A strongly worded decision issued last week by an East Hampton Town justice explains for the first time why charges against the Surf Lodge in Montauk have moldered for so long and continue to be unresolved.

    Justice Catherine A. Cahill, in an eight-page statement, rebuffed a motion by a lawyer for the bar and restaurant asking that she step aside from presiding at a hearing on 687 fire code and zoning violations accumulated last year. Charges described by Ms. Cahill include work conducted without a building permit, no certificate of occupancy, no site plan approval, illegal clearing of wetlands, and overcrowding. The number of citations issued by town code enforcers ranged from 1 to 13 per day.

    A large part of Ms. Cahill’s statement cites the reasons why she refused to recuse herself. Had she done so, however, the case would have gone to the other town justice, Lisa R. Rana, and further stalled adjudication of the complaints, which may have been the Surf Lodge’s intention. At any rate, in the decision, Ms. Cahill reports that one of the town’s prosecuting attorneys told the court in August that while the town’s goal was that the Surf Lodge comply with town law it had no “game plan” for how that would be accomplished.

    Pointedly, Ms. Cahill said it was clear that the town could have sought an injunction last summer to force the matter — before any convictions. This is in direct contradiction to statements by East Hampton Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson, who said at the time that there was nothing that could be done until the charges were resolved in Justice Court. Why Mr. Wilkinson and the town board declined go this route is open to speculation, but what Ms. Cahill has to say is a window on the insider’s world that has been Town Hall. In an important passage, Ms. Cahill wrote that the town prosecutor had made “claims to the contrary,” denying clear health and safety violations, which would have supported an injunction.

    The history of the case as described by Ms. Cahill gets even stranger. As far back as July, the Surf Lodge’s operating partners and attorney ignored criminal summonses issued by Ms. Cahill to appear in her court. These came after no one appeared to answer an alleged fire code violation. When the Surf Lodge people failed to show up, Ms. Cahill wrote, she issued another set of summonses the following week. No one appeared then either, so she issued warrants for their arrest.

    It was only then that the lawyer and Surf Lodge partners appeared and told the court that they had been in a “very fruitful” private meeting with a number of town officials, which was unknown to the court. Ms. Cahill wrote that had the meeting been intended to “somehow resolve or adjudicate the charges . . . the court should have been consulted.”

    Many Montauk residents and others, who complained about the Surf Lodge last summer, have wondered why the town allowed it to continue operating while so many alleged violations were pending. A full explanation may never come, but Ms. Cahill’s remarkable history of the case has raised some important questions about what took place — or didn’t — and Town Hall’s involvement.

   If the woods seem a little quieter than they were 10 or 20 years ago, consider this: There may be fewer birds here because the white-tailed deer have all but eliminated the understory on which many species relied for food and cover. Some researchers say there are more white-tailed deer afoot in North America now than at European contact. This is an environmental crisis.

    Never mind what the herds have done to costly landscape plantings; those can be replaced. Instead, worry that deer have reshaped the woods across the Eastern United States. As this mild winter continues, experts say, stress on the herd will be at a minimum. As a result, many does will give birth to what are likely to be at least twins, and by May scores more of hungry quadrupeds will be on the rampage.

     Think back if you can to what Hither Woods looked like in, say, 1990 — a thick forest above with dense, almost impenetrable shrubs underneath — a haven for birds and small mammals. Open vistas under the trees now are probably supporting far less biodiversity — a profoundly worrying trend. Elsewhere, you can see the sea along roads that never afforded a view. This is charming perhaps, but it comes at an unacceptable cost.

    Birds thought to be directly affected by the deer’s propensity to eat every leaf and twig they can reach include the glorious-voiced wood thrush, eastern towhees, some species of warblers and wrens, catbirds, and brown thrashers.

    As homeowners encircle their yards with high, wire barriers, it is remarkable to realize that wild thickets remain on some of these large, well-fenced parcels, becoming havens for birds displaced by the deer’s depredations. Native wildflowers and other plants may one day survive only because of accidental protection within these enclosures. In anticipation of this, some organizations are already rushing to “bank” seeds so that our woodlands and natural grasslands can someday be restored, if it comes to that.

    The impact runs right up the food chain. Deer that remove ground-story habitat and eat much of the acorns and other nuts that fall can reduce populations of mice, but chipmunks and other small mammals that feed migrating hawks and owls are also affected negatively.

    Though some may differ, the only reasonable cure is in sharply reducing the number of deer, mostly by hunting or fencing off the woods. Some animal-rights activists obviously object to the former, favoring essentially unproven schemes involving contraceptives, and the latter would be wildly expensive if not impossible.

    It is a pity to think of wild lands in which a single animal breed reigns above all the rest, throwing all life out of balance. Something must be done to limit the herds — and soon.

   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.

   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.

   Since just about their inception, East Hampton Town’s citizens advisory committees have been a thorn in the side of elected officials. The current sitting town board, at least on the Republican side, is the latest to be vexed by the committees, shuffling liaison assignments and grumbling about a letter sent by the Montauk group. East Hampton Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson reprimanded the committees collectively in a recent letter, reminding them that they were supposed to be the “eyes and ears” of the town board, not advocacy agencies unto themselves. Mr. Wilkinson is right, of course; town board members are expected to attend their meetings and report back on community concerns.

    What has happened to differing degrees is that the groups do what groups will do, that is, become interested in various aspects of life around town and seek to influence outcomes as best they can to suit their views. Often, this comes in the form of their weighing in on land-development debates — as in a recent situation in which the Montauk committee on its own asked State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. for help in regulating chain or “formula” retail stores. It would be difficult to imagine an elected official who did not pitch a snit if an advisory group went above his or her head in this way.

    And yet, the frequent occasions when the advisory committees have gone beyond the role of advisers points to an overarching problem, that the present town board — as well as the planning, zoning, and architectural review boards — and those in the past have failed to be sufficiently responsive to or aware of neighborhood concerns. In fact, unlike some parts of Town Hall, which are more or less beholden to their financial and ideological supporters, the citizens committees have been profoundly democratic and egalitarian, settings where ordinary people, not business voices and political party hacks, can lead the conversation. The rise of the citizens committees can also be seen as a failing of the town boards historically to pay attention to ordinary people and what they care about. The Montauk group, for example, would not have had to send a copy of its letter about formula stores to Mr. Thiele had its members thought the town board would take up the issue without some prodding from above.

    For some time it has seemed to us that the citizens committees might better strike out as independent entities. This may be the moment when it would be better for the town as a whole if each hamlet had its own, unfettered advocate. Failing that, the town board should pay them a lot more respect.

   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.