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.

   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.

   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.

   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.

   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.

   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.

   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.

   Last week we wrote that a prerequisite for office-seekers in the November election must be a demonstrated ability to be civil. This week we would like to bring attention to climate change and sea-level rise.

    At this point all but a narrowing fringe agree that climate change is a pressing danger, especially in coastal communities like ours. Erosion, already a fact of life along these shores, is predicted to accelerate over time. The number and intensity of storms are expected to rise as well, putting Long Island at increased risk of catastrophe.

    One can argue about the causes and number of degrees the global temperature is likely to rise, but the fact remains that the vast preponderance of climate scientists agree that the threat is real — and coming fast.

    To some degree, state and federal governments have begun to act and have come up with recommendations. However, at the local level, at which most land-use decisions are made, the response has been unsatisfactory. Elected and appointed officials in both East Hampton and Southampton Towns have generally clung to outdated line-in-the-sand approaches, hoping they can hold back the sea. Even now policies are being made in the absence of expert advice and boards are simply going along with those who have vested interest in a particular outcome. Answering the challenges ahead will require much more.

    As local nominating committees consider candidates for the November elections, they should agree to put forward those with a demonstrable grasp of the science underlying global warming. Leaders must ignore the clouded thinking of the conspiracists who deny it. Also important will be the candidates’ willingness to work with the best available people to prepare the region for the long haul. Political hopefuls who do not articulate sound vision for meeting this massive challenge will not be worthy of voter support.