Editorials

East Hampton Town police dispatchers were kept busy by a prodigious pace of calls last week; of these, a substantial portion were about noise as people kicked out the jams, celebrating summer and the beginning of Fourth of July week. The party really didn’t get going until last Thursday after about 8 p.m. From there it was thumping bass from Old House Landing Road to Montauk Downs.

In the midst of a growing struggle to free themselves from the most powerful nation on earth, the American colonial rebels recognized something about tyranny that reverberates in our time. It was not that there would be leaders who sought to concentrate power in themselves, but that there would always be people who sought the heavy hand of authoritarianism.

A day after an East Hampton Democratic primary, voters could be forgiven for wondering what all the fuss was about. Candidates from what might be considered the old-line part of the party won with ease. In what appeared to be a very strong turnout for a down-ballot primary, the East Hampton Reform Democrats’ trustee challengers were defeated. The strength of an activated Democratic base could also be seen in Andrew Strong’s win over East Hampton Town Justice Lisa R. Rana, a Republican who had sought cross-endorsement.

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 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!”

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

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.

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. 

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.

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. 

Above all else, the East End grumbles about traffic on Memorial Day weekend. Routine errands are run in haste during the previous workweek or put off until Tuesday. If one does venture out, it’s as if on a polar expedition, with circling to find a spot like parking-lot polka. The traffic control officers do their best to keep things moving. Fender-benders abound. Tempers rise. “Who are these people?” we ask. “Where can they be going?” These questions may never be answered.

More seriously, motor vehicles remain one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases.

Alarmingly, the White House appears intent on creating conditions for armed conflict in the Mideast by escalating a confrontation with Iran.

In the annals of jaw-dropping East Hampton political miscalculation, the bugging of the town trustees office is a new low.

The senseless destruction of the Maidstone Park ball field last week caused outrage and disbelief. But it also should serve as a reminder of how important organized youth baseball and softball are in this community, and the admirable commitment of the adult coaches who make it all possible.

Albany could make New York’s roads safer with one simple measure: reinstating rules that allowed people who are not in the United States legally to apply for driver’s licenses.

Why should some residents hate summer here? We think this is a shame, and that it is the responsibility of the East Hampton Town Board and political challengers to consider a recalibration.

The unfortunate reappearance of measles in this country should send a clear message that science works. It also has a bearing on several other controveries that actually should be nonissues — climate science, for one.

A bill signed by Governor Cuomo sends an important message that New York wants no part of the White House’s push to reopen offshore federal waters to oil drilling.

We can understand how the people and groups asking to limit hunting on East Hampton Town’s lands to just one day per weekend feel. But that does not mean we agree.

This is hogwash, but that nearly everyone now in federal government — elected, unelected, and seeking the Democratic nomination to run for president — has so far gone along with it is the genuine crisis.

East Hampton Town officials should tell Tesla to take a hike. The company recently renewed a pitch to install a charging station for its cars on public property in Montauk.

In the absence of a meaningful top-of-the-ticket campaign for East Hampton Town Board this year, the time is right for voters to focus their attention on how the town trustees are chosen.

About every expert on coastal erosion and sea level rise will tell you that the only solution for at-risk areas is to retreat. But right now, the only significant retreat appears to be by the East Hampton Town Board, which collapsed notably amid ill-informed pressure from some Montauk residents and resort owners who objected to a part of a long-range planning study.

In the Notre Dame Cathedral fire, there is a reminder of how buildings can hold a community together. Churches, old houses, beloved places provide a feeling of permanence in an impermanent world. They give us a sense of who we are, simply because they are an icon we can call our own. For France and for much of the world, as one man on a Paris street told The New York Times this week, the Notre Dame tragedy was like losing a member of the family.

The East Hampton Town Trustees appear close to drastically changing the way they manage the rented sites of the old fishing cottages at Lazy Point.