Editorials

   Misplaced skepticism marred a meeting this week about an East Hampton Town effort to draft a wastewater management plan. Critics suggested, wrongly, that it was a clandestine effort to force scores of property owners to undertake expensive, unnecessary improvements to their septic systems, perhaps even one sold by a business with which a town consultant has a professional relationship.

   South Fork gas station operators are at it again. In his latest survey of the region’s at-the-pump prices, State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. found that residents and visitors in the Hamptons pay 15 cents a gallon more than the Long Island average, and a stunning 20 cents more than the rest of the state. Making things worse, station owners have kept their prices artificially inflated this summer, even though on the rest of Long Island the average fell by 9 cents since the previous survey.

   East Hampton Town officials find themselves in a bit of a self-created puzzle insofar as the increasing practice of construction and landscaping contractors storing work trucks and heavy equipment on residential lots. The law limits what can be done in some cases, but in others it is maddenly ineffective.

   As summer hits its August high notes, many readers have no doubt noticed the wild and recent proliferation of signs along roadsides in East Hampton Town. From Wainscott to Montauk, shoulders are littered with all sorts of commercial come-ons as well as businesses tarted up like a Nevada cathouse with sandwich-board festoonery, flags, and outdoor merchandise in the right of way. If you were thinking so far that this was yet another example of Town Hall ignoring its own regulations, you would be right.

   Sure, they may have been at the East Hampton Town-owned Duck Creek Farm near Three Mile Harbor to look at the art exhibited in a Parrish Art Museum Road Show on Saturday, but of equal and perhaps more long-lasting note was the reaction of many to the beautiful property itself.

   One of the smartest analysies of the traffic problem — and much else — plaguing the South Fork this year that we have seen so far came from an interesting source. In our letters to the editor this week you can read for yourself a take on what has gone wrong from Judi Desiderio, who runs a successful real estate firm here. She placed much of the blame on the rise of the Web-enabled short-term housing boom.

   Two major public entities, the Town of East Hampton and the Montauk Fire Department, have found themselves touched by an alleged $96 million Ponzi scheme involving the Panoramic View Resort and Residences in Montauk. And, knowing what has now been alleged, Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota must take a close look at whether local officials might have acted improperly.

   Consider if you will what East Hamptoners are saying about the state of things circa 2103. Looking over this week’s crop of letters to the editor and reading accounts of recent Demo­cratic Party “listen-ins,” we are struck by an overarching theme: The town seems out of control and no one in authority appears to be doing anything about it.

   The thing about the suddenly renewed discussion about trucks parked on bathing beaches is that 15 or 20 years ago East Hampton residents would not have been having this debate. But we are, and it is a symptom of an ever-growing summer population that even simple pleasures are now points of friction. Resolving the conflict is the job of town officials, who for the most part, have failed to show leadership in this regard.

   Several developments having to do with water pollution crossed the transom in recent days that deserve wide attention. The Peconic Baykeeper organization announced that, with the Long Island Soundkeeper, it will file a lawsuit seeking better state compliance with provisions of the federal Clean Water Act. Closer to home, the Concerned Citizens of Montauk and local Surfrider chapter released results of water testing that showed high bacteria levels at several locations.

   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.