EDITORIALS

Down the Rabbit Hole
The process by which the East Hampton Town Board decided to eliminate the Natural Resources Department last week was deeply flawed. Normally, major changes take forever in Town Hall, but in a fit of pique, no doubt pushed along by the protestations of the East Hampton School District over a new arsenic scare identified by the department’s chief, normal procedure was thrown out the window. The move has drawn bipartisan condemnation.

Boards and Budgets
Tuesday is the day for school board and budget votes, though you could be forgiven for not knowing about it in the East Hampton district, where, despite a $59 million spending plan for 2008-9, little public interest has been aroused. More troublesome are huge increases in administration and maintenance costs that have not been adequately explained. The superintendent’s compensation tops $250,000, a 12-percent rise, but spending on teachers and textbooks is only up 2 percent. On this score, voters might choose to send a message to the school board about misplaced priorities with a no vote. However, the estimated tax rate increase is a relatively modest 4.52 percent, so from a financial standpoint we see little reason to turn thumbs down.

COLUMNS

Connections | By Helen S. Rattray
That’s the Way It Was
he blossoms on the fruit trees were at their fullest in our microclimate last week.

The Mast-Head | By David E. Rattray
News of the Pond
It’s obligatory that The Star announce what is by now familiar news to just about anyone who has passed along East Hampton Main Street in the past few days.

Point of View | By Jack Graves
The Escaped Genie
Voters apparently think now that of the two, Hillary Clinton would be more apt to act wisely during a time of crisis than Barack Obama, and yet it was Clinton who said, when a hypothetical question was posed, that she wouldn’t hesitate to incinerate with nuclear weapons the population of the hypothetically offending country, in this case Iran, which numbers 70,000,000 souls.