Even though the high season may be fading into dim, albeit unpleasant, memory, East Hampton Town’s candidates for elected office must force themselves to grapple with the summer of 2013, which, hands-down, was the most crowded, most annoying, noisiest, and most out of control yet.

    Few residents we spoke to, who wrote letters in these pages, or who went in all futility to Town Hall to seek redress, found much good about the crowds, save those whose pockets were filled by the transient hordes. Like Ebenezer Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol,” East Hampton had a glimpse of the future and did not like it one bit.

    It would be easy as the din dies down in September and October for our political hopefuls to pretend the recent summer of woe did not happen, but to do so would be a disservice to those whom they seek to represent. There will be discussions on all sorts of issues as Election Day nears, but unless Larry Cantwell, Fred Overton, Dominick Stanzione, Job Potter, and Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, three of whom will join the town board in January, take on quality-of-life concerns for residents and taxpayers before all else, other issues will barely register.

    The fault lies not in East Hampton Town’s regulations themselves, or lack thereof; indeed more than a generation’s hard work went into crafting a town code that, while imperfect and sprawling, is actually up to the job of maintaining order and promoting neighborliness. Rather, the will and adequate staff has been lacking to enforce the rules, going back several years, but amplified a hundred-fold recently. Town Hall has capitulated to craven interests, allowing even blatant illegalities, such as the conversion of a motel parking lot in downtown Montauk into a full, open-air bar. And this has occurred while police officers have had to be offered overtime deals to keep the peace.

    If one concept can be gleaned from the hellacious summer of 2013, it is that East Hampton is nearing a breaking point, “a red line,” if you will, beyond which residents will decide enough is enough and move on, severing the fabric of this wonderful community. The pattern is clear enough. Seashore resorts up and down the East Coast have had to think hard about how to say no when too much of a good thing really is too much. Putting residents first has to be the priority.

    The current anything-goes attitude in Town Hall has proven a failure and a source of dismay. It is up to the town board hopefuls to chart a different course. Make no mistake: The stakes are as high as it gets. Let’s hear what they have to say.

   By asking Congress for its approval for a military response to the nerve-gas attack in Syria last month, President Obama may be setting a lasting precedent. Since the end of World War II, United States presidents have charged into conflicts by ignoring Constitutionally required prior approval from lawmakers or by expanding a narrow agreement beyond reasonable interpretations.

    In seeking authority from the House and Senate for what the Obama administration has said will be limited missile bombardments, the White House may set a standard that other administrations would stray from with difficulty. This could be the most lasting and important outcome of the Syrian conflict for this country.

    The underlying question is why the administration waited this long to push for punitive strikes on Syrian government assets. The U.S. has held its fire while not only combatants but more than 100,000 civilians died in the conflict before the Aug. 21 gassing. Those killed by Bashar al-Assad’s conventional bombs and artillery are no less dead than those killed by nerve agents. Regardless of the result in Congress, however, the difference now is both moral and political.

    The nations of the world, remembering perhaps World War I and the millions sent to Nazi ovens in World War II, are united in moral condemnation of the use of poison gas in wartime. Politically, Washington has its eyes on Iran, the Assad government’s chief foreign backer and a United States adversary for decades. Informed speculation is that Washington has grown nervous as Syrian government forces appeared to gain the upper hand; a victory for the Assad regime would be a win for Iran.

    The United States has been faulted internationally for going it alone far too many times. Even with Congressional approval, an American strike in Syria would be outside the mutually agreed-upon rules of the United Nations, where a Security Council vote on a response to the conflict should be the final word. Mr. Obama’s decision to seek Congressional approval should be followed by a diligent effort to work within the U.N. framework before any eventual action.

   Elected officials at almost all involved levels have been calling for expedited action along the threatened Montauk oceanfront in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. “We must act now,” Representative Tim Bishop and Senators Charles Schumer and Kristen Gillibrand said last month in a letter to the Army Corps of Engineers. Not so fast, we say.

    Considering that ill-thought-out erosion control projects of years past have caused their own share of problems, and the Army Corps’ mixed record in this regard, the right thing to do would be to slow down. Independent experts who study coastal processes say the only viable long-term strategy, even for Montauk’s downtown, is a managed retreat of threatened structures coupled with restoration of naturally defensive dunes and wetlands.

    Rushing into armoring the Montauk shore would lead almost certainly to disastrous results in the years to come.

   In terms of economic impact and value to residents, the proposed conversion of a 35,000-square-foot building in the East Hampton Town Industrial Park from a film and television studio to long-term storage should rank at the bottom of the list. Few jobs would be created, and they are likely to be low-paying. In community and cultural terms, storage is pretty much a black hole. We believe that the town could do a whole lot better.

     East Hampton Studios and its sound stage was constructed as a media center more than a decade ago. Conceding that the $5 million investment did not turn out to be the boon its founder, Frazer Dougherty, had hoped, a storage facility would be a step backward, even considering the mixed record of success. Since 2007, the facility has been run by Michael Wudyka, who told the town board last month that an unnamed storage company was ready to take over the space. The problem for him — and any new tenant — is that the town owns and leases the land at a low, subsized cost and that it is part of the East Hampton Airport property, over which the Federal Aviation Administration may have a say.

    As the town board considers whether to allow Mr. Wudyka’s longstanding deal to go to the storage firm, many options and competing needs should be examined. Among obvious alternatives would be the building’s use as workshops or garages for contractors, pool companies, and landscapers. Town officials have been puzzling in recent months about what to do about commercial vehicles parked on small residential parcels in Springs and elsewhere; providing a suitable site for them at East Hampton Studios might be viable.

    Thinking somewhat more broadly, the building might be converted for use by food producers and vendors — kind of like East Hampton’s own Hunt’s Point, the giant wholesale complex in the Bronx. East Hampton has a burgeoning local food sector in which residents are making everything from table salt to beer. As a story in this newspaper noted last week, a number of bakers and other local entrepreneurs have had to make do during off-hours in restaurant and church kitchens. Providing a centrally located semi-public alternative might make sense — and help support dozens of jobs.

    Since revenues are less of a concern now that the Town of East Hampton is in better financial shape, another option would be to divide the huge space into artists’ studios. The region was once among the most important on the American modern art scene, but that exalted position has dimmed, thanks in part to the impossible cost of real estate here. Nurturing creativity by providing artists with work space might well be in the community’s best interest.

    Now is the time for town leaders to think big and to ask themselves and the taxpayers — perhaps at a dedicated town meeting — to envision the best possible future for a building that should, and could, be a community asset.

   Sagaponack Village wants a police department of its own, or at least its village board and a number of residents do, though debate is ongoing. The arguments in favor of a force of the village’s own are compelling.

    Money is the first consideration. The amount paid for police services this year to the Town of Southampton, of which the hamlet is a part, was a substantial $2.3 million. For that sum, Sagaponack should be getting much more in the way of year-round patrols and enforcement of traffic laws. Supporting this view, the Village of Sag Harbor actually budgeted less for its own 10-member department in the 2013-14 fiscal year than Sagaponack. This comparison makes it seem that Sagaponack residents are being ripped off — or at least helping to subsidize police activities in other parts of town.

    Beyond the cost, the most persuasive reason for a Sagaponack department is the police’s important public-safety role. Police are first responders, even before emergency medical technicians are mobilized. In the vast majority of the 911 calls that result in an ambulance being dispatched, an officer is the first on the scene, which is why most patrol cars are outfitted with oxygen and automatic emergency defibrillators. When every second counts, as in a heart attack or extreme injury, getting well-trained personnel to where they are needed as soon as possible can make the difference between life and death. An aging population makes rapid medical aid frequently required, and police are an important part of that equation.

    Crime and road-type mayhem, it must be said, is minimal in Sagaponack. This is due, we suspect, to the prevalence of security alarms in the area’s often-palatial houses and to the village’s small resident population. Vandals and burglars are not likely to live here. Nor are weekend hedge-funders likely to take to a life of prosaic transgression. Drunken drivers may be fewer than in other places, aside from on Route 27. However, getting village residents their money’s worth in terms of a police presence — as well as assuring the fastest possible emergency responses — are goals well worth pursuing.

   Misplaced skepticism marred a meeting this week about an East Hampton Town effort to draft a wastewater management plan. Critics suggested, wrongly, that it was a clandestine effort to force scores of property owners to undertake expensive, unnecessary improvements to their septic systems, perhaps even one sold by a business with which a town consultant has a professional relationship. They also questioned whether further protecting the health of the aquifers, which we rely on for drinking water, and of surface waters, such as bays, ponds, and harbors, was something the town even should be considering without asking the public ahead of time.

    The first point is hardly worth addressing, except to say that dark, conspiratorial phantoms are simply that, and the conflict of interest issue has been addressed. As to the second, it is unfortunate to have to remind the critics of a little document called the East Hampton Town Comprehensive Plan.

    We tend to forget now, but work on the plan took years and involved contributions from many, many residents and outside experts. Following that, it was the subject of extensive public hearings, and a few scattered outbursts of litigation, before becoming both law and a statement about how, collectively, we envisioned the future of our town.

    Unfortunately, even a carefully constructed plan, like this, is only as good as the people who are supposed to enforce it, and it was shunted to the dustbin by the imperious East Hampton Town supervisor, Bill Wilkinson, who said he viewed it as little more than a “snapshot” in time. To invert a famous phrase, “Avant moi, le deluge!” has seemed to be the mantra at the Town Hall executive suite for four long years as far as work of preceding administrations is concerned.

    Reading this week through the comprehensive plan, which was completed in 2005, one notices again and again references to water quality. These include encouraging statements like “The harbors and bays are among the cleanest in the state,” and top recommendations such as “Take forceful measures to protect and restore the environment, particularly groundwater.” There was no mystery then, as now, that this subject was — and is — extremely important.

    Awareness of the inherent value of water quality has been known for decades here. A seminal federal study of the South Fork’s groundwater was completed in 1982. Five years later, New York State created nine groundwater protection areas on Long Island, two of which were within East Hampton Town. And, looking back at the earliest days of zoning here, water concerns were among the basic, and clearly legitimate, reasons for limiting development.

    A degree of urgency arises when one considers that several East Hampton waterways are seasonally closed to shellfishing or have been declared “impaired” by state authorities. This underscores the worrisome fact that we simply do not know if protection measures in the town code now are sufficient and will be adequate to cope with increased growth.

    It is the same story with drinking water, especially from private wells. What data planners can use to gauge present and future needs is outdated and should be re-evaluated. The experts now working on the town’s new plan are taking all this into consideration and have excellent credentials to produce a meaningful report.

     Opposition to the new town effort to identify and manage impacts to groundwater is largely political and should be viewed that way. Residents are fortunate that there is a majority on the East Hampton Town Board willing to duck the barbs and baseless fears to move forward with this detailed review.

   East Hampton Town officials find themselves in a bit of a self-created puzzle insofar as the increasing practice of construction and landscaping contractors storing work trucks and heavy equipment on residential lots. The law limits what can be done in some cases, but in others it is maddenly ineffective.

    As the South Fork population grows — and the service sector of the economy gains as well — so too has the use of residential properties as commercial adjuncts, even though it is illegal. Unfortunately, a sensible request to clarify a point of confusion that could aid in providing neighbors some relief has run up against the political quicksand in Town Hall these days.

    Industrially zoned parcels, where commercial vehicles can be appropriately and legally stored, are few in the Town of East Hampton, and it is likely that smaller businesses would not be able to buy or rent legal places to store vehicles and equipment without government help. This is the main reason why, as commerce has grown, so too has the use of private driveways and lawns as staging areas for a number of concerns.

    The only for-profit uses allowed on residential properties are a single “home office,” rental of up to two rooms, or a (somewhat bizarre) “residential museum.” The code is vague about what can happen out of doors and that is from where the trouble stems.

    In one example, a builder paved his entire rear yard with blacktop and leaves up to half a dozen of his trucks and vans there every night, while he runs operations out of an office over his garage. In another case, a Springs neighbor has fought a mostly losing battle to have an earth-moving business move some of its fleet elsewhere.

    Complicating matters, if a property is owner-occupied, there is very little under the current rules that the town can do about the number of vehicles on a house lot — though this particular aspect of the law likely would not withstand a court challenge because it discriminates against rental tenants by holding them to a four-vehicle maximum. But another aspect of present law may have bearing, if enforcers are willing to go there: the prohibited conversion of residences and properties to businesses beyond those few classifications allowed in the code.

    From time to time the town has tried to help contractors and other businesses by providing space for their activities; the industrial park near the airport is a limited example. But there is more officials could do. One idea once bandied about that may still be viable is to make some of the unused space at the former town landfill on Springs-Fireplace Road available for trucks and equipment storage. Another notion might be for the town to buy commercially zoned parcels and charge qualified business owners a nominal rent. Understanding first how widespread the practice is and estimating how much additional commercial parking may be needed, as some on the town board have suggested, is a smart first step.

    However, good intentions and attempts to revise a proposed ban on certain truck parking should not forestall an effort to provide a degree of relief to neighbors of properties that have been given over to commercial use. The rules are on the books concerning commercial use of houses. What is lacking is ample will to see that they are followed.

   South Fork gas station operators are at it again. In his latest survey of the region’s at-the-pump prices, State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. found that residents and visitors in the Hamptons pay 15 cents a gallon more than the Long Island average, and a stunning 20 cents more than the rest of the state. Making things worse, station owners have kept their prices artificially inflated this summer, even though on the rest of Long Island the average fell by 9 cents since the previous survey.

    Last week, Mr. Thiele said, a gallon of regular cost about $3.90 across Long Island but $4.05 at highway-side stations between East Hampton and Southampton — and $4.45 in Amagansett and Montauk.

    The problem is not new. Summing up the latest statistics, Mr. Thiele said that South Fork gas prices have exceeded the Long Island average in all of the last eight surveys. Calling out the practice, Mr. Thiele said, “Distributors are deliberately leaving the higher prices in place to take advantage of the busy summer season. This has nothing to do with costs and competition, rather it is deliberate price fixing.”

    For businesses, the added cost of fuel leads to an uneven playing field. For residents and visitors, the extra cents can be an unfair burden. And no, not everyone in the Hamptons can afford whatever it costs; contrary to popular belief, we are not all dining on caviar from silver spoons.

    Help from Albany has been on the horizon but never quite made it into law. A bill sponsored by Mr. Thiele that would have prohibited “zone pricing,” that is, regional differences not linked to supply costs, passed in the Assembly but failed in the Senate last year. Senator Kenneth P. LaValle is backing a companion bill, but there is little chance of anything happening with it at least until the summer driving season is over.

    Yes, South Fork prices for a lot of things are higher than they are elsewhere, but that does not make it right for those providing essential commodities like gasoline to stick it to consumers here again and again. If station owners will not do what is right, it is up to Albany to step in and protect us at the pump.

   As summer hits its August high notes, many readers have no doubt noticed the wild and recent proliferation of signs along roadsides in East Hampton Town. From Wainscott to Montauk, shoulders are littered with all sorts of commercial come-ons as well as businesses tarted up like a Nevada cathouse with sandwich-board festoonery, flags, and outdoor merchandise in the right of way. If you were thinking so far that this was yet another example of Town Hall ignoring its own regulations, you would be right.

    During the past few years, an it’s-all-good attitude coming from the Pantigo Road executive suite has been unmistakable. Paying no heed to signs that are variously oversize, left up too long, or erected without permits, has been just one of the visible instances of a fearful lethargy that has gripped town enforcement. Sign scofflaws are so pervasive that they can count at least one appointed town official among their ranks.

    Over the last few months, we have written about some of the quality-of-life concerns we believe the candidates for town office in November should be addressing. What our roadways and public spaces look like should be added to a list that includes restoring essential services and, more daunting perhaps, addressing sea-level rise. Some may consider the town’s sign laws a minor concern, but to us their enforcement, or lack thereof, is an indication of what has been happening with other hard-fought rules that were supposed to be mandatory.

    Stopping the spread of illegal eye-catchers should start right away, but realistically, until a new administration takes over, we expect more signs rather than fewer. Still, the public interest in uncluttered roadways would be well served if candidates for office began to speak up. Complying with the law in this and all regards should no longer be optional in East Hampton Town.

   Sure, they may have been at the East Hampton Town-owned Duck Creek Farm near Three Mile Harbor to look at the art exhibited in a Parrish Art Museum Road Show on Saturday, but of equal and perhaps more long-lasting note was the reaction of many to the beautiful property itself.

    The event that evening was ostensibly for an installation by Sydney Albertini, a wildly inventive artist known for vaguely disturbing knit masks and body coverings. Her work was draw enough; easily more than 100 people milled about at any one time. But guests also marveled at the land and buildings, which had been the house and studio of John Little, who was among those in the first wave of 20th century Abstract-Expressionists to discover Springs. Drinks in hand, they combed the tidy lawn, cupping hands alongside eyes to peer into the two-story “half-house” built around 1795 for Jonathan Edwards. A knot of children sat at the base of a tall weeping willow having the kind of conversation impenetrable to adult ears. Others of the younger set played tag, darting in and out of the shrubbery.

    What was most remarkable about this was that the Parrish event was the first public use of the property since the town bought it with money from the community preservation fund at the end of 2004. It is terrific that the $2.5 million deal took place at all, but a shame that it took so long for it to be made ready for something the public can enjoy.

    Compared to other South Fork hamlets, Springs has only a few spaces suitable for gatherings, picnics, and learning a little about history. Ashawagh Hall, an important cultural center maintained by the Springs Improvement Society, is very heavily used, which proves the need for additional public places.

    To prepare for Ms. Albertini’s show, the town installed a plywood floor in the 1890 Gardiner barn which Mr. Little had moved onto the land in 1948, making it better suited for visitors on this and other occasions. We can envision acoustic music performances or poetry readings there, for example, and family reunions on the broad lawn.

    It was probably not simply accidental that a broadly smiling Town Councilman Dominick Stanzione, who was among those in attendance on Saturday, was the deciding vote this week to take another town property, Fort Pond House in Montauk, off the real estate market. It could not have been lost on him that, like the Amagansett Life-Saving Station, whose restoration has had his strong backing, smaller parks and public properties have a significant positive effect on residents’ and visitors’ quality of life.

    Duck Creek Farm is now a model of a sensible and needed public acquisition. At a time when attention is being focused on the $40 million (and growing) balance that has come into the East Hampton Town preservation fund from the real estate transfer tax, discussion must ensue about how to get residents aware of what assets the town already has and about moving speedily to buy more. At one time the Edwards fields extended over some 130 acres; today the remaining property contributes to an understanding of the post-colonial period when large, outlying farms were being established by the descendents of the original settlers.    

    All those involved, specifically town officials, Ms. Albertini, the Parrish Art Museum, the Duck Creek Farm Association, and the food and drink purveyors who were there, are to be congratulated for putting this triple treat — an important part of the town’s historic and artistic identity and a valuable common asset — back into the conversation.

    By the way, Ms. Albertini’s installation can be seen Friday through Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. until Sept. 2. Duck Creek Farm and the John Little House and Studio is off Three Mile Harbor-Hog Creek Road at its intersection with Squaw Road.