As spring on the South Fork really gets under way, a jarring discrepancy between how we think about this area and how run down it looks in many places is becoming apparent. For a resort and second-home community of such renown, East Hampton Town is looking a little down in the dumps these days. Litter is everywhere. An increasing welter of utility lines mar the overhead view. Roadsides, at least those outside the incorporated villages, are left without mowing or maintenance. Trees downed by Hurricane Sandy, now more than six months on, are still in evidence.

    Our streetscapes, though they are likely to be visitors’ first impressions, are becoming a blight across the town. This is sharply at odds with how the area is perceived by outsiders and portrayed in the national media — and something that must be included in the conversation as the campaigns for elected office proceed this year.

    Compare, for example, the roadsides in Bridgehampton and Wainscott. Both are bisected by the state’s Route 27, both are part of their respective towns, yet Bridgehampton is tidy and pleasing to the eye while Wainscott, well, looks like hell. So, too, does much of Springs-Fireplace Road and some places in Montauk. It is a shame and an embarrassment.

    Current town officials should be held accountable for not doing more. But, if they respond at all, they are likely to engage in a reflexive spasm of buck-passing, protesting that many of the eyesores are on county or state roads and, in any event, the financial crisis touched off in Supervisor Bill McGintee’s era cut too deeply into the budget to do much about it. To this we say, nonsense. It costs nothing for town officials to badger and browbeat the state and county, as well as the utility companies, in the hope of action, and as far as we know, they have not done so. Moreover, the visual hodgepodge of illegal signs that tart up many roadsides are entirely within local authority.

    Southampton Town and the Villages of East Hampton and Sag Harbor manage to keep things looking good. So what’s their secret? Why can’t East Hampton Town Hall follow suit? Is the solution a sort of townwide Ladies Village Improvement Society? An increased mandate for the citizens litter committee? These are questions the November hopefuls need to address. Voters should ask for answers.

   A proposal unveiled last week for an 89-unit housing complex in Amagansett for the well-off 55-and-older set is — there’s no other word for it — audacious. And, once you get past the shock factor, it has to rank among the just plain most-unwelcome and ill-conceived notions to come down the pike in a long time.

    Though a formal proposal is a good way off, a representative of the Connecticut firm that bought the 24-acre parcel last year crossed Long Island Sound to make a pitch for it at the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee and the hamlet’s school board. The maybe $100 million project would require that the town create a new zoning classification — senior citizens housing — because the limit under its current three-acre, single-family zoning would be something on the order of just seven houses.

    Beyond the carrot of maybe $2 million in new taxes, it is hard to see who would benefit from a new residential village other than the developers and a few real estate agents. At $850,000 to $1.8 million per unit, there are likely to be few who consider themselves local able to afford the buy-in cost. Promises of adjacent affordable housing or payments to some sort of unspecified do-good fund are far too speculative to be taken seriously.

     The East Hampton Town Comprehensive Plan, which was adopted in 2005, should be a significant impediment to the out-of-town developer’s plans. In its section on the Montauk Highway corridor in Amagansett, the plan says that the town should “restrict the amount of commercial and residential development which could impair the functionality of the town’s main roadway and change the intimate, small scale character of the area to a congested retail strip mall.” Further, and regardless of the village-like layout the developers have brought forward, the comprehensive plan advises the town to “reduce the residential build-out in order to protect the natural and cultural features of Amagansett.”

    The three-acre zoning on the parcel was the result of a specific recommendation in the comprehensive plan, which said that rezoning the area would “help limit the number of new curb cuts, turning movements, and development potential along the town’s main roadway.” There is no way that a development that would add perhaps as many as two vehicles per unit to the mix is consistent with the town’s master planning document.

    And it gets worse for the Connecticut firm in the comprehensive plan: “In addition, this land is ranked as prime farmland, rated by the United States Department of Agriculture as the best land for raising crops in New York State, and is part of Suffolk County’s agricultural industry, ranked first in New York State. The farming landscape and industry help to maintain Amagansett’s rural quality, scenic vistas, and unique sense of place.”

    Regarding the affordable-housing-suitable designation that once was applied to this property, the comprehensive plan says its three-acre zoning will help reduce the “fragmentation, alteration, and elimination of this valuable farmland resource and industry while helping to protect scenic views.” And, by the way, it also says that the natural characteristics of the property make it “unsuitable for development of affordable housing,” or, one can presume, a crowded cluster of cottages and town house apartments for deep-pocketed aging baby boomers.

    Considering what common sense and the comprehensive plan dictate, the developer’s proposal would appear to be well over the horizon of what is in the best interests of the community or the tens of thousands of visitors who pass by on their way to and from Montauk every summer and well into the fall. It is an idea totally out of character and scale, and we think it’s safe to say that it sharply contradicts what most residents would want. The zone change on which this scheme is predicated should be dead on arrival.

   An article in these pages this week about local enforcement of regulations governing access to businesses and public accommodations for people with disabilities points to a looming problem: East Hampton Town departments have been left unable to provide needed services as a result of three years of budget-cutting. Seeking compliance with disabilities laws, both local and federal, would take a considerable investment of time and staff, something the departments involved lack. For candidates hoping to run for town supervisor and town board, leveling with the voters about the long-term need for tax increases will be essential.

    In a number of editions this year, we have been writing about some of the key issues that the political parties and voters should grapple with as they make their choices. Among these have been returning civility and respect to town meetings, restoring the rule of law, and coping with climate change and sea-level rise in an informed manner. Dollars and cents issues are next on the list, and there is significant reason for concern that the Wilkinson years have so gutted both infrastructure and employee numbers that meeting needs in the years ahead will be expensive.

    Whether because of politics or ideology, the day of reckoning about the town’s forced poverty is coming soon. This could well be one reason why there has been no one of note stepping forward to run for town supervisor on the Republican line. Perhaps they are in on the little secret that the next person in the office will necessarily be responsible for tax increases. This would not be the first time in relatively recent memory that the town’s budget-writers left a financial time bomb waiting for an incoming administration. The McGintee administration did it by inappropriate juggling of town accounts; the Wilkinson team has done it by decimating town departments.

     The difficulties are not limited to disability laws or overworked ordinance enforcers. The Building Department reports having a hard time keeping up with routine paperwork, for example. Nor do departmental problems take into consideration some big-ticket items, such as necessary roadwork, that would in most cases have to be paid for by the town’s issuing bonds, whose cost would show up in tax bills for years to come.

    This is also why you may not see a resolution to East Hampton Town’s contract negotiations with its police union until after the budget is due in November. That way, any likely increases will not be included in the annual police appropriation, forcing the next town administration, probably a Democratic one, to scramble to come up with the money. By one calculus, resulting taxpayer anger could vault the Republicans back into power in the following election.

    Writing the town’s 2014 budget is a responsibility that falls to Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson, whose sniffy distaste for funding much of anything without tapping surpluses or selling assets has been made clear. The budget itself is not made final until after the November election, but it should loom large as the parties narrow down their choices, the campaigns unfold, and the candidates talk to voters about the tough choices ahead.

   The East Hampton Town Trustees’ recent review of a disruptive form of shellfish harvesting was overdue. There have long been quiet concerns among some observers that powering, or churning, for soft-shelled clams, or steamers, did more harm than good.

    The method is an aggressive form of shellfishing in which a small, gas-powered outboard motor mounted on a sort of sled is used to rapidly turn over a swathe of bay or harbor bottom, allowing the exposed clams to be picked up by hand. In the process, the small clams that could be next year’s crop are exposed to predators, including ravenous and ever-present sea gulls. As a result, the delicate habitat on which a whole chain of natural life depends is disrupted. Traditionally, soft clams are harvested by hand in a far-less intrusive manner. Powering is allowed by the state only for soft clams, but at the very least the practice should be re-examined in light of environmental concerns.

    In a vote taken last month, the trustees halted powering for the rest of this year. Failing solid evidence that the method is benign, the ban should be made permanent.

   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.

   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.

   East Hampton Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson famously once said, “We are the most transparent.” His point, of course, was that Town Hall during his tenure, in his view, has been going above and beyond the open-government mandate. Perhaps in one sense, if not the one intended, what he said was perfectly true: However loud the clamor and din in local politics, it has always been easy to discern the ideology-before-constituents philosophy behind much of what Mr. Wilkinson does. His motives and beliefs have never been obscured.

    But we certainly hope the next town board, when they are sworn in come January, will try rather harder to make East Hampton Town leadership (across party lines) more upfront about what they are actually doing, and that they will honestly dedicate themselves to compliance with the state Freedom of Information Law.

    For the past several weeks, we have been writing about some of the yardsticks by which the respective East Hampton nominating committees might evaluate prospective candidates. As the tops of the tickets appear to be solidifying, voters will want to keep tabs on where the hopefuls stand on the big-ticket items: sea-level rise, the rule of law, civility, and the principle of allowing town employees to do their jobs free of political interference. Then, as suggested above, comes the issue of open government: Will a candidate ensure that policy-making is done in the public view, and that the wishes of taxpayers and residents are taken into better consideration?

    Consider these areas of concern, from the past few years, relating to open government: Freedom of Information requests unanswered; a code enforcement department that refuses to share details about its day-to-day performance; last-minute circulation of board agendas; hasty and ill-thought-out mass-gathering approvals, and precipitous, highly charged “walk-on” resolutions at town meetings.

    As for listening-to-the-public problems, consider: the elimination of leaf pickup, the putative sale of Fort Pond House in Montauk, the lunatic notion of down-zoning the seasonally out-of-control bar crowd at Cyril’s Fish House on Napeague, and the airport decision, which affects thousands of residents across four townships.

    Government in the United States, particularly at the town and village level, is a cooperative and collaborative undertaking between elected leaders and those they lead. Have you attended an East Hampton Town Board meeting (or watched one on LTV) in recent years? They are, in our opinion, a prime example of how not to cooperate and collaborate. November’s office-seekers need to do more than simply mouth the phrases “open government,” “commitment to transparency,” and “respect for constituents.”

   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.

   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.