A process that began eight years ago came to a sudden ending last week, as the East Hampton Town Planning Board voted 5-to-1 to allow a 70-foot cell tower at St. Peter’s Chapel in Springs.

A bill that passed in the New York State Assembly, but has yet to win approval in the Senate, would restrict the use of popular pesticides known as neonics, which are commonly used on lawns to kill grubs but persist in the environment and are affecting populations of pollinators and causing water contamination.

With all hurdles overcome, Southampton Town is poised to become the first municipality on Long Island to implement a community choice aggregation program, a model that replaces the utility as the default sole supplier of electricity or natural gas and gives municipalities the opportunity to seek lower prices from alternative suppliers.

On May 16, voters in the Sag Harbor School District will be asked to say yes or no to the purchase of five wooded properties on Marsden Street for a total of $9.425 million. What's at stake? Short answer: a lot.

Concerned Citizens of Montauk has announced that Laura Tooman, the group’s president for the last six years, has stepped down from that position.

East Hampton Town is expected to participate in a new and expanded demand response program this summer, with eight town-owned buildings reducing stress on the electrical grid during periods of peak demand by switching to on-site emergency propane generators for brief periods.

The Sagaponack School’s proposed $1.89-million spending plan for the 2023-24 school year “is a pretty straightforward, easy budget,” the district superintendent, Jay Finello, said this week. “It’s very close to this year’s, with a modest increase, without any major changes at all.”

The Bridgehampton School's drama club performs "Lions in Illyria," there's an all-ages Spring Jubilee at The Church in Sag Harbor, a celebration of Free Comic Book Day at the John Jermain Library, and a family workshop Sunday at the LongHouse Reserve in East Hampton.

Family members, schoolmates, and administrators looked on as Leslie Samuel, a Bridgehampton senior who has had an outstanding track career under East Hampton High’s aegis, signed a letter of intent to attend the University of Hartford, where she will run and study nursing.

Pledging “leadership, perspective, and common-sense solutions,” the East Hampton Town Republican Committee’s slate launched its 2023 campaign last Thursday with a fund-raiser at the Blend at Three Mile Harbor restaurant in Springs.

A Montauk businessman, Mark Ripolone, was indicted yesterday on charges of grand larceny and identity theft for allegedly stealing nearly $400,000 over a three-year period from a payroll company and his own customers’ bank accounts.

Unable to deliver a package at a South Flint Street, Montauk, residence for four days straight, a FedEx driver called the police on the afternoon of April 26 to make sure everyone there was okay. Officers were told that the family’s dog is not well.

The 46th annual meeting of the League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island, and the North Fork happens on Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Westhampton Free Library. The Peconic Land Trust will be the guest speaker’s subject.

John Lyon Gardiner (1770-1816), the seventh proprietor of Gardiner’s Island, wrote to his brother in Queens on this day 233 years ago with updates on people here and complaints about the mail.

Anthony Janssen, who was chief of the Montauk Fire Department in 1981 and 1982, a volunteer firefighter for 35 years, and an ambulance driver for 15, died in Hot Springs, Ark., on April 24. He was 85.

Milton M. George Jr. of Amagansett’s Lazy Point, a former car salesman, died on April 16 at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital. He was 74.

Michael Howard Dext, a commercial fisherman who lived in Springs, died on April 25 at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital. The cause was heart failure. He was 67 and had been ill for the past year.

Noah Avallone, who will turn 16 on May 16, returned briefly to Montauk recently to tally up his snowboarding successes and plan for what lies ahead.

“The striped bass have arrived in Montauk,” said Capt. Rob Aaronson of the Montauk charter boat Oh Brother! Both diamond and bucktail jigs have been the lures of choice for the linesiders. 

The annual leaf blower rule shifts are coming, with two glaring exceptions: Sag Harbor and East Hampton Village.