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.

    In news of the violence that has broken out in Cairo in recent days, a report has circulated that may indicate that the Egyptian authorities are paying attention to how some police in the United States have responded to the Occupy Wall Street protests.

According to the accounts, an Egyptian state television anchor cited the “firm stance” taken by United States law enforcement to “secure the state” as a justification for the Egyptian crackdown. This report came from Twitter, posted by Sultan Al Qassemi, a journalist and important voice in the Arab Spring uprisings. Whether or not this can be independently confirmed, it points to a troubling double standard between the United States’s internal actions and foreign policy.

    Occupy Wall Street first gained widespread attention in September, when a supervising officer in the New York Police Department used pepper spray on an unarmed and nonthreatening group of four women who had been standing together. Before that, the protests had been a curiosity; after it came out that N.Y.P.D.’s “white shirts” from higher ranks were leading an aggressive response to keep “sidewalks clear and crowds moving along,” the protest rapidly grew into a movement. Protesters greeted the news that the officer who had used pepper spray was “punished” by having 10 vacation days docked with anger.

    On Friday, campus police at the University of California Davis used pepper spray on nine seated protesters who had defied orders to move. Photographs of this unprovoked attack have become a new rallying cry of the movement. In one particularly resonant image, some wit digitally placed the campus officer into John Trumbull’s famous painting of the signing of Declaration of Independence, blasting America’s founding document with an orange-colored haze.

    It must be conceded that a few angry cops and misguided public officials do not add up to an overturning of democracy. Nor should  the police’s removal of the library Occupy Wall Street put together at Zuccotti Park be  considered on a par with book-burning in Hitler’s Germany. However, violent responses to the peaceful encampments reinforce the movement’s messages about inequality and the use of official force to resist meaningful change.

    If the report out of Egypt is accurate, the world is indeed watching.

    With the members of the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee having decided to send their own letter to the town justices, complaining about the pace of action on alleged violations at the Surf Lodge restaurant, the path to strictly curtailing of its activities may have been greased.

    As we understand it, the citizens committees in East Hampton Town were devised as conduits by which the town board could hear about neighborhood and hamlet concerns. It is not surprising that some of the committees, Montauk’s foremost among them, have become activist in their own right, taking steps that have sometimes miffed the elected and career officials on Pantigo Road.

    Several successive town boards have had problems with the way these committees have functioned, but perhaps none more so than the current Republican majority. While Montauk simmers over the wild success of the Surf Lodge, as well as the crowds at Solé East, Ruschmeyer’s, and the downtown bars, an insurrection is brewing among members of the Wainscott committee over air traffic and, most recently, the short-sale of the town’s half-interest in the Poxabogue Golf Center. Town board members could be forgiven for wanting to make it all go away, but this would be a mistake.

    The town board apparently has asked its lawyers to find a way to tighten controls on the committees. This could well result in a command that the town board vet all external communication. This has been heard before, and would seem reasonable if the board appeared less antagonistic toward the views of the citizens on these committees. Unfortunately, recent events have shown that when committee positions are at variance with those of the town board, what the committees’ members have to say is dismissed.

    In the end, it would pointless for the committees to be subservient to the town board. Civic involvement of this kind is intended to be outside the confines of a government that tells participants what to say, to whom, and how to say it. Independence in the form of new stand-alone groups beholden to no one could well be the best direction for the future.

    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.

    It comes as no surprise that the Long Island Power Authority can be criticized for what appeared to be a slow and noncoummunicative response to Hurricane, or, Tropical Storm Irene. In the aftermath of what was a relatively mild blow, few LIPA crews were seen on the South Fork, and for many, electricity was not restored for up to a week. A reasonable worry is how LIPA and its partner, National Grid, would perform in a real catastrophe.

    The company has said that its major circuits were restored quickly. What took so long, it said, was sorting out all of the many problems that kept the lights off, some in backyards that were choked by trees and limbs. That sounds suspiciously like a utility that wants to blame its customers for its problems.

    It was reassuring to hear this week from Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. that state hearings about LIPA’s performance after Irene were inevitable. He said the state should extend questioning to disaster-recovery planning and public outreach in addition to performance in this test. He added that greater thought should be given to burying power lines to prevent widespread outages. To see this done, Mr. Thiele said the members of LIPA’s board, who are politically appointed, should change in order to foster greater accountability.

    These seem prudent steps, particularly for a utility with rates that are always among the highest in the nation but one that surveys show is among the lowest in customer satisfaction.

    Late Sunday afternoon, amid all the talk about the flooding, downed trees, eroded beaches, and the loss of electricity by thousands in East Hampton Town, someone nailed it: “This was a miss,” he said.

    Though predicted to be far more dangerous, Hurricane Irene shifted course and weakened considerably as it reached our latitudes. As late as 24 hours before it raked ashore in New Jersey and rumbled into upstate New York, it was forecast to have sustained winds of 100 miles per hour with higher gusts and to make landfall more or less in the center of Long Island. Yes, this storm was nowhere near as powerful as the devastating Hurricane of 1938. Had it struck the Island where and at the levels predicted, however, the effect would have been catastrophic.

    Given what authorities knew the day before, the evacuations of low-lying parts of New York City, Fire Island, and parts of eastern Long Island were appropriate. The region got lucky, as it turned out, but, given how long it takes to get people out of harm’s way, evacuation orders were the right call, as was the boarding up of windows. And it can’t hurt if homeowners are left with a stock of storm supplies: The hurricane season’s peak is only beginning.

    Over all, East Hampton officials’ level of preparation was adequate, with a couple of concerns that should be addressed. The most serious was the town’s lapse in not trying to close several oceanfront road-ends in Montauk. This was surprising, since emergency preparedness staff had said previously that bulldozing or sandbagging these vulnerable spots was planned. As a result, the ocean poured into downtown Montauk and the Ditch Plain area through man-made gaps. Had steps been taken to block them, the flooding could have been reduced.

    Town officials need look no further for an example of what can work than Atlantic Drive on Napeague, where residents took it upon themselves to wall off the road-end. This is the second time they have banded together to do this, and this time it paid off. As The East Hampton Press reported, the effort appeared to have held the ocean from surging into the neighborhood.

    Officials should take heed to attempt to close all of these passages next time around. The dunes are there for a reason; openings in them are an invitation to disaster.

    In the area of communication, the Town of East Hampton gets poor marks. The messages coming out of Town Hall were too few as well as trivial and confusing. We learned what most people knew (to stay off the roads and away from the beaches) and that the town waste-transfer stations were going to be opened on Wednesday to accept post-storm debris. This is in contrast to the Town of Southampton, which issued advisories every couple of hours and did its best to keep the public informed. And, if you wanted to see what East Hampton was saying on the town’s official Web site during the height of the storm, you couldn’t; it was inaccessible until about mid-day Sunday. In the absence of information, some get panicky. A better job has to be done in the future.

    Okay, so maybe Irene was not quite a miss after all. There are lessons to be learned and more work to be done for when the next one — inevitably — comes.

    Occupy Wall Street may seem an odd name for a protest movement, yet the mass assembly of angry and frustrated people in downtown Manhattan — and increasingly in other cites around the country — appears to be this month’s big story and is drawing more support with every passing day. As the protest neared the conclusion of its third week, large labor unions were stepping up and offering support. Today, thousands of activists are expected in Washington’s Freedom Square. Where this all will lead is unknown, but it surely is significant.

    The concerns that motivate many of the protesters have been mischaracterized in some of the media as vague. This is as much an indictment of the corporate news outlets as it is of those in the streets. Yes, the goals of the Occupy Wall Street encampments are many, but their complexity should not be dismissed as evidence that the people who are expressing these ideas are naive.

    A common theme is evident enough: The protesters are saying that the power structure of the United States has shifted too far toward corporate interests and the wealthiest among us and that the individuals and forces that wrecked the economy have not been held accountable. It is a clear and accurate message — if you take the time to hear it.

    Amagansett residents gave themselves a tax increase last week. On Oct. 3, 140 people who live in that hamlet’s fire district trooped to the firehouse to support a bond deal that will add something on the order of $50 to $100 a year, depending on assessments, to their property tax bills. Similarly, higher school and library levies have also passed in recent rounds of voting. Considered together, these votes suggest, at the very least, that no widespread well of anti-tax sentiment exists here.

    Of course, fire districts and schools are like mom and apple pie, and each has strongly motivated constituencies to help guarantee budget-vote successes. Still, we can’t help but notice that when given a choice, local residents have time and again approved tax hikes.

    It seems that residents’ willingness to pay more when asked for something they think is worthwhile is at variance with the tax-cutting obsession that now reigns in East Hampton Town Hall. No one likes paying higher taxes. But it also appears that when residents perceive a good cause they are willing to vote yes with their hard-earned dollars and cents.

    By declining to review a challenge to East Hampton Town’s strict limit on the types of ferries that can dock here, the United States Supreme Court last week put an apparent end to a long-fought struggle. This is an important victory for East Hampton residents.

    The Supreme Court agreed with a lower court that had ruled the town had the right to regulate ferries and had said East Hampton’s 1998 law preventing car-carrying and high-speed ferries from docking here did not violate the Constitution’s Commerce Clause. The appeals court had ruled, in effect, that local restrictions designed to control traffic or protect certain areas of town from added congestion and parking problems were reasonable.

    Common sense appears to have prevailed in this matter. Summer on the South Fork is busy enough, and local governments clearly have an obligation to citizens to do what they can to gain the upper hand. At least as far as ferries are concerned, residents can breath a sigh of relief.

    If someone took the time to make a list of the businesses East Hampton Town residents complain about all the time, one thing would become clear: The bulk of the trouble spots are in locations with residential zoning.

    Those who follow local government, or who live near one of these places, can point fingers if they like. Our intention is not to name names; rather, it is to point out that it doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, and this may surprise some people, the town’s own laws were written to gradually make development consistent with good planning.

    Tension between commerce and homeowners is not new. When the East Hampton Town zoning code first was adopted, in the early 1960s, so-called pre-existing, nonconforming uses, such as restaurants, bars, delis, and repair shops, were supposed to fade away over time. More intensive-purposed properties would be centered where the appropriate infrastructure, such as parking lots, road drainage, street lighting, and public transportation, was provided. The basic idea was that there were appropriate places for houses and appropriate places for things that were not houses. No great mystery there.

    What is new, although it reaches back from the present administration to prior administrations, is a sense in Town Hall that pre-existing, nonconforming businesses should not only be grandfathered, that is, allowed to remain as they are, but should be encouraged to grow and become permanent. This violates both the East Hampton Town Code and widely accepted notions of livable communities. The net effect of the easy-does-it approach is suburban sprawl, with low-key, helter-skelter businesses getting even more entrenched and the major roads between the South Fork’s villages and hamlets increasingly commercialized. There are ways to combine commercial and residental development, sure, so-called smart growth concepts, but that is not what we are talking about here. Unmanaged, it might better be termed dumb growth.

    The record shows that the Town Building Department has been far too willing to certify pre-existing, nonconforming uses in residential zones on the scantiest of excuses and absent of any documentation. If the department were to faithfully follow the town code, it would demand better evidence that such uses had the right to remain. Moreover, the department has repeatedly failed to refer requests for building permits to the planning board for site plan review, as required in many cases.

    This stands in stark contrast to one of the overarching goals of  East Hampton’s 2005 comprehensive plan update, to maintain and restore the town’s rural and semirural character. Another objective listed in the plan is to protect neighborhoods from incompatible development. The plan was the product of more than four years’ work by elected officials and scores of dedicated citizens who attended meeting after meeting.

    Taming certain commercial outliers is part of what would make East Hampton a better place to live. We wonder what it will take to shift the balance back.