Government

The efforts of Susan McGraw Keber of the East Hampton Town Trustees to persuade the Suffolk County Legislature to enact a ban on the intentional release of balloons paid off on Sept. 4, when that body voted unanimously to do so.

East Hampton Town Hall will be the site of two upcoming forums on community choice aggregation, a model that replaces the utility as the default, monopolistic supplier of electricity or natural gas and gives municipalities the opportunity to seek lower prices from alternative suppliers.

The East Hampton Town Board, having authorized a payout last month of $188,375.40 to Marguerite Wolffsohn, the planning director who retired at the end of July, voted to amend that resolution on Tuesday, citing an adjustment of her accrued vacation time based on the town’s department head employment policy.

East Hampton Town is moving toward modifications to its rebate program for septic system replacements in an effort to spur residents to replace aging or failing sanitary systems with new, low-nitrogen models and improve ecologically degraded waterways in the process.

Given a recent spike in cyberattacks on municipal governments and school districts across the country, local officials are on high alert about the security of their computer systems.

On Aug. 28, Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio brought his long-shot bid for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president to East Hampton, where for around two hours he spoke on topics both conventional and esoteric.

Decrying “this headache called politics,” Dell Cullum, an East Hampton Town Trustee who was elected in 2017 on the Democratic Party line but was not chosen by the party to be on its slate this year, said this week that he would not run for re-election.

On Aug. 13, the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals voted 4-to-0, with one recusal, to revoke the certificate of occupancy issued in February for Duryea’s Lobster Deck, the latest turn in a long-running controversy over the Montauk property that was purchased by the billionaire investor Marc Rowan in 2014.

A majority of the East Hampton Town Board told members of the East Hampton Group for Wildlife last week that it was disinclined to entertain a one-weekend-day ban on hunting, for which the group has been agitating.

Disappointed but determined after the East Hampton Town Board’s cool reception to the East Hampton Group for Wildlife’s request for a one-weekend-day ban on hunting, a member of the group is planning to communicate support for animal rights by recording a song.

The East Hampton Town Trustees, having determined that they should catalog their holdings and related properties in the area of Northwest Harbor, will engage two professionals with extensive experience in title research and historical records to do the job.

Anger over the East Hampton Town Board’s plan to relocate the town’s shellfish hatchery to a residential area in Springs spilled over to the town trustees’ meeting on Monday.

“Don’t shoot the messenger,” was the plea from Jim Brundige, manager of East Hampton Airport, as he told the town board on Tuesday that air traffic so far this year was up 7.5 percent over 2018.

Is the Trump administration attempting to halt the proliferation of offshore wind farms?

The East Hampton Town Board voted unanimously last Thursday to designate the Art Barge and the D’Amico Studio and Archive in Amagansett as local historical landmarks.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, who leads a large group of hopefuls for the Democratic Party’s nomination to challenge President Trump next year, and Andrew Yang, who also seeks the party’s nomination, will benefit from fund-raisers scheduled for Saturday on the South Fork.

The owner of an agricultural reserve in Bridgehampton, who had been seeking permission from the Southampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals to construct agricultural housing on the property, filed legal notice in State Supreme Court last Thursday of his intent to sue the town.

Members of the EH Fusion Party, a group of Republican, Independence Party, and Democratic candidates seeking to appear on a unified ticket on the Nov. 5 ballot, experienced another setback last week when a United States District judge for the Eastern District of New York dismissed the lawsuit it had brought against the Suffolk County Board of Elections and its Democratic and Republican commissioners.

Hope gave way to disappointment on Tuesday when members of the East Hampton Group for Wildlife, having successfully lobbied the town board to talk about banning hunting on one weekend day during the hunting season, listened as just one of five members expressed support.

The East Hampton Town Board voted last Thursday to authorize a bond resolution for repair and other improvements to a building off Stephen Hand’s Path in East Hampton that housed the former Child Development Center of the Hamptons.

The owner of a high-end rental house in Springs that East Hampton Town officials are trying to shut down appeared before an East Hampton Town justice this week along with the alleged house manager.

A review and potential changes to the New York State marine fisheries licensing system will be the subject of a meeting at East Hampton Town Hall on Wednesday at 6 p.m.

Perry Gershon, an East Hampton resident who narrowly lost a bid to unseat Representative Lee Zeldin last year and plans to challenge him again next year, made pointed remarks about recent mass shootings in the country to supporters on Saturday.

The Southampton Town Board has authorized Supervisor Jay Schneiderman to execute a contract with Joule Assets, a Katonah, N.Y., energy company, to serve as administrator of the town’s new “community choice aggregation” program.

The East Hampton Town Board’s plan to consolidate the town’s shellfish hatchery at a site on Three Mile Harbor continues to be a target of pushback by neighbors and others who are alarmed by what they predict will dramatically intensify activity in an already active and residential area.

Ronna McDaniel, co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, who was to attend on Friday, tweeted that the two events had raised $12 million.

The exposure of bony fish including bluefish and striped bass to electromagnetic fields emanating from an offshore wind farm’s export cable would be rare and of negligible consequence, according to an evaluation by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

Campaign reporting data compiled from the Federal Election Commission’s website had some surprising statistics this week. Since December, Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind., has received more individual donations from Southampton to Shelter Island than any other presidential candidate, Democrat or Republican — ahead of President Trump by a double-digit margin.     

With a new hospital farther west set to eventually replace Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, the effort to clear the way for an emergency-care facility in East Hampton is “an emergency itself,” Councilwoman Sylvia Overby said on Tuesday.     

As a debate ensues over a septic system at the Montauk Shores Condominiums mobile home community, a county agency is reviewing applications for redevelopment of two units there.