Dialing 911 for police, a fire, or an ambulance is easy to do, but it may not always be the right call when the situation is less than urgent. 

At this time of year, East End dispatchers handle a staggering number of calls, ranging from life and death matters to requests for routine information. East Hampton dispatchers are asked, for example, what time fireworks start or when the evening beach parking restrictions end. In many cases, the information is available on the town website, on social media, and from local media. And, to varying degrees, police departments also have moved onto social media. 

The nonemergency numbers for each department are listed online. East Hampton Town’s is 631-537-7575. This also is the number to get in touch with the town Marine Patrol. East Hampton Village’s nonemergency number is 631-324-0777; Sag Harbor Village police are at 631-725-0058, and Southampton Town police (who cover the villages of North Haven and Sagaponack) are at 631-728-5000. Much of the time, calls to these numbers will be answered by dispatchers, who will quickly escalate the response if a true emergency is occurring. 

For housing, litter, noise, signs, and other code violations, the East Hampton Town Ordinance Enforcement Department can be reached on weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 631-324-3858 or via an online form on the town website. In Southampton, the number is 631-702-1700. Complaints about loud or low aircraft can be directed to 800-376-4817 or [email protected].

But exactly what constitutes an emergency should be kept in mind. An emergency is any serious medical problem, such as chest pain, seizures, or bleeding, fires, and life-threatening situations such as fights, persons with weapons, and so on. When haste is necessary, such as when a potential crime is in progress, 911 is the right call.

Nonemergency incidents include accidents involving property damage, vehicle break-ins, vandalism, intoxicated persons who are not disorderly or a threat, and cars blocking streets or parking spaces.

In this age of unintended cellphone butt-dials, an inadvertent caller to 911 should not hang up but stay on the line to make clear to dispatchers that all is okay. In this situation, police recommend that you remain on the line until told it is okay to disconnect by a dispatcher. Officers spend precious time each day checking on calls to 911 that are found to be baseless.

It also is important for visitors and landlords catering to short-term renters to ascertain precise locations before an emergency happens. When every second counts, being able to give the 911 team a correct address becomes critical. Beaches here are marked with large orange signs to help pinpoint problems that might arise along the ocean.

Over all, 911 is a great system. Everyone can do his or her part to keep it that way by using it only when real emergencies arise.

A week after news broke publically about a confrontation that left East Hampton Village’s female lifeguards feeling harassed and subject to a hostile workplace, the village board remains mostly silent. 

An apology would be a good place to start.

The conflict arose in June, amid a few complaints that the women lifeguards’ bathing suits were too revealing. The lifeguards believed the beach managers, to whom they reported directly, were to blame for a series of blunders, including one or more photographs taken of a lifeguard modeling the new suit.

Feeling unfairly blamed for carrying out orders from higher up, three of the four beach managers quit the day after The Star reported on a letter of complaint from several of the female lifeguards and a rebuttal from the village administrator that did not identify who was responsible for the missteps and all but entirely dismissed the lifeguards’ complaints.

Many questions remain, but the lesson for village officials is that the instant women employees say that they feel harassed and threatened, they must be taken seriously, full stop. 

It is unfortunate that the village board has not stood up to make amends, but instead ducked for cover behind bland and carefully worded statements. A simple “We’re sorry,” even now, would go a long way.

A number of owners of Montauk resort properties have been speaking out recently for the right to tax themselves to pay for placing protective sand on the downtown beach. Their eagerness is understandable; we are entering the height of hurricane season with winter northeasters breathing down our necks not that far behind. While sand might be attractive as a short-term solution to the chronic erosion there, it would be a tragic mistake for East Hampton Town to allow the plan to go forward at this time.

Downtown Montauk’s problems with the sea go back a very long time. In the early 19th century, the town fathers paid a man to build a stone wall to close up the place where the ocean breached the beach and rushed into Fort Pond during a storm. A 1,600-foot-long boardwalk erected by the Montauk Beach Development Corporation in the 1920s is long gone, as is a bathing casino that once stood near the shore. Winter storms and hurricanes have nibbled near the foundations of a number of the oceanfront hotels. And the United States Army Corps of Engineers contracted out a project to armor more than 3,000 linear feet of dunes in front of the most-exposed properties with rock-hard buried sandbags. 

Now, as sea level rise and ongoing erosion loom, we cannot fault property owners for wanting to preserve their positions. The problem is that, should the town board agree, it will make the necessary, but more difficult, solution of buyouts and a managed retreat to higher ground much more unlikely. Doubling down, the town is also trying to offset the cost of a planned sewage treatment plant for downtown Montauk by imposing large fees on the same shoreline properties. 

The idea of gradually moving businesses, condominiums, and hotels away from the brink is not new, but the concept gained authority when it was included in a study of the future of Montauk commissioned by the town. To allow infrastructure changes that could lock in the continued existence of threatened beachfront development would be a disaster that could eventually threaten the entire downtown. To do so in a hurry, before the town’s own highly touted study is adopted, would set a new standard of government incompetence.

A decrepit building on Montauk Highway in Wainscott that once thumped to the beat of the Star Room nightclub was reduced to rubble and carted away earlier this month. Last week, several unused structures on the Sag Harbor waterfront were removed and the site graded smooth. Both are to become parks. 

The plan for Wainscott is a small green for residents without close access to other public spaces. In Sag Harbor, the property, which was to become a residential development, will now be joined to open space on the other side of the bridge to North Haven as the John Steinbeck Memorial Park.

Land preservation has been a prominent tenet in and around East Hampton; many open spaces were secured before the cash spigot of the community preservation fund transfer tax was turned on. Among the most hard-fought battles was the one against a plan for more than 140 houses on Barcelona Neck. A similar effort staved off 262 houses at the Grace Estate in Northwest. Later, a luxury subdivision planned for 99 acres of Montauk moorland and bluffs galvanized activists; a petition drive caught the attention of officials, and a deal to save what would become Shadmoor State Park was struck with the landowners. 

In an early, major test of the preservation fund, East Hampton Town spent millions to beat back a proposal for a big-box retail building on the corner of Pantigo and Accabonac Roads in East Hampton Village. Instead, a former Buick dealership was razed, and it became a welcoming green entry to the business district.

In these examples, opposition was substantial and included individuals who later came around to more conservationist points of view. Each purchase was at substantial cost, but each one, in retrospect, was clearly money well spent.

The lesson from the past and present victories is that the seemingly impossible can be possible. Dream big, East End. Future generations will honor your foresight.

If you have not already done so, make a point of swinging by the East Hampton Village Green, where August is in full bloom. There, above a sinuous man-made dreen, recently planted pink and white marshmallow flowers wink at passers-by. 

More than a few long, gray days with unseasonable cool air flowing in from the east, alternating with lightning storms and heavy rain, drove us mostly indoors, and the deep, reptile parts of our brains signaled early torpor. Sunshine returned in earnest on Tuesday, though rain was to follow. In the dunes, the first of the beach plum crop turned an inviting purple. Bay and ocean alike are warm enough to linger in. Blue crabs, if you can find them, are huge and hungry. Corn and tomatoes, though available some weeks before now, are at their peak.

As the weeks speed fast toward Labor Day and the time of farewells, we should remember to slow down and enjoy these waning weeks for the joys of high summer they provide.

From the start, East Hampton Village officials have mishandled a growing scandal stemming from women lifeguards’ official bathing suits. The unresolved matter has left several of the village’s seasonal employees feeling bullied and harassed, and left the impression that high-level village officials tried to keep the whole thing under a blanket.

The problems began in June, after the village board directed that new, somewhat more modest bikinis for its women lifeguards be ordered. Once the suits arrived, concerns about their fit were expressed by some of the guards, and while trying to figure out how to proceed, beach managers directed several of them to put on and model the new suits in an effort to determine if they were suitable. 

Then, male employees in village management positions thought it would be a good idea to photograph one or two of the female lifeguards (accounts vary) using a personal cellphone and leaving many of them aghast. 

The images were to be reviewed by the village board, the women were told. At least one additional set of photographs was ordered taken by male beach managers once the replacement suits arrived.

In a July 2 letter, several lifeguards explained that the new suits seemed designed for swimming pools, that they might trap sand while in use, and that the fabric was flimsy. This could pose a serious risk for rescuer and victim alike when trying to save lives, they said.

When they complained, however, they were denigrated for speaking up. The handling of the issue, particularly the photographs, left women lifeguards feeling degraded and embarrassed and raised “serious issues concerning sexual harassment and a hostile work environment.” Becky Hansen, the village administrator, began looking into the complaint a few days later, interviewing nine beach employees. 

Ms. Hansen’s was hardly an impartial investigation, as evidenced by her surprisingly tone-deaf report to the board on Aug. 17. While concluding that only procedural errors of communication were made, Ms. Hansen fell back on an inappropriate, outdated technique: She blamed the victims, claiming there was “credible evidence that the photographed employee volunteered to be photographed and that it was done in a lighthearted, comical manner.” Unless Ms. Hansen is rebuked for this outrageous misplacement of blame, we can only conclude that the village board shares her views.

Village officials also appear to have tried to run out the clock, perhaps hoping to make it to Labor Day without the news coming out. The Star found out about it only because the parents of some of the women who were photographed alerted us; village officials were tight-lipped until very recently. Nor was the issue discussed at a board meeting or any other public forum, which could have helped defuse bad feelings.

As a quasi-apology, the village has acknowledged that the process was mishandled and told the women that extra workplace harassment training would take place. This is not nearly enough. 

Glenn Hall, the chairman of the East Hampton Town Disabilities Advisory Board, made a powerful point recently in reacting to a proposal from the developer of a Montauk commercial building to place a handicapped access entrance at the rear of the structure instead of the front. 

In a written statement, Mr. Hall compared the message of a rear entrance to segregation, citing “back of the bus” and “separate but equal” treatment for those unable to use stairs. The matter was a civil rights issue, Mr. Hall said. We agree.

On Aug. 22, the East Hampton Town Planning Board reversed an earlier, nonbinding vote that had rejected Mr. Hall’s assertions. The change came after the town’s chief fire marshal noticed several potential problems with a rear access ramp. 

The turnabout is welcome, but it calls into question how planning board members could initially have voted 5 to 2 in a July straw poll in favor of rear access at the South Euclid Avenue building despite having already received — and presumably, read — the disabilities committee’s objections.

As the population ages, the need increases for better ways for less-mobile Americans to get around, shop, and do a whole host of routine errands. That the planning board could have looked favorably at a front entrance only for those able to climb a short flight of stairs, while relegating those who could not to an offensive back door, makes it clear that there is a lot more learning to do. It was made worse when the planning board appeared to have ignored a town committee until its chairman began to speak out. 

Some in Town Hall now appear to be taking more interest in the question of fair access to commercial and public buildings. A number of town officials, including Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, met recently to discuss the matter. They are doing the right thing in more aggressively taking on the issue. 

As part of the Americans With Disabilities Act, businesses and public and semi-public buildings are required to remove structural barriers so long as the work is “readily achievable.” The concept of readily achievable is subjective, but based on the idea that the work could be done without significant expense. The cornerstone of the act, and state and local building codes, is that goods and services be provided to people with disabilities on an equal basis with the rest of the public. 

Democratic voters and members of minor parties across New York State will have a chance to make choices next Thursday in primaries for offices from town hall to the governor’s mansion. In East Hampton, the main event — between Councilman David Lys and David Gruber — is for the right to appear on the Democratic Party line in November’s general election.

Mr. Lys joined the East Hampton Town Board in January when he was appointed to fill Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc’s seat. Before that, he spent five years on the town’s zoning board of appeals and helped lead the restoration of the Amagansett Life-Saving Station.

Mr. Gruber ran for East Hampton Town supervisor and lost in 2002. Until recently, his predominant local interest has been lessening East Hampton Airport noise. His candidacy is legitimate even though he has failed to publically rein in his most enthusiastic and occasionally perfidious supporters, who, among other things, falsely claimed that Mr. Lys, a registered Republican, voted for Donald Trump in the last election. (Mr. Lys wrote in his father’s name.) 

The strident opposition to Mr. Lys defies easy understanding, but Mr. Gruber’s willingness to tolerate abject nastiness and falsehoods about him is a big negative. Even if Mr. Lys were to the right of Steve Bannon, the former Trump White House strategist, his single vote on a five-person town board would hardly change its direction. We can think of two possibilities: Either the Reform Democrats fear that Mr. Lys might go on to become town supervisor some day, and then unleash a sleeper cell of Republicans, or they have signed on to Mr. Gruber’s attempt to gain a position of authority, something that has long eluded his grasp. 

By the same calculus, Mr. Gruber would pose little threat should he win the Democratic primary next week and go on to defeat Manny Vilar, the undisputed Republican nominee. Though Mr. Gruber has built his political presence in East Hampton on closing, or strictly curtailing flights at, the town airport, his would likely be a single vote to do so. Given Mr. Vilar’s poor showing when he ran for town supervisor last year, as well as the Democratic registration and turnout edge, it is safe to say that either Mr. Lys or Mr. Gruber would be the winner on Nov. 6.

Because next Thursday’s primary will almost certainly decide who is the November victor, voter participation is critical. Those who prefer Mr. Lys’s role as a community leader to Mr. Gruber’s more behind-the-scenes approach will want to have their say. On the other hand, voters impressed by Mr. Gruber’s many years as a Town Hall observer and airport-noise activist will need to turn out en masse to award him the Democratic ballot line in November. 

It is often not how individuals vote that wins elections but who gets off the couch to go to the polls. Whatever your position on the candidates, a primary is a direct opportunity to influence government in a way that really matters. 

Even in a one-sided dirty campaign this was a new low.

David Gruber, who is seeking the Democratic Party ballot line for East Hampton Town Board in Thursday’s primary, made an extraordinary blunder this week. In a mass email, as well as in Facebook messaging, he and his surrogates claimed that Mr. Gruber’s opponent, David Lys, did not tell the truth when he said that he had written in his father’s name for president in the 2016 election. 

In their divisive zeal to play a game of gotcha! Mr. Gruber’s supporters failed to check the facts before making an 11th-hour false claim. In doing so, they threw undeserved mud on an honest and hard-working rival. 

Mr. Gruber knew about the claim before it was made public, and has said the Reform Democrats did their homework. From all evidence, they did not. This is, at a minimum, reckless and does not belong in a town that prides itself on a community nature, or from a primary challenger who wants to be taken seriously.

Had he or his supporters looked into the facts surrounding Mr. Lys’s claim, they would have found that only the names of write-in candidates who let the board of elections know about their aspirations appear on official results. Mr. Lys’s father had not told the board of elections that he was a candidate so it had no reason to report his name. This makes sense; as a board of elections official told The Star, “Like ‘Mickey Mouse,’ we don’t note that down.”

Mr. Gruber owes Mr. Lys an apology. Out of arrogance perhaps, he failed to walk back the negative message once it was understood to be false, in effect, still claiming that Mr. Lys was a liar. That Mr. Gruber did not insist that the claim be vetted in advance and then failed to take responsibility once it was shown to be wrong leads us to conclude that he would not be a trustworthy member of the town board. 

Fresh, line-caught tuna, a late-summer delight, has been coming across the Montauk docks lately. Looking through the photos on our Instagram feed lately, we have been thrilled by images from the fish markets of fat yellowfin and bigeyes lined up on ice or cut into sushi-grade slabs on stainless-steel tables. Tuna labeled “local” might be suspiciously ubiquitous on South Fork restaurant menus, but right now we can be assured of the real deal, not something flown in from a probably unsustainable fishery in the distant Pacific.

According to seafood ratings from Oceana and other environmental organizations, bigeye and yellowfin tuna from the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico are a responsible choice from an environmental perspective. These species landed elsewhere and by less-discriminating methods, such as drift longlining in the western and central Pacific, are considered poor choices. Sadly, the delicious and once abundant bluefin is a no-go on most organizations’ seafood charts.

Most seafood markets now announce the country of origin along with the price per pound, and with good reason. In most cases, local is always better. And at this time of year, for the grill or eaten raw, you can’t get more local than a Montauk tuna.