Editorials

East Hampton Town has begun work on a set of so-called hamlet studies. Six in all, they are supposed to result in recommendations for the town’s commercial areas. The objective is to produce a document that will guide future land-use decisions and allow commerce to function while avoiding sprawl and other negative effects of growth.

The osprey were a couple of days late this week — or they were right on time. It depended on whom you asked and where, in turn, they were looking.

In the Northeast, to no small measure this will mean wind power — and when one thinks about wind power on a scale large enough to make a difference, that means offshore turbines.

The South Fork has a housing crisis. Just ask almost any employer or a prospective employee who has considered moving to the region for a job. Places to live are all but unavailable. So far, attempts by local government to find solutions have failed to meet demand.

Attention to environmental concerns is growing here, with some positive results. We are enthusiastic about a $100,000 study of an electric “microgrid” in East Hampton Town, which could provide clean power and better electrical service during outages.

Doing something about corruption and influence peddling in Albany appears high on the to-do list for lawmakers — except when it comes to their own bank accounts.

These days we’ve come to expect a 24-hour news cycle. When there’s an accident on Route 27, when a major snowstorm is headed our way or a northeaster is bearing down on us, when we hear sirens or a fire whistle, we (journalists included) tend to want up-to-the-minute details. Should we reschedule that trip to Riverhead? Stay off the roads? Get our boat out of the water?

Two major municipal condemnation initiatives, which are moving slowly ahead in Sag Harbor and on a long strip of beach on Napeague, warrant more public consideration.

The East Hampton Town Trustees have faced the tensions of going it alone instead of cooperating with a number of other government agencies for a long time. The idea, still in currency among some members and residents, has been that since the trustees were given authority by royal decree in the 17th century, no entity can take it away.

Those in pressing need may still have a bit of a wait before that ceremonial first flush, but a public restroom for the Amagansett hamlet center appears to be nearing reality. Forget about helicopter noise — if the members of the East Hampton Town Board actually pull this off, they will go down in history.

Okay, so this winter has not been nearly as bad as the one that preceded it, but it nevertheless has been bleak, at times freezing cold, and, except for a bit of snow, lacking in seasonal diversions. How thankful we are, though, for the half-off sales. Retail, it seems, can give us something to do when there is little left other than binge-watching Netflix.

East Hampton High School has a drug problem. We know this because the administration has scheduled forums at which the use of the life-saving anti-opiate known as Narcan will be explained and kits made available for parents to take home. What we do not know is how big the problem is. School officials have not been forthcoming, saying only that there has been an “uptick” in drug-related incidents. Much more needs to be said.

The year 2100 might seem a long way off, but for East Hampton Town and much of the rest of the world’s coastal communities, it is a date that should be of genuine concern. According to a new study released on Monday, oceans could rise by as much as four feet by the end of the century.

A recently unveiled plan for a car wash on Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton should not be considered in a vacuum. But that is, unfortunately, the sense we get from some members of the town planning board, who appeared favorably inclined toward the proposal presented to them on Feb. 3. They are, perhaps, to be forgiven because this part of town has become a place for businesses not welcome elsewhere. Whether that kind of use should be perpetuated there is an good question.

There are plenty of reasons why the old notion of the East End breaking away to form its own Peconic County is next-to impossible, but a new issue — how to regulate taxis and ride-sharing services — points to the necessity of some regional cooperation.

In the face of what seems to be increasingly outsized pressure, the East Hampton Town and Village Zoning Boards of Appeal seem to be getting tough. That’s a good thing.

With the Springs Fire District commissioners’ decision to supplement its volunteer ambulance squad with professional responders, a last South Fork holdout has joined the ranks of those with paid emergency providers.

It has usually been predictable that winter weather will arrive on the South Fork at around the end of January. This year, like last, saw a relatively benign December and first three weeks of January. Then, on Jan. 22 and 23, snow arrived in a storm that set records as nearby as La Guardia Airport.

As small pieces become known of the story of Ned, a free black man who lived in East Hampton during slavery’s waning days in the North, a larger question — about the scores of other African-Americans who lived here and how to memorialize them — has begun to come into focus.

I am not sure if I can speak for even a small subset of newspaper people, but those of us who work at the Star office like to surround ourselves with things we pick up or have used in our work.

It was perhaps only in passing that East Hampton Town supervisor Larry Cantwell mused last summer about a program by which troublesome nightclubs that draw the transient party crowd could be eliminated. But relatively little has been done about the nightlife issue since a massive public outcry at a July meeting in Montauk

So what gives? Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo says he wants the state to spend $3 billion to redo the gloomy Penn Station in Manhattan, and at the same time he has his hands on the throats of school districts, which are being squeezed by his signature tax cap.

A reader sent in a photograph this week taken on Gerard Drive in Springs on Saturday during the blizzard. Taken roughly around the time of the morning high tide on what is known as the Second Causeway, it shows a raging Gardiner’s Bay surging where the road ought to be. Only you can’t see the road, only riled dark-gray water and feathery white spume.

Hurricane Sandy, which had a significant, though not catastrophic, impact on the East End, has been described as a turning point for coastal policy — only it’s not true here on the highly vulnerable East End. Instead, local officials have been mired in a 1960s-era strategy embodied by the United States Army Corps of Engineers downtown Montauk project. There seems to be little more than a hope that sometime this year the Army Corps will unveil a magical plan for a vast undertaking for most of Long Island’s south shore. This is a dangerous failure of leadership.

A request from Sag Harbor Village to the East Hampton Town Trustees to discuss ways to manage an all-but-unregulated seasonal anchorage is an example of how demands on the area’s natural resources and infrastructure have outpaced government control.

Sag Harbor officials are moving ahead with new, tough rules to regulate the size of houses in reaction to a spate of super-sizing, which has left many aghast over changes to their beloved village. The changes are overdue and should, perhaps, be made even tougher.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo renewed his push for a smaller New York this week. Well, not exactly, but for a smaller bite into its residents’ pocketbooks, to be achieved through municipal consolidation. The governor is putting the state’s money where his mouth is, offering a $20 million reward to the local government partnership that achieves the greatest reduction in property taxes. Here on the South Fork, when one thinks about consolidation, one thinks of school districts, among which taxing disparity can be stunning.

Come January and February — and, come to think of it, March — when the days are cold and the nights colder, cultural events are few and far between. This isn’t really surprising; half the year-round population of the South Fork is in Florida or Rincon, Puerto Rico, and the other half doesn’t feel like leaving the house. Yet for those motivated to put on an overcoat and venture out, there are options.

East Hampton Town’s planned purchase of the development rights on the 35-acre Whitmores landscaping nursery on Long Lane presents a dilemma. On the one hand, the $3.2 million deal would prevent the site’s ever being turned into a housing development. On the other, it does not appear to do much for the town as a whole, provide public access, or assure the land’s return to crop growing. A hearing on the purchase is scheduled for tonight at 6:30 in Town Hall.

That the East Hampton School District might radically overhaul its entire energy and heating approach is intriguing news. If the school board signs on, Johnson Controls, a leading national firm, would install 634-kilowatts of solar panels atop the district’s three schools. It would also improve the way oil is burned for heating, decrease heat loss and gain in classroom windows, and seek to make doors more airtight. The heating systems in the three buildings would have better insulation and power-wasting light fixtures would be replaced.