Government

Commercial fishermen have long voiced the concern that an offshore wind farm might disrupt their work by altering fish migration patterns, injuring or killing marine life, or posing a hazard to them and their equipment.

Tuesday’s meeting to begin negotiations on a settlement between the developers of the proposed South Fork Wind Farm and the New York State Public Service Commission was canceled after East Hampton Town and state officials objected to its location and to what an attorney representing the town said was unreasonably short notice.

Those wishing to participate in Tuesday's settlement negotiations between the developers of the proposed South Fork Wind Farm and the New York State Public Service Commission will be able to do so without traveling to the meeting site in Albany, thanks to an administrative law judge's ruling on Wednesday. 

At the conclusion of last month’s meeting of the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals, the owners of 33 Lily Pond Lane told the board they would abandon their plan to tear down the house there and build a new one on the property, which is in a coastal erosion hazard area. But now they've changed their minds.

Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind and Eversource, which jointly plan to construct and operate the South Fork Wind Farm some 35 miles off Montauk, filed notice with the New York State Public Service Commission last week to begin settlement negotiations in the P.S.C.’s Article VII review of its application to install the wind farm’s export cable in state waters and on a subterranean path to a Long Island Power Authority substation in East Hampton.

The East Hampton Group for Good Government, a nonpartisan organization that promotes awareness of local issues through public discussions of ideas, will host a first debate between candidates for East Hampton Town supervisor and town board on Saturday at 4 p.m. at the East Hampton Library.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority has announced that New York’s growing clean energy economy employed nearly 159,000 workers in 2018, according to the state’s 2019 Clean Energy Industry Report. Since 2016, the state’s clean energy economy saw 8.9-percent employment growth, more than double that of the state’s overall economy.

The two candidates vying for the Democratic Party’s nomination to challenge Representative Lee Zeldin in New York’s First Congressional District next year both support the impeachment inquiry into President Trump. Meanwhile, Mr. Zeldin, who has been a steadfast ally of the president, has queried his constituents as to their support for the inquiry.

The League of Women Voters of the Hamptons has invited the public to three candidate debates it will host this month for town and county elected offices.

Seeking to improve the condition of Route 114, one of the most heavily traveled roads on the East End, state and local government officials urged Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the Department of Transportation on Friday to repave eight miles of the state highway, from Stephen Hand’s Path in East Hampton to the South Ferry stop on North Haven.

On a recent Sunday morning, the Rev. Karen Ann Campbell of Sag Harbor’s Christ Episcopal Church delivered a sermon reminding her congregation that “we were all once strangers” so “we must therefore always welcome the stranger.”

Once again, for the third time since last October, East Hampton Town has sent a formal letter of protest to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation opposing expansion of the Sand Highway L.L.C. mine on Middle Highway in East Hampton.

East Hampton Town’s tentative budget for 2020, unveiled on Tuesday, calls for $81.87 million of spending, representing an overall increase of about 1.42 percent. If adopted as is, the budget would remain slightly under the New York State-mandated tax levy cap.

The Town of East Hampton has prohibited Analar Corporation, a New Jersey-based charter helicopter provider and management service for aircraft owners, from using East Hampton Airport for 90 days, citing multiple “unsafe and reckless” operations.

State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. has co-sponsored a bill that would permit cities, towns, and villages to reduce maximum speed limits on local roads from 30 to 25 miles per hour.

For those who remember David Gruber’s early involvement in East Hampton politics, his alliance this election year with the local Republican Party might seem an unlikely pairing.

Imagine a village with fewer empty stores in the off-season, with more cafes and affordable apartments in “bungalow courts.”

Those are a few of the potential changes a civil engineering firm hired by the East Hampton Village Board on Friday will explore as it develops plans to revitalize East Hampton Village’s commercial district, provide a sewage treatment system for the area, and increase parking and affordable housing.

For the first eight months of 2019, revenues for the Peconic Bay Region Community Preservation Fund are down by nearly 21 percent from the same period last year.

A new policy handed down by the Trump administration last month will limit the ability of immigrants to obtain visas and apply for permanent residence. The “public charge” ruling, as it is known, pertains to applications by people who have used or are even likely to use many types of government benefits.

As if to underscore the validity of her words, Greta Thunberg twice interrupted her remarks to call for heat-related medical attention for one of the youthful mass gathered under the late-summer sun in Manhattan's Battery Park on Friday afternoon, the 16-year-old climate activist's appearance the culmination of the Youth Climate Strike that drew tens of thousands of students, some of them from East Hampton. 

In a move it described as precautionary, the Suffolk County Health Department announced on Monday that it will conduct a private well survey in an area surrounding the closed landfill and at least two commercial composting or mulching operations along the Springs-Fireplace Road corridor in East Hampton and Springs.

A proposal from the Springs Fire District to remove an unutilized 150-foot-tall communications tower behind the firehouse on Fort Pond Boulevard, and replace it with a 180-foot-tall tower to improve radio and pager communications for fire, ambulance, and police personnel, came before the East Hampton Town Planning Board on Sept. 11.

The public weighed in on a proposal from the Peconic Land Trust to build a more than 4,100-square-foot barn on Quail Hill Farm in Amagansett at an East Hampton Town Planning Board meeting on Sept. 11.

Toward the end of a contentious meeting at which neighbors threatened legal action should the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals allow the replacement of a house at 33 Lily Pond Lane by a larger one with more amenities and lot coverage, the property’s owners told the board they would abandon their plans and renovate the existing residence instead.

The Victor D’Amico Institute of Art, also known as the Art Barge, has closed for the season, but a project critically important to the Napeague landmark’s reopening next year is intensifying.

The bulkhead protecting the retired Navy barge from Napeague Harbor is in need of reconstruction. It has severely deteriorated on its eastern side, with sand leaking through it and into the harbor, rendering it ineffective and the ground landward unsafe to traverse.

Tomorrow is the seventh annual Car Free Day Long Island, and on Tuesday the East Hampton Town Board adopted a nonbinding resolution in support of the designation.

The House of Representatives voted on Sept. 11 to permanently protect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and the eastern Gulf of Mexico from offshore drilling.

Tuesday is National Voter Registration Day, and the League of Women Voters of the Hamptons will use the opportunity to explain to people across the South Fork where, when, and how to register for the Nov. 5 election.

Residents and visitors alike are willing to pay for the preservation of Montauk’s ocean beaches, the East Hampton Town Board was told on Tuesday, and both groups are amenable to either a property tax or a lodging tax to finance a wide, healthy beach. 

One may not need a sleek, luxurious lake runabout to attract attention to energy sustainability programs, but it certainly seemed to help on Saturday, when members of Southampton Town’s sustainability committee signed up residents for free home energy audits and solar evaluations at Sag Harbor’s annual Harborfest event.