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.

   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.

   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.

   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.

   Earth-moving began this month on a long-delayed project to do something about persistent water pollution at Havens Beach, the Village of Sag Harbor’s sole bathing beach. This is good news — sort of. Unfortunately, it appears that after more than 25 years of unfulfilled promises and false starts, the work is not likely to be completed in time for the beginning of the swimming season.

    Officials have been aware of water-quality problems at Havens Beach, and the nearby creek that drains into it rainwater and runoff from a wide watershed of houses, roads, and businesses. Traces of human and animal waste have been detected there over the years, though until recently the village failed to alert the public to the potential health risk. For example, it would send its lifeguards home for the day during County Health Department-mandated closures, but post no signs or give other warnings.

    With bulldozers beginning site preparation on a $374,000 effort, the hope is that an artificial wetland and filtration sponges will stem the contamination. One concern is that the village chose a low-ball bid from a contractor who has been linked to several questionable coastal projects and received a record fine from the State Department of Environmental Conservation for improper dredging in Montauk.

    Though residents should be happy that the project has begun, close attention should be paid as the work moves along. Equally important will be a commitment of money and attention to make sure the wetland and filters are maintained and remain effective over the long term.

   One thing should be clear to anyone in the audience (or watching on LTV). After yet another East Hampton Town Board meeting turned debacle it is more than time for Supervisor Bill Wilkinson and Councilwoman Theresa Quigley to call it quits. For all intents and purposes, they already have.

    Considering the evident contempt with which they greet those with whom they do not agree, or whom they perceive as adversaries, and that both appear to be itching for their terms to end at the end of this year, resignation would be appropriate and the best thing for the Town of East Hampton.

    We do not make this recommendation lightly. Nor do we expect either will at this late date suddenly heed our advice. Because board meetings are dysfunctional as well as embarrassing when they are in the room, however, little to nothing will get done in Town Hall while they remain in office.

    Yet there is more: Mr. Wilkinson’s leading the way on demoralizing town employees, weakening zoning, allowing code enforcement to slow down, promoting blatant cronyism, encouraging the apparently illegal expansion of erosion-control structures, and abandoning key infrastructure spending have set him up for an arguable legacy as the worst East Hampton Town supervisor of all time. If you take away the much-vaunted Wilkinson “miracle”: restoring town finances after the discovery of a giant internal deficit — which was actually put in place in a state-approved plan well before he took office — there is not much in his record on the positive side of the ledger.

    As to Ms. Quigley, she has been prone to divisive outbursts, threatened to walk off the job, personally managed poorly thought-out projects, and has seemed only interested in serving the interests of those constituents whose political outlooks mirror her own. Note her “yes” vote recently, with Mr. Wilkinson, on an absurd plan that would have allowed a problematic Napeague bar and restaurant in a fragile environmental area to legalize its many illegal additions and make it permanent as a source of perennial litter and traffic problems.

    Mr. Wilkinson and Ms. Quigley have so damaged the once-proud Republican Party brand in East Hampton that the only person said to be considering a run for supervisor is a partisan activist who may well be the supervisor’s last remaining public supporter. Just about the only thing Mr. Wilkinson and Ms. Quigley could do now to salvage what is left of their reputations, and help their party’s prospects in November, is to step aside.

    At a May 16 town board meeting, Mr. Wilkinson and Ms. Quigley made it clear they were counting the days till their terms were up. We think they should go one step further. If nothing else they owe it to the voters who expected, wrongly it turns out, that they could do the jobs they were elected to do without drama, condescension, or anger. If they do not want to be there, East Hampton Town residents and taxpayers should not want them there either.

    Thanks for the effort you’ve put in, folks, voters might say, but now it’s time to go.

   In an intriguing outcome to yesterday’s East Hampton School Board vote, residents opted for three newcomers, saying no thank you to one incumbent who has  strong ties to the community. This may well signal a level of anger with the district over its poorly handled, surprise demotion of Gina Kraus, the popular John M. Marshall Elementary School principal, as well as a long period this year when the East Hampton Middle School principal was absent for what was described as a medical problem. Then, too, the vote might have reflected frustration that the board repeatedly withheld budget documents from the public though state law requires they be made available. It is hard to know for sure.

        What is important is that the school board, from here on out, wrest a greater degree of control from the administration and district lawyers who prefer to work in law-breaking secrecy. Wendy Geehreng, J.P. Foster, and Richard Wilson, the additions to the board, will need to remember who they are working for — taxpayers and students — and that openness and communication are paramount.

   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.

   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.

   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.