Editorials

Social distancing has appeared to slow the transmission of Covid-19, but the number of new cases remains alarmingly high.   

Writing in the first person, East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc issued a rare press release this week listing some of the things he has been up to since the Covid-19 crisis began.

This is a stressful time. Giving when one can or lending a hand in other ways can remind us that we are all in this together.

Covid-19 orders to close schools, businesses, and houses of worship have revealed surprising aspects of contemporary life in our region, aspects worthy of a deeper look at how readily eastern Long Islanders have taken to the outdoors.

On the South Fork, almost all storefronts are dark and workplaces closed as part of a statewide effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus. But landscapers appear to be a large and visible exception. This puts workers, among them some of the area’s more vulnerable members of the labor force, at increased risk of exposure.     

It cannot be stressed often enough that maintaining quarantine conditions is critical now that Suffolk's COVID-19 cases have grown to nearly three times the available hospital beds in the county.     

In a region dependent on the service economy, when demand drops to near zero, so too does the income many East End residents need to get by.

The problem evident now is that the towns failed to calculate the cost of ever-increasing residential development. It has long been clear that in the critical areas of water supply, pollution, and emergency medical services the ultimate effects of growth have not been adequately anticipated.

Many people who work in the trades on the East End -- painters, carpenters, and other hardworking folks who frequently cope with fumes and dust on job sites -- might have a box or two of spare N95 masks in their storerooms or the back of their work vans.

The Star would like to issue a call directly to tradespeople, asking them to please look into the back of those trucks, the bottom of the closets, or their tool boxes to see if they have any unused N95 masks still in their box or plastic packaging.

Local food production was not always a sure thing. There was a time when development threatened to gobble up the remaining farmland on the two Forks.

Despite the acrimony and a surprise third candidate, the prospect of a contested election for East Hampton Village mayor has already proven to be a good thing, at least for a clash of ideas.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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