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.

    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.

    An Amagansett development scheme that was met with vehement and nearly unanimous opposition appears headed toward a more than satisfactory solution. A hearing is to be held in Town Hall this evening about whether to use just over $10 million from the community preservation fund to buy the so-called 555 property on Montauk Highway, where a luxury village of some 79 apartments and houses had been planned for those 55 and older. Though specific ideas about how the land will be used are in the formative stage, its preservation for open space and, with any luck, farming, deserve support.

    It is worth reflecting back on what might have been. During the former town board’s tenure, the landowner, a Connecticut company, sought an entirely new zoning designation that would have allowed high-density housing to be sold at market rates at the site. A draft law that would have made this possible foundered after a public outcry and was also roundly rejected by the Suffolk Planning Commission. After a mostly new town board took over in January, the proposal was dropped for good.

    The public will be heard tonight on whether the town should buy the most-visible portion of the 555 site while a smaller parcel to the west, for which affordable housing is a possibility, would remain in the developer’s control. While $10 million might sound like a whole lot of money for 19 acres, it is not entirely out of line given recent prices, such as a recent $18.75 million deal for a single Wainscott parcel. Then, too, had the development been approved, it might have brought the developer 10 times as much in sales.

    As tonight approached, we heard rumblings that the town would be better off paying somewhat less by purchasing only what are known as the development rights on the property. However, as has been increasingly seen, such arrangements preclude public access to preserved acreage, and in the case of farmland, generally come with  no assurance that the land will actually see a plow. A full, fee simple deal would be in the community’s best interest.

    As to the property’s future, agriculture should be the first preference if the soil is suitable or could be restored. In addition, East Hampton actually has few places where large charity events can be held on public sites. The former 555 property has successfully hosted the Wounded Warrior Rock the Farm benefit, which should be allowed to continue. There are other options that could be explored, including a farmers market or riding facility. The first step is to approve the deal with the property owners.

    One of the sacrosanct principles of East Hampton Town zoning is that no one gets more than one house per property. That is unless one happens to have a large parcel of land and an even larger bank account.

    At an April 1 town zoning board hearing, representatives of Jeff T. Blau, who runs the multinational real estate firm Related Companies, sought to overturn the one-lot, one-house tradition on a Wainscott parcel he bought two years ago for $18.5 million. After voting to grant the request unanimously on Tuesday, the Z.B.A. runs the risk of dealing a major blow to the town’s zoning code.

    Town law carefully sets out limits on what can and cannot be done on residential properties, and with good reason. Banned uses include slaughterhouses and wrecking yards, and, material to this discussion, more than one single-family house per parcel. The one-house rule should apply fairly and evenly across the economic spectrum, and you can assume that even your run-of-the-mill millionaire would have been laughed out of Town Hall had he or she pursued a similar scheme.

    Mr. Blau’s successful request was simple at its core: He plans to build a second house on a parcel where only one is permitted. Rejection should also have been simple. However, during the Z.B.A. hearing, his lawyer offered a smokescreen of reasons why the board should give in, including that the plan would save a Topping family farmhouse already there. But because the original house is not visible from the adjacent Five Rod Highway, a narrow town trustee road, and because no promise to allow visitor access to it is being made, saving it as is serves only the most minimal public purpose.

    Mr. Blau will now build a new, far larger house there and several additional structures, including the renovated Topping house, but he did not want to subdivide the property for reasons that were not convincing. It appears that the reason his request reached the zoning board in the first place was a go-ahead some time ago from then-town attorney John Jilnicki, whose opinion was not put in writing - something that ought to be explained.

    Nor did Mr. Blau want to add his new, larger house on to the farmhouse, as would be his right. In return for being allowed to have two houses, Mr. Blau has offered easements, or perpetual protection, of portions of the property, but these fail to address the key question of an additional house on the site and imply the unblinking acceptance by the Z.B.A. of an improper quid pro quo.

    The town’s Planning Department, in its analysis of the application, did not appear to agree with Mr. Blau’s representatives that subdividing the land would be impossible. Indeed, the department dismissed this argument as moot, to use its word. It issued what can be read as a neutral opinion on the two-house question, and it urged the Z.B.A. to look closely at whether the request met the standards for granting variances. We believe they did not look closely enough.

    Mr. Blau cannot have reasonably claimed that being held to a single house on one lot would have been a genuine hardship. Any alleged difficulties from his situation should have been considered self-created and grounds for denial. New York State law requires that applications for variances must be rejected when they fail to meet these tests and a reasonable alternative - in this case, a legal, if difficult to obtain, subdivision - is available. East Hampton Town officials need to proceed extremely cautiously when it comes to granting such variances.

    Expect a wave now of similar requests from other wealthy property owners eager to build their own dream Hamptons compounds. Unfortunately, the zoning board heaped praise and its okay on an application that was improperly handed to it in the first place. We hope that in the future the members uphold tradition and reject more unjustified assaults on one of the town’s most basic zoning rules.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    For those concerned about sustainable energy, the news recently out of East Hampton Town Hall is a nice surprise. Officials and three private companies are racing to put together a proposal to be presented to the state Public Service Electric and Gas Company, PSEG Long Island, for large-scale solar installations at town-owned sites. Taken together, the project could produce on the order of 40 megawatts of electricity, enough to power as many as 8,000 houses. By selling power to the utility, the public-private partnership would be estimated to spin off annual income for the town — as much as $800,000 — through site rentals.

    For PSEG, the successor to the Long Island Power Authority, this kind of arrangement is good business sense. Solar installations stand to provide less-expensive electricity than fossil fuel, nuclear, or other sources. They also provide security through a redundancy of generating stations spread more widely across the grid.

    For East Hampton Town, the plan offers a way to generate income from unexpected and unused sites, such as roofs and portions of former landfills not suitable for much else. Other municipalities, corporations, and educational institutions have entered into similar arrangements with solar power companies with favorable results. Best of all,  these projects generally come with minimal, if any, costs to the property owners.

    For residents, additional town income would help avoid tax increases and cuts in services. East Hampton Town has a very tight budget, and every bit of income helps. Of importance as well would be satisfaction in knowing the community was taking a giant step toward a more responsible and environmentally conscious future.

    We hope this ambitious town undertaking will also help motivate homeowners and businesses to consider solar installations of their own. PSEG Long Island inherited LIPA’s renewable energy programs of rebates and incentives. With federal and state tax credits for installations, a homeowner’s out-of-pocket cost for a 5,000-kilowatt system might be under $9,000, with a payback period of as few as six years.

    Solar may not work in all locations, and the up-front cost may be out of range for many people, but with the town taking such a massive endeavor, residents can be proud that their government is looking to lead the way.

    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.

    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.