Editorials

Reactions have been negative to a $60,000, six-month contract between the Town of East Hampton and a New York City-based communications firm hired to help get the word out about Covid-19 issues and to redesign the town website.

New Yorkers have already been voting in 2020 primaries for a range of local and statewide races. Early in-person polling places, which opened on Saturday, will remain open until Sunday afternoon and then reopen on Tuesday, the actual day of the primary.

No sooner were New York restaurants granted a reprieve from the Covid-19 lockdown did patrons come back in swarms for outdoor dining. But for many on the East End who had become used to hunkering down and ordering takeout, if at all, the return of crowds was an unsettling shock.

There are times when voters are faced with a critical choice. This is one of those times.

The outside of the envelopes from the Internal Revenue Service say “Penalty for private use $300.” It looks for all the world as if the recipient is about to be audited. The stomach drops. But what is inside these letters, which reach 90 million Americans, seems a strange contrast with that message.

East Hampton Village is a lot quieter now that limits are in place for leaf blowers and other gas and diesel-powered landscape equipment.

When the protesters arrived at Trump Tower, the tone shifted. We were met with scores of police officers in riot gear, batons out, looking, in our opinion, for a fight.

Though delayed and being conducted by absentee ballot, school board elections have arrived at last. The ballots are due back in district offices by 5 p.m. on Tuesday, so the time is now to mark them and get them in the mail.

Amid generally good compliance with the New York State Pause order, the Memorial Day holiday excesses were at a minimum.

One remarkable success story in our response to the pandemic has been how swiftly and effectively eastern Long Island medical systems scaled up to meet the challenge.

Only in government would it make sense to take a working public service and place it completely on hold while developing a new one.

Given the challenges East Hampton Village will encounter between now and the election, it made sense to name someone to fill the open position. But process matters.