East Hampton Town’s 2023 budget, still in its tentative form, continued to take shape this week, with minor adjustments to funding for community organizations and for the Marine Patrol, Highway, and Land Acquisition and Management Departments among the tweaks being considered.
East Hampton Town’s Aquaculture Department has been busy in recent months seeding local waters with oysters, overseeing a pilot program growing sugar kelp in Three Mile and Accabonac Harbors, and shepherding the town's oyster-gardening program, and its getting some help from high school interns working with the nonprofit South Fork Sea Farmers.
Wireless communication in Springs will be the hot topic at three meetings this week. There's an East Hampton Town Planning Board hearing on an application for a 185-foot-tall tower at Camp Blue Bay; the town board will discuss the subject at its work session on Tuesday, and the lobbying group Accabonac Strategies will update people that evening on its advocacy for activation of the 150-foot-tall tower on Springs Firehouse grounds.
A proposed .5-percent real estate transfer tax to fund community housing will be on the ballot in East Hampton in November and the town board and pro-housing community groups are getting the word out about the proposal and its anticipated benefits.
