Government

One year after the last election and one year ahead of the next one, the East Hampton Town Trustees took up the question of how the nine-member governing body is chosen, holding the first formal discussion of staggered election cycles on Monday.

Reaction on the South Fork was muted, at least publicly, when the Associated Press and major news networks announced on Saturday that former Vice President Joe Biden had won the presidential election, voters having rejected the norm-shattering reign of President Trump after one term.

A reconfiguration of East Hampton Village government in which Marcos Baladron, the new village administrator, relinquished the post's former duties of clerk and treasurer, and Pamela Bennett, the deputy clerk, and Dominique Cummings, the deputy treasurer, assumed those offices respectively, was approved by the village board last Thursday. 

Citizens for the Preservation of Wainscott, a group formed in opposition to the plan to land the proposed South Fork Wind farm's export cable at the ocean beach at the end of Beach Lane in that hamlet, shared its views with the Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee on Saturday.

Open-loop geothermal systems for a typical 2,000-square-foot house require about 15 gallons per minute, or more than 21,000 gallons per day of continuous water usage. Houses larger than 10,000 square feet can have systems that use in excess of 50 gallons per minute, or 72,000 gallons per day.

With Suffolk County reporting a steady increase in the Covid-19 positivity rate, East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen announced on Monday that Village Hall will be closed to the public starting Thursday and through the end of the year.

The proposed South Fork Wind farm's export cable will not come ashore at Atlantic Avenue Beach in Amagansett, the clerk of the East Hampton Town Trustees flatly told the New York State Public Service Commission last week.

The East Hampton Town Board is expected to vote today to begin the process of adopting a community choice aggregation program. Community choice aggregation, or C.C.A., 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 the incumbent utility.

If you're going to talk to someone in the aftermath of what's shaping up to be the most confounding presidential election in two decades, Julian Zelizer is your man.

Consultants hired by Sag Harbor Village to create a new zoning code that will control its redevelopment presented the goals of the project on Oct. 28 at a village board meeting. Marta Goldsmith, director of the nonprofit Form-Based Institute, said the new code will be designed to protect the village's historic charm and water quality, preserve and enhance views and access to the water and open spaces, and maintain a diversity of architectural styles.

As the pandemic continues into the colder months, East End restaurants are extending the outdoor dining season with the use of heaters, tents, and igloos, and the East Hampton Town Board is seeking to draft a law that would allow restaurants to transfer up to 100 percent of their seating capacity from indoors to outdoors.

The Suffolk County Health Department traced a cluster of Covid-19 infections to the early voting site at the Stony Brook Southampton campus, County Executive Steve Bellone said in press briefing on Wednesday.

Voting this year for the first time, local teens weren't just #adulting — a popular hashtag that means taking grown-up life seriously, and a term that teens may not even be using anymore these days. Instead, they headed to the polls equipped with information and intent, determined to make their voices count.

Monday morning dawned bright with a stiff, northwesterly wind on the bay as I lifted the bedroom shades. I squinted as I tried to focus on my surroundings from the second floor. It was a little after 7, and not a single boat was in view. It was a sad sight to see but not a total surprise.

The counting of some 75,000 ballots cast by mail in New York's First Congressional District will not begin until next week, but as of yesterday Representative Lee Zeldin appeared headed for a landslide win in his quest for a fourth term.

With early voting and Election Day votes counted, the Republican incumbent Lee Zeldin appears to be the winner of the race to represent the First Congressional District, having garnered 61.31 percent of those votes to Nancy Goroff's 38.66 percent, according to unofficial totals from the Suffolk County Board of Elections.

If you're voting Tuesday, you have until 9 p.m. to cast a ballot at your regular polling place. Not sure where to vote? You can look it up at here, and here's a list of polling places by election district in East Hampton Town and eastern Southampton Town.

Since March, when fear of Covid-19 drove many second-home owners into town prematurely, and many of them permanently, the East Hampton Recycling Center has absorbed a vast surge in recyclable and non-recyclable materials.

Since Saturday, when New York State's early voting period began, hundreds of voters have been lining up daily to cast their ballots at the East Hampton polling site at Windmill Village on Accabonac Road, and the Stony Brook University Southampton campus, the only two sites for early voting on the South Fork.

With the sobering realization that another summer could come and go before the coronavirus pandemic is fully relegated to history, the East Hampton Town Board looked back at the 2020 season at the town's beaches and considered improvements that might be made for 2021.

Alanah Johnson, Tiffany Gilliam, Sharon Gilliam, and Betty Gilliam are all graduates of the Bridgehampton School. They can share stories of cheerleading for the Killer Bees at different points in history, and now they have a new story to tell in a history-making election year.

The East Hampton Town Trustees opened Georgica Pond to the Atlantic Ocean on Oct. 19, a biannual event that allows spawning fish to enter and exit and flushes the pond. Unlike in the last two years, though, the pond closed naturally just six days later.

Federal permitting delays will continue into next year, representing a significant setback for the developers of South Fork Wind, the proposed 15-turbine wind farm to be constructed approximately 35 miles east of Montauk Point.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of voters lined up and cast ballots on Saturday and Sunday on the South Fork as New York State's early voting period opened up. Long lines -- starting well before polling sites were to open their doors -- were common in East Hampton at Windmill Village on Accabonac Road and in Southampton at the Stony Brook Southampton college campus, the only two sites for early voting on the South Fork. 

Polling stations during the early voting period and on Election Day will be populated only by staff, poll inspectors, and, of course, voters, an official at the Suffolk Board of Elections said this week. "You cannot interfere" with voting, a Suffolk County Board of Elections official said, and the county will "have police cars with a bipartisan team of board of elections employees in every town if there's a problem."

Suffolk County completed a dredging of Accabonac Harbor near Louse Point in Springs early this week, removing a spit of beach that had narrowed a channel and made it difficult for boats to navigate through the water, according to Francis Bock and Susan McGraw Keber of the town trustees.

Representative Lee Zeldin and his Democratic challenger, Nancy Goroff, clashed in a 90-minute debate on Monday, each accusing the other of lying about their records and demanding they remove negative campaign advertisements. 

The town trustees voted unanimously to authorize the purchase of a third pumpout boat at their meeting on Friday. The move followed an especially busy summer in Lake Montauk and Three Mile Harbor and what one trustee described last month as "an effluent crisis" in Montauk over Labor Day weekend. 

The southern pine beetle, an invasive pest now considered by the D.E.C. to be an established species on the South Fork, has made a comeback in East Hampton Town and regions of the Central Pine Barrens, town and state officials said this week.

An altercation between a Town Lane resident and a man attempting to take her lawn signs that was caught on video on Friday provides an apt jumping off point for a look at the rules governing political signs.