The East Hampton Town Trustees have faced the tensions of going it alone instead of cooperating with a number of other government agencies for a long time. The idea, still in currency among some members and residents, has been that since the trustees were given authority by royal decree in the 17th century, no entity can take it away. In modern times this has meant the trustees have been loath to seek permission from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation for projects that otherwise were in its jurisdiction.

Sometimes this has led to awkward situations in which the trustees, needing something from the D.E.C., chose to have someone in Town Hall handle the asking. It also has created puzzling situations, for example, when the D.E.C. bans shellfish harvesting in trustees’ waters and the trustees stay silent and go along. Casual observers would be right to wonder about this contradiction in policy as well as the longstanding initiatives that were delayed because of the one-sided impasse. Since January, however, the new, recently elected trustee majority has taken a decidedly different tack.

The challenges facing the town’s waterways and beaches, many of which the trustees own on behalf of the public, are many and growing, it seems, with every season. Large houses along the shores of some of the town’s most economically productive harbors and creeks bring with them increased septic effluent and, often, landscaping and driveway runoff. Greater residential and transient use add up to increased toxicity and excess nutrients in the watersheds. Climate change and sea level rise as well as new shellfish diseases and forms of predation are increasing too. And unlike only a couple of decades ago, it seems everybody has a four-wheeler and wants to drive on the beaches whenever and wherever they please. It is a lot for the trustees to control.

Times are different now, and no town agency can expect to go it alone. The D.E.C., the Suffolk Department of Health Services, and the United States Army Corps of Engineers, for all their well-documented flaws, are a fact of regulatory life. It is necessary for the trustees to work with them more directly — even if the old guard objects. 

Doing something about corruption and influence peddling in Albany appears high on the to-do list for lawmakers — except when it comes to their own bank accounts. 

Following a tough proposal by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo that would hold New York’s legislators to a maximum of 15 percent of their official salaries in outside income, Carl Heastie, the speaker of the Assembly, came up with a far more generous plan, which the Assembly approved on Tuesday. In dollar terms, the governor’s cap on moonlighting money would be $11,925; the Assembly would allow up to about $70,000. In the State Senate, the Republican majority prefers the status quo, in which there is no limit on outside income.

Mr. Heastie proposes allowing up to 40 percent of the annual salary of New York State Supreme Court Justices, whose positions are considered full time, as the limit on outside income. Perhaps aware that his formula might be viewed as bizarre, he announced his plan shortly before 7 p.m. on Friday — hardly the peak of the weekly news cycle.

For how these limits would affect state elected officials one need look no further than Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., who is set to receive $52,500 for his side job as the Sag Harbor Village attorney in 2015-16. Under the Assembly version, he could continue in both jobs, receiving a base of $79,500 as a part-time assemblyman with add-ons available. Should Mr. Cuomo’s plan prevail, however, Mr. Thiele would have a tough choice to make. There is nothing essentially corrupt about having two government positions, and Mr. Thiele has to make ends meet, but choosing one job or the other would eliminate concerns about just which hat he is wearing at any given moment.

 It is clear that from a conflict of interest standpoint ending legislators’ official status as part-timers is essential. Giving up outside income in exchange for higher salaries should be open for discussion even if it costs taxpayers more. Mr. Cuomo’s tight-fisted limit should be the starting point.

Two major municipal condemnation initiatives, which are moving slowly ahead in Sag Harbor and on a long strip of beach on Napeague, warrant more public consideration.

Sag Harbor hopes to acquire five parcels of waterfront just inside the bridge to North Haven, which it would restore and open as a park named in honor of the novelist John Steinbeck, who lived in the village at one time. A Manhattan real estate development firm is seeking approval for condominiums there, and has said outright that it does not want to sell. Condemnation seems appropriate if the developer won’t agree to a community preservation fund deal. The park would serve a clear and overwhelmingly positive public purpose.

On Napeague, however, the outcome would be less certain. Here, East Hampton Town is exploring condemnation of access to the beach as well as a to-be-determined number of slivers of sand between the high-tide line and the toe of the dune or beach-grass line in an attempt to head off a lawsuit from property owners upset about four-wheel-drive traffic and a crowd of beachgoers in front of their houses.

Two issues raised by the Napeague proposal merit frank and dispassionate discussion. The first is cost: Some have warned that a court-set price tag as the result of condemnation could be more than average taxpayers would be happy to bear. Condemnation proponents counter that the land is almost without value and the hit to the town tax rate would be negligible. So far, no one really seems to know which opinion is correct. Even if you like the plan, it’s a rather huge unknown.

The other concern is that condemnation would not necessarily end the court battle. The litigating property owners’ claim could well prevail: that what is known as Truck Beach is an unregulated nuisance. Were the courts to agree, the traditional right to drive on the town’s beaches could be jeopardized. From where we sit, that is a very big and very serious risk.

One other point: Most of the beach-driving crowd and the group seeking legal resolution of their grievances are East Hampton Town taxpayers. Every effort must be made to remember that we really should behave as a single community. Compromise and conversation with the outcomes clearly understood in advance appears the safer course with regard to Napeague.

As for Sag Harbor, we say, full speed ahead.

Town officials in East Hampton and Southampton are facing a challenge to public confidence following the death amid questionable circumstances of a second immigrant from Latin America that was deemed a suicide. The quicker that police are able to regain the trust of the region’s Spanish-speaking residents, the better. Unfortunately, their outreach so far has been wanting.

In the recent incident, Lilia Aucapina was found dead, hanging in the woods near her Sagaponack house. The discovery took place 40 days after she was reported missing by her family, who this week called for greater efforts in the investigation of her disappearance and death. This followed a similar plea in October concerning the 2014 death in East Hampton of Gabriela Armijos, which police also said was a suicide.

Reportedly, both Ms. Armijos and Ms. Aucapina had been harassed by men with whom they had had intimate relationships. In Ms. Armijos’s case, her family said she had been harassed by an ex-boyfriend. A private investigator hired by LatinoJustice pointed to what he alleged were numerous mistakes in the East Hampton Town Police Department work that followed. Police were called the same day that Ms. Aucapina went missing after a confrontation involving her, her estranged husband, and a new boyfriend. 

The similarities between the women’s disappearances are notable but are not the only problem now for police and town officials. A Tuesday vigil outside Southampton Town Hall calling for a renewed look at Ms. Aucapina’s death indicates that a significant number of residents have had their faith in police shaken. Their views must be taken seriously.

Whether or not police higher-ups believe there is reason to further probe the women’s deaths, they must take visible steps to improve relations with the area’s Latino communities. Successful law enforcement depends on a sense of shared purpose between police and residents — and the belief that all groups are treated fairly. Officials in both towns must make every effort to win back their support.

A little-noticed aspect in the debate about East Hampton Town’s newly approved landlords’ registry is that even after it goes into effect in February, the town’s rental laws will remain among the most generous on eastern Long Island.

You would hardly have thought so if you were to have judged solely from the protests at Town Hall by those who have openly embraced illegal practices and were outraged — outraged — that they might soon have to comply with longstanding regulations that had failed to control turnover, excessive occupancy, and multiple short-term leases that have been increasingly abetted by a care-nothing online marketplace.

Within the last year, Southold and Islip Towns banned property rentals of less than two weeks outright. East Hampton, by marked contrast, allows up to four short-duration leases, though no more than two in any six-month period. For a long time, Southampton Town has had a rental registry, and property inspections there are mandatory. In East Hampton Town, however, a landlord’s attesting that a property meets safety and zoning standards is all the new law requires. Brookhaven, too, has its own registry — with significantly higher fees than in East Hampton.

The East Hampton Town Board should be applauded for not capitulating to those who have openly broken town and possibly federal laws for far too long. As a tool to facilitate better enforcement, the rental registry was long overdue. Its vocal opponents let the money they make get the better of their sense of community. And, given the summertime chaos to which short-termers unarguably contribute, serious thought should be given to following our UpIsland neighbors and getting tougher still.

With this edition, The East Hampton Star celebrates its 130th anniversary. Much has changed about the communities The Star covers since its first 500 copies were published on Dec. 26, 1885, but much remains the same.

From the early days, East Hampton has always been an interesting place to live, and, as we say in the newsroom — just report on it and you can’t help but have an interesting newspaper. This isn’t entirely fair, of course. The Star’s success has always depended on the dedication and effort of its staff and contributors, as well as a healthy dose of what we like to call institutional knowledge.

When The Star was established, East Hampton was largely a farming and fishing town, though a rising tide of summer visitors was beginning to put it on the map. Then, as now, obituaries were a key part of the newspaper’s identity. Over time, attention has grown to include police news, balanced by accounts of the good works of townspeople, and by the opinions expressed in letters to the editor. Friction between new and old, and between the environment and the demands people put on it, have become a su/btext to almost every story that makes the front page.

Today, like so many other news organizations, The Star faces continually shifting challenges. Still, the mission of holding up an honest mirror to East Hampton and the surrounding hamlets and villages remains intact, whether its readers get their news from the print edition or in one of The Star’s digital forms. Throughout its history, The Star’s role has been to help the community know itself — and it will continue to be so. We thank you for reading.

Hurricane Sandy, which had a significant, though not catastrophic, impact on the East End, has been described as a turning point for coastal policy — only it’s not true here on the highly vulnerable East End. Instead, local officials have been mired in a 1960s-era strategy embodied by the United States Army Corps of Engineers downtown Montauk project. There seems to be little more than a hope that sometime this year the Army Corps will unveil a magical plan for a vast undertaking for most of Long Island’s south shore. This is a dangerous failure of leadership.

East Hampton and Southampton’s support for armoring private property at public expense is indicative that both towns’ officials are incompetent in this regard. Yes, East Hampton recently created a committee to guide future coastal policy, but its record so far is not good. East Hampton bucked the law governing shoreline projects when it signed off on the Montauk effort. The town also got grant money to study the problem of its threatened beaches.

However, judgment must be reserved until the committee’s recommendations are announced and it is seen if the town will give them measurable support. Southampton Town is now led by Jay Schneiderman, who cast a yes vote as a Suffolk legislator in favor of the Army Corps’s Montauk work; this suggests that a visionary coastal program will not be likely there either.

The top priority for Long Island’s coastal managers must be preserving beaches, not saving private property. Retreat is the only solution that will ensure the public’s right to use and enjoy the beaches. If the Army Corps continues to dictate how the towns and villages act, the beaches will be lost. Instead, local officials, like their New York City counterparts, must look for new solutions. 

The East End stands in contrast to other communities, such as New York City, which recently won millions in federal funding for what is called resiliency projects. New York’s plan includes $179 million in disaster funding from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, notably not the Army Corps. The city’s proposal is for a combination of seawalls and grassy berms to protect downtown Manhattan from storm flooding, in keeping with the program’s goal of reducing current and future vulnerability. 

By contrast, the Montauk project will result in the loss of an important recreational beach and damage to adjacent properties unless an inexhaustible pot of money is found to place sand there indefinitely. Anyone who thinks the Army Corps is the right agency for the job simply hasn’t been paying attention to the coastline elsewhere. 

In recent days, the folly of the Montauk work was again made apparent when a minor storm scoured portions of the project area. Equipment and material were scattered by the tides and waves, underscoring the ever-changing conditions. Aerial photographs show the hamlet’s oceanfront hotels and residences bulging out beyond the natural line of the dunes in adjacent stretches. That they were built in the wrong place has long been understood. The real cost of that error is now being paid for.

There are other ways to cope with a changing shore, the question is whether officials will pay attention to those who call for a better approach. So far, the signs are not good.

Sag Harbor officials are moving ahead with new, tough rules to regulate the size of houses in reaction to a spate of super-sizing, which has left many aghast over changes to their beloved village. The changes are overdue and should, perhaps, be made even tougher.

Unlike several neighboring municipalities, Sag Harbor’s zoning code has been downright generous when it came to residential construction. This has allowed some speculative builders and well-heeled property owners to radically change several streetscapes. Profit is usually the motive for bloated fancifying; the more bedrooms and amenities, the more dollars a developer can make and the higher the market value. But an individual’s bank account should not be the basis of community planning. A new crop of officials is proving willing to act in the broader interest of preserving the village’s unique sense of place by saying, “Not so fast!”

The new rules, made public only recently, would tie the floor area of a new or renovated house directly to the size of its lot. This would be an extension of the existing zoning code, under which construction has been significantly less constrained. Even so, the proposals would allow more house, inch-for-inch, than is permissible in several nearby villages. Maybe this is fair, considering that Sag Harbor has a somewhat more urban feel than, say, North Haven, but, frankly, we don’t see any obvious justification.

Well-intentioned, but perhaps more trouble than it is worth, would be a separate fee on building permits for houses greater than 3,000 square feet. Money from the fee would be earmarked for affordable housing. Given that the hurdles for lower-priced housing within the Sag Harbor School District are likely to remain high, it is probable that little of the money would ever be used for its stated purpose, instead accumulating, like other towns’ and villages’ parking charges, in an untapped fund.

Worse, perhaps, is that the feel-good fee could, in the wrong hands, be misapplied later on to help squeeze questionably large house plans past future, more development-friendly zoning and architectural review boards. We would love to be proven wrong, but given the laughable record of Sag Harbor’s only to-date affordable housing initiative — buying an existing laborers’ camp outside village limits — skepticism is warranted.

That said, Sag Harbor officials should be supported for being on the right track in general. They should think about decoupling house sizes from the dubious fee and move ahead with overall limits, perhaps even making them more restrictive. 

A reader sent in a photograph this week taken on Gerard Drive in Springs on Saturday during the blizzard. Taken roughly around the time of the morning high tide on what is known as the Second Causeway, it shows a raging Gardiner’s Bay surging where the road ought to be. Only you can’t see the road, only riled dark-gray water and feathery white spume.

We bring this up not only because Jane Umanoff’s photograph is so arresting, but for what it says about the challenges that are ahead for East Hampton policymakers in regard to the town’s entire shoreline.

Montauk might command the headlines, what with outrage over the Army Corps of Engineers’ sandbag seawall, but officials will also have to come to terms with assaults on the bayside. Gerard Drive will obviously be high on the priority list, but to do what? Like portions of Dune Road in Southampton, a multimillion-dollar project to elevate the pavement might be called for, but so too might a further-sighted effort to eliminate houses from its lower-slung portions and return their sites to nature. Meanwhile, the community preservation fund, which could be tapped for this, appears likely to be skimmed by up to 20 percent for a range of too-loosely defined water quality projects, if an extension of the law is approved by voters in a November referendum,  

Where the money is going to come from for a sensible coastal program of retreat is, of course, a very good question. For the time being, town officials seem content to believe that federal dollars will pour in as part of the Army Corps’s Fire Island to Montauk Point Reformulation Project. We’ll believe that when we see the check. And anyway, the last thing the Corps is interested in is stepping back from the danger zones. 

Meanwhile, the deal on the Montauk work looms as a financial disaster for the town — and Suffolk County — both of which agreed to cover the cost of keeping the sandbag wall covered with sand. Last weekend’s storm did a pretty good job of sweeping away thousands of tons of trucked-in ugly yellow fill, which, had the job been completed, would have been Suffolk and East Hampton taxpayers’ responsibility to replace.

What is so frustrating about coastal policy is that officials seem incapable of enforcing existing rules, much less of coming up with a strategy for the long term. We hope that the East Hampton Town Board at least made time to visit the visual hell that was the Montauk beach in the aftermath of Saturday’s storm. And we hope they see Jane Umanoff’s picture of Gerard Drive.

Together, they are enough to make one fear for the future of this town. Supervisor Larry Cantwell and the rest of the town board are not paid to wallow in despair, they are paid to do something. Waiting for the Army Corps and its anachronistic approach just won’t cut it.

A request from Sag Harbor Village to the East Hampton Town Trustees to discuss ways to manage an all-but-unregulated seasonal anchorage is an example of how demands on the area’s natural resources and infrastructure have outpaced government control.

What prompted Sag Harbor’s request to the town trustees was the expanding presence of private vessels kept on moorings or anchored for a night or two beyond the village breakwater. At present, the village has jurisdiction only within the breakwater, where moorings are strictly regulated and waste pump-out boats are available. 

Beyond the breakwater, things get wooly. According to a member of the Sag Harbor Waterways Committee, as many as 70 boats at a time might be found off Havens Beach and east toward Barcelona Neck. Some have broken loose in storms and washed up, becoming the village’s problem. Others have been known to illegally discharge sewage. Then there is the question of boaters coming ashore in Sag Harbor for shopping, services, and even to dispose of garbage, adding to an already crowded community in the busy months. “We’re getting the brunt of it,” the village harbormaster said. 

State Assemblyman Fred. W. Thiele Jr., whose other paying job is Sag Harbor Village attorney, recently introduced a bill in the State Legislature that would expand the area under village control from the current 1,500 feet from shore. But 1,500 feet is also the distance that East Hampton Town Trustee jurisdiction extends. This means that a cooperative approach is necessary no matter where a new line might be drawn.

Mr. Thiele is in an odd position, particularly since the bill he sponsored on behalf of the village could be seen as a land-grab attempt against the town trustees, whose interests he is also supposed to represent as a member of the Assembly. To avoid questions of an ethical nature, Mr. Thiele should swiftly seek to have his bill withdrawn. 

Meanwhile, Sag Harbor officials and the town trustees are continuing to talk. This is good. The waters beyond the breakwater cannot continue to be a no-man’s land, regardless of which local government asserts authority in the end.