You know it is going to be a crazy summer when the New York news media start up with their East Hampton stories in April. Scratch that — March, when coverage of the final 2012 sales of the village’s $325 beach-parking permits went big.

    Curbed Hamptons, a Web-only venture, was first out of the gate with news of a record early sellout. The New York Post upped the ante on April 9 by obtaining village records naming the lucky 2,900 who scored the strictly limited nonresident stickers, a few movie stars and famous rock ’n’ rollers among them. Larry Cantwell, the village administrator, told The Post that he had taken hundreds of calls from people about the then no-longer-available permits. “They tell me they’ll pay whatever we want for them,” he said.

    Reading these accounts, it seems the village is leaving chips on the table, so to speak. Next year, East Hampton officials could set aside a few permits and conduct an auction once those remaining are gone, with the proceeds earmarked for public works and preservation.

    If celebrities, congressmen, and federal judges, as Mr. Cantwell told The Post, think the sky’s the limit when it comes to parking at Georgica, Main, Wiborg’s, Egypt, and Two Mile Hollow, why not help separate them from their money if there is good to be done with it?

   There were congratulations to go around at an April 3 East Hampton School Board meeting at which it was announced that the district would be able to put its 2012-13 budget to voters while staying within a state-mandated 2-percent cap on the increase in the tax levy. Numerous cuts, especially to personnel, have resulted in a $62.8 million spending plan that stays within the cap. Voters are expected to look favorably on these results when they go to the poll on May 17.

    In Springs, however, there was less celebration at last week’s meeting. Popular programs, including some sports, staff, and funding for Project MOST, an after-school program, are on the chopping block as that district’s board struggles to keep the tax increase low. Staying within the 2-percent cap means that the board can ask voters to approve no more than a $24.6 million budget for 2012-13.

    For any of the districts, going above the 2-percent ceiling would require winning more than three-fifths of the vote on May 17, an apparently impossible task. Difficult decisions are being made to get to the point where approval is merited. The members of both districts’ boards are to be commended for the difficult work they are doing.

   Confronted with the threat of losing valuable property, people have made all sorts of claims about why the sea is rising and taking away land. As impassioned as some of these views are and as plausible as some sound, they should never by themselves be the basis for coastal planning. Rather, as laborious and time-consuming as it may be, there can be no substitute for solid science where official responses to erosion are concerned. Knowing in advance to the highest degree possible why a particular littoral phenomenon is taking place is a necessary prerequisite to actions that do not make matters worse, limit public access to the shoreline, and waste taxpayers’ dollars, or all of the above.

    Consider three examples: Some Lazy Point homeowners say the erosion in front of their houses is the result of a nearby deeply dredged inlet at Napeague Harbor. In Sagaponack, oceanfront property owners see three stone jetties at Georgica as the source of their woes. A north-facing Montauk neighborhood suffering repeated blows would be saved if only sand from one side of the Montauk Harbor inlet were sent to their side. Each of these beliefs might be borne out if studies were done, but it is equally likely that they are gross simplifications of highly complex and variable coastal processes.

    The elected and appointed officials who have to grapple with increasing cries for help from the owners of waterfront properties must look past the emotions involved in each situation and demand analysis from unbiased, credentialed authorities. Failure to understand the science behind what is going on will doom projects along the beaches to failure, and perhaps even harm public resources.

    Sound decision-making about erosion and dredging is a challenging responsibility for those in charge, and we do not envy them the task. However, shortcuts, sympathies, and haste are to be avoided in favor of well-informed deliberations that will stand the tests of time — and nature.

   What to do about East Hampton’s septic waste treatment plant on Springs-Fireplace Road has become a source of political division and tension in Town Hall.

    Treatment ended there last year after the state cited it for environmental violations. Bringing it into compliance with discharge regulations could be very costly.

    On one side, Supervisor Bill Wilkinson and Councilwoman Theresa Quigley favor selling the plant to an UpIsland firm, perhaps for $300,000, a price some have derided as too low. The other point of view, that of Councilwoman Sylvia Overby and Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc, is that the town should learn more about its options, present them to the public, and draft a new wastewater management policy.

    Somewhere in the middle you find Councilman Dominick Stanzione, whose call for more time to explore the options has contributed to his falling from favor among some members of the local Republican leadership. They have accused him of throwing in his lot with Ms. Overby and Mr. Van Scoyoc, who are Democrats.

    Mr. Stanzione’s position is reasonable, however, and should not be dismissed out of hand. He recently said that though he liked the idea of turning the plant over to a private company, other options should be considered. Among them were closing the facility completely and using the land for something else, or keeping it running, as it has for the past few months, as a transfer station, where waste haulers deposit loads to be trucked out of town for treatment.

    The lone offer the town received for the plant came from a firm whose principals were 30-year friends of the consultant who wrote the town’s request for proposals for it. This has drawn some criticism, but not the scrutiny that it warrants. Mr. Wilkinson was eager enough to be rid of the plant that he was willing last week to begin negotiations. We disagree. East Hampton Town’s long-term interest would be better served by a more thorough deliberation.

   An unfortunate inequality is built into New York State’s new 2-percent tax-levy cap, which is becoming clear as school districts struggle to keep within that limit while local governments appear to be facing somewhat less immediate stress.

    For school districts that are grappling with rising costs, labor agreements, and state mandates, such as East Hampton and Springs, the cap has made budgeting for the next fiscal year more than difficult. In order to go beyond a 2-percent increase in the portion of school spending raised by taxes, districts would have to win at least 60 percent of the votes in their June budget referendums. It’s probably an understatement to say that could prove a high hurdle.

    By contrast, five-member municipal boards can exceed the 2-percent limit by a simple three-vote majority of the board — as about one-fifth of the state’s local governments did for 2012. And, as has been seen in the Town of East Hampton, for one, it is easy enough in the short term to slash local taxes by leaving jobs unfilled, eliminating some services, and dipping into surpluses. Of course, holding the line too much can set up a scenario when future costs will force local leaders to confront unpopular options. That can even be politically desirable if a rival party is in power when the bills come due.

    It is far more difficult for public schools to make trims, given contractual obligations, and in many cases rising student populations, than it is proving for New York’s towns and villages. This is undoubtedly not what the 2-percent cap’s backers intended because it puts too much of the burden for tax relief on educators and, by extension, students. Troubling, too, are indications, like one recently reported from State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, that some municipalities may seek to make up their budget gaps by tacking on new sales taxes and fees — something schools cannot do.

    The answer will not be in arbitrary or unfair limits but in systemic reforms in which municipal governments and school districts are not pitted against one another, each with their hands probing to varying depths in taxpayers’ pockets.

   The New York State attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, says the illegal trafficking of prescription drugs is epidemic on Long Island. This week, he announced legislation that would create a database intended to slow the rate at which narcotics end up on the street.

    Local police are dealing with nearly as many suspects high on pills, such as painkillers, as with drunken drivers. According to the attorney general’s office, drug treatment admissions, linked in part to oxycodone and other narcotics, soared by nearly 80 percent in Suffolk County from 2007 to 2010. Authorities believe that many of the pills reaching abusers are obtained with fraudulent prescriptions. And violent crime has been associated with these substances, as well.

    If passed, the bill would require doctors to check with an online system before writing prescriptions and pharmacists to do the same before dispensing these drugs, which would help spot wrongdoing. As burdensome as this sounds, it, or a similar program, is necessary, but should be established correctly.

    Details about how the database would work have yet to be provided. The greatest challenge will be to protect patient privacy, something required under state and federal law. There are legitimate conditions for which the Food and Drug Administration allows these drugs to be distributed. A method to assure that doctors are able to order them for the people who really require them — without placing law enforcement hurdles between doctors and pharmacists — will be essential.

   For the first time, the veil has been pulled back on what the Federal Aviation Administration would and would not do in the matter of noise control at and around East Hampton Airport. In a detailed response to a request for clarity from Representative Tim Bishop, the agency said it would not pursue legal action once certain “grant assurances” expire if the town decided to impose what it calls “reasonable” restrictions there.

    The long fight over use of the airport has become more intense as the years have gone by and more people have come to live under its approach paths. Then, too, more and more helicopters are using East Hampton Airport, irritating people well beyond the town’s borders. It need not be this way. The airport has been an unnecessarily divisive problem for a town beset by plenty of other challenges — and one that pits a relatively small number of aircraft owners and fixed-base operators against thousands of residents whose lives and weekends are disrupted.

    A control system to be in place this summer holds some promise of noise reduction, but will not be an entirely satisfactory solution. Helicopters will still chuff at the air as they approach and depart. Jet flights at the crack of dawn will still rattle windows and disturb the peace as they roar over backyards.

    Airport interests genuinely fear that the facility could one day be closed, which is precisely why they are so eager to see F.A.A. oversight continue. As the recent memo from the administration says, new grants would obligate it to seek to block any locally imposed restrictions. A recent example is an East Hampton Town Board decision in December to seek money from Washington for deer fence repairs that would cost less than the town already has paid out of pocket for a lawyer to consult on airport affairs. The town could clearly afford to do the work itself, and still has the chance to avoid F.A.A. money for the project even though airport interests have convinced town officials that their only hope lies in Washington.

    If fear — rational or not — that the airport could be mothballed is what stands in the way of meaningful noise reduction, that is the first problem that must be addressed to begin to break the logjam. Pilots and airport business owners must be assured that their hobbies and livelihoods will not be at risk. Only then will they stand aside and stop their efforts to block local control by convincing officials to take more money from the F.A.A.

    A solution appears tantalizingly close.

   A passenger ferry to Sag Harbor has been talked about on and off for years, but now, in a joint venture involving a North Fork company and the Hampton Jitney, it may come to pass. Long Wharf could see passengers going to and from Greenport, and vice versa. There would be no service for cars on a 53-seat catamaran that the owner expects would make seven-day-a-week round trips as soon as Memorial Day weekend at a cost of $20 per person, $11 one way. If all goes well, Response Marine of Mattituck, which is seeking approval for the service, would hope to extend it to East Hampton and Montauk.

    There are hurdles ahead for the ferry, especially in Sag Harbor. Its fate may well rest on how the Village of Sag Harbor decides to respond to an offer from Suffolk County that it take back control of Long Wharf. Mired in a financial crisis, the county is eager to be rid of the pier and its attendant maintenance costs. As much as $400,000 in upgrades and safety improvements are said to be needed immediately. Until this is resolved, the fate of the ferry run will be unknown.

    On the positive side of the ledger, ferries can be part of a welcome alternative-transportation system. Planners have long made getting people out of cars a goal; this could be part of that. Although ferries of all sorts are banned in Sag Harbor now, the law could be repealed. This and a number of lesser issues are not insurmountable, however, if the public wants to jump aboard the idea.

    On the negative side, though, is the matter of parking. To avoid a worst-case parking problem in Sag Harbor, Jitney buses or vans would bring riders from Bridgehampton and East Hampton, where they apparently would leave their cars. The would-be ferry operators are optimistic that passengers would not mind boarding buses to get to the ferry. If this surprises us, and the ferry turns out to be popular anyway, long-term parking elsewhere would have to be found. Parking anywhere near Long Wharf is subject to strict time limits, and is always hard to find in season, possibly resulting in cars lining surrounding residential streets, which calls for a prohibition.

    Response Marine, which would run the waterborne part of the service, has said it would be willing to start the ferries on a trial basis this summer. This seems a fair way to test the popularity and the problems,  but ferry operators must convince Sag Harbor officials and those in surrounding jurisdictions that adequate parking will be available. Doing so by Memorial Day would appear to be a tall order.

   A number of fed-up Springs residents are demanding that the Town of East Hampton do more to eliminate overcrowded and illegal houses. Their request for increased enforcement of laws already on the books is reasonable.

    From the late 1990s to the present, Springs has become something of a dumping ground for the town’s low-end multiple housing. The hamlet is not alone in this distinction; you can point to houses from Montauk to Wainscott that are home to more occupants than the four unrelated adults the law allows. The concentration in Springs of single-family houses used as de facto apartment buildings is disproportionate, and unfair.

    Residents complain that the town looks the other way as their neighborhoods are degraded. They are angry that taxes rise because the children of Spanish-speaking parents, who may live in illegal apartments, enroll in the schools. Property assessments, they say, have not kept pace with the widespread and illegal conversion of single-family houses. They fear that simple, get-tough responses will not do enough to preserve neighborhoods and ease school costs.

    Town officials say the Code Enforcement Department is doing its job, but the homeowners responsible for offending dwellings appear to have little fear of prosecution. The walls of local delis and food takeout places are hung with notes advertising rooms for rent. Stories from ambulance personnel and police are legion about basements carved into unsafe bunk rooms and houses in which bedrooms are locked from the outside. And, as some Springs residents say, you often can tell where a landlord is breaking the law just by counting the vehicles parked near certain houses.

    The Concerned Citizens of Springs has asked for a meeting with town officials on the matter of illegal housing and enforcement. Officials should, of course, listen with open minds about anything government can do to help. But it will be meaningless unless the town can figure out how this community can provide more and better legal housing for the people who work here.

    The announcement Monday that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar had given final approval to the designation of the Montauk Lighthouse as a national historic landmark was more than welcome news: It gives the Light, which stands on an eroding Montauk bluff, priority status in seeking federal grants and aid should it be damaged in a hurricane or other storms.

    The Montauk Historical Society, which owns the Light, began its quest six years ago, enlisting the help of Robert Hefner, an East Hampton historic preservation consultant, in gathering supportive material, and going to Washington to make the case.

    The Light was built in 1796 as part of a system that helped guide sea traffic to and from the growing Port of New York, and it was for this, not its appeal as a present-day tourist attraction, that the landmarks committee of the National Parks Service advisory board recommended it receive the distinction. The Light now joins three national landmarks on the South Fork, the Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner house and studio in Springs, the Thomas Moran house in East Hampton Village, and the Old Whalers Church in Sag Harbor — each a significant part of this country’s cultural heritage.

    The designation comes just as the Lighthouse Museum is about to reopen for the season. A celebration is truly in order.