Government

Members of the East Hampton Group for Wildlife renewed a push for the town board to ban hunting on one weekend day during hunting season at the board’s meeting last Thursday, with the submission of a petition bearing 601 signatures, nearly all of them residents.

A practical move to consolidate the East Hampton Town Shellfish Hatchery, or an ill-advised and unseemly rush to do the wrong thing? The town board debated the question anew last Thursday, much of its four-hour meeting devoted to a heated debate pitting the board’s majority against one member and two residents.

It now appears that the Springs General Store is not covered after all by a facade easement, which, according to a 2015 report in The Star, would have precluded the addition of new structures to the site, protected the store, the gas pumps, and existing outbuildings from external change, and preserved the view of the property.

New York State Health Department Commissioner Howard Zucker has accepted the State Drinking Water Quality Council’s recommendations for maximum contaminant levels in drinking water for PFOA, PFOS, and 1,4-dioxane, which have been found in water deemed potable.

The Danish energy company Orsted, which acquired Deepwater Wind last year, announced on Tuesday that Jeffrey Grybowski is stepping down as co-chief executive officer of Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind.

Perry Gershon of East Hampton, who narrowly lost a challenge to Representative Lee Zeldin last year and hopes to be the Democratic Party’s nominee to challenge him in the 2020 race for New York’s First Congressional District, said that he had raised more than $400,000 in the second quarter.

Meanwhile, a rival for the Democrats’ nomination, Nancy Goroff, announced last Thursday that she had raised more than $200,000 in the 72 hours following the July 9 announcement of her candidacy.

A three-year study of tick infections in Suffolk County's 10 townships showed them to be consistent with ranges of infection rates in New York State, county officials announced Monday.

“Airports, in particular, are very important refuges because of their continued grassland maintenance, and their exclusion of people and deer,” said Marguerite Wolffsohn, East Hampton Town’s planning director, and the town’s airport, “is a refuge for native plants.”

The agency has identified several "deficiencies" — primarily regarding the effect on a variety of fish species — in the South Fork Wind Farm transmission cable plan.

The Town of Southampton is making significant progress on a range of sustainability initiatives to protect the environment, members of the town’s sustainability advisory committee told the town board last Thursday.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Thursday that Sunrise Wind, a joint venture of the Danish energy company Orsted and the Connecticut company Eversource, and Empire Wind, proposed by the Norwegian company Equinor, have each been awarded contracts to develop offshore wind farms — one of them some 30 miles east of Montauk.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on July 3 announced $55 million for commercial and residential energy storage projects on Long Island. 

The East Hampton Town Board will hold a public hearing next Thursday on proposed legislation that would require the planting of a cover crop on agricultural fields. 

The East Hampton Town Board moved forward Tuesday on a plan to relocate the town’s shellfish hatchery from Fort Pond Bay in Montauk to a property at the corner of Gann Road and Babe’s Lane in Springs that was acquired for $2.1 million last year.

The East Hampton Town Republican Committee re-elected the group’s executive board to two-year terms at its 2019 organizational meeting on Friday. 

At the request of the East Hampton Town Trustees, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has engaged consultants to evaluate existing studies of potential effects of electromagnetic fields on fish species as part of its environmental studies program. That evaluation could lead to a field study, a trustee reported to his colleagues on Monday. 

Nancy Goroff, chairwoman of the university's chemistry department, aims to face Representative Lee Zeldin next year on the Democratic ticket.

Access to Little Albert's and Fresh Pond beaches will be closed Saturday night to protect nesting piping plovers.

Work to prepare for the demolition of East Hampton’s former Town Hall, which has stood empty for years, is expected to be completed in the next three weeks.

East Hampton Town's emergency generators will be used to offset high demand for electricity on the South Fork. Officials agreed to a deal with PSEG-Long Island on Tuesday.

Barbara Borsack, a member of the East Hampton Village Board who is running for village mayor in 2020, held a kickoff party for her campaign on Sunday at the home of Ina Garten, the celebrity chef and cookbook author.

Kathleen Mulcahy was sworn in as mayor of Sag Harbor Village at the village board’s organizational meeting on Monday following an upset in the June 18 election when she defeated Sandra Schroeder, the two-term incumbent.

The United States Supreme Court delivered a setback to the Trump administration last Thursday when it rejected the administration’s contention that adding a question about citizenship to the 2020 census was solely intended to help the Justice Department enforce the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

A coalition of elected officials, civic organizations, and neighbors opposing the expansion of mining at Sand Land in Noyac celebrated another victory when the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court on Friday put a hold on the mine’s ability to dig deeper.

The East Hampton Town Board voted unanimously last Thursday to adopt measures aimed at moving the town closer to its goal of deriving 100 percent of its energy needs from renewable sources.

In an effort to increase the inventory of affordable housing, the East Hampton Town Board voted unanimously to reduce the minimum required lot size for detached affordable accessory structures on a residential parcel from 40,000 to 30,000 square feet.

A pair of companion bills passed in the New York State Assembly and Senate last week would allow the five East End towns to add .5 percent to the existing 2-percent real estate transfer tax to set up a pot of money for affordable housing programs. The Town Community Housing Fund legislation awaits a signature by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and would then be subject to a voter referendum.

Democratic voters pushed back against East Hampton Reform Demo­crats’ efforts to upend the East Hampton Town Democratic Committee’s picks for town justice and town trustee in Tuesday’s primary.

The East Hampton Town Board voted last Thursday to schedule a July 18 public hearing for consideration of a code amendment to prohibit parking on portions of Queens Lane and Sherrill Foster’s Path in East Hampton.

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities announced on Friday that it has selected Ocean Wind, an offshore wind energy project proposed by Orsted in partnership with Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG), to develop a 1.1-gigawatt wind farm 15 miles off the coast of Atlantic City. Upon its expected completion in 2024, Ocean Wind is projected to provide electricity sufficient to power some 500,000 residences in New Jersey.

The selection followed the state’s first solicitation for offshore wind power. Construction is expected to begin early in the next decade.