East Hampton Village residents will be asked Tuesday to select either Philip O’Connell or Arthur Graham as a trustee or member of the village board. The winner will face re-election in 2018. In recent interviews, the candidates differed little about how the village should be run, so making an endorsement is tricky, as it comes down to intangibles more than any one thing.

Mr. O’Connell holds a seat on the board now, having been appointed to replace Elbert Edwards, who died last year. He has been around village government for a long time, was chairman of its planning board at one time and now is a member of the village’s planning and zoning committee. He is a lawyer, works for Corcoran Group Real Estate, and is a member of the East Hampton Fire Department.

Mr. Graham’s community involvement here has been with nonprofits, in particular the East Hampton Historical Society and Thomas Moran Trust. He worked in finance in New York City before his retirement and is now a member of the village planning board.

Neither Mr. O’Connell nor Mr. Graham has anything very critical to say about current village affairs. Both seem to think the village is running smoothly and both favor a program that could include incentives for homeowners to replace outdated or failed septic systems to improve water quality in Hook and Georgica Ponds.

On noise pollution, Mr. Graham said he favored a slightly more restrictive stance, in an attempt to concentrate the annoyance to limited periods. For example, he suggested exploring zones in which leaf blowing and the like might be limited to specific days of the week. Mr. O’Con­nell is of the opinion that it would be an imposition on efficiency to adopt further restrictions on when and how landscaping companies operate within village limits.

Neither candidate has anything to offer about affordable housing. Instead, both seem content to pass the buck to the town, or other nearby communities, despite the significant proportion of jobs that come from private residences and businesses within the village. This is disappointing. At one time, most of the second floors on Main Street and Newtown Lane contained apartments; now, because they are used for offices and retail, they add to the problem. A suggestion during an interview that the Sea Spray Cottages, which buoy the village budget by more than $1 million a year, might be converted into housing for village-area employees elicited little more than blank stares.

Conversely, Mr. O’Connell and Mr. Graham both welcome a pending purchase of several acres of land to expand Herrick Park using $4.6 million from the town’s community preservation fund. Neither appeared to see a contradiction between buying land for low-key recreational use and not doing anything to make sure that low and middle-income village residents and young people just starting out can remain here. This is a serious oversight.

Both also seem content with the current effectiveness of the village’s residential zoning laws, though perhaps to differing degrees. Mr. O’Connell supported the recent changes in the village code, and most clearly appeared to oppose further restrictions in favor of what he called property rights.

Mr. Graham appeared somewhat more open-minded. He raised the question of too-big houses on small lots, citing several recent expansions on Mill Hill Lane as an example. On the other hand, he seemed to think the owners of the village’s larger properties should pretty much be allowed to build whatever they want. 

As we said at the outset, whoever prevails in Tuesday’s vote will have to stand for re-election in 2018, should he seek a full, four-year term. Mr. Graham suggested that he would give it another shot if Mr. O’Connell wins. 

Replacing Mr. O’Connell now would not appreciably change the politics and policies of the village board. Mr. Graham is more vocal about his views, perhaps, but that does not mean he would make a better elected official. For us, it has come down to each man’s local service record: Mr. O’Connell, who has been around village government for a long time and has been a part of the Fire Department for longer, has the edge by this measure, and he has earned our somewhat qualified endorsement. 

Now that the United States Supreme Court has refused to review a lower court’s decision on local control of East Hampton Airport, the big question is what will happen next. This is a delicate moment; public outrage after another summer of aircraft noise could lead to a confrontation that could, in the end, most hurt the aviation industry itself.

Town officials are pursuing Federal Aviation Administration approval for the restrictions the lower court rejected, but this may be difficult to achieve. Meanwhile, helicopters and other loud aircraft will come and go, infuriating residents, irritating visitors, and adding to pressure on officials to do something about it once and for all.

There was a time when no one would declare in public that the airport be shut down and the land repurposed. Now such thoughts have moved from the margins to the mainstream.

Those who favor an airport without limits — mostly the New York helicopter companies — argue that its opponents are merely those who bought land nearby. This is an oversimplification intended to discredit the critics and deflect attention from the very real issues that airport traffic creates for people in a much greater area. 

North Fork residents have in recent times become among the loudest voices, decrying the too-frequent helicopter service. People in Sagaponack and other parts of Southampton Town have added to the chorus of complaints as well. Indeed, jet aircraft often roar toward the airport from the east, after having turned low over East Hampton Main Street, which was laid out by colonists from England in 1648 or so. Clearly, this is a region-wide and long-coming problem, not something created lately by a small group who live close to the airport and may — reasonably, it needs to be said — be worried about property values. 

It is important to note that in 2015, record money from out-of-town helicopter companies was spent on behalf of Republicans in a local election in which that party’s candidates went down in a historic and humbling defeat. The rout was so complete that even Republican town trustees, who are at the far end of the ballot, suffered unheard-of losses. That election should be interpreted as a referendum on the airport, in which an overwhelming majority of East Hampton voters soundly rejected the party most closely aligned with it.

Aviation industry interests and their sympathizers might want to fob off the opposition as a not-in-my-backyard crowd, but when that backyard includes tens of thousands of affected people on the North and South Forks, drastic measures that were once unthinkable become thinkable. Until the companies enriching themselves at East Hampton Airport earnestly try to help find solutions to noise, they are only exacerbating the risk that they could lose the facility entirely. This would mean financial harm for them and an unacceptable blow to hobbyist pilots who base their not-so-noisy aircraft there as well. The industry does not seem to get it and, instead, opposes sensible regulations with never-ending litigation.

East Hampton Airport should be saved. It is up to the very people now abusing the community’s hospitality to act differently to assure that it continues to operate for the long term. 

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.

With the Republican and Democratic candidates for election in November in East Hampton Town announced, one thing stands out: Despite a considerable and growing presence here, there is not one Latino among them.

Manny Vilar, the Republican Committee’s pick for town supervisor, is of Portuguese descent. Peter Van Scoyoc, the Democrat’s nominee, has family connections to an early Dutch colonist. And so on down the line. 

It is the same thing for the school boards, which are for the most part made up of people of European heritage. What passes for variety on the town trustees is if a candidate is left-handed.

Greater diversity among the backgrounds of elected officials takes time. The usual path for a town councilman or woman’s seat can include years on planning or zoning boards. Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, seeking re-election this fall, was on the Springs School Board; Jeffrey Bragman, taking a shot at the town board, had been a town and village attorney. 

Mr. Vilar is a state parks police sergeant. Running as a Republican for the town board, Jerry Larsen recently retired as East Hampton Village Police chief, and Paul Giardina worked at the Environmental Protection Agency. Each has had considerable public service. 

According to the United States Census, East Hampton Town was 26 percent Hispanic or Latino in 2010. That figure has probably increased quite a bit since the last count. With so many Latinos living, working, and raising families here, it is clear that greater representation in local government would be ideal.

It is only a matter of time before Latino candidates emerge. Already, a number of people of Mexican, Central, or South American background are becoming involved in political matters. Organización Latino-Americana of Eastern Long Island recently hired a civic engagement coordinator whose job will include energizing voters. This is important, but it cannot be the end of the story.

East Hampton Town has for some time had a Latino advisory committee, which meets only on an occasional basis. That is hardly enough. Direct Latino involvement in government must be a priority for Town Hall, and for the area’s school and village boards. Every effort should be made to engage the entire community.

Here in East Hampton Town, because so many delis and other takeout joints around here have seating of one sort or another for patrons, one might be forgiven for believing it was legal. It is not, though officials are considering how to make it so. 

It is interesting to reflect on how things once were: The number of seats at eateries was tied to parking availability, as well as a space’s interior fire-safety capacity. At the moment, that hardly seems to matter. It could be that the town’s enforcement staff is too busy these days to get to this kind of thing, but it also could be that perceptions have changed, with a growing, if unfortunate, sense that where customers leave their vehicles is no longer the businesses’ problem. Now, the town board is poised to allow up to 16 seats per establishment, with no hint that owners would have to pay into the once-important, if ineffective, parking fund.  

To us, this giveaway looks like evidence of officials’ off-season amnesia of the sort we have seen again and again. It is unlikely that the members of the East Hampton Town Board would be quite so generous in the heat of packed July. Yet here we are, as Memorial Day weekend approaches, getting ready to formally allow places that prepare food for off-premises eating to become de facto restaurants. Forgive us, but this seems an experiment that will only add to congestion, not ease it.

At the same time, the town is toying with the idea of allowing restaurants in Montauk to place their tables and chairs on public property in a test. This is a sounder idea, provided the town is able to make sure that by doing so the restaurants do not add to their capacity — again, taking away parking from other businesses. They are doing it anyway; bringing some order to the chaos is a must.

At a minimum, eateries providing seating should be compelled to install restrooms commensurate with the expected number of diners, as well as state-of-the-art wastewater systems once county regulators approve them. To encourage additional on-site activity without adequate environmental precautions would be unacceptable, especially for a town that is so otherwise enthusiastic about water quality. The town should not give something away so easily without demanding meaningful concessions in return, a payment, in effect, for loosening longstanding, hard-won zoning restraints. 

Balanced and fair regulation of high-traffic businesses is no easy thing, and the hodgepodge that exists now of legal and not-so-legal seating arrangements certainly could use tidying up. Adding seats or grandfathering those improperly there already before there is a commitment to enforcing existing rules and protecting the environment, however, would to be a serious mistake. Deli dining should come at a price.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.