Editorials

   An article in these pages this week about local enforcement of regulations governing access to businesses and public accommodations for people with disabilities points to a looming problem: East Hampton Town departments have been left unable to provide needed services as a result of three years of budget-cutting. Seeking compliance with disabilities laws, both local and federal, would take a considerable investment of time and staff, something the departments involved lack.

   It is ironic that in a place that boasts New York State’s biggest-dollar commercial fishing port and is surrounded by a natural abundance of fish in inshore waters it can be oddly difficult for consumers and restaurants to buy local, fresh-caught fish and shellfish. Most of what is landed here is taken by trucks to the Hunts Point reincarnation of the Fulton Fish Market, where it can be put back on trucks and brought back to the South Fork.

   The take-away from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s proposal to toughen the state’s public-official corruption law, announced yesterday, is that things must be really bad in the Albany halls of power these days.

    If the legislation outlined this week eventually passes the Legislature as the governor envisions, it would expand the definition of bribery to make the “intent” to influence an official or, conversely, an official’s willingness to be influenced, a felony, provided the value of the bribe was in excess of $5,000. Under

   If the Sag Harbor Village Board approves its tentative 2013-14 budget, the village’s police force will drop below the level necessary to maintain patrols. At least that was the message delivered by Sag Harbor Police Chief Tom Fabiano to the board in a letter last week. On the other side of the debate, Mayor Brian Gilbride and Trustee Ed Gregory appear to be using the budget process as a cudgel to win concessions from the police during contract negotiations. It is risky brinksmanship, a game that Sag Harbor residents and taxpayers should take seriously.

   On Tuesday, the Associated Press announced that it would no longer sanction the use of the words “illegal immigrant” in its news reports. This comes after rights groups pointed out that the common label is offensive to workers and others in this country whose guilt can be determined only by the courts — not by reporters and editors. It is an interesting shift wherever one stands on the issue of immigration, and it could herald a change in public opinion.

   The East Hampton Town Trustees’ recent review of a disruptive form of shellfish harvesting was overdue. There have long been quiet concerns among some observers that powering, or churning, for soft-shelled clams, or steamers, did more harm than good.

   Whether it is a petition in Montauk, pleading with the school board to increase the tax levy to keep class sizes small, or a parent uprising in East Hampton over the ouster of the elementary school principal, democracy in the districts is in good evidence this season, at least in the sense that the aggrieved have exercised their right to speak their minds. Not so among some school board members, who apparently think the position gives them the right, if not the obligation, to conduct important business in secret.

   A milestone on the Congressional scene came to our attention recently: Loosely speaking, you can say the Democratic Caucus in the House of Representatives is majority minority. Of the 200 House Democrats, 147 were either African-Americans, Latinos, Asians, women, or gay. A Latino man, Rep. Xavier Becerra of California, heads the House Democratic Caucus.

   After several weeks of deliberation, East Hampton Village officials are poised to further limit dogs on the ocean beaches between Georgica and Two Mile Hollow. At a recent meeting, the village board scheduled an April 19 hearing on a code amendment that would require people who bring dogs to the beach to keep them on leashes until they are at least 500 feet from the road-ends and parking lots during the hours when pets are allowed on the sand.

   It has been easy to get swept up in the excitement surrounding the selection of a new leader for the Catholic Church. Though Argentina, where the new pope, Pope Francis, comes from, is far away, he seems one of our own, a man of the Americas, the son of immigrants to this hemisphere, as well as an important, if perhaps indirect, voice and role model for a growing number of Spanish-speaking Catholic residents in the United States as a whole, as well as here on the East End.

   An announcement Monday by Suffolk Legislator Jay Schneiderman that he will not be a candidate for East Hampton Town supervisor comes as something of a disappointment. Knowing the headaches of the job all too well from his two terms in the post before winning a county seat, Mr. Schneiderman may well have been shrewd to opt out of a bid for the Republican nomination. This apparently leaves the local G.O.P.

   Just over 10 years ago this week, we wrote on this page that the Bush administration’s push toward an invasion of Iraq might do more to harm the cause of world peace than advance it. History has borne out the fears of many (if far too few in national positions of authority or in control of major media) that the war was unjustified, unwise, and a waste of untold lives.

   East Hampton Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson famously once said, “We are the most transparent.” His point, of course, was that Town Hall during his tenure, in his view, has been going above and beyond the open-government mandate. Perhaps in one sense, if not the one intended, what he said was perfectly true: However loud the clamor and din in local politics, it has always been easy to discern the ideology-before-constituents philosophy behind much of what Mr. Wilkinson does. His motives and beliefs have never been obscured.

   As most anyone who has walked on the bay or ocean beaches here in the last week or so will attest, the past few decades’ development of our shoreline has finally, inevitably, run smack up against the almighty, eternal power of Mother Nature. That the challenges presented by the dual threats of intense coastal storms and rising sea level are daunting is an understatement. Dealing with the policy implications and the delicate balance between the public’s right to access the shore, the rights of private-property interests, and the interests of taxpayers will be incredibly difficult.

   With a strongly worded letter from the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee, the East Hampton Town Board cannot now assume that a plan to make a host of legal problems disappear at Cyril’s Fish House on Napeague — and allow the seasonally overcrowded business to grow — has much, if any, public support. Nonetheless, the board is set to go ahead with a public hearing tonight on an ill-advised scheme to downzone the parcel on which the bar and restaurant sits and an undeveloped lot next door from a residential to business classification.

   In the last several weeks, The Star has begun offering a laundry list of some of the qualifications candidates for East Hampton Town office must have to merit serious consideration in the November election. Our previous calls were for bringing civility back to Town Hall, demonstrating the vision to take on climate change, and, in general, restoring the rule of law.

   In recent editions The Star has suggested priorities that should be on the respective political parties’ wish lists as they narrow their choices for candidates in East Hampton Town’s November election. Last week we said town leaders must show the ability to deal with preparing for climate change; the week before we talked about civility — particularly in Town Hall, which has devolved into a hissing pit of vendetta-nursing and vituperation. Today we consider the rule of law.

   One of the weirder disputes to bubble up in the lengthy history of animus between the East Hampton Town Trustees and the town board came to light two weeks ago with the disclosure that Town Hall had sent the trustees a bill for cutting up and hauling away a dead whale after it washed up on the beach on Jan. 13. Though the affair is odd at several levels, it may have a hidden benefit for the trustees, one that may make them actually eager to cover the $7,500 cost even though they had nothing to do with it.

   Last week we wrote that a prerequisite for office-seekers in the November election must be a demonstrated ability to be civil. This week we would like to bring attention to climate change and sea-level rise.

    At this point all but a narrowing fringe agree that climate change is a pressing danger, especially in coastal communities like ours. Erosion, already a fact of life along these shores, is predicted to accelerate over time. The number and intensity of storms are expected to rise as well, putting Long Island at increased risk of catastrophe.

   Another oddball case reached the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals this week. (Ever notice how the most controversial ones tend to be scheduled for the depths of February?) The question put before the board Tuesday was whether the Dunes, a high-priced, inpatient drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in a residential neighborhood in Northwest Woods, can continue to operate legally as a semi-public facility without a town permit. The town’s top building inspector says it cannot; the Dunes’s lawyers say the question is irrelevant.

   East Hampton Village appears to be getting serious about new rules for dogs on its ocean beaches. This difficult undertaking is, unfortunately, overdue as previous efforts, both by officials and dog lovers, have proven inadequate. Strong feelings are likely to meet any plan to tighten regulations, but as the use of the beaches increases, how they are used and by what species must be reconsidered.

   At East Hampton Town Hall these days, when you think you have seen it all, someone down there on Pantigo Road goes and does something really unexpected. This time it involves a dead whale, heavy equipment, and who pays the bill.

   “Just hang in there, kiddo” was the parting shot from Supervisor Bill Wilkinson to wrap up a sharp-toned exchange with Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc at last Thursday’s East Hampton Town Board meeting. Unfortunately, this kind of puerile jab is all too frequent among the town’s elected leaders.

   Pretty much everyone who follows such things has noticed by now the starkly uneven way East Hampton Town’s building and zoning laws are applied, particularly when it comes to Montauk. How you are treated apparently depends on who you know — and how deep your pockets are. And right now there is probably no sharper contrast than that involving the Beach House hotel-slash-club and the Montauk Brewing Company.

   Finally someone in authority, in this case, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, is talking sense about rebuilding storm-damaged properties in New York City and on Long Island. In a meeting in Washington, D.C., on Friday, Gov. Cuomo outlined his idea that as much as $400 million of Hurricane Sandy federal aid be set aside for buying flood-zone houses made unlivable, knocking them down, and leaving the properties vacant. The concept is a welcome antidote to the rebuild-at-any-cost approach, and, if carried through, would save money — and lives.

   The great scramble to spend will begin in earnest now, following Monday’s passage in the United States Senate of a $50.5 billion aid package for areas hit by late October’s Hurricane Sandy. The challenge is to make sure the money will be used in a sensible manner and with the long term in mind. In East Hampton and elsewhere along the coast, with pledges to rebuild houses, businesses, and infrastructure, the outlook is not good.  

   In years past, it was the Town of East Hampton that led the way among local governments in providing affordable, or so-called work-force, housing for its residents. Now East Hampton Village is finding a way to inch into this role. The first step, though it appears minor, could actually be significant over time and make a meaningful addition to the stock of reasonably priced rental apartments in the village.

   The South Fork’s “mutual aid” system, in which the various local ambulance services back one another up in the event that a squad cannot be mobilized, was called into question recently after a 97-year-old man injured in a fall waited for more than 20 minutes in the rain. This example is not the only time a victim has waited what seems like a long time for a ride to the hospital.

   One thing is clear about the East Hampton Town Trustees: They are the proprietors of a gold mine in the form of sand, which can be dug and sold to oceanfront property owners whose houses are threatened by erosion. How officials have been going about divvying up this increasingly valuable commodity, however, leaves room for improvement.

   The Sag Harbor Zoning Board of Appeals has been asked to give approval to a controversial project at the Harbor Heights service station on Hampton Street, on the East Hampton side of the village. In a plan put forward by the property’s owner, John Leonard, the existing service station would be razed and a new, larger one — with a convenience store, roughly the functional size of the village’s 7-Eleven — would rise on the site.