For the first time ever, East Hampton High School’s annual homecoming game, held on Sept. 20, was not played by the football team. The match featured varsity soccer, and the boys defeated Hampton Bays by a score of 3-0, therein making history and signaling a change that was coming for a long time, accelerated by local demographic changes.

The Bonackers were not able to field a varsity football team this year, as many would-be players opted for other sports. There is a degree of interest in football among younger kids, but whether this will endure as they get older is a big question, especially in light of growing public concern about concussions and other injuries linked to the game.

Meanwhile, the East Hampton soccer players are on a tear. They played strongly last year, were county champions in the two seasons before that, and are in the hunt for a League VI title for 2014.

Hot on the heels of a World Cup that drew solid viewer ratings in the United States, high school soccer is poised become the next big thing. In East Hampton, it appears, it already has.

As we commented back when the matter was pending before the East Hampton Town Planning Board, the pitch made by the late Gregg Saunders for a commercial building on Montauk Highway in Wainscott was one for the textbooks. Now that work on the former Plitt Ford site is well under way, some residents are beginning to notice. They are right to wonder what the heck happened and why those who own the property now are getting away with it.

Tall steel beams mere feet from the road now outline what will be a massive and looming retail space, a 17,500-square-foot superstore. Unlike every other business structure in this part of Wainscott, this building is as close to traffic as possible and instantly mars the area, a gateway to the rest of East Hampton Town. A pending request to open a car wash not far away is troubling as well.

The construction on the old Plitt Ford site, as approved by the planning board in May 2012, meets the letter of the law for the business zone in which it sits, but that does not make it right or appropriate. It represents a significant failure of the planning board to, well, plan.

Mr. Saunders had played the town like a fiddle four years ago, before his untimely death in a head-on collision not all that far from his property. Having told the board at a hearing that he wanted a Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s there, the review should have been far more critical. Instead, it amounted to a love-fest. That summer, Whole Foods did indeed test an outpost there, but decided it wasn’t worth it in the long run.

Since then, the modest, shingle-covered building Mr. Saunders presented in Town Hall morphed into today’s massive structure. Indeed, the board’s saying yes also may be failure from a regulatory point of view, given the sight lines, neighboring properties, and potential traffic calamities, as one observer termed it.

It’s important to note that with only a few exceptions, the planning board is made up now of the same members who green-lighted the Wainscott project way back when. We deeply hope they have learned from this experience and will, accordingly, act more in the community’s interest the next time a large, commercial proposal comes their way.

A sign boasting of East Hampton Town’s goal of meeting all of its electricity needs with renewable sources by 2020, which was carried by an activist during Sunday’s climate march in New York City, drew lots of attention. And well it should have; moving away from fossil fuels is essential if human-induced global warming is to be slowed within our lifetimes. It is terrific that a local resolution to do better, albeit one with limited direct effect, could reach beyond East Hampton’s borders and, perhaps, influence other communities to take their own steps toward a positive power future.

By dint of its precarious location perched on the edge of the sea on nearly all sides, East Hampton and the rest of the East End should be at the forefront of preparing for one of the predicted effects of climate change — a rapidly rising ocean. This, it must be conceded, is far more difficult to achieve than declaring an electricity-supply goal, no matter how laudable that may be. Science’s best predictions suggest that global sea level will rise by two feet by the end of the century. However, regional variations due to geography, ocean circulation, and other factors mean that places like New York City and the East End may see even more ominous impacts.

Already, East Hampton Town officials, with help from the Nature Conservancy and the federal government, are beginning to acknowledge the scale of the risk by preparing to buy out property owners in a highly vulnerable section of Lazy Point in Amagansett. Sag Harbor Village recently imposed a moratorium on waterfront permit approvals, which, we hope, will give officials time to consider long-term implications of existing policies and to delineate areas where change is needed. Southampton Town expanded its comprehensive plan last year, adding a sustainability section that took a look at the potential impact of rising seas.

For all the talk, adopting real and meaningful policies has been lagging. Officials may chip around the edges of the problem with buyouts and building pauses, but a truly forward-looking response has yet to emerge. This is perhaps for fear of angering wealthy shoreline property owners or negatively affecting the lucrative tax base they represent. Worse, the agency at the very top of coastal policy, the Army Corps of Engineers, is hopelessly mired in a 50-plus-year study of the region and seems only able to offer retrograde solutions, such as dumping sand on threatened beaches or building seawalls.

As eastern Long Island begins to wonder how it can help reduce human influence on global climate, it must prepare for its effects. And, along the beaches, that means a sensible policy of retreat and relocation.

With East Hampton Village having accepted more than $100,000 toward a test project to spay deer, it probably will go forward, but it may actually delay effective management and avoid comprehensive analysis of the role their growing numbers play in tick-borne illnesses as well as their effect on the environment.

Village and town officials abandoned public funds last year for a program in which sharpshooters were to reduce the herd through nighttime hunts. In its place now are private donations earmarked for removing the ovaries of tranquilized does, at about $1,000 a head, within village limits but nothing at all beyond them.    

Whatever is undertaken to control the deer population must be consistent across the South Fork, and, at present, there appears no cost-effective means but hunting. Money for spaying more broadly would be unlikely in the extreme. By accepting private funding, the village is assuring a patchwork approach almost surely doomed to failure as deer move in from other areas. A regional approach is called for.

One of the people who have been thinking a lot about a proposed surf club on the old East Deck Motel site at Ditch Plain in Montauk stopped in at The Star office the other day to point something out. Mike Bottini, an outdoorsman and member of the Surfrider Foundation’s local chapter, laid out a set of papers on our front desk, showing that a string of public and largely protected lands extend from Montauk Point nearly to the hamlet’s commercial downtown. East Hampton Town officials are believed to be in talks with ED40, the new corporate owners of the East Deck, about using the community preservation fund to buy the site. As Mike said, adding the property to the string of public and largely untouched lands would help complete a wonderful picture.

With the rebirth of longboarding and the rise of Montauk’s surfing lifestyle, Ditch Plain with its dependable and mostly forgiving break became what you might say is the center of the universe for many visitors, part-timers, and year-round residents. If the waves are only occasionally world-class, no matter; you can surf there almost every day of the year with the right equipment, and, in summer, some of the sport’s greatest stylists, including Joel Tudor, Robert August, and Wingnut Weaver, have been known to put their toes over the nose there.

ED40 never threatened the wave itself, but that hardly mattered. Its plan for a two-story private club with restaurant, pool, and other amenities would have not only altered the look of Ditch Plain but, what is more important to devotees, the feel of the place. For those lucky enough to own houses or rent in the neighborhood, the personal and commercial traffic the club would generate would become a source of continual annoyance. East Hampton Town’s buying the former motel and either keeping it as is or restoring parts of the beachfront to a natural state would eliminate the threat. While this alone might be enough to argue in favor of a deal, there are additional considerations.

Over the last decade or so, town officials have puzzled over how to provide more bathing beach capacity. Using some of the East Deck site for parking could help ease pressure elsewhere and better accommodate the numbers of beachgoers’ vehicles that already try to shoe-horn into Ditch Plain’s three inadequate lots. The site could provide a staging area for town lifeguards and improved access for emergency vehicles. Also, the single public restroom at Ditch is in desperate need of an upgrade; a second, more modern facility with a more environmentally appropriate septic system is in order.

Taking an idea from the Village of East Hampton, which very lucratively rents out the Sea Spray summer cottages near Main Beach, we can envision a setup at Ditch Plain in which the town actually gains revenue by retaining or renovating some of the motel for guests or coming up with a new arrangement.

The downside as we see it is cost. ED40 paid $15 million for the property last year; the price cannot have fallen since then, and the owners will undoubtedly want to be repaid for the dune-building they did there and on adjacent town land. The town cannot pay more than its appraisers say the property is worth, and a large deal might knock out a good chunk of the community preservation fund’s cash on hand. However, the town has the ability to borrow against future transfer-tax receipts for the fund, so the money is available one way or the other.

Setting aside highly politicized recriminations about the Keyes Island purchase in Three Mile Harbor, hardly an ill word has ever been said about preservation fund acquisitions. And, going further back in time, land buys have always been viewed favorably. Purported damage to a municipal property at Sammy’s Beach in East Hampton may have cost one town supervisor a shot a re-election, and an attempt to sell off a town property in Montauk badly sullied the reputation of another.

It has been understood for a long time here that preservation is the best investment. The huge outcry over the ED40 plan is an indication of how deep and heartfelt affection for Ditch Plain has become. It is difficult to come up with a significant downside to public purchase. Officials should proceed with talks knowing that they are on the right track and will enjoy wide community support.

Saturday is International Coastal Cleanup Day, and East Hampton Town is joining the effort by providing trash bags, gloves, and collection sites for volunteers who want to help pick up trash from the beaches. Then, on Sunday, the organizers of the People’s Climate March expect it to be the largest demonstration in New York City since the anti-Vietnam War protests. Both are worthy.

The People’s Climate March promises to involve leaders from the labor movement, faith-based organizations, and people from across the nation, along with 32 marching bands and a single call by trumpets, bells, drums, and whistles for change. The beach cleanup here, sponsored by the Ocean Conservancy, may present an opportunity for change of the sometimes overlooked but growing problem of the mess left behind by bonfires. East Hampton Village allows fires on the beach provided they are kept inside a metal brazier or other container. Southampton does the same, and requires a permit. Many other Long Island municipalities ban them altogether. East Hampton Town, on the other hand, allows fires to be built right on the sand, subject to a host of regulations about size, location, and hours, which are largely ignored and in any event fail to address the enduring problem that fire debris, be it half-burned logs or the more-difficult-to-remove bits of charcoal, are leaving many popular bathing beaches almost permanently scarred.

 If you look closely (and we invite you to), dozens of small, black chunks can be picked up within an area no bigger than a single beach towel at Indian Wells in Amagansett. Downtown Montauk’s shore one morning this summer was a wasteland of smoldering wood and empty beer cans. It’s time for town officials to realize something has to change. Fires on town beaches could be permitted only within metal containers for a distance of perhaps 300 feet in either direction from beach road ends. Fires could be allowed on the sand beyond those limits, but only if a way can be found for marine patrol officers to obtain identification of responsible parties to whom littering tickets could be directed if a mess were found in the morning.

It is high time that beachgoers here began to practice the old backpacker’s mantra of “leave no trace.” As for time, it is running short to protect those very beaches from eventually falling victim to climate change. 

Serious attention is now being paid to water quality in the Town of East Hampton after a patchwork effort dating back decades. Georgica Pond, which has been closed to the taking of shellfish for years due to pollution, was found to be contaminated with a form of toxic algae about a year ago and closed to crabbing, its last remaining active harvest.

Concerned Citizens of Montauk and the local Surfrider Foundation released test results this week that found elevated bacteria in a dreen that crosses a popular ocean beach and at several places in Lake Montauk. If there ever was any question about what is causing some of these results, the C.C.O.M.-Surfrider tests can dispel it.

To take just one location, close to a former town bathing beach at South Lake Drive, the highest readings come after Memorial Day, with the greatest spikes around the middle of July. Called East Creek on the surfrider.org website, this narrow waterway carries much of the more of less unfiltered waste from the Ditch Plain area’s many houses into the lake. In this case, the samples are checked for enterococcus, a form of intestinal bacteria found in humans; what other contaminants may be present, including household chemicals and dissolved pharmaceuticals, is subject to conjecture.

East Hampton Town officials have targeted undeveloped lots around Lake Montauk for purchase using money from the community preservation fund. This initiative will probably prevent conditions from getting much worse. But other measures will have to be taken to see long-term improvement.

Several levels of government, including town and village officials, and representatives of the Nature Conservancy and other groups have begun meeting to discuss possible solutions. These may include an educational campaign aimed at waterfront property owners to seek better compliance with rules about fertilizers, lawns, and clearing, among other methods of watershed protection. Another option, if money could be set aside, is an incentive program to replace outdated or failing septic systems.

Meanwhile, in Sag Harbor the village board was expected to vote last night to impose a moratorium on building near its waterfront as development pressure swells beyond the existing regulations’ ability to control it. And East Hampton Town is working on a comprehensive wastewater study, which should provide some more answers.

Making water quality a top priority is the right thing to do in a region that so values its surroundings. It is heartening to see people inside and outside of government taking it so seriously.

Tuesday’s Democratic primary in which Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo managed to defeat a progressive insurgency from Zephyr Teachout, a first-time candidate, was a stunner to which New York’s old-line power brokers should pay close attention.

Over all, votes for the challenger can be read as messages of dissatisfaction with the governor’s approach to leadership, agenda, and priorities. Ms. Teachout landed a solid blow when she counted among her qualifications, vis-a-vis the governor’s, that she at least was not the subject of a federal probe; Mr. Cuomo’s role in dismantling his much-heralded anticorruption commission is being looked at by the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Ms. Teachout’s relative success also came from her bootstrap campaign’s mastery of social media and, by extension, much of the news cycle. If Twitter, the online message platform, were the polls, she would have won in a landslide. During the lead-up to Tuesday’s primary, tweets from her and her supporters dominated feeds; the governor’s were few and perfunctory.

Two negative aspects of Mr. Cuomo’s first term stand out: the 2-percent tax increase cap, which imposed austerity on school spending that harms students, and a lackluster effort on environmental protection. Both, it appears, come from overarching political ambition, which by Mr. Cuomo’s reckoning requires that he govern from the center if he wants to have a run at the White House at some point. The 2-percent cap actually shrinks government as well as school spending because it fails to keep up with inflation. Inevitably, as choices are made to cope with the cap, it often will be less-wealthy state residents and disadvantaged areas that suffer the consequences.

On the environment, this year’s state budget contained a paltry $157 million for the environmental protection fund, a sum that has been described as not enough even for basic programs. Part of the problem has been the state’s skimming money supposed to go to the environment for other purposes — drastically shortchanging the Department of Environmental Protection, for example. Under the governor’s watch, Albany also has failed to lead, either with money or from the bully pulpit, on climate change, alternative energy, and coastal resiliency.

Unfortunate, too, has been Mr. Cuomo’s increasingly ludicrous way of dismissing challenges. He ducked multiple calls to debate Ms. Teachout, calling some he has participated in the past a “disservice to democracy,” and apparently forgetting the single most bizarre example, a nine-person clown show, which was set up at his behest as a way to minimize opposition. Then there was the embarrassing spectacle of him and his running mate’s, Kathy Hochul’s, refusing to shake Ms. Teachout’s hand during a Labor Day parade. Only on Governor Cuomo’s Planet Albany does this kind of thing make sense.   

Progressives nationwide were watching Tuesday for indications in Ms. Teachout’s numbers that a new chapter could be dawning in New York. They also were paying close attention to how Tim Wu, Ms. Hochul’s opponent for lieutenant governor, fared. Only time will tell, but that there was wide interest in Ms. Teachout and her message is something that politicians across the spectrum might ignore at their own risk.

The mechanics of a proposed East Hampton Town registry for property rentals will require detailed consideration, but at this point it seems a good idea and long overdue.

Officials are revising a draft of a law that would require landlords to register with the town, providing details about the number of rooms and so on. An identification number would be assigned to each property, which would have to be displayed in all advertising and online listings. A hearing on the law should come before the end of the month.

Pushing things to a head is the exploding short-term rental industry facilitated by online services such as Airbnb and HomeAway that put would-be visitors and hosts together at prices that range from a rock-bottom $80 to thousands per night for desirable neighborhoods and completely appointed places. In effect, these services have allowed East Hampton’s manageable, finite number of hotel rooms and bed-and-breakfast accommodations to metastasize beyond current means of control.

To consider just a few numbers: Airbnb listed more than 300 East Hampton rentals for Labor Day weekend. A similar site, HomeAway, had 367 places up for grabs in Montauk. To be sure, not all these rentals violate the town code, but judging from many reports from guests, a large proportion blatantly exceed limits. (Under the East Hampton Town Code, no more than two rentals of fewer than 15 days are allowed in any six-month period.)

The stunning growth of online rentals has led to increased complaints from neighbors about summertime noise, litter, and overflow parking. More subtly, these short-term renters add to the already crowded roads, restaurants, and beaches — a boon to those making money during the resort season but a nuisance to others, including the ordinary summer and weekend community which is the backbone of the local economy. In addition, people here for only a few days or a week tend to move around a lot, packing in as much activity as they can. The problem is government’s lack of capacity to absorb the excess, given limited roads, waste disposal options, overstretched power and cellphone grids, and a fragile environment.

Rental registration exists in some form or other in hundreds, if not thousands, of jurisdictions across the United States. Some programs, like that in the City of Boston, require that every private unit be listed and that landlords attest to knowing all applicable regulations and agree to abide by them. This point is interesting, considering that one notable Montauk share-house owner, a New York lawyer no less, claimed ignorance of the law while pleading guilty recently to assorted violations. One goal of the Boston effort has been to assure safe and adequate living conditions for tenants, though owner-occupied properties with fewer than six units are exempted. That would undermine the intent here.

A registry will incur costs but the expense is justified. East Hampton Town would almost certainly have to add personnel to manage the registry and to seek out and prosecute those who violate the rules. Property rentals are one of the area’s major sources of income. Responding with a governing agency up to the task of keeping them in check is not optional.

Tamping down on unregulated rentals appears to be one key aspect of protecting East Hampton’s future. Any inconvenience the proposed registry might represent will be more than justified if it gives enforcement personnel the tools they need to do the job.

East Hampton Town is getting its land acquisition strategy right and developing an approach that other local governments along the country’s coasts could consider a model. The money comes from two sources, the community preservation fund transfer tax and a newer federal program aimed at neutralizing at-risk properties. Taken together, the initiatives could improve marine and estuarine habitats, reduce potential erosion-control costs, and limit calls for government bailouts after catastrophic storms.

In a joint bid with the Nature Conservancy, the town recently won nearly $10 million in federal watershed protection money to buy properties near Lazy Point, a low-slung area surrounded by water in eastern Amagansett. The intent is to remove houses and other structures, allowing the sites to be revegetated as natural flood plain. One side benefit would be reducing the workload of town planners and others whose jobs are increasingly taken up with requests for permission to protect problematic shorefront properties.

On a simultaneous track, the town has been using money from the preservation fund to target properties in the heavily impacted Lake Montauk watershed. In a mailing to property owners there, the town offered to buy undeveloped parcels at fair market value. Many accepted, and deals are being completed that will remove potential development of a number of sites.

The East Hampton Town Trustees, an autonomous board that owns the underlying land of a number of continually threatened houses on Lazy Point, should be paying close attention. As more and more homeowners there come before them for erosion-control structures that alter the environment and restrict public access to the beach except at low tide, an orderly reduction in the number of houses appears necessary. Any future programs of the sort being planned by the town and Nature Conservancy should be extended to the trustees as well.

The upside of these efforts are that they are likely, over time, to cost taxpayers less than doing nothing and then bailing coastal property owners out after a disaster. Consider that a substantial portion of the $50 billion Hurricane Sandy relief package could have been avoided if initiatives like this had been undertaken before the storm.