Editorials

A recent little-noticed report about East Hampton Town’s wastewater system upgrade program deserves wider attention. Produced by the town’s water quality advisory committee, the report offered five ways to increase the rate at which property owners are signing on.

It seems only right to offer a tip of the cap to the professionals and volunteers who answer the call at any time of day or night even as the population of residents and day-trippers doubles and then doubles again then returns to normal after Labor Day.

Term limits are great talking points during political campaigns, but after getting elected, most officials lose interest in them. National Democratic strategists looking to push Representative Lee Zeldin out of office have seized on his 2014 victory over the incumbent, Tim Bishop, as evidence of just such a flip-flop.

And just like that, the tropical Atlantic came alive. After an August with minimal swell and no hurricanes, two named storms popped up, one as we went to press Wednesday threatening to make a first landfall in already battered Puerto Rico and projected to arrive as Hurricane Dorian in northern Florida on Monday. At the same time, but less of a threat to shore, another storm developed off the Carolina coast but was to move away into the open ocean by the end of the week.

A proposal to force New York private schools to report more than their local boards of education now require is circulating in Albany and has some educators and parents worried.

The Village of Sag Harbor gets it. In a ceremony marking its new Steinbeck Park, Southampton Town and Sag Harbor elected officials celebrated the creation of a public waterfront asset. Officials in other towns and villages should be watching this closely. This park might never have been a reality had the village, over many years, failed to resist pressure from developers.

The big field on Montauk Highway east of the Amagansett I.G.A. is quiet again following two large benefit events — the Soldier Ride fund-raiser and the East Hampton Library Authors Night book fair.

All agreed new helping hands are harder than ever to recruit. This has led to a graying of the volunteer work force, in which a 50-year-old can feel that he or she is the springyist chicken in the coop.

Recently and almost in passing, an East Hampton Town Board member observed that it might be necessary to seek outside help for the Ordinance Enforcement Department. At the moment, the town lists eight field employees and one clerk in the department directory, but three work only part time. This small group is supposed to provide seven-day-a-week coverage, taking on everything and anything not otherwise in the purview of town police.

It seems somehow crazy that Donald Trump is to arrive on the East End tomorrow for a fund-raiser, after two mass shootings within hours of each other, as if nothing were wrong.

Two sides are circling each other in regard to a new, consolidated town shellfish hatchery off Gann Road at Three Mile Harbor. Untangling this will help guide what has been an excessively contentious debate toward an amicable resolution.

The Montauk Lighthouse will undergo repair beginning this summer and major restoration of its protective seawall is to begin in the fall. These are costly endeavors — more than $1 million for the tower and $24 million for the stonework — but in the minds of many, well worth it.