village mayor and two open trustee seats will be held on Tuesday. Voting will take place at the Emergency Services Building at 1 Cedar Street from noon to 9 p.m.

The village plans to develop an affordable housing program that will be overseen by East Hampton Housing Authority, the village board announced at a meeting last Thursday.

The angry exchanges resumed on Tuesday when the East Hampton Town Board again discussed Stony Brook Southampton Hospital's planned emergency room annex ahead of a vote on the proposal's environmental impact that is expected next Tuesday. 

Sag Harbor Village Mayor Kathleen Mulcahy presented detailed goals for a proposal to impose a six-month moratorium on commercial redevelopment in the village's waterfront area at a board meeting on Tuesday. 

In a watershed moment this week, the Southampton Town Board voted unanimously Tuesday in support of the Graves Protection Act and the Shinnecock Hills Building Moratorium. 

A second public hearing on community choice aggregation, a program that allows a local government to procure electricity and/or natural gas on behalf of its residents, businesses, and municipal accounts from a provider other than an area's traditional utility, will happen during the East Hampton Town Board's meeting next Thursday. 

Groundwater contamination in the hamlet of Wainscott was not caused by a 70.5-acre former sand and gravel mine in that hamlet, according to a new determination by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

The Town of East Hampton and the town trustees will share a community benefits package worth almost $29 million in exchange for easements allowing Orsted U.S Offshore Wind and Eversource, partners developing the proposed 15-turbine South Fork Wind project, to land the installation's export cable and bury it on a path to the Long Island Power Authority substation in East Hampton. 

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee released a poll conducted last month that had Nancy Goroff leading Representative Lee Zeldin, 48 percent to 46 percent, in the race to represent New York's First Congressional District. 

Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle, and Assemblyman Anthony Palumbo have introduced legislation in response to the removal of the early voting polling location in the Town of Shelter Island.

New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli has endorsed Laura Ahearn, the Democratic nominee for the First State Senate District.

As this "summer like no other" neared its unofficial close, the East Hampton Town Board announced new phases of a communications campaign aimed at maintaining the suppression of Covid-19 transmission.

In Suffolk County, eligible voters have three options for voting: absentee ballot, in person during early voting from Oct. 24 to Nov. 1, and at their polling places on Nov. 3.

Representative Lee Zeldin of New York’s First Congressional District was a speaker at last week’s Republican National Convention, during which he described President Trump’s efforts for New York State during the coronavirus pandemic as “phenomenal.”

With a nearly two-year fund-raising jump on the competition for East Hampton Village mayor, Jerry Larsen’s NewTown Party held the lead with contributions of more than $100,000 since July 2019.

The plan to build an emergency room annex in East Hampton, which has wended its way through multiple regulatory boards over the last four years, was the subject of several angry exchanges when it returned to the town board on Tuesday. 

In an effort to manage development and protect water views and character, the Sag Harbor Village Board has proposed a law that would suspend until March 1, 2021, the planning board’s authority to grant approval of site plans, special permits, and subdivisions.

Five candidates are vying for two open East Hampton Village Board seats in the Sept. 15 election: Richard Lawler, the appointed mayor, and Ray Harden an appointed trustee, on the Elms Party line; David Driscoll on the Fish Hooks line, and Chris Minardi of the villages zoning board of appeals and Sandra Melendez on the NewTown line.

Arthur Graham, an East Hampton Village trustee who is running for mayor in the Sept. 15 election, has questioned the authenticity of 200 voter registrations, and is formally challenging them with the Suffolk County Board of Elections.  

"If we do not receive federal funding, there is no way that the state and local governments can cover the deficit," the governor said Monday, citing "catastrophic budget shortfalls" that could impact thousands of workers.

An annual mosquito-sampling program in Accabonac Harbor concluded for the season on Friday, and while the coronavirus pandemic meant a loss of some interns and volunteers, this year's reduced program was deemed a success by the East Hampton town trustees and the director of the Suffolk County Public Works Department's division of vector control.

A plan to relocate two Little League playing fields to make room for Stony Brook Southampton Hospital's planned annex in East Hampton has at least one persistent critic, and last Thursday Charlie Whitmore delivered a withering assessment of that plan to the town board.

In the latest of a series of debates, the three candidates running for mayor of East Hampton Village in the Sept. 15 election offered contrasting, often contentious visions for the village.

At their meeting on Monday, the East Hampton Town Trustees discussed a surge in boating activity this year, which they agreed is a consequence of the pandemic. That, they said, means that the two pump-out boats the trustees own and operate are in particularly heavy use this year, especially the one based at the Star Island municipal marina in Lake Montauk. The other boat serves Three Mile Harbor.

A State Supreme Court judge signed an order on Monday prohibiting the Marram Montauk resort, the former Atlantic Terrace, from serving food or alcoholic beverages to patrons of the restaurant it has been operating, Il Buco at Mostrador Marram, on site or on the adjacent ocean beach.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo issued an executive order intended to bolster the right to vote on Monday, as anxiety mounts amid congressional scrutiny of the United States Postal Service and President Trump's repeated assertions that voting by mail will result in electoral fraud.