Paul Sapienza, the father of soccer here, whose Springs School teams went undefeated in 13 of the 15 years he was here, used to wonder whatever happened to all the talent he was sending East Hampton High School’s way. One answer was that the kids, while they possessed fine individual skills, had not yet figured out how to play as a team, nor had they, in some cases, learned that being a team player meant you also had to keep your grades up.

    They call soccer the beautiful game, but at the high school level it often is not. Frequently it is the tougher team, the one with the players who fight for every 50-50 ball, and who then, through sheer force of will sometimes, put it into the opponent’s goal, that wins. Hold on too long to the ball, however nifty your footwork may be, and it will prove unavailing.

    These days, Mr. Sapienza, one of whose men’s traveling teams once rode a 77-game winning streak in Islandwide competition, would no longer be wondering whatever happened to his kids at the high school level. Rich King, the head coach for the past five years, and his assistant, Don McGovern, who formerly coached Pierson High, have got their charges playing as a team — as a championship team in fact. They play with toughness and with finesse, they’re determined, not cocky, and they’ve been wonderful to watch.

    King and McGovern’s teams have played in three county championship games and have won three league championships in the past four years. They won the county championship last year and this and, while they lost 2-0 to Jericho in the Long Island title game this past week, they gave it everything they had and were unbowed in defeat.

    “It’s been a fulfilling season,” King said. “These kids always found a way to win, they have 10 one-goal victories. As a coach you can’t ask for anything more. . . . They always want to win a state title. It’s not a coach-driven goal, it’s the goal of our kids. And it’s going to happen one of these days.”  

    Meanwhile, there’s plenty for the players, their coaches, and East Hampton to be proud about.

   If the East Hampton Town Board had set out to appoint a potentially unproductive committee to chart erosion policy for the future, it certainly succeeded at a meeting on Dec. 4.

    Among the group of 10 people, three run Montauk waterfront hotels, one sells real estate, and another operates an earth-moving business. Two are members of the town board: one a lawyer and property-rights stalwart, the other a builder. Two hail from local environmental groups. You get the picture.

     This is not to say that the views of the members of  this committee should be ignored. It is simply that a different, more measured approach would be necessary to gain an unbiased assessment of the town’s existing shoreline laws and whether they are adequate and in the best interest of the East Hampton population as a whole — beachgoers as well as those on whom fortune has smiled.

    After roughly a decade of work, the Town of East Hampton had its own detailed coastal hazard plan approved by Albany in 2007, and by the United States Office of Ocean and Coastal Resources Management the following year. This allowed the town to take over from the state most regulation of responses to erosion. At the time, we had doubts about the wisdom of handing such politically charged work over to local elected officials. Now, that concern appears to be borne out.

    East Hampton Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson, whose close ally, Councilwoman Theresa Quigley, urged the creation of the new committee, has several times told town employees to go ahead and violate local and state regulations when waters have threatened private property. At the Dec. 4 meeting, Mr. Wilkinson remarked that the town’s overarching coastal policy law was merely a “snapshot in time.” Presumably, he meant it could be rewritten under cover of the new committee.

    As scientific predictions about the pace of sea-level rise are becoming better understood it is reasonable that the town, villages, and other shoreline communities take a good look at their response planning and determine whether changes are needed. This can only be meaningful if the review is undertaken by professionals with the best credentials. Long Island has no shortage of universities whose talent could be tapped to produce a comprehensive analysis. Only when that was done would the opinions of ordinary citizens and stakeholders, such as beachfront property owners, be appropriate and valuable.

    The new committee is certainly going to reconsider the Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan. But before doing so it should call for and oversee a professional analysis. Any group challenged to consider changes in erosion-control policy should include people with deep personal interests in the shoreline. But it should not, at the outset, be dominated by those for whom one particular outcome is a foregone conclusion.

   Reports of a die-off elsewhere notwithstanding, this season’s East Hampton scallop harvest has been another for the record books. Not only are these succulent shellfish abundant here, some of the individuals are huge, with shucked meats exceeding an inch and a half in length. This is good news for local harvesters and gourmands, and a significant turnaround from the situation only a few years ago when scallops were so few and far between that the commercial harvest was essentially halted. From about 1985, a series of so-called “brown tide” algae blooms devastated the scallop population, forcing some baymen off the water for good.

    A simple explanation for the scallops’ resurgence is difficult to come by. One important factor has been the combined efforts of several shellfish hatcheries, including one run by the Town of East Hampton and another by Cornell Cooperative Extension in Southold Town, which restocked many bays and harbors.

    All is not well, however. Ominous news in the form of widespread mortality in some parts of the Peconic Estuary came in the fall. A different algae bloom had been cited, though a firm cause remains unknown. And state officials recently added to the list of South Fork water bodies considered impaired by nitrogen pollution, which can contribute to algal blooms. Failing septic systems are a huge problem here, and as sea level rise slowly inundates low-lying areas, maintaining and/or improving water quality will be a challenge.

    Some years ago, we wrote in a spirit of hope that scallops might someday be restored — a canary in our coal mine, if you pardon the stretched metaphor. Now that recent local harvests bode well, we must press elected officials for a commitment to keeping scallops — and all other indigenous marine life — a top priority.

   If you have not yet seen the new Parrish Art Museum from the inside, it should be high on your to-do list. The venerable institution has been reborn in a striking new home in Water Mill designed by a renowned Swiss firm. Long and deceptively low-slung in its farm field-like setting, the museum has been called “an unexpected monument” in New York magazine and “a triumph” in Architectural Record.

    These are not mere esoteric or academic accolades; from the new Parrish’s early weeks, the public has responded positively, with thousands thronging the opening events and visitors continuing to arrive in solid numbers, according to Terrie Sultan, its director. The soaring interior galleries give the collection’s old favorites a new, welcome, and much-needed airing. There is room, too, for traveling exhibitions and short-term shows.

    The Parrish also seems revitalized in terms of programs. This began before the doors formally opened on the 600-foot-long Herzog and de Meuron building. In recent months, talks by members of a broadly defined creative community and the compelling Parrish Road Show of site-specific installations and events this summer were well-attended and created welcome buzz.

    In some ways, the remarkable new structure is just a beginning, however. Its ample space and gleaming walls present opportunities for an institution that sees itself at the hub of the region’s visual arts. Where the Parrish has traditionally been strong on the South Fork painters of a century ago, its involvement in the contemporary scene has been less acclaimed. There are scores of painters, sculptors, photographers, ceramicists, and video artists living and working here now; acquiring representative examples of their best work — and making sense of it all — is the Parrish’s challenge now.

   Most of our daughter Evvy’s Hanukkah presents were stolen Saturday night. The wrapped gifts had been in the back of her grandparents’ car, in a big box to be taken to New York City on Sunday for a party at an aunt and uncle’s place on Riverside Drive.

    For an 8-year-old already having a rough couple of weeks coming to grips with some of the world’s more bitter truths, the theft was a significant blow. Evvy has been more apprehensive than normal, asking questions about the probability that a mass extinction might strike the Earth as it did during the epoch of the dinosaurs, or that a tidal wave could hit Amagansett, that sort of thing.

    That the credit card company said it would reimburse us for the cost of the stolen items made little difference to her. They were her presents, and the fact that someone else now had them left her in tears. As parents, it was a silver lining for us perhaps that the feelings were not for the objects that were lost. Rather, it was the injustice of it all that seemed to matter to her.

    This is, I suppose, how many of us reacted to the news of the Sandy Hook killings in Connecticut on Friday. I, and no one I have come in contact with, knew any of the children or faculty and administrators shot that terrible day. And yet the injustice leaves us with tears in our eyes and a gulf in the heart. Twenty-six memorial Christmas trees were put up at the Hook Mill in East Hampton Village on Monday; I’m certain I was not alone choking up as I saw them the following morning on my way to work.

    So far Evvy does not know about the Connecticut horror, though it is just a matter of time before something of the news will filter to her. Lisa and I have responded to Evvy’s other fears by assuring her that nothing like those events she fears is going to happen — no meteors, no earthquakes. And yet, as we take the role of soothing parents, in the back of our minds is the terrible reality.

    Evvy’s Hanukkah presents, now mostly replaced during a stop at a mall, are a minor matter in the scheme of things, and for the time being, as parents, we would rather keep it that way. She doesn’t need to know the rest — not yet.

   Though an endorsement in these pages would appear to be unnecessary, East Hampton Village’s plan to create a timber-framed structure historic designation is a worthy concept. The measure appears headed for approval, perhaps as early as tomorrow’s meeting.

    The village already has a historic district, which controls certain exterior changes on some properties. The new program would protect important buildings outside the district from destruction and major alterations. In exchange, it would promise owners incentives in the form of “bonuses” that would allow them to build larger accessory structures than would ordinarily be allowed on the same properties.

    According to Robert Hefner, who helped prepare the proposed law as director of historic services for the village, the measure would make it the first municipality in New York State to couple preservation with such a sweetener. The deal is a worthwhile concession. There might be circumstances in the future, however, when such arrangements would be impossible; in those circumstances, the village should not consider itself required to offer other trade-offs.

    Much of the charm of the village, not to overlook its apparently ever-swelling real estate values, is wrapped up in its appearance, particularly in the green that runs from Town Pond to Buell Lane lined by ancient houses. Some are said to date to the late 17th century and are already in the historic district. The new designation would extend protection of 25 other structures’ rare character and should be approved.

    East Hampton Town is another story. It has let its enforcement of historic-district rules wither, and no new preservation measures appear in the offing. We hope Town Hall is watching Village Hall’s fine example.

   Please forgive us for saying we told you so, but having reread the following, which was in an editorial here in September on the anniversary of the great 1938 Hurricane, we have to say it: We told you so.

    “If a storm of comparable power arrived here tomorrow, the damage would be orders of magnitude greater because of the sharp, if ill-considered, increase in shoreline construction since the 1930s. Though the loss of life would be far less, thanks to improved weather forecasts, the cost to insurers, utility companies, and governments responsible for cleaning up and repairing infrastructure would be astronomical.”

    “Disruption of everyday life would drag on for weeks. Then would come the debate about whether to allow property owners to return to harm’s way, rebuilding (or not) billions of dollars in lost waterfront real estate.”

    The foregoing passage was hardly prescience; it stated the obvious. People who study such risks have sent out warnings for years. Still, although Hurricane Sandy, or Superstorm Sandy, or whatever you want to call it, was cataclysmic — with at least 100 people killed, an estimated $80 billion in damage, untold sums more in lost economic activity, and long-term environmental costs —  it seems that out here at least there were few lessons learned, not from 1938 or Oct. 29, 2012, or from any of the storms in between.

    Instead of initiating a sensible review of coastline policy and emergency preparation, the Town of East Hampton named a charade committee. In the Town of Southampton, some officials’ top priority appears to be how to siphon off federal restoration dollars to pay to permanently elevate perennially threatened Dune Road so that wealthy vacation-house owners can continue to get to their doomed properties. To call both towns’ responses shortsighted and tone-deaf would be polite.

    Meanwhile, it has been left to the heroic efforts of ordinary citizens — many from our South Fork communities — to provide basic human necessities, in an ongoing and essential effort, for our neighbors in the Rockaways and elsewhere on this vulnerable island. We cannot forget, too, that our local libraries had to pick up the slack left by East Hampton Town Hall’s it-can’t-happen-here myopia, providing places of refuge for those left without heat, light, or a connection to the outside world for up to two weeks in some cases. (Kudos to the actor Alec Baldwin for recognizing this and saying thank-you with generous grants from his philanthropic foundation.)

    The pages of this newspaper are often filled with matters having to do with storms, hurricanes, and the like. This makes sense considering where we live and the region we cover — a sandy, rapidly eroding spit of land stuck out in the unforgiving Atlantic Ocean. Yes, back in September we may have struck our usual Chicken Little chords, but we underestimated how bad that next one would turn out to be for so many people — and how poorly our elected representatives had prepared for it and now continue to avoid the obvious.

    There were lessons to be learned after Sandy all right, but it is unclear if anyone of authority here was even in the classroom.

   For the Town of East Hampton, a request from a Napeague property owner to change the zoning of the land on which the summertime traffic nuisance called Cyril’s Fish House sits amounts to an existential challenge.

    From the property owner’s perspective, seeking permission to legalize a host of additions on the property, improve septic conditions, and add parking spaces makes sense. The land’s classification as residential makes Cyril’s what is known as pre-existing and nonconforming. This means that while its operation cannot be summarily shut down by the town on land-use grounds, neither can it be expanded or improved without being subjected to hypothetically stringent site-plan review.

    The town’s decision on this is not yet known. The planning board, asked to review an application for a change of zone that would make Cyril’s a conforming use, split 3-3. The final say now rests with the East Hampton Town Board, which would have to schedule a hearing — though it also has the option to decline consideration altogether. Two reasons why town should not proceed any further are how Cyril’s Fish House has been operated historically and how a zone change would set a potentially disastrous precedent.

    At this point there are probably few residents who have not at some point driven by Cyril’s on a hot summer day and been disturbed, if not shocked. Traffic in both directions slows to a creep well before the restaurant comes into view. Vehicles of patrons are parked for a quarter mile or more to the east and west. Then, as one gets nearer, taxis are stacked up or double-parked and hundreds of people are clustered in the gravel by an outside bar, frozen drinks and beers in hand. This goes on well into the sunset.

    A couple of years ago, a pickup truck struck a woman crossing the highway to get to Cyril’s and, in an unrelated incident somewhat more recently, a driver involved in a road-rage confrontation wound up flipping his vehicle off the road’s edge instead of plowing into the crowd. In the early morning, empty plastic cups and other litter is seen strewn along the highway, along with the odd vehicle or two of people who found other ways home. Last summer, the East Hampton Town police began posting emergency no-parking signs nearby, hoping to reduce the risk of harm to drivers, pedestrians, and bar-goers alike.

    Just why this growing eyesore, probable environmental risk, and seasonal traffic nightmare has been allowed to persist is anyone’s guess. The town should have done something about it long ago, but, as with other commercial ventures here, especially when they have strong ties to a local political committee, the tendency is to look the other way, even though much of the money that changes hands there heads straight out of town come fall.

    The town code was drafted in a way that acknowledges pre-existing restaurants, rooming houses, and the like on property zoned for residences but in the hope that they would disappear over time, or at least not be made larger, or, in the parlance of planning and zoning, more nonconforming. In practice, however, top town officials have again and again ignored this aspect of the law, standing by while the Building Department handed out permits on the scantiest of supporting documentation, for example, or simply not reacting when certain businesses are expanded without any permission at all, as at the Montauk Beach House and former Reform Club in Amagansett.

    Cyril’s, which has been cited dozens of times for code violations but never been required to correct them, would see most if not all of its alleged transgressions erased if the town board agreed to change its zoning. This would be an unconscionable reward for a venture that has been ignoring the law for so long, and a signal to others that the rules need not necessarily apply if you really know how to play the game.

   For the first time in a long while, State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle, who has been a fixture on the political scene for a generation, has a challenger with a real shot.

    Southampton Councilwoman Bridget Fleming was a government neophyte when she emerged to win a Southampton Town Board seat in 2010. Her background is in law. She was a Manhattan assistant district attorney and has cited her record in prosecuting cases of fraud. As a member of the town board, she has worked on improving financial controls, an interest she said she would bring to Albany. As a resident of Noyac, she is attuned to the South Fork, pushing for more underground utility lines, supporting local agriculture, and aiding water-quality programs, among other efforts. She has a small law office in Sag Harbor, specializing in matrimonial and family matters.

    Like Ms. Fleming, Mr. LaValle is a lawyer, though with 36 years in the $79,000 Senate job, it would be accurate to call him a professional politician. Before he first won election to state office in 1976, he taught high school social studies. His involvement in education did not end when he went to the capital; he has been on the Senate Higher Education Committee for many years and active in efforts to consolidate school districts.

    Listening to Ms. Fleming, we have been struck by a certain uneven quality. On some of the nitty-gritty, she can stumble or say a lot without really saying anything. She is, however, fluent and strong on such issues as wasteful government spending, campaign finance, and Wall Street abuses. She also scores points by taking on the $140,000 Mr. LaValle used of taxpayer money to send out early election-year mailers, as well as the more than $500,000 he spent on his office.

    At this point in his career, Mr. LaValle is more than comfortable in the role, and this shows. His apparent ease can be a negative; one might say he is at best a casual Bonacker, who only shows up in East Hampton when there is a photo-op or when he is seeking re-election. That in and of itself is not a reason to support his opponent. What tips the balance against him is his 2011 vote against New York’s historic same-sex marriage bill and his strong backing by an anti-abortion group. Though his positions on these fundamental issues of human rights may come from deep personal conviction, the times have moved beyond him.

    The First Senatorial District is huge, extending from Brookhaven to Montauk Point and Fisher’s Island. Mr. LaValle’s opponent may not be a perfect candidate, but he is someone whose views are no longer in line with the people he represents. First District voters should thank him for the work he has done on their behalf over the decades, but go with Ms. Fleming, a better choice for these times.

   What difference a hundred miles makes. Hurricane Sandy made its landfall on the New Jersey shore, wiping away whole beachside communities. Damage was massive in the New York Bight, on Staten Island, in Manhattan, the Rockaways, Long Beach, and Fire Island, lessening to the east and north, farther from the storm’s highest winds.

    Our sympathies first are for those who lost family or friends. Locally, we mourn Edith Wright, a Montauk woman whose body was found at Georgica Beach.

    As bad as the damage was along the East End’s waterfronts, and as difficult the loss of power was for many residents and businesses, it could have been far, far worse had Sandy taken only a slightly more northerly path. Everyone, from homeowners to public officials, must keep this fully in mind.

    There will be a time for rebuilding, reconsidering policy, and evaluating official preparations, but for now, it is all about getting through the next few days, neighbor helping neighbor, and just doing what it takes to get life back to normal.