Editorials

Now is the time for town and village officials in East Hampton to think about beach season and if existing bonfire policies are adequate. We believe they are not.

No sooner did we begin writing about the differences in village and town sign-law enforcement than a new annoyance arose. If you’ve been out and about in the past few weeks, you’ve probably noticed them — new street-number signs placed by a certain home security company on which a red oval corporate logo is actually larger than the digits.

In 1918, the word “influenza” did not appear in The East Hampton Star until Sept. 20. On that day, the news from Amagansett led with a short note saying George V. Schellinger had been sick for several days. His was the first of many mentions over the next year and a half for the newspaper, which we have been looking through as a new pandemic looms.

East Hampton Airport could be closed. That was once so far-fetched that it was not considered a serious idea. That has all changed as industry, pilots, and the Federal Aviation Administration have made meaningful noise limits and flight reductions all but out of reach.

Shopkeepers in East Hampton Village are not supposed to display wares outside their premises. Nor are they supposed to place signs in public view without meeting several standards. This even applies to “open” signs, as the owner of a high-end toy store on Park Place has learned.

The stores have all but run out of hand sanitizer as fears of the coronavirus increase. A friend we spoke with said someone he knew, noticing that even Amazon was out, was able to order a vat from an industrial supply house for herself.

Unrepentant, Juan Figueroa, the owner of a modern house in Springs who hosted illegal for-profit parties there last summer, thought a $32,000 town settlement was well worth it. According to Page Six, he declared, “I would have paid anything to never see their unhappy resentful faces again.”

Local news organizations are at the heart of a healthy, vibrant community, and readers who support them with their subscription dollars are, too. We thank you.

Census 2020 is coming, but many East End residents are at risk of not being counted.

We find ourselves agreeing with Montauk business owners who object to a bike-share company that would like to set up shop there, so to speak. They say the start-up would eat into their rentals, which in at least one case, the Montauk Cycle Company, could be as much as a third of its revenue.

Suffolk residents who took advantage of a septic-system replacement program deserved to be upset about having to pay income taxes on grants they received from the county.

Cannabis is coming. That was one of the key takeaways from a recent forum in Sag Harbor on the future of marijuana cultivation and products in New York State.

A warm stretch in winter seems as good a time as any to think about fish, carp specifically. A news items came past our Twitter feed the other day about how the federal government has spent hundreds of millions on controlling the destructive fish — much of it to support efforts to keep carp out of the Great Lakes. Why does this matter here?

A new dual-language program for East Hampton students is an example of how schools can, and should, grow with the times. At John M. Marshall Elementary, a majority of kindergartners are thriving by having half their instruction in Spanish and half in English. The benefits are already obvious.

At a recent Amagansett School Board meeting there was discussion of putting extra money into the budget in case new students enter the district after an affordable housing development there begins welcoming tenants. At the same meeting, the board also set a competitive rate for out-of-district parents who pay to send their kids to Amagansett.

Albany should have included a funding mechanism to ease the burden on local jurisdictions as they figure out how to cope with the increased paperwork. This is an issue that can be solved.

Volunteering is its own reward — and keeps you healthy and active, too. Finding new ways to connect people to projects would benefit everyone.

Why a proposed senior citizens center needs to be quite so large is a question that ought to be reconsidered.

A struggle in the Shinnecock Hills over the remains of native people points to the absence in New York State of effective protection of important cultural sites.

It is almost inconceivable that the future of a grand jewel among protected lands on the entire East Coast remains in doubt, but though there is hope that Plum Island could someday be preserved, it is far from certain.

New York State lawmakers are likely to revisit a new bail reform law that went into effect on Jan. 1. The law eliminated bail money for most arrests and took away judges’ longstanding discretion on whether or not an individual should be held pending a formal court date or post a sum of cash designed to assure the alleged offender’s return to face charges. In some cases, defendants might be tempted to leave town, hoping to outrun the law; in others, police and critics of the law say, they might reoffend.

Pity the drivers who must daily wend the pitted hellscape that is the East Hampton-Sag Harbor Road, better known as New York State Route 114.

East Hampton Village has a new official flag depicting a windmill, the ocean, and a passing seagull overhead. It is attractive and it also contains an error.

Far be it for us not to comment when a bit of oyster news crosses the transom.

Among his greatest blunders, President Donald J. Trump’s decision to assassinate the top Iranian army commander may prove to have the longest lasting consequences, both in the Middle East and in this country.

East Hampton Village Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. is now former Mayor Rickenbach after stepping down on Dec. 20, closing out 27 years in the post. Mr. Rickenbach first began service when he joined the village Police Department in 1958. He became a village trustee in 1988. He has seen the village in times of boom and bust and ably oversaw and balanced the desires of residents first and foremost with summer visitors and businesses. This has been no simple task, but Mayor Rickenbach handled it with aplomb, and with the continued support of the community.

Fires in two huge South Fork houses, one in Bridgehampton on Dec. 19 and another in Water Mill on Saturday, should remind residents and visitors of the tremendous commitment of our volunteer firefighters and ambulance personnel.

It may be self-serving for us to speak about the role of the local press in today’s closed-loop media ecosystems, but several responses from readers last week to an editorial about the sharp rise of anti-Semitism and its ties to a tone set by the president got us thinking.

As 2019 rumbles to an end, it is fair to think about the year to come and to make wishes about things that we think should change and things that we would like to see improve.

No matter what the project is, there are always going to be people opposed to it. It is just human nature to watch out for one’s own interests, to suggest that new infrastructure and essential services are fine as long as they are put somewhere else.