Following House passage earlier this month of a bill that would repeal some of the sharpest rate hikes in the federal flood insurance program, pressure is building in the Senate to rapidly approve the measure without amendment.

    The matter is of tremendous importance on eastern Long Island, where second-home owners and new buyers have had to deal with huge increases in annual premiums. This not only affects waterfront properties; residents, heirs, and would-be sellers in many of the town’s, and the country’s, low-lying areas must now deal with sudden, surprising, and in some cases, unbearable costs.

    A change of ownership even after a family member’s death or the re-mapping of risk areas now triggers rate hikes of as much as 100 percent in the first year, with more to come unless Congress acts. The rules are brutal, unfair, and make no sense.

    The changes came from the 2012 Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act, which attempted to close a deficit in the program that only worsened after payouts for Hurricane Sandy. But the revision, which sought to end a taxpayer subsidy, came at too high a cost. The outcry was immediate as those impacted realized they were being asked to pay to cover gaps in the program as a whole.

     Representative Tim Bishop, whose district includes East Hampton, was among the sponsors of the House’s Flood Insurance Affordability Act (H.R. 3370), and said in a release that it would prevent rapid leaps in premiums. It seeks to balance the books through annual surcharges on everyone in the program, which covers 5.6 million properties. The surcharge would be $25 for owner-occupied residences and $250 for vacation houses and commercial sites. This is far more even-handed than penalizing the relatively few people every year whose houses change hands or whose property statuses are altered in revised flood maps.

    The Senate appears ready to quickly pass the House bill instead of seeking to reconcile it with its own, which was approved in January. Senator Charles E. Schumer, who has spoken out on behalf of Rockaway residents and others hurt by the new rules, is a strong backer of the reform effort.

    Beyond the question of fairness, the Biggert-Waters rules threaten to erode the flood program if too many property owners opt out. Insurance only works when there is a big enough pool to cover potential losses. Keeping as many people in the program and spreading the costs as widely as possible appears the only course toward solvency. Saving the program and helping homeowners is the right thing to do.

    A recent East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals decision to allow the former East Deck Motel in Montauk to be buffered from the Atlantic by a 20-foot-high man-made dune appeared to sidestep several key questions — notably whether the project had adequate scrutiny and whether it might jeopardize the public use of the beach. The work was pitched as a restoration, but on closer look, it is far more than that and points to inadequacies in the law, which would affect how the town deals with such requests in the future.

    Ditch Plain (The Star does not use the “s” on the end of Plain in deference to old maps) has long been the site of considerable erosion. The Montauk Shores Condominium there is embroiled in a battle with the state over a stone sea wall, which apparently was expanded illegally, and waves have been nibbling at the East Deck property, which was bought by a partnership last year for $15 million.

    Paradoxically, the motel itself is not in imminent danger. Rather, the dune, which will replace a natural low bluff over most of the width of the property, will be proactive, meant to help stave off the ocean well before conditions worsen. Unfortunately, the town standard by which the project was reviewed is too lax; it does not take into account the new dune’s potential effect on a popular spot for beachgoers or on marine habitat and down-drift beaches.

    In addition, because the plan called for excavating the existing shrubby bluff, trucking in 6,000 cubic yards of sand and radically altering the coastal landscape, there should have been a more complete study of potential impacts on the upland portion of the site as well. It should be stressed that because the work was not needed to address an emergency, and because requests for additional changes may soon be sought for the site, there is a good chance that the zoning board application was a narrow and improper segmentation of a much larger plan to come.

    The former East Deck property’s anonymous new owners are not alone. In trying to save their multimillion-dollar beachfront investments, some property owners may actually be harming the beaches, and they are doing so with the help of local officials and the State of New York. This is because materials other than beach sand are being placed on eroding dunes and bluffs.

    Residents have begun to notice and ask questions, but they may need to pay even greater attention. During the hearing on the East Deck plan, one member of the zoning board said that previous work at Ditch included the placement of yellow, stone-laden fill, which was only marginally comparable to our billowy South Fork beach sand.

    Time was that local authorities and the state demanded that sand for such undertakings be mined only from the same littoral drift, that is, no bay sand on the ocean beach, and so on. Now, after sources have proven nearly impossible to obtain, the powers that be have allowed glacial till and worse. Some so-called restoration efforts have included material that contained chunks of concrete, brick, even ground-up hardtop tennis court — and this does not appear to bother most officials.

    The effect, though subtle to some, most notably those who are supposed to be watching, is that the quality and composition of some of the area’s beaches are being altered. In downtown Montauk, for example, rocks and stones can been found along the shoreline where almost none would have been a decade ago. This is the result of protecting a row of mostly outdated motels whose economic value to the community is debatable. Most of the jobs they provide are low-wage and seasonal, and many of the dollars flow out of town as quickly as they come in. Meanwhile, one of East Hampton’s most treasured natural assets could be diminished. And, if and when the East Deck dune is undermined, the material will end up in the ecosystem and under people’s beach blankets.

    The solution clearly is not the path most property owners and public officials would prefer. Nevertheless, East Hampton and other shoreline communities should stand and fight. They must adopt a policy of retreat and/or condemnation for threatened structures, combined with a beach-first mentality. Private houses, motels, and the like benefit the few; beaches are for the many, for all of us. The entire philosophy on coping with erosion must change — and fast — if remaining near-pristine shores are to be saved. It starts and ends with the sand.

    A Manhattan man’s nightmare that began after the apartment he rented out using an online service has implications for would-be landlords and policymakers on the South Fork. Ari Teman is now faced with eviction and living in a hotel room after someone who rented his Seventh Avenue pad via Airbnb used it to host a for-profit orgy.

    Airbnb, Homeaway, VRBO, and other short-term-rental services have become ubiquitous in places like New York City — and the Hamptons — where there are more people trying to visit than there are reasonably priced hotel rooms during peak periods. And, while few South Fork visitors are likely to be hosting pay-to-play sex parties, would-be tenants here are often quite open about plans that fall on the wrong side of local laws.

    For example, many potential lessees use online services to troll for houses where they can then illegally sell summer shares. Sure, East Hampton Town allows no more than four unrelated adults to occupy a dwelling, but landlords receive pitches all the time from people looking to get around this rule. Then there are the folks who offer to rent places for as little as a single night’s occupancy in what amounts to de facto hotels, which add to the general sense of overcrowding and bring neighborhoods unfair stress and traffic. It is a daunting problem.

    This week, VRBO, short for Vacation Rentals by Owner, listed scores of houses in East Hampton Town that could be rented by the night or week — even though the legal limit is no more than two rentals of less than two weeks’ length in a six-month period. Elsewhere, Airbnb boasted more than 400 listings — excluding Amagansett and Montauk — many of which boasted photographs of the eager owners and identifiable street addresses.

    Local officials, many of whom have been seeking ways to bring greater order and fewer crowds to summer on the South Fork, cannot continue to ignore these online marketplaces. One way to start getting things under control is by demanding that these companies refuse listings that obviously violate local ordinances, or at least by insisting that they post prominent disclaimers. Another way to get at the problem is to alert perhaps oblivious property owners in advance that they could be breaking the law by offering share-friendly houses or too many short-term stays.

    East Hampton Town has worked long and hard to control its growth, which includes the high-season population. Every effort should be made to make sure that our summer numbers are in step with long-term goals and hard-won rules and regulations. The way to control the problem starts at its source, and that means taking on the online services that make it all possible in the first place.

    The truth about the debacle that emerged recently concerning the East Hampton Town tax receiver’s office is that the buck, apparently, stops with no one. This responsibility gulf presents a most compelling argument for creating the new post of town manager with strong oversight capability.

    For the second year in a row, many town property owners did not receive end-of-year tax bills. In 2012, when the problem first came to light and residents started asking questions, the error was ascribed to an outside firm that had mislaid a tray of envelopes. This time around, no one in Town Hall noticed anything was amiss until taxpayers again started complaining. But it gets far worse. More than 5,000 bills were not printed at all, and tax payment checks went unopened in piles. One, in a FedEx envelope from a mortgage clearinghouse, was for $3.8 million.

    As it turns out there were other problems in what is arguably the second most important town department after the police. An internal assessment done by a town auditor, Charlene Kagel, in October, identified several additional problems, including data-entry delays, at least one taxpayer winding up with an account overdraft due to the office’s being late making deposits, and a bizarre practice of allowing some property owners to leave signed, blank checks in the tax receiver’s office to be filled out by staff when the bills were due.

    Unfortunately, the auditor’s report was discussed in the fall in a town board meeting that was illegally closed to the public and during which no records were made. By way of explanation, Ms. Kagel said recently that the executive session was justified because the discussion would have included details about specific town employees. This was an overreach; any talk of individuals could have been segmented from consideration of the tax receiver’s office’s overall failings.

    More plausibly, we suspect that the previous town administration sought to conceal the fact that the problems had been allowed to persist despite earlier warning signs. Had the report been in the open, much frustration and unknown expense could have been avoided. 

    Several people have questioned whether Len Bernard, the town budget officer and the putative head of the Finance Division, within which the tax receiver’s office operates, deserves some of the blame. This is a good question. Ms. Kagel, who identified the problems in the fall, works directly with  Mr. Bernard, and it is unlikely that he could not have known about her observations. Moreover, as problems had already been identified in 2012, it would have been reasonable to expect him to stay on top of what was going on.

    Which brings a town manager to mind. Had there been one, he or she might have helped avert the tax bill disaster in two ways. First, a manager would undoubtedly have had access to the auditor’s report and the authority to see that timely action was taken. And such a person, with no alliance to a political party in the ideal, might also have forced the issue into the light of day before problems had grown so large.

    Perhaps the single most important story in any recent Star was the one that appeared on the front page of last Thursday’s edition about the desperate need for adequate mental health services for school-age children.

    Think about what that means for a moment. What pediatricians, teachers, school nurses, administrators, and others are saying is that there are more kids at risk here than there are practitioners able to help them. This must change — and fast.

    School officials here would be the first to admit that there is a crisis under way. With few other choices for care, the East Hampton School District has referred 20 students with apparent suicidal thoughts to Stony Brook University Hospital in the last year and a half alone. Three South Fork students have killed themselves since 2009, and countless other forms of harmful behavior are reported, including substance abuse, eating disorders, and self-mutilation among students as young as 12.

    The problem also extends beyond the school’s reach. Medical professionals and those in related fields have been talking for some time about how to respond. As with nearly everything, however, money has been lacking. State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. is helping the East Hampton High School principal, Adam Fine, with a new approach that might provide funding for better and more abundant mental health services for the region’s youth. The energy and flexibility of private-sector groups should be tapped as well.

    This is a matter of the highest priority, and those working toward solutions are to be supported and commended. The kids need us; we must do everything and anything we can to help.

    The East Hampton Town Trustees’ concern about a possible alcohol ban at some ocean beaches should not be allowed to derail it. They own most of the beaches and should have been included in the discussions so far, but there is still time to join the conversation.

    High-season weekend crowds at Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett have reached a point of beer-drenched popularity that makes many residents uncomfortable and members of the lifeguard corps worried. The time has come do something about it, regrettably perhaps for those who remember how things used to be.

    Under present rules, East Hampton Town beaches are among the very few on Long Island where open drinking of alcoholic beverages is tolerated. For the past few years, this has helped give rise to huge, if informal, gatherings that have to be seen to be believed. And seen them we have.

    On several visits in the last two years we watched as hundreds of young adult visitors gathered at Indian Wells to socialize, play Frisbee and volleyball, and drink themselves into a warm, happy glow. During one visit, we watched an impromptu drinking game that involved men throwing full cans of beer from the beach to others in the water. By evening, Bud Light cans (the beer of choice for some reason) littered the sand or were piled with their empty packaging at the overflowing trash cans. Family friendly, Indian Wells is no longer. This repeats over and over until Labor Day, and has disturbed many regulars who are now looking for other places to go.

    In response, East Hampton Town officials have been working on what amount to half-measures, changing traffic routes, attempting to block taxis and buses from getting close to the beach, and adding parking. But these steps miss the central problem: Given a place to gather and drink themselves silly, some people are just going to do it, even if they have to walk to get there.

    The East Hampton Town Board has hoped to hold a hearing to gauge public opinion on prohibiting alcohol at beaches where and when lifeguards are present — or a variation on that theme. Giving law enforcement the ability to issue tickets for violations would go a long way to tamping down the party, but new rules cannot be put in place at Indian Wells or Atlantic Avenue Beach nearby without the trustees’ consent.

    This is a reasonable proposal. In East Hampton Village, among others, alcohol is banned at all times in public spaces, including the beaches. The trustees appear cool to the idea, fearing, as their elected clerk, Diane McNally, put it, a domino effect at other beaches.

    Ms. McNally is, of course, correct that further bans might follow, but that does not make the concept wrong. On the contrary: Large crowds, water, and alcohol do not safely mix. Confining drinking to the evening hours and beaches where lifeguards are not present would appear to be good policy. And, unless a better alternative can be found, the trustees should at least agree to a trial period.

    It is quite the wonder why two members of the last East Hampton Town Board were so vehemently opposed to an independent study of the unused Springs-Fireplace Road wastewater treatment plant now that a report on what should happen there has been released. As it turns out, their pet project to privatize the site would not only have cost the town a great deal of money, but would have contributed to groundwater contamination rather than alleviated it.

    Former East Hampton Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson and Councilwoman Theresa Quigley had tried and failed to push through a deal in which the town would have paid for expensive repairs plus a monthly fee in an unusual lease-to-buy handoff of the plant to a private firm. To make the figures work, the company would have accepted out-of-town sewage in addition to local waste.

    At the time, other board members cautioned that the whole wastewater picture needed to be reviewed before a decision was made. They stopped the proposed deal, and Mr. Wilkinson, who was ready to sign it at a February 2012 meeting, was livid.

    Now, the authors of the report say the best bet would be for the town to permanently close the plant, which has been operating as a money-losing transfer station, and put the savings of up to $50,000 a month toward more ecologically and financially sound projects. This is good advice, and confirms observations made by the town budget advisory committee, environmentalists, and others that the supervisor and Ms. Quigley should have better understood what was a stake before attempting to rush into a disasterous contract.

    The report contains several options for the road ahead, but the one that appears to have the most support is shutting the plant altogether. Rebuilding it could run $5 million or more, and annual operating costs could exceed $1 million. Instead, the report says, money might be directed to the doing something about the unknown number of under-performing individual septic systems in town.

    Prior efforts at providing incentives for upgrading residential cesspools, for example, have been under-funded and of limited effectiveness. Incentives are well worth considering, as upgrades would both save money and help protect drinking water and the environment. 

    An effort to respond to coastal erosion and flooding in low-lying areas here took a step forward recently when East Hampton Town made exploratory buyout offers to property owners. This is an important development that responds to the increasing threat to the waterfront and the concomitant certainty of losing public beaches if seawalls and other permanent structures are allowed.

    Hurricane Sandy can be credited with spurring interest at the federal and state level in long-term thinking. In terms of timing, the possibility of grant money from outside town has coincided with a change of leadership away from a rocks-first mentality. The new outlook better responds to climate change, sea level rise, and the simple effect of time along the shore.

    A change in the state law that established the Peconic Bay Region Community Preservation Fund means that the money can now be used to buy erosion and flood-prone properties. Similarly, a program administered by the United States Department of Agriculture could provide the cash to buy threatened house lots at pre-Sandy prices and remove all their structures. In a trial effort, letters intended to gauge interest in participation went to about 120 owners at Lazy Point, Amagansett.

    Right now, available federal money is limited to about $100 million, and there is considerable competition for preservation fund cash for other types of purchases. Nonetheless, removing houses from the most troubled spots is likely to happen, if somewhat modestly at first.

    Over all, the program is a good start. For decades, the experts have said that the only rational policy is one of retreat. Officials at nearly every level appear to be taking that message to heart. In the long run, the community will be better served by a managed and well-considered step back from the shore.

    The East Hampton School Board announced last week that it is likely to seek voter approval to exceed the state cap on tax increases for 2014-15. The move is not entirely unexpected, and appears justified, at least for the coming year. But this should not be the end of the discussion about taxpayer support of public education.

    Thanks to holding expenses in check for several successive years, the district has been able to meet the so-called 2-percent cap, but there is very little left now to cut from the budget in East Hampton — or in other large South Fork districts that have met the cap. Students already seem to have been negatively affected. Going further would mean seriously undermining educational quality.

    As we have noted before, the pressure comes from the top, specifically from New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s often-stated interest in property-tax relief. As Mr. Cuomo sees it, the state has too many small taxing entities, which results in too much money coming from state residents’ pockets. The governor believes that trimming school spending through shared services is the best way to meet the challenge.

    On eastern Long Island, where the schools take in the largest portion of the money raised by taxes, the governor’s ideas for reform appear to have plenty to recommend them. Each of the often small districts seems top-heavy with administrators pulling in six-figure salaries and ample benefits. While some resistance is to be expected from those who might see their fiefdoms reduced, a new, hard look at consolidation, particularly at the top of the pay scale, should be taken.

    Voters, we suspect, will be supportive of districts that seek to go above the tax cap this year, and perhaps for one or two more cycles. Beyond that, however, patience as well as wallets will begin to get thin. Looking toward the long term, seeking ways to reduce the administrative costs of education by consolidation is something that must be considered.

    That East Hampton is divided into two camps these days — those who want to live here and those who simply want to make a buck — is worthy of particular concern as summer approaches. Finding a balance between them is what makes the job of those in Town Hall and the village’s Beecher House so tough. It is up to them to make decisions about the direction of the community and to keep in check those of a more, shall we say, extractive mind-set.

    Montauk has become the front line in this fight. As the hamlet has grown more popular, so too have the pressures on officials to find that elusive balance. Recent history and the scale of wealth among some here make that even more difficult. In an astonishing passage in a recent New York Times profile of Michael Walrath, the 38-year-old tech millionaire and owner of the Montauk Surf Lodge, he was described as having “befriended” then-East Hampton Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson and, by implication, was able to use that relationship to resolve the bar and restaurant’s numerous code violations with a $100,000 settlement in town court.

    The article went on to describe how Mr. Walrath “reduced capacity” at the Surf Lodge from 1,500 customers on some nights to 500. By any measure, 500 people is still too many by more than half for the Surf Lodge’s sensitive site on the edge of Fort Pond in a residential area. Of course, the Surf Lodge is hardly the only gathering place that’s gotten too big.

    Plenty of residents have wondered how the Montauk Beach House was allowed to expand, becoming a club and music venue hosting hundreds of people without providing more than a scrap of off-street parking. Ruschmeyer’s Inn is another hopping nightspot, while Solé East’s bands and D.J.s provide an unwelcome nighttime beat in the old Shepherd’s Neck neighborhood.

    Cyril’s Fish House on Napeague has been allowed to operate a bar with hundreds of patrons spilling onto the state Montauk Highway right-of-way. Only a short distance from Town Hall, vehicles of summer patrons at Bostwick’s Chowder House regularly overflow into no-parking zones. Meanwhile, an avoidable turf war between the East Hampton Town Trustees and the town board may prevent a solution for Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett, which has taken on a Florida spring-break atmosphere on high-season weekends to the dismay of regulars. We’re probably forgetting a few, too.

    None of these enterprises adequately compensates the community for the disturbances they cause. The jobs they create are generally seasonal and much of the money flows out of town as quickly as it flows in. They also create long-term risks to real estate values and rental rates. Officials are definitely trying to improve things. In East Hampton Village, serious consideration is being given to new rules on mechanized noise. The town board is taking a hard look at large, outdoor parties and other events.

    Going into summer 2014, the yardstick with which to measure policy is to ask: Who benefits and who pays?

    Officials must keep in mind that East Hampton is not dominated by the resort and nightlife sections of its economy. Residents, renters, and second-home owners keep this place going. Operations that flout local laws and diminish the attractiveness of this area for those who really pay the bills should be strongly discouraged.