Editorials

It has usually been predictable that winter weather will arrive on the South Fork at around the end of January. This year, like last, saw a relatively benign December and first three weeks of January. Then, on Jan. 22 and 23, snow arrived in a storm that set records as nearby as La Guardia Airport.

As small pieces become known of the story of Ned, a free black man who lived in East Hampton during slavery’s waning days in the North, a larger question — about the scores of other African-Americans who lived here and how to memorialize them — has begun to come into focus.

I am not sure if I can speak for even a small subset of newspaper people, but those of us who work at the Star office like to surround ourselves with things we pick up or have used in our work.

It was perhaps only in passing that East Hampton Town supervisor Larry Cantwell mused last summer about a program by which troublesome nightclubs that draw the transient party crowd could be eliminated. But relatively little has been done about the nightlife issue since a massive public outcry at a July meeting in Montauk

So what gives? Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo says he wants the state to spend $3 billion to redo the gloomy Penn Station in Manhattan, and at the same time he has his hands on the throats of school districts, which are being squeezed by his signature tax cap.

A reader sent in a photograph this week taken on Gerard Drive in Springs on Saturday during the blizzard. Taken roughly around the time of the morning high tide on what is known as the Second Causeway, it shows a raging Gardiner’s Bay surging where the road ought to be. Only you can’t see the road, only riled dark-gray water and feathery white spume.

Hurricane Sandy, which had a significant, though not catastrophic, impact on the East End, has been described as a turning point for coastal policy — only it’s not true here on the highly vulnerable East End. Instead, local officials have been mired in a 1960s-era strategy embodied by the United States Army Corps of Engineers downtown Montauk project. There seems to be little more than a hope that sometime this year the Army Corps will unveil a magical plan for a vast undertaking for most of Long Island’s south shore. This is a dangerous failure of leadership.

A request from Sag Harbor Village to the East Hampton Town Trustees to discuss ways to manage an all-but-unregulated seasonal anchorage is an example of how demands on the area’s natural resources and infrastructure have outpaced government control.

Sag Harbor officials are moving ahead with new, tough rules to regulate the size of houses in reaction to a spate of super-sizing, which has left many aghast over changes to their beloved village. The changes are overdue and should, perhaps, be made even tougher.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo renewed his push for a smaller New York this week. Well, not exactly, but for a smaller bite into its residents’ pocketbooks, to be achieved through municipal consolidation. The governor is putting the state’s money where his mouth is, offering a $20 million reward to the local government partnership that achieves the greatest reduction in property taxes. Here on the South Fork, when one thinks about consolidation, one thinks of school districts, among which taxing disparity can be stunning.

Come January and February — and, come to think of it, March — when the days are cold and the nights colder, cultural events are few and far between. This isn’t really surprising; half the year-round population of the South Fork is in Florida or Rincon, Puerto Rico, and the other half doesn’t feel like leaving the house. Yet for those motivated to put on an overcoat and venture out, there are options.

East Hampton Town’s planned purchase of the development rights on the 35-acre Whitmores landscaping nursery on Long Lane presents a dilemma. On the one hand, the $3.2 million deal would prevent the site’s ever being turned into a housing development. On the other, it does not appear to do much for the town as a whole, provide public access, or assure the land’s return to crop growing. A hearing on the purchase is scheduled for tonight at 6:30 in Town Hall.

That the East Hampton School District might radically overhaul its entire energy and heating approach is intriguing news. If the school board signs on, Johnson Controls, a leading national firm, would install 634-kilowatts of solar panels atop the district’s three schools. It would also improve the way oil is burned for heating, decrease heat loss and gain in classroom windows, and seek to make doors more airtight. The heating systems in the three buildings would have better insulation and power-wasting light fixtures would be replaced.

Since its start, the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton Recenter has never quite seemed to get it right.

With this edition, The East Hampton Star celebrates its 130th anniversary. Much has changed about the communities The Star covers since its first 500 copies were published on Dec. 26, 1885, but much remains the same.

For East Hampton Town officials, these are the easy days, but January and February’s quiet pace will soon yield to frenetic spring preparations for the season to come.

Clean water is a vital but feel-good goal. Reflecting on past examples of the misuse of government funds is of the highest priority as officials prepare proposals for voter approval in November 2016.

A little-noticed aspect in the debate about East Hampton Town’s newly approved landlords’ registry is that even after it goes into effect in February, the town’s rental laws will remain among the most generous on eastern Long Island.

New drones weighing more than half a pound must be registered with the F.A.A., and the agency has reminded owners that drones cannot be flown within five miles of an airport, unless air traffic controllers are notified in advance.

At a time when terrorist attacks both abroad and at home have rattled anyone who is paying attention, it is perhaps understandable that loud nativist voices have dominated the conversation. Measures of support for Donald Trump’s presidential bid were not negatively affected after he called for blocking Muslims from entering the United States. Several recent polls have shown considerable Republican approval of Mr. Trump’s idea, as un-American as it might be.

Over the past few years, it has been disappointing to listen as one lawmaker after another uttered the “I’m not a scientist” refrain to sow doubt about climate change, when no less than 97 percent of actively publishing climate scientists agree that warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities.

Town officials in East Hampton and Southampton are facing a challenge to public confidence following the death amid questionable circumstances of a second immigrant from Latin America that was deemed a suicide. The quicker that police are able to regain the trust of the region’s Spanish-speaking residents, the better. Unfortunately, their outreach so far has been wanting.

The South Fork could, within just a few years, see a significant amount of its electricity generated by offshore windmills. Potentially, this is good news for reducing the carbon emissions associated with global warming as well as other forms of atmospheric pollution. But it is far from a sure thing.

One of the recurring themes in the debate about the East Hampton Town registry of rental properties has been that the members of the town board have ignored the views of those who have spoken out against it. Going further, some speakers at town board meetings, as well as other observers, have argued that a show of opponents’ hands should be the determining factor. To do anything else would be tyranny, they say. Well, maybe. But a brief civics reminder should dispel that particular conclusion.

As panic grips some segments of America over the idea of allowing Syrian or other Middle Eastern refugees to settle in the United States, a few simple observations should be kept in mind. The statistics show, notably, that the risk of a terrorist being among those who pass through the rigorous vetting already in place is extremely low.

As world leaders meet in Paris this week to try to agree on a meaningful strategy to combat global warming, those of us who live on the East End should pay close attention. Eastern Long Island is especially vulnerable to sea level rise, one of the byproducts of a hotter planet. Current and future officials will face budget-busting challenges in the years ahead, as well as painful choices about whether to protect private property at the expense of common assets such as the region’s beaches and public waterfronts.

Now that the absentee votes for East Hampton Town Trustee have been counted, the stunning reversal of fortune for the board’s longstanding Republican majority has become clear.

Among the pleasures of the East End are its clear skies and the notable absence of man-made lighting to spoil the view. East Hampton Village has taken this to heart — though some of its own municipal lighting could be better — and is working on new regulations, which, apparently, will conform to Dark Skies Association standards.

With the naming of A.J. McGuire to lead the Sag Harbor Police Department, the village’s board of trustees has effectively put to an end to any question about the force’s future.

As attention continues to be focused on the Army Corps project on the Montauk beach, it is vital that the far more encompassing problem of sea level rise gets attention.