Editorials

Town officials edged close last week to fully allowing Stephen Hand’s Path in East Hampton to be turned into a major transit route. The modest two-lane road already serves as a bypass for drivers eager to skirt East Hampton Village, and for many, it is a faster or more direct route to and from their homes or workplaces in Northwest or Springs. This has led to backups at Cedar Street and hot tempers from residents who have to cope with speeding drivers and long waits to get safely out of their driveways.

Tuesday’s Democratic primary for East Hampton Town justice is a strange one, and a Republican incumbent might walk away the winner. 

Tuesday’s East Hampton Democratic primary comes at an important time for the town trustees, who have moved away from being mostly reactive, as they were in the past, to looking ahead and leaning in on a new role as environmental advocates. While the town board may have to cope with all kinds of problems, the trustees’ mandate as stewards of critical waterways and ancient lands gives them moral authority that goes well beyond the harbors, bays, and woodland roads. 

‘Star shines for all?” an old friend roared last Thursday when stopping by in the rain to pick up his Star. “Doesn’t look like it out there!”

The town lawyer at the center of a controversy over a lawsuit brought by the new owner of Duryea’s in Montauk has departed for parts unknown, but this is hardly the end of the troubling matter. Many questions remain about who knew what when in an improper — and possibly illegal — settlement arrangement he signed.

Degrees have an image problem. In the struggle to control global warming, we are told that unless the Earth stays within 2 degrees Celsius of 19th-century levels, catastrophes both natural and political will arise.

If you have been in a car almost anywhere in East Hampton during the past several weeks — and especially if you have been out and about on a bicycle — you will have noticed the abundance of signs that have blossomed on the roadside.

Primaries are good for local democracy in that they get voters thinking about government well before the general election.

We are represented abroad by a president who regularly engages in schoolyard taunts of the sort that would earn a third grader a trip to the principal’s office.

The first of two electronic billboards along Sunrise Highway in Hampton Bays was made operational in time for Memorial Day weekend. Green-lighted by the Shinnecock Indian Nation, they were described in the tribal trustees’ news blitz as a source of much-needed economic development. They may turn out to be more of a miscalculation than an asset.

At least eight million tons of plastic end up in the marine environment each year, according to researchers. No part of the ocean is immune; contamination reaches even the deepest submarine trenches. 

Wind power is coming, and the waters south and east of Long Island are slated to be the site of more electricity-generating offshore turbines as time moves on. Climate change and energy independence are the big drivers of the move to renewable power. Particulate pollution and the almost unimaginable horror of a potential nuclear plant accident make the East Coast a leading candidate for investment in the new efficient technology.