Government

New York State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie has appointed Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. to serve on the Assembly Standing Committee on Rules.     

The Town of East Hampton is among the municipalities the Sierra Club and Citizens Campaign for the Environment have recognized for sustainability efforts, Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said on Tuesday. 

Suffolk Legislator Bridget Fleming has announced that four village mayors have endorsed her campaign for New York’s First Congressional District. Jeff Sander of North Haven, Peter Sartorius of Quogue, Kathleen Mulcahy of Sag Harbor, and Don Louchheim of Sagaponack have endorsed her bid to challenge Representative Lee Zeldin, the campaign announced last Thursday.     

Neonicotinoid insecticides, also known as neonics, are doing more than killing bees and other insects in record numbers, according to a report issued last month by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an international environmental advocacy group.

During the presentation, which also included data on the former Montauk landfill, one Springs resident insisted that the consultants were downplaying the danger of contaminated drinking water.

The owners of PedalShare, a bicycle-sharing company that operates in South­ampton Village, Westhampton Beach, and Quogue, has plans to launch the program in East Hampton Village in the spring.

Anthony Palumbo, a Republican New York State assemblyman who has served the North Fork for the last seven years, called his bid for the State Senate “a natural progression.”

The legalization of recreational use of marijuana for adults is, for the second year in a row, included in Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s executive budget. 

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s commissioner announced on Friday the detection of a coccidian parasite in a sample of bay scallops collected from the Peconic Bays, which is believed to have contributed to the massive die-off discovered in the fall of 2019.

Occupancy of a 12-unit condominium development on Accabonac Road in East Hampton, the first of its kind in the town’s affordable housing program, has been delayed due to the detection of elevated levels of several solvents in the units’ basements. The compounds in question exceed the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s regional screening levels, which a letter to buyers from the town’s Office of Housing and Community Development last Thursday noted are recommendations, rather than regulatory.

The companies planning the South Fork Wind Farm have asked permission to survey a proposed cable route from Wainscott to a Long Island Power Authority substation in East Hampton.

A cooperative listening project will help the development of processes and procedures to protect right whales during the survey, construction, and operation phases of several wind farms,

Fred W. Thiele Jr. is the first state legislator to make an endorsement in the race for the Democratic Party’s nomination to unseat Lee Zeldin, the three-term Republican.

In an effort to have the State Department of Transportation prioritize the repair of Route 114, Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. said last week that he would designate money for it in the upcoming state budget.

A challenge to a 2016 State Supreme Court decision involving the ownership of a stretch of Napeague oceanfront known as Truck Beach will be heard on Feb. 7 in the Appellate Division’s Second Judicial Department in Brooklyn.

Oysters were on the agenda when the East Hampton Town Trustees met Monday, a meeting that saw a new member of the board who is an oyster farmer speaking both as a trustee and as a resident of the community.

The cash flowed for Jerry Larsen in 2019. The Newtown Party, which Mr. Larsen set up as the fund-raising arm of his bid for East Hampton Village mayor, took in just over $43,000 last year, according to his filings with the New York State Board of Elections.

A long-hoped-for new senior center that would replace the aging facility on Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton was the topic of a somewhat acrimonious town board back and forth last Thursday. Board members, often sounding irritated, finally voted to form a building committee on the project.     

East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc and Shelter Island Town Supervisor Gerard Siller have endorsed Bridget Fleming's campaign.

Elements of a stump speech were peppered throughout Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming’s remarks to a gathering of Democratic voters in Springs on Friday.     

Valerie Cartright, a Democrat and Brookhaven Town councilwoman, is the fourth candidate to enter the race for the New York State Senate seat now held by Senator Kenneth P. LaValle.     

Amagansett’s town-owned parking lot north of Main Street in the hamlet’s commercial core could be expanded and reconfigured in time for Memorial Day weekend, the East Hampton Town Board was told on Tuesday, though one board member suggested that such a timeline might be unrealistic.     

Lena Tabori was named the new chairwoman of East Hampton Town’s Energy Sustainability and Resiliency Committee on Jan. 15, four weeks after Linda James resigned from the position.

Montauk business owners and local musicians told the East Hampton Town Board last Thursday that proposed code changes covering music entertainment permits are far less objectionable than those debated at a contentious public hearing 10 months ago, but that some unreasonable provisions still remain.     

Representative Lee Zeldin of New York’s First Congressional District, which covers the South Fork, was appointed to President Trump’s impeachment defense team on Monday.     

The East Hampton Town Planning Board agreed to fast-track a proposal from AT&T to build a 185-foot-tall cell tower on land adjacent to an East Hampton Fire Department substation under construction in Northwest Woods, and inched closer to scheduling a public hearing of an application to build a car wash next to the East Hampton Town Recycling Center on Springs-Fireplace Road, at a meeting on Jan. 8. 

The East Hampton Town Board will soon issue a request for applications for water quality improvement awards, based on a recommendation from its water quality technical advisory committee.     

State Senator Kenneth LaValle, who will be 81 in May, will retire this year after serving the First District since 1976, he announced on Friday at a waterfront gathering in his hometown of Port Jefferson.   

With two of their three new members present, the East Hampton Town Trustees met for the first time in 2020 on Monday, and voted unanimously to reappoint several officers and staff.     

The environment — including preservation, mitigation, and adaptation to a changing climate — was the dominant topic of East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc’s State of the Town address Tuesday at the town board’s annual organizational meeting.