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.

    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.

    One thing East Hampton needs as many of its residents struggle to get along in a sluggish economy is a unifying force at the top. Instead, in the less than two years Bill Wilkinson has been supervisor, he has helped create distance between people and their government and divide them from one another.

    Zachary Cohen, who is running as a first-time candidate, would return civil discourse and consensus to Town Hall. This is something East Hampton requires now more than ever because the challenges ahead are many and difficult.

    Had Mr. Wilkinson spent his time in office focused solely on what voters put him in the job to do — correct the ill financial legacy of the previous administration — his record would be wholly admirable. However, he veered far from that mandate, putting himself at odds with many full-time residents, part-timers, and weekend visitors.

    He alienated Montauk over noise and crowds, Amagansett over a rock festival, Springs over illegal housing, and Wainscott over the airport. Townwide, residents were put off by his failing, until pushed, to take beach-access lawsuits seriously, ending leaf pickup, attempting to undermine sensible land-use restrictions, threatening to sell the town’s commercial fishing docks in Montauk, and allowing community preservation fund purchases to drop to their lowest-ever rate, despite making sure the money taken improperly from it by the former administration would be returned. He also has fostered a deep fear of reprisal among town employees. The list goes on.

    Autocratic to a fault and quick to anger, Mr. Wilkinson has taken actions in direct contradiction of public sentiment, as with the hasty decision to sell the town’s interest in the Poxabogue Golf Center at a loss. He stood by as one of his appointees to the zoning board savaged the professionalism of the Planning Department. He put a friend, who shared a record Lake Montauk environmental penalty, on a committee to study pollution of the lake and recommend improvements.

    Many would have preferred Mr. Cohen to have come up through the path of a seat on the planning board or town board, where voters would have gotten to know him better. However, it should be noted that the current supervisor came to his first run for town office with far fewer government and finance credentials than Mr. Cohen.

    A policy nerd nearly to a fault, Mr. Cohen may prove overly deliberate in narrowing in on decisions. Yet his preference for compromise and an informed constituency is a better fit for a leadership role here than the simplistic “run East Hampton like a business” mantra from Mr. Wilkinson. Mr. Cohen sees residents as the C.E.O.; Mr. Wilkinson says he is the boss.

    Mr. Cohen would allow the town’s ordinance enforcers to seek out problems and issue violations as they see fit, protecting neighborhoods and the environment, and upholding local laws. With no obvious political ideology, he is someone who will lay out options and genuinely consider differing views. At the same time, he will continue the careful work of making sure town finances are in good shape — with corrections he helped initiate in the first place.

    Rationality and respect for others is the overriding issue in this year’s race for supervisor. In this regard, Mr. Cohen is the better choice.

    Voting for East Hampton Town Board on Tuesday is crucially important as much for who is not running as for who is. Town Councilwoman Theresa Quigley, who has two years left in her term, has been at the nexus of most of the truly dreadful initiatives the town board has taken up since the beginning of 2010. Look at any of the many efforts to weaken zoning, politicize land preservation, or pay back political supporters and friends, and her imprint is all over the place. This is why bare-knuckle toughness is called for now.

    The Wilkinson majority’s regressive ideology must be seen for what it is. Some voters who remain furious about the McGintee deficit debacle nevertheless call Mr. Wilkinson the worst town supervisor ever, but what they really are responding to is a board majority that has lost sight of what is truly important here: community, quality of life, and preserving the sense of place, which is dependent on our natural resources.

    Six candidates are in the running for two seats. They are, on the Independence line, Marilyn Behan and Bill Mott; for the Republicans, Richard Haeg and Steven Gaines, and for the Democrats, Sylvia Overby and Peter Van Scoyoc. They can be quickly divided into two sets: those who know what they are talking about and those who don’t. Mr. Van Scoyoc, Ms. Overby, and Mr. Mott are in the first group; Mr. Haeg, Ms. Behan, and Mr. Gaines in the second.

    In Mr. Gaines’s case, this may not be a fatal flaw. He has made a point of admitting that he is a newcomer to East Hampton government, and his intelligence and honesty about it is welcome. If he does not prevail Tuesday, we would encourage the next town board to consider him for an appointed position right away.

    Mr. Mott, the only elected official in the running, has been a Republican town trustee for 12 years. He knows whereof he speaks, is an advocate for the environment, and would help restore smooth relations with his former board. He has had valuable experience in working with the public and would be an asset on the board. Mr. Van Scoyoc, with long experience on the town zoning and planning boards, is studiously nonpartisan, thinks long term, is highly intelligent, and speaks from the heart. Ms. Overby led the Amagansett citizens committee, was on the town planning board, knows the town code backward and forward, and brooks no nonsense.

    Any of the three are well worth electing. They have the backbone needed to help put Town Hall back on the right track, even if they wind up in a minority position.

    Our endorsement goes to Mr. Van Scoyoc and Mr. Mott, for reasons of political balance, though we would be pleased as well if Ms. Overby was a winner.

    East Hampton Town has two town justices who serve four-year terms and alternate on the ballot. Each appears on the bench for two weeks then uses two weeks for desk work. Each position pays $75,000 despite the job appearing to be less than full time.

    Justice Court is in session only three days a week, and the building itself was summarily closed to the public on Tuesdays earlier this year — and good luck getting a court staffer on the phone the rest of the time. This is high on the list of what Stephen Grossman, who is hoping to unseat Justice Lisa R. Rana, thinks ought to be changed.

    Mr. Grossman has been in private practice here for years and has run unsuccessfully in the past for a number of judicial positions, including this one. He has criticized the court as far too slow in disposing of zoning and quality-of-life cases, allowing violations to continue unchecked, sometimes for years. When businesses are charged, he says, defendants’ lawyers tend to run the show without objection from the bench while the interests of affected neighbors take a back seat.

    Ms. Rana, who comes from Amagansett, is a two-term justice, who is sometimes reported as tardy by those who appear in her court. After eight years, she may be settling in for what appears to her to be a long, comfortable career as town justice. While term limits might not be in the best interest of the electorate, getting a new justice in the court every now and then might make the system run more efficiently and help the town enforce its laws more promptly and effectively. We endorse Mr. Grossman.

    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.

    With Suffolk Executive Steve Levy’s exit from county government under circumstances that have not been entirely explained, two candidates relatively new to South Fork voters are poised to take his job. They are Steve Bellone, Bablyon Town supervisor, and Angie Carpenter, county treasurer.

    Neither has spent much time campaigning here, but Mr. Bellone seems more attuned to local issues. He supports an  East End alternative to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and is a full-fledged fan of open space preservation. He touts a record of tax cuts, although Ms. Carpenter disputes the claim. Mr. Bellone is thinking big at a time when the region needs new ideas. The Star endorses Steve Bellone.

    As for the County Legislature, there is a refreshing quality to Cornelius Kelly’s run to unseat the incumbent, Jay Schneiderman. Mr. Kelly is tough and well informed and has gotten Mr. Schneiderman on the defensive about several issues key to the South Fork, notably Sunday bus service and land preservation.

    Since becoming East Hampton Town supervisor in 2000, Mr. Schneiderman, who hails from Montauk, appears on his way to becoming a career politician. This may disturb some voters, but in and of itself is not a reason to turn him out of office. He has amassed a string of achievements despite a bitter relationship with the county executive, while Mr. Kelly has no record at all. We endorse Mr. Schneiderman.

    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.

    Political candidates are fortunate that voters tend to regard specific claims made in campaign advertising dimly, and with good reason: Standards for verification are somewhere between low and nonexistent. This may offer a degree of reassurance to Zachary Cohen, the Democratic and Working Families Parties’ candidate for East Hampton Town supervisor, who was faulted recently for overstating his work on town finances.

    Campaign literature Mr. Cohen has been circulating says he has been a “financial analyst for business and government, including all members of the current town board, the Villages of East Hampton and Sag Harbor, and the office of the state comptroller.” While the first portion of this statement is arguably true, whether he advised all the members of the town board is quesionable, and the last claim — that he worked for the comptroller — is clearly false.

    What Mr. Cohen did do was act as an unpaid assistant to Janet Verneuille, the former East Hampton Town comptroller, who was asked to unravel and set the town’s finances to rights after the resignation of the former budget director. It was Ms. Verneuille who had to answer to the state comptroller, not Mr. Cohen, though he did have some communication with that office. Nonetheless, putting the claim into his handouts was a mistake, and, called on it, he has expunged it.

    Unfortunately for the Democrats, Mr. Cohen is being beaten up for a thankless task. As embarrassing as this looks for Mr. Cohen, it is not the first false claim made in pre-election advertising this year. Among the most notable was a statement in a Republican Party ad that ran under the ironic headline “Can You Handle the Truth?” The statement was a patently false assertion that Supervisor Wilkinson issued a stalwart “no” when the idea came up to sell the town’s commercial fishing docks in Montauk. This was an out-and-out fabrication. The controversy arose in 2010 after the supervisor asked the Planning Department for a list of town-owned properties that could be sold. Like John Kerry, who was persistently ridiculed for his stand on the Iraq War, Mr. Wilkinson was for it before he was against it.

    “To me, the town docks are very much potentially up for sale,” he said. “Others on the board would not necessarily agree, because of an explicit subsidy of some of the commercial fishermen. I then revert to thinking, ‘Should the town be in the marina business?’ It doesn’t pass that test for me.” He changed heart after a sustained outcry from the those who use the docks and others in the town’s multimillion-dollar fishing industry, as well as a legal opinion that such a sale would violate town and state law. As far as we know, the ad is no longer appearing.

    To the extent that candidates are supposed to sign off on their advertising, both assertions suggest Mr. Cohen and Mr. Wilkinson alike need to pay better attention to details. Whether the claim and counterclaim nature of political statements like these will make much of a difference on Nov. 8 is hard to say. We guess that ordinary voters would like to rely on truth in advertising, but that, alas, may be asking too much.

    Meanwhile, the East Hampton Republican Committee has set a new low in political advertising, calling two of the opposing parties’ candidates “thugs.” Whether this reveals desperation or the true feelings of local Republican advocates, this petty insult has no place in a community that prides itself on civility. The G.O.P.’s candidates, if they are to be taken seriously from here on out, should repudiate the message and make appropriate public apologies.