Government

The end-times landscaping job wrought by the southern pine beetle along Montauk Highway in Amagansett could seem pretty compared to how it would look after a fire. “It’s a giant tinderbox out there,” said Chris Beckert, who is in his fourth year as chief of the Amagansett Fire Department.

Jeanne Kane and Ed Haye, running as a slate to retain their seats on the Sag Harbor Village Board, were victorious Tuesday night over their challengers, Mary Ann Eddy and Ronald Reed.

Ditch Plain Beach will be more beach and less ditch this summer after a beach replenishment project that will bring approximately 200 truckloads of sand, about 1,000 cubic yards daily, began on Monday.

The deadline is Aug. 9 at 4 p.m. for community members, organizations, businesses, and other entities in East Hampton Town to apply for water-quality grant money.

Ahead of early voting for the Democratic primary election in the First Congressional District, a debate between John Avlon and Nancy Goroff covered many topics in only an hour, ranging from climate change, to social media, to gun violence and antisemitism. It was a polite affair in which the candidates often agreed with each other and didn’t engage in crosstalk.

Four experienced candidates are running for two places on the Sag Harbor Village Board, and the winners will be selected by voters on Tuesday. 

A Springs woman drew the attention of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation after removing what she said was an inactive osprey nest from her dock on Accabonac Harbor in early June. 

Paid parking will begin in some locations in Montauk starting on Saturday; perhaps most notably at the Kirk Park Beach lot, where an attendant took payment in years past. After Friday, June 21, cash will no longer be accepted there. In addition, 19 spots on the east side of South Edison Street, and 20 more on the north and south sides of South Elmwood Avenue, between South Edison and South Essex Streets, will require payment.

Suffolk County announced Friday that it is planning to reconstruct part of County Road 79, better known as the Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike, on an approximately 1.5-mile stretch from Scuttlehole Road north to Brick Kiln Road.

After receiving numerous complaints about “nuisance lighting” last year, Kevin Cooper, who heads the town’s Public Safety and Code Enforcement Department, sat down with the town attorney in January to brainstorm about changes to the code that would limit the wattage and hours of up-lighting.

On Friday, Justice Jerry Garguilo of the Supreme Court of Suffolk County ruled that the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association, a nonprofit that had served the village since 1975, could no longer exist, and ordered it dissolved. 

There’s no contest for mayor or trustee in East Hampton Village, but voters can weigh in nevertheless when polls open on Tuesday at the Emergency Services Building on Cedar Street from noon to 9 p.m. 

Organizacion Latino-Americana of Eastern Long Island has "secured a place in the New York State budget," with the State Legislature allocating a total of $100,000 to support its Youth Connect program, which addresses mental health among teens.

“I need more activism,” said Sagaponack Mayor William Tillotson when asked why he decided to campaign alongside two new candidates for village board on the Piping Plover Party line. Four candidates are vying for two trustee seats, each with a two-year term, and the mayor is hoping for a shakeup in the election, which will be held on Friday, June 21, from noon to 9 p.m. 

At a May 29 open house addressing the new Sunrise Wind project, consisting of up to 84 turbines to be built 26.5 miles off the coast of Montauk, its corporate parents, Orsted and Eversource, projected the new wind farm will yield 924 megawatts of energy -- enough potentially to power hundreds of thousands of houses.

A flier placed on cars in the lot at the Springs Park this week raised alarm bells for users of the preserve, commonly called the Springs Dog Park. 

If accepted, a $29 million tentative budget for 2025, which will be the subject of a public hearing on June 21, will lower taxes by a smidge, .0184 percent, representing the third consecutive year of tax cuts for village residents.

John Avlon and Nancy Goroff, Democratic candidates for Congress, will debate Monday night at 7, sponsored by the League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island, and the North Fork. It will be available to stream on Southampton Town's SEA-TV YouTube channel.

One thing was clear in a discussion at an East Hampton Town Board meeting about a proposed roundabout at the intersection of Stephen Hand’s Path, Long Lane, and Two Holes of Water Road: No one wants East Hampton to look like western Suffolk. 

About two months after a Suffolk Supreme Court judge froze their bank accounts — a result of the yearslong, and ongoing, Truck Beach litigation — the East Hampton Town Trustees regained control of their money on May 23.

The season's first toxic algal bloom in a South Fork body of water has been detected in Wainscott Pond, the County Department of Health Services announced Monday.

The East Hampton Housing Authority is the target of a federal lawsuit involving a teenage boy whose mother says he has suffered physically and mentally because of the authority’s refusal to allow his emotional support animal to live with him at the Accabonac Apartments. 

East Hampton Town Councilman Ian Calder-Piedmonte, a Democrat appointed to the post in January, faces a challenge from Hy Mariampolski, a first-time candidate running for the Republicans. The winner will fill out the remaining one year of the term vacated by Kathee Burke-Gonzalez when she became supervisor in January.

A proposed 100-foot cell tower behind Sagaponack’s Village Hall, at 3175 Montauk Highway, which breezed through a single public hearing in February, is receiving renewed scrutiny from residents of the one-and-a-half-square-mile village. At issue is not necessarily the pole’s existence, but its placement.

The East Hampton Village Board voted last Thursday to support state legislation that could lead to the installation of cameras at stop signs here. According to the proposed law, the vehicle owner would be hit with a $50 fine if they failed to stop at a stop sign with a camera. If they ignore the fine, it increases to $75.

In the leadup to Memorial Day weekend, the New York State Department of Transportation, the Suffolk County Water Authority, and National Grid have been in the midst of a handful of projects affecting traffic in and around the heart of East Hampton Village. 

The Green at Gardiner’s Point, the name given to the 50 rental apartments at 286 and 290 Three Mile Harbor Road being built as affordable housing, is now accepting applications for the apartments, which will start at $1,500 for a one-bedroom unit.

While the private membership club Zero Bond wasn’t explicitly mentioned, the East Hampton Village Board unanimously passed a law that was drafted after rumors began percolating weeks ago that the club was close to signing a long-term lease with the Hedges Inn on James Lane.

Sag Harbor has a legitimate political race on its hands. Four experienced candidates are vying for the two trustee seats now held by Ed Haye and Jeanne Kane, who are seeking re-election. Ron Reed, a member of the village’s planning board, and Mary Ann Eddy, who sits on its harbor committee, hope to displace them.

With Orsted and Eversource set to begin pre-construction activities in September on the 924-megawatt Sunrise Wind farm, the developers are hosting an open house for mariners and “fisheries stakeholders” in Montauk on Wednesday.