Editorials

   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.

   Andrew Revkin, a former science and environment reporter for The New York Times who now blogs on nytimes.com, this week lauded the handful of downtown East Hampton Village businesses that had their doors closed on a recent hot summer day, but he called out with displeasure the many other shops whose air-conditioning was pouring out onto the street. A letter-writer in these pages this week also decried the bad habit of some retailers, calling the waste of the electricity needed to power all the cooling “shameful.”

   Prospects of a solution to the problem of what appears to be an exploding deer population here remain uncertain despite the release last month of a management report that was supposed to provide one.

   Locals say it every summer: They have never, ever seen it so crowded. Only this year, the summer of 2013, we think they really mean it.

   Doesn’t anyone in East Hampton Town Hall do his or her homework? That is a fair question given the disregard for protected farmland that has become apparent recently.

   On a busy summer’s day, our local ambulance squads respond to an ever-increasing number of calls. Some of the emergencies they rush to are just that — matters of life and death. Other calls are less urgent, but the responders treat everyone with the utmost care. These volunteers are exemplary citizens, each having undergone dozens, if not hundreds, of hours’ training and refresher courses, as well as having devoted long periods of time to taking care of gear and answering calls.

   Many New Yorkers, whose state was among those in recent years that turned a long-overdue gender-blind eye on marriage, rightly celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision last week on the Defense of Marriage Act. Locally, we were pleased to learn that the plaintiff in this landmark case was a part-time Southampton resident, Edith Windsor.

    On a smaller scale, but also of major significance, at least for the South Fork, is the opening this month in Sag Harbor of the area’s first support and social center for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender young people.

   By a strict party-line vote, the East Hampton Town Board approved a giant party called Shark Attack Sounds for the Fourth of July weekend in Montauk despite obvious concerns that the event had grown too large to be held either at its original location on East Lake Drive or at the Montauk Yacht Club.     

   There are perhaps hundreds of people engaged in the South Fork’s underground housing economy, at least if the online listings on Craigslist, Airbnb, and others are to be believed. An interesting account appeared in this newspaper last week about the now-ubiquitous short-term rental, in which landlords charge hundreds of dollars a night for temporary stays, turning ordinary houses on streets much like yours, no doubt, into hotels or motels, for all intents and purposes. What is baffling is why it is all so out in the open, despite local regulations barring the practice.

   New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has the right idea about sea-level rise, global warming, and the threat of catastrophic storms. East Hampton Town, and to a similar degree other local governments, have so far pretended these problems do not exist, although they may simply be paralyzed by their enormity. The discrepancy, however, is startling.

   The juxtaposition could not be more stark: East Hampton Town does not take adequate care of the public bathing beaches it already has and yet town officials appear to be thinking seriously about adding more. We say, not so fast. A little housekeeping and assumption-checking needs to occur first.

   Sag Harbor voters will choose a mayor and two board members on Tuesday at a pivotal time for the village. 

   Four candidates are vying for mayor: the two-term incumbent, Brian Gilbride, Pierce Hance, who held the post in the 1990s, Sandra Schroeder, who was the village clerk for many years, and Bruce Tait, the chairman of the village’s harbor committee. For us, the choice comes down to Mr. Hance or Mr. Tait; Mr. Gilbride has been too divisive a figure to stay on.

   Now in its second season, the Montauk Beach House, a hotel, bar, and music venue, remains in the news for good reason: How the modest former Ronjo Motel turned into a far larger business complex with only the barest of planning review is a key question for East Hampton Town officials — and the electorate.

   Like a missing tooth in a boxer’s smile, a gap in the notably verdant farmland along the Sag Harbor Road in East Hampton is a telling sight. This year’s potato crop is leafing out around the one-acre plot off Route 114 near Stephen Hand’s Path, but only a few weeds have sprouted in what is an abandoned and forlorn pit. Just how this hole came to be is no mystery: It was caused by a thoughtless road-drainage project. What is unacceptable and murky, however, is that nothing has been done to restore the site or to make amends for it.

   A photograph sent by a friend said it all. Visitors to Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett about an hour before sunset Saturday would have been treated to a mountain of garbage overflowing the metal bins and left haphazardly at the head of the parking lot. Looking closely at the photo, the preponderance of beer cans and empty cartons is apparent — most are Coors or Bud Light, which for some reason is the beverage of choice for the Indian Wells groups. A couple sits on a bench, taking in the evening air, just a few feet from the groaning bins.

   Earth-moving began this month on a long-delayed project to do something about persistent water pollution at Havens Beach, the Village of Sag Harbor’s sole bathing beach. This is good news — sort of. Unfortunately, it appears that after more than 25 years of unfulfilled promises and false starts, the work is not likely to be completed in time for the beginning of the swimming season.

   One thing should be clear to anyone in the audience (or watching on LTV). After yet another East Hampton Town Board meeting turned debacle it is more than time for Supervisor Bill Wilkinson and Councilwoman Theresa Quigley to call it quits. For all intents and purposes, they already have.

   One of the quirks of this admittedly quirky newspaper is that we leave the S off Ditch Plain in what we write. Almost everyone else calls that stretch of Montauk beach and the surrounding area Ditch Plains; we do not. To sharp-eyed readers this may seem to be a mistake, and, in fact, in conversation around the office the staff has been known to succumb. However, it was deemed long ago that the plain upon which the ditch or ditches were, was one, not many. Hence, it is Ditch Plain, not Plains. Or maybe it should even be Ditches Plain, really.

   Just in time for the beginning of the bathing and sunbathing season, Ditch Plain, one of East Hampton Town’s most popular beaches, will be, at least technically, off-limits to swimming.

   In an intriguing outcome to yesterday’s East Hampton School Board vote, residents opted for three newcomers, saying no thank you to one incumbent who has  strong ties to the community. This may well signal a level of anger with the district over its poorly handled, surprise demotion of Gina Kraus, the popular John M. Marshall Elementary School principal, as well as a long period this year when the East Hampton Middle School principal was absent for what was described as a medical problem.

   Much has been made about the Town of East Hampton seeking money from the Federal Aviation Administration to help pay for projects at the airport. According to both those who favor taking aid from Washington and those who do not, the funding comes with strings attached: The airport must be operated in the way the agency likes — and with only a minimal degree of local control. However, there seems to be what might be called a moral and ethical dimension to the question of what it really means to accept financial help from outside.

   Having watched the workings of school boards here for as long as we have, one thing has become obvious: The chummy closeness between elected board members and district administrators is not necessarily a good thing. With this in mind, the over-arching yardstick, if you will, with which we think voters should measure candidates for the boards in Tuesday’s votes is independence. The question should not be who is easiest to get along with. Rather, it should be who is most likely to maintain sufficient distance.

   Of the twin scandals that broke for the Obama administration this week, the one that at this early point seems more troubling is that of the secret gathering of Associated Press phone records. That is not to say that the targeting of Tea Party and related groups by the Internal Revenue Service is defensible. Neither should have happened, but one appears to have been the result of a very bad decision at some so-far unknown level of bureaucracy.

   As the East Hampton Town Democrats move rapidly toward a Wednesday nominating convention for town offices, we find ourselves wondering again where the Republicans have gone, and why.

   Reading the tea leaves, it appears that East Hampton Town may be advertising for a town manager some time soon. Such was the unmistakable impression at a meeting Saturday at which the advantages of such a position were extolled. Hosted by the Group for Good Government, the League of Women Voters, and the East Hampton Business Alliance, a compelling, if mostly one-sided, take on the issue was heard.

   As spring on the South Fork really gets under way, a jarring discrepancy between how we think about this area and how run down it looks in many places is becoming apparent. For a resort and second-home community of such renown, East Hampton Town is looking a little down in the dumps these days. Litter is everywhere. An increasing welter of utility lines mar the overhead view. Roadsides, at least those outside the incorporated villages, are left without mowing or maintenance. Trees downed by Hurricane Sandy, now more than six months on, are still in evidence.

   Before food became such a phenomena that there were magazines devoted to it, before cooking shows, way back before locavore was even a word, the potato was king in these parts. We get a glimpse of those days around this time each spring when farmers begin seeding new crops. And it is right around now when passers-by cannot help but reflect on how wonderful it is that any land is left to plow. Thanks to the devotion of a small number of local farming families, there are still people living on the East End who know how it is done.