Over 15,000 cubic yards of sand later, the Ditch Plains dune restoration in Montauk approaches completion this week. Jack Motz reports on 27east.com that a highly anticipated project, the dune restoration is the second of a two-phase undertaking that began last year intended to rebuild the area’s dune after chronic erosion and storms dwindled the beach and the dune to the point of near-nonexistence.

“The beach itself was reduced down to what everybody calls the hard pan, the clay lens that is part of the geologic formations out there,” said Assistant Town Planning Director Brian Frank. “So, you had a thin veneer of sand left, and if that area were left to recover naturally, I’m not really sure how long it would take, if ever.”

The first phase, completed last year, saw the placement of 5,800 cubic yards of Department of Environmental Conservation-approved white sand intended to provide a safe recreational beach for the summer.

Started last month, the second phase addresses the dunes, which protect the surrounding neighborhood from breaches, flooding and damages to infrastructure, and entailed the placement of up to 20,000 cubic yards of sand along approximately 2,200 feet of shoreline. Having come in with a bid of $1.21 million in October, Bistrian Materials is conducting the work. A substantial portion of the total cost was covered by state grants.

“It is supposed to protect the structures behind there,” said East Hampton Town Councilman David Lys. “It is a barricade. It is not the cure-all.”

For the past few weeks, trucks lined the beach, as one shuttled sand on the beach, which others then formed into the mold of the engineered dune, and as of Monday, Bistrian Materials had laid down 15,000 cubic yards of sand.

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Tonight at 7 p.m. is the holiday lighting of The Big Duck in Flanders. Beth Young reports in EAST END BEACON that you should get there early if you want to find a parking spot for this event that brings out the whole community, with caroling, warm refreshments and the ever-anticipated arrival of Santa Claus via a Flanders Fire Truck.

The Big Duck is a ferro-cement style building in the shape of a duck, located in Flanders. It was originally built in 1931 by duck farmer Martin Maurer and used as a shop to sell ducks, dairy, and duck eggs. It was added to both the National Register of Historic Places and the New York State Register of Historic Places in 1997. It is a principal building on the Big Duck Ranch, listed on the NRHP and NYSRHP in 2008.

Once again tonight at 7 p.m. the annual ceremony to light the Holiday Big Duck happens in Flanders featuring carolers, refreshments, and the Flanders Fire Truck delivery of Santa Claus!

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The Village of Westhampton Beach will host its annual Christmas Tree and Menorah Lighting Celebration on the Village Green this coming Saturday evening, December 6, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. As posted on 27east.com, at 6 p.m. Saturday, the Westhampton Beach Fire Department will escort Santa to the Green, joining decorated fire trucks from neighboring departments in a festive parade of lights down Main Street. The trucks will leave the Westhampton Beach firehouse at 5:45 p.m., travel south on Sunset Avenue to Hansen Place and then left onto Potunk Lane before proceeding to Main Street toward the Village Green, where Santa will greet children of all ages from Westhampton Beach and beyond.

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Some East End residents rallying behind a woman arrested after trying to stop Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from detaining a man in Westhampton say they have a message for her: We’ve got your back. Bart Jones reports in NEWSDAY that the residents started an online fundraising campaign that has raised thousands of dollars. They also are sending messages of solidarity to Tamara Mayorga-Wong, 57, who faces charges of obstructing a federal proceeding. Some see her as a hero who took a big risk to defend her community, though others think her actions went too far.

"I think it was incredibly brave and important" what Mayorga-Wong did last month near the post office, where she works as a mail carrier, said Anita Boyer, who organized the fundraising campaign. "There is a huge difference between police officers or even properly identified federal agents executing legal warrants, and masked, unidentified people snatching people out of Dunkin' Donuts, out of their court hearings."

Mayorga-Wong was suspended without pay from her job at the post office the day of her arrest and has no income currently, said her lawyer, Felipe Garcia, of the Federal Defenders, a nonprofit legal organization. She had never been arrested and has been shaken by it, he said. An immigrant herself from Latin America, Mayorga-Wong is now a U.S. citizen.

What she saw that day looked to her like a "kidnapping" of a person she knew and she intervened, Garcia said.

Mayorga-Wong ran out of the post office on Nov. 5 when she saw federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detaining a man outside a neighboring 7-Eleven store, according to an affidavit filed by a special agent with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

As the agents prepared to drive away, Mayorga-Wong allegedly ran to the rear passenger side, opened the door and in Spanish told the man to flee.

The agents recaptured him, then told Mayorga-Wong she was under arrest as she entered her vehicle in the post office employee parking lot and tried to leave.

She refused to obey repeated commands to get out of her car, the criminal complaint states. Agents removed her and took her to Southampton police headquarters in Hampton Bays, records show.

She pleaded not guilty on Nov. 20 to the federal charges. After an arraignment at the Eastern District of New York courthouse in Central Islip, she was released on $50,000 bond.

Minerva Perez, executive director of the nonprofit OLA of the East End, said while some residents were critical of Mayorga-Wong’s actions, there was widespread support for at least the emotions that prompted her to intervene.

While OLA does not recommend people physically intervene in ICE actions, Perez said many were so overwhelmed with anger and fear they needed to do something, such as lobbying or protesting.

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Lab-confirmed flu cases on Long Island more than doubled in a week, state figures show, the latest evidence that Nassau and Suffolk counties could face a rough influenza season. Lisa L. Colangelo reports in NEWSDAY that Long Island is likely to see a "significant climb in the coming days and weeks" after holiday gatherings, said Dr. David Hirschwerk, medical director of North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset.

"Last year we started to see in our region a really steep incline toward the middle of December," he said, noting that flu cases and hospitalizations are "a little bit higher" than this time last year.

Infectious disease experts have warned flu season may be severe based on several factors, including the rise of a variant subclade K from the influenza strain H3N2. That variant emerged after this season’s flu vaccine was formulated and was behind most of the flu cases in Japan and the United Kingdom.

Dr. Hirschwerk said currently RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, and COVID-19 are circulating at lower levels than they did this time last year, but pointed out that the holiday season and the numerous gatherings that can lead to more respiratory virus transmission have just started. Dr. Hirschwerk said now is a good time to get a flu vaccination.

Suffolk County had 562 cases the week ending Nov. 22, the most recent available from the NYS Health Department. That was up from 223 the prior week.

Nassau County had 726 cases in the same time period, up from 378. Statewide, there was a similar increase in confirmed flu cases, which only represent a portion of actual flu cases since many people who are sick may not seek testing or treatments.

In addition, the number of people getting their flu vaccines has remained low — just about 20% of the population in Nassau County and 17% in Suffolk.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended the flu vaccine for those over 6 months.

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The East Hampton Healthcare Foundation will sponsor a free community Health Fair this coming Friday, December 5, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at St. Luke’s Church, 18 James Lane, East Hampton. Highlights of the Health Fair include flu shots, glucose exams, blood pressure screenings, and applications for colorectal screenings. In addition, appointments will be available for no-cost mammogram and Pap smear tests for uninsured women over the age of 40. Representatives and information will also be on hand from a variety of organizations, including health insurance providers, Sun River Health Care, OLA of Eastern Long Island, SNAP (food stamp information and applications), mental health resources for children and adolescents through YES COMPHS, Youth Enrichment Services Community Mental Health and Support, Meals on Wheels, and the Town of East Hampton Human Services Department. Healthy refreshments will be served, and the event is open to all. That’s this Friday 11am to 2pm at St. Lukes’s Church in East Hampton, New York. For more information, call 631-329-2425. Or online visit easthamptonhealthcare.org/

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For transit watchers, the vote on Monday to recommend licensing three casinos in New York City was about something other than roulette wheels and dealers shuffling cards close to home. It was about guaranteeing new revenue for mass transit in New York. James Barron reports in THE NY TIMES that the would-be operators of the three casinos have promised to pay more than $1.5 billion in one-time fees to the state if they become operational after receiving the licenses recommended by the New York Gaming Facility Location Board. The money would be another new revenue stream for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority — the state agency that runs the subways and buses in the city, along with Metro-North and the Long Island Railroad — and must be spent on operating expenses like salaries for its 70,000-person work force.

But the M.T.A.’s employees aren’t the only ones who will have a symbiotic relationship with the high rollers. Like it or not, commuters will, too. Rachel Fauss, a senior policy adviser for Reinvent Albany, a government watchdog group, said the casino money would ease the pressure on the M.T.A. to raise fares, as it is set to do in January with a 10-cent increase for subways and buses, to $3 a ride. But she said that the fare was “much less likely to go up again when you’ve got this significant amount coming in from the casinos.”

The M.T.A. is counting on the casino license money in 2026, a year after it opened another new revenue stream, its congestion pricing tolling program in Manhattan. From January through September, the most recent month for which the agency has published figures, congestion pricing has brought in $507.3 million.

But that money cannot go toward operating expenses.

The transit agency is counting on spending $500 million a year from the three casino operators in 2026 and 2027 and $600 million in 2028. It will then look for tax revenue from the casinos. But Ana Champeny, the vice president for research at the Citizens Budget Commission, predicted that the M.T.A. budget would not be balanced in the early 2030s. She estimated the gap between its recurrent revenue and its recurring expenses at more than $800 million a year.

She also warned that if the gaming commission did not award all three licenses, “there would be a more immediate fiscal hit” for the M.T.A.

Mitchell Moss, a professor of urban policy and planning at New York University and a former director of the Rudin Center for Transportation, said the changing options for betting could also affect the M.T.A.’s take from the casinos.

“The gambling business is increasingly being done by people on their phones,” he said. “The question is, can casinos continue to be lucrative sources of tax money? We don’t know this because they’re now facing a vast explosion of sports betting, which is done on the phone, but there’s something about the casino that has endured, even with all the other ways of betting.”