Government

Two weeks after a tense debate and vote to allow an 80-foot dock in Three Mile Harbor, the East Hampton Town Trustees moved toward enacting a moratorium on the construction of docks and floating structures in all waters under their jurisdiction while they develop a policy on them.

Attorneys for oceanfront property owners along what is popularly known as Truck Beach on Napeague have convinced a New York State Supreme Court judge to move the trespassing violations of 14 East Hampton Town residents from the town justice court to the Suffolk County Supreme Court.

Democrats in East Hampton Town bucked the wider trend on Long Island and beyond on Election Day, maintaining a lock on elected offices by winning large majorities in an election marked by light turnout.

Consultants to East Hampton Town have proposed a two-phase plan for implementation of the recommendations contained in the Wainscott hamlet study that was approved and adopted in East Hampton Town’s comprehensive plan in May 2020.

The rate of Covid-19 infection has slowly declined at testing sites in East Hampton Town in recent weeks, Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said on Tuesday.

The positive infection rate among those tested between Oct. 16 and Oct. 23 was 5.88 percent, Mr. Van Scoyoc said. The rate between Oct. 24 and Oct. 30 was 4.94 percent, and between Nov. 1 and Nov. 7 it was 3.85 percent.

Voters across Suffolk County flunked three of the five statewide propositions on Tuesday's ballot. The only successful measure that will impact the East End was an amendment to the state constitution to establish the "right to clean air, clean water, and a healthful environment for all."

"I was guardedly optimistic," East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said Wednesday after an apparent landslide victory for the Democratic Party. He pointed to a record of sound financial management, guiding the town through the Covid-19 pandemic while maintaining a functioning government, and forward movement on renewable energy and said, "I think the public responded resoundingly." 

Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming, an incumbent candidate, was one of only a few Democrats re-elected to their posts on Tuesday as Republicans earned victories in key races in county government.

There will be one new face among the East Hampton Town Trustees, who manage many of the town's beaches, waterways, and bottomlands on behalf of the public, when the nine-member body is sworn in in January. All nine candidates running on the Democratic ticket were elected.

The polls had been closed for more than two hours when word was conveyed that there would be no further update to the Suffolk County Board of Elections' vote tally of East Hampton Town's 19 election districts, but the early vote totals indicated a clean sweep for Democrats. At nearly 1 a.m., when the board of elections website finally populated with all of East Hampton Town's unofficial numbers, those results held: The Democrats' candidates had won every contested town race from supervisor to town trustee.

With less than two weeks before the 2021 election was to be settled, the East Hampton Town Democrats had outspent their opponents by almost double and still had plenty left for a final push.

County Legislator Bridget Fleming, who is seeking the Democratic nomination to represent New York's First Congressional District, has reported more than $468,000 raised and a raft of political and labor endorsements.