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.

    America’s top-grossing 7-Eleven is in Montauk, and, according to the franchisee, the location served as many as 4,000 customers a day last summer. Now, a property owner and a different operator would like to bring at least some of that wild success to Amagansett — and there is really nothing in the East Hampton Town Code to stop it.

    Recognizing this and sensing public dissatisfaction, officials went deep into the records to find a way to stall, if not stop, the new convenience store from opening without review of the consequences. This may be all the town can do at this point, but whatever the outcome in Amagansett, officials must quickly overhaul an aspect of local law that is in need of modification lest this or other kinds of highly intensive uses spring up elsewhere.

    The key will be to revise the town code to permit realistic use of commercial properties, first and foremost, an assessment of and specific cap on the number of patrons allowed indoors and out. Applications for such enterprises should trigger stringent site plan review. In the existing code, even if a proposal involves an increase in the number of people who enter in a given 24-hour period — no matter if that figure goes from 100 to 1,000 — no additional scrutiny is needed as long as the zoning is right. This must change.

    A dizzying range of hybrid businesses has sprung up here in recent years as more and more money pours in. What is increasingly clear is that current regulations are not necessarily able to keep up. Increasingly, lawyers and land planners have exploited vagueness and apparent loopholes in the code to win much of what their clients want. This has often come, particularly in summer, at the price of increased traffic, litter, and congestion. With a new administration in Town Hall that has repeatedly expressed sympathy for residents’ interests and community concerns, the prospect for meaningful change is good.

    In the case of the proposed Amagansett 7-Eleven, far more vehicle traffic over the course of a 24-hour period would be generated than under the existing building’s brief incarnation as a 160-seat restaurant — and this on an already busy stretch of Montauk Highway. However, as far as the zoning code is concerned, the two are essentially equal and legal in the property’s central business zoning.

    By no means, however, is the problem limited to 7-Elevens and the like. Consider other examples, such as several Montauk motels and restaurants, including Ruschmeyer’s, the Shepard’s Neck Inn, the Surf Lodge, and the Beach House, which have morphed into something else, with many more patrons crossing their thresholds every day than had been there in earlier guises. Better-written, less-ambiguous, and more strictly applied town laws might have made the difference and prevented now frequent quality-of-life complaints. There is still time to rein them in, especially if they are pre-existing businesses on residentially zoned sites.

    To adequately deal with growth, regulations must be rewritten to include close study of how and to what extent properties are actually going to be used. Development pressure has rapidly outpaced the East Hampton laws meant to constrain and manage it. The sooner the rules are made to reflect this new reality, the better.

    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.

    East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell expressed the feelings of many residents this week when he sent a strongly worded letter to Gov. Andrew Cuomo objecting to PSEG Long Island’s ongoing project to run new, high-voltage power lines between East Hampton and Amagansett. We applaud his effort and hope that he is joined by others, such as State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle and Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., in calling for a different approach.

    PSEG Long Island, a subsidiary of a for-profit New Jersey company, Public Service Enterprise Group, has a 10-year, $5 billion arrangement with the Long Island Power Authority to operate the electric system in Nassau and Suffolk Counties subject to state oversight.

    Calling the work a “travesty,” Mr. Cantwell cited the town’s comprehensive plan and inclusion in a statewide scenic areas inventory as ample justification for a halt to the project, in which the utility has been installing tall poles in residential areas. Mr. Cantwell said the new lines should be buried underground and out of sight.

    At a meeting in East Hampton Village earlier this year, PSEG Long Island representatives said that burying the lines would be too expensive, but they did not provide dollar estimates to back up the claim. Whether or not this is true, they made clear that they were not going to do it.

    Elsewhere, the company has angered Montauk residents by embarking on drastic tree-cutting with scant advance notice. One suspects that such aggressive work would save the company money by increasing the length of time between prunings, hence making things look better for investors and shareholders.

    Under the terms of the LIPA deal, PSEG Long Island agreed to a rate freeze through 2015. You don’t have to look too deeply to see that without a way to pass on expenses to its customers, the company is trying to contain costs wherever possible, including by not burying lines despite a community outcry.

    Officials should press Mr. Cuomo, who can wield influence with the New York Department of Public Service if he so chooses, to force the issue. An out-of-state company cannot be allowed to run roughshod over East Hampton’s long history of preservation, and then hide behind vague claims that doing the right thing would cost too much money.

    Mr. Cuomo, are you listening?

    East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell has begun working with a number of other officials on revising the town’s gatherings law, with an eye toward controlling the burgeoning nightlife scene in Montauk. Meanwhile, a committee asked to study taxicab operations, including rabid price-gouging, has been revitalized. The work is long overdue, and but part of what it will take to make the easternmost hamlet a little less of a no-holds-barred party destination for summer 2014.

    Town Hall faces a considerable obstacle in the form of precedents allowed by the previous administration’s approval of huge outdoor events and the questionable conversion of several old-time motels into swank and far-larger social hubs. Among these was the over-the-top analysis supported by the then-town attorney’s office that the former Ronjo Motel in Montauk’s downtown could not only have a bar, but could operate with hundreds of people on the premises at all hours, far more than its handful of guestrooms could accommodate.

    Now it is rumored that the new owner of at least one other Montauk motel may hope to go the nightclub route, and there are surely others watching closely to see just how far they too could push matters. East Hampton Town should push back — hard. Now is the time for officials and residents alike to shift the balance away from the handful of business owners who put making a buck ahead of community.

    One key area the town board should look into is new rules about outdoor occupancy. Places like Montauk’s Sloppy Tuna, Surf Lodge, Ruschmeyer’s, and the Montauk Beach House, and Cyril’s Fish House on Napeague, are, under current rules, essentially allowed to pack as many people as they can onto their properties. This has prompted season after season of noise complaints from neighbors and litter and congestion problems. Setting limits consistent with each business’s ability to provide off-street parking would be a good starting place.

    As to the beaches, officials should give serious consideration to banning alcohol consumption where and when lifeguards are present. And they should prohibit unenclosed bonfires within several hundred feet of road ends and along the entire downtown Montauk beach. There are simply too many people here in season, making too much noise and leaving too much of a mess behind. The sooner Town Hall updates the code to accommodate the new reality the better off we all will be.

    There is some good news on the environment for eastern Long Island and some that’s not so good. Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone said recently that water quality was now his administration’s top priority. In East Hampton, Democrats listed groundwater and the areas’s bays and harbors among their key platform planks last year. Yet the State of New York, despite a projected budget surplus in the coming fiscal year, appears poised to cut environmental funding.

    According to the New York League of Conservation Voters, a watchdog group, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposed 2014-15 spending plan would actually reduce spending by the Department of Environmental Conservation and keep essentially flat the amount set aside for a $157 million fund that helps pay for habitat and drinking water protections, historic sites, and saving family farms.

    Environmental organizations have said that this fund, which draws on a dedicated real estate transfer tax, should be strengthened, going to as much as $200 million for the coming year. The League of Conservation Voters has noted that the state’s penury on environmental protection is in sharp contrast to generous increases for what it described as technological upgrades.

    For his part, Mr. Bellone has announced that nitrogen pollution amounts to “public water enemy number one.” This is a very welcome point of view from a top official in a region dependent on healthy waterways and whose drinking water comes solely from the ground beneath our feet. Public support is there for doing something about it. As many as 9,700 county residents listened in on a conference call at the end of January during which Mr. Bellone described his concerns.

    Next will come the hard work of figuring out how to make things better. Roughly two-thirds of Suffolk residences are not connected to a municipal sewer system; instead they dispose of liquid waste in often outdated septic systems. Mr. Bellone has said he is going to work to find solutions. East Hampton Town commissioned a study last year to gauge the scale of the problem here and propose ways to protect water supplies and marine ecosystems. Nitrogen abundance has been linked to massive plankton blooms, such as the devastating “brown tides” of the 1980s that nearly wiped out the scallop — and this may be tied to what we all put in the ground every day.

    We expect the present town board will work long and hard on the issue, but money and manpower from the state will be essential to success. Long Island residents should be worried that Albany is not doing enough to protect these critically important resources and demand more support for local initiatives like Mr. Bellone’s and the plans being developed in East Hampton Town. The environment, particularly drinking water and marine areas, should receive equal attention from Mr. Cuomo and the Legislature.

    Forget about the ice, the snow, the wind, and all that this winter. No: The real problem with winter 2014 is the potholes.

    Montauk Highway, which bears the bulk of this area’s traffic, is the worst of it. Deep pits lie in wait for tires and rims. Many offer a telltale clue: striped lines a layer down suggesting that the last time the road was paved something wasn’t done quite right.

    You can tell the locals from the visitors by the apparently odd way they steer, going half onto the shoulder or slowing for no apparent reason in advance of an unavoidable patch. These days, a swerving vehicle in front of you does not mean the driver has downed a few too many Budweisers.

    Last we heard from the state, help is on the way sometime this spring. A Department of Transportation resurfacing effort is supposed to begin in the next few months. Between now and then, though, expect a whole lot more of the Montauk Highway swerve. Our advice? Slow down, never tailgate, keep your eyes open and those tires at the proper inflation. It’s likely to get a whole lot worse before it gets better.

    The nice old house and outbuildings at 208 Montauk Highway in Amagansett had been for sale for quite a while with no buyer emerging when the owner approached East Hampton Town Hall for help. The result is a hearing at East Hampton Town Hall tonight on a zone change that just might hasten a closing. But the request, to go from a residential designation with a limited-business overlay within the Amagansett Historic District to full-on commercial, should be rejected.

    Formerly Balasses House Antiques, the site had been occupied more recently by an ambitious and fascinating gallery, one that enjoyed a strong following for its many events. But the asking price of $2.6 million is apparently on the high side for the economics of the office, salon, gallery, or antiques shop uses allowed under current zoning, or at least that is what the lack of a buyer suggests. A second-floor apartment in the main building is an increasingly rare commodity, though not quite income-producing enough either.

    So sometime last year the unidentified owner approached the former town board majority, seeking to have the roughly half-acre property rezoned to central business, a more or less anything-goes designation, rather than chop the price to something more reasonable. In an L.B.O., as the limited business zone is known, you have to figure a $2.6 million sale isn’t going to happen; in central business, well, ka-ching, ka-ching. And that was the tune to which the former town board majority danced. Only a technical error delayed a hearing and probable yes vote before the end of their term. 

    East Hampton Town’s comprehensive plan, adopted in 2005, flat-out says no to rezoning any parcels in Amagansett for new commercial development. The current town board need look no further for justification in denying the request. Moreover, the town should tread very lightly when it comes to properties in any of its critically important historic districts.

    The Balasses House request should be a test for Supervisor Larry Cantwell and the rest of the newly constituted board in putting community interests first and respecting the work of those who came before them. In the end, property owners’ problems in inking a deal at a price of their own choosing is not enough to justify changing zoning, overriding the comprehensive plan, or undermining historic preservation goals.

    The apparent collapse here of planned participation in a deer reduction plan backed by the Long Island Farm Bureau should not go unremarked.

    As we have noted, the failure of the Department of Environmental Conservation to provide leadership in this matter should raise significant questions among state lawmakers about the agency’s function and capabilities. The local glitch, to which East Hampton Village and Town’s pulling out of the cull was attributed, that an environmental impact study was required before signing on, is an embarrassment to all involved.

    Those opposed to the killing of deer by professional sharpshooters supervised by the United States Department of Agriculture have said that they view the delay as a victory. Maybe. We suspect it is not a capitulation to vocal pressure and take the word of Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell, who had been on record in favor of the cull, and others that an environmental impact statement could not be completed in time for the program to begin next month. A large-scale hunt like this would by definition affect the environment; knowing in advance just what that effect would be, at least to the extent possible, is obviously necessary.

    Looking ahead, we expect deer on roadsides and lawns to increase as proper woodland habitat is either fenced off or further denuded by their hungry foraging. Collisions between deer and vehicles will continue at the current unacceptable rate, if not grow. And, even if deer are not alone in carrying ticks, more people will be diagnosed with Lyme disease and other ailments, along with a potentially fatal allergy to red meat caused by the bite of the lone star tick.

    Leaders here, at D.E.C. headquarters, and at Suffolk County Vector Control must do more to bring the deer population into balance with the land’s ability to support it. As of now, no viable alternative to a professional, precise hunt has been put forward. East Hampton should begin work on the required study as soon as practical.

    If there is one piece of advice that is more routinely ignored than any other, it is this: When public officials say residents should stay off the roads because of snow and ice, far too many figure that applies to someone else and head out anyway.

    So far, this winter bears out this observation. Accidents involving not-snow-ready vehicles and inexperienced or even unlicensed drivers have been plenty since the beginning of the year. Risky, too, is maintaining dry-road speeds just because you are behind the wheel of a hulking pickup truck.

    We are lucky on this part of the island that snowfalls tend to be followed quickly by thaws, giving crews time to clear most major thoroughfares. Resources are limited, though, and the out-of-the-way streets can remain snow-packed for what seems a frustrating and ill-explained time. Our advice to those itching to get out during a storm is that this is winter, think twice about that errand that seems so important. If you absolutely have to leave home while the snow is coming down, be sure to do so in a proper vehicle with good tires. But first ask yourself: Can this wait until tomorrow? Most of the time the answer will be yes.