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.

   It is ironic that in a place that boasts New York State’s biggest-dollar commercial fishing port and is surrounded by a natural abundance of fish in inshore waters it can be oddly difficult for consumers and restaurants to buy local, fresh-caught fish and shellfish. Most of what is landed here is taken by trucks to the Hunts Point reincarnation of the Fulton Fish Market, where it can be put back on trucks and brought back to the South Fork. This is a bizarre arrangement, one that contributes an unnecessary amount of particulate and global-warming pollutants to the atmosphere while adding to the price local consumers pay for fish.

    Now comes a way to provide an alternative route from fishing vessel to plate. The idea is to have consumers buy shares of a harvester’s catch, receiving a sampling of what is coming over the gunnels as the year moves along. Also likely to be interested in such a scheme is the region’s small but growing aquaculture industry. This might be good for our perennially hard-strapped baymen, who should be getting a premium for their catch but often do not, despite eye-popping prices by the pound once the fillets are in the shops. The initial plan comes from something called Dock to Dish, which is based in Montauk and has had early support from New York Sea Grant and the Concerned Citizens of Montauk.

    The logistics are complicated, however, as are the hurdles necessary to satisfy regulatory authorities that the highly perishable product is safe and harvested legally. By comparison, few such regulations limit how community-supported farms provide boxes filled with kale, squash, or carrots to their subscribers. Supporters of the fish-share concept believe the challenges can be overcome.

    We see the beginning of steps toward something that would be good for consumers and harvesters alike. As one fish-shop owner said last week, the more people who eat fish the better.

   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.

   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.

   If the Sag Harbor Village Board approves its tentative 2013-14 budget, the village’s police force will drop below the level necessary to maintain patrols. At least that was the message delivered by Sag Harbor Police Chief Tom Fabiano to the board in a letter last week. On the other side of the debate, Mayor Brian Gilbride and Trustee Ed Gregory appear to be using the budget process as a cudgel to win concessions from the police during contract negotiations. It is risky brinksmanship, a game that Sag Harbor residents and taxpayers should take seriously.

    Underlying the conflict is a belief, expressed from the start by Mr. Gilbride, that keeping taxes low is a top priority. The village’s proposed budget is just over $8.26 million and represents only a modest increase from the previous year’s. Though much has been made of the state’s 2-percent cap on tax-levy increases, at least as far as the village is concerned, it is a permeable barrier. A simple 3-to-2 vote of the village board would be enough to exceed that limit, and this might win public support if it meant the difference between keeping the homegrown Police Department or paying an outside jurisdiction, for example Southampton Town or the Suffolk Sheriff’s Office, to patrol the streets.

    Throughout the debate not enough has been made of the intangibles of having Sag Harbor’s own police, but community policing is considered a model of how to maintain public safety and keep crime rates low. There is also something to be said for officers who know all the nooks and crannies of the places they are responsible for and the vulnerable residents who may need a little extra looking after. Sag Harbor has a strong sense of identity and pride; its police play a role in keeping it so. Giving that up in the heat of a bud­get fight would be a mistake.

    Residents should be encouraged to have their say, and, if public support is there, to pay for the privilege of having their own police force.

   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.

   A milestone on the Congressional scene came to our attention recently: Loosely speaking, you can say the Democratic Caucus in the House of Representatives is majority minority. Of the 200 House Democrats, 147 were either African-Americans, Latinos, Asians, women, or gay. A Latino man, Rep. Xavier Becerra of California, heads the House Democratic Caucus.

    The 113th Congress is also the most diverse ever over all, with 81 black or Latino members, of which 74 are Democrats. There are 98 women in Congress, again, mostly Democrats, and 7 openly gay members, all Democrats. On the Republican side, much has been made of a few stars, notably Florida Senator Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants. But, counting numbers, Republicans are far whiter and more male than the Democrats, and they have work to do if they want to more closely reflect the composition of the country. But then again, so does Congress.

    Though the population of the United States is now more than a third minority, only 15 percent of the men and women in the two chambers identify themselves as other than non-Hispanic whites. Despite gains, women remain underrepresented, with only about 18 percent of the total in both Houses, even though they constituted about 51 percent of the national population in the 2010 Census.

    Locally, as Councilwoman Theresa Quigley pointed out in a February meeting of the East Hampton Town Board, there are few Latinos on any of the town’s appointed or elected boards. She put forward a Latino man and an African-American woman for positions on the licensing review board, but politics interfered and the nominations foundered. Whether these particular candidates were right for the posts we cannot say, but the general idea of getting more minority representation in Town Hall is an important one.

    As a whole, though, Americans can be proud of the progress in the House of Representatives and the example it sets for the rest of the nation.

   Whether it is a petition in Montauk, pleading with the school board to increase the tax levy to keep class sizes small, or a parent uprising in East Hampton over the ouster of the elementary school principal, democracy in the districts is in good evidence this season, at least in the sense that the aggrieved have exercised their right to speak their minds. Not so among some school board members, who apparently think the position gives them the right, if not the obligation, to conduct important business in secret.

    In the matter of Gina Kraus, the well-liked principal of the John M. Marshall Elementary School, the East Hampton School Board president, George Aman, has repeatedly said  he cannot discuss the reasons behind a pending decision not to grant her tenure. His board, which is not alone in appearing to routinely stretch the state’s open government rules, may be stifled by a misperception that it is forbidden to say anything at all about Ms. Kraus or why she is apparently being returned to a teaching role. “It’s not that we are ignoring or not listening. It’s that we’re publicly forbidden to deal with these issues,” Mr. Aman said. But this, in short, is simply not true.

    According the New York State Committee on Open Government, records that are relevant to the performance of a public officer or employee (which Ms. Kraus certainly is) should be available. By this logic, factual details about Ms. Kraus pertaining to why she should not get tenure or remain on as principal must be disclosed. Put another way, records that shed light on her official duties are a matter of public interest and would not be an invasion of her privacy if shared. Under state law, a discussion of Ms. Kraus’s qualifications and performance can take place in an executive session portion of an otherwise open meeting, but the records and the facts on which the conversation may be based themselves are public.

    At a recent school board meeting, the East Hampton High School library was filled to overflowing with Ms. Kraus’s supporters. But, before they had a chance to speak, Mr. Aman and Richard Burns, the district superintendent, laid the ground rules: The audience could speak, but school officials would have nothing to say in response. Unfortunately, this left an untoward vacuum of the board’s and Mr. Burns’s making.

    There may be perfectly valid reasons for Ms. Kraus’s apparent demotion, but until the school board and the superintendent offer some clue about their thinking, suspicion and bitterness will linger.

   After several weeks of deliberation, East Hampton Village officials are poised to further limit dogs on the ocean beaches between Georgica and Two Mile Hollow. At a recent meeting, the village board scheduled an April 19 hearing on a code amendment that would require people who bring dogs to the beach to keep them on leashes until they are at least 500 feet from the road-ends and parking lots during the hours when pets are allowed on the sand. The East Hampton Town Trustees, who technically govern the beaches between Wainscott and the western boundary of Montauk, were to have discussed the village’s proposal on Tuesday.

    At one point this winter, the village seemed likely to enact stricter measures, including further limiting the hours when dogs were permitted. Under the code as it stands, dogs and other animals cannot be on the beach between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. from mid-May through September. Village Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. was said to have briefly favored keeping dogs away until 8 p.m. in the summer months to protect evening picnickers from their nosy intrusions. However, the new leash law would accomplish the same objective.

    Keeping dogs under control and close to their owners is also likely to cut down on the feces left behind, either willfully by those who walk them or because dogs were out of sight when nature called. Also important is that the new restriction will reduce the chances that loose dogs could bound over to say hello to someone deathly afraid of them or even leap up on someone, an older person perhaps, without sound footing.

    For the time being, the leash rule would appear to satisfy both dog owners’ wishes to be able to take their charges to the beach and the desire of others not to have their sunbathing or lunchtime reveries interrupted. The measure deserves support, with the caveat that enforcement will be the key.

   It has been easy to get swept up in the excitement surrounding the selection of a new leader for the Catholic Church. Though Argentina, where the new pope, Pope Francis, comes from, is far away, he seems one of our own, a man of the Americas, the son of immigrants to this hemisphere, as well as an important, if perhaps indirect, voice and role model for a growing number of Spanish-speaking Catholic residents in the United States as a whole, as well as here on the East End.

    At an installation Mass in Vatican City on Tuesday the new pope declared that the church must work to protect the poor, the weak, and the planet. In his homily, he said, “Let us be protectors of creation, protectors of God’s plan inscribed in nature, protectors of one another and of the environment.” His was a message that all of us, whether religious or secular, can support.

    As the head of a church that counts some 1.2 billion people as members, Pope Francis is in a unique position. His vast bully pulpit can be a force for great good in the world, and Catholics can be rightly proud of the direction their cardinals have chosen.