After an unnecessarily messy period in which the East Hampton School District denied tenure to a well-regarded elementary school principal, stumbled into a likely lawsuit by bus personnel, and repeatedly defied state law on sharing documents under discussion at open meetings, it is little surprise that as many as five newcomers will seek places on the school board next month. Such moments come and go with school boards, and East Hampton is joined by Wainscott in illegally withholding documents and by Montauk in generating parents’ ire, in the latter case over class sizes.

    By their very nature, school bureaucracies are unwieldy and their operations are difficult for board members to fathom, let alone manage. In Sag Harbor, the school board has been torn apart by disagreement and resignations. Nevertheless, East Hampton’s board strikes us as particularly malleable and not prone to learn from its mistakes, especially on personnel and business matters. For example, some have said that a multimillion-dollar lawsuit with a former construction manager could have been averted had the board followed the state Open Meetings Law when it decided some years ago to fire him. The demotion of Gina Kraus from John Marshall Elementary School principal to teacher blindsided her and parents — and touched off a furor that might have been avoided had basic procedures been followed.

    It may appear a trifling observation, but it is our opinion that in allowing the district’s superintendent and business manager to sit during board meetings at the dais with the elected members is both a practical and symbolic mistake. Boards are supposed to act as the community’s representatives, seeking information from administrators and balancing their proposals with taxpayers’ and students’ needs. Giving administrators equal standing creates subtle pressure on board members to side with them in disputes and to vote the way the administrators would like. We would like to hear prospective board members’ views on this issue.

    The watchdog role of a school board should not be abandoned. Having the superintendent and business manager  sit to the side would make it clear that they are there to assist the board, or perhaps better yet, asking them to sit in the audience, shoulder to shoulder with other staff members, parents, and the press, may help remind everyone who is supposed to be in charge.

   The take-away from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s proposal to toughen the state’s public-official corruption law, announced yesterday, is that things must be really bad in the Albany halls of power these days.

    If the legislation outlined this week eventually passes the Legislature as the governor envisions, it would expand the definition of bribery to make the “intent” to influence an official or, conversely, an official’s willingness to be influenced, a felony, provided the value of the bribe was in excess of $5,000. Under

present law, prosecutors must prove that the parties had come to an agreement.

    The legislation would also address the misuse of public money, including theft and even the personal use of an official vehicle. It would make it a misdemeanor for an official to fail to report bribery and it would impose a lifetime ban from government for those convicted under the statute.

    The announcement comes on the heels of a scandal revealed last week involving a Democratic state senator from the Bronx trying to buy his way onto the Republican New York City mayoral ticket. Mr. Cuomo, in remarks Tuesday, said that such a revelation would be a “terrible thing to waste.” If the goal is cleaning up government, we agree.

   On Tuesday, the Associated Press announced that it would no longer sanction the use of the words “illegal immigrant” in its news reports. This comes after rights groups pointed out that the common label is offensive to workers and others in this country whose guilt can be determined only by the courts — not by reporters and editors. It is an interesting shift wherever one stands on the issue of immigration, and it could herald a change in public opinion.

    The A.P. announcement took the form of an addendum to its “Stylebook,” which serves as a linguistic guide not only for its wire reports but for countless English-language news organizations in the United States and abroad.  The A.P. said “undocumented immigrants” is likewise to be avoided, because it is inherently imprecise. Many who are apparently in the United States illegally have papers, if not quite of the correct form or duration. These and other blanket labels would remain permissible in a direct quote, as in the Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano’s perhaps unfortunate statement, reported in several news outlets: “They are immigrants who are here illegally; that’s an illegal immigrant.” The New York Times, whose style book we follow at The Star, is expected to offer its opinion in the coming weeks.

    Immigrants’ advocates and others, including the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, welcomed the announcement. Their view is that no human being is illegal, and that someone can only be found guilty of acting illegally through the workings of the legal system. They are no more or less “legal” than U.S. citizens who habitually cheat on taxes, for example.

    There are an estimated 11 million people in the United States without official authorization. Figuring out what to call them other than the pejorative “illegal immigrant” or the more creepy-sounding phrase “illegal alien” will be a puzzle. The A.P. said that precision could help, for example, by writing that someone crossed the border illegally or overstayed a visa, or was born in the United States to parents here illegally.

    Though a backlash from some of the darker corners of the talk-radio right is likely, the longer-term effect of this seemingly minor change could be significant. Foreign-born labor contributes hugely to the United States economy — and to the South Fork’s. Yet the same workers on which the country and our own community have come to depend are relegated to a worse-than-second-class legal netherworld, without wage or workplace protection. They are subjected to economic exploitation, dangerous living conditions, and are targeted by police out of proportion to their numbers.

    Changing how we speak about this essential group — with whom most of us interact every day — could help lead to rational immigration reform, something blocked far too long by animus reflected in the very words we use to describe people who are, in the end, our friends, co-workers, and neighbors.

   During a meeting of the East Hampton Village Board last week, two members of the public spoke of the dangers that the continuing increase in automobile and truck traffic poses to pedestrians and bicyclists. Among other things, they suggested that bike lanes were needed. Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. told them to take their ideas to Village Police Chief Gerard Larsen. This is something that should be explored, but it will take more than a knowledgeable law enforcement officer to figure out how to solve Main Street’s problems.

    The State of New York owns the road, and it is therefore incumbent on the village to get the state involved. The danger posed by the close proximity of moving traffic to parked cars in the business district is serious. In recent years there have been a number of incidents in which motorists struck open car doors when drivers failed to check if the road was clear. It is harrowing for all involved. The sudden appearance of a person getting out of a car can bring traffic to a dangerous stop. Fortunately, no one has been killed — yet.

     Traffic laws are designed to protect drivers from themselves. So are safety rules, such as staying one car length behind the car in front of you for every 10 miles per hour of speed. State law makes it the parked-car driver’s responsibility to look before opening the door, which sounds like common sense, except that drivers are not conditioned to such narrow lanes. The Main Streets of Sag Harbor and Southampton, and essentially all the other main drags from Water Mill to Montauk, are single-lane roads that, perhaps paradoxically, allow for more space between parked and moving cars. Only the Village of East Hampton has two lanes each way, which sets the stage for too many close shaves.

    Given how wide East Hampton’s Main Street is, traffic engineers ought to be able to come up with a better scheme than wide center turning lanes, which may, in fact, exacerbate the problem. Would eliminating them provide space for bike lanes? Would narrowing sidewalk aprons be feasible? It’s undoubtedly too late for many changes to take place this season. Let’s hope for improvements by summer 2014 and, in the meantime, keep our fingers crossed that no one is hurt.

   It was an otherwise quiet spring day, and a resident dog owner and lover, morning cup of java from Mary’s Marvelous in hand, was standing near the water’s edge at the ocean at Georgica enjoying the quiet and taking in the view. Then, out of nowhere, a small purebred dragging a leash appeared at his side, barking angrily as if the dark shadow itself were at hand. After what seemed like and an inordinate length of time, a woman called the dog over, and without so much as a wave of apology, they walked away. So much for serenity.

    East Hampton Village officials, considering incidents along the lines of the foregoing and the piles of droppings some irresponsible handlers allow their dogs to leave behind, have been mulling tighter restrictions, among them a rule that would require the animals to be kept on leashes until they were at least 500 feet from a road end or parking lot. Unfortunately, a 500-foot rule, or even a 200-foot variation thereof, is essentially unworkable in one obvious aspect: Many dogs when let off their leashes immediately begin joyful sprints up and down the beach. Without a doubt, some will race back into the restricted area in their exuberance.

    Self-policing, while nice to fantasize about, does not work in the end; dogs — and some of their masters — do not always follow the rules. Though there would be yowls and howls of protest, we can envision the day that seasonal, 24-hour bans on dogs at the most-popular bathing beaches, defined as beaches with lifeguards, are implemented. It seems inevitable, and not too far away.

    As with so many other things, if potential public nuisances such as dogs and bonfires are allowed on the beach, it falls to local government to make sure some beachgoers’ fun does not impinge on the rights of others — including, if need be, sending village or town employees on the taxpayers’ dime out to pick up the messes themselves.

   The united call from a number of South Fork environmental groups that the Town of East Hampton proceed no further on coastal policy until at least one top expert has signed on as an adviser is welcome. Post-Hurricane Sandy, East Hampton has been among many shoreline communities rushing to rebuild and reinforce damaged property, in many cases without taking the time to be sure the work will not do more harm than good over the long term. East Hampton Town has fast-tracked scores of permits, and more are headed to the zoning board of appeals for review. Even if the Planning Department were fully staffed, it would be hard-pressed to keep up and not make mistakes, which makes us wonder about how the depleted and brow-beaten staff in its Pantigo Place offices have been able to fulfill their role.

    Town board’s attention has been centered on downtown Montauk, where several hotels and residential complexes are increasingly threatened by erosion. Property owners there, backed by Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson, favor using rocks to build a seawall of some kind close to their foundations. Such work is banned in the area by the town’s own Local Waterfront Revitalization Program, and they want it amended.

    One property has already been fortified by a long line of concrete septic rings, which were supposed to be temporary, although a precise time span was not specified. Even with State Department of Environmental Conservation approval, these rings were of questionable legality — and what was worse, they were not studied for their impact on the beach, neighboring properties, or the environment. As experience shows, where shore-hardening structures, such as rocks, bulkheads, or septic rings, are placed, the public beach quickly narrows, or, in some cases, actually disappears.

    Downtown Montauk is not alone by a long shot in being in harm’s way. Nor is it the most threatened portion of the town’s coastline. Beaches were sharply eroded by Sandy and the subsequent winter storms in many locations. These include most north and east-facing stretches, such as along Soundview Drive and Captain Kidd’s Path in Montauk, Mulford Lane at Lazy Point, Gardiner’s Bay in Amagansett, and Gerard Drive in Springs. You can expect property owners in these places and others to pay very careful attention to just how far things are allowed to progress in Montauk.

    Town board Republicans have made it clear that they would like to allow the affected Montauk owners to do whatever it takes to fortify their properties, the public right to the beach be damned. Mr. Wilkinson and Councilwoman Theresa Quigley favor letting the Army Corps of Engineers lead the way without the town’s seeking another opinion. And Councilman Dominick Stanzione has expressed doubt about hiring an expert whose views might differ from that of the Corps — the same organization that has taken nearly 50 years to complete the much-heralded Fire Island to Montauk Point Reformulation Study and brought you the Hurricane Katrina disaster. If that is the kind of expertise the town is being offered, we say no thank you.

    Coastal policy is the big enchilada for East Hampton Town, the 600-pound gorilla, the whole kit and caboodle. It is not something residents can trust to an anonymous federal bureaucracy or accept in the lack of the best-qualified experts and deliberate study. Mr. Wilkinson, Ms. Quigley, and Mr. Stanzione’s apparent abdication of this complex responsibility may be perhaps the most damaging legacy they will leave unless they change course immediately, call in the best available professionals, and embrace policies based on science and the entire community’s interests.

   With a strongly worded letter from the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee, the East Hampton Town Board cannot now assume that a plan to make a host of legal problems disappear at Cyril’s Fish House on Napeague — and allow the seasonally overcrowded business to grow — has much, if any, public support. Nonetheless, the board is set to go ahead with a public hearing tonight on an ill-advised scheme to downzone the parcel on which the bar and restaurant sits and an undeveloped lot next door from a residential to business classification. Its only evident backer is Tina Piette, a prominent Amagansett lawyer formerly active with the town Republican Party.

    The town code is unequivocal: Nonconforming businesses like Cyril’s, which predate the adoption of zoning, are allowed to continue as long as they are not expanded. Strict review is supposed to be triggered when anything requiring a building permit is proposed for such properties, though in practice, the town has failed on many occasions to hold owners to that. In the case of Cyril’s, town records show more than a dozen structures added to the site without approval. By one count, as many as 26 zoning variances would be needed only to bring what already has been done there into legal compliance.

    The big problem with Cyril’s is not simply that it has expanded illegally, or that its owners want it to grow even more, it is that the town code does not have adequate provisions to control how it functions in the real world. Of a sunny summer Saturday afternoon, hundreds of patrons mill around its gravel parking lot and within the state highway right-of-way as they try to elbow their way to the bar. Forget about the seats and the seafood menu; this is all about hanging out with friends over a Bailey’s or a cream daiquiri or two.

    By late afternoon, as people leave the beach, vehicles can stretch far down both sides of Montauk Highway. Passing drivers slow and stare in amazement as mostly young patrons work their way along the shoulders. Double and triple-parked taxis make conditions even more dangerous. By early morning, Cyril’s plastic drink cups remain as unsightly reminders of the last evening’s revelry.

    Instead of considering how to reward Cyril’s owners for mocking town laws, the town board should look for ways to curb the numbers of outdoor patrons such establishments can host at any one time. The last time this question came up, however, Councilwoman Theresa Quigley proposed a wildly generous outdoor occupancy calculation that would have made things worse by allowing one guest for every seven square feet of usable space. As many as 1,400 bodies would have been permitted on a quarter-acre lawn, for example.

    The Cyril’s Fish House proposition now before the town is without merit. Why the board even agreed to consider it is, frankly, a mystery.

   One of the weirder disputes to bubble up in the lengthy history of animus between the East Hampton Town Trustees and the town board came to light two weeks ago with the disclosure that Town Hall had sent the trustees a bill for cutting up and hauling away a dead whale after it washed up on the beach on Jan. 13. Though the affair is odd at several levels, it may have a hidden benefit for the trustees, one that may make them actually eager to cover the $7,500 cost even though they had nothing to do with it.

    The beef is over who authorized removal of the stinking, 58-foot carcass. The trustees said they were not consulted. It turned out that someone else, perhaps in the town’s Highway or Police Department, gave a local land-moving contractor the green light to take on the heavy job. According to one of the trustees, a different company, with whom they had already been doing business, had offered to do the deed without charge.

    Just why Town Hall thought it had the responsibility to deal with the problem in the first place is a bit of a mystery. Finback whales are federally protected, and this particular one came to rest on the tidal portion of the beach, placing it within state jurisdiction.

    So, was the cost of disposing of that whale Albany’s or Washington’s problem? It’s difficult to say. The 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Law prohibits the possession of whale parts. And, as an animal on the endangered species list, its ignominious end, at an out-of-town garbage incinerator, might have raised questions. At least the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation, which acts as the feds’ representative in such matters here, should have straightened out who would be handed the tab before its team left the beach.

     All of the foregoing aside, the payoff for the trustees is that by handing them the bill, Town Hall is further acknowledging their proprietary ownership of the ocean beach. And that may well be worth the money.

   In the last several weeks, The Star has begun offering a laundry list of some of the qualifications candidates for East Hampton Town office must have to merit serious consideration in the November election. Our previous calls were for bringing civility back to Town Hall, demonstrating the vision to take on climate change, and, in general, restoring the rule of law.

    Here is another: The candidates and the parties that back them must demonstrate willingness to allow town employees to do their jobs free of political interference. To do this, the next town board will have to do some rethinking.

    Ideally, local governments in New York State are supposed to be set up with an elected board and a separate staff. The board sets policy by passing laws and appropriating money; the staff carries out its work as described in local laws. In the Town of East Hampton in recent years, however, the line has become blurred. One top town department official said recently that she had “five bosses,” meaning the five-person town board rather than the 20,000-something town residents.

    There are stories of board members marching into the Building Department to tell the inspectors how to rule on one application or another. Then there was the time when Supervisor Bill Wilkinson and Councilwoman Theresa Quigsley plunked themselves down in the front row at a planning board meeting and then got into a tiff with several of its members over procedure. The message in that instance, and in many others, was clear: Do things our way.

    Curing the ills in East Hampton Town Hall will take confident leadership. Key among necessary reforms will be cultivating an independent town attorney’s office whose staff has the clear mission of providing the best legal advice to all town departments. Instead, since the resignation of Laura Molinari, in 2008 during the early days of the McGintee administration financial scandal, the attorney’s office has drifted. It seemed to be scrambling to provide cover for the supervisor and his dwindling supporters’ questionable pet projects.

    A strong legal department made up of staff whose careers are not on the line if they cross an elected official is essential. Providing oversight to the Building Department, on whose sometimes seat-of-the-pants rulings millions of dollars can rest, will go a long way toward avoiding many of the legal quagmires that have been in the news.

    Also key will be taking on the two-men-in-a-room nature of budget preparation. Town residents saw how bad things could become when Bill McGintee’s budget officer, Ted Hults, improperly moved money around to cover gaps, which led to expensive deficit-financing through bonds and state supervision of the town’s books. Rather than adopt a stronger system of checks and balances, however, the town during the Wilkinson administration moved to hand more authority to the budget officer — whose job as a political appointee is at the pleasure of the town board majority at all times. Contrast this with the way school boards are required to hold public work sessions in creating budgets and ultimately to take them to voters for approval.

    These town governance problems are not new. One solution suggested has been to create a town manager’s post. We are hesitant to support this, as it could consolidate power and put residents at a greater remove from government. Instead, at least for the foreseeable future, the town’s generally fine department heads should be allowed to do their jobs, hewing to the town code with the community’s best interests as their guide.

   In recent editions The Star has suggested priorities that should be on the respective political parties’ wish lists as they narrow their choices for candidates in East Hampton Town’s November election. Last week we said town leaders must show the ability to deal with preparing for climate change; the week before we talked about civility — particularly in Town Hall, which has devolved into a hissing pit of vendetta-nursing and vituperation. Today we consider the rule of law.

    Close readers can hardly have missed the recurring theme at East Hampton Town Hall, which has drifted into something like quasi-legality with Supervisor Bill Wilkinson and his closest ally, Councilwoman Theresa Quigley, figuring in far too many questionable things. For too long, perhaps, town residents were willing to give their shenanigans a pass since they were, after all, correcting a mess left by prior Town Supervisor Bill McGintee and feckless town board members, who ran up an unconscionable and huge internal debt by improperly shuffling money among town accounts. Now, however, looking to the future, voters must ask more of the parties and the people they put forward for town office, as well as those who will be named to the town’s zoning, planning, and other appointed boards.

     A couple of examples: From the outset, Mr. Wilkinson’s administration appeared to act outside the law in seeking to sell Fort Pond House in Montauk, despite strict state prohibitions on the casual jettisoning of parkland. Later, the town board approved a giant music festival on residential land in Amagansett with only cursory review and the acquiescence of the top town attorney, who counted the property’s owner among his handful of outside clients.

    This week attention was drawn to a lawsuit brought by an Amagansett property who had sought to overturn a town zoning board rejection but who amazingly won by default when the town failed to answer in court. In a November 2010 decision, the judge in the case wrote that East Hampton Town had “no intention to have the controversy on its merits.” No one has explained how or why the town attorney’s office did not respond, though speculation is spreading that it might have been by design.

    More recently, Mr. Wilkinson gave the go-ahead to several shoreline-protection measures that were outside the scope of his authority. He also appointed to an advisory committee a friend and local contractor who was partly responsible for the largest-ever fine by the tidal wetlands division of the State Department of Environmental Conservation. Lately, too, ordinance enforcers have essentially ignored whole sections of the town code, including those on signs, clearing, and outdoor illumination.

    In terms of land-use regulation, the record has been equally disturbing. The East Hampton Town Board has stood by idly as several major projects successfully evaded proper review. Moreover, in two egregious examples, that of the Dunes substance-abuse center in Northwest Woods and the Beach House hotel-cum-nightclub in Montauk, the supervisor was an early backer despite obvious questions about the projects’ compliance with town law. Then there is the issue of the East Hampton Town Comprehensive Plan and the separate Local Waterfront Revitalization Program, both of which have been routinely laughed off in recent years although they were the result of many hundreds of hours of effort and carry the force of law on matters large and small.

    Lest you think this is but history, next Thursday the town board is to consider changing the zoning of Cyril’s Fish House on Napeague from residential to commercial, even though the comprehensive plan flatly calls for restricting development along Montauk Highway there and one of the two parcels is included on the town’s list of properties eligible for open space preservation.

    Changing course in Town Hall must start at the top. The victorious candidates for town board and supervisor will have their work cut out for them. Well before Nov. 5, however, they must tell voters just exactly how they intend to set things right.