Madonna, the pop star known as the Material Girl for her 1985 hit, is becoming Exhibit A in the case for better protection of farmland. According to a tabloid story, she plans a tree nursery next to her Bridgehampton house on land whose development rights were purchased by the Town of Southampton for $10 million a few years ago. Madonna, who now owns the 24-acre property absent the ability to build on much of it, pays a pittance in property taxes because of its agricultural designation. It appears now that she is planting various evergreens more as a private buffer than as a valid commercial activity. She is hardly alone in seeking to use publicly preserved land for what appears to be a personal purpose.

For years, Southampton and East Hampton Towns, along with help from Suffolk County and the State of New York, crafted deals intended to keep the land in farming. Unfortunately, it hasn’t always worked out that way. Advocates, such as the Peconic Land Trust, have begun to push to reopen negotiations with the underlying property owners. One approach would be to offer additional money to assure that acreage is used only for crops. This would mean no more farmland turned into lawns, horse riding facilities, or tree-filled privacy screens. It’s a good idea and overdue.

At the outset of the development rights movement in the 1970s, no one anticipated the stratospheric climb in South Fork real estate values. The programs were believed to be a sure way to keep land in true food production. Particularly in eastern Southampton Town, dozens, if not hundreds of acres of land rights bought by local and state taxpayers have been turned instead into de facto private estates. It is a travesty and a failure, and there appears little remedy given the broad language used in many of the purchase agreements.

There is considerable irony that at a time when local agriculture is on an upswing in numbers of farmers as well as the food-to-table movement so much land, thought to be saved for a precise purpose, is unavailable for tilling. Any new rights acquisitions must be framed in a way to assure crop production. And where there is willingness among property owners, new deals should be struck. As for Madonna and her tree farm, we are not holding out much hope.

Faced with residents who have become more vocal about unwanted changes, the Sag Harbor Village Board is getting serious about how land-use decisions are made, and by whom. It is about time. The charm and sense of place that have characterized the village since its time as a thriving port is being threatened by overblown Hamptons-style construction, a good proportion of which, it is safe to say, is driven by speculators and investors.

The law does not allow building projects to be reviewed more strictly if they are for-profit ventures. Rather, the boards that oversee development, both in Sag Harbor and elsewhere, must apply the law and community common sense to each application, regardless of its backers’ motives. Noticing a spate of out-of-character projects and heeding protests from citizens, the Sag Harbor board recently shuffled its zoning and other appointed boards, bringing back some experienced hands to steady the ship. This includes appointing Anthony Brandt and Christopher Leonard to the board of historic preservation and architectural review and hiring an architectural historian, Zachary N. Studenroth, as a consultant.

Meanwhile, the board this week approved a construction moratorium on most new projects to buy time to study the staffing of the Building Department and possible zoning code changes. These moves strongly signal the village board’s interest in keeping Sag Harbor Sag Harbor — a place its residents and visitors know and love. They are to be commended.

By any measure, East Hampton Town officials have a massive crisis on their hands. Forget about the airport. Forget about pollution of the waterways. At this moment, right now, it’s all about quality of life and a widely shared sense that Town Hall is not able to keep up.

With roadways, food markets, police, emergency services, and other necessities seemingly at or beyond capacity, residents, notably in Montauk, have had enough. At Monday’s citizens advisory committee meeting there, talk was even heard about organized civil disobedience to drive the point home that it’s nearly past time to get tough.

Town Hall, under the leadership of the current board, has been chipping around the edges when what is really needed is aggressive large-scale action to turn the tide. Of course chipping around the edges is a far cry better than what occurred in previous years, when the doctrinaire and self-satisfied Wilkinson-dominated board all but gave away the farm. For years, we have been saying that East Hampton Town was running the risk of becoming a place unfamiliar to those who call it home; many are now saying that day has come.

Getting the chaos under control will take a multi-pronged approach. Among the options should be to immediately institute a rental registry that provides for inspections and stiff penalties for violations of occupancy and turnover limits. It used to be that the roads, shops, and beaches were filled only on weekends and during those two weeks in August when it seemed everyone was on vacation. Not anymore. It is thought that short-term rentals facilitated by the online marketplaces are at least a significant part of the problem.

Legal remedies are necessary for the town to get serious. Think of the way the town acted against loud aircraft and out-of-town taxi companies. One approach should be to pursue a court injunction blocking Airbnb, HomeAway, and Vacation Rental by Owner, among others, from enabling prohibited multiple short-term rentals within the town. Officials should also forward the names and addresses of landlords suspected of running what are basically illegal businesses to the Internal Revenue Service and to Suffolk County, asking it to investigate whether any taxes are owed.

At the same time, the town must immediately and sharply increase enforcement personnel, with a particular focus on noise. The town sets decibel limits for readings taken at a property line; these should be taken seriously. Taxpayers might well support a town budget that puts residents’ peace and quiet as a top priority by hiring more seasonal ordinance enforcement and police personnel — and they should be asked. But in the meantime, existing officers have to be instructed to clamp down on the private use of public roadways and sidewalks, as well as the improper expansion of bar service to outdoor decks and private parking lots.

 The town could also apply a recently enacted law intended to control commercial gatherings, by clamping down on the use of restaurants, hotel, and bar premises, indoors or out, by patrons in excess of the establishment’s official fire marshal-determined occupancy. Failing that, the town needs to begin total commercial property reassessment, charging those businesses that now handle 200, 300, or more patrons on a busy weekend enough in taxes to cover the additional costs of police and other services. Greed-driven operations should no longer be allowed to profit at the expense of ordinary taxpayers.

Trouble at the beaches could be better managed if there were a cap on the annual sale of nonresident beach parking permits and if nonresident four-wheel-drive permits were sold only in the winter months, following the lead of the state. Better management of beachgoers’ trash is a must as well.

These are but a few of the steps that might help assure residents that town officials are paying attention and that they need not begin packing their bags.

This is serious, folks. It’s time for action — and a whole lot of it.

The tone was cordial, though the message from the massive crowd of citizens at Tuesday’s East Hampton Town Board meeting  at the Montauk Firehouse was unmistakable: Do something and do it fast.

From among the hundreds who spilled out of the firehouse’s huge truck bays one after another speaker stood to implore the town board to do whatever it could to save Montauk from overcrowding and a nearly 24-hour alcohol and drug-fueled party scene, which has left residents frustrated and distraught, and reaching for their earplugs. By extension, as venues catering to the summer scenesters expand, notably to Napeague’s Cyril’s Fish House and now, nearly in the shadow of Town Hall, to Moby’s in East Hampton, there is a sense that the entire town is at risk.

That is, of course, outside of the more-restrictive villages, including Sagaponack and Sag Harbor as well as East Hampton. Imagine just for fun how long it would last if, say, the Palm, at Main Street and Huntting Lane, decided to put some beer taps and a D.J. on the back parking lot. The difference isn’t in the respective local governments’ laws; such things are impermissible in all these jurisdictions. However, in Montauk, the Memory Motel, for example, has been unofficially allowed to expand its guest service area into its parking lot because no one in authority gave a hoot, and it has been allowed to continue, we suspect, because current officials are overstressed and, frankly, afraid to pick yet another fight what with the airport battle on their hands. Other examples are numerous of how town government has for years failed to protect the interests of many of its residents while cutting too much slack for those who profit by pushing beyond the limits of the law.

Supervisor Larry Cantwell and the other members of the town board may talk a good game, but it is regrettable that it took what amounted to a citizens’ uprising to draw serious attention to the ongoing — and growing — crisis.

It is remarkable to think that Soldier Ride began here, with the vision of a single man, Chris Carney, who wanted to raise some money and increase awareness for a fledging organization that was helping injured military veterans. Back in 2004, when Mr. Carney first decided to ride more or less alone across the United States, the Wounded Warrior Project had a single employee and had raised about $10,000 in all. By the time Mr. Carney reached the West Coast that August, he had tallied over $1 million in donations. The next year, he was joined by two soldiers, Ryan Kelly and Heath Calhoun, who had endured the loss of limbs after combat, on a ride from Los Angles to Montauk that brought in millions more.

Wounded Warrior has grown from there. Among its milestones has been a $100 million contribution for veteran’s mental health care at hospitals in Boston, Atlanta, Chicago, and Los Angeles. It also provided $30 million in seed money for a nationwide in-home care. In addition to the annual Hamptons event this weekend, there have been 27 rides all over the United States and several overseas. The organization predicts that by the end of next year it will have provided services to about 100,000 veterans and their families, including educational opportunities.

For those readers who are not taking part in Saturday’s ride or party afterward, there are other ways to give, and the Wounded Warrior Project website can explain how. There are also other charities set up to help United States veterans in a range of ways.

Soldier Ride is East Hampton’s homegrown effort to embrace and acknowledge those injured in the line of duty. It is a source of pride that it all started here.

By now too many questions have been raised for the Village of East Hampton to move forward with a second phase of its controversial deer-sterilization project.

At a cost estimated at $1,000 each, does were shot with an anesthetic-laden dart, then further sedated and their ovaries removed. Following the surgeries, the deer were tagged on the ears and returned to the wild. (Red tags, rather than white, were placed on the ears of males anesthetized in error.)

Money for the undertaking came from a $100,000 grant from the private Village Preservation Society and $30,000 from taxpayers. The goal was to reduce the birthrate among the village’s deer, eventually diminishing the number without using lethal methods of what many consider a population out of control. The village had been planning to evaluate whether to continue in the fall.

Animal activists, as well as several people who work with large mammals professionally, including at least two veterinarians, have raised concerns about the efficacy and ethics of the process. Other than its word, there has been no way to verify that White Buffalo, the company hired to do the work, actually sterilized what it reported were 114 deer over a two-week period last winter, operating on each of them at a speedy 15 to 20 minutes each.

In recent days several tagged does have turned up dead or been found emaciated and suffering badly with aborted fetuses, giving rise to widespread opinion that the procedure was significantly less humane than an outright cull by professional sharpshooters would have been. It is troubling, too, that in its own report, the company referred to the East Hampton work as a “research project.”

Now a photograph has emerged purportedly showing far from sterile conditions where the surgery took place — a folding table set up in a village garage. Back in January, when White Buffalo was doing the procedures, access by the media and other observers to the site was blocked and its location kept secret. This naturally fed suspicions that something was not on the up-and-up. At about the same time, a photographer assigned to the story was told to move on by a uniformed member of the village police force while trying to get a picture on a public street. He let it go at the time, but in retrospect, it seems there well may have been something to hide.

The village must not go ahead with another round of sterilizations without thorough, and openly reported, review. It must admit that the program was misguided if that is what the evidence shows. As Shakespeare said, “Discretion is the better part of valor.”

Kicking a few ideas around at last week’s editorial meeting, we hit on the subject of pet peeves. Everybody has a few, and with the Hamptons high season at full boil, a lot of us are happy to share. In no particular order, here is a list of a few things that get the staff’s collective goat.

Landscape trucks parked in the lane of travel while the crews are off mowing or what have you. Those people who think nothing of parking in handicapped-only spaces “just to run in for something for a minute.” Rows of stakes on public property along the roadside; are they intended to protect the grass from errant tires? Large items, like beach chairs, umbrellas, and body boards, left at beach trash receptacles. Benches left sticky from a fallen ice cream. Don’t get us started about price-gouging for staple groceries. And one that is really more serious than a peeve: Drivers who fail to get out of the way for emergency responders’ vehicles.

There’s plenty to grumble about. What’s on your list? Let us know.

The latest developments in the United States Army Corps of Engineers project to build a 3,100-foot-long sandbag wall on the downtown Montauk oceanfront warrant close attention. Though a private lawsuit could still derail this massive boondoggle, the Corps, East Hampton Town officials, and the state appear to be moving forward. Recently described details concern pedestrian and vehicular access over the planned artificial dune and what happens to rainwater there. Barring a court ruling, work is expected to begin in October.

Now, unbelievably, the same people who brought us the Katrina disaster are considering installing some kind of a floodgate to allow rainfall and runoff to escape to the ocean. Sorry. We are not convinced.

From the start, the project has been marked by rule-bending, false claims, inadequate review, and, going back several years, an embarrassing, overstated back-of-the-napkin economic analysis. All this has not appeared to shake current town support. Politics plays a role; woe be the elected official who speaks out to block the effort then sees heavy damage caused by a hurricane or bad winter storm. But expediency comes at the expense of sound planning and a responsible answer to the long-term issue of erosion.

Downtown Montauk was built where it should not be. It’s that simple. No Army Corps seawall by itself is going to change that fact. The Corps’s poorly conceived project only delays the day of reckoning, which should have taken place after Hurricane Sandy’s near miss in 2012. Tough leadership is desperately needed, but it is not coming — from any level of government.

A couple of weeks back on a Thursday evening a Star staff member sent a text message to one of the editors about a massive party on the beach at Atlantic Avenue in Amagansett, suggesting we had to see it to believe it. Arriving a little before 8 p.m., we were surprised and a little put out to see a uniformed attendant associated with the event who appeared to be blocking the entrance to the large public parking lot. Finding a parking spot near the beach access, we walked down onto the sand and looked to the east.

A couple of hundred guests, all dressed in white, were mingling around equally white-topped tables, served by white-dressed staff behind full bars, also white. Large white illuminated orbs lined the path from the public restrooms in the now guests-only parking lot. A reggae band was doing its thing as we climbed a lifeguard stand to get a better view. No, this wasn’t P. Diddy’s annual event, just something a bit more prosaic.

East Hampton’s beaches are long, and at this time of the year, plenty wide to accommodate such events, but this just seemed wrong. Too big, too ostentatious, if rather tasteful and swank. It appeared, on reflection, to be a fair summation of a lot of what this place seems to stand for, at least in the minds of some.

It’s hard to say whether such big events on the town’s beaches should be more strictly limited. This one, other than being something to behold, was really not much of a problem. Still, a little self-restraint by all concerned would not be a bad thing.

Against a photo of two codgers clinging for dear life to a contraption that looks to be an iron lung but is actually a piece of playground equipment, an online publication called Wellness Warrior reports that the latest phenomenon sweeping Europe and Asia is the “multigenerational playground.” There are also said to be more than 50 of these outdoor sites for senior citizens in the United States already, in cities such as Cleveland, Tampa, and (of course) Orlando, with more on the horizon.

Along with slides and seesaws, some of them sport elliptical machines, stationary bikes, and other gym-centric apparatus designed to promote balance and strength. According to Wellness Warrior,  Barcelona alone has underwritten about 300 of these parks, seeing them as an investment in the health and social well-being of a rapidly graying population, and maybe keeping people out of hospitals longer than otherwise.

The codgers in the photo, she in an ankle-length black coat and the kind of kerchief commonly called a babushka in Russia, he in all black except for a 1930s-era floppy cap, may be models, or perhaps that’s what elderly Spaniards always wear to the playground. Models or no, they sure do look happy. Here in East Hampton, a forward-looking town with, at last count, 24 percent of the population retirees, one of these senior sandboxes could make for a lot of happy people.