What is to be made of the contest for East Hampton Town Highway Department superintendent? From the perspective of those outside, the two-term incumbent, Scott King, is doing a good job. At no time in our recollection has any highway chief been the subject of so many laudatory letters to the editor, for example. On the other hand, he seems extremely disliked by some in his department. Several have filed grievances with the State Division of Human Rights, and one has complained that Mr. King videotaped him while he was taking a personal day, leaving his home driveway en route to another job. A settlement in the human rights cases has reportedly been reached.

    Mr. King is opposed by Stephen Lynch, who ran against him and lost in 2007. Mr. Lynch is an eminently likeable man. He has run an excavating, trucking, and construction business in East Hampton for 28 years. Highway Department employees would no doubt find him a more agreeable boss.

    It has been difficult for Mr. King, who won the post twice with Democratic endorsement after running for it once as a Republican, to keep the Highway Department afloat with reduced staff and budget during the last few years when the town board used the department’s cash surplus rather than fund its expenses through taxes. In 2011, $1.13 million of this reserve was spent, and some $705,000 is to be tapped next year, according to the draft 2012 budget.

    Although whittling the surplus to the recommended level of 20 percent of each department’s budget has helped the town board lower the tax rate, there may be a time bomb ahead when large-scale repaving or equipment purchases are required. Taxpayers may soon have to pay more to borrow money for highway projects than they would had the surplus been maintained at a higher level. Mr. King should have protested this more loudly.

    Under Mr. King, the Highway Department responded admirably to Tropical Storm Irene and got the roads passable after the intense Dec. 26 to 27 storm last year.

    In the end, voters should not be swayed by the unpleasant allegations by some workers, which are not based on the accomplishments of Mr. King’s department, but on personal conflicts. As we said in 2007, we trust that either Mr. Lynch or the incumbent would manage the work of the  Highway Department well going forward. Mr. King is the better choice in terms of experience and track record, but his prospects have been damaged by what is described as low morale in the department. Mr. Lynch has the edge in personality. This is one tough race to call.

    Times have changed for the East Hampton Town Trustees, with ever-greater pressures on our shorelines from businesses and homeowners at the same time global warming is causing ecological changes. By the middle of the 21st century, sea level is predicted to rise by as much as 12 inches, inundating more low-lying areas and sorely testing local governments, which will have to cope with a slow-moving but potentially overwhelming disaster.

    The challenges mean that the trustees, who manage the town’s beaches, bays, and harbors outside of Montauk, will be required to deal with problems of ever-increasing complexity and potential cost to taxpayers. At the same time, the trustees will have to balance increasingly intense desires of waterfront property owners and residents’ traditional pursuits, such as commercial fishing, shellfishing, and recreation.

    Fulfilling the role of trustee is difficult now, and it is only going to get tougher. Successful trustees not only have to know their stuff, they have to be tenacious. No longer can their election be decided simply by who’s the most Bonac. By a quirk of the law, all nine of the trustee seats are in play at one time. In making our picks we looked for capability and dedication.

    Of the incumbents, we enthusiastically endorse Stephanie Talmage-Forsberg, Diane McNally, Joe Bloecker, and Lynn Mendelman. Among the challengers, we endorse Deborah Klughers, Ray Hartjen, Stephen Lester, Sima Freierman, and Nathaniel Miller.

    Among this excellent group can be found more graduate degrees than in any other town race this year, and even a doctorate, as well as plenty of relevant life experience. Our choices would make for a strong, balanced panel, one best able to meet what lies ahead.

    New York State may come up short of cash as 2011 comes to an end, and the outlook for the 2012 budget has dimmed, according to latest projections. The anticipated shortfalls are renewing attention on Albany’s version of a “millionaire’s tax,” which is set to expire next month.

    The state appears to be facing a deficit of $350 million this year between what flows in and what must be spent to keep government running. Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Budget Division said this week that a drop in tax revenue linked to volatility in financial markets was largely to blame. An expected weak bonus season on Wall Street adds to the grim picture. The budget gap for the next fiscal year, which begins April 1, is estimated to be as much as $3.5 billion.

    The so-called millionaire’s tax is actually a surcharge on New Yorkers making $200,000 a year or more. Although the extra tax has brought in about $4 billion a year, many Albany lawmakers and Governor Cuomo oppose its extension. Mr. Cuomo has said the issue is one of fairness and that continuing to tax high-income residents would result in more of them leaving the state. He says there is more room for more spending cuts.

    State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., who represents the South Fork, has a different idea. He has sponsored a bill that would extend the higher rate on millionaires and use the money to fund rebates to offset property taxes on households earning $250,000 or less. State income tax credits worth about $2.3 billion would be given to taxpayers based on a percentage of their income. The rest of the money raised by the surcharge would go for aid to schools. The idea is attractive in a Robin Hood kind of way, but, given the looming state budget crisis, it would seem to have little chance of passing. Mr. Thiele has said none of the millionaires who live in his district have complained to him about the current surcharge, though.

    With deficits likely this year and in 2012-13, Albany should look again at extending the extra tax on the state’s richest residents. Fair or not, it seems necessary. 

    We wish Stephen Lynch well in his new post as East Hampton Town’s next superintendent of highways, but there is a certain sweet irony in his election. Among the responsibilities he is soon to have is keeping the roadsides clear of anything that does not conform to the town code, notably signs larger than six square feet. This is paradoxical because Mr. Lynch’s campaign billboards and parked, truck and trailer-mounted messages were among the most expansive of this year’s political season and, as such, were obvious violations of the law.  

    We do not mean to single out Mr. Lynch. Plenty of other oversize signs and illegal off-premises come-ons kept his company. Nevertheless, East Hampton Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson, Scott King, the outgoing highway superintendent, other elected officials, and Town Hall personnel drove to work each day past other examples without doing anything about it. (Yes, we know we bring this up frequently, but we are going to keep at it until someone in authority starts paying attention.)

    Normally, these rules are within the purview of the Ordinance Enforcement Department, but it was as if its staff had never read the town code. You have to wonder what other less-obvious violations of the town code go without remedy.

    As of the January organization meeting at which he is to be sworn in, Mr. Lynch will be in a unique position in town government: He answers only to voters and does not have to operate in the highly politicized environment of the town board. The code, which he will promise to uphold, gives him the right — shared with the town police — to remove signs, illegal obstructions, and other objects of concern within the town’s right-of-ways. Mr. Lynch should study the code, seeking independent, outside advice, if need be, so that he can direct his crews to remove whatever is necessary to put a stop to this ever-expanding visual affront to public property, good taste, and the law.

    Tomorrow is Veterans Day and, like last year and the year before that, it is a day on which the United States is engaged in military conflicts on several fronts, including Afghanistan, which is said to be the nation’s longest war.

    According to the census, there are 22 million United States military veterans. About 1.7 million American men and women have served in Afghanistan or Iraq, some in both countries, and some on multiple tours of duty. Each has a personal understanding of what Veterans Day means. In a recent poll, only a third of these veterans said they believed those wars were worth fighting. And the number who reported having emotional difficulty returning to civilian life is now almost twice what it was among those who went to war before Sept. 11, 2011.

    Small gestures can help. One event, for example, will take place on Saturday at the Stephen Talkhouse, the Amagansett music venue. A group of musicians calling themselves Music for Morale will entertain to raise money to buy much-wanted supplies for a Marine unit deployed in Afghanistan, as well as to provide musical instruments for wounded veterans and those suffering from other war-related problems.

    This year, it is important not to overlook this country’s most recent servicemen and women, to thank them for the jobs they did or continue to do, to welcome home those who have returned, and to think with sadness of those who did not.

    Tomorrow on East Hampton Main Street — as in cities, towns, and villages across this country — veterans will march. It will be an opportunity for all of us, those who served and those who did not, to remember.

    If East Hampton Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson ever thought he had a mandate to do more than complete the work of correcting the financial chaos of the Bill McGintee-era, he can no longer make that assumption following his apparent narrow election victory over Zach Cohen on Tuesday.

    As the poll results came in, it was clear that Mr. Wilkinson’s support had shrunk from the election of 2009. That a relative unknown like Mr. Cohen could come so close to defeating him attests to the dissatisfaction of many voters with the supervisor’s record over the last two years.

    If any message for Mr. Wilkinson can be discerned from the outcome, it is that East Hampton residents want town government to change direction. The specifics may be subject to conjecture, but the consistent theme that has emerged during his term is that the supervisor and his Republican majority must do a better job of listening to constituents rather than dictating to them.

    At its best, elected office is an honor conferred by the voters on those whom they consider best represent their interests. This cannot be ignored by whoever is confirmed as the victor once the absentee ballots are counted.

    Whatever happens next in Manhattan for Occupy Wall Street, after a 1 a.m. eviction by police Tuesday, it is remarkable that the encampment was allowed to remain in Zuccotti Park for so long. This would have been unimaginable in the past. Although the mayor’s responses have been erratic, few were confident at the movement’s outset that he would exercise any restraint.

    The city had successfully limited dissent with Orwellian “free speech zones” during economic summits and political conventions for years. The police were out in force and with video cameras during the National Republican convention a few years ago. Back in September, when all this started, few thought the city would allow the protesters to stay in the park one night, let alone until November.

    Detractors say they don’t understand what the Occupy Wall Street protesters want, but in one important aspect, the movement has been a success. If you ask just about anyone these days if they know what is meant by the 1 percent, they will have at least an inkling. The New York encampment and the others around the country have put the vast prosperity gap in the United States into the public consciousness.

    Whether it will lead to reforms that the poor and working class can take to the bank remains to be seen, but Americans are talking about it, and that’s a start.

    During the eight months so far of 2011, real estate sales in East Hampton Town suffered a decline in terms of dollars of more than 26 percent from the same period last year. This is bad news for many people who make a living here, even if they aren’t licensed brokers.

    Looking at the sales of single-family houses during that period, the fall-off was worse — as much as 35 percent. Though the median price rose slightly, the number of residential sales dropped sharply, from 226 in 2010 to 147 this year, according to numbers from Suffolk Research Service, a private firm.

    People in the trades and whose livelihoods are tied directly or indirectly to the sale of land and houses here have certainly felt the decline. Real estate is the Town of East Hampton’s single largest generator of economic activity, far outpacing education, local government, fishing, and the media. As house sales go, so goes Main Street, well, maybe Main Street before the pop-up shops arrived. The market will turn some day. How soon is anybody’s guess.

    Now that the election is over, the East Hampton Town Board is picking up a matter it dropped hastily last month concerning East Hampton Airport.

    Fearing what would happen if a public forum about Federal Aviation Administration money was held just before voters went to the polls, Town Hall went into panic mode in October, scratching a hearing on the deal. Having avoided what could have been a political bombshell, the board now plans to go ahead with a request for a relatively modest amount of money from Washington for  deer and security fences at the airport.

    A large number of residents, upset about aircraft noise, have decried taking any more money from the F.A.A. because they say (accurately, from what we can tell) that doing so binds the town’s hands in terms of meaningful control of the airport. Further, they say that the airport has a dedicated fund with a substantial surplus in it that could pay for the work, avoiding further entanglement with the F.A.A.

    Exactly why the town board majority, headed by Supervisor Bill Wilkinson, wants the Washington handout is not clear, but there are a couple of possibilities. One is a fear that airport-noise opponents could someday gain the upper hand and curtail hours of operation or limit certain classes of aircraft. By accepting the F.A.A. money, the current board would make it more difficult for the town to gain the upper hand at the airport, something some of the current majority’s backers worry about.

    Another reason could be that the town needs money. The East Hampton budget relies in part on the use of surpluses to keep tax rates down. But when they are gone, taxes will have to rise or more services be cut. In the 2012 spending plan, for example, the airport’s cash reserve is tapped for $400,000, roughly 10 percent of its budget to cover costs associated with a seasonal control “tower,” actually a trailer.

    Mr. Wilkinson and his budget officer, Len Bernard, are in a difficult place, having cut taxes twice and reduced the town work force about as much as possible. This is why they remain interested in selling such town assets as Fort Pond House in Montauk and scratching together additional non-tax sources wherever they can. The revenue has to come from somewhere. This is insufficient justification, however, for a policy decision that many believe will harm East Hampton in the long run.

    With the consensus being that accepting F.A.A. money comes at the cost of local control, the East Hampton Town Board should find other ways to pay for the fencing.

    Now that the election is over, the town boards of East Hampton and Southampton should move quickly to enact strict laws banning political signs on public property.

    It is a chicken-or-egg puzzle to ask which came first, the signs or the foolishness, but this much we know: Such placards consistently bring out a little too much bad behavior among misguided partisans. Like responsible adults who are forced to remove the toys with which the children are bashing each other in the head, the town boards, having allowed the privilege, now should take it away.

    In the East Hampton incidents we know of this year, there have been theft and defacement. One candidate is even reported to have cut up another’s signs to use as material for his own. Other signs were illegible, larger, or left up longer than the town code permits, posted illegally in the villages that ban them, and, by proliferating, became an all-around affront to the eye.

    Bigger apparently was better, though even the largest signs here were but trifles compared to those in the neighboring towns. In Southampton, room-size billboards went up for candidates for town trustee — yes, trustee, the clam people. Get ready to see more of the same  on the roadsides in East Hampton the next time around unless action is taken quickly to head off an arms race.

    By contrast, East Hampton Village is considering further limits in its already-restrictive sign law. Under existing law, none can be placed on public property at all; even yard-sale signs on tree trunks are prohibited. Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. wants to go further. He has suggested a stricter size limit on signs on private property to cut down on the clutter of real estate placards, though the law now allows only one that is no larger than seven square feet.

    In some parts of East Hampton Town the illegal come-ons are everywhere you look, but officials seem blind to them. Driving around Springs these days, for example, you can see prohibited off-premises signs actually nailed to utility poles. Enforcers look the other way, as they do with certain new lighted signs that are banned. Perhaps no one in town government cares about roadside aesthetics anymore, but, in that case, the law should be amended.

    Back to political signs: Other than attesting to the industriousness of certain candidates and their supporters, and helping voters identify which properties belong to party loyalists, these signs serve little purpose. The fall landscape would be better off without them, especially when they help bring out the failings of human nature.

    According to the State Department of State, a municipality can place rules on signs so long as they are “content neutral,” that is, they don’t favor one kind of message over another. In this regard, East Hampton Town’s law appears to be unconstitutional in that it allows real estate and construction signs to remain on public property for up to a year, while limiting all others to seven days. Government can regulate signs, but it cannot judge among the messages; all must be equal in the eyes of the law. While East Hampton is correcting this inconsistency, it should double down by ordering all such messages off public property. Both towns should put a stop to the silliness now.