There is painful irony to the message that President Trump delivered Friday in Brentwood. Speaking to a group of police that included members of all of the East End departments, Mr. Trump ostensibly addressed the violent MS-13 gang. But he also told the officers and assembled police brass that they should feel free to rough up suspects. A White House spokeswoman has said that he intended the off-script comment as a joke. If it were a joke, it showed unfathomable insensitivity; if Ms. Trump was being serious, it showed what seems like criminal depravity.

Violent encounters with law enforcement are nothing new. In some situations, they are an unavoidable aspect of the job. But what is entirely unacceptable is for the president of the United States to promote the unlawful treatment of people in police custody. By doing that he placed himself among a regrettable fraternity of the world’s repressive leaders, including President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, whom he is said to admire, and Turkey’s dictatorial President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had a warm welcome in the Trump White House.

We find hope in the fact that many officers and police brass who reacted to Mr. Trump’s speech were alarmed. Though some in law enforcement here have been hesitant to speak out publicly, others, including the Boston, Los Angeles, and New York Police Departments, have issued statements reiterating their positions on the use of excessive force and decrying the president’s remarks.

At a moment when U.S. police have come under scrutiny for the shooting deaths of unarmed civilians, it is counterproductive for the president to condone violence. This is one reason why so many departments spoke out in opposition so quickly. Policing is difficult work. It should not have been made more difficult, especially among communities of color, by a thoughtless president’s incendiary remarks.

A minor accident in which a Bridgehampton fire truck responding to a call struck a passenger car near the intersection of Montauk Highway and Sagg Road on Monday should be a reminder to all motorists here to yield to emergency vehicles. It is not obvious from what we know so far who was at fault in the incident, but no one was hurt. Nonetheless, that something like this could involve so visible a piece of fire equipment suggests that other vehicles, like the personal ones used by fire and emergency medical volunteers to respond to a call, are less visible still.

Readers of The Star, we assume, know the meaning of the blue or green lights that signify a volunteer on his or her way to an emergency. Visitors accustomed to only official fire and E.M.S. vehicles may be mystified. The rule is that a driver should pull to the side of the road when one of these vehicles approaches; in reality this does not happen often enough.

Local officials have to think hard about how to get the word out. One obvious idea would be to place road signs reminding motorists to move right when they encounter a vehicle bearing a blue or green flashing light, as well as clear the way for marked ambulances and fire trucks. But that may not be enough. Luckily, social media and online advertising could be brought to bear. It would not be all that difficult — or expensive — for towns and fire districts to buy advertising space targeting searches such as “East Hampton vacation rentals” or “best Hamptons restaurants” to reach the transient audience. And posting on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook is free. All it will take is a little creative thinking.

No one method is going to be effective with everyone who uses the South Fork’s too-busy roads, but that is no excuse for officials not to try every tool at their disposal. Lives are, quite actually, at stake.

A recent P.S.A. from LTV

Fasten your seatbelts, here comes our annual editorial about beach bonfires. If you are among those who think it is still the 1970s, when the population was 9,000 and the number of summertime visitors maybe twice that, read no further. However, if you are among the majority, who understand that times have changed and that the pressures on public spaces have increased exponentially, and that the old rules no longer work as intended, we ask that you pay attention to what we have to say.

First, the problems: Popular bay and ocean beaches in both East Hampton Town and Village are too often left embarrassingly messy by the charcoal and log remains of bonfires. This is despite a relatively new law requiring them to be set only in metal containers, 50 feet from the dunes, put out only by water, and so on. The law has proven itself ineffectual; few visitors or even many residents seem to know about it, which is hardly surprising, given the impenetrable fine print on signs put up to inform the public. More proof? Town Marine Patrol and police officers issued 441 citations for improper beach fires in 2016. That is a staggering number, when you realize that the bonfire season is only about 90 days long.

Evidence of the law’s failings is everywhere. Beach Lane in Wainscott was dotted in a half-dozen places by fire remains on the sand when we checked a week ago. Charred wood had been placed in several locations behind a row of snow fence, and another pile of coals had been left dumped by the trash receptacles in the parking lot. We saw the same thing at Atlantic Avenue in Amagansett.

At Georgica Beach one morning this week, we counted three bonfire sites on the sand immediately to the west of the lifeguard stand, including one with its own jagged-stone fire ring, as well as coals and burned logs along the high tide line. It is more or less the same at beaches throughout town, although the situation in downtown Montauk and along Navy Road seems a little bit better this year, thanks perhaps to an increased Marine Patrol presence.

Second, possible solutions: One would be fire-debris receptacles at beaches of the sort seen in state and national parks. It was an oversight for officials to impose the metal-container rule without thinking through what the public was supposed to do with fire remains. Baffled, some people just pour everything into the surf or just leave everything for someone else to deal with.

Another solution, short of banning fires altogether, is to prohibit them within the areas of the beaches most used by swimmers and sunbathers. Off-leash dogs already are prohibited within 300 feet of road ends; it seems obvious that fires should not be allowed in the same zone. Given that officials have failed to make provisions for disposing of fire debris — and that compliance with existing rules is so poor — an exclusion area is a must. This could be easily and quickly imposed.

Failing new rules, town and village employees must be assigned to scour the shoreline on foot each morning between June and September, cleaning up the messes so that not one fragment of charcoal, wood, or other garbage remains.

East Hampton’s beaches are among its greatest charms and one of the main reasons people choose to visit and live here. They must be treated like the treasures they are and that starts with dealing with unsightly and dangerous fire remains.

Breitbart News, the arch-right website, helped set the tone some years ago when it posted a story headlined “Ten Reasons Why People Who Support Wind Farms Are Deluded, Criminal or Insane.” Brietbart is not alone; opposition to wind power is common among many on the right, who cite turbines’ wildlife-killing blades as a top concern, though at the same time they back gutting the Endangered Species Act and dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency. We noticed an op-ed this week in Newsday from a right-wing think tank decrying turbines’ blinking red lights at night and “harmful” noise levels. Would that were all we had to worry about as the planet rapidly warms.

Locally, it is difficult to figure out just which constituency here in East Hampton some Republican leaders and the party’s candidates for town board and trustee are trying to woo in their opposition to an offshore turbine project that would help meet Long Island’s growing power needs. Their statements against it may appeal to a certain pro-fossil fuel far-right audience, but at a time when the risks from anthropogenic climate change are becoming clearer, especially on the highly vulnerable East End, they risk being out of step with the times.

There is an extraordinary amount of negative nonsense out there about wind power. Opponents, many backed by the oil industry, say it is expensive or harmful or that it can change the climate itself. In fact, as far as electricity production goes, wind is competitively priced and has near-zero carbon emissions. Looking to the future, it is obvious that as fossil fuel supplies are used up, there will be more call for alternatives. Wind must be part of a shift to renewable energy if greenhouse gases are going to be controlled.

Certainly, concerns among inshore and offshore fishing interests about the placement of wind turbines and the delivery cables to land are legitimate and must be weighed. Deepwater Wind has proposed its offshore project in what is traditionally a productive fishing area; that may have to change. Also, the company may have to drop its original plan for an underwater transmission line in Gardiner’s Bay. Any flaws in its specific proposals, however, should not be allowed to subsume the general notion that reducing global warming will take an “all-of-the-above” approach, including a significant commitment to offshore wind.

East Hampton is in a crisis in which young adults, year-round workers, and ordinary residents struggle to find adequate housing they can afford. But the most recent town board discussion about housing involved temporary, portable units intended for Montauk’s seasonal, resort work force. Taking the proposal seriously is an unfortunate case of skewed priorities.

The median price for a house in East Hampton Town was a near-record $1.1 million in the first quarter of this year — four times the national average. That figure is the highest on the East End, and far beyond the means of most wage earners here. At the same time year-round rentals are few and expensive — with the supply being further limited by the astonishing growth of Airbnb and other online vacation accommodation services. 

For many, the lack of housing here leaves few choices. Those with jobs can stay with family or friends, find a reasonably priced illegal rental, travel daily to East Hampton from points west with commutes of up to an hour and a half when traffic is bad — or leave the area. Telecommuting is an option for some, but it is simply not viable as a long-term strategy, especially for those in the construction and service industries. Ask anyone who runs a business with midlevel, technically skilled, or management vacancies how hiring is going, and you will get a very discouraging picture. 

It is disappointing that the town board would spend its time on portable housing for seasonal workers, as it did on July 11. An owner of a trendy Montauk restaurant, the Grey Lady, took the concept to the board. Besides running the restaurant, Ryan Chadwick has a start-up that would provide modular, self-contained units on wheels that could be hauled away at the end of the season. There is sharp irony here — the tiny houses would go away just like the restaurant’s profits, its payments to food suppliers, and the lion’s share of the money paid to summertime staff. 

What makes Mr. Chadwick’s idea more troubling is that it would do nothing about unsafe and overcrowded low-end housing in Montauk unless there were an equal commitment on the town’s part to crack down on workers’ share houses and rundown motels occupied by the seasonal labor force. 

If anything, the town board should make housing for East Hampton’s existing residents and their young-adult children a priority. Officials should focus on our year-round commercial sector before responding to seasonal businesses of dubious local economic importance — many of which have brought problems upon themselves by expanding to require staff beyond those available locally.  In this, the town is complicit by failing to enforce effective limits on seating, in particular on bar and outdoor guest capacity. 

Real and lasting answers to East Hampton’s housing crisis are needed. Pop-up portable units for transitory laborers should not be even a small part of the solution.

With for all the world what looked like an eye on 2018 and a bid for higher office, Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone went for a bicycle ride recently in Southampton Village. The camera-ready event (Mr. Bellone eschewed his usual jacket and tie for a T-shirt) was to promote a countywide bike-sharing program, like the ubiquitous blue bicycles in parts of New York City.

Getting more people on bikes is a good idea, particularly in tandem with improved rail service that could help link workers with jobs. However, given lackluster efforts in the past for bike lanes and other safety measures, Mr. Bellone is getting out ahead of his handlebars.

Biking on the South Fork is nerve-racking. Its narrow roads often do not have shoulders and those that do may not have proper surfaces or adequate maintenance to keep two-wheelers safe. Sag Harbor Village is about the only municipality hereabouts that can boast bike lanes that are set off by clear boundaries, but, as if in a cruel joke, they just fade away at the village limit where Hampton Street becomes Route 114. 

It was not all that long ago that a young man just walking on the side of the road in East Hampton Town was killed, struck from behind on Old Stone Highway by a passing van. Less-serious accidents take place all the time, including one in Montauk just the other day in which a woman was knocked off her bicycle near the Catholic church after being struck by the mirror of a passing vehicle. That more incidents of this kind do not happen daily is a small miracle.

As Mr. Bellone and other elected officials start pushing more bike travel, they need to make sure there are safe places to pursue it. Handing out loaner bikes at train stations and similar locations, as envisioned, may make for great photo-ops, but it is premature. Wider roads, dedicated bike lanes, and clean and smooth pavement must come first.

About a year and a half ago, Jay Schneiderman was able to convince East Hampton Town officials that a mothballed restaurant at his family’s Breakers Motel in Montauk was, in fact, operational and that in any event the clock had run out on a neighbor’s attempt to prevent its reopening. 

Mr. Schneiderman is now the town supervisor in South­ampton, after having held that post some time ago in East Hampton Town, as well as having served on the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals. He runs the Breakers on the side with the help of his sister, Helen Ficalora. This month, they welcomed a new tenant to the property, Seamore’s Restaurant, a Brooklyn concern, with fresh seafood and a healthy dollop of dock-to-dish hyperbole. Expect the foodie-hipster scene to pop up in earnest at this Old Montauk Highway spot soon if it hasn’t already.

Mr. Schneiderman is hardly alone in profiting from adding on to existing properties in Montauk. The new owners of the Oceanside Beach Resort motel, now the inexplicably named Hero Beach Club, are trying to tack on an outdoor lounge area with food and drink service, and they have colonized a section of the nearby public beach with umbrellas and trendy seating. The Montauk Beach House, formerly the Ronjo Motel, blew up some time ago into a kind of swimming pool club; now it wants to get bigger still, with a tent on an adjacent lot for weekend events. 

The Surf Lodge, on Fort Pond, long a problem spot, recently obtained approval for outdoor capacity of more than 400 guests. Over on Second House Road, Ruschmeyer’s has been a source of great frustration for neighbors. Loud music outdoors at Sole East just down the road can sometimes be heard for miles. Another people-magnet, the Sloppy Tuna, with bands on the patio and banners towed by airplanes promoting daylong drunk-fests, is technically a restaurant. And the Montauk Manor is in the process of trying to win permission for an outdoor venue capable of serving hundreds of people. It is no wonder that Montauk is, uh, a wee bit crowded these days.

The evidence is plentiful that East Hampton Town is under­equipped to deal with requests like these. In the Breakers example, a lawyer pointed out that the town code failed to adequately define the word “exist,” leading to uncertainty over whether an observation that food had not been served in its restaurant for years mattered at all. Similarly lacking, it appears, is the will to do anything about commercial establishments that grow into something bigger. Take, for another example, EMP Summerhouse less than a mile away from Town Hall, where outdoor seating appears to exceed the property’s capacity under earlier incarnations. Nor, too, has anyone in Town Hall been brave enough to publicly link traffic, drunken driving, litter, and other issues to all of this excess. We wonder what it will take for someone in power to just say, “Enough!”

As for Mr. Schneiderman, as a public official with long experience in two towns, the fact that he is willing to enrich himself by adding to the Montauk mayhem is regrettable. If anything, he should have been the one setting an example of restraint.

A stunning juncture occurred Tuesday afternoon when Representative Lee Zeldin broke with the Trump administration over links between the president’s family and individuals with ties to the Russian government who were thought to have damaging information about Hillary Clinton. 

Following the release of an email chain in which the Russian connection was made clear, Mr. Zeldin’s remark, on Twitter, called a meeting that Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, attended a “big no-no.”

In an email, the younger Mr. Trump was told that “high level and sensitive information” came from “Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”

“If it’s what you say I love it,” the younger Mr. Trump responded.

Mr. Zeldin’s reaction is especially notable because he was among the first members of Congress to endorse Donald J. Trump’s bid for the Republican nomination.

As more has become known about the emails and the meeting that followed, a number of political and law enforcement observers have said the right thing for Donald Trump Jr. to have done was to alert the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which he did not do. 

As a lawyer who served in the Army in the Judge Advocate General Corps, Mr. Zeldin would seem to know damning evidence when he hears it. As a stalwart supporter of the Trump candidacy, he was able to countenance hateful and divisive rhetoric, so his recent turnabout is remarkable. It is interesting to realize that, though Mr. Zeldin was early to join the Trump camp, he also seems quicker on the trigger than many of his fellow Republicans in Congress to have begun to turn on the Trumps.

The East Hampton School Board will want to carefully consider a residents’ group apparent offer of $2 million to help the district buy a parcel on Springs-Fireplace Road for a school bus parking and service facility. It should also try to be more flexible about the bus depot question in general; so far the board has been somewhat inexplicably attached to a plan for a site it already owns at Cedar Street.

People who live on Cedar Street and in its vicinity are right to be concerned about the board’s desire to build a new bus facility there. The street, a shortcut around East Hampton Village, is already overburdened with traffic, and it is narrow. Unlike Route 114, where the district’s buses are serviced and parked on rented commercial property, and even Long Lane, where the high school’s main entrance is, Cedar Street does not have shoulders. Adding bus traffic at its intersections with Robert’s Lane and Hand’s Creek Road all the way to North Main Street would not be a particularly good idea.

Springs-Fireplace Road, where town-owned property is under consideration for a bus depot, should be carefully studied, although, to be honest, it is not all that much better. 

The depot would be on a busy stretch of road that is already overloaded with commercial traffic and poorly designed development. Nevertheless, it would be preferable and have far fewer significant ripple effects than the Cedar Street site.

One option that has not had enough attention is whether the district might find a way to put the bus entrance and exit on the Long Lane side of the high school campus. Certainly there is enough land for this, and the road is already used daily by buses during the school year. This might require a traffic light or four-way stop at Long Lane and Stephen Hand’s Path, but, given that the area is already difficult to navigate, some kind of solution is probably called for.

Almost the whole bus problem can be traced to previous school board decisions. Led by the district superintendent some years ago, the board chose to take over student transportation from a private company without really exploring private bus service obtained through competitive bidding. The situation has in some ways been a comedy of errors ever since.

If the board is wise about it now and tries to work with the community rather than butt heads with it, a solution good for everyone is possible. It will take work, however, and require that every board member keep an open mind about how to get from here to real, long-term answers.

The path forward for owners at the Montauk Shores Condominium at Ditch Plain, better known as the Trailer Park, got clouded recently when East Hampton Town took a hard line on wastewater there. The problems underscore a growing belief that our current environmental laws are inadequate and, in some cases, have not been enforced or were ignored with impunity for a long time.

Septic systems have been in the news. East Hampton Town and Suffolk County officials are doing all they can to push nitrogen-reducing technology. And East Hampton voters last fall okayed tapping the community preservation fund for up to 20 percent of the annual tax on real estate sales for mostly unspecified water protection efforts. There also has been talk about improving the Springs School District’s inadequate waste system — and even whether the preservation fund could be put to use there. 

At Montauk Shores, the pressure is on to do something fast. According to the Planning Department, the present septic system there can handle about 26,500 gallons of wastewater a day, while the peak flow from the existing housing might exceed 43,000 gallons a day. At a recent zoning board of appeals meeting no one said exactly where that excess goes, but the implication is that it can’t be good. 

Anecdotally, surfers who frequent the popular Trailer Park break in front of Montauk Shores talk about ear infections and other curious maladies after being in the water there during the height of the summer. This may not be related to the condominium’s inadequate waste system, as the groundwater is thought to flow roughly north, toward Lake Montauk, and not into the ocean. It is perhaps not coincidental that nearby South Lake, once a popular bathing beach for families with small children, has been closed to swimming over bacteria concerns for years.

At a June 27 hearing, the zoning board told a man seeking to remove his Montauk Shores trailer and replace it with a significantly larger unit that he would have to wait until the park replaced its septic system. This news may bring action in the newly boho-chic neighborhood to a crashing halt. It also serves as a reminder that it and many other densely developed properties in Montauk are an invisible environmental threat. Much credit is due to the Planning Department and zoning board for finally bringing this underground crisis to light.