Riverhead Town Police Dept. closed 2025 with fewer criminal incidents in Dec. than Nov.

The Town of East Hampton plans to hike landing fees at its airport in Wainscott by 15% to generate revenue to repair and replace aging infrastructure at the facility. Alek Lewis reports in NEWSDAY that the town also wants to hike fuel fees at the airport, which are currently 30 cents per gallon, by 2 cents.The public airport serves a mix of private pilots, charter flights, commercial businesses and seasonal visitors.The town is increasing fees at a “sweet spot” that lets it pay off the roughly $4.6 million it seeks to borrow for capital improvements, East Hampton Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez said during a work session yesterday. The increases in landing and fuel fees are expected to generate more than $350,000 in additional yearly revenue.“We're not building VIP rooms or expanding any type of amenity at the airport. Everything that's on this list is critical for airport safety, and I don't think those are negotiable,” Councilwoman Cate Rogers said.Board members said they agreed to the fee increases and plan to vote on them in March — giving time for aviation industry representatives to weigh in. The rate hikes would take effect on May 1, when flights pick up due to the influx of seasonal visitors.This year’s big-ticket item is the resurfacing of one of two runways, which is estimated to cost $2.7 million, airport director Jim Brundige told board members. While the town has repaired cracks in the runway over the years, it now “needs to be completely milled out and repaved,” he said.The town has not raised landing fees since 2016. Fuel prices were last hiked in 2014.East Hampton-based aviation businesses, many of which have leases at the airport, are exempt from landing fees, but not from the fuel charge, said Katie van Heuven, outside counsel for the town. Last year, 3,033 of the 12,674 landings at the airport were exempt from the fees, according to town data.East Hampton Town officials said they will revisit the airport’s fees in 2027 and possibly increase them again to finance future projects. The town wants to ensure the airport remains self-sustaining and is not financed by tax revenue, Burke-Gonzalez said. The airport relies on the fees to operate. ***The Riverhead Town Police Department closed out 2025 with a lower number of criminal incidents in December than in November, according to the department’s monthly activity reports presented to the Town Board by Police Chief Ed Frost at the board’s Jan. 22 work session. The reports also include year-end totals and a full-year breakdown of criminal offenses recorded in 2025. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that Chief Frost presented two months of reports at the work session because the November report had not been delivered previously. He told board members the department logged 2,604 total incidents in December, including 106 criminal incidents — “a significant drop from even November,” he said. He told the board that “simple assault was down” and that shoplifting was down as well, saying the department recorded 24 shoplifting incidents during the month. Board members praised the trend. Supervisor Jerry Halpin said it was notable to see shoplifting going down even as the Route 58 retail corridor continues to add businesses. Frost attributed at least part of the month-to-month results to both policing strategy and store policy. He said some stores have internal thresholds and “do not call us if it’s under a certain amount of money,” even though, he said, the department will respond. The chief also described a visible holiday-season deployment in shopping areas: in the weeks before Christmas, he said, the department assigned extra patrol cars to shopping plaza parking lots. Police coordinated with loss control personnel at various stores that wanted to participate. The stores had extra loss control people on site on a particular date or dates, coordinated with the police department’s crime control and COPE units, Frost said. Measuring the effectiveness of the tactic is difficult, the chief acknowledged, but it will likely be a deterrent.***The East Hampton Healthcare Foundation will sponsor a free community Health Fair at the St. Luke’s Church, 18 James Lane, East Hampton, this coming Friday, February 6, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.Highlights will include flu shots, glucose exams, blood pressure screenings, and applications for colorectal screenings. Also available will be appointments for no-cost mammogram and pap smear tests for uninsured women over the age of 40.Representatives and information will be on hand from health insurance organizations, Sun River Health Care, OLA of Eastern Long Island, The Retreat, SNAP (food stamp information and applications), mental health resources for children and adolescents (via YES COMPHS, Youth Enrichment Services Community Mental Health and Support), Meals on Wheels (information and applications), the Town of East Hampton Human Services department, and Cornell Cooperative Extension (family wellness and nutrition educator).Healthy refreshments will be served. All residents are invited to attend. For more information, call 631-329-2425.***Jackie Dunphy, a real estate agent with The Corcoran Group in East Hampton, converted her two-car garage into a living space for her mother 15 years ago. After applying for a permit with the building department, hiring a contractor and completing her periodic check-ins with the Town of East Hampton, she was able to move her mother into the accessory dwelling unit.Interest in properties like this has spiked on Long Island.Rachel Weiss reports in NEWSDAY that an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) is an additional, smaller living space on the same property as a primary residence, that can either be its own separate structure, attached to the home or converted from a garage, basement or attic. Hopeful buyers are starting to search for properties with ADUs (or the potential to build one) while house-hunting on Long Island, experts say.This trend has traveled nationwide, according to the Zillow Consumer Housing Trends Report of 2025.As for East Hampton, ADUs are a "highly desirable product in a low inventory," said Dunphy, who lives and works in East Hampton.Making ADUs even more accessible in the area would help keep residents there, she added, because "like everywhere else, we're in a real critical situation out here with the lack of affordable housing."Dunphy said there has been an increase in demand for properties like this in East Hampton ever since prices shot up during COVID.The Plus One ADU Program is described as "an initiative to create and improve ADUs across the state," according to the New York State Homes and Community Renewal website. The Long Island Housing Partnership assists in the application process for the grants, which are offered in Towns such as Huntington and Riverhead. The grants aim to help low and middle-income families, and go up to $125,000.***A 2024 proposal to issue permits for short-term rentals and to cap their number at 1 percent of the housing stock in Southold Town could soon go before the community for a public hearing, as the town works to regulate an industry the town believes generates $25 million in revenue for property owners here each year. Beth Young reports in EAST END BEACON that short-term rentals of less than 14 days have been illegal in Southold Town since 2015, but the town has since found the ban difficult to enforce.In 2024, the Southold Town Board convened a Short-Term Rental Task Force, which recommended the town change the definition of short-term rentals to fewer than 30 days and allow permits to be awarded through a lottery.The town has since begun using new software, Rentalscape by Deckard Technologies, which enables it to know the length and price of rentals booked on short-term rental websites, and find out in real time when short-term tenants are arriving and leaving the properties, enabling town code enforcement officers to better document and issue citations for the illegal use.Town officials say this software will be crucial to its enforcement of the new code when it is adopted.The Southold Town Board got a first look at the proposed code at a Jan. 29 code committee meeting.“The way we look at it is, it’s really a quality of life issue,” Deputy Town Supervisor John Stype, who chaired the task force, told the Town Board. “We’re concerned with the people who live here full-time and their particular quality of life.”He added that rapidly declining enrollment in local schools has been driven in part by a real estate market inflated by speculation.“The cost of homes makes it harder and harder for local people to stay here,” he said. “That’s what we should be concerned with.”Mr. Stype said the soonest the town could realistically implement the code would be January of 2027 — town staff and the board are still working on a draft of the code, which would then have to be put before the public at hearings.Councilman Brian Mealy asked where members of the public can turn to air their concerns and questions about this proposal.Southold Town Supervisor Al Krupski said they can contact the Town Supervisor’s office. The phone number there is 631 -765 - 1889.***Southampton Town Councilwoman Cyndi McNamara has announced the launch of the 2026 “Hometown Heroes Banner Program.” The initiative, spearheaded in 2023 by Councilwoman McNamara and Westhampton VFW Post 5350, aims to recognize and honor our local military men and women by displaying personalized banners with their picture and military service information in Good Ground Park in Hampton...