Editorials

Had New York’s State Senate passed a police reform bill, one that had been repeatedly approved by the Assembly, the officer most directly responsible for the death of Eric Garner on Staten Island last summer might now be facing criminal charges. Instead, by failing to change the rules, which would have required independent special prosecutors in cases when police kill civilians, the Senate left in place an inadequate and bad system.

East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell and the Town Hall legal team are on the right track in looking at how to amend town law to head off further conversions of hotels and motels into hybrids that include nightclubs and accommodations. According to the town, there are some 70 hotels here whose owners might someday seek to expand into the lucrative bar trade, which could create traffic, crowds, noise, litter, and, in some cases, water pollution problems, which have already been the result.

We hesitate to trot into the woods, so to speak, on the issue of deer, a subject that generates strong and conflicting emotions. Nevertheless, comment must be made about a pending change in state law that would allow weekend hunting here for deer in January.

East Hampton Town officials have their hands full of pressing matters these days, none more important perhaps than helping to assure places to live for those residents who are the backbone of the community — the work force. In a recent report, an appointed study committee told the town board in no uncertain terms that much more affordable housing is needed here and offered ideas for how it could be achieved.

Hard to believe that a few short years ago, people around here were wondering whether there would ever be enough scallops again for meaningful commercial harvest. Well, now East Hampton knows those fears were unfounded. A bumper crop has been found in the bays and harbors that is so plentiful that the retail price for a pound of the succulent, sweet meats has been around $20.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the new approach to regulating noise from aircraft that use East Hampton Airport is that it is not really new. Ken Lipper and Peter Wolf, who took it on their own initiative to propose ways of curbing air traffic, identified a portion of the town’s comprehensive plan in advocating a community-first vision of the airport.

That the state of protections for the environment is broken is obvious from a recent notice from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation on the proposed Army Corps of Engineers project to bolster the downtown Montauk oceanfront.

On the first full day of fall this year, at the very height of the hurricane season, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed a landmark bill on climate change that could have significant impact here. The Community Risk and Resiliency Law, which takes effect in April, is intended to help prepare New York for environmental changes and protect against increasingly severe weather and sea level rise.

As the East Hampton Town Board tries to figure out what to do in the face of vocal complaints about a proposed registration requirement for rental properties, its members would do well to consider a recent report by the New York State attorney general about one fast-growing aspect: short-term accommodations booked online.

Eric Schneiderman, who was just re-elected, made news last month when he released the results of a study that found nearly three-quarters of all New York City

Related Story: Stepping Back on Rental Registry

A plan by the Village of East Hampton and New York State to spend $1.4 million on traffic changes at the intersection of Route 114 and Toilsome Lane is puzzling, but even more puzzling are the reasons behind it. A call to the engineer who came up with the series of roadway “islands” and a roundabout referred our request for an explanation to a village official, who was only able to produce a few words of meaningless boilerplate.

Facebook woke up this week to the yawning monstrosity in Wainscott that is the new commercial building on the former Plitt Ford site on Montauk Highway. One commenter quipped that the town was “one step closer to looking like Centereach.” Another person summed it up this way: “It makes me sad every time I drive by. It looks terrible and is so big it blocks the sky.”

Two recent news reports about New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo are worth noting, especially in light of his easy trot to re-election on Nov. 6. A detailed account in The New York Times that should be of special interest to those angered by the ongoing electric pole debacle in East Hampton explained how Mr. Cuomo manipulated a report from a commission looking at utility performance during and after Hurricane Sandy.

East Hampton officials are reported to be thinking about seeking state authorization to tap the community preservation fund for wastewater projects. This potential funding source should be a last resort.

A homeowner sees her house threatened by erosion, and public officials do what they can to help. Not the newest story, but the most recent example of this narrative comes with an interesting twist.

As it turns out, a rapidly shrinking lot on Shore Road at Lazy Point belongs to the East Hampton Town Trustees, while the house on it belongs to someone who leases the site for a modest fee. This arrangement, while unusual elsewhere in town, is the norm at Lazy Point, where an occasional near-million-dollar purchase takes place on what is actually leased public land.

One is predisposed to like State Senator Lee Zeldin, an affable Army veteran who is seeking for the second time to take Representative Tim Bishop’s seat in Congress. However, even though he ran for the First District post in 2008, won a seat in the New York Legislature in 2010, and then beat back a Republican primary challenge this year, Mr. Zeldin has very little to say for himself, which is perplexing. Instead of presenting his own ideas he repeats party positions on school vouchers, weak gun laws, and the eventual privatization of Social Security.

Voters will decide on Tuesday whether Suffolk will continue to have both a county treasurer and a county comptroller. Both are elected positions. This should settle a lengthy dispute between Angie Carpenter, the longtime treasurer, and County Executive Steve Bellone. Mr. Bellone has sought to eliminate the treasurer’s post to streamline government and reduce the cost to taxpayers by as much as $800,000 a year in departmental salaries and related expenses. If approved, the comptroller would assume the duties of the treasurer, which for the most part are paying the bills.

Suffolk voters will be asked on Tuesday to consider a law intended to tighten financial aspects of the county’s Drinking Water Protection Program, which is funded by a quarter-percent sales tax. It should be approved.

A yes vote would appear assured on Proposal Two, which would allow the New York State Legislature to forgo printing materials that cost some $325,000 a year by distributing them in electronic form. This averages out to about 9 million pages every year and tons of waste. Lawmakers barely read most bills anyway; getting them into a format that they can access via their tablets or smartphones while on the move might actually improve the legislative process. Saving money and reducing waste makes this worthy of the public’s support. Vote yes.

Proposal One on Tuesday’s ballot is a redistricting proposition that could actually make things worse in Albany. It would establish a commission on Assembly, Senate, and Congressional districts to be appointed entirely by the State Legislature’s leadership or their proxies. It should be rejected.

After nearly two decades of debate there is no resolution about whether long-term Lyme disease exists. What is clear is that some patients diagnosed with Lyme do not feel better after standard antibiotic treatment. This has led some physicians to prescribe exceedingly long courses of medication, which has led, in a few cases, to investigations for misconduct by the New York State Department of Health. A bill that would help protect doctors under these circumstances has been passed by the State Legislature and awaits Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s signature.

The local chapter of the Surfrider Foundation sent around a photograph last week that made an inescapable point about Montauk’s downtown beach: There just isn’t that much of it any more, and the planned fix by the Army Corps of Engineers may well wipe away what little is left.

While Montauk Highway, the main route through East Hampton Town, which we all love to hate, gets most of our attention, another state road, Route 114, is increasingly worthy of serious review.

To list just a few relatively recent incidents: A Sag Harbor mother died after her car left the pavement, a father visiting from away was killed in a head-on collision, two students and one’s mom were injured when their vehicle was hit from behind, and just this week, a drunken driver was sentenced to jail for a crash in which a 6-year-old was critically injured.

East Hampton Village banned the bags a while ago. Southampton Village did the same even before that. Now, East Hampton Town is poised to follow suit, ordering that those flimsy, thin bags commonly used in supermarkets no longer be welcome.

More than $15,000 was raised on Sunday during a show of classic cars and lifted trucks organized by friends and family of the late Tyler Valcich of Montauk, who died in May of an apparent suicide. All of the money is to be set aside for mental health services for young people here through the Greater East Hampton Education Foundation. Those involved in what is planned as an annual event deserve a big round of applause for turning a personal tragedy into something good to the extent possible under the circumstances.

At last there is an air of inevitability around the question of marriage equality now that the United States Supreme Court has, by declining to intervene in lower courts’ rulings, let stand same-sex marriage in five states. Right now 24 states allow gender-blind weddings; that number could reach 30 following Monday’s decision. It’s about time.

The East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals appears poised to deal a precedential death blow to a fundamental portion of local land-use law. But before its members allow a landscaping company to take over a residentially zoned lot at 103 Montauk Highway, they should take a very close look at the village code and ask themselves whether what they are being asked to approve meets the letter and intent of the law with regard to when and under what circumstances a pre-existing, nonconforming use can be considered abandoned.

As officials in the Town of East Hampton and the owners of private property along the ocean in Montauk puzzle over their relationship with the United States Army Corps of Engineers and the fate of a proposed beach protection project there, it is well worth reflecting on two unfortunate chapters in that federal agency’s relatively recent history.

For the first time ever, East Hampton High School’s annual homecoming game, held on Sept. 20, was not played by the football team. The match featured varsity soccer, and the boys defeated Hampton Bays by a score of 3-0, therein making history and signaling a change that was coming for a long time, accelerated by local demographic changes.

A sign boasting of East Hampton Town’s goal of meeting all of its electricity needs with renewable sources by 2020, which was carried by an activist during Sunday’s climate march in New York City, drew lots of attention. And well it should have; moving away from fossil fuels is essential if human-induced global warming is to be slowed within our lifetimes. It is terrific that a local resolution to do better, albeit one with limited direct effect, could reach beyond East Hampton’s borders and, perhaps, influence other communities to take their own steps toward a positive power future.

With East Hampton Village having accepted more than $100,000 toward a test project to spay deer, it probably will go forward, but it may actually delay effective management and avoid comprehensive analysis of the role their growing numbers play in tick-borne illnesses as well as their effect on the environment.