East End Notebook: EPCAL Bill OK'd in Albany, Phone Scams Reported

WESTHAMPTON-HAMPTON BAYS

Lohan Could Finish Rehab in Westhampton Beach

Two months after troubled actress Lindsay Lohan stuck her nose up at Westhampton's Seafield rehabilitation center, she has reportedly requested that she finish her rehabilitation stint there. 

SOUTHAMPTON

Town Police Report Uptick in Phone Scams

Scam phone calls are becoming more common on the East End lately, with more residents falling victim, according to Southampton Town Police Department detectives.

Some residents have caught on that they were being scammed before sending any money, but others have lost hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of dollars. 

Detectives said Wednesday that two methods that have been used against local victims are a caller reporting that a loved one is injured and needs money, or that a loved one has been abducted and will not be released until the caller receives a wire transfer of cash.

EAST HAMPTON

Cops: No Criminal Charges for Driver in Bicycle Fatality

The driver whose vehicle ran over and killed a 14-year-old bicyclist on Saturday in East Hampton Village won't be charged criminally, police said. 

Village Police Chief Jerry Larsen said on Monday that Maria Brennan, 73, of East Hampton, was issued a moving violation under State Vehicle and Traffic Law for "failure to exercise due care," in that police said she didn't react quickly enough to the collision. 

Anna Lytton, an eighth grader at the Springs School, was riding her bicycle west on Pantigo Road, when she was struck by a 2002 Ford Explorer, also headed west. Lytton was trying to turn left toward Gay Lane, where the East Hampton Post Office and CVS pharmacy are located, crossed in front of the SUV, police said in a statement on Monday.

NORTH FORK

Town Takes to Waters to Open Shellfishing

Town officials – trustees and members of the town's Shellfish Advisory Board – are taking to local waters to re-open them to shellfishing themselves, testing water quality and sending off samples instead of waiting for the Department of Environmental Conservation to test and open themselves.

According to Newsday, the officials have been trained and certified by the Department of Environmental Conservation to test water quality, and have focused largely on Cutchogue creeks, which was shut down by the state in 2004.


RIVERHEAD

EPCAL Bill Passes Both Houses Unanimously

A bill that will give Riverhead Town the authority to fast-track applications at Enterprise Park at Calverton within 90 days was unanimously approved by state legislators on Thursday, a piece of legislation Supervisor Sean Walter called the "single biggest economic, job-creating piece of legislation probably in New York State."

Hurdles still remain to be jumped until the town can get the green light to stamp projects – foremost, an environmental review at the state level that is expected to take about a year. And Gov. Andrew Cuomo must still sign the legislation to make it official, and a spokesperson said on Thursday the legislation has yet to be reviewed. But Thursday's passage moved the process along.

Rather than each project pitched at EPCAL gaining approval from state, county and town levels individually – a process officials and developers have said can be cumbersome and time-consuming – the legislation passed on Thursday streamlines that to one level.