Government

With the looming closure of East Hampton Airport and a plan to open a new one as a private-use facility with restrictions on flight activity, a provider of medical helicopters and fixed-wing air ambulance services has written to Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc to express its "extreme concern" about the plan.

Gov. Kathy Hochul and federal Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland were among the dignitaries on hand at LTV Studios in Wainscott on Friday for the ceremonial groundbreaking on the South Fork Wind farm, New York's first offshore wind farm, to be situated approximately 35 miles off Montauk Point.

In the race for the Democratic Party’s nomination to represent New York’s First Congressional District, Suffolk County Legislators Bridget Fleming and Kara Hahn have each picked up new endorsements.

A new, online portal through which East Hampton Town residents could interface with town staff in departments like planning, code enforcement, animal control, and the town clerk is among the projects in a first draft of the town’s 2022 capital plan, the budget officer told the town board on Tuesday.

“We want to get this right, rather than get it fast,” said Sag Harbor Mayor James Larocca, speaking at Tuesday night’s village board meeting of the village’s new affordable housing initiative.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has announced a virtual public information session next Thursday from 2 to 4 p.m. about a new water quality study of Long Island Sound embayments.

“Why are they putting a tower in a hole?” Dai Dayton, president of the friends of the Long Pond Greenbelt, asked when reached over the phone about a Verizon Wireless plan to place a communications tower between the Sag Harbor Village impound lot and Southampton Town-leased transfer station to the north along the Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike.

There will be no temporary cell tower in the Redwood area of Sag Harbor, at least not for now.

One hundred and sixty-five rooftop solar systems have been installed in East Hampton Town since the Solarize East Hampton program was started in 2018, with 63 completed in 2021, the town announced last week.

With control of the United States House of Representatives potentially hanging in the balance, the New York State Legislature voted last week to redraw the state’s congressional districts in a way that makes a Democratic gain of three seats more likely.

The districts of New York State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. and Senator Anthony Palumbo will both grow smaller following the State Legislature’s vote last week to redraw state legislative and congressional district boundaries.

Effective Thursday, a New York State mandate that people wear masks or show proof of vaccination at restaurants, gyms, theaters, offices and stores will be lifted, but individual businesses and municipal governments will be able to set their own policies.