Eye to the East: Beach Twilight Fees Lifted

Throughout the week, we do our best to offer you local news that hits close to home. With a wide network of Patch sites across Long Island, we thought we'd also make available a round-up of news from our East End sites.

Twilight Fees Lifted at Beaches

Close to 200 locals showed up Monday evening at  for a  at two county beaches,  and . And two weeks after the fee was lifted at in Hampton Bays, officials announced Monday that their efforts paid off.

"Your voices were heard, and there are going to be no more fees," said South Fork Legislator Jay Schneiderman, I-Montauk. "This was a mistake, and we knew it was a mistake."

County parks officials had originally proposed the fee - charged between 5 and 8 p.m. - to defray the cost of maintaining beaches. However after lifting the fee in Hampton Bays, residents called for more action.

When it comes to protecting the Peconic, Riverhead residents aren't afraid to get their hands dirty and their feet wet.

On Thursday, approximately 30 volunteers gathered in boats, kayaks and canoes to help remove ludwigia peploides, commonly known as water primose, by hand pulling it from the river.

Since 2006, over 450 volunteers have teamed up in the effort to clean up the Peconic, said Julie Nace, Peconic Estuary Program Coordinator for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation's Bureau of Marine Resources.

Boaters Arrested Outside Romney Protest; Claim Cops Out of Line

Two boaters in waters off The Creeks, billionaire Ronald Perelman's 57-acre East Hampton Village estate — where Mitt Romney was scheduled to be present for a campaign fundraiser — when they failed to comply with police orders, according to police.

One was arrested on the sailboat, while the second jumped off into Georgica Pond and swam to Perelman's property, where he was arrested by the Secret Service and , police said.

David A. Fink and his longtime fiance Simon V. Kinsella, the two arrested, later said in a statement released Monday that when they were taken in.