The remarkable thing about the online blowup last week over Uber “ride sharing” service’s decision to stop operating in East Hampton Town is that both Uber and local officials are trying to solve the same problem.

Before you laugh, take a moment to consider that Uber’s phenomenal growth and success have been built on providing an alternative to taxi service, which can be spotty, inadequate, chaotic, overpriced, and unsafe. Town officials, after hearing all manner of complaints from about three years ago on, sought to do something about spotty, inadequate, chaotic, overpriced, and unsafe taxi rides, which were assumed to be the fault of out-of-the-area drivers.

East Hampton’s solution eventually was to require licenses and background checks for drivers and cab companies, as well as a local physical address in order for them to operate. It was the latter requirement that prompted Uber to pull the plug on Friday; neither it nor many of its drivers are based in East Hampton. The town board had assumed that the new requirements would help cut down on complaints if not eliminate them entirely, as well as reports of cabbies sleeping in their cars during the day while taking up parking spaces that would otherwise be used by shoppers.

The defensibility of the town’s residency requirement is uncertain. We can think of no other example of a business blocked from operating here because it is based elsewhere. Contractors such as plumbers, builders, and electricians from UpIsland work in East Hampton every day, subject to town licensing laws. It is almost impossible to imagine a scenario in which the town would — or could — ban them, even if local tradespeople begged for it, the way some local taxi operators asked for help from the town.

A regional solution has been delayed as Suffolk officials try to implement a new law that would require all taxi drivers to have a county-issued license. This seems a step in the right direction. But whether, when the regulation becomes fully functional, Uber would consider its drivers subject to it is questionable; operating in 58 countries and with a market value estimated at $50 billion, it could well choose to fight instead.

Beyond all this, Uber and its competitors have clearly found a market for their services in East Hampton. An Uber spokesman interviewed in a television news report this week said that his company had provided service to 15,000 riders here last year. Town officials should acknowledge that some residents and visitors may want to use these services and for whatever reason avoid traditional cabs. An accommodation, one that does not improperly infringe on the rights of businesses no matter how unfamiliar, should be found.

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This has been changed to reflect a clarification provided by Uber regarding the number of riders using its service in the Town of East Hampton in 2014.

The East Hampton Town Board has tested the waters, so to speak, on allowing the operators of personal watercraft to launch them in several harbors where until now they had been prohibited. The East Hampton Town Trustees, who have an interest in some of the water bodies covered under the existing ban, are sure to weigh in, but the view in favor of allowing Jet Skis, WaveRunners, and the like to use town launching ramps centers on the observation that they are entitled to the same access afforded other small craft. This list might include kayaks, canoes, and increasingly popular stand-up paddleboards.

But personal watercraft are not just another kind of small boat. Rather, they are fast, loud, dangerous, smelly, and their operators too often push the limits. Consider that no matter where they are launched in East Hampton Town, they have to be held to five miles per hour until they are at least 500 feet from shore. Still, the drone they produce when being run flat-out even in the middle of a bay can be a nuisance, bringing to mind the annoyance rained down by the helicopters the town board is now trying to curtail.

For boaters, the sometimes inexperienced or thoughtless personal watercraft operators could add another hazard to already busy harbor channels. Add to that the question of increased trailer and vehicle parking at town launching ramps.

Right now just about the only place personal watercraft can be launched within East Hampton Town is at the open bay and sound beaches, where their trailers can be backed down to the water’s edge. During the late 1990s complaints about Jet Skis at Navy Beach in Montauk led to a summertime ban on four-wheel-drive vehicles there. If beach launches are now seen as a problem elsewhere, it is difficult to see how the solution would be to simply move them to the inner harbors.

There is a certain irony in the town’s entertaining adding more noise to the tranquil harbors at the same time that it is working on quieting the skies. East Hampton seems to be saying that it wants a quieter community in its support for limits at the airport and stronger quality-of-life enforcement. Promoting more noisemakers, ones that could create waterway traffic hazards at that, seems a big step in the wrong direction.

Unfortunately, it has come to this: a lawsuit to stop the illconsidered United States Army Corps of Engineers plan to fortify the downtown Montauk oceanfront with thousands of sandbags and tons of imported sand.

A small group of opponents of the project filed notice late last month that they will challenge the project in court. Central to their position is that the undertaking is actually prohibited in town and, by extension, state law. They appear to have a good case. Though perhaps not quite a smoking gun, a top town environmental planner in separate communications to the Army Corps and state authorities had said that East Hampton Town regulations might have to be changed to make the effort meet the actual letter of the law. The town and corps lawyers will have a pretty difficult time explaining that one to a jury if things ever get that far.

Other towns and villages should be watching closely. The rules that are being bent in this matter are part of the Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan and its component Coastal Erosion Hazard Area program. In East Hampton Town, as in other jurisdictions, permits for work on the beaches are supposed to be handled locally, not at the state level. Why East Hampton officials abdicated this responsibility and why a least two state agencies went along with it is anybody’s guess. That does not, however, make it right — or legal. The project, if allowed to go forward by the courts, would be a huge precedent, essentially undermining local control, not just in East Hampton, but Southampton, Southold, and Brookhaven as well. And it should give the public pause about having faith in government — its commitment to law and to the protection of natural features. The suit calls out this inexplicable, regrettable collusion among the town, state, and Army Corps, and we honor the courage of those who brought it.

It is their hope that the court will uphold the view that when the town’s law says that sandbag seawalls are structures, that definition must hold sway. Certainly, it would be valuable if a judge told East Hampton officials, as well as the state and Army Corps, that they cannot cherry-pick some sections of the law, ignore other sections, and buck legal precedents regarding environmental review. We would be pleased if the court compelled the authorities, whose actions so far have been inexcusable, to look at alternatives, such as removing the 10 or so structures in harm’s way in Montauk and building a new, more natural dune to protect the rest of the area from storms.

East Hampton Town officials should take this opportunity to rethink their go-along support of the Army Corps plan. Supervisor Larry Cantwell, who vowed to defend against the lawsuit vigorously and who, as a lifelong resident and surf fisherman, might have been expected to know better than to seek to fight the ocean, should instead insist that all involved follow the town’s law as written. And Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc, who was against it before he was for it, needs to take another look. If this looming Montauk debacle goes forward, the consequences will be on their heads.

Because it appears the project may not begin until fall, there is still time to pull the plug and do what would be right for the long haul. Building a seawall, whether of sandbags or stone, is simply the wrong way to go — as the former town board members who approved our waterfront laws not all that long ago understood.

As the starting date nears for a United States Army Corps of Engineers project to build a giant artificial dune reinforced at its core with thousands of massive sandbags, it is critical that the public and policymakers understand what is really at stake.

The question is not whether to protect the handful of private and commercial properties believed to be at most immediate risk. What matters most in Montauk is whether hard-won regulations concerning the environment and management of the coastal zone will be ignored by officials at every level of government. What is unfolding in the rush to do something, anything, is a capitulation to political expediency and a failure of leadership from Town Hall to Albany and Washington.

Setting aside the opinion of a number of coastal experts that the project is doomed to failure and will leave downtown Montauk without a beach to spread a blanket upon, the way the plan has been handled undermines local and state law and, by setting a giant-sized precedent, virtually assures the collapse of meaningful environmental review of projects along the shore.

Time was that the State Environmental Quality Review Act, or SEQRA, was the first line of defense. However, in a September decision, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation announced its view that the 3,100-foot-long project that would depend on nearly 200,000 tons of trucked-in sand will have no environmental impact.

Time was, too, that East Hampton Town’s own prohibition on coastal structures of this sort along the ocean was strictly upheld. But in an August memo, a senior town planner gave state officials all the cover they needed to dance around the ban. This throws into jeopardy not only East Hampton’s laws, but those of most East End towns and villages that adopted similar regulations. It was as if we all woke up and it was the 1960s all over again, when anything went.

Also not thought through is that the Montauk seawall is predicated on the idea that the Army Corps’s far larger Fire Island to Montauk Point Reformulation Plan will happen. This is dangerous for two reasons. Congressional approval of the money it would take is far from a sure thing, and, more significantly, it binds future leaders to a follow the Corps’s stand and fight approach, rather than admit that the only realistic course is retreat.

It can only be speculated why officials have been so willing to bend the law to make the Army Corps Montauk plan a reality. It could be that once the previous town board cast the die, the current members thought that they had to go along. That is no excuse.

This edition of The Star arrives during Sunshine Week, a once-a-year effort by the journalism profession to focus attention on the continual struggle for open government. Unfortunately, the last 12 months have not been good ones for the cause. Notable problems include the revelation that Hillary Clinton used a personal email server for official messages as secretary of state and may have destroyed important records.

In Albany, news that many, if not most, state employees’ email messages are to be automatically destroyed after 90 days angered critics. Gov. Andrew Cuomo is said to be reconsidering that directive, but 52 state organizations are reported to have already upgraded and consolidated emails into one new cloud-based system that permanently carries out the 90-day deletion policy.

Locally, compliance with the Freedom of Information Law is spotty, with requests from the public often languishing unfilled and overly expansive closed meetings the norm. Elected officials, from fire department commissioners to those in the nation’s capital, should do better. The White House requires that emails be retained for seven years.

In New York State, the law on official meetings and document access are a mixed bag, confirming the concept that government must operate on a presumption of openness but failing to impose penalties for noncompliance. This leaves the courts as a recourse for the news media and interested citizens, which may be too expensive or too daunting — and don’t doubt that local officials and their legal advisers know that.

For those who are unfamiliar with how it works, New York’s open government law covers two general areas. One concerns meetings by elected or appointed boards and basically means that any time a majority of a voting body gathers anywhere, for any purpose, it constitutes a meeting that the public is able to attend and at which minutes must be taken.

Limited exemptions allow for private strategy sessions during litigation or discussion of certain personnel matters, but these are roundly and frequently abused. Moreover, closed-door sessions themselves are supposed to be part of regularly convened public meetings, at which a majority must vote to close the doors and offer reasons why. This means that regularly scheduled executive sessions are really an oxymoron because they skirt these requirements, though we see them all the time.

The other realm of the state’s open government law involves records, basically anything at all, whether on paper or in an electronic form. With very limited exceptions, more or less any communication created or received by a government official is public and can be requested. But therein lies the problem: Many officials know there is little to no personal risk if they fail to comply and they sometimes do so so slowly that the information sought loses its value. Undermining this is the fact that state legislators’ records are not subject to this law; they should lead by example, as should the governor.

Reform is needed and must come from Albany. Points to be addressed include improving the appeals process when a document request is denied and putting an immediate halt to the 90-day automatic email purges. Better and more forceful limits on closed-door meetings would also be a help, as would efforts to inform elected officials and staff about what the law requires. But it also means that the public needs to figuratively pound on those closed doors and demand those records that should be available.

Citizens’ awareness of government is a fundamental part of a free society. Officials, whether through ill intent or simple ignorance of the law, cannot be allowed to block the people’s right to know.

A fire last week that consumed an oceanfront house in East Hampton Village is a reminder of the astonishing commitment of this area’s fire and emergency medical volunteers.

As many as 100 East Hampton firefighters responded to the blaze, which apparently was sparked by workers and made impossible to contain because of high winds. The volunteers remained at the fire well into the night, but were summoned twice to return, already exhausted, as flames erupted anew from the rubble.

Neighboring departments provided additional engines, tankers, and manpower both to help contain the flames and provide backup in the case something else happened. And it did: While the Fire Department was busy at the West End Road house owned by Peter Morton of Hard Rock Café fame, a small plane had a hard landing at East Hampton Airport, and a North Sea fire crew rushed to the scene.

It is a shame that the fine old house could not be saved. Ellery S. James had it built in the 1920s, and it had outlasted hurricanes and the vagaries of changing tastes. However, its spectacular end gives us an opportunity to acknowledge the many volunteers who responded to the call, as well as those who respond to emergencies large and small each and every day.

The East Hampton Town Board should stay the course in seeking meaningful relief from the noise of flights headed to or leaving the town airport. Following a March 12 hearing on new, get-tough rules, one began to see signs of second-guessing among some observers. This reticence may have been amplified by the strong turnout at the hearing by the helicopter charter industry, which rightly sees East Hampton’s approach as a potentially risky precedent.

Unfortunately, instead of trying to reduce noise through technical means, investing in better helicopters, or adopting flight paths at higher altitudes, the industry appears to favor putting its money on legal challenges. That stance reinforces the impression that helicopter operators care little about the East End of Long Island other than as a place where they can make a profit.

A legal battle is likely to quickly ensue if the town board approves the restrictions as proposed. This should not deter officials from doing what is right, both for residents and for those who live in noise-affected communities beyond town limits.

East Hampton Town’s legal advisers seem to believe the regulations have a good chance of being upheld by the Federal Aviation Administration and the courts. The board should be willing to stand up to the inevitable onslaught, keeping in mind that the taxpayers have shown strong support for their effort and that a quieter, more livable community is the ultimate goal.

If enough harvesters take up a surprise opportunity provided by the state, fresh local bay scallops could again be in supply this month.

We have been very critical of the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation over the last few months, but this is one thing that the stressed agency has gotten right. Normally, scallop season in state waters, those outside the bays and harbors, which are controlled by the East End towns’ elected trustees, would have ended on Tuesday.

Instead, in a nod to an especially hard and cold winter, from about the end of January to now, the agency announced that scalloping could continue through April. Since scallops have a fleeting lifespan of just two years, those of legal size were not likely to survive until the water warms later this spring and summer when spawning begins. And, for those harvesters looking for a modest financial bonus, the limited fishery could be a needed boost.

This policy change, albeit temporary, shows that the D.E.C., for all its painful budget cuts and staff losses, can still be responsive. In the long term, however, there are questions about its function and whether it can really be, in its depleted condition, the kind of environmental watchdog New York needs. That it cannot is evidenced by local governments now taking the lead on important initiatives, such as groundwater quality, nitrogen runoff, and habitat protection. Far more should be done in Albany to restore the D.E.C.’s funding to pre-Great Recession levels. For now, however, we’ll take the scallops, and hope that lawmakers eventually return environmental protection and remediation as among the state’s the highest priorities.

We had known for a while that we had honeybees in the attic. But the way things are in The Star’s century-old Main Street building, it was really no big deal. Until roofers exposed their sprawling hive last week, the bees never really bothered anybody as they came and went from a gap in the soffit high above the sidewalk. In fact, the only time they had any impact whatsoever on the ground floor was one hot summer’s day when a thin trickle of honey appeared on the inside of one of our front windows, hardly enough to spread on toast.

Honeybees are in trouble due to something known as colony collapse disorder, as well as a variety of other factors. Reports of losses of 30 percent or more a year by beekeepers are common. But bees are an essential part of the food web; as much as $20 billion worth of the food crop in North America is dependent on the relentless pollination these social and generally peaceable creatures perform. Given this, it is cruel and wholly counterproductive to call in an exterminator at the first sign of a swarm, as many do in fear and ignorance.

So our first call when the roofers alerted us was to Dell Cullum, a well-known East Hampton photographer and wildlife relocation expert. After taking a look, Dell phoned East Hampton Town Trustee Debbie Klughers, who also happens to be a beekeeper. Suited in protective mesh to keep bees out of her hair and off her face, but with bare hands, Debbie, with a little help from some Star staff members, methodically removed sections of hive from between the rafters, placing the milling bees into a wooden box for transit to their new home, while Dell recorded it all on video.

There was elation when they spotted the colony’s queen, which, to us, looked like an oversized bee. Debbie explained that the brood clustered around the queen to keep her warm and that if we were able to get her into the transportation box, the rest would go along placidly. It took a bit over an hour to complete the task. During this, bees buzzed everywhere in the room, crawling on our hands and arms, but only one person, Debbie, was stung, and just once, on a finger.

As spring’s warmth encourages honeybees out of their winter torpor, people will undoubtedly see their swarms. Many beekeepers will perform hive rescues, and if they do not, will know someone who will. Lethal methods of control should be the very last resort. The bees aren’t looking to harm anyone, and right now, they can use all the help they can get.

WATCH: What To Do When You Have Bees in the Attic? Call a Bee Rescuer

East Hampton Town may test a radical trash concept this summer, asking those who go to the popular Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett, or perhaps another location, to take away all the waste they generate, removing all of the receptacles usually there.

“Take only pictures, leave only footprints” is a mantra for the use of many public lands, including national wilderness areas. Whether it would work here is an open question, but it is an experiment worth taking on.

As things stand now, during the peak summer season the margins of the ocean beach parking lots often look like disaster areas at the end of the day. This is when everyone floods off the sand toward their vehicles, dropping anything and everything at the bins and leaving bags, broken chairs, beer boxes, and busted umbrellas alongside them when there is no more room. If you pause for a moment and reflect on the scene, you may wonder exactly why, when these beachgoers brought all this stuff there, they do not take it home, especially when the garbage cans are filled to overflowing.

Getting people to change their ways and to clean up after themselves and take responsibility for the waste they produce is likely to take time, but that is no reason not to try. If anything, it would be hard to imagine that the immediate outcome of such a move could be any worse than the seagulls’ smorgasbords that already ensue.