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.

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

With the pending $2.1-million purchase of a parcel of land on Three Mile Harbor, East Hampton Town is moving ahead to consolidate its shellfish hatcheries in a single location. Right now, the Montauk hatchery occupies a site on Fort Pond Bay, where water conditions are less than ideal for breeding clams, oysters, and scallops. An argument, too, is that a portion of each year’s crop of young shellfish dies while being transferred to grow-out spots; the Three Mile Harbor location, closer than Montauk to several seeding grounds, would result in lower mortality. 

In all, the project to consolidate the shellfish hatcheries would cost about $5 million, with about a fifth of the money coming from the town’s community preservation fund.

Bringing the shellfish program under one umbrella makes sense and would appear to be money well spent. However, Councilman Jeffrey Bragman argued recently that the project was moving ahead faster than advisable, given its sensitive environmental nature. If correct, Mr. Bragman points to a go-fast approach in Town Hall that extends not only to hatcheries but other things. According to Mr. Bragman, the project emerged fully formed from the backrooms without going through the usual planning hoops. Among them is the State Environmental Quality Review Act, or SEQRA, which requires detailed analysis before anything that can affect natural habitats goes ahead. He called the town board’s Aug. 2 approval of a grant application for the new hatchery “patently illegal.”

Once upon a time, East Hampton Town demanded strict SEQRA analysis, based on a set of specific criteria, for almost all large and midsize projects. While court decisions have whittled away at the law, it remains in effect and is binding — even on local governments. 

The State Environmental Quality Review Act was passed by the Legislature in 1975, during the height of the modern environmental movement and only a few years after the federal Clean Water Act went in to effect. The goal of SEQRA is simple — assuring that the probable effects on the natural world and drinking water supplies of any regulated activity be balanced with economic and social factors. But many town projects these days are improperly deemed of no significance, among these and most notably the downtown Montauk sandbag fiasco.

The town board cannot look past SEQRA, even if this particular project will in the end have salutary benefits for water quality. East Hampton residents are fortunate to have an experienced lawyer and proven environmental advocate on the town board in Mr. Bragman. The leaders with whom he shares the dais should begin paying a bit more attention.

There are some places that people just shouldn’t go. This notion came to mind as we read about one man’s quest to assert public access on Cartwright Island, a low sliver of sand at the southern extremis of Gardiner’s Island. Whether Cartwright is part of the 3,300-acre private island or under town — or more likely state — jurisdiction is not really the question. Indeed, a proper title search of the 1630s documents in which the then Isle of Wight, or Manchonake, was granted to Lion Gardiner by the Earl of Stirling, would take far more rigorous study than an amateur armchair analysis.

It should be noted that the original deed to the island is weather-beaten by age and missing portions of the text. Nevertheless, it predates the establishment of East Hampton Town and town trustee authority, so assumptions about public access based on later grants from the crown, such as the 1686 Dongan Patent, do not necessarily apply.

Even if it were determined that Cartwright, which in some years does not exist at all, particularly after hard winter storms, is not part of Gardiner’s Island, it is clear that because of its fragility and importance as a bird nesting and fledging place, it should remain off-limits to the public.

There is a kind of avaricious quality to human nature; we feel we must leave our mark everywhere. A sand-spit island easily accessible by boat or kayak is tempting to explore. But it is important to realize that places like this are important to species other than our own. New York State includes Cartwright Island on its inventory of Gardiner’s Island’s near-uniquely pristine coastal habitats, describing it as “an extremely rare ecosystem.”

Roseate terns, which are listed as nationally endangered, have been observed nesting intermittently there. The threatened least terns, now making a halting comeback, also use Gardiner’s Island’s sand spits to hatch their young. The state notes that terns are highly vulnerable to human disturbance during the breeding season, which runs from about May 1 to Aug. 15 — right when curious, if unthinking, boaters would most want to picnic, or let their children, or almost unimaginably their dogs, run wild there. 

But it is not just the terns for which Cartwright is important. Double-breasted cormorants spread their wings to dry on Cartwright Island. Black skimmers hunt there at dawn, their huge lower bills slicing through the water to scoop up spearing. 

Just because we can doesn’t always mean we should. Cartwright is the kind of place that should be left to the birds.

Locals here, as in similar places like Cape Cod or Nantucket, often view visitors “from away” with dread or derision, but this year we have been grateful that several South Fork cultural institutions have highlighted the work of artists from very far away indeed. It is a critical time to be thankful for a multicultural and multiethnic harvest like the one that has blossomed on the East End arts scene this summer — in words, music, visual art.

For its 35th anniversary, the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival has a “Destination America” theme. Its series of concerts, which continues through Aug. 19, is “presenting and framing music by composers who came to this country for reasons both creative and otherwise.” They include immigrants fleeing oppression, such as Igor Stravinsky, and the descendants of slaves or immigrants, including William Grant Still, Aaron Copland, and Leonard Bernstein. On Monday at the Parrish Art Museum, the festival presented a concert to celebrate the museum’s permanent collection of American art, portions of which were also created by émigrés or their immediate descendants. Taking part in a festival concert celebrating Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn, not one of the musicians, including the festival’s founder, Marya Martin, was born in the United States, but all make their home here.

Guild Hall’s Guitar Masters series in July imported world-renowned musicians such as Bodi Assad from Brazil and David Broza from Israel, as well as Richard Thompson and Andy Summers from England. The astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who has a house here, was also on the John Drew Theater calendar, as was Questlove, the percussionist and producer, who visits here from his home in Philadelphia.

Also, through October, the Parrish is presenting an exhibition of works from Barthelemy Toguo, a Cameroonian artist who lives in Paris. He has transformed a space in the museum into an African street cafe. In another gallery, he has installed a life-size boat filled with bags made from African fabrics and placed on a sea of glass bottles that highlights the precarious journeys of those seeking exile. The museum’s “Road Show” artists include Jeremy Dennis, whose Shinnecock lineage makes him the most native of all Americans, and Esly E. Escobar, a Guatemalan-born and Westhampton-raised artist.

Mr. Toguo began this art project at the Watermill Center, which for years has been attracting international artists from far-flung nations to its residency program. These artists’ visions are freely intermingled with their domestic counterparts’ efforts in the center’s annual summer benefit and Discover Watermill Days (Sunday), where their installations and performances are presented side by side, blending together.

This is just a casual accounting of those events we have taken notice of; there are many more. There hardly has been a moment in American history, except perhaps the period following the Civil War, when it was more necessary to build bridges — not walls — and to celebrate differences and common experiences through cultural exchange. Art is a space in which we can fully engage as global citizens, and, at its best, it reminds us that we are all in this together.