Much has been made about the Town of East Hampton seeking money from the Federal Aviation Administration to help pay for projects at the airport. According to both those who favor taking aid from Washington and those who do not, the funding comes with strings attached: The airport must be operated in the way the agency likes — and with only a minimal degree of local control. However, there seems to be what might be called a moral and ethical dimension to the question of what it really means to accept financial help from outside.

    It is understood that by taking federal money, which ultimately comes from United States taxpayers with a dollop from fees on regulated air carriers, East Hampton Town is beholden to interests beyond its borders, whether they are the owners of private aircraft with out-of-town addresses or helicopter and jet companies based elsewhere. But by the same calculus, the interests of the non-flying public who live in Southampton Town, Shelter Island, and on the North Fork must be taken into consideration. Call it a good-neighbor policy; by welcoming federal money to run its airport, East Hampton must likewise look well past Town Line Road when considering the facility’s use and impact.

    One of the great puzzles in the airport debate is why the owners of small, private aircraft have thrown in their lot with those who make money from essentially open access. Perhaps they fear that local — read political — control, would be tantamount to inadequate maintenance and safety. Nevertheless, it is unfortunate that the mom-and-pop pilots who call East Hampton their home field are carrying water for the brash industrialists and care-nothing helicopter companies who want to keep things the way they are, even if it means ignoring the clear public demand for noise abatement.

    Unfortunately, the inadequacy of meaningful noise-reduction strategies has made the prospect of shutting down the airport, which was once unthinkable, something that now seems possible given the right combination of residents’ outrage and politics. Heading off such a regressive outcome should be a top priority for officials, and the sooner they start taking the complaints of those who live under the aircrafts’ paths seriously, the sooner solutions will be found that all of our communities can live with.

   Just in time for the beginning of the bathing and sunbathing season, Ditch Plain, one of East Hampton Town’s most popular beaches, will be, at least technically, off-limits to swimming.

    The dangerous uncovering of rock and hard-pan surface there is a cautionary example of what usually happens immediately down-drift of erosion-control structures. In this case, the most likely suspect is a long revetment, or sea wall, immediately to the east of the Ditch Plain beach itself. Placed to protect the mobile homes at Montauk Shores Condominium long ago, the rocks were greatly expanded and added to after Hurricane Sandy and the storms that followed.

    Typically, beaches adjacent to such “shore-hardening” structures suffer increased damage from what experts describe as a scouring effect. What this means is that unprotected stretches can see more, and worse, losses than had the coast remained untouched. While the sand may well reappear at Ditch when the usual summer southwesterlies come up, at this point that is wishful thinking.

    Unfortunately, overwhelmed and hapless state and local officials are allowing the same thing to happen elsewhere in Montauk without the benefit of sound science-based study or even the common sense that might have come from looking around at places where such things have been tried. At least one motel owner put in a row of concrete septic rings on an emergency basis; they are supposed to be removed some day, but as far as we know, no remove-by date was specified. No one knows how they will affect nearby properties, including two other public bathing beaches, because no one asked.

    Now, with the eager acquiescence of the East Hampton Town Board, the town’s strict coastal law may be rewritten to allow permanent sea walls where none had been before. In the absence of independent, top-quality professional review this is just plain wrong. Long Island’s shoreline has had more than enough of such amateur engineering, and residents, government employees, and elected representatives at all levels should know better by now.

    Back at the Montauk Shores Condominium, surfers, fishers, beachcombers, and others are taking notice. Where once at low tide you could walk east from the so-called trailer park parking lot, the newly expanded rock wall now makes that impossible. This is a staggering failure by those charged with maintaining access across traditionally open sections of shoreline. Unfortunately, it is also a shameful sign of things to come if those in positions of authority continue to put private property interests before the public’s right to use and enjoy the beach.

   Sag Harbor voters will choose a mayor and two board members on Tuesday at a pivotal time for the village. 

   Four candidates are vying for mayor: the two-term incumbent, Brian Gilbride, Pierce Hance, who held the post in the 1990s, Sandra Schroeder, who was the village clerk for many years, and Bruce Tait, the chairman of the village’s harbor committee. For us, the choice comes down to Mr. Hance or Mr. Tait; Mr. Gilbride has been too divisive a figure to stay on.

      The core issue is the police force and whether to keep it, eliminate it, or cut it back to a few officers backed by patrols from a neighboring town or county force. Shutting down the force has been among Mayor Gilbride’s top concerns, ostensibly over its cost to taxpayers and stalled contract deal. Mr. Hance has said his experience with a prior police negotiation over money would have avoided the present bitter stalemate. Mr. Tait has expressed support for the department, saying essentially it needs enough officers to do the job.

      Another matter on which Mr. Hance has spoken out is open government. Under Mayor Gilbride’s watch (with the mute and puzzling acquiescence of State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., who moonlights, inappropriately in our view, as the village attorney), meetings have repeatedly been held that violate the spirit, if not the letter, of the New York Open Meetings Law. This disdain for public process is unwelcome.

    Four men are running for two places on the Village Board, including two who previously held village elected positions, Ed Deyermond and Bruce Stafford, and an incumbent, Ed Gregory. For their role in allowing the police matter to get out of hand and in excluding village residents from observing key decisions, Mr. Gregory and Mr. Stafford should not be returned. This leaves Mr. Deyermond, who has considerable government experience as a South­ampton Town assessor and Sag Harbor mayor, among other roles, and Ken O’Donnell, a business owner, as better candidates.

    The mayoral choice, between Mr. Hance and Mr. Tait, is a difficult one, but the edge goes to the latter for his nonconfrontational demeanor and longstanding interest in the environment, community, and waterfront.

   Like a missing tooth in a boxer’s smile, a gap in the notably verdant farmland along the Sag Harbor Road in East Hampton is a telling sight. This year’s potato crop is leafing out around the one-acre plot off Route 114 near Stephen Hand’s Path, but only a few weeds have sprouted in what is an abandoned and forlorn pit. Just how this hole came to be is no mystery: It was caused by a thoughtless road-drainage project. What is unacceptable and murky, however, is that nothing has been done to restore the site or to make amends for it.

    The hole is on what was top-quality farmland for which the development rights had been sold long ago to Suffolk County — a key and limiting point which was ignored when the East Hampton Town Board hired a contractor to dig a pit there to alleviate flooding. The problem came when county officials found out the work had been authorized without their consent. The project came to a halt, but not before the town’s contractor reportedly hauled away a layer of prime topsoil — a layer estimated at five feet deep which county taxpayers had already paid for — and sold it to a client.

    Suffolk officials learned what was happening in July, well after an engineer drafted the plan for the work, the town hired a contractor, and digging began. The county quickly served legal notice on the Town of East Hampton, reserving its right to sue, and demanded that the parcel be restored. Suffolk Executive Steve Bellone condemned the ham-handed project in a press release, saying a countywide referendum would have been required to authorize the dig had it gone through proper channels. East Hampton Town also would have been required to secure approvals from the state and Suffolk Farmland Commission, but they were never sought.

    Though she claimed that she was ignorant of the county’s purchase of the development rights on the Route 114 parcel, East Hampton Town Councilwoman Theresa Quigley, who spearheaded the project, apparently had been party to an e-mail in which that fact was pointed out. Indeed, the county’s partial ownership of the land was no secret; it bought the development rights in 1988, and the designation has appeared on official tax maps ever since. In response to criticism, Ms. Quigley said she could have been set up by someone within Town Hall eager to see her fail. But, even were the foregoing true, it would not excuse the fact that nothing has been done to correct the situation.

     After the county began making noise about the bungled affair, the contractor pulled out its equipment and left. For almost a year now the hole has been a daily reminder for many of those who pass it by every day of East Hampton Town officials’ intransigence and persistent refusal to admit mistakes. And while the town dithers, county taxpayers, who paid to keep the land in agriculture forever, should be demanding to know when farming there will return.

   Of the twin scandals that broke for the Obama administration this week, the one that at this early point seems more troubling is that of the secret gathering of Associated Press phone records. That is not to say that the targeting of Tea Party and related groups by the Internal Revenue Service is defensible. Neither should have happened, but one appears to have been the result of a very bad decision at some so-far unknown level of bureaucracy. The other, subpoenaing the phone records of more than 100 editors and reporters, reaches nearly to the top of the Department of Justice, and, as such, White House involvement is all but assumed.

    Attorney General Eric Holder this week described the A.P. probe as part of an investigation into a government leak about a failed Al Qaeda bomb plot. The Obama administration has been aggressive in trying to find out who among its ranks has talked to the media before, but this may stand as most far-reaching.

    The chilling effect on newsgathering, while perhaps not intentional, cannot be overlooked. Those who might have in the past spoken to reporters about weighty matters in the public interest may well now fear retaliation. Reporters may similarly feel unsafe discussing sensitive topics with editors, even in matters not ready for publication.

    In short, the wide net of the subpoena of A.P. records seems to have broken the laws that give news organizations the chance to challenge subpoenas in court, and hampers the constitutionally protected assurance of a free press. This is a shameful episode, no matter how the attorney general and others in Washington try to spin it as necessary and in the national interest.

   Now in its second season, the Montauk Beach House, a hotel, bar, and music venue, remains in the news for good reason: How the modest former Ronjo Motel turned into a far larger business complex with only the barest of planning review is a key question for East Hampton Town officials — and the electorate.

    The Beach House is hardly the only example of a land-use and zoning process run off the rails in town. Cyril’s Fish House on Napeague, where patrons and taxis use the state right of way as if it were private property, has been allowed to operate a restaurant and bar despite numerous citations. The Inn at Windmill Lane in Amagansett has been allowed to expand twice, including into a historic district building, without the required site plan review. The Panoramic View in Montauk was converted and expanded without authorization from the town planning board. And it was only under pressure that town officials reversed their position on the Dunes, a high-priced alcohol and drug rehabilitation facility in Northwest Woods, which apparently was operating illegally on a parcel zoned for residences. Don’t try any of this at home, however; in each case the operators were well-connected, extremely well-funded, or both.

    Town officials, notably the top building inspector, Tom Preiato, are beginning to take a tougher, if overdue, line on the Beach House. When the property was the threadbare Ronjo, it boasted 33 rooms and few other amenities. Now, after a multimillion-dollar renovation, the Beach House has only 32 rooms, but it has an outdoor bar, a cafe, clothing boutique, membership pool club, and live music acts and D.J.s, which pull in, by even the owners’ cautious statements, as many as 300 to 400 people a day.

    The conundrum at the Beach House is that it occupies a site where these uses are prohibited under present zoning. It doesn’t even have a town music permit. The Ronjo was allowed to persist as a nonconforming use because it pre-existed zoning. Under the town code, however, any expansion whatsoever is supposed to be subject to strict review. Nor has the Beach House’s vastly expanded operation triggered the town’s parking calculation, by which it would either have had to provide ample spaces for its patrons or pay into a fund earmarked for that purpose.

    This all appears to have been made possible by a compliant Town Hall, which has looked past these issues and the fact that the place doesn’t even have a valid certificate of occupancy, without which it should not have opened its doors. There has even been an allegation of what might be called witness-tampering, in which someone with knowledge of the entertainment at the Beach House was dissuaded from speaking at a town planning board hearing.

    You can be sure that other East Hampton Town motel or resort business owners are watching closely to see how far the Beach House owners can push things. It would be a lucrative precedent if its expansion were allowed to stand. Conversely, those concerned with how the town enforces its zoning laws, quality of life issues, parking, traffic, and noise should be demanding a stronger hand. This gets at a fundamental question about who town government is for: residents or those who just want to make a buck. No one, no matter how well they are able to play the system to their advantage, should be above the law.

   The juxtaposition could not be more stark: East Hampton Town does not take adequate care of the public bathing beaches it already has and yet town officials appear to be thinking seriously about adding more. We say, not so fast. A little housekeeping and assumption-checking needs to occur first.

    A report completed earlier this month by the town’s nature preserve committee identified possible locations for a new full-service bathing beach with lifeguards, parking, and restrooms. The top choices were two sites on Napeague, one a 37-acre preserve near Dolphin Drive and the other a 6.7-acre rectangle about a half-mile to the east.

    Before the town moves forward with plans to develop either of these parcels, it has some thinking to do. For starters, cleanliness is not optional. The town already appears to be in repeated violation of Suffolk health regulations that require “adequate” and “sanitary” means of storing and disposing of garbage at beaches. Overflowing trash barrels and cascading mounds of refuse left in parking lots cannot reasonably be seen as anything other than lack of compliance with the law.

     At the same time, and perhaps more important, it must look dispassionately at the numbers of people using protected beaches and consider ways to do something about crowding at them. To a significant degree, the problem is not space on the sand itself, but lack of adequate parking, bike lanes, and public transportation.

    East Hampton’s strands are not as constrained as they may be in other places; sunbathers can find places to stretch out away from the throngs. The town should find out whether bathers at protected beaches ever exceed the maximum number set by the County Health Department. If the answer is no, as we believe it likely to be, improving access to existing beaches is the logical move.

    Although some members of the town’s lifeguard squad have expressed significant concern that crowding could drive some swimmers to more remote locations, beyond the watchful gaze of guards, the parking lots at most town beaches can be expanded, and then, if warranted, additional lifeguards assigned and restrooms put up. 

    As for Indian Wells in Amagansett, huge gatherings of young, beer-swilling singles on weekend afternoons have become a problem in part because of the town’s anything-goes policy on public alcohol consumption. It remains to be seen whether the town’s attempt to limit transient vehicular access there is effective.  

    Before the public gets behind a plan to open new ocean or bay bathing beaches, the town must demonstrate that it can adequately pick up trash and maintain order at the ones it already has. Before significant resources are spent on new beaches, the town should try to solve the obvious parking crunch and ban drinking alcohol at beaches with lifeguards. These would be less costly and much more expedient first steps.

   New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has the right idea about sea-level rise, global warming, and the threat of catastrophic storms. East Hampton Town, and to a similar degree other local governments, have so far pretended these problems do not exist, although they may simply be paralyzed by their enormity. The discrepancy, however, is startling.

    Last week, Mr. Bloomberg announced an expensive and ambitious plan to protect the city, drafted in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Long Island’s South Fork towns and villages should also be leading the way on preparations and planning for what appears inevitable for coastal communities, but they are not.

    To get an idea of what our officials should be doing, it is illustrative to look at what the City of New York has been up to. As soon as 2020, city planners said in a recent report, annual average temperatures could increase by three degrees, with a 10-percent jump in rainfall. Sea level around the city could rise more than two feet by the middle of the century, and as many as 800,000 people could soon be living in 100-year flood plains, the report said.

    Vital in the city’s response — and that of the East End towns and villages — will be protecting houses and infrastructure, such as electricity, fuel supplies, and transportation routes. The city’s report contains 250 specific recommendations, including flood walls, levees, and new dune and wetland systems. Early estimates are that the full project would cost at least $20 billion. Money would be made available for the owners of private properties to improve foundations, reinforce walls, and move mechanical equipment out of surge plains. Also included are suggestions about how to assure food supplies, functioning utilities, and health care.

    As Hurricane Sandy showed, the difficulties largely came in the storm’s aftermath — even here, more than 100 miles from where its eye made landfall. For towns like East Hampton, where beaches are key to the dominant second-home economy, saving houses must be balanced with preserving beaches. So far the scales have been tipped too far toward waterfront property owners at the expense of public access, and ad-hoc solutions have been discussed in the absence of an overall plan. East Hampton Town officials have gone one step further, essentially agreeing to toss out the Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan, which was the result of years of careful study.

    At a national level, Congress and the White House must increase funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help improve its flood maps and provide incentives and aid to those municipalities and homeowners unable to afford adequate preparation. Equally important, Washington must do more to address greenhouse gas emissions, a primary cause of sea-level rise and climate change. Without a two-pronged approach — smart anticipatory steps and cutting carbon dioxide and other pollutants — coastal areas such as our own will be among the first to suffer.

   A photograph sent by a friend said it all. Visitors to Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett about an hour before sunset Saturday would have been treated to a mountain of garbage overflowing the metal bins and left haphazardly at the head of the parking lot. Looking closely at the photo, the preponderance of beer cans and empty cartons is apparent — most are Coors or Bud Light, which for some reason is the beverage of choice for the Indian Wells groups. A couple sits on a bench, taking in the evening air, just a few feet from the groaning bins.

    Now nearly 12 months after officials were told about the beach’s newfound popularity among crowds of young adults — and after the town board approved clunky new rules about vehicular access to the beach — it appears much more must be done to preserve Indian Wells as most beachgoers would like it to be. The litter is not limited to Indian Wells, and it is not new; Ditch Plain in Montauk’s trash bins can reach dizzying heights, and there even have been complaints at town board meetings about road ends at Napeague Harbor, Kirk Park in Montauk, and other less-crowded locations.

    Town officials seem indisposed toward the most obvious solution to reducing the weekend daytime party at Indian Wells — a ban on alcoholic drinks at beaches when lifeguards are present. East Hampton Village, it is worth noting, prohibits alcohol at all its beaches. So if officials are not going to clamp down — and beachgoers with certain, self-entitled attitudes are never going to  haul away their own trash — it becomes Town Hall’s responsibility to make sure the beaches and parking lots are kept acceptably clean, if not pristine, at least during daylight hours. One might wish for more responsible behavior, but when faced with a bag of stinking trash, especially on a hot day, most people are going to put it down as quickly as possible, even if it means leaving it for someone else to deal with.

    According to the town’s Web site, the Department of Building and Grounds has “at least” two crews working full-time in season picking up garbage from bins at the beaches and on the streets. The department also handles maintenance of all town buildings, grounds, cemeteries, harbors and docks, and other public properties. It is a huge to-do list, including 24 restrooms among 60 buildings. Although its $2.5-million budget has increased somewhat in recent years, clearly it is not enough.

    Much more must be done to make Indian Wells and all the other public spaces in the Town of East Hampton inviting and welcoming — even for those who go to the beach after the crowds have gone home.

   One of the quirks of this admittedly quirky newspaper is that we leave the S off Ditch Plain in what we write. Almost everyone else calls that stretch of Montauk beach and the surrounding area Ditch Plains; we do not. To sharp-eyed readers this may seem to be a mistake, and, in fact, in conversation around the office the staff has been known to succumb. However, it was deemed long ago that the plain upon which the ditch or ditches were, was one, not many. Hence, it is Ditch Plain, not Plains. Or maybe it should even be Ditches Plain, really.

    Historical sources vary on this, as you might imagine. However, Jeannette Edwards Rattray, the publisher of The Star and a local historian, in her 1938 “Montauk: Three Centuries of Romance, Sport, and Adventure,” lists the plain without the S. Official records in the National Archives concerning the Life-Saving Station there do not show the use of Ditch Plains until after World War II. The 1940 Census left off the letter as well.

    So from whence came the S? Like many other linguistic additions and subtractions, it probably has a lot to do with where we live. People here speak in a mash up of the Long Island accent and the old, Bonac way. Whether or not The Star’s preference for Ditch Plain ever wins out, we’ll keep with it, at least for the foreseeable future, no matter what anyone says.