001East Hampton Town Board. We are live. >> Thank you, Jason. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to M Talk for the East Hampton Town Board work session of Tuesday, April 14th, 2026. Michael, if you could please read the roll call. >> Council member Fle >> present. Deputy Supervisor Lee, >> present. >> Council member Rogers, >> present. >> Council member Calder Pimont, >> present. >> Supervisor Kathy Bur Gonzalez, >> present. If we could all please stand for the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, >> one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice and justice for all. Okay. So, we're going to start today's meeting with public portion. We ask you to kindly keep your comments uh to three
002minutes. Uh we have six work session topics today. First, bids with Jeannie Corrosa. Then, John Tarbet is going to make a presentation on the new 173 Skiim Hampton subdivision and a request for reserve area use. That'll be followed by uh three of our department heads are going to be giving a presentation um on their on the environment, their 2025 accomplishments in 2026 goals, Kim Shaw with natural resources, Scott Wilson for land acquisition and management, and John Barley Dunn on our agriculture program. That'll be followed by a presentation on the nitrogen smart communities program with Melissa McCarron and Rachel Titus, followed by a presentation on the Georgia Pond at Route 27 rest stop storm water abatement project. We're going to get an update there with Melissa McCarron and Tom Schaefer from DB Engineers and Architects. And
003lastly, we're going to have an afterhearing discussion on chapter 91 vehicles on Jin Beach. We had just had that public hearing that'll be followed by liaison reports and we have a couple of resolutions. So, first we'll start with public portion. I don't I see that no one has signed up. Is there anyone in the room that would like to address the board during public portion? Okay. Uh Jason, is there anyone on the line? >> Yes, we currently have five callers on the line. So, let me first one. >> Great. Thank you. >> Hello, caller 8764. Can you hear me? >> Yes, I can. Good morning, town board. Four out of five. Anyway, uh this is David Buddha. Good morning. Uh I am calling in to comment on the work session discussion topic described as being
004173 Skiim Hampton subdivision request for reserve area use. I wish to voice my strong support for the position articulated by the planning department in uh Tina Lraine's March 13 memo. This really should be a no-brainer. I'm frankly quite disappointed that any member of the planning board had sus supported the request. Application has been made to modify a 2011 minor subdivision approval and filed map that created three lots at 169, 171, and 173 Skin Hampton Road in Amigansit. The planning board had required all three lots to share a single common driveway. That common driveway declaration was recorded on March 22nd, 2012. The planning board also required the applicant to convey to the town two subdivision map reserve areas along either side of the common driveway access and fronting on Skim Hampton Road. Quite significantly, the planning
005board resolution states that the deed shall provide that the land so conveyed is to be restricted to use for park purposes only. The town board on February 2nd, 2012 accepted the deed to the vacant and wooded subdivision map reserve areas and explicitly stated that the purpose of such acquisition is the preservation of open space. The applicant seeks alienation of designated parkland without bothering to go through the long and complicated parkland alienation process. The applicant seeks to have the town board totally disregard all the sound planning reasons why the planning board in 2011 wisely required the establishment of one common driveway and two parkland reserve areas. It is a fact that all three lots that were created by the subject minor subdivision are currently owned and controlled by members of just one family, albeit through the
006vehicle of three separately created limited liability companies. If Dr. Harold Cppelitz and family members want to merge two of the current currently vacant uh lots. That is not any reason for the town to break all the good planning principles that underly the design of the subdivision. Lastly, it's indeed ironic, if not worse, that the same property owners that today asked the town to violate the terms of the deed parkland reserve area were the same were the defendants in an action that was required to be brought by the town in September 2016 to force them to remove obstructions, structures, and plantings unlawfully placed within one of the reserve areas. If you have any if you don't recall that event, I refer you to town board resolution 2016 and also uh the uh the the uh recorded
007uh excuse me, the filed uh complaint by the town. All right, so that's all I have to say. Uh this really isn't something that should not have been asked, should not have been requested, should not have gotten this far. The planning board should have clearly said no. The planning department is correct to say please don't do this. Thank you. >> Thank you, David. >> Jason, if you could put the next caller through, please. >> Copy that. Caller ending 1225. You are on the air. Hello. >> Hi, this is John Stoner. Um, my grandfather built our home at 70 Beach Lane overlooking the 66 Main Street parcel out our back door and especially from our second floor deck. So, 56 years between 56 and 2012. I had my piece read uh in absentia at the 319
008meeting uh discussing the management plan for the 66 main parcel. Um, and I um wanted to add to it um today to give a quick heads up prior to Thursday's meeting um where I'll be talking about the quantification of public support from that meeting uh for the no farming no concrete paths and the designation of the entire acreage as historically uh significant. In addition, I wanted to uh let the board know that Hillary Osborne will also be uh speaking on Thursday. Um and others and uh if we might get a statement um and are seeing if we might oh and we are also seeing sorry I I wrote this quickly this morning seeing if we might be able to get a statement uh representing Mr. L's point of view. uh in the meantime um which
009Lauder's point of view would be a nice to have but that would constitute both parties who had ever owned that parcel and recorded East Hampton Town history would then have expressed their wishes which it would be made known runs counter to what the East Hampton Town Board has instead decided and I believe that Hillary's family is 341-year owners of the property from Wayne Scott's settling in 1675 to 202 21 when it was sold to Lauder who bought it to ensure it wouldn't be developed or changing in any way from how Hillary's father and uncle David decided it should stay in 1980 not being farmed except for their 14-year span of planting very low impact and short season strawberries in a much smaller field designation than any of the potato fields had been there. Um and
010therefore it would it has beenow metal meadow for the last 46 years. And while Lauder did own it for three years until it was sold to the town in December 24, who would think the East Hampton Town Boar would instead vote against an overwhelming and united community response to reimagine it uh differently than the Osborne family consciously chose to give that Meadow Vista as a forever gift to their children, grandchildren, and ancestors to be along with the rest of their friends and neighbors and Wayne Scott and those that would come thereafter in perpetuity. Just wanted to kind of give that uh the heads up of that kind of sentiment that will be repeated uh I'm thinking at the Thursday meeting uh at 6 p.m. when I hope to have my tally completed and uh and
011I know Hillary is going to be uh joining us. Thanks very much. >> Thank you, John. If you could please put the next caller through, please Jason. >> Yes, I am. and 4619, you're on the air. >> Yes. Good morning. Uh my name is Espiran Salon. Uh good morning to you all. I'm speaking today as a resident of East Hampton since 1976 and of Wayne Scott for the past 25 years and not in my role as president of Wayne Scott Heritage Project. And I want to comment on uh as John Soner did in the previous call on the draft management plan for the John Osborne Homestead. um and reiterate a scenic historic viewshed that links directly to the 17th century history of Wayne Scott. For months, you've been presented with clear documented concerns regarding this
012plan. Individual residents, experts, and organizations have asked for the full 30 acre landmarking of this historic site, not just the buildings. to ensure its character is fully protected and preserved. Alarms have been raised about the environmental impact of intensive farming on the already fragile Waynecott Pond and the potential also of such activity to adversely affect the historic vista with contemporary structures like 12-oot agricultural fencing. And yet we find ourselves facing a wall of entransigence from several members of this board who seem determined to push the current draft through without essential revisions. Watching this process, I'm reminded of a phrase my late father would use. My mind is made up. Don't confuse me with facts. That is exactly how it feels to present myself to some of you. The facts are that this $56 million CPF
013purchase was intended to protect our hamlet's heritage and environment. The aim of the management plan must be to reconcile the various purposes for which this parcel was acquired, not at the potential absolute exclusion of any one purpose, but by establishing reasonable limits so that this legacy of a built and n natural environment can be shared and passed on to future generations. However, the refusal to codify low impact agriculture or to grant the underlying land historic status as you have done with other sites suggests that certain board members have already closed their minds to the evidence. This level of stubbornness requires an explanation if expert testimony on water quality and historic preservation combined with numerous comments from the community are not enough to add and revise a few lines in a draft document meant to guide
014the stewardship of this property. Then what exactly is this board's priority? Please stop ignoring the facts of the matter and revise the plan to protect and properly steward the Osborne homestead as a whole. Our community deserves a management plan that is a guide based on the realities of the site and the requests of our residents, not on a madeup mind that refuses to listen. And thank you for listening. >> Thank you, Espiransa. Jason, if you could please put the next caller through. Caller ending 6466. You are on the air. >> Good morning. My name is Vicky Litman and I'm calling in to thank the board for purchasing the Osborne property. Uh preserving the farmland is important, but I just have one question. Um has the soil been tested, >> Kathy? >> We don't This is
015public comment, Vicki, so we can get back to you, but Okay, listen to you. >> Okay. Well, then All right. So, I'll go on thinking that it hasn't been. So, David was talking about the history of farming in Wayne Scott. So, we need to also talk about the farms in Wayne Scott and the potatoes that they grew. Um, this land could have been treated with pesticides like DDT from the 1940s until its ban in the 1970s and chemic through the 1970s and early 1980s. some of the most toxic chemicals used in agriculture. We also know as been stated by Kate that the pond is toxic and only a few feet from this a land. Kate was absolutely correct when she stated that low impact farming such as beekeeping should be there. It would benefit all
016of the surrounding farms. Given that history, it is difficult to understand why there is no clear requirement for organic farming if you decide to do that. at the very least comprehensive soil testing before f further use. And I'm quite shocked that Ian wouldn't have insisted that it would be farmed organically. And this is not being anti-farmming. This is about responsible stewardship. If we're preserving farmland, we also must protect our water and the health of our community. This board has a responsibility to ensure that this land does not pose a risk to residents, especially children and pregnant women who may be on or near the property. We have already seen what can happen at Ecoarm and Long Lane. Elevated arsenic le levels required precautions including protective measures like children and pregnant women having to wear masks
017and gloves when working on the land. And that situation alone should have been a lesson. Organic farming has helped to reduce arsenic levels there substantially. And David, you should understand that too, right? There's a strong possibility also that this land has little to no. >> Don't bring a past history into it right now. It's the wrong place in the wrong time. I apologize. Yes, I'm a cancer survivor and I'm damn proud of it. Those fields right now, but I understand. I made my opinion pretty clear right now, but you're pulling up some bad history right now. It's not It's just not appropriate. >> Well, I'm not history. I'm just talking about why. Soil testing is so very important to everyone. I think that it it's probably, like I said, there's maybe no strong possibility that
018this land has little to no pesticide residue, but that's why testing matters. If the land is clean, testing provides reassurance and builds public trust. If not, then the town has the information it needs to act responsibly. So, I'm asking this board to test the soil if you haven't, ensure the safety, and then let's move on forward responsibly. That's it. I'm just as someone who works on a farm and does farming. To me, organic farming should be the only option at that location. I support the farming there. I just think that it should be done organically and I believe that Kate is um stated that very well. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Vicki. Jason, if you could please put through the next caller. >> Caller 5138, you're on the air. Oh, hi. You're on the
019air. >> Hi, this is Bill Crane from the East Hampton Group for Wildlife. May is a spring turkey hunting season, and I'd like to raise three concerns. First, uh, migrating geese have come to us with aven flu, which be can be transmitted to other birds, including turkeys. Uh, perhaps it can be transmuted through mutations to uh, humans. If hunters eat the meat, they probably be safe because they cook it, but it could be uh contracted through handling with the hands. Um the risk I would guess is zero or minimal. Uh but I think the town should check with the health officials on this. Um second, do we really want to hunt and kill turkeys when they are a natural predator of ticks? Some report they can eat 200 ticks a day. The research is rather
020contradictory, but from what I've gathered, the ticks um uh are reduced by the by the turkeys uh when the ticks are very young nymphs and not adults. So turkeys may be valuable to us. My third concern about the turkey hunt is that as a general one is that turkeys like us are living beings who want to live. Indeed, they are our relatives. They share about 75% of their genes with humans and biologists have used turkeys to guide them in the identification of genes in very groundbreaking research. I became aware of how much they share human emotions one day at our farm sanctuary. So, I'd like to tell you a story. A group of nine Girl Scouts visited our farm. They presented us with gifts and then held a ceremony in the barn. They stood in
021the circle while the girls took turns reading passages uh to respect all animals. In other words, they the girl reading the passage stood in the middle of the circle while the others quietly watched in the circle. Uh the one reading the passage each time they vowed they made very solemn vows. uh they vowed to cherish and and always and love um the beauty of animals and they pledged to protect all animals right to a natural death and to console them and ask the angels to take them in their arms. The statements were very solemn and moving. What happened next was something none of us who worked at the farm would ever have expected. Soon the scouts, as soon after the scouts began reading their pledges, our four young turkeys, female turkeys, who at that point
022in their lives had spent every waking moment noisily moving about join the circle. I mean, it was totally a shock because these turkeys, they they either slept or they walked around peeping away. But here they joined the circle and each in a separate part and each sat in perfect stillness with her eyes on the reader. It was as if the turkeys were listening to the pledges and were as moved as the rest of us. All the humans present were astonished. We just shrug our shoulders. How could they be so quiet and listening? It seemed like they were seemed like they spoke English or understood English, but obviously they didn't understand English. Um but they did respond to the girls quiet reverence. The scouts were were were very um reverent in this and the the turkeys
023felt this inward quietness. I think what they felt was a spiritual emotion. Thank you. >> Thank you, Bill. Jason, if you could put the next caller through, please. >> Caller 4221. You're on the air. >> Thank you. Good morning, town board. This is Jane Mirren and Amigansit. um speaking on 66 Queens Main Street. Sorry if I sound a little creaky. I am sick today. Um you know, I I've participated in work sessions and public hearings ever since the very amazing um uh you know uh announcement you made that you were going to acquire the property. And that whole time I did so as a member of the Windset Heritage Board. But today I'm not speaking as part of that. I'm speaking as an individual citizen and a citizen who has devoted I don't know the
024last four or five years of life working on advocacy issues. And part of that has been to work with the public, engage the public, help the public understand why they need to engage at town board meetings, at public hearings, why their comments are important. And indeed, as the supervisor discussed last week in your post-hering discussion, dozens and dozens of public hearing comments were received into the public hearing record that asked for and supported certain amendments to the draft. I also sat through three property management committees as the public has the right to do um discussions on the draft. The members of the property management committee and by the way I don't even know if there are minutes of these committee meetings. All the members, I think all the members, maybe one, not wanted changes to
025that draft. Somehow they weren't made. The point is that several members here have in this case seemed to decide that all those public comments can be just swept away, not considered, not balanced into the decision. The supervisor rightly and justly and importantly asked each board member, h can we compromise here? This is supposed to be a collaboration with the public. And what I saw and heard was crossed arms and just no, just want it as written. This is a bigger issue than just 66 links at Main Street, but it's crucial here. We have a board right now that does support public participation, that cherishes it, that encourages it. And if this c on this huge issue, this $56 million of public money that was spent somehow just dispenses with public comment by some members. It
026it's it's very concerning and for me it's very sad and you know I'm pretty despondent about it. So that's all I want to say right now. I don't really want to go through all the issues and points again. I'm on the record you know on the record for those but thank you all board members. I I the discussion was robust but there are still some important adjustments that can be made so that all the purposes for which this was acquired can be properly balanced. Thank you. >> Thank you Jane. Jason if you could put the next caller on please. >> Copy that. Caller ending 0229. You're oh sorry 0299. You're on the air. Yes, thank you. Um, good morning town board. This is Carolyn Logan Gluck calling and um, what I have to say largely
027echoes what other callers had to say regarding the post-hering discussion at 60 the project at 66 Waynecott Main Street. You know to me a discussion is um something where people bring their perspectives to the table and they and they discuss them. You know they try and strengthen their own thinking by hearing about the thoughts of others. And I guess what I saw on Tuesday was that people came to the diets with lengthy prepared statements and their minds already made up. And so that when the supervisor to her credit tried to initiate discussion, it went nowhere. It was a wrap. I think that's really a shame that there isn't more engagement amongst the um members of the town board there on the dis when a discussion is called for. And I hope that there still might
028be one. Thank you. >> Thank you, Carolyn. >> Jason, is there anyone else on the line? >> Uh, there are no other callers. >> Okay, I'm going to go into the room one more time. Is there anyone here that would like to speak during public comment? All right, so that's a wrap. We're going to hit head into topics now. And we've got Jeannie Corrosa with bids. Good morning, Jeanie. >> Good morning. >> And you've got a long list. >> I do. I'll be quick. Okay. First, we're going to go through the acceptances. The first is portable toilets, rental and servicing. Outback portable toilets was the apparent low bidder for that one. Food service and kitchen wear items. Next, um for human services, Milla Foods of New York and Sam Tel and Sun for that bid.
029Next is the rebuilding of the engine on the police dive vessel. Emergency mechanical service in the amount of $50,470 is the apparent low bidder for that one. And the last bid to accept is a sidewalk plow for the highway department and no baloney heavy equipment is the apparent bidder for that low bidder for that one in the amount of $100,000. Um next I have several extensions. The first being the specialized bus services for Montalk. Hampton Hopper has agreed to extend that one. The services run from June 25th through September 7th. It's a total of 74 days and the total cost for that is $192,797.38. Compliance work at the airport fuel farm. Gemstar Construction Corp. has agreed to extend. Next, we have the collection of delinquent fines and penalties. Fundamental business service services incorporated um has
030agreed to renew. Um next is a um the supply and delivery of international truck parts. Allegiance trucks um has agreed to renew. The next renewal is for the supply and delivery of Ford OEM truck parts. Newan Bayshore Ford is the vendor for that one. And the last renewal is the professional engineering services for town projects. LK MLAN Associates has agreed to renew for that one. And um last next I have several notices coming up. Um the first is for the Georgia Kapon New York 27 rest stop stormwater abatement the um East Hampton airport mowing purchase and installation of the motors for agriculture boats t-shirts sweatshirts and other uniform items. And then the um last bid to notice will be the SYA HVAC improvements. And also the last on my list is the um agreement to
031join the um joint municipal bidding with Eastern SuffK Boseies for cooperative bidding. They'll act as the lead agency and um we use several of their services and commodities for that cooperative. And that's it. >> All right. Any questions for Jeannie? >> I do have one Jeannie. Just on the delinquency fine collection, what is the fee percentage-wise that they receive for that? >> Um shoot. I don't have it. It's in the resolution. They agreed to decrease it this year. Um I think it was 2% or something. I don't have that. >> Okay. It's on the resolution for that, but Okay. All right. Great. Thank you, Genie. Okay. Next up, uh John Tarbet. You're here to present on the new 173 Skim Hampton subdivision a request for reserve area use. Welcome, John. >> Hi. Uh John Tarbet
032for the applicant. The client came to me and said they had a common driveway. It's there three properties in common ownership. They had a common driveway and they asked about the feasibility of getting rid of the common driveway to each have their own access. I told them that it would probably not work. And they said, "Well, we'd be willing to give up one of the three lots so reduce density from a three approved three lot subdivision to a two lot subdivision uh in order to each have their own driveway. The driveways would be approximately 500 feet apart. Uh I thought that made a lot of sense. Brought a application to the planning board. the planning department was opposed to it. Uh we twice met with the planning board who decided that they actually think that
033it's a good idea. Uh the reduction the planning board's opinion was that the reduction density more than offset the two driveways 500 ft apart. Um the planning department is obviously still opposed to the idea. I do disagree with them. thought that the the the planning portion of this had already been decided that it's a little odd to me that the planning board would write to you saying they think it's a good idea and the planning department would oppose the planning board but that is what it is. Um David Buddha made some comments. He was mostly right on the facts but wrong on the law that all the law that he mentioned had been uh has been vetted through the town attorney's office and planning board attorney and there's no issue with the law. Um so
034basically the question to the board is does the board think that uh each uh the reduction in density offsets the uh potential harm of having two driveways. That's summation of the application. >> Is that it John? >> That's it unless you have questions. >> Okay. >> Bo members have questions for John. >> I do. Is there a particular reason why you want to have the drive driveway in a in a different place than the original subdivision? not so much in a different place. It's just that um the the owners would like to each have their own driveway. So um that's so that's that's it. Yeah. And uh again to me it it seemed like a home run and to the planning board it seemed like a home run >> to literally I mean the whole
035goal of my my 25 years of doing this this code has usually been about reducing density. So to me the chance to re remove a home and these are big homes built on Skim Road. Uh if you did the inverse, like if somebody came to you and said, "Hey, I want to subdivide my property and go from two lots to three. Well, we're willing to have a common driveway." Nobody would say, you know, that makes sense. Like it's it seems like a very good zoning. And the planning board agreed. I just disagree with the planning department and the question to the board is whether you think it's a good idea or not. >> What is the lot size of that's being given up, John? >> Uh about an acre and a half, I believe. >>
036And the driveway is how how big? >> 40 ft wide. >> Okay. And how long? >> Uh it would just be a 40 I'm sorry for it's 40 feet wide. So we we need to get through we need to get through. So the >> acreage to acreage roughly what's been given up versus what's kind of been taken? >> I think it's 1,200 ft. >> Okay. All right. So significantly less is being taken. >> Yeah. So >> and any covenants on that lot being given up that it can never be built or um it will be reserved as wildland. >> Right. So as part of the process we would be of a large lot easement to the so that it can never be resubdivided. Okay. the uh >> but let's be clear, the proposal isn't to
037give up one of the lots, it's to combine them and have more acreage and in two lots as opposed to three lots. >> I think I think I agree with your maybe said differently. >> Well, I just I think I Tom, they're not proposing to offer a separate easement area, right? They're just reducing the lots within the same area they already have. >> We would have been fine actually, right, if we could have created an easement in another portion of the property happily, but it's just it's just such a small area that nobody asked for it. Um yeah, I mean it uh the question is, you know, does each individual board member asked if they would prefer to have two lots there rather than three in each in return for the driveways? Because if if
038the to be clear, if the board were to say no, three homes would be built there. So that's the question. >> You address the 2016 court case and they have that finalized that finalized and what type of action? >> I have no idea about that case. David Buddha brought that up today, right? I think was that was that where somebody was clearing the along the road? I don't know anything about it. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Had nothing to do with the application. I wasn't representing the anybody then. >> Can you also express how this would set precedent? >> Right. So the question that that's essentially the planning department's argument is precedent. So I think the question for the board is is a good president or a bad president and that that's a fair question to
039me. me if I was a board member and I can only speak for myself each of you have to decide it yourself but um if if if people wanted to come to me and set and it's specific to the example right driveways 100 feet apart are different than driveways four or 500 feet apart uh because um but there's no safety issue here right these driveways are super far apart and it's a 25 foot wide driveway 40 ft deep so if you were to say yes to this and somebody else were to come to you and say hey I have three lots but I'm willing to reduce density and go to two lots for each of the remaining lots to have their own driveway. You would probably feel obligated to approve that if you were to
040approve this. The question is whether you think that's good or bad. To me, it's good, but that's just my opinion. >> So, what's the benefit to the applicant compared to the detriment for the town? >> Well, it's a zoning board principle, right? Correct. >> Yeah. Um benefit the the detriment to the town is reduce reduction of deny. I mean, I think it's a benefit to both. The question is whether you think it's a detriment to the town to have um individual homes with each other own driveway. There's a people don't like common driveways. I know they're a very good planning principle and they have they serve their function especially where you're going to have um driveways that are close together, but a situation like this where you can have this great separation between, you know,
041four 500 feet between driveways uh and you only have two lots doesn't really seem to me to be a problem. By combining the properties, you'd have more GFA. >> You would have more GFA if you can buy the properties. >> Would you in the initial uh rendering, sorry, the initial subdivision been to the max GFA of the current code? >> If not, how much? >> Initial subdivision. >> Yes, the initial subdivision from 2011, I believe. Uh there was three lots. each lot was I wonder what I'm wondering is with the combining of the lots as Ian had mentioned what does that do to the GFA the potential structure on the property >> I well you get for every um let's say it's let's say it's 40,000 or 60,000 square feet you would get 6,000 square
042feet of extra GFA split between two lots I think that that's rough math I don't have lot sizes in front of me >> okay so it would probably increase. >> Oh, it would definitely increase, right? Um >> only one >> if you add lot area, you if you lot if you add lot area, you >> you uh but you know, you also have to think about um three lots is more traffic on just Skamp Road, right? Two lots is less traffic. So, if there if the if we're talking about driveways, which is what we're talking about, um is there more traffic from one shared driveway for three lots or two individual? I mean, I I don't see the opposition to it, but that's just my opinion. I mean, I wouldn't have brought the applications to
043planning board in the first place, so I thought it was a bad idea. >> Thank you. But everybody has their own opinions. So, >> thank you. >> I think we should hear from the planning department. Hi, Tina. >> Sarah. Um, hello board members, uh, supervisor. I won't go through the history. I think it was summed up, uh, sufficiently. I'm just going to have um Sarah bring up the map so you can see what the property looks like now. Um so if you could just bring up the aerial and zoom in on the close-up version. So as you can see, you know, there's three lots roughly 40,000 square feet each and two would be combined. I believe I thought it was for one um larger lot like 80,000 square ft. So that's what the proposal was.
044You can see there's two reserved areas that have been created on the side of the on each side of the existing common driveway. The existing common driveway is built according to code um and sufficient to serve the three lots as it's built. Um and those parcels are colored in green because they are uh recreational open space in our town GIS system. So the planning department did advise the planning board against supporting the request for the use of the reserve area. We have several reasons for this that I will um go through. The first is, you know, common driveways are typical features of planning in the town. They're recommended for important reasons. They reduce traffic conflict. They help maintain the rural aesthetic of the town. And they reduce the clearing needed for driveways. Right? So now
045you've already done clearing for one sufficient driveway, you'd have to do it again. The second reason is that we do think that the original density um which is in accordance with the A zoning for the location is appropriate. Um that's how you do subdivisions, right? According to the zoning, we don't think that it's excessive um or contrasting with the surrounding uses. So, we don't see a significant value in reducing the number of lots um enough to approve the the use of town-owned area um for a different purpose. Next, the intent of the adoption of the reserved area in the town board resolution was preservation of open space and reducing the area dedicated to that does diminish the original utility of of that action. Last and I probably most importantly is that we offer granting this
046request could serve as precedent for other similar requests and we could have many more instances of this before the board. You know people obviously would prefer private driveways in many instances. So opening this door could allow additional requests to bifurcate reserve areas which could alter aesthetics at many locations as well as result in fragmentation of the habitats that reserve areas have created. The cumulative result of that would be reducing the effectiveness of reserve areas as a tool for open space preservation in the town. Meanwhile, they have been a primary tool for that use uh for decades, right? Importantly, reserved area is defined in um the subdivision code 220-1.04, a parcel of lands set aside in perpetuity as open space. Right? So, not allowing the reserve area to continue for that use would really conflict with
047that section of code. Um, and for all those reasons, that is why we we recommended that the planning board and now the town board deny this use of town- owned property um for private purpose. >> Thank you. >> What does anyone have questions for Tina? >> No. >> Thank you. Thanks. Okay. So, I think it would only be fitting that we discuss this now as well. So, I don't know who wants to start. >> I'll start. >> Oh, Ian, go ahead. I'm sorry. Go ahead, Ian. >> No, go ahead, Kate. You please. >> Um um I'm going to thank John for bringing uh this application to the board today. Um I um I agree with Tina on this. Uh if you take a look at this lot in this area, um the reason why you
048offer a mitigation is because it mitigates something, an effect that you want to take away. And on this particular lot, the way that it was subdivided, I don't believe density is an issue at all. It's only three lots. Um, as David pointed out, if you reduce it to two lots, um, you would be able to increase the size of the structure built and all the amenities because now you have more lot size, more distance to side uh to sideyard, front yard setbacks. So, I don't see um the mitigation as uh reducing any type of impact uh that I see potentially happening if this was granted. And that also comes from my nine years on the zoning board. Um I know that uh for us we have been trying to if we look at many studies
049in Hamlet studies and industrial area studies we are seeking to reduce curb cuts because of driveway traffic and increasing them is contrary to good planning um and for the reasons that Tina stated but is also supported by the studies that we make where um we you try to reduce uh onto a uh public road c curb cuts by having the traffic circulate inside of it. Um, common driveways are extremely common here. I don't see a hardship uh mentioned uh that substantiates making this change because it's more than um it's more than uh a simple change. It's a very dramatic change to take away deed open space. It's it's not a a just a matter of moving lines around. The this um subdivision happened in recent times. It's not an ancient subdivision. So, whatever the uh
050conditions of the subdivision are appropriate for these times and people rely on these deeds of these open spaces um that are meant to be in perpetuity. And for me, it would take a lot more um reasoning and hardship uh and and a very unique situation to feel comfortable removing deed open space um parcels that were um set aside as part of an approval for a subdivision application. Uh that those are my initial thoughts. >> Thank you, Kate. Ian, >> yeah, I I agree. I I'm not supportive of the request um for for the reasons that that Tina and and and Kate have stated. I um I don't mind the request. Thanks thanks for being here. I think it's a a reasonable thing to to ask us to entertain. Um but generally I I think the
051trade-off of offering less density typically in a case if something was not conforming, we would jump at that. You know what I mean? If there's two lots that exist and you're combining them to one that would then comport with zoning. Um that's something that happens all the time um through good planning. or if there is an environmental sensitivity that you know would would mean that the underlying zoning is not in fact appropriate for this um subdivision to have three lots. I just don't think that that's the case here. I don't think that there's I don't think the trade-off of just less density for the sake of less density is worth us giving up um easement areas which as you know and I think the the applicant acknowledged that that would set the president that basically
052in any case based on density alone we would give up reserved area to add a a second driveway and I don't think that that's a precedent that I'm comfortable setting. Um, I think that this board, we often get criticized for or the CPF fund gets criticized for reducing the buildout and that's what's making things so expensive. I would argue that we use CPF funds to to, you know, buy land that is not appropriate for development, but that's just not the case here. I I know that's a little bit of a tangent, but um I don't see the planning benefit. Um, and and I don't support. >> Thank you. Ian, who wants to go next? >> Sure, I will. Um, I'll throw a different perspective out. I mean, look, I I think the concept of having
053two houses versus three houses, I do think there could be some potential environmental benefits to that. Yes, the GFA might potentially be larger, but you know, putting utilities in, etc., etc., that has impact. So, I acknowledge that there's there's scope there to to adhere to this. Um, in terms of like the use of the town land for driveway access, I I I appreciate that that's problematic in nature. Um, I would be more open to considering it if there were specific easements on the person's property that would say, "Hey, look, for every quarter acre of land we're giving up on this, then we will designate a certain amount of land on this property that will effectively be parkland per, you know, that covenant." So, I I I I you know, understand why you might want that
054individual driveway access. Um, you know, it is is a nice thing to have, but to Tina's point, you know, shared driveways are good planning. um they're not as desirable for the homeowner. I acknowledge that. But um if there is compromise to be found here in that aspect of like designating more of the property owner's land to effectively be parkland to offset that, then I would be open to it. >> Leaves it to me. Uh so with this location, I believe the applicant that is actually currently in front of us right now is the same applicant that the initial subdivision happened in 2011. Am I correct, John? >> Okay. So 2011 because the purchase was of under the same name in 2007 I believe and it was >> so either so I I I'll stay in
055my train of chain of fact on that because it doesn't come down to it's just a sidebar to it. Overall this this property is already subdivided uh and uh these easements were put into place and restrictions and accepted by a previous planning board and accepted by a previous town board. uh it's very difficult for me to go and and try to remove something that was a legally binding document from a previous town board and there are decisions made at that time. I also believe that this would set a bad precedent for the town and the benefit to the applicant which I asked is is not is not there. The benefit is just to have a single private driveway compared to detriment to the town in which multiple different similar applications or subdivisions in the past
056can come and ask for the same same action. If you zoom out just even on the map where they're at, there's another one. There's another subdivision just a couple, you know, properties down and also if you go on the back side of Montalk Highway where there's shared driveways for multiple properties. What would stop them from coming in and pointing that you just did this to my neighbor on there. Uh I don't think that's a precedent that I would like to set and that's my standard. >> Thank you, David. And I just want to read >> but thank you for bringing it. And I I just want to read just one excerpt from the the planning board um the planning department I'm sorry planning department memo. Uh additionally according to the 21 2011 minor subdivision approval
057condition of approval number 13 states no buildings or structures may be placed installed erected or constructed within the areas depicted on the map as reserved area. nor may any clearing, grading or filling occur within these areas and the said areas shall be left in their natural state forever. I believe that that is as my colleagues have said that is good planning. Uh the applicant hasn't demonstrated a hardship and I support the planning department's recommendation that we do not um approve the second driveway on that subdivision. So I think we have four board members that don't support it. Tom is open to compromise, but I think that's you can take that back to your to your clients. Thank you for joining us today. >> Okay, next up, we're going to hear from uh three of our
058department heads to give us uh review their 2025 accomplishments and 2026 goals. First up is Kim Shaw for natural resources. Welcome, Kim. >> Afternoon. Okay, so um this is our cover shot showing some of our latest projects. The bottom left is uh EV charging stations that we just installed at Town Hall. And above that is a CPF water quality and um SE county grant to do uh improvements, storm water improvements to the boat launch on Westlake Drive. And I'll get into a little bit more detail. And of course there in the bottom is our endangered species, the piping clover. Uh my staff takes excellent pictures. I just had to showcase that one. >> So our mission is to protect and restore their natural environment through sustainable practices that support healthy, resilient ecosystems. We are dedicated
059to establishing native vegetation, ensuring clean and accessible water for all, advancing the transition to clean energy, and safeguarding endangered species for future generations. a wordy. Uh so some of our 2025 accomplishments. Um so we got a New York State uh zero emission vehicle grant zeb to install 20 level two electric vehicle charges at town hall. Uh the initiative supports New York State's zero emission goals and aligns with the town's renewable energy roadmap. Another large-scale project that they're working on with NAERTA, who supports a lot of the town's initiatives, is to develop a master plan for the beneficial reuse of a fossil fuel PAR plant on Bu Lane. The plan recommends the installation of a large scale um solar array post decommissioning. It provides strategic guidance for clean energy transition and site redevelopment. So, this is
060still in play. Um, we have documents going back and forth between the state and we plan on doing a presentation with Naerta and the property owner to the town board as soon as everything's finalized. Um, what we also did this year was updated the water quality improvement plan. Um, we incorporate incorporated secondary priority water bodies. Uh we've added enhanced maintenance monitoring component which is so critical to all of our project water quality projects moving forward and we've updated and refined priority projects throughout the town. Uh let's see we were awarded several grants for water quality projects. The first one was we received a $100,000 grant from Suffach County Water Quality Protection and Restoration Program and that funding supports the Westlake stormwater abatement program. Uh it's also funded uh partially through CPF uh which supplemented the
061sub county grant. Uh what we did there was we ripped up um some of the pavement and installed a true grid true grid system which is pavers to allow for all the water that's coming off of Westlake Drive to dissipate before it reaches the lake. We also installed two bio swells closer to the lake um for any overflow that came through there. Um we've tested it in some very significant rainfalls and it seems to be working just great. Um, we also removed some old link uh chain link fencing and are doing uh intensive planting with natives uh on both sides of the property in the next week or two. Uh, Lieutenant East Hampton already uh also received New York State Dormatory Authority monies uh $500,000 to offset the costs of uh improving the New York
062New York State 27 rest stop where we're doing storm water abatement there. CPF and the DSNY grant um supported this effort and like Jeannie just mentioned that's going out to bid and we should be working on that. So that's going to be the gateway to town of East Tampa. We're going to improve that, make it much more visually appealing. >> Do you ever recall us getting Dazzy money before for projects? >> The roundabout, >> right? >> Uh let's see. So, we also this year published a native plant booklet that was developed and published to serve as a practical guide for reveation and planning. It has detailed descriptions and photos of native species. And um I think it really helps um residents who have no idea what genus species is to actually see the photo and
063say, "Okay, I could use that in my landscaping." And so far it's been successful. >> It's great. >> I could just interrupt here for a minute. Um it would be great to have um your team bring that back uh for a work session uh presentation on the booklet so we can u more folks will know about it. I don't think it's been widely uh promoted at all. >> Okay. Yeah, we could do that >> and and we'll can also once you make the work session presentation we'll push it out too on social media. >> Okay, great. Uh yeah, it is available on uh the town's website natural resources. Uh let's see. We were extremely um surprised to find out that the town received a a notable contribution from a private trust to support endangered species
064monitoring. Um those funds will enhance our efforts to monitor, protect and manage this vulnerable species and their habitats. >> And this is for piping clover. >> Yes, it was specific. >> Do you have all your interns in place for this? Are you still looking to bring folks on board? Um, we have retained one person and we are looking for one more. I've gotten a ton of applications and we're just sifting through them. So, uh, we should be fully staffed with the the Clover team, uh, in a couple weeks. Um, just most of the kids that have applied are in college, so I have to wait for them to get home, >> right? >> Um, 2026 looking forward. Um we're launching a sustainability campaign um focused on promoting environmentally responsible landscaping practices for homeowners. Key efforts
065include encouraging use of natives, reducing irrigation, limiting pesticide use, and supporting pollinators. Um we have prepared a series of umformational um pamphlets uh on all these different topics that we're going to be launching soon. We're just uh have it going through committee right now and we're getting comments, but they should be um everything from uh pollinators to water quality, lawn irrigation, all that. And they're really simple uhformational um booklets that we have ready to launch. >> And we put funding in the budget for 2026 to support that effort. >> And and here I'll just add that not only is it healthier, it's more affordable, >> right? So, town water quality improvements, like I said, the Westlake storm water um includes bio swells and permeable parking, and that should be wrapping up the end of this
066month. We're continuing to support innovative alternative septic systems. Um the town will continue to lead by example by installing the IIA systems at town facilities to reduce nitrogen discharge. and um the 27 East rest stop. Uh you're going to hear more about it from Melissa and Tom. And the other thing I think that I missed on here was our nitrogen smart communities campaign and um we're kicking that off. Melissa and her team um has already started and we're going to have a presentation on that uh today also. So it's really interesting and these are just some stats that uh we track all year round. um clovers. We have detailed graphs and maps. We geo uh uh reference all of our sites so we know where all the birds are. Um every year we go back
067to the same areas. This year we've expanded our monitoring into Monttok to make sure um we have no surprises. Uh in July so far, so the birds haven't come back. Uh we have a very rigorous reveation compliance program. Um Mark pretty much handles this uh by himself. Uh it's daunting. He has um does inspections, has um a spreadsheet that he triggers him to go back to each site after the initial inspection to follow up to make sure that the reveation is healthy and still in place. And um and then we have the IIA septic system um water quality incentive program where we offer up to 15 from 15 to $20,000 for installation of a new IA system. We're nearing 200 installations annually. Um and we have um spent almost $3 million uh in 2025 for
068these installations just for the individual homeowner. um installation. Uh recently, well, last year, the governor announced that they were incentivizing homeowners even more. And now the state and the county are incentivizing homeowners with up to 75% of total costs covered by um for the IA installation. So, that's going to help out a lot of people that wanted to do it. So you could see that we received a lot more applications than we've had installs because sometimes the financial obligation >> uh is difficult. Um and to that point we are working with CCOM this week. We're doing a presentation here at the library to talk about IIA installations uh how much money is available and how we can help applicants go through that process. So that's going to be here Friday. >> 2:30 to 4:30. Yes.
069And that's about it. >> All right. Questions for Kim? >> I've got two questions, Kim. Um, two SL three. The first is on the um the charging stations at town hall. Like kudos to getting them done. The great shame is like they're not used, you know, like they've been in five months now and maybe we see one car a day there. Um, you know, there's two two issues I have with that. One, I I know the fees we're charging. I kind of raised this last time. We do 30 cents, I think, a kilowatt hour. Um, you know, if we want people to use them, I think we should again reconsider lowering that to kind of encourage people to use them. Two is we put signage up there saying that no other vehicles are allowed to
070park in those spots. Um, I didn't actually understand that was part of the initial plan. I don't think that's a good idea. I think our town parking lot is very full and we need to ensure that you know >> um similar to M talk where we have the Tesla charging stations anybody could park there. So I didn't know about the signage but we'll work on fixing that that anybody should be able to park in those spots. >> Um that was one. The second was um just I think Melissa's mentioned this before like you know water quality testing. You know, I I I love that we're doing these projects to, you know, improve the water quality, but the results of what we're doing, how are we measuring that? I don't see that in the goals for
071next year. So, is that something that is definitively going to be happening? >> Yes. So, in included in um some of the change that we made was monitoring where before we couldn't use that money. So we had to re rely on um partners to be able to do the initial upfront monitoring to show that there was degradation and then we did the water quality improvement. We're building into almost all of our projects at least three to five years of ongoing monitoring to make sure that everything's working. Uh one example of that is u several years ago 17 we installed some storm water abatement uh around Pussy's Pond and uh unfortunately we weren't able to support that effort with continuing monitoring and so that proposal just came back before the CPF water quality committee to to
072go in and do additional testing and see 5 years later has water quality improved substantially with all these different projects going on in the neighborhood. So, yeah, with this new change to CPF water quality, I think that we're going to be able to do a lot more and for a longer period of time. >> No, I think I think that's critical and I think we we've run into that issue historically. So, I'm glad we're doing that. Um the last thing is again on on just the the um the septic systems. I mean, it's a two-part question. You know, one I just want to get clarification because look, I've heard anecdotally in the past two sides. one that you know if these systems are not used year round then there's a risk that the bacteria dies
073and they don't actually present the the nitrogen savings that we want to see. So I just want to confirm is that correct or not. Uh and two is is look I I um in terms of prioritizing where these are going in um you know you look at the water body at 66 Main Street and you read Dr. God's reports on what's driving that. it sediment buildup and it's septic systems around that that property that that water body. Um same same on on the for pond in Montalk you know it's it's mleon but it's also the septic systems around the pond. We have these critical water bodies in the town. Is there a way to prioritize you know getting the septic systems into those adjacent properties or kind of give more funding to those properties? I
074mean because those are the key areas we really want these going in. >> Right. So for Wayne Scott, we the CPF water quality technical advisory is entertaining a proposal for water quality improvements on that piece. Um we're still debating it and uh the committee is going to make recommendations to the town board. So you will see uh something come in for that area. >> Right. >> Uh Fort Pond, we are working with CCOM uh trying to encourage these property owners. We've been doing individual studies uh showing that there's a real need and what the problem is. It's convincing the homeowners to go ahead with this. So, we're doing initiatives like take the pledge working with CCOM sign this pledge to be a water quality improvement project. Um, we're trying to incentivize people and Tom maybe
075that is something we could do is and I'm not sure but you know our priority wersheds is 20,000 enough to uh make it worthwhile for them to tear up their lawn. >> Anecdotally I hear that's people if they are having to pay five figures out of pocket then that's a deal breaker. >> Well like I said with the governor's new um um increase in funding for just this very initiative it should be a lot easier. 75% covered uh is pretty significant. And then that's not even counting the town money. >> 65. That's >> what is the kind of the co the challenge we face though I find is like I mean and you tell me if I'm wrong is the more funding that's put the higher the cost seem to become of putting these things
076in because the private industries are are aware of this. Um but yeah no I I get look the funding is phenomenal and look I I will say personally I put one of these in many years ago and it's an amazing system. um you know and and I love the fact that you know you are pulling ocean out but um yeah get getting them in those critical water bodies is really for me where I'd love to see the focus and if that means giving those properties more money to protect those water bodies I see the benefit there. >> So this was a Suffach County initiative and uh you know they're not mandated right now that you know like upgrading your fuel tank or anything like that. This is a voluntary program. Um but all new homeowners
077have to install them. uh about the on andm. Um so that's why we have in place a three-year uh onm agreement with all the property, you know, anyone who installs one and so they are routinely serviced and if they need to be fed, they are >> okay. Okay. >> That was one big concern we had about our seasonal. So we we put we have money in the budget. We have public information line and and I think there may even be money in your budget, Kim. Uh Melissa, I think it was back when this law first got passed. We did a postcard that we sent to every household. We have put it in our um quarterly newsletter to remind folks now that the dollar figure has gone up to $65,000. I think that we should be
078doing we should be doing that again. Okay. And if we feel the need, if the water quality technical advisory committee feels the need that in the prior around the priority watersheds, we need to increase that funding, we we can certainly do that. Um, and I know we've been working with CCOM as a partner and a protection committee. They're also doing efforts with their homeowners around uh, Aabonic Harbor to try to ed, you know, it's an education, right? That's what we need to do. But thank you. Sure. And and I know I just got an email yesterday about the um the panel that's happening here on Friday at 2:30. >> To Tom's point, um in terms of watersheds, um CCM is also hosting at second house this weekend, a bagel breakfast for people in the watershed
079so they can come by and sort of really focus on that area. >> Thank you. >> Great. >> Thank you, Kim. >> Sure. Okay, next up we have Scott Wilson for land acquisition and management. Welcome, Scott. >> Thank you. Actually, first want to say thank you for actually hosting all the department heads to come up here. Um, I can only speak for myself, but I'm very reluctant to come and give another presentation to the town board. But every time I come and I listen to all the presentations to the various department heads, I'm always amazed at the diversity of things that we actually do within this town. and I'm particularly looking forward to Barley's presentation next, so I'm sticking around for that. So, so thank you. >> Thank you, Scott. >> We have a small
080dedicated staff that I am particularly grateful to work uh with. I mean, what's not to like? We preserve land, then monitor, manage, and protect it on behalf of the public who receives the benefit of admiring, walking, farming, or recreating on it. Our role for the town is really rather remarkable. glad this position exists. So, um could you just go back one slide? I want to read the uh So, this department's goal is to help protect our sense of place through the acquisition, land management, and implementation of water quality initiatives to preserve East Hampton's unique natural environments, open spaces, farms, and historic places for the env enjoyment of all those who share our community. So that's our our sound bite, our mission statement. With regard to accomplishments for 2025, we're sort of broken into two uh
081categories, land acquisition side and land management. And so first I'll go through land acquisition. In 2025, the town preserved nine properties comprising 36.25 acres at an approximate cost of $45.5 million. Yes, prices of properties are going up. The town is in contract on seven additional parcels comprising 20 uh.76 acres at an approximate cost of $12.25 million. The CPF law was amended uh to include a new section 14 to create the office of regional community preservation fund council and a piconic bay region advisory committee. The first step uh required the five towns to create and sign an intermunicipal agreement on who the council and committee would consist of, which I'm gratified to say that has now been adopted. Why is that in my accomplishments? Five times five town board members all agreeing and working in coordination
082to get this adopted. Not an easy task. >> Plus their town attorney's offices. >> Plus yes yes. Um we're go we continue to share u CPF coordination and insights as a member of the Southampton and Eastampton CPF advisory board, the A advisory committee, the property management committee, the water quality technical advisory committee, the nature preserve committee, and as chair of the aforementioned Ponic Bay region advisory committee. The more committees we attend, the more informed we are and the better decisions we can make. So I'm just grateful to be a part of all of those and be able to participate. and as I say, keep myself informed. Um, I'm grateful to be working with our housing and community development and planning departments to review, assess, and take a balanced approach for land acquisition for housing purposes.
083We have two in the queue right now pre um resolutions, so I'm not at liberty to discuss, but you know, it's it is quite an accomplishment when we can find an appropriate piece u for housing purposes. So, that's been great. On the land management side, um we do a really good job um with voluntary compliance. Um it should be no surprise that some homeowners that are adjacent to our preserves accidentally perhaps mow into our preserve or maybe, you know, extend that fence a little bit. And so we've discovered 30 violations um so far, 21 closed and counting. Uh we annually monitor 5,800 acres of our preserved lands. Uh we maintain over 50 miles of single track trails this year. I have to say in particular um there's been more trees down than we're used to.
084We've had a couple of storms that um with high winds and it's not just the pitch pine trees that are falling over, oak trees, other trees are falling also and so we are spending considerable time to reopen trails and cut those trees out of the way. We maintain 19 grasslands on our preserve properties. Um, we have adopted several management plans including the Parson's Dodge homestead management plan, the Hog Creek South End Preserve management plan and an update to the Wayne Scott Green management plan. Um, we licensed the 20 fireplace road. Um, you will hopefully see horses on the Springs Fireplace side of that property and then the balance plus or minus 15 acres or so, you're going to see um, that farmland go back into uh, row crop production. So, >> can I ask you
085a question on that? Because it came up at my East Hampton CAC. Obviously, we had to take the barn down. We kind of demolition there. >> Um, everybody's anxious to know when are we going to see, you know, when are the the farmers and the horses, you know, when is everybody going to start? >> Well, if you've driven by >> Yep. If you've driven by um Kaye, uh the young lady who's going to bring the horses, um a lot of improvement to the fencing in the back. the town did the fence on the front and lots of improvements to the fence in the back. I would suggest um and she's actually going to do a little moving of sheds, etc. I think the horses will be there imminently. Um it's going to take a little
086bit longer to get the rowcrop production in service. Um they should be applying for a deer fence soon. That's a process that they have to go through. It doesn't happen overnight. And so, um I think before they start tilling and planting, they're going to want that fence in place. So I don't have any tea exactly on that but you know all of that work will be happening in this calendar year. >> Beautiful. Thank you Scott. >> Yeah. Next. >> Um just in brief I'd like to go over a chart of a three-year activity of CPF by Hamlet because that's kind of fun. So in Montalk we acquired 11 parcels 17.91 acres at $9.3 million. At Amaganza we acquired four parcels 4.6 acres 4.1 million. East SM was nine parcels, 34.74 acres at 28.1 million. And
087Springs, 12 parcels, 25.44 acres, uh 17.5 million. Wayne Scott, one parcel, 28 acres, 56 million. And uh within the villages, two parcels, 5.5 acres, um 20 million for a total of 39 parcels, 116.2 acres, and $135.2 million. Um let's see. And if we could just go on to goals that we have, uh, we're going to continue to pursue the preservation of environmentally sensitive properties, parcels for recreation, those parcels that build on other open space, trail connections, and buffers. We're going to continue our practice of recapturing former farm parcels to reinvigorate our farming heritage. Um, we're going to balance uh land preservation activity with affordable housing initiatives and coordinate directly with our housing and community development department. We're going to work with our planning department, town attorneys, ARB, parks and building maintenance department, town board, engineers,
088and historic consultants all toward the rehabilitation of five historic properties uh acquired and designated by the town board. We're going to start in earnest with our new Pconic Bay region advisory committee. Um, I've worked with the town uh law 64E for 26 years uh in counting and um you know it's seven pages but the amount of interpretation and nuance within those seven pages is pretty incredible. And uh I'm I'm really looking forward to working with the other five East towns to sort of take a balanced approach and look and to ensure um because every person who reads this document reads it slightly differently. And so now that we have a body that we can all five towns can work together, we will endeavor to row in the same direction, interpret the law um the same
089and equally for each town. So I'm gratified that be able to do that. And on the land management side, um we have two arborists that will continue to coordinate with the highway department, parks and buildings maintenance, um the town board to perform tree assessments as required. Uh we're going to monitor the increasing number of preserved acres. We actually walk all of those properties corner to corner every year. Uh we're going to participate on the wildlife management committee, the tick advisory committee, the nature preserve committee, and the new fire access committee. We're going to continue to maintain those 50 miles of single track trail. Um and we're going to complete our Buckskill Meadow disc golf course. So we have both 18hole course. It's about 95% complete right now. Um and there will be a number of
090historic restoration projects all happening in this calendar year 2026 that include the Carl Fischer House and Annex and Montalk, the Edwards House on the Duck Creek property in Springs, the 1904 Osborne exterior uh in Wayne Scott as a phase one. Phase two will be next. Um and a Parson's Dodge house in Springs. all restorations uh having both an engineer and a historian to help the town apply the sec secretary of interior standards for historic restoration. So those are our goals uh and accomplishments for 2025 2026 season. Does the board have any questions? >> Questions for the board? And just so folks know, Kate was sick today. That's why she was zooming in remotely. and um she hit a wall and she's uh had to go lay down. So, she's not going to be with us
091for the rest of the meeting. >> Just um just clarif >> Yeah. The ones that are primary trails, we do. In fact, we don't do them just on the town property. We have agreement with Suffach County. So this property is town, this property is Suffach County, and this property is town. It seems, you know, inconvenient to not be able to um maintain them all. And so we actually have an agreement with Suffach County to maintain those properties, too. >> Gotcha. Um no, the reason I just bring that one up is something I'm working with the um disability advisory committee on is, you know, I I love having those the trails there and I personally enjoy them, but I want more people to enjoy them. So, you know, one thing we're looking into is the concept
092of rough terrain wheelchairs. You know, much like we have the beach access wheelchairs, the possibility of someone being able to reserve a rough terrain. Would you say that those main preserved trails would be suitable for that or would they need additional work? Would we need to highlight them? >> Uh, I think you probably have to selectively choose the trails that you would apply that on. And and part of the reason is um as a single track trail, you know, feet tend to walk in the same spot and the trails have a tendency to rut. So, there are plenty of trails that should be wide enough and I'd be glad to coordinate and work with you on that. For sure. Absolutely. >> Thank you. >> Okay. >> Anyone else? >> No questions. Thank you, Scott. >>
093Thank you, Scott. >> Okay. And now we have John Barley Dunn to talk about agriculture. And Scott's going to stick around. Welcome, Barley. >> Put the pre put the pressure on. Uh, thank you. Good afternoon. Um, and I'm proud to be part of the environment team. Great team. Awesome stuff being done. It's really impressive. So, this picture, believe it or not, was uh taken two months ago. It's hard to believe that this is what everything looked like two years ago on Fort Palm Bay here on especially here on what could be the nicest day of the year. So, it was a rough winter, but we're through it. Um, next please. The mission. Uh so our mission is uh our department exists for the purpose of enhancing commercially and ecologically valuable shellfish stocks and local waters.
094Mollisks to be specific. Shellfish are available for harvest by all properly licensed town residents. The department produces large quantities of seed shellfish, oysters, hard clams and base scolops and we disseminate them into local waters. Northwest Creek, Three-Mile Harbor, Aabonic Harbor, Hog Creek, Lake Monttoque. Um, and we operate a shellfish hatchery on Fort Pond Bay in Montalk, which is right down the road. I implore folks to come visit. This time of year is the best time to come visit cuz we're chalk full of shellfish. And we have nurseries on and in three-mile harbor and springs. We have an onoff bottom field growout system in Napig Harbor. And some species are also overwintered. Next, please. 2025 accomplishments. 2025 was a pretty good year. Uh oysters, we seated 2.2 million at an average size of 60 mm, which
095is a little little bit over 2 in, which is a great size. Um we sold 2.7 million culls to Long Island Oyster Farmers and we seated an additional 2.1 million culls. So 2 million is basically the the number that we can handle given our gear and our staff and everything. So everything above that, you know, it's a good problem to have to have too many that allows us to callull out all those fast growers to get them up to a large size in one season. And anything above that, we can we can sell or or you know, we would we would seed it, but the crabs would just devour it. So we try to try to give it a good home. Clams we seated 6.6 million at an average size of 11.4 4 millimeters, which
096is both of those numbers are great, great quantity at a great size, and that's really our goal every year. We overwintered about 840,000 in Northwest Creek. Um, and we called another 10 million. Again, good to have more than we need. We can keep the fast growers and get rid of everything else. And those we do seed uh because clams will burrow into the bottom. And even though survival is much lower on smaller seed, even if we get 5% of that 10 million, that's still a whole lot of clamps. Scolops, not so good. Not terrible, but not not as good as we'd like. So, we overwintered about 144,000 in pond pines. 50,000 of that which came from Harrison Toby at CCe. He he he was generous enough to hand over 50,000 extra scolops. Um the beginning
097of our scolop season went great. We actually brought a million over to the nursery and then throughout the season they just died off on us. But we have a potential solution in mind. So we'll keep you posted throughout the year. Oyster gardening going strong with about 120 gardeners in five gardener gardens in town and some own dock areas. We built the town's fourth oyster reef. That was in the previous picture. Um actually that was the third reef. The fourth one was in 3M Harbor. So, we have three reefs in Akabanic Harbor now. They're all doing really well. Um, growing huge oysters providing tons of habitat. There's seaweed growing on those reefs. There's crabs and fin fish and grass shrimp living in those reefs. And the fourth one was built in 3M Harbor right across from
098the end of Boatyard Lane, which is down in Paddle Divas area and a couple of marinas. That one um got a little bit beat up by ice cuz it's one of the shallower ones. So, it's kind of exposed at a low tide. And I actually have a picture of about 3-in blanket of ice sitting on it. So, it got a little bit beat up, but it'll survive. It'll come through. Uh we completed about a dozen shellfish dive surveys, which is something we're trying to ramp up just to put numbers on our shellfish survival. We collected about 8 cubic yards of recycled clam and oyster shell. This is a recent initiative um driven by the South Fork Sea Farmers and they actually hired someone by the name of Grace Grimes last year and she's really ramped
099things up. We're up to 22 restaurants from Southampton to Montalk, collect all the shell, it comes out to the hatchery, we let it let it cure for about a year and then we can use it to build the reefs. So, this saves us from buying surf clam shell or in the past we've actually bought shell from Billion Oyster Project way out in Governor's Island, but Mickey's Carding and an amazing bit of generosity actually sent a truck all the way out there, picked up 16 cubic yard of shell and drove it out for us free of charge. >> It's good, man. >> Pretty amazing. Uh we're continuing our phytolanin phytolankton monitoring and participating in the by valve hatchery health consortium. We're continuing with our sugar kelp pilot projects. And ironically enough, this winter was one of
100the best sugar kelp winters we've had despite all the ice. I thought for sure, you know, ice was covering all those those sugar kelp strings, but they some of them got dragged around, but they continue to grow under that ice. So, we'll probably have well over a 100 pounds of sugar kelp come next month when we harvest it. Uh that's a winter crop for those that don't know. and uh that'll go into compost. Um so a pipe dream of mine and probably other the envir other other environmental folks in the room would be to kind of close the loop on fertilizers on this island. If you imagine if we could grow enough seaweed, pull nitrogen and excess nutrients out of our local waterways, use that to fertilize our gardens and lawns instead of trucking the
101stuff onto the island from off island. That would really help improve water quality immensely. And as usual, camps, schools, community group tours going strong. Um, >> tours. You You go to events and bring your >> And we go to events. >> Yeah. Yep. Yep. Largest clam. Uh, other gallas and events. It's a lot of fun. 2026 goals, continue with all the above, but more scholars hopefully. Would really like to get back up into the 200,000 plus range. um further expand our shellfish surveys. We're actually going to work with the Picconic estuary partnership. Uh Marissa and Julie and everybody else over there and Stony Brook Southampton partnering up to really get a get a whole bunch of these uh dive surveys done. Maintain our great current staff. We're actually fully staffed and we're able to get
102a lot of stuff done. They're all an amazing team. Everybody gets along. We have lunch together, have good conversations. Everybody seems to enjoy the work and continue to make repairs on our old hatchery building and upgrade our outboard motors. So that picture there is uh about 5,000 oysters going out to seed. So 5,000 out of over 2 million. Uh just a a drop in the bucket, but a nice a nice pile that's going to go out to seed. That one looks like it's going to Nap Harbor. And next one, please don't forget to take a look at our annual reports, our seating maps, and come by and visit. Like I said, the the hatchery is right down the road, right by the train station. Um nurseries on Three-Mile Harbor and Springs, and we're more than
103happy to show people around. So, if I recall, Vley, we we have monthly department head meetings, and we usually open with an icebreaker question to get everybody warmed up. And one of the questions was, you know, to the department heads, which department head would you want to be? Whose job would you want to have? And the m you had the most votes? We had more department heads that wanted to be barley and and run the agriculture program than any other uh department head. >> So, >> everybody wants to be on the water. >> I just want to join the dive survey team. >> Um, >> just Patty certification. Are you ready? All right. Great. I'd be interested to see that. Um, look, I I think your concept of closing the loop um is great. I
104I actually know some local people out here who do that. I see them down there kind of after a big storm just getting some of that dead seaweed off the beach and you I it's just it's makes such sense. If we could figure out a way to formalize that, I think it's an excellent idea. >> It would be. It's kelp fertilizer is on the rise. Kelp industry is it's it's having a rough go. >> Yeah. >> Because um you know, especially on the food front, but on the fertilizer front, it's it's kind of a win-win because you don't have to worry about human consumption or anything like that. I just need to get the the volume out there. >> There's that company I can't remember who it is who does Kelp Pickles. You see them?
105Yeah. Yeah, >> they're having a tough time of it. Unfortunately, it's not really quite catching on. The novelty seems to wear off a little bit, but >> are there issues with salt buildup um with with kelp compost or kelp fertilizer? >> Uh not that I'm aware of. You'd be surp I was just talking about it's it's going to sound a little wild, but this time of year the stuff tastes amazing and it doesn't taste salty at all. It's uh chewy kind of a nutty flavor. So, it doesn't seem to retain salt and it could it can be rinsed easily. But, you know, once you know the dried kelp is only about 10% of its wet weight and um it doesn't even when you see it dry, it doesn't have that kind of salt and crusted
106look to it. doesn't seem to be too too salty, but I haven't heard about it being an issue on crops. >> Thank you. >> All right. Well, thank you, Barley, for joining us today. >> Okay. So, we're going to move on and we have a presentation by Melissa McCarron and Rachel Titus. Uh Jason, if you could please bring Rachel into the meeting and we're gonna hear about nitrogen smart communities, >> which I have to say while we're getting Rachel uh in uh last Wednesday was the I had a East Tam, what is it? East End Supervisors and Mayors Association. We meet every two months and we met in South Hold and the mayor from Quag, they have already become a nitrogen smart community and he gave a presentation on it trying to encourage everyone here
107on the east end to uh to join in. So I said the timing was perfect because we were having a presentation today. >> Um yeah, so I'm Melissa McCarron. I'm a principal environmental analyst uh with the town's natural resources department. I believe I have Rachel Titus on the Zoom. Rachel is uh from the Long Island Regional Planning Council and she's the program coordinator for the Nitrogen Smart Communities. Um but this is a voluntary pilot program administered by the New York State DEEC and uh Long Island Regional Planning Council and the town of East Hampton's interested in participating. So, nitrogen smart communities program developed through the Long Island wershed program. The New York State DEEC um developed this program that guides water quality improvement um activities on Long Island wersheds. This builds off the Long Island
108Nitrogen Action Plan, which is a multi-year effort to make meaningful reductions in nitrogen levels, focusing on reducing nitrogen loading to groundwater and surface waters on Long Island. Um, so the Long Island Wershed Program works in partnership with NASA and Suffach counties, local governments, environmental groups, and non uh governmental organizations. These programs were developed to protect one of our most precious resources on Long Island, our water. So on Long Island, um our safe supply of clean drinking water from our soul source aquifer, our ecologically healthy bays, harbors, lakes, and creeks is really important for our quality of life here in East Hampton, as well as for uh approximately 3 million residents of Long Island. Um our drinking water comes from groundwater and is a sole source aquifer, meaning that it's the only source of water available
109to meet our needs. Nitrogen is the leading cause of water quality degradation on Long Island. Excess nitrogen from waste water from antiquated septic systems, fertilizer from agriculture, um, and untreated storm water runoff are the primary sources of concern. Nitrogen causes many environmental issues. Excess nitrogen in surface water stimulates massive alkal growth which can lead to low oxygen conditions causing fish kills and degradation of marine habitats. Harmful algolooms which cause negative impacts due to algae produced toxins um have increased in occurrence and intensity from nitrogen pollution um over the last uh several years. Uh nitrogen contaminates ground water as well, which is a a concern on here on Long Island because it is our sole source of drinking water. Uh there's also economic impacts of nitrogen pollution. Long Island hosts approximately 40 million visitors annually, um
110which equates to approximately a $6 billion tourism industry. Uh poor water quality would reduce the appeal and safety of our beaches, leading to fewer visitors. um and less uh lo local business activity. Um contaminated waters can harm fish and shellfishing populations which would affect our um commercial fishing industry which is really important out in East Hampton and I'll talk particularly um so given a little background on why this program is important I want to get into a little bit more of what it is. Um so nitrogen smart communities is currently a pilot program. There are two, I guess, now three participating um municipalities um on Long Island, so it's it's pretty new. Um so, Town of North Hempstead and Town of Smithtown are um certified. I'm actually not I think Rachel could speak a little
111bit more to what level they're at. Um but, uh it's funded by United States um Environmental Protection Agency and the Long Island Sound Partnership. So initially the pilot phase was really targeting municipalities located within the Long Island Sound wershed which we aren't. Um but lesson learned from other towns and interests from towns like town of East Hampton I think the village of Quag also expressed interest. They've opened up eligibility to other municipalities. So we're now eligible to um participate. So, nitrogen smart communities is voluntary program uh promotes local action and awareness to communities to reduce or eliminate nitrogen within municipalities on Long Island. Uh through participation, communities do the work to better understand the unique sources of nitrogen um and commit to reduction activities. So, it's a five-step program. We would submit worksheets to qualify
112for each level and then earn tiered levels of certification. So step one, uh we would adopt uh the nitrogen smart communities pledge as a municipal resolution through the town board. Um I do have a copy of it here ready to go. So if the town board's supportive of this, we can move forward in you know the next meeting. Um but it basically is uh the town would recognize that nitrogen is the leading cause of water quality degradation that we believe educating and informing uh the members of the communities an important and essential step in preventing and reducing nitrogen pollution and uh that we believe that response through community specific plans of action is the best way to move forward in reducing um nitrogen and that we have um the intention to reduce, eliminate or prevent
113nitrogen pollution by adopting the nitrogen smart communities pledge, >> which we're already teed up to do. So, great. And then um as part of the next part of step one was would be to appoint a nitrogen smart communities um coordinator as a point of contact, which I I believe would probably be myself volunteering. Um so in doing that step one we would be officially registered as part of the nitrogen smart communities program. So next slide. Step two we would create an advisory task force which I believe um we could probably couple with the water quality technical advisory committee who's very knowledgeable and has very well-rounded um group of people that are um have done a great job with moving forward a lot of our water quality improvement projects in the town already. So, I think
114they would probably be the best to at least base off of. Um, and then we would create an education and outreach plan to get the community involved, supportive, and engaged. So, completing steps one and two would get us the bronze certification. >> CPF water quality money be able to be used for this education. >> Yeah, I think projects that are completed. Um, I mean, I think we would complete this plan in house. Um but yeah, water quality improvement projects would count towards the certification. >> Next slide. Um step three would be to create an inventory of nitrogen sources. So identifying local sources helps in creating a plan to reduce those sources from entering our water bodies. Nitrogen from wastewater, fertilizer, atmospheric source, um storm water, and pets would all be included in the inventory. And
115completing this would get us the silver certification. Step four would be to develop a plan, which I think our water quality improvement plan kind of already doubles as this. We might just have to change the formatting and, you know, take another close look at uh what projects we're um promoting. Um but we're kind of well on our way, I think, to um getting to this step. So, this we would analyze an inventory that we created and set reduction goals and strategies. The advisory task force selects the nitrogen reduction activities um to move forward and then each activity has a point value. Next slide. And then the last step is actually executing the plan. So implementing our water quality improvement projects. Um so using that plan uh created in step four, we would earn at least
116five activity points to qualify for the gold certification. Five years prior activities can be applied. So some of our completed projects can be used already to get to us to the gold certification and then we would reertify by annually to continue progress. So what are the benefits to the community? Um we this would um acknowledge the town of Eastampton as a leader on Long Island for clean water and I think we have been for a long time. Mhm. >> Um, this would help invest in economic growth, uh, benefiting tourism and protecting property values. Uh, we would have greater engagement with residents and, uh, networking with other municipalities. Next, for East Hampton, we've already made significant progress through our CPF water quality program. We are a local leader in environmental protection and restoration efforts, and we
117have been for a long time. So, I think this really makes sense for East Hampton. We've already committed to taking action to reduce nitrogen sources in East Hampton. And I think participation would really help us with community outreach and engagement, which I think is something we definitely could improve on. Um, and then the goal would be really to get accredited and maintain gold. So, that's all I have. I don't know if Rachel if you have any to add or if I missed anything. >> Um, no, I don't that was great. I don't think you missed anything. Um maybe I'll just add a little bit as to where the pilot municipalities are right now. Um the town of Smithtown has really made um significant progress. They completed their nitrogen source inventory which is step three of
118the program and earned them silver certification and they are having um their next meeting on April 21st where they'll create they'll analyze the inventory and create their implementation plan which is step four. So they're well on their way. Um and then Town of North Hemstead has been um a little bit slower with their progress. They have just completed step two, which is the advisory task force. Their first meeting of the advisory task force um to come up with a community outreach plan is next week. And um Quag is actually on pretty much on par with town of um North Hemstead and they actually just joined about 3 weeks ago, which is great. and um he's been really helpful in spreading the word as you mentioned before. Um we would love to have East Hampton involved
119in the program. We know how important water quality is to your area and the projects you're already working on. Um the DEC and the Long Island Regional Planning Council would be there to assist in any way um advise and um help in anything that you guys need as a participant in the program. And the way I understood it from Mayor Truald is that if you're uh a municipality that borders the sound, there is actually funding available, but for those municipalities that are not within that designation, there's no monies available. We're but we have the benefit of the CPF water quality money for for projects. >> There's actually not funding available. What there is is um a consultant would be there to assist as a technical advisor. Um the pilot municipalities we currently have work with
120Anker QA as a consulting firm and they are helping those communities through the steps of the program because it's funded by funded by the Long Island Sound Partnership. Um that technical advisor would only be able to assist the communities that fall within those boundaries. But as I said, you know, the DEC and the Long Island Regional Planning Council, we can help you and act as technical advisors in lie of a consulting firm in order to make sure that there's a successful program for everyone. >> Okay, great. Board members have questions. >> Yeah, I mean I just go back to that first um the primary source wastewater. Obviously, we we have the septic systems we're putting in. you know, the challenge of centralized waste water we've we've gone back and forth on and you know, I
121think it's it's slowly moving. Um, fertilizer is I think an education piece for me. Storm water runoff is the one that like really kind of gets my mind spinning because I mean you're talking with planning on previous projects. It it's very hard to do and we don't really have anything in our legislation per se to kind of help manage that. We saw it with downtown Montalk when the state came in and they had their storm water off that road go straight into Fort Pond and people were up in arms and I I think fairly so you know because like we you know the state's doing that like individuals need to do it. So I think for me that's the one from a town perspective I would really like us to begin to figure out ways
122to address both from an engineering perspective which I think we do with bio swales etc. we do a great job with that but you know potentially legislation for larger site plan developments um you know when there is storm water you know how's it going how does it get treated and you know I think with changing climate like those things might need to be more severe >> absolutely >> so could you just we we have done a number of storm water runoff projects and maybe just for everyone's education Melissa you could kind of go down the list >> yeah um trying to remember off the top of my head um we have completed several large uh stormwater abatement projects. Um we are right now working on the Westlake boat launch stormwater abatement and um moving forward
123today is the next presentation is the 27 rest stop stormwater abatement project. We're working on um a big project for the co hollow end of pipe treatment which is a a large storm water pipe conveyance system that goes to Georgia pond. So that will be next year. We completed um the South Lake storm water abatement project which was um where we installed uh permeable pavers and we upgraded sanitary system there as well as um did a dry uh stream bed to control and infiltrate storm water. So we do have a lot of large scale projects that are ongoing and we've completed. Um so and I think we'll continue doing that through the CPF water quality program. >> We also have our MS4 plan then too. Um my only question as to making sure that this
124is something that I I would like to see try to move forward is that your department has enough bandwidth to take this on also. Can you confirm that? >> Yeah. Um yeah, I'm I actually been tracking this program from the beginning because as soon as the DEC sent out a a bulletin on it, I think maybe like two years ago, >> um yeah, I I immediately was like, I want to participate in this. So, um, yeah, it's something I really am interested in myself. And I have Samantha Sher in our office. That's, um, you know, she just got promoted to environmental analyst this year and she's taking on some more responsibility in the next year. So, I'm going to have, you know, help from her and I think we're we're looking to take on another
125um, environmental technician as well to kind of take over some of her responsibilities and she can help me out with some of these projects. >> Thank you. >> Great. >> Um, can I just add a little bit to that, Melissa, too? >> Sure. Um, so the step three is the nitrogen source inventory and there's a worksheet associated with that that needs to be filled out. But we had hired a consulting firm, a different consulting firm, CDM Smith, to provide nitrogen loading data. So we will be um providing much of that information and then the rest you would fill in on your own. So again, we'll be providing assistance and information for that as well. Just have one question there because you kind of mentioned pets in there like an inventory of pets which I I
126acknowledge especially when you kind of look at Goba's report in Fort B says that the malian thinks there but I'd also think that deer count maybe should be something that we consider in that too because that's going to be a huge source as well with our >> Yeah, that's all part of the storm water um addressing storm water and treating storm water before it runs off um would capture a lot of that. >> Great. All right. Well, board members, is everyone supportive of moving forward and doing a resolution to become Okay. >> Okay. >> Sure. >> Um, is there a meeting Thursday? >> Yeah, there's a meeting Thursday. So, if you want to put it on, I guess it would go to Kate since she's the leazison to natural resources. >> All right. Thank you.
127But don't go anywhere. >> Stay here >> because you're going to give us, you know, an an update and overview on the Georgia pond at Route 27 >> rest stop storm water abatement project. It's a mouthful. And Jason, if you could please let Tom Schaefer from DMBB Engineers and Architects into the meeting room. That would >> Thank you again for your >> Thank you, Rachel. >> Thank you all so much. I appreciate it. >> Welcome, Tom. I don't think he's in yet. Jason, could you let us know when Tom's in the meeting? He is in the meeting but he's not >> arriving. >> Good afternoon. Can everyone hear me? >> Okay, great. Beautiful. Welcome, Tom. >> Hi. Good afternoon, everybody. >> Do you want to tee it up? >> Yeah, I have a little intro.
128Um, so yeah, I'm here with Tom Schaefer from D&B Engineers and Architects. We've been working with Tom and his team for a few years now on this design. Um, but we are here to present the final designs for the 27 rest stoper abatement project that's going out to bid this week. Um, so this work has been a collaboration between many different entities including the town and the village of East Hampton, New York State Department of Transportation, the Friends of Georgia Pond, which actually brought this project. Oh >> no, I was just gonna Patrick, you can go one more slide. >> There we Oh, thank you. >> Yep. Um, friends of Georgia Gapon who actually brought this project to us and then that the town kind of um took this on as a town project. Um,
129and then also the Pconic Land Trust as a partner. Um, so this site as Kim said is the gateway into East Hampton and is immediately adjacent to Talmage Creek with direct inputs of storm water runoff from Montalk Highway into Georgia Pond which is a priority water body in East Hampton. Town of East Hampton in partnership with Friends of Georgia Pond received grant funding from Suffach County uh water quality protection and restoration program um for partial funding for the design of the project initially and then the town was more recently awarded a $500,000 grant through the New York State Dormatory Authority for the installation of the project and the remaining funds will be through uh the community preservation fund. Um so there's three study areas which were incorporated into the design which Tom will go into
130um a little more in his presentation. Um but the 27 rest stop owned by the New York State DOT was a focus as well as the Georgia Gapon preserve owned by the Pakonic Land Trust and the road rightway along Old Montalk Highway directly to the north of the 27 rest stop. Um so our goal for the site is to make better use of the available space, capture and treat storm water runoff from the imperous surfaces by promoting infiltration and natural treatment as well as removal of invasive species and restoration of native habitat. This project will also create a beautiful landscape to improve the water quality of George Kapond and provide safe and public access to much creek. So with that, I'm going to hand it over to Tom to go through the design and the
131more engineering component. So, I don't know. Tom, I think Do you want to share your screen? Is it easier for you to do that? >> Yeah, that's fine. >> Why don't you take Patrick and let Tom share the screen? >> Yeah. Give me one second. Okay. Is everyone able to see? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Looks great. >> All right. So, there are uh three separate areas that are part of this project. The main area, area one being the rest stop area. Uh then there's also Old Montalk Highway and the adjacent uh lot right next to the raft stop uh at the Pconic Land L land trust. Uh where where we are today. Um we started out doing our initial scoping and investigations of the site. That was our topographic utility survey delineating the wet
132the wetlands uh doing our soil borings our percolation tests and we took all that in information uh developed our our stormwater calculations began coordinating with the stakeholders as Melissa mentioned that involved mainly the friends of Georgia Pond the Bconic Land Trust the DOT um and then worked our way through the development of the 60 the 30 60 90% plans At this point, the project has received the uh permitting approvals that includes the DEEC, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of State, and DO DOT. Our our goal today is to present it uh to the town to solicit feed feedback prior to moving to public bidding. Uh I have a couple photos here. This is the existing rest stop area. Photo on the left shows the asphalt parking area. You can see the declining vegetation.
133In the middle photo and then the last photo on the right, the erosion from the direct uh runoff from this site going directly into Georgia Pond. This is old Montto highway across the way. Again, another pulloff area mostly as asphalt pavement. there are state regulated wetlands right adjacent to that. Um and on the photo all the way to the right what you have happening now is as the runoff gets to that vegetated area all the sediments just deposit and uh the runoff goes into the regulated wet wet wetlands. The last site uh some existing photos is the bonic land trust site right adjacent to the rest stop. Again, limited vegetation and you see the erosion from the runoff coming right off of Montalk Highway. So, very similar issues right here. Okay, there's a lot here
134on this slide that I'll go go through. This is a summary of the proposed improvements. Uh what we are proposing to do essentially is construct a new concrete curb along the southern edge of the parking lot that's going to stop all the storm water from going directly in into the pond. Uh that parking area will be constructed with porous asphalt uh which will allow storm water runoff to per permeate through it. Um and anything that does not permeate through we're going to have a new storm water collection system. uh that will divert the runoff to a new belowgrade storm water treatment system. So you won't see that that's going to be below below grade. Um and that will treat the runoff prior to it being discharged into the pond. Um we also are proposing similar
135to the Westlake site uh true grid p paper system uh where you have currently the erosion occurring from the runoff uh that will maintain uh that little access point that's there now while also uh for fortifying the soils and allowing runoff to permeate through. Um we're also going to do some uh some beautifification of of the site. There'll be a new split rail fence going along the site. All new landscaping that I'll pull up in a slide or two. There'll be a new permeable walkway along the site that will lead to a a lookout point uh that's shown on the right. Again, that's a permeable surface that will allow storm water runoff to uh permeate through it. On the Bconic uh land trust site, there will be a new bio retention area um that that
136will accept flow. There'll be a new rip wrap swale from old Monttok highway to divert flow to that bio retention area and again there will be an overflow for that uh in into the pond. Uh all that bio retention area is going to be u planted with natural native vegetation on old Montto highway across the way. very similar improvements, but along the shoulder there will be a new uh bio retention area with a split rail fence uh to prevent cars from pulling into it. Um and again, there will be another rip wrap overflow for the uh anything beyond the design uh storm storm water volume to uh safely discharge the water uh from the bio retention area. I'm not going to go through the whole um proposed landscaping plan for these sites. Uh but for
137both for the entire project, we're proposing a a very uh dense planting schedule all with native vegetation. Um our our goal here is to have uh select species that uh will establish themselves quickly. Um and again um having a proposed density to uh minimize the maintenance that's required um and prevent u un non-native species from encroaching and that goes for old old Montto say just a side note on the planting plans um >> so the the plans were developed through arous design um but they were vetted by our um land acquisition ition department. They we have two botonists as well as or arborists and then um Sarah Davidson from friends of Georgia or formerly of friends of Georgia is a botist and they reviewed all these plans for the species appropriateness for the site. >>
138Thanks Melissa. Y >> go ahead. >> All right so the anticipated maintenance we know this is a big a big uh big issue. Um so the first five years are covered by the construction bid. So the when this project goes out to bid as as part of that bid the selected contractor will be required to maintain the site for a period of five years. Uh we anticipate these uh native plantings to be um self- sustaining by the beginning of around year year three. So the five-year period uh is more than enough time for these plantings to be to become fully established. Uh following that five-year period, um part of the site is owned by do DOT and part of the site is owned by the town. Um so following the 5-year year period, um the
139DOT will be responsible for maintaining the site within their rightway. Um and the town will be responsible for m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m m maint maint maintaining mainly the uh storm water uh collection system with the storm water treatment unit um which we anticipate having to be cleaned out twice twice a year. Um you know maybe prior to a a major storm event. Um, additionally, the bio retention area on the Bconic Land Trust site will be the their respons their responsibility to maintain following the five five-year period. As Melissa mentioned earlier, the project is u funded uh through the through DSNY
140uh with a $500,000 grant. Um that final contract is currently pending. Um the remaining uh funding is anticipated to come from the uh town of East Hampton Community Press preservation water quality fund which is a 50-50 match. Terms of next steps, we have this presentation today where we're hoping to solicit feedback that we can incorporate into the designs. Once that's done, we hope to bid this by next next month uh so that the project can be awarded this summer. Uh with the understanding that construction can start into the fall after Columbus Day. Obviously, this is a major thorough here. The it's the gate the gateway to to the town. We don't want any construction going on during the peak summer period. Um but awarding it over the summer will uh provide the contractor time with
141u getting in their submitts, ordering materials, things like that. Uh and we anticipate that construction will be completed by uh spring of 27 next spring once it's warm enough for all the plantings to go in. And that's the proposed project. >> So Jeanie Corrosa was here obviously to start the meeting on bids. This is actually going out mid on Thursday. >> I don't I mean I don't know >> and it'll be out for a month. Um >> so we should be able to award by you know the end of May. >> Okay. Great questions. >> Well just to add on to it. So um yes it is going at the bid but we wanted to make sure the town board saw what the final uh bid product or engineered design was. >> There were multiple
142meetings with all the stakeholders over the last four or five years on this and we've been tracking it. But when there's so many different municipalities involved in it, you know, you have to make sure uh you get the right product on here then too. Uh there were a couple keystones onto this that unlocked some of this. I think one of the one that goes back to the work that you know the supervisor has had with uh the assemblyman Theoni who's been in constant contact about this project also and the funding there. That was a great keystone of it. Uh the next one was working with u uh for the acquisition of the property that's on the corner of the old um restaurant. >> Very good. >> Every year was a different restaurant. >> Someone else
143got one. I don't know. But you know, so that that that with what? >> Sar. Sar. >> Yeah. Sarly, right? Yeah. >> All right. >> Uh third time. Anyone else? No. Whatever that restaurant named that restaurant. So um what it was is that allows for some of the uh you know the water runoff to be encapsulated and captured there. I I thank everyone from the design team for the sensitivity to the long-term maintenance which has always been an issue that I always have brought up then too. So that's either in in the type of asphalt the planting uh schedule or uh the vegetation maintenance schedule on there. Uh two things just want to concern with is the history of this. Sometimes you say, "Why do we even need a rest stop there?" That is state
144law. You need a rest stop every certain distance within state highways on there. And this is within state law. So, you just can't get rid of it on there. And the next one on there is that there is a 1935 uh education historical sign that's there. And I know I mentioned this in the past. Uh we'll work with Steve Lynch to get that taken down and reinstalled and painted again. It tells a lot about the history u of of of New York, East Hampton on there then, too. But overall, the project it's pretty sound where it's where it's come from. But we wanted to make sure that everyone had their eyes on it once again because when you discuss it for so many times and all of a sudden you're here, we don't want people
145think we're rushing. Yeah. This is not a rush. >> We don't want it to be a surprise. >> Yeah. We want to make sure everyone's aware of it going forward. Also, uh lastly, the state's already taken some action on this project. As you can see in the the right here, you'll see an old gray guard rail. the state came through the town of East Hampton and replaced all their guard rails. Uh, and in this area, uh, because it's a scenic area, they actually put in a lot like what was in Shadmore out here, the wooden guard rails, steelbacked wooden guard rails. So, that was a part of the coordination efforts of multiple large project, millions of dollars of projects together to get what's right here. Um, anyway, that's what I have for the board. So,
146thank you. >> Just one question for you both. What sort of rainfall event is this designed for? like what's the kind of maximum flow it can assume >> is it inch and a half >> you can take that. So uh so so all the the water quality treatment designed to to treat the 90% uh rainfall event but the overflows and are all designed for the 10year storm event. >> Okay that's what 10 inches or 11 >> uh the 10ear storm event in this area? No, I think it might be nine inches. I'd have to verify that. But >> okay, any other questions for Tom or Melissa? >> No, thank you both. >> Yeah. Great project. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you for taking the time. >> Thank you. >> Okay. And now we
147have our last topic u which is an afterharing discussion. We had a public hearing on chapter 91 vehicles on Jin Beach. I believe Chelsea was going to come in to put the map up. >> Um >> I So is Chelsea in the in the waiting room by chance? >> Jason? >> Yes, she is. >> Good. Great. Beautiful. >> David, do you want to read? >> Sure. So, uh, this game has a request from, uh, the senior harbor master, uh, Tim Treadwell, uh, about trying to increase public safety in this area, Jin Beach, uh, as there was, uh, an area in town's code, chapter 91, beaches and parks, but, uh, that wasn't consistent with many other portions of it. So the amendment to here would be the town owned portion of Jin Beach which is in
148this location here to make it seasonal uh which would be Memorial Day to Labor uh Memorial Day to September 15th of each year between hours of 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. And the reason why this because this is an active uh beach that is actually a lifeguarded beach. What you will notice on the right side here is the right side there that is a traditional sand fence that gets uh in place there because that is dividing line between the state park beach which is heavily used with overland vehicles and and the state state uh sorry in the townlands that are to the west on here. Also, if you look at other areas of the town code where we have other beaches that are uh uh that are uh lifeguarded beaches such as um Mesum Park,
149Gallant from Flaggy Hall and Gallant uh to Indian Wells and uh Atlantic Avenue beach and actually everything from Shadmore to I believe Hither Hill State Park, the same seasonal aspect is here. Uh to me, I look at this as a a desire to increase public safety as we're drawing individuals there with comfort stations, lifeguarded beaches and such and not as a loss of public access because public access will be be maintained there and vehicular access can be there in a reasonable hours after the invited general public is there at a lifeguarded beach that is actually permitted by Suffach County. As you all know, I'm a defender of public access to the beach and I love driving my truck on the beach. But in so much ways, it makes sense to protect the uh the individuals
150that come to guarded safe beaches in this area then too. So, I do support the request and I do support the legislation. >> Um yeah, yeah, look, I overall support this. There's there's one caveat that's been raised to me that I I do think which is worth discussing. Um goes back again to ADA. I I've talked about this with Cayman Natural Resources, the idea of actually getting an access map put in here so wheelchairs can kind of get down to the beach. Um that's not possible with the dune structures. So by removing car access um you know without that possibility of having the the ramp in there, the mats in there does concern me a little bit. I would love to go back and revisit if there's possibility of getting a narrow mat. Um just
151something so we continue to ensure that that beach is accessible to everybody. >> Okay, Ian. >> Yeah, I'm supportive. Uh well, first of all, I want I want to thank the people who reached out who came to uh the the work session um and who who wrote letters. I think uh as Dave said, this is not an attempt to restrict beach access generally. I think that, you know, I'm certainly supportive, Dave said he was. I think the board overall is supportive of beach access, you know, for individuals and vehicles, but at all of our other lifeguarded beaches, we have these seasonal restrictions in place for for public safety. Um, so I'm supportive of this measure and uh again, I'm I appreciate the comments that came in. The points are all noted that that fishing and
152beach access is very very important. Um, but in this small parcel of land on a lifeguarded beach, um, there just is no real need. And and by the way, I've heard from other people who also use this beach and and and valued driving on the beach who have been supportive of this measure. So I am too. >> Yeah, I agree with my colleagues. I mean, what uh Chief Harbor Master Tim Triwell had said is that, you know, this beach is used by a lot of families with small kids. You know, they're not ready to take them to the ocean yet. And, you know, we want to protect public safety. So, I am supportive as well. So, that wraps up uh all of our topics for today. So now we are on to liaison reports. Tom,
153>> thank you madam supervisor. Uh last night the amigance citizens advisory committee met um range of discussions but really wants just to kind of bring up um you may have seen the press but you know cranberry road bridge um MTA continues to I'm going to say drag their feet on this one. We've been hoping the contract would be awarded in Q1. Uh the latest update for the public is that that's going to be a Q3 Q4 um delivery uh with with construction hoping to start now in 2027. Um but we will keep um in contact with the MTA and and Albany just to kind of ensure that moves forward. Um other discussion was around the community center concept. Um you know just I think again some pros and cons about it but you know just
154people wanted to hear a little bit more about where we're going with that. um fire marshall office again just want to remind people that we'll be having a work session on the 5th uh with regard to NOX boxes um just for commercial operators you know I think it's very help of you kind of tune in to that um we we'll put some stuff hopefully on the fire marshals page too as to what your requirements are if you're a commercial property owner to have a NOxbox on your property um sanitation just a reminder people it's April please get your permits um I have to say going up to both the um recycle cycling centers that there is an issue um with a lot of people coming in without any stickers whatsoever, not even last year's sticker.
155Um you know, that is part of the reason we're looking to go to the license plate play reader system. Um and you know, I wanted to kind of at some point hold a work session on that, what that project might look like and how it was going to operate. Um you know, and just give some public education as to why we're doing it as well. Um, East End Fire Chiefs, we have a meeting this evening at 7 p.m. at Springs Fire Department. Um, Arts Council, we have the community uh, networking event this uh, Friday, April 17th, 6 p.m. at Town Hall. Um, and that is everything for the moment. >> Okay, great. Thanks, Tom. David, >> uh, the Nation Reserve Committee met last Thursday, but unfortunately I was able to attend as as with family
156down south. Uh, I'll get some more information to you to their next meeting on there then, too. uh the town of East Hampton collaborating with the Montalk Chamber of Commerce. We'll be holding our annual pre-seasoning event uh which is bringing our enforcement agencies and planning departments together with community members and business members to answer their questions in in advance of the season. This will be happening on May 7th between 1 and 3:00 here uh in the Suzanne uh Godsman room. Can I piggyback on that because we're we've also been asked for the same uh request from the East Hampton Chamber of Commerce and that is Wednesday, April 29th at 3M at town hall. >> Great. Yeah, I think that's a valid for the community on there and it opens up that form of discussion and
157uh availability. Um couple updates on on projects. the Army Corps Sand Path project. They're continuing to mobilize on that and uh remove and plant the sand uh plant plant the grass. Uh the town the town lifeguards and then uh Steve O'Brien's crews are actually assisting with the uh with not replacing but adding another layer of sand fencing along the along the entire oceanfront in Montalk. Right now uh we have the sand fencing there. The sand fencing that was there from the fit project a couple years back is now if it's a 4ft fence is now only 18 in. So we're going to make sure uh all the fence that comes up to keep bolstering that dune and make sure individuals stay out of the area. Uh also uh at Steven Hans's path we are getting
158prepared for u the installation of paving of of some of the uh new parking areas that we have. So that is still ongoing. I hope to have that uh complete in the next couple weeks. That leads me into paving. We are into our spring as the supervisor mentioned last week uh with the war on potholes. Part of that is actually milling and paving of our roads. Uh we are uh the highway department is milling and paving the roads in the area of springs right now. Uh so please be aware that uh listen to the flaggers, watch the signs. Uh please break for construction workers that some individuals this morning have not been. And please note that you have to stay off of the asphalt as individuals are there so this asphalt can set up and
159and uh and settle. So that's on an ongoing project. Then too um want to let everyone know that um uh the town board will be moving uh forward on a restoration effort of the ditch dune, the engineered dune that was uh uh installed this past winter and as portions of it has slumped off. We will be moving on on uh the contractor getting the sand out of the parking lots. Also, uh reinstalling sand as needed in that location. That should be happening before Memorial Memorial Day. It's a tight schedule, but the contractors alerted and aware. So, we're going to be moving on that then, too. Um I want to I got a little bit of a unique one here. Sorry. No worries. Um I I'm actually very happy about this and looking forward to uh
160to when this comes up on Thursday but taking comments on it as as needed then too. Uh we we were talking about recreational value in the town of Eastampton and also about purchases that can be uh uh CPF purchases that can be confined by for multiple different factors either for open space, recreation and water quality. Um there's an area in Shepherd's Neck at 134 Second House Road in which the town has recently purchased you actually about 15 years ago. I think you were on the board at the time you helped uh close to it was before the uh the Carol uh sorry >> Fort Pawn House and then also uh a property uh that is a uh just to the west. Overall, what I'm trying to say is the town is actually going to be
161locking up now very shortly. 134 Second House Road, which is the Pathfinder day camp on there. And we're going to be using that for long-term recreational needs in the town of East Hampton, water quality needs also, uh, and trying to provide those all those opportunities in the use of the community preservation fund. But what it has now is put three large tracks of land together under town ownership for values of of water quality, storm water, but also providing need recreation. uh uh uh recreation for the town of East Hampton and it and and its residents on there. Uh future discussions to come on that, but we'll be noticing that for public hearing on Thursday. Um it's great news. I mean, like I I can't tell you like what could have happened there. You would have
162just seen another I hate to use the term mega mansion like to preserve that as a recreational facility and ensure that you know the future youth of Montto not just youth senior you know adults too can use that I think is such a win for this hamlet. So, thank you to all the board members for helping get that through. >> Thank you to the ownership there. Also, I think there there's surprisingly how many times I hear like people of our age, well, no, 50, you know, a little bit younger saying, I went there or I was a I was a counselor or kids go there. There's so many reasons why because it was it's a wonderful camp and I think there's ways that the town uh could continue to work on that. Also, >> we
163don't know yet. That's all to be discussed, but it could the camp itself could be going on in different formats. That's all to be discussed. >> Yeah. I mean, we could theoretically go out, we're looking to go out for an RFP for someone to to run the camp, right? So, and um manage that property for us like we've done with the tennis club out here and other properties. >> So, um so that it stays a summer camp in in a recreational facility, >> you know, in perpetuity. >> Correct. And that's what I have. >> Beautiful. Thanks, David. You're welcome, >> Ian. >> Yeah, I'll start by giving a shout out to our town clerk, Michael Hansen. Um, he he has made >> he has made resident parking permits available online. Now, uh, this is obviously
164a year where everybody needs to renew their their beach parking permits. Um, having everybody do that every 5 years is a big um, I'd say burden for the town clerk. A lot of people coming through. And so, uh, you can now through a secure encrypted form submit all your documents, um, for resident parking permits only, you the ones that don't don't cost you money. Uh, you can submit all that information online through the town clerk's portion of the website. Um, and then pick up your permit. So, thank you, Michael, for that. Um, >> that's that's the best that's even better than Pathfinder to me in a way. you know, as much as I love recreation because you know that you that is something that was promised by yourself and the board as far as the
165modernization of the department on there and options and availability and it's just a it's a major convenience particularly in this fifth you know the year ending of the five and the beginning with the six here so well done >> recycling permits nets Michael >> so so thank you for that again everybody can find that information online and save yourself a wait um in the line uh community housing advisory board will meet next Wednesday at 5:00 p.m. at 300 Panigango Place in uh the the planning bo planning department's conference room uh the same building as the building department. I don't know the agenda yet, but again that's open to the public as always. We had an egg advisory meeting last Thursday. Um they looked at the accessory staff housing that's been talked about by the board.
166It was the first time looking at that. Um and they were supportive. So look forward to to that, you know, continuing to track hopefully towards adoption. Um, they also did mention the Osborne management plan because that's been receiving so much press. Um, they did have some concern about the the the the tone of the conversation around agriculture. Um, and as I've stated, I I I think there's an opinion that, you know, agriculture doesn't inherently need to be thought of as, you know, aesthetically displeasing or even necessarily environmentally harmful. And so, um, they they asked that I updated and I gave them an update on, um, the conversation to date. I'll also just I wasn't planning on talking about that, but since we had several callers who who did, I I I want to address some
167of those comments. I think we have a a problem here of the framing of what the management plan is doing or the framing of the conversation. I don't view this as a vote either for uh a Vista or environmental health or water quality or against it. I just don't see that as the case. I think what we disagree upon is the details of the management plan and that's it. Um, I think that the intentions as as I stated previously are the same. I think that as long as I'm on this board, the type of of lency that I would vote to be there, I think is going to be consistent with what, you know, the vast majority of the public comments um have asked for. I also want to talk a little bit about the
168process because that that came up here as well. And um, you know, one thing that's very important to me is a transparent and open process. From the very start of of that conversation and frankly almost any other that I've had in in town, I I made it explicitly open to the public. I think all of the callers except for maybe one I have attended property management committee meetings, have met with me privately in my office or or elsewhere and I made it very clear from the start that we wanted we wanted their input and their input was heard. Um there was heard from the beginning and I think went into the original crafting of the management plan. um that was supported by the property management committee and also I I I very much respect the
169property management committee and the the ability for them to do their work independently from me. So much so that the first draft that came to this board was not one that I supported word for word. But it was important to me that the draft that they sponsored was what this board saw. I'm never going to tell an advisory committee what to tell me to say so that I have more backing for what I want I want to do as a board member. and and that that is just factually true. And I think that that many of the callers have sort of seen that process play out. After the original conversation as a board, the a draft went Scott Wilson helped revise the draft based on all the public comments and that went back to the
170property management committee and they were supportive. That draft strengthened the mission statement uh put put a further emphasis on the important of the viewshed and strengthened the water quality language. There was a little bit of language removed concerning farming. Um, but the goals that everybody is most concerned about here, water quality and vista language was actually strengthened and actually I want to read the mission which is one of the most important parts of that document that we actually got. I think it was directly from the Wayne Scott Heritage Project. Um, they you know frankly had a better mission statement that I think captured uh and that's that's the point of the process. So what it says is the John Osborne Homestead celebrates the legacy of the Osborne family throughout the preservation and interpretation of the
171historic Waynecott farmhouse, garage and residence, playhouse, and homestead grounds, which represent the 19th century rural and farming character of Waynecott. In addition to the protection and stewardship of the historic structures, this acquisition recognizes the exceptional historic and ongoing scenic value of the site and the perpetual protection of the scenic viewsheds across the parcel is paramount. Again, that was significantly stronger language than before, and I think it's important. Uh the property management committee uh liked the um the the amendments and sent it back to the board, which we discussed uh recently. Now, it is true that a couple of individual members from that the property management committee have reached out to me since and and still have concerns about I think based on the framing of this conversation that there's some language in this management plan
172that is encouraging agriculture in a way that's going to compromise the ponds and the viewshed and I just don't think that that's the case. Um now we can disagree on that but but it is the process is so important to me and I would hope that um so many of the callers have been involved on this that uh I think it's unfortunate that we get to the point that we you know that some board members and I assume that I'm one of them is being framed as being stubborn or recalcitrant or I'm not sure what what the the word was. I I just don't think that's the case. I think what we have here is a disagreement about what the management plan should say. Um, we're not disagreeing on facts. We're not ignoring facts. It
173was pointed out that the supervisor sort of went through line by line, and I appreciate that the supervisor does this. We need clarity on votes from this board so that um, it's clear how we feel. And by the time we got to that point, all of the information was on the table from the previous week. It wasn't the first time we heard those words. So the fact that you know I personally voted to for for the language as is was not ignoring some new information that information had been contemplated discussed at length and we just happen to disagree and as as Dave Lee pointed out that's okay. Um, I hope that we can keep I hope that we can separate the process from the results and and not frame things if somebody doesn't agree with
174you that that somehow there were ill intentions or or some negative thing. And I and and I think it's unfortunate that I felt that from from some of the callers. I also just want to say specifically um look, I am a farmer in addition to being a town board member. That's that's that's a fact about about my life. Um and I I so I want to talk about a couple of the farming issues. One of the callers mentioned organic agriculture. I'm a big advocate for organic agriculture. I use organic practices in on my own farm. Um, but there it's not true that organic agriculture in every instance is actually more environmentally friendly than some other type of agriculture. It just isn't it just isn't factually true. Um, I I also wanted one another word that
175was used was low impact. What does that mean? That is not defined in our code. Low impact agriculture. Um and and I and I worry that you put words down like that that are amorphous and don't have um true definition and you know a board many years down the road might misinterpret that and I also worry as I said before that this is precedent setting language that if we would you know have low impact agriculture on this agricultural parcel why not always have low impact is low impact not always better than than than more impact so those are some of the details all of that said I'll say again which I've said repeatedly I think I agree with with the callers and the vast majority of the public on the ultimate outcome here. I just
176believe that with the mission statement I read with the strong water quality language that exists in there that any board this board or any future board who is you know choosing a lency if they're considering this management plan they would not choose a form of agriculture that's going to ruin the vista or the water quality. And so I I just you know again this is a differences of opinion. Um that's it. Uh I and I welcome anybody to reach out about the process, but that's the way that this went down. And so I just wanted to address that because um I think it's unfortunate that just because we disagree that that I think the tone of this conversation has taken a negative turn. >> Can I just make one other point here and just to
177clarify too? I mean like look I I you know when we make these decisions we we read the studies we read Dr. Goa's study on what's driving the water quality impact in that water body. It's not farming. It's the resonance around it. Uh it's sediment buildup. Um you know it's you know I I fully understand people's concern that they want to get that water body back to the quality it needs to be. The town wants to partner in doing that. Um you know historical landmarking of properties is exceptionally challenging um in terms of what you can and cannot do. I I think from my perspective overall limiting the future possibility of farming on that property is shortsighted. A and that's what really drove my decision here is that we don't know what the future needs
178of this community will be. Um you know got the way the world's going we might have to be farming more of our land and you know being able to do that is not something we should restrict for future generations. The visa is incredibly important to everybody. That is why we spent $56 million. If you go through the CPF presentation given by Scott today it dwarfs what was spent in other hamlets and that was done for the visa. It was done for the preservation of that visa. That is primary. We have CPF properties where we have considered you know farming applications but we haven't taken them up and those still remain as open fellow fields. If if nothing comes up that is you know we deem suitable as a board it's not something we're going to
179pursue and to Ian's point like there is nothing that can be pursued agriculturally that's going to impact that water body. So, I you know I I agree. I I think you know the comments that came in today, some of them were completely inappropriate. Um and some of them I thought were you know they're taking a tone which I personally don't approve of um from the public or from the town. So I should leave it at that. If I could just make one comment though, management plans can be amended because our Scott mentioned in his presentation we amended the Wayne Scott Green uh management plan. We this board has me I believe it was this board that ma uh revised the Duck Creek farm. So it's not something that's once it's decided on it's in perpetuity.
180It's something that can be with a public hearing um and uh a vote of the board can be changed. Um, I do know that this was a topic that came up uh at the Wayne Scott CAC. Kate's not here to express what was discussed at the Wayne Scott CIAC. So, if you would take into consideration maybe not noticing this for adoption on the 16th, let Kate give her a leazison report on the 21st and then if you want to schedule it for adoption, wait till the May 7th is a request that I would make. Um, is there anything else, Ian, that you needed to Okay, so I'm going to go on with my uh liaison report. So, um, last I'm trying to think of the last meeting we we um what was it? I'm losing
181track of dates. The, uh, first meeting in April, um, Jake presented the draft local law for the public safety and accountability. Tom, you had one comment you wanted to add in um I'm just gonna hand this out. Uh and then I took it to the LA to the Latino Advisory Committee meeting on Saturday morning and they had one comment. They were both to the same section. It's uh section 211-5 on page three. Tom, you had asked that um the section where the the supervisor is notified by the the the police department and then I need to notify the town board. You had asked that that be um done within 24 hours. So that's incorporated in here. And then the Latino advisory bless you. Uh the Tino advisory committee wanted um we got into a conversation
182about if there is a an action where ICE comes into our community and they uh remove someone without a judicial warrant. You know, how would the folks, you know, their relatives, their friends uh know that that happened? And what came into the discussion was that if the police are called to um a scene, they are going to file an incident report. That's just a given. So, and they would do um they would get some details when they were filling out that incident report. Maybe who was taken, you know, their name, their address, you know, any kind of information that could be garnered. So, um this so this affected section A. So that it says this got broken out into points one and two. So where town police officers respond to an incident involving a federal
183agency conducting an immigration enforcement operation in the town. The town police department shall one document the incident consistent with the department's rules and procedures because it's something that they're doing anyway. This is so we're just putting that in here. And then two notify said incident to the town supervisor. just ask maybe that that also has a time frame on it too. A 24-hour time frame that they tell you within 24 hours of it taking place. >> Okay. Okay. We can do that. So, if board members are good with the with the revised, you know, the tweaking that we've done here, I would like to notice this for public hearing on Thursday um to be heard on May 7th. I'm fine with it. I'm supportive. Yeah. >> Great. And I know the Latino Advisory Committee will
184be very happy. Uh, one of the other topics we discussed at their meeting is uh, one of the members is actually works for Canel Cornell Cooperative Extension. They have parental workshops in Spanish. It's something that the Latino Advisory Committee wants to sponsor with the town and we said, you know, with the timing and everything, people are getting geared up for the season. It's something we would do in the fall for the next school year. And then we also had a conversation, we want to create Spanish um language videos and we kind of talked about what some of the subjects would be. Um I know when police officer Munoz goes to the route to 27 meetings, you know, we've gone a couple of times together. One of the first things we try to do is try
185to explain that they folks can trust the police. um because there's just you know you see a uniform there's a lot of apprehension with what's going on in the world. So we have Spanish speaking officers we volunteered all of them to be in these videos and Patrick is going to be shooting them and the Latino advisory committee has formed a subcommittee and they're putting together talking points and so that's something that's going to be moving forward rather quickly. We also talked about ebikes. I know David you talk that about that a lot in your M talk CAC. we talk about at the East Hampton CIC and we're seeing now, you know, with the weather getting warmer, a lot of folks it's their for some folks it's their main source of transportation. The PD has been
186doing a lot of outreach to schools and churches and we we want to expand that. So, we want to do that. um those videos in English and Spanish. >> On that, there is a meeting this Friday, a Zoom meeting with PD and community members who have just outreached to me just to discuss, you know, what those laws are and what the town's role in editing. >> If you could send me the link to that and if I'm available, I'd like to join that. And then also part of what Officer Munoz does when he goes to Route to 27 and talks with uh Latino uh community members is what to do at a traffic stop. I mean, everybody should know. You put your light on, you put your hands on the wheel, you automatically go to
187go to your glove box to get your in information. You know, police officers see you doing that. They don't necessarily know exactly what you're doing, particularly if it's a a, you know, a late night stop, it's dark out. So, I mean, I think everybody could learn from that. It just makes it safer for everyone. So, those are the kinds of topics we're going to be doing, and I'm sure it will evolve. Um, East Hampton Sag Harbor CAC met last week and we talk a lot about ebikes because we actually um because of the North Main Street corridor we and the grocery store and the markets there we find a and some the traffic that back backs up at that intersection with Collins and Cedar Street, North Main Street. We see folks riding their ebikes on
188the sidewalk and you've got families with little kids coming out of grocery stores and markets and it's it's, you know, an accident waiting to happen. So, um, we are going to, uh, resume or the police department's going to resume their foot patrols on North Main Street, educating folks on ebikes. We're hopefully going to get signs up in English and Spanish and some of those storefronts there. Um Tom mentioned that we're going to have a discussion about knockboxes on Tuesday, May 5th. It's actually most of the topics are going to be around public safety. Um, we're also going to have uh the chief give the 2025 annual report for the um police department and we're going to hear from our public safety department heads, marine patrol, fire marshall and ordinance enforcement and animal control because particularly
189now, you know, the season is almost upon us and we just want to remind folks um about, you know, how we can all keep each other safe. Um there's also because there is a law that you can't ride on the sidewalks. I know uh our town attorney Jake Turner has been working with Lieutenant Alersa. We've got um Poppy now for you know referencing the chapter in the code. Our sign department is sign shop is making up signs. So we're going to be posting those around so folks know what the law is. And um we've also put a a piece in the spring newsletter which is going to be out later this month to just the dos and don'ts of ebikes. So um we just want to continue that education and outreach. Uh the other couple
190of other topics that came up at the CAC was um you know we've gone to carry in carry out at Sammy's Beach and unfortunately some folks what they're doing is they're just leaving their trash where the garbage can used to be. So um I don't know if we have signage up there carrying carry out. We do. Okay. Um because I haven't been up there uh this season. So, >> I think we even put up um where the code is illegal to leave your poop litter bags. >> That's exactly what they're leaving behind. >> They're leaving piles of poop litter bags. It's disgusting and it's illegal. >> That what else you want to say about? So, sorry. I didn't mean >> No, absolutely. >> Um we've also we also at the meeting went through um because
191on March 17th work session, we had you know all of our topics were around affordable housing. We discussed, you know, that meeting and they're supportive of our, you know, recent efforts for affordable housing, including the ADU construction loan, what they believe that it should be for full-time residents with an income restriction. And I know Ian, we talked about that. We had a >> something we need to bring that back and figure out what that income restriction is. >> And then, uh, okay, I'll put that down. Um, and then for next week, we're going to hear from a number of our department heads um from the airport buildings uh buildings and grounds information technology and human resources. We are going to have a very lengthy presentation on April 21st and that's going to be the 2025
192to 2025 2021 to 2025 airport operations and complaints analysis. This was something we had done uh in prior years when I was liaison to the airport um back in 2014 to 2017. We haven't done an analysis since before COVID and we're due uh something the way Scott CAC also encouraged us to do. So that's an hour presentation. Just want folks to be prepared. I've already gone through um the presentation preliminarily and it will take a solid hour. Um and then Tom, you know, I know you wanted to have the wildlife committee come back. We can fit that into that meeting. It's just, you know, it'll be a three-hour lead meeting like most of our meetings are. >> Sorry, that's May 12th. May 5th we're saying >> April 21st the original date you asked for. >>
193Okay. All right. Got you. All right. >> Okay. And that's what I have for my liaison report. So now we only have a handful of resolutions. >> You know what? I just just because we'd previously pushed it. Um >> if we could actually push that to a May work session. Okay. May 12th that just because the committee Yeah. They kind of we we've got stuff we still need to review. >> Okay. So you want to do that May 12th. Yeah. In Montalk. >> Thank you. >> Okay. All right. So, David, you have the first resolution. >> I have one. Sorry. Um I have resolution 2026 626 is a budget modification for sanitation department. We're moving $1,000 from New York State DC uh payments to travel conferences and juice. >> Second. >> All in favor? >>
194I privilege to offer resolution 2026 627. This is the approval of special events for May 2026. Uh, one is the ARF A R A R A R A R A R A R A R A R A R A R ARF pet celebration day 5226 from 11 to 1. The next is Malk youth Mother's Day 5K uh starting the Montalk Green uh and this is Sunday 51026 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. And the next one is the Montalk friends of Aaron the Montalk music festival multiple days and times as stated below. >> Second. >> All in favor? I 628 is release security for URP6116B and SP-2-2. >> Second amount of $24,000. Sorry. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. Resolution 629. This is to refund a permit fee for a recycling permit in the
195amount of $130. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I have resolution 2026 630. And this is to amend resolution 2026525 to revise the total bid amount for EH26-012. And this was for uh Glock handguns and associated items for the police department. The financial impact is 137,112.50. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I like to make a motion to go into executive session for contracts litigation and personnel. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. Thank you everyone for joining us and thank you Jason at LTV. >> Thank you. And you are now off the air. >> Okay, great.