Editorials

    With a pending vacancy on the East Hampton Town Justice Court and no incumbent seeking re-election, two candidates who would be new to the bench hope to don the robe. Town justices preside over everything from routine traffic ticket to violent crime cases, switching gears to handle zoning and quality-of-life matters, in addition to serving as court administrators. For this multifaceted role, justices are paid a salary and benefits in the proposed budget for next year of almost $119,000.

   The lines appear to be becoming clear with the East Hampton Town Trustees standing for access to the beach and Town Hall and some village officials standing with private property owners in the battle for the shoreline. This is a fight worth having, and the trustees have the correct view, the one most consistent with the public interest.

    Springs has become the focus of a debate about commercial vehicles parked on house lots, but the issue, which the East Hampton Town Board will take up in passing tonight, is far more wide-ranging than how large a dump truck (or two) can be left under one’s bedroom windows overnight.

    The Army Corps of Engineers’ options for downtown Montauk and its beaches are just not good enough and will only pass the problem on to future leaders and generations. Moreover, the prospect of a multimillion-dollar undertaking using money approved by Congress for Hurricane Sandy relief gives rise to questions about the ethical, perhaps even legal, basis on which the plans are based.

    Underlying Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s demand this week that the federal government investigate potential health effects and the environmental impact of the sale of Plum Island is a sense that the remarkable and history-filled isle should be preserved. This helps put necessary pressure on Washington to save the island as open space and help protect Long Island Sound.

    Plans for downtown Montauk’s ocean shoreline are to be presented at East Hampton Town Hall today, and all concerned, particularly owners of properties to the west, should pay close attention.

    Ian Calder-Piedmonte called it like it is at a recent meeting of the East Hampton Town Planning Board, of which he is a member, when it considered yet again a massive Amagansett housing complex. In response to an apparent, and repeated, threat by the project’s Connecticut-based developer to put up affordable workforce housing there, Mr. Calder Piedmonte said, “I’m not so sure that we should be afraid of affordable housing.”

   Two of the biggest dance parties of the summer of 2013 used the names of legitimate charities improperly in order to help secure East Hampton Town permits. In July, the Shark Attack Sounds gathering claimed to be a benefit for the Montauk Playhouse Foundation, and in August, a for-profit bash at Albert’s Landing in Amagansett, billed as Electronic Beach, salted its town application with references to a New York organization. Neither charity was asked whether its name could be used.

   One of the unfortunate aspects of a very strange time for the East Hampton Town Board is that the public — as well as the two minority party members — rarely know in advance what subjects will be discussed at meetings.

   Even though the high season may be fading into dim, albeit unpleasant, memory, East Hampton Town’s candidates for elected office must force themselves to grapple with the summer of 2013, which, hands-down, was the most crowded, most annoying, noisiest, and most out of control yet.

   Southampton Town officials are confronting a riddle about how to protect 14 Bridgehampton farm acres owned by the Peconic Land Trust. Ronald Lauder gave the property to a precursor of the land trust years ago. Unfortunately, the deal did not include restrictions on what the trust eventually could do with the property, and it even can be sold for house lots.

   Having spent nearly $1 million to design, install, and maintain a culvert linking Gardiner’s Bay and Accabonac Harbor, East Hampton Town has allowed it to fill with sand, essentially rendering a giant investment of public money useless. The Gerard Drive project was long envisioned as a way to improve water quality in the harbor by providing it with a second tidal opening. To remain functional, however, the culvert needed the sand, which otherwise would accumulate and shut it off, regularly removed.

   By asking Congress for its approval for a military response to the nerve-gas attack in Syria last month, President Obama may be setting a lasting precedent. Since the end of World War II, United States presidents have charged into conflicts by ignoring Constitutionally required prior approval from lawmakers or by expanding a narrow agreement beyond reasonable interpretations.

   Elected officials at almost all involved levels have been calling for expedited action along the threatened Montauk oceanfront in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. “We must act now,” Representative Tim Bishop and Senators Charles Schumer and Kristen Gillibrand said last month in a letter to the Army Corps of Engineers. Not so fast, we say.

   In terms of economic impact and value to residents, the proposed conversion of a 35,000-square-foot building in the East Hampton Town Industrial Park from a film and television studio to long-term storage should rank at the bottom of the list. Few jobs would be created, and they are likely to be low-paying. In community and cultural terms, storage is pretty much a black hole. We believe that the town could do a whole lot better.

   Sagaponack Village wants a police department of its own, or at least its village board and a number of residents do, though debate is ongoing. The arguments in favor of a force of the village’s own are compelling.

   Misplaced skepticism marred a meeting this week about an East Hampton Town effort to draft a wastewater management plan. Critics suggested, wrongly, that it was a clandestine effort to force scores of property owners to undertake expensive, unnecessary improvements to their septic systems, perhaps even one sold by a business with which a town consultant has a professional relationship.

   South Fork gas station operators are at it again. In his latest survey of the region’s at-the-pump prices, State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. found that residents and visitors in the Hamptons pay 15 cents a gallon more than the Long Island average, and a stunning 20 cents more than the rest of the state. Making things worse, station owners have kept their prices artificially inflated this summer, even though on the rest of Long Island the average fell by 9 cents since the previous survey.

   East Hampton Town officials find themselves in a bit of a self-created puzzle insofar as the increasing practice of construction and landscaping contractors storing work trucks and heavy equipment on residential lots. The law limits what can be done in some cases, but in others it is maddenly ineffective.

   As summer hits its August high notes, many readers have no doubt noticed the wild and recent proliferation of signs along roadsides in East Hampton Town. From Wainscott to Montauk, shoulders are littered with all sorts of commercial come-ons as well as businesses tarted up like a Nevada cathouse with sandwich-board festoonery, flags, and outdoor merchandise in the right of way. If you were thinking so far that this was yet another example of Town Hall ignoring its own regulations, you would be right.

   Sure, they may have been at the East Hampton Town-owned Duck Creek Farm near Three Mile Harbor to look at the art exhibited in a Parrish Art Museum Road Show on Saturday, but of equal and perhaps more long-lasting note was the reaction of many to the beautiful property itself.

   One of the smartest analysies of the traffic problem — and much else — plaguing the South Fork this year that we have seen so far came from an interesting source. In our letters to the editor this week you can read for yourself a take on what has gone wrong from Judi Desiderio, who runs a successful real estate firm here. She placed much of the blame on the rise of the Web-enabled short-term housing boom.

   Two major public entities, the Town of East Hampton and the Montauk Fire Department, have found themselves touched by an alleged $96 million Ponzi scheme involving the Panoramic View Resort and Residences in Montauk. And, knowing what has now been alleged, Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota must take a close look at whether local officials might have acted improperly.

   Consider if you will what East Hamptoners are saying about the state of things circa 2103. Looking over this week’s crop of letters to the editor and reading accounts of recent Demo­cratic Party “listen-ins,” we are struck by an overarching theme: The town seems out of control and no one in authority appears to be doing anything about it.

   The thing about the suddenly renewed discussion about trucks parked on bathing beaches is that 15 or 20 years ago East Hampton residents would not have been having this debate. But we are, and it is a symptom of an ever-growing summer population that even simple pleasures are now points of friction. Resolving the conflict is the job of town officials, who for the most part, have failed to show leadership in this regard.

   Several developments having to do with water pollution crossed the transom in recent days that deserve wide attention. The Peconic Baykeeper organization announced that, with the Long Island Soundkeeper, it will file a lawsuit seeking better state compliance with provisions of the federal Clean Water Act. Closer to home, the Concerned Citizens of Montauk and local Surfrider chapter released results of water testing that showed high bacteria levels at several locations.

   After putting up with years of annoyance, several East Hampton Town residents have begun organizing in an attempt to force elected officials to do something about noise from gas-powered leaf blowers. These activists can fairly speak on behalf of many others who are vexed by the racket from these machines, which are often used for everything from dusting driveways to drying rain-dampened sidewalks in front of shops. The campaign is overdue.

   Where some people hear noise, other people hear cash registers ringing, but as complaints pile up about excessive sounds this summer — especially in beleaguered Montauk — we can’t help but wonder if the pervasive din will begin to have a downward effect on real estate. In keeping with the theme of a community overrun and getting out of control, which we have heard in casual conversations just about everywhere in recent weeks, the general volume seems turned up to 11 (to give a tip of the cap to “This is Spinal Tap.”)

   In a letter to the Star last week, a writer made the observation that the Bluff Road, Amagansett, intersection with Atlantic Avenue was unacceptably dangerous, and he made a suggestion that the Town of East Hampton install four-way stop signs there. The letter was one of many we have received about traffic this summer, in keeping with the general sense that there are too many vehicles on the roads and several horrific accidents.

   Out of curiosity last week, we asked for a copy of an official list of taxi companies registered to do business in East Hampton Town. Interest has surged this summer in what taxi drivers do for several reasons, most having to do with mounting public annoyance, and it was fascinating to look over the business entities in the official registry. There are 86 outfits on the list, with almost 550 registered drivers active here — stunning numbers by any measure.