Reading between the lines after taking a long, hard look, the East Hampton Town Budget and Finance Committee, an unpaid group of citizens with tons of business and accounting credibility, has concluded that the work of setting Town Hall to rights remains half done.

    Building on steps taken after the McGintee administration’s mismanagement, the town board and Len Bernard, its budget officer, are on a real path toward paying back internal debts and have kept a tight rein on spending. This is to the good, as the state comptroller’s office has indicated. On the other side of the coin, however, what might be termed the town’s parsimony is leaving a ticking time bomb for residents in the form of long-term needs and delayed work on infrastructure.

    On the list of work unfunded and consequently not done, are the probable modernization of the town’s sewage treatment plant, storm-water run-off control, certain ecological protection measures, and deteriorating roads. Town Hall’s technological side is said to be outmoded, and that will also cost money down the line. As we learned from Hurricane Sandy, many town offices were left without power — there were no backup generators — and in some cases, key staff members just sat in the dark and tried to keep busy. As the town’s near-total silence before and after the storm demonstrated, better preparation and information systems will have to be put in place, and the cost is unknown.

    The budget and finance committee has recommended that the town quickly develop a capital budget to address these and other long-term concerns. Not doing so now will leave the difficult job of selling a complex program of restoring town infrastructure to a future town board. It is time the town board got serious about East Hampton’s future needs and leveled with taxpayers about what it will cost to bring the town’s infrastructure to where it needs to be.

   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.

   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.

   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.

   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.

   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.

   A story that appeared in this newspaper last week, detailing the frustrations two lawyers have had trying to pry public documents out of East Hampton Town Hall, tells only part of the story. Compliance locally with New York State’s Freedom of Information and Open Meetings Laws is spotty at best, and the town is hardly the only entity with trouble keeping up.

    The problem is twofold: Many officials are reluctant to let the public in on the sometimes messy business of government, and the law itself is toothless, without sanctions or fines — or any consequences whatsoever — for those who fail to meet its requirements.

    Consider, for example, what would happen if speed limits were not backed up with the threat of fines. It is pretty easy to guess what the roads would be like if motorists tore around without fear of repercussion. Many public officials are like these hypothetical lead-foots, ignoring the law as they please, whether because of lethargy or indifference, or because they never bothered to inform themselves of the rules.

    The Town of East Hampton appears to be the biggest offender locally when it comes to failure to respond to Freedom of Information Law, or FOIL, requests for documents. Rather than hand over copies of public records sought by lawyers, the media, or residents, or provide a valid reason why they are being withheld, officials just don’t do anything. Short of heading to court to get an injunction forcing an answer, those making requests have no recourse. The most obvious fault lies with the town’s legal department headed by John Jilnicki, which should be the agency helping provide access under the law, not hindering it.

    Similarly, the state’s rules on so-called executive sessions are frequently bent, if not broken. In a guarded statement earlier this year, Robert Freeman, the head of the state’s Committee on Open Government, faulted the East Hampton Town Board for improperly meeting behind closed doors. In particular, Mr. Freeman cited a discussion of whether or not to sell some town-owned property in Montauk, which, he said, should have been conducted in public. Exemptions to the rule that all discussions are to be held in open session are strictly limited. In the case of real estate transactions, closed-door sessions are allowed only when disclosure would substantially affect the sale price.

    The East Hampton Town Board is not alone, however. Until recently, the town planning board would often get together for drinks after the night’s meeting was done. If a majority were there, it was an illegal meeting no matter whether they discussed pro sports or the latest site plan applications.

    School boards routinely put executive sessions onto their schedules, to be held an hour or so in advance of ordinary meetings. Not so fast, Mr. Freeman has said. Executive sessions can only be held after a public vote by a majority of a board’s members. Therefore, he said, it is impossible to schedule such sessions beforehand, not knowing what the outcome of the required vote would be. Furthermore, and as troubling, is the frequent abuse of the Open Meetings Law’s requirement that the subject of closed sessions be identified in advance and in reasonable detail (the frequently cited “personnel” excuse is not adequate).

    Any correction would have to come from Albany in the form of some mechanism to assure that officials comply. Without consequences, these laws are simply too easy to ignore.

   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.

   The contest between Randy Altschuler, a wealthy St. James businessman, and Representative Tim Bishop went from just plain bad in 2010 to downright disgusting this year. From the Democratic side, accusations were made — then and in recent weeks — that Mr. Altschuler’s career as an outsourcing executive was bad for America. The Republicans countered — backed by millions in unregulated super-PAC money — that a routine constituent service effort by Mr. Bishop’s office was an inappropriate quid pro quo.

    Mr. Altschuler kicked in $2 million of his own money in the 2010 campaign; this year he hasn’t had to, thanks to $2.5 million in spending on his behalf by outside groups. One particularly unsettling ad, which was paid for by a group co-founded by Karl Rove, even shows Mr. Bishop in what were unmistakably gun sights. Prohibited by federal law from asking that the ad be pulled, Mr. Altschuler kept silent, but he didn’t take the opportunity to denounce the message either.

    Pretty much everything wrong with unregulated campaign spending can be found in this particular race. We would have preferred Mr. Altschuler, who seems like a nice enough guy, to adopt a better tone. This has not always been the case. For example, he has mischaracterized his opponent’s position on immigration reform and repeated mostly inaccurate statements against the Affordable Care Act.

    There was little to recommend Mr. Altschuler when he ran for the office two years ago. Since that time, he has not done more as a candidate than try to ride the Tea Party wave of anger into office, while moderating some of his more extreme positions.

    Mr. Bishop has been a steady advocate for the district in Washington and a frequent presence on the East End. Among specific efforts, he pushed for dredging Lake Montauk, battled to save jobs at the Plum Island disease laboratory, and tried to keep the 106th Rescue Wing at Gabreski Airport in Westhampton. Mr. Bishop is from here and he cares about what we care about. He should be returned to office.

   The Wilkinson administration in East Hampton Town Hall is proud of having set the town’s financial condition to rights on the heels of former Supervisor Bill McGintee’s irregular manipulation of funds, which left the town with a huge internal deficit. But there is a flaw in the proceedings of the town budget office that warrants attention.

    If Len Bernard, the budget office director, is good at one thing, it is fiddling with the books to leave the next, presumably opposing-party, town board majority with the prospect of a tax hike two or four years hence.

    History can be a guide: As the budget officer for Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman, Mr. Bernard left several anticipated expenses unfunded, notably pensions and police contracts. This forced Supervisor McGintee to raise taxes in the first year he was responsible for the budget, and even more the following year.

    This time, the budget office calculation involves as much as a $5.7 million surplus, which was created by the town’s borrowing more than it turned out to need to repay the McGintee debt due to the depletion of various funds during the McGintee years. The question now is what to do with the extra money.

    Applying the surplus to operating expenses, or to purposes for which it was not borrowed to begin with, would provide taxpayers with a “reward” of lower rates now at the expense of higher rates in the future. This is a serious risk and a matter that deserves scrutiny by the state comptroller, whose office is overseeing East Hampton Town’s books as a condition of the deficit-financing deal, as well as public discussion.

    There is a big question of how the deficit-financing money can be used and the appropriateness of applying it to anything other than its state-authorized purpose — to pay back the money improperly burned through during Mr. McGintee’s time. Correspondence from the state comptroller’s office appears to say that local government cannot borrow to build a slush fund, even by accident.

     What Mr. Bernard apparently would like to do is apply the surplus to town employee benefits or retirement funds. Depending on how you look at this, as a good idea or a trick, the fact is that once the money is gone, it will have to come from taxes in subsequent years.

    At this point, the only reasonable course for the over-borrowing, and one that would benefit taxpayers in the long run, appears to be to set it aside to repay what is owed, not to stave off tax increases for political advantage.