Politicians in Albany and Hauppauge find it easy to promote shrinking government when it is not their own government they are shrinking. New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has long tried to squeeze local municipalities and school districts through a formula capping the amount that taxes can be raised from year to year. This dictate has come from on high with little in the way of state aid or guidance. Do it or else, the governor seems to say. There is a planned dollar-match program in the works for 2018, and perhaps it should be no surprise that next year is when Mr. Cuomo may begin his long-anticipated bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. As a governor from a high-tax state, he may well plan to point to his signature tax cap for political cover.

Now, Suffolk Executive Steve Bellone is getting in on the act. He is planning a series of meetings next month to personally pitch the smaller-government idea to local officials. A Bellone staffer told Newsday that money savings might be found if towns shared wastewater pump-out boats or pooled computer services. These are worthwhile ideas, but hardly  would make a real difference for taxpayers.

For property owners on eastern Long Island, the greatest share of taxes goes to the schools, but neither Mr. Cuomo nor Mr. Bellone seems willing to take this on. Parents, especially on the East End, generally like their tiny districts, even though the cost cuts after consolidations could be large. If Mr. Cuomo and Mr. Bellone want to get serious about saving money, the schools are the place to start, just don’t expect them to take on this sacred cow anytime soon.

A bicyclist was struck and seriously injured Saturday evening in East Hampton Village. According to someone who was nearby, the bike had been weaving unsteadily before it came into contact with a passing vehicle, and the cyclist was thrown to the pavement. This is just one of the recent incidents here in which someone was hurt. And, as we hurtle headlong into the Fourth of July weekend, it is important to think for a moment about how all of us can help make the roads a little safer and saner. Bicyclists and pedestrians are especially vulnerable.

One South Fork police department sent out a message this week reminding drivers to be on the watch for bikers and people on foot. Staying within speed limits is key, it said, as sudden stops are sometimes necessary. It also pointed out that lush roadside vegetation can create blind spots.

Responsibility for staying safe is shared by bikers and pedestrians, too. Police have advised crossing streets at crosswalks or, in the case of bicycles, at proper intersections. Bright or reflective clothing is a good idea, as is avoiding the distractions of electronic devices.

On the subject of bicycles, it needs to be said that it is outrageous that many local motels and rental properties provide them to guests but do not also supply helmets. Encouraging people who might be unfamiliar with the area — or with how to ride a bike altogether — to potentially get in harm’s way is a very bad idea. It is stunning that anyone could welcome visitors and then so blithely put them at risk.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.