Facebook woke up this week to the yawning monstrosity in Wainscott that is the new commercial building on the former Plitt Ford site on Montauk Highway. One commenter quipped that the town was “one step closer to looking like Centereach.” Another person summed it up this way: “It makes me sad every time I drive by. It looks terrible and is so big it blocks the sky.”

Even a current member of the East Hampton Town Planning Board who is a former member of the town board weighed in, calling it a “disaster.” The source of the last observation is important, as it comes from Job Potter, who is in a good position to press for changes to the town code to prevent something like this from happening again.

As we understand it, the 15,000-square-foot retail building on the roughly two-acre property will be occupied initially by the Home Goods chain. It gained approval from the planning board in 2012. Because it is in a central business district, no variances were required.

However, as the late developer who owned the property dangled the prospect of a Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, or other specialized food store for the site, the planning sessions, at which a more modest undertaking with a reduced presence along the highway might have been achieved, turned instead into what might be called blinky-eyed love fests.

In hindsight, it is clear that as much fault, if not more, can be found in the town’s zoning laws, which should be changed now that there is a better understanding of their inadequacy. The Home Goods property is not alone on the Wainscott portion of Montauk Highway in its designation as central business. This means that a whole string of similarly looming redevelopment efforts could conceivably follow, each as close as 10 feet to their front and side property lines.

It is important to note that, unlike most other central business areas in town, Wainscott’s is on one side of the highway and does not have a municipal parking lot or even streetside parking. Further, given the speed at which vehicles sometimes travel along the highway there, construction so close to the road is a bad idea.

Looking closely at the town’s zoning maps, the Wainscott central business zone extends along Montauk Highway from Georgica Drive to West Gate Road, encompassing at least 20 developable parcels with road frontage. Given zoning’s minimal restrictions, full build-out would devastate the area and create almost unimaginable traffic tie-ups.

One option for the town would be to rezone the entire Wainscott business district to the neighborhood business designation. This would more than double the required setbacks, to 25 feet, and reduce the allowed coverage by 10 percent.

However, a deeper look at the law might be warranted. Changes to zoning rules to make new construction in business zones conform to the prevailing distances from the road of nearby storefronts and other buildings would be a good place to start. In Wainscott, almost all of the businesses along the highway are set back uniformly.  

Whatever the approach, the town board must now ask what can be done to save Wainscott.

Two recent news reports about New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo are worth noting, especially in light of his easy trot to re-election on Nov. 6. A detailed account in The New York Times that should be of special interest to those angered by the ongoing electric pole debacle in East Hampton explained how Mr. Cuomo manipulated a report from a commission looking at utility performance during and after Hurricane Sandy.

The commission’s main recommendation, that the Long Island Power Authority be sold to a private company, was altered at the governor’s behest to appear unanimous, when, in fact, there had been dissent among its members. Not only did Mr. Cuomo wring a predetermined outcome to his own liking from the commission’s report, but his administration was responsible for many of LIPA’s failures in the first place.

According to a Times review of hundreds of documents, the governor’s office failed to respond to repeated requests from LIPA to fill 10 percent of its key management positions, personnel who would have helped respond to Sandy and provide an edgy public with needed information. Now, as Long Islanders get to know PSEG, which took over operations of the widely hated LIPA this year with a 10-year contract, it appears to be far worse.

This week, Fredric U. Dicker reported in the New York Post about an alleged secret pact between Mr. Cuomo and the state’s top Republican, Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, to assure the governor’s re-election in exchange for his promise not to aid Democratic candidates on Long Island. Another Republican, Nassau Executive Ed Mangano, is implicated as well, having bucked his own party to endorse Mr. Cuomo in order to protect G.O.P. senators.

Albany is about as bad a state capital as you can find. The electorate knows this. Yet these accounts, taken with what has already been reported regarding Mr. Cuomo’s having disbanded a corruption probe when it drew too near his associates, paints a truly unsavory picture.

A homeowner sees her house threatened by erosion, and public officials do what they can to help. Not the newest story, but the most recent example of this narrative comes with an interesting twist.

As it turns out, a rapidly shrinking lot on Shore Road at Lazy Point belongs to the East Hampton Town Trustees, while the house on it belongs to someone who leases the site for a modest fee. This arrangement, while unusual elsewhere in town, is the norm at Lazy Point, where an occasional near-million-dollar purchase takes place on what is actually leased public land.

At a recent meeting the trustees all but committed to helping Susan Knobel save her house by allowing her to move it to a vacant parcel nearby. This is a feel-good story, for sure, but it is doubtful that it is sound policy or even legal.

It seems almost impossible to believe that the trustees could give valuable assets, in this case land leases, to individuals of their choosing. Public agencies, a class to which the trustees certainly belong, must follow certain proscribed procedures when handling real estate and any other disbursements. For a transaction like this to be fair, it would have to be open to public, competitive bidding, as we understand it. For example, East Hampton Village officials not too long ago realized this in connection with the Sea Spray Cottages and instituted a system for prospective tenants in keeping with state rules.

Further, at a time when the trustees should be concerned about water pollution and moving lease-holders away from fragile areas, they appear ready to give Ms. Knobel another waterfront lot. This, as one trustee pointed out, makes little sense. Are there other trustee plots in less endangered areas? It didn’t come up. Heck, there are plenty of other taxpayers and business owners facing severe erosion in East Hampton Town; you do not see other government agencies falling all over themselves to provide them with new sites.

Though there have been previous instances of a trustee lessee swapping one lot for another, that does not make this plan right — or in the community’s best interest. In their rush to do good for a neighbor, the trustees might be violating the law and are certainly moving in the wrong direction on habitat protection and coastal retreat.

Whether they see it or not, the trustees have before them now a not-insignificant opportunity to lead by example. Erosion exacerbated by sea level rise brought on by human-driven climate change is a fact of life for East Hampton and much of the rest of the globe, and the truestees should be, as stewards of the beaches and of most town waterways, at the forefront of a reasoned response. What is called for now is their dispassionate decision-making that responds to real-world conditions, not personal sympathies and gauzy notions of tradition. Responding to a shifting shoreline does not mean swapping one threatened site for one that will likely be in danger in the not-too-distant future.

An immediate reconsideration is warranted.

On the first full day of fall this year, at the very height of the hurricane season, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed a landmark bill on climate change that could have significant impact here. The Community Risk and Resiliency Law, which takes effect in April, is intended to help prepare New York for environmental changes and protect against increasingly severe weather and sea level rise.

The law requires state agencies to consider future risk of flooding, rising seas, and storm surges in all but the most minor regulatory and permitting decisions, whereas they now need to review only immediate effects. It orders the Department of Environmental Conservation to make official predictions about changing shorelines and sea levels, and to update these projections at five-year intervals.

The key concept is that state permits, including those from the D.E.C., will now have to take into account the “predictable adverse effects” of proposed projects on the environment and wildlife, public health and safety, water and air quality, and historic, cultural, and recreational assets. Notably for the East End, the law will require these considerations with regard to the protection of farmland, coastal rehabilitation, and areas covered by local waterfront revitalization plans.

Additionally, under the law, the state is to prepare model laws to help local governments, like those perched precariously on Long Island’s two forks, adopt their own code changes to deal with climate risks. This bring-it-home aspect will provide suggested rules for land-use and redevelopment based on predictions about the likelihood of extreme weather events in the future — something local governments have generally found difficult to do in the past. To take one high-profile example, the United States Army Corps plan for downtown Montauk, which has already secured state approval, might have taken a very different path had the new law been in effect.

Expect a rush for state permits and approvals of projects in local coastal zones already under review. Officials in the towns and villages should start moving now toward the date in the spring when the changes become effective. In the meantime, they should begin working on how to adjust local regulations to better adapt to the rapidly changing climate reality.

A plan by the Village of East Hampton and New York State to spend $1.4 million on traffic changes at the intersection of Route 114 and Toilsome Lane is puzzling, but even more puzzling are the reasons behind it. A call to the engineer who came up with the series of roadway “islands” and a roundabout referred our request for an explanation to a village official, who was only able to produce a few words of meaningless boilerplate.

In terms of injuries and vehicular damage, there are any number of village crossroads that are far more dangerous, including Main Street and Buell Lane and Route 114 and Stephen Hand’s Path. Moreover, the drawings for the roundabout appear to do little to accommodate bicyclists on a popular route between Sag Harbor and East Hampton.

If the village cannot clearly explain what problems the roundabout and associated improvements are supposed to fix, it seems impossible to know whether the solutions make sense. Our guess is that, if built, they would only add to the confusion. More time must be taken to get this right.

East Hampton officials are reported to be thinking about seeking state authorization to tap the community preservation fund for wastewater projects. This potential funding source should be a last resort.

To be sure, the problems surrounding drinking water and the area’s creeks, harbors, and bays are critical. A recent study commissioned by the town that looked at conditions on every parcel of land found that at least 1,760 properties had failed or insufficient septic systems, which were likely to contribute to water pollution. Further analysis could push the number of substandard systems over 3,500. How to pay for new, localized sewage treatment and individual upgrades is a major question.

One-time sources of funding, such as the state or federal government, are a possibility. A large bond offering — borrowing to be repaid by future tax income — is another. Then there is what some mistakenly see as “free” money, available by raiding the community preservation fund provided state and voter authorization were obtained. This would be a bad idea and dangerous precedent.

The Peconic Bay Region Community Preservation Fund came into being in 1998 after years of struggle by conservationists and lawmakers. Its sole source of income is a 2-percent tax on most real estate purchases. Its objective, generally stated, is to acquire land to help the participating communities preserve their treasured character. Allowable uses of the money include purchases for parks, nature preserves, farmland, wetlands, beaches, wildlife refuges, historic places, and aquifer protection. A modest portion of the fund also can be set aside for upkeep on such properties, but that’s it — and that’s enough.

Misuse of land preservation and environmental set-aside money has haunted governments for years. East Hampton’s reviled former Town Supervisor Bill McGintee’s administration faltered and his then-budget director pleaded guilty to misdemeanors over the diversion of money from the community preservation fund to pay for routine operations. In Southampton Town, there have been iffy, politically motivated payments of about $5 million in C.P.F. money to school districts, drawing the scrutiny of the state comptroller’s office.

For its part, Suffolk County has more than once helped itself to dedicated water-quality money to paper over budget shortfalls. On Tuesday, however, voters agreed to a measure that would repay the fund and stave off further raids.

Much as we know and admire many public officials, we have seen it before: The minute those in office find a funding source that does not threaten to raise taxes in the short term, they try to grab it. Moreover, time and again officials have acted less responsibly and thought less clearly when they were not directly answerable to taxpayers for a particular initiative. (Think of East Hampton Town Hall’s mindless acceptance of an inadequate Army Corps of Engineers plan for downtown Montauk.)

Make no mistake: East Hampton has a huge problem with water quality. However, tapping the preservation fund other than to buy up and neutralize lots in critical watersheds would be a dire mistake. Once that bridge is crossed, there would be far less to stop officials from grabbing again at the fund for the next big thing. Hands off the C.P.F.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the new approach to regulating noise from aircraft that use East Hampton Airport is that it is not really new. Ken Lipper and Peter Wolf, who took it on their own initiative to propose ways of curbing air traffic, identified a portion of the town’s comprehensive plan in advocating a community-first vision of the airport. Though the strict restrictions they have proposed, along with those about to come from a town advisory committee, may grab the headlines, their idea that the facility should be run to satisfy the broadest possible community interest is compelling.

The pair stated that East Hampton Airport should be returned to its traditional noncommercial status. This is sure to anger the several helicopter and seaplane services that have profited from expanded use of the airport. However, Mr. Lipper and Mr. Wolf, as well as a top law firm they have hired, say the town has every right to adopt the restrictions they propose once free of promises made in exchange for money from the Federal Aviation Administration, some of which expire at the end of the year.

The essential question Mr. Lipper, Mr. Wolf, and many others ask is who benefits from avoiding the several-hours-long weekend trip on the Long Island Expressway by traveling by helicopter. Does the convenience of well-off fliers justify the disruption their luxury creates for those on the ground? The answer is most emphatically “no.”

The path appears to be set for the town’s airport committee to issue formal recommendations as early as next week. Mirroring in many aspects the ideas floated by Mr. Lipper and Mr. Wolf, they could call for eliminating, or at least the sharp reduction of, helicopter landings; limiting the airport’s hours of operation, perhaps to between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. most days, and limiting fixed-wing aircraft landings and takeoffs to as few as four per hour.

The draft document is expected to say that the highest value of the airport is its recreational use by residents. According to the draft, long-distance transportation, chiefly jets used by second-home owners and summer visitors from other parts of the country and abroad, should be considered a “distant second.” Commuter trips, as the committee appears set to conclude, are of “little social value to the community” and ample, if more time-consuming, alternatives exist.

In effect, the view is: Let them ride the Long Island Rail Road, fly into another airport, or enjoy the company of those whose pockets are not quite so deep as they snake along the Long Island Expressway. We say, why not?

Looking at the town’s comprehensive plan, the 2005 document plainly states that nothing should be allowed at the airport that would “encourage growth in operations” or lead to “environmental harm.” Presumably this includes the impact of noise on those people and creatures living below. It also says the emphasis should be on safety and noise abatement, while it offers nothing to assure the convenience and profits of helicopter operators.

On a separate note: Tom Twomey’s unexpected death on Nov. 16 should not go unremarked in this regard. As a private pilot and lawyer with personal and professional ties to some airport businesses, Mr. Twomey was a key player there for many years. Lately, he had been at the lead of an absolutely necessary rapprochement between propeller-plane owners like himself and anti-noise activists, recognizing that burgeoning commercial helicopter traffic was a common enemy. He was also a key, if behind-the-scenes voice for the tough, yet conciliatory approach to the Federal Aviation Administration that is now favored by town officials. His leadership will be missed, but the reasoned path he had begun to lay out is clear.

That the state of protections for the environment is broken is obvious from a recent notice from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation on the proposed Army Corps of Engineers project to bolster the downtown Montauk oceanfront.

The precarious concern for the natural world becomes clear in a single line, in which the D.E.C. declares that the 3,100-foot-long sandbag seawall will not have a significant effect. This came in the form of a “negative declaration” under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, once the gold standard of serious analysis. Comments on a state permit, which is necessary for the work to proceed, will be accepted in writing at the D.E.C.’s Stony Brook office until Dec. 19.

The numbers are staggering. Approximately 14,200 five-and-a-half-foot-long permeable fabric bags are to be used. They are to be filled with 51,000 cubic yards of material from an unspecified inland sand mine and covered with 20,000 yards of actual beach sand stockpiled during the excavation for the seawall itself. You might call it icing on the sandbag cake. In addition, a new beach berm is to be built 50 feet seaward of what is today the water’s edge. What the berm will be constructed of remains unclear. And what happens when the bags inevitably are exposed in a storm and are torn apart, spilling their less-desirable contents, no one will say.

This is a giant project, one that will by definition affect nearby properties, sea life, and birds, as well as beachgoers. To say it is not significant is a dangerous mistake, abetted, one can assume, by the fact that federal, and not local, money will pay for the work. Underscoring our belief that this type of work absolutely does have an environmental cost, a Suffolk Supreme Court justice recently ruled that the Village of East Hampton was wrong when it declared a similar, if much, much smaller, erosion-response project at Georgica Beach to have been without significant impact. This irony is worth keeping in mind when the day comes that the Montauk fix turns into a disaster.

To be sure, doing nothing about the increasingly threatened first row of motels and residences in downtown Montauk would have an environmental effect as a cascade of demolished buildings eventually plunged into the ocean. But the claim by the D.E.C., Army Corps, and others that so massive an attempt to protect them will have no impact is not credible.

What emerges is a disturbing picture of several overlapping bureaucracies seeking to save structures without fully studying the consequences. We are sorry that the East Hampton Town Board has been unable to muster the foresight, and courage, to insist that such study be undertaken, but perhaps that would have been too much to expect under the pressure to do something. We wonder what it will take to get the state back in the environmental protection business when it comes to coastal projects.

East Hampton Village banned the bags a while ago. Southampton Village did the same even before that. Now, East Hampton Town is poised to follow suit, ordering that those flimsy, thin bags commonly used in supermarkets no longer be welcome.

Based on our experience in the villages, the bans are hardly a bother; it is easy to get in the habit of carrying one’s own, sturdier totes along when shopping, or in a pinch using, if the purchase is small enough, nothing at all. Much to their credit, about the time the East Hampton Village ban went into effect, a few shops, Cirillo’s I.G.A. in Amagansett, for example, just up and did away with plastic on their own. And California will institute a statewide ban next summer.

Scientific American magazine recently took a look at plastic bag bans and concluded that they were worthwhile in several respects. These included reducing direct impact on wildlife and environmental quality, limiting landfills, and reducing fossil-fuel consumption. It cited one urban study in the United States that saw huge decreases in plastic litter in storm drains and natural creeks as well as on city streets and neighborhoods.

At a time when the use of fossil fuels is of massive concern for its role in climate change, East Hampton Town is right to join those at the forefront, seeking positive steps to help reduce related sea level rise. Local officials might not be able to change the world with one small vote, but they must do everything they can to make a difference.

At the same time, residents might do well to think more seriously about other kinds of single-use products, declining that habitual paper bag for the lunch sandwich, for example. Small steps, if enough people take them, add up.

Suffolk voters will be asked on Tuesday to consider a law intended to tighten financial aspects of the county’s Drinking Water Protection Program, which is funded by a quarter-percent sales tax. It should be approved.

Suffolk officials have taken money out of the water protection fund several times since it was created in 1987, mostly to balance the county budget and avoid the political damage associated with raising taxes or cutting services. The proposal, “A Charter Law Amending the 1/4 Percent Drinking Water Program . . . ,” would put an end to such diversions. It would also force the county to repay the money the Legislature improperly took from the fund in earlier years and, at the same time, create a $29.4 million open-space and water-quality reserve to be spent by 2020.

East Hampton residents should take note of two things. The measure could result in county protection program money becoming available for sewage treatment improvements and new, environmentally friendly nitrogen-removal septic systems, necessary projects that are called for in a recent wastewater study commissioned by the town. This ballot measure, if approved, could help avoid a dangerous precedent that would almost certainly undermine the effectiveness of land preservation here and keep open the likelihood of additional raids.

A community like East Hampton’s that saw the administration of former Town Supervisor Bill McGintee brought down over the misuse of a dedicated fund, should be especially eager to keep politicians’ sticky fingers off a key environmental program’s budget. Vote yes.