On the eve of the Hamptons International Film Festival, a rumor that the East Hampton movie theater was going to be no more tore through town with notable speed. Facebook was alight with variations on a story that a developer had plans to remove the screens and turn the site over to retail. Calls to the theater, now owned by the Regal Entertainment Group, as well as to the corporate office, were answered by plausible denials. 

Think what you might about the first-run Hollywood fare that the East Hampton theater serves up most of the year, the movie house remains important in the cultural scene here. Summertime movie-going is part of the annual ritual of many part-time residents, as is taking the kids to see something appropriate on a bleak winter’s day when there is absolutely nothing else to do.

For a discerning audience, the East Hampton Regal really comes alive during the film festival. For 25 years, the theater has been the hub of this fall highlight, with quite a number of Academy Award-nominated and winning films among the titles that have been there. Without the cinema’s five central screens, the festival would have a decidedly lower profile and ticket buyers far less enthusiastic.

There is no escaping the reality that times are tougher for movie theater operators than they once were. Attendance is at a two-decade low as more people use on-demand streaming services at home — and now technological advances may allow ordinary audiences to slip into virtual reality goggles wherever and whenever they please.

There still is nothing quite like the sensation of taking in a movie in a big, dark room with a crowd of strangers, and the smell of popcorn in the air as the opening credits roll. This experience will keep movie theaters in the picture for the foreseeable future. There still is no substitute for the big screen.

No indication has been forthcoming about what caused the deaths of three, possibly four, dolphins found washed ashore along the ocean here and another discovered in distress in Three Mile Harbor. Whether or not a definitive cause of death is determined, the fact that several dolphins ended up separately over a relatively wide stretch of the East Hampton coastline in the space of a few days is cause for concern. 

Dolphins, like other marine mammals, are protected by federal law. They were here frequently during the summer, feeding on schools of menhaden, or bunker, often very close to shore. Chasing bait along the beach could have had something to do with the recent deaths; speculation among some observers has centered on commercial gill-netters, who have been working in the area in recent years. However, simple proximity does not make a case, and it would be wise to wait for an official report.

All may not be as fine in the ocean here as it appears. Humpback whales also were spotted during a several-week period this summer, feeding, like the dolphins, on the bunker schools. In the frenzy, some people saw nature’s miracle, signs of health and abundance. However, that may well have been wrong, at least as far as the whales are concerned.

According to researchers, disruptions among prey species in the Gulf of Maine caused by rapidly warming ocean water have forced hungry whales to migrate away from their usual feeding areas. These movements have put them increasingly at risk of strikes by ships. 

The critically endangered right whale population has lost 15 of its approximately 450 remaining individuals since April. Other kinds of whales suffered as well — including 53 humpbacks known to have died in about a year and a half, which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration described as an “unusual mortality event.” A depressing account appeared in a recent Science section of The New York Times, linking shifts in the food that whales depend on to increased accidental killings.

Now it appears that the whales, which thrilled many South Fork beachgoers this summer, might have been a sign of a planet out of balance. The dolphins’ appearance here does not seem right, either. We may never know what caused their deaths, but it should remind us to keep a close eye on the sea — and to continue to press for action to reverse the climate trends that are putting both humankind and the wild world at risk.

The East Hampton Village Trustees appear willing to listen to ideas about how to lessen leaf-blower noise. However, as the board considers what primarily is an annoyance, it should also think about a safety problem on village streets — massive landscaping trailers parked in the lanes of travel as workers tend to adjacent properties.

It seems as if the number and size of landscaping trucks and trailers have grown with every season. Officials look the other way when they are left on narrow streets, often in no-parking zones, forcing passing vehicles into the oncoming lanes, especially in the estate sections of the village. 

Unlike officially permitted roadwork or tree trimming, for which the law requires workers to be stationed to direct traffic, these mowers and hedge clipping crews disappear from view the moment their trucks stop. The practice is a clear hazard and arguably illegal: New York traffic law prohibits leaving vehicles unattended in state rights of way; village law allows temporary stops for loading and unloading only.

Not all that long ago, a landscape worker lost his legs here when a passing vehicle squeezed him against a trailer he had left parked in a traffic lane. Pedestrians and bicyclists are similarly at risk, as they move around these obstructions. 

Oddly enough, village police are quick to ticket personal vehicles parked in the roadway, but not so commercial vehicles, which present far more of a hazard. The message is: Don’t try this at home, though it’s okay for the folks who mow your lawn.

Left to their own devices and without bother from law enforcement, landscapers have doubled down, using ever-larger equipment and not trying to back into clients’ driveways even when there is adequate space. Of course, their clients might share some of the blame; many have illegally blocked off public portions of the shoulders or grassed margins of the roads, where work vehicles might otherwise pull off safely. The bottom line is that the fact alone that a truck that is too big to park properly does not give its operator the liberty to leave it wherever he or she wants. 

It is fine that the village might want to do something about the noise from leaf blowers, but officials should not ignore the ultimately more serious problem with the trucks that carry them. 

Called the most important fish in the sea, menhaden, or bunker in local parlance, put in a great show this summer. Bluefish and striped bass feasted on their rich and oily flesh. Several species of sharks took wild swipes at their schools. And whales, dolphins, and osprey got in the act, too, putting on spectacular shows within easy view of the ocean beach. 

But all is not entirely well with menhaden. They remain an important commercial catch with at least one industrial-size company targeting them all along the Atlantic Coast and into the Gulf of Mexico. Fisheries managers, noting their abundance, are considering revising harvest rules that would allow greater harvests. This is a risky proposition.

Promised Land and the area around Napeague Harbor in Amagansett were once the site of an impressive concentration of fish-processing plants. The last, the Smith Meal Company, moved on after the hauls diminished, shutting its giant boilers for good in the late 1960s. 

Many local people had been employed in bunker fishing’s heyday, and scores of others came seasonally from coastal Virginia and other places to round out the crews. The smell of the steaming fish was, to put it mildly, astonishing and never to be forgotten by those who endured it; the nearest houses to the plants were never any closer than a half-mile away, and woe be their inhabitants when the wind shifted.

As eaters of tiny marine organisms, menhaden tend to stay close to shore where warm, shallow water favors the growth of plankton. Boaters and those lucky enough to fly overhead in small aircraft during the summer recognize their dense schools by their reddish purple hue. These schools once made them relatively easy to catch with purse seines, and the fish’s numbers plummeted by the time their large-scale processing ended in the Northeast. That it has taken decades for them to rebound as much as they have is one of the mysteries of the deep.

It is not just other fish, marine mammals, and birds that benefit from healthy menhaden stocks; many commercial fisheries are built on the species that favor them as food. And menhaden are like candy for striped bass, among the most highly prized recreational fish. It need almost not be stated that the fall bass run here is a cherished tradition, one with measurable economic benefits. 

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is accepting comment until Oct. 20 on an amendment that could protect up to three-quarters of the menhaden through new catch limits. This is an important step to protect not just the menhaden but an entire ecosystem that depends on them.

In the aftermath of the horrifying gun deaths and hundreds of injuries in an attack at a Nevada music festival on Sunday, one question for those of us in New York’s First Congressional District is what to make of the $9,900 Representative Lee Zeldin took from the National Rifle Association last year. In receiving that sum, just short of the $10,000 limit on aggregate contributions, Mr. Zeldin was tied with an upstate Republican as the member of the New York delegation receiving the most from the group. 

In all, Mr. Zeldin has accepted $14,850 from the N.R.A. since his first congressional run, the most of any sitting New York representative, and he has earned its A rating as a solidly pro-gun candidate who has reliably supported N.R.A. positions on key votes. New York State’s senators, Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, have not been among those receiving its largess and have gotten its lowest marks in recent election cycles. 

As to the matter of whether the money and ratings matter, it appears that they do, at least in Mr. Zeldin’s case. In one example, he was among those in Congress who blocked a bill that would have made it easier for law enforcers to block individuals on terror-watch or no-fly lists from legally buying guns. When he was a member of the New York State Senate, he opposed a bill that would have expanded the limits on assault weapons and created higher hurdles for the mentally ill who sought firearms. 

Such is the record across the roster of Republicans in Congress, who have consistently blocked meaningful gun control. It is doubtful that their views will change even now, after the attack in Las Vegas, and gun buyers will still be able to amass arsenals far beyond any legitimate use for hunting or target practice. 

  As voters in New York’s First Congressional District look to 2018, Mr. Zeldin’s record of opposing sensible gun rules should and undoubtedly will be an important factor in making their choices.

While we were thinking about leaf blowers, we learned that East Hampton Town’s elected officials may be about to reinstitute free leaf pickup service in some form or other. This is an exciting prospect for residents, many of whom sorely missed the old program after it was eliminated in 2011.

Taxes were the explanation when the town board did away with leaf pickup, though there was also a bit of politics at play as well. Up until then, Highway Department workers had made regular rounds in the fall, vacuuming up piles of leaves left at the roadside. Positions for and against the program were generally divided along party lines, with Democrats urging that pickup continue and Republicans, pushing personal responsibility and fiscal restraint, saying it should be ended.

Now, because much of the equipment has languished and been left to rust, the price for returning to the approach of years past is thought to be too great. Instead, officials, including Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc and Highway Superintendent Steve Lynch, favor a bag system like the one in Southampton Town.

Southampton’s program works this way: Residents can buy biodegradable paper bags at a number of hardware and grocery stores. They fill them with leaves and leave them by the side of the road during announced collection periods. Each street is checked for bags once in the fall and once in the spring, no more. Outside of these collection opportunities, Southampton residents can take bags of leaves year round  to town transfer stations without charge. Hardship exceptions are available, allowing older or disabled residents to leave loose leaves at the side of the road for town collection.

Southampton’s approach is considered a success and seems like something that could work here. East Hampton is a smaller town, and since existing Highway Department trucks could be used to haul the bags, start-up costs would be minimal. The idea should receive serious consideration.

Conventional wisdom might be that a bitter primary only benefits the opposing political party, but following a surprisingly lively battle between supporters of Zachary Cohen and Jeffrey Bragman for a Democratic slot on the East Hampton Town Board ballot in November, that assumption could use some rethinking. 

Judging from many letters to the editor and even more sharply worded road signs calling him out for this or that, Mr. Cohen clearly irritated some of the people on the political scene here. The barroom brawl was hardly one-sided: Mr. Bragman took some hard hits of his own, aimed at his role in the long-ago Shadmoor development deal and in arguing against the construction of a children’s wing at the East Hampton Library. 

The case for Mr. Cohen’s challenge, however, was never sufficiently clear, certainly not obvious enough for him to pull off what would have been an upset. Mr. Cohen successfully petitioned after failing to receive the Democratic Committee’s endorsement, but primary voters tend to be the party faithful and perhaps the outcome was preordained. 

We read Tuesday’s result this way: Even though he put up good numbers, none of Mr. Cohen’s surrogates’ punches directed at Mr. Bragman landed with enough force. This may be bad news for the Republican supervisor and town board candidates, two of whom are virtually unknown to voters, and one is embroiled in a messy lawsuit in which his own ethical compass could be an issue. 

The problem for the Republicans is that Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, Tuesday’s top vote-getter who will run for a second time for town board, and Mr. Bragman have had their names before voters in advertising, lawn signs, news stories, a debate, and on social media for weeks. Negative or positive, there has not been equal attention paid to their challengers.

A functional democracy requires strong opposition. Waiting for the Democrats to self-destruct in the primary might have been part of a deliberate Republican strategy, but the G.O.P. candidates must now work overtime to catch up by Nov. 7. Getting themselves better known is something they will need to tackle head-on if they are to mount a credible bid on Election Day.

Incredible devastation has been the story of the 2017 hurricane season. With two Category 5 storms making landfall in the Caribbean, the period has been improbable, at least in terms of the historical record. Yet researchers have been saying for some time that years like this were possible, if not likely, as the oceans rapidly warm thanks to climate change.

The world’s oceans have gotten steadily warmer since the Industrial Revolution. And while the difference from one decade to another might not be enough to notice if you dip your toe into the sea, modest shifts over such a vast scale can have profound impacts on weather. The argument is that as seas and atmosphere get warmer, more water vapor is drawn into hurricanes, potentially making them larger, more powerful, and more destructive.

Hurricane Harvey was called a 1-in-1,000-years event, but because it was fueled by a Gulf of Mexico already affected by climate change, the rains that flooded Houston and its surroundings may well have been made worse by global warming.

Looking forward, powerful storms will become more frequent. At the same time, as sea level rises, hurricanes and other extreme coastal weather events will roll in on a much higher plane. One climate scientist we spoke to described it as akin to a slowly rising basketball court, “Given enough time, even guys like me will be able to dunk.”

Despite what has been said about future weather, public policy has been slow to respond. Starting at the top, President Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord, now leaving the United States and Syria as the only nations not part of that agreement. At the village and town level, local governments are unable to say no to unwise development in vulnerable low-lying areas and are doubling down on infrastructure improvements in places where retreat from the shore is the only sensible path. In the middle, there are the states that can find the money to build bridges but not to aggressively deal with long-term risks on the coasts.

This week, as Hurricane Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico, leaving what is now called a humanitarian crisis, passed off Long Island, another storm, Lee, reformed in the Atlantic. It was only a matter of days after Category-5 Hurricane Irma’s raging path across the Caribbean and South Florida.

Whether or not these storms can be directly tied to climate change, scientists say the trend is clear: More powerful hurricanes will be the inevitable result of a warmer ocean. Appreciation of the danger ahead must guide land-use policy on the East End.

A well-attended formal dedication of a pollinator garden at the East Hampton Historical Farm Museum on Sunday was a fitting tribute to the late Matthew Lester, the East Hampton High School student and Eagle Scout candidate who conceived it. But the event, which included lunch for 300 people, live music, speeches, and a brief ceremony, demonstrated that a new and important town square is available here.

The relatively new farm museum occupies a roughly three-acre site purchased in 2005 using $2.1 million from the East Hampton Town community preservation fund. Exhibits about agrarian life of a century ago fill the 1770s Jonathan Barnes house on the property, and a restored 1800s barn has a collection of agricultural implements. Near Matthew Lester’s garden at this time of year, bees buzz in and out of a hive. A few old fruit trees stand by. 

While the museum is still defining its mission, the property itself shows tremendous promise. On Sunday, dozens of cars and trucks — even a Springs fire truck — were guided by volunteers to parking spaces on the grass. Almost the town’s entire stock of wooden picnic tables, a long buffet of roast turkey, corn, potatoes, and other things, were set up, along with some 70 donated pies. And still there was plenty of room to walk around or listen to the musicians who took turns performing between the wide-open barn doors.

It is difficult to think of another location in East Hampton Town where so large a gathering could be more easily accommodated, particularly one with minimal disruption of passing traffic. With accesses on both North Main and Cedar Streets, it seemed that vehicles could come and go with relative ease, while guests enjoyed an afternoon of unmistakable community spirit. That this site seems ideal for such events could not have been missed by those in attendance. We hope to see many more days like this. As time goes by this preservation fund purchase may prove to be among the town’s most treasured places.

The question on Election Day will be whether Albany could get any worse. New York voters will be asked on Nov. 7 to approve or reject a proposition that would trigger a constitutional convention, which could potentially revise state government completely. Support for the measure is divided along party lines, with conservatives generally urging against it and liberals saying yes. But thinking about the proposition in terms of ideological goals without considering the realities of how the process would work would be a mistake.

If voters agree to the possible rewriting of the State Constitution, a convention would be organized for the spring of 2019. Three delegates from each State Senate district would be elected, along with 15 at-large delegates. Once the convention got going, the delegates could throw out the entire State Constitution, pick and choose some portions to change, or even do nothing at all. Any revisions would have to be taken to the voters for ultimate approval.

A central argument in favor of a constitutional convention is that anticorruption efforts have failed in Albany and that the delegates might propose tough measures that would never make it through the State Legislature. Advocates also say that new rules, such as allowing early voting, would strengthen public participation in government and that a “bill of rights” could further protect access to abortion at a time when the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are assaulting it. The convention could also break New York governors’ death grip on the budget process and some judgeships, and return more power to New York City officials. The State Constitution has not been updated since 1938, and some consider that enough reason for a yes vote.

Opposition comes not just from the right, but from many elected officials on the center and left who worry that union labor rights and pensions might be undermined. Some Republicans worry that a convention could shift the state even further toward liberal ideas. Firearms groups are concerned that anti-gun provisions might gain ground. Environmentalists say that important protections could be lost, depending on who the delegates are and how much pressure might be put on them to trade away existing rules.

Important for eastern Long Island voters to consider is who would represent them should a constitutional convention be called. Senator Kenneth P. LaValle, a Republican, has represented District One, which extends from Montauk to Port Jefferson, since 1976. It is safe to assume that the delegates elected to attend the convention from this district would be aligned with his views. However, they almost certainly would end up being drawn from the populous western end of the region, and not necessarily act in the East End’s best interest.

Odds are that the vote on Proposition One will fail, as did a similar proposition when the matter was last on the ballot, in 1997. As voters think about the issue, they should ask themselves to what degree they would trust those sitting for a constitutional convention to get it right. If the process is just an extension of how things are in state government now, the answer might well be not very much.