A Montauker of our acquaintance told us this week about a low point in her Memorial Day weekend. “I made the mistake of going into town at 1 on Saturday,” she said. “How was it?” we asked. “Hell,” she said.

Think about that for a minute. A long-term taxpaying resident views a trip to the business district as a descent into the abyss. Okay, well, for sure there are worse things, but looked at in the abstract, the fact that Montauk’s downtown is an overcrowded mess represents a profound failure of town government to manage growth. 

East Hampton Town officials are in the process of creating studies for each of the hamlets’ business districts. One for Montauk will be presented at the Montauk Firehouse tomorrow at 7 p.m. Anyone interested has been invited to attend to hear what the consultants have to say about shopping, parks, and the like. Whether anyone will want to address the fact that Montauk is too crowded and that the summer resort scene has gotten out of hand remains to be seen, but that should be at the top of the agenda.

There seems some kind of collective delusion at work in East Hampton Town along the lines that because having money is good, having more of it is more good. As the region struggles with noise, pollution, traffic, and additional demands for police, though, that arithmetic must be called into question. 

People should not have to hear themselves calling their hometown hell, even on Memorial Day weekend. Town Hall, and the candidates for town office, are you listening?

The East Hampton Chamber of Commerce’s first street fair, held on May 20 on Newtown Lane, was, by most accounts, a great success. Hundreds of year-round residents and visitors alike strolled the street to stop at booths set up by artists, nonprofits, artisans, and others in an event that ran from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Based on the warm reception the fair received, the chamber can be expected to seek to organize it again in the future. 

If there was one complaint, however, it was about the fair’s location. Laid out along the center of the several hundred yards of pavement from Main Street to the Reutershan parking lot entrance, the booths drew attention away from the facades of Newtown Lane’s shops and may have dissuaded some would-be retail customers from coming to the village. Usual Saturday sales were off in some cases.

The suggestion has been made that in the future, the fair be placed in another location, perhaps farther up Newtown Lane in front of the middle school. We disagree. The sense of community and good will that the street fair created would be diminished in a more remote location, even a block farther away from the Main Street intersection. The number of random visitors who happen upon it while headed east or west on Route 27 would be diminished as well. And the remarkably festive feeling of being in a normally busy street would be difficult to capture in any other location, or even midweek, as some have suggested.

As for the retailers along Newtown Lane, at a future fair they could make more of an effort to get in on the action, laying out sale items or handing out free promotional swag to promote good will and build brand recognition. Those business owners who are not members of the chamber of commerce might take the opportunity to join and make any opposing views heard instead of sniping after the fact.

Considering that Newtown Lane is a public street, that the village board, as the public’s representative, backed the fair in the first place, and that attendance was stellar, it should be allowed to return.

A story in The Star last week about the Montauk Observatory got us thinking about the number of opportunities here for getting in touch with nature. The observatory, now about to be operational at the Ross School in East Hampton, offers the farthest reach: a powerful telescope that can be booked remotely to view distant celestial objects over the internet. Organizations like the East Hampton Trails Preservation Society have free woodland hikes every weekend. The South Fork Natural History Museum has programs that help adults and children get close to some of the region’s smallest and most mysterious inhabitants, such as salamanders and elusive shoreline creatures. There are also many others.

We are blessed on the South Fork with a relative abundance of parks and preserved open spaces. The miles of untrammeled beaches provide overwhelming access to nature. Whether in an organized outing or on one’s own, we urge you to get outside this summer, and enjoy it.

Truer words about global warming and sea level rise have rarely, if ever, been uttered in connection with what East Hampton Town government is facing: “Literally, the shape of our town is going to change. We’re better off having a plan.” The speaker was Jeremy Samuelson, who is leading a new effort to come to grips with what lies ahead. 

What lies ahead looks bad. According to New York State’s most conservative estimate, the bays and oceans will rise by 1.3 feet by 2050. This is enough for Napeague Harbor to expand to Route 27, for example, potentially cutting off Montauk and leading to significant questions about how to replace inundated infrastructure. What will remain of high land along Gerard Drive at Accabonac Harbor would be a pair of islands. Erosion nearly everywhere along the beaches will only further exacerbate the tension between protecting private properties with bulkheads and the inevitable loss of public beaches that would result.

So far, the coastal policies of governments the length of Long Island have been inadequate. Though a number, East Hampton Town included, enacted so-called local waterfront revitalization plans, they were drafted years before much was known about human-caused climate change. Making matters worse, when it came to using applicable state laws to enforce the towns’ and villages’ waterfront plans, Albany largely failed to do so.

What will set East Hampton Town’s pending “coastal assessment resiliency plan” apart remains to be seen. Certainly, the need to begin thinking differently about both new development and existing houses and businesses already in harm’s way is evident. Those involved in the town’s new effort warn that more attention will need to be given to bay and harbor areas, many of which are at far lower elevation than sites along the ocean. In all, it is an alarming picture.

Given what is known now about its exposure, East Hampton Town should be at the forefront of progressive thinking about how to deal with the changes sea level rise will bring. We hope the resiliency plan now being considered is the first step in a new direction

A proposal being worked on by East Hampton Town officials to clarify the law on outdoor seating at restaurants has caused confusion. The misunderstanding seems to have come from those who are unfamiliar with how the process of revising the town code works and who misread a draft described at a May 2 town board meeting by NancyLynn Thiele, a town attorney, which had been circulated to stimulate discussion. Steve Haweeli, the president of the East Hampton Chamber of Commerce, has been sounding the alarm and has urged restaurant owners and their staffs to attend a June 1 hearing.

The draft repeats a provision in the current law that allows up to 30 percent of a restaurant’s seating capacity to be outside, pending an okay from the fire marshal’s office. The change proposed is to set up a process by which restaurants could have even more seating outdoors by obtaining site plan approval from the planning board and meeting County Health Department and parking requirements.

That said, the town really did blow the roll-out. For example, a section about waiting areas for restaurant patrons was ambiguous and led to un-called-for panic even though the intent behind it was sensible. Also, the attorneys should have circulated a draft early on to the town business committee, whose members might have noticed this and made other valuable suggestions. 

Contrary to the assumption of the worst, the draft is actually intended as an orderly way for restaurants to gain outdoor tables and chairs. There is plenty of time for restaurant owners to get their views heard, beginning at the June 1 hearing. In the meantime, those who would be affected by changes in the law should take a more careful look at what Ms. Thiele had to say.

By the time this edition of The Star is in your hands, the South Fork will have undergone its annual transformation from slow-moving suburb by the beach to frenetic resort. As if from nowhere, the overnight population of East Hampton will jump from the low 20,000s to, by some estimates, 100,000. Roads and restaurants will fill up. The line for bagels will be long and tense. Inevitably, someone will overhear someone at the supermarket huff, “The locals should shop during the week.” Those of us who live here year round will turn to one another and say, “This is the worst I have ever seen it.”

So what is one to do when the hordes roll into town? Well, some of us hide, bidding friends goodbye until September. Others, who have no choice or are willing to brave the onslaught, venture forth into the maelstrom, wearing “Local!” T-shirts and expressions of grim determination as a sailor wears foul-weather gear.

Someone years ago thought he had the answer and had a large number of buttons made with an exhortation to all to be nice. If they made a difference that summer, we cannot say. The sentiment was commendable, though, and worth embracing. 

Folks from away, feeling the pressure of the clock ticking on their three precious days of holiday, will be on edge this weekend; those of us lucky enough to stick around after Monday will be counting the hours. But there is no reason we all can’t take it down a notch. An extra five minutes’ wait for a Villa Combo isn’t something to get worked up about. Setting aside the situation on our roadways — which can be genuinely dangerous — overcrowding and obnoxious attitudes never killed anyone. Be nice.

For many business owners here, spring means worry. Shops have to be readied, inventory ordered, and machinery repaired. Topping it all is finding staff, and it seems that each year it gets more difficult to do so. A large part of the problem in securing good help comes from a lack of housing. From the perspective of employers seeking staff, it might seem that there is plenty of housing around, but that the wrong people occupy it.

Options for local government to do something to ease the worker shortage are limited and would take either time or money or both. That is not to suggest that officials should stand idly by. 

Among the immediate steps the South Fork towns and villages should take is cracking down hard on the proliferation of illegal short-term rentals that have sharply reduced the number of apartments and cottages that would otherwise have been rented to the local work force — and driven up the rent on the little remaining stock. 

Because of the ease of using online sites like Airbnb, property owners have turned increasingly to weekend visitors as a source of income. This came after decades in which other apartments, such as those above shops in East Hampton Village and Sag Harbor, were converted from apartments to offices, setting the stage for the bigger losses in housing inventory to come. Blame, too, goes to those government officials who did nothing to control the quasi-legal expansion of existing mom-and-pop motels or restaurants into venues capable of hosting hundreds of guests at a time. 

For the longer term, East Hampton Town in particular must seek to reduce the demand for seasonal labor by eliminating some work force-heavy businesses, notably in the accommodation and dining sectors. Musing about this some time ago, East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell called for “amortizing” out of existence some of the more problematic party places. Though this would be a radical approach, the demands many of these businesses make on infrastructure far outweigh their benefit to the year-round community, and much of the profits and wages flow out of town almost as fast as they come in.

Building more apartments or starter houses is a more palatable option, but public funding for this is hard to come by and projects can take years. It is better to find ways to increase the supply as quickly as possible while reducing demand over time. So far, neither East Hampton nor Southampton Town has been able to manage growth in a way that would assure an adequate labor supply. Now is the time to brave the political fallout and start doing so. Without meaningful action, the situation will only get worse.

It was no surprise that voters approved school budgets on the South Fork Tuesday. Thanks to the state’s tax-increase cap, budgets now grow modestly from year to year and antipathy toward school spending, once high here, has abated.

An undercurrent of change emerged as voting day neared. In Amagansett, two write-in candidates sought places on the school board and the district budget results showed a ominous number of no votes — more than a third, in fact.

Claudia L. Quintana’s write-in win in Amagansett was notable in two respects. She is a teacher with a master’s degree who was born in Guatemala and is fluent in English and Spanish. That as a write-in she was the number-two vote-getter is significant for Spanish-speaking households with children in the district and exciting for the community as a whole.

In Springs, another bicultural Latina, Ivonne Tovar-Morales, made a write-in bid for a seat on the school board but was unsuccessful. She lost to Patrick Brabant, whose name is more familiar to voters in the district perhaps, and someone who has, as a member of the public, almost religiously attended school board meetings. 

Ms. Quintana’s win and Ms. Tovar-Morales’s seeking a seat bode well for diversity on school boards here in the future. 

A request from the Montauk Playhouse Foundation for $3 million from the Town of East Hampton to help realize a long-imagined dream of an aquatic exercise and cultural center is well worth pursuing. 

The playhouse has been operating as a community center with a gym and fitness equipment and programs for adults and children for about 10 years. However, the plan always was for a portion of the mock-Tudor building, which dates to the late 1920s, to house a swimming program. 

Other than an indoor pool at Gurney’s Resort, the only indoor swimming facility east of Southampton is the East Hampton Y.M.C.A.-RECenter, which hosts school and club teams, lifeguard training, and recreational swimmers, as well as programs for senior citizens and others. It is a very full schedule, and the Y has struggled recently with maintenance and wear and tear. Spreading some of that use to a new Montauk site would be good for the whole town.

The $8.5 million cost of installing two pools plus events, classes, and performance space at the playhouse is reasonable. According to the foundation, about $3 million in private donations is either in the bank or has been assured. With the $3 million from the town, it says, raising the remainder would be easy. 

For town taxpayers, the deal should be a no-brainer as well. Bond rates are favorable, which argues for action sooner rather than later. And because the town is in a solid financial position, bringing the Montauk Playhouse project to completion is not going to set back other programs or projects.

In retrospect, the initial $6 million in town money that funded the playhouse conversion in 2003 was well spent. Since then, the foundation has done its part, raising considerable sums, and is deservedly confident that it could deliver the balance. Every effort should be made to supply the town portion of the needed funding.

School board and budget votes are next week, but you would hardly know it. Meetings at which annual spending plans were discussed this spring have been lightly attended, and for the most part there are few competitive races for school board.

Most notably, perhaps, a late addition to the East Hampton School District ballot has had Cedar Street neighborhood residents alarmed. They assumed, with good reason, that a hastily called morning meeting on April 7 to add money to the school’s capital reserve fund was an end run in the board’s attempt to build a bus facility there. The board denied this, saying it was necessary to get the capital reserve measure in front of voters. The impression left was negative, given the heat about the bus depot, but that should not doom the proposal for a capital reserve fund. Whether or not Cedar Street should be used for bus access is a separate issue, one that residents are right to be upset about.

District cash reserves can be critical in times of unexpected need. In most cases how the money is spent requires voter approval. For example, the Bridgehampton School may seek residents’ authorization to add a geothermal heating and cooling system to the already-budgeted renovation and expansion of the building, asking for the okay to tap money already set aside. The Sag Harbor School District is seeking the okay on Tuesday to use money from its reserve for new, energy-efficient windows at Pierson High School and the elementary school.

If the East Hampton School Board sought to use its reserve for the bus project or anything else, it, too, would have to go to the public. Voting on the reserve proposition, the uncontested board seats, Jacqueline Lowey and John Ryan Sr.’s, and the $68.3 million 2017-18 budget will take place in the district office on Long Lane on Tuesday from 1 to 8 p.m.

In Springs, drama arose only on the eve of the vote, with one official candidate but two board seats in play. After Liz Mendelman decided not to run again, Timothy Frazier remained as the only candidate with a place on the ballot. This is where things got interesting. 

   Three people are now semi-officially mounting last-minute write-in campaigns for the Springs board: Patrick Brabant, Donna Sutton, and Ivonne Tovar-Morales. All of the hopefuls, including Mr. Frazier, are excellent choices, and it bodes well for the school’s future should they continue to be involved. Springs School District residents can cast their votes on the $28.1 million 2017-18 plan from 1 to 9 p.m. on Tuesday.

In Amagansett, Anna Bernasek, Patrick Bistrian III, and Dawn Rana-Brophy are running unopposed. David Eagan is up for re-election in Wainscott, as is Kelly White in Montauk. Three incumbent board members in Sag Harbor — Diana Kolhoff, Sandi Kruel, and Theresa Samot — want to return; they have two challengers, January Kerr and Alex Kriegsman.

Poll times vary and can be found on The Star’s calendar page. Though there is little argument about the budgets this year, residents should be sure to show up and cast their votes.