Wannabe Cali governor gives up against beach-blocking billionaire VC With one eye on the governorship of California in 2018, Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom backed down from a fight with billionaire VC Vinod Khosla on Tuesday over controversial access to a beach. At an extraordinary meeting of the normally staid State Lands Commission on Tuesday, a series of lawyers, local residents and …
Does vc's (small-caps for a small person) rights to block the beach from road access also prevent people from using other forms of access?
I would guess that wildlife coming onto the beach from the sea would not be blocked.
Drones flying around the property being "investigatory" would be interesting.
Perhaps personnel delivered from air (parachutists, light-wing aircraft, etc.) would be allowed, if frowned upon.
Why does this ass-hat remind me of larry el'lison?
I would have thought (if practical) some sort of regular boat service to the beach just to fill the arsehat's vista with as many untidy surfers and hippies as is humanly possible. Good surfing might preclude being able to easily get there by boat though...depends upon the terrain.
Since the beach is public, and Khosla has blocked access, then a 24/7 beach party is in order. The road is closed, so of course the sheriff doesn't have access to toss people off. Keep the surfing up as long as possible!
Instead of art collectives in warehouses, put them on the beach!
...Unless, of course, vc calls the police and gives them temporary access. Just because you're not allowed in my house without invitation doesn't mean I can't invite you.
Contrariwise, if it's a public beach, as long as the beachgoers don't trespass on his private land, the police can tell him to go pound sand. Metaphorically, of course.
> I would have thought (if practical) some sort of regular boat service to the beach just to fill the arsehat's vista with as many untidy surfers and hippies as is humanly possible. Good surfing might preclude being able to easily get there by boat though...depends upon the terrain.
I'm sure a hovercraft could make it at the right time of day, looking at some photospheres available on Streetview taken down on the beach. Make sure to bring loads of booze & barbecues and loudspeakers and party while you wait for surf to come up.
What's a bit confusing is that going down Martin's Beach Road (streetview pictured in the article about his novel legal strategy), there are about 40-odd houses on the beachfront in that bay. So either that isn't the beach we are looking for, or that vc chap bought all of them too, as surely they'd have access rights along that road.
"What's a bit confusing is that going down Martin's Beach Road (streetview pictured in the article about his novel legal strategy), there are about 40-odd houses on the beachfront in that bay. So either that isn't the beach we are looking for, or that vc chap bought all of them too, as surely they'd have access rights along that road."
I assume you mean the satellite image - which Google now calls Google Earth (wasn't that a different thing at one point?). Streetview doesn't go down that road - and the entrance to it matches the one shown here, so it's definitely the right beach.
I suspect those buildings are the ones referred to in the article as:
"They had instead made two offers: to open the road for a limited number of days a year based on a log of use that Khosla apparently kept in 2008; or to sell both parcels of land that Khosla bought – one covering the road and some surrounding areas and the other with some buildings on it."
"Does vc's (small-caps for a small person) rights to block the beach from road access also prevent people from using other forms of access?"
Actually, he does not have that right. In the US as a rule, the fact that that road was used by the public makes it a permanent easement.
They try this occasionally in California and are always smacked down in the courts. The only reason I can see that he is getting away with it is that he believes money makes him above the law, and the state concurs.
@Etatdame
"Actually, he does not have that right. In the US as a rule, the fact that that road was used by the public makes it a permanent easement."
@El Reg
"The previous owners of the Martins Beach road had decided on what days to open and close the road based on demand."
Making the huge assumption that US/California law derives from UK Common Law (dangerous I know):
The previous owners clearly controlled access to certain times only. This does not establish a right of way (not in the UK anyway). It is unrestricted access, not in secret, for 20 years that establishes a new right of way.
Does it count as trespassing if you are not physically touching the ground?
Would you be able to access the beach in one of these?
$380K for 90 acres of beachfront property? Or is that just to buy the land under the road? He says they'd have to pay him $10 million for it, but the older Reg article says he paid $38 million....I doubt he's willing to take a loss on it so whatever he might be willing to sell is not everything he paid for.
First of all, as has been alluded to, the Wannabe Governor has a real problem here. Money is the route to power, so forcing this guy to toe the line is out of the question, but he also needs to look like a man of the people, because rich blokes don't quite have enough votes to get him over the line in 2018.
I'm glad I live in a country with a legal right known as the "Queen's Chain".
It's a long way from being a universal right, but by and large means these sorts of land grabs can't happen.
> I'm glad I live in a country with a legal right known as the "Queen's Chain".
Having grown up in that country (NZ)
The situation at the Californian beach is similar. The beach is public land. ACCESS to that beach is across private land and the landowner has locked the gate - which he would be perfectly entitled to do in New Zealand (he has fewer rights to block off sole land-based access-ways to public land in California and that's what this whole argument is about)
Offtopic: The (NZ) Queen's Chain doesn't guarantee access paths to beaches and riverbanks, just the right to walk along them. Adding to the confusion, some NZ beaches/foreshores (down to low water mark) and riverbanks ARE privately owned, so you only have the right to walk in the water (Eg: Takapuna, Waikarimoana and a few other locations)
Back ontopic: There's another catch which hasn't been gone into. Under USA/CA law the public access status of a path (road or footpath) across private land to public land such as a beach is only able to be claimed if it's left opened continuously for prolonged periods. If the landowner closes it off at least once a year then they can keep the private access claim on it. This means the road being "opened/closed" by past landowners is of vital importance to the case and makes it much harder for the state to use Eminent Domain.
On the other hand there are parts of California where beachfront home owners have been using armed security guards to threaten and intimidate beachgoers (who have legally accessed the beach and are legally on public land) by claims that the beach itself is private land/tresspassing claims - and local sheriffs have been supporting such action, in some cases arresting beachgoers who refuse to vacate the area (ACLU is involved in a couple of these). There is definitely one set of laws for the rich and one for the poor in California.
It's only been recently that asshats have been buying up land and shutting down access to the beaches. Before that, access was usually freely given and everyone respected each other. I guess having money means "I get my way and you can go f*** yourself".
Most states have laws that if the public has been using the land for access to public property unfettered, then they can continue using it and the landowner is up the proverbial creek. I don't know if California has that kind of law or not.
RTFA: If Khosla was breaking the law, he'd have lost the previous cases brought over this.
Fucktoad he may be, there are a lot of things in the article and its predecessor that don't add up ("In 2010, Khosla shut the gate to the road citing the cost of maintenance and liability, added armed guards.." [at what cost?!]), but I suspect there has been a lot of posturing and stubbornness on both sides.
"if the public has been using the land for access to public property unfettered,"
In some cases, property owners will allow access across their property for all but one day per year. This allows them to maintain control and prevent a public access easement from being created by adverse possession.
This is typically what happens when leftists get a lot of money. They buy politicians and fuck the People. More often tho, they do it to get that money, like Mrs. Clinton did.
If he was a Republican doing this the national media would eviscerate him remorselessly, but as a Democrat moneyman the media are held back from doing what's right. And Democrats who run California are too craven to actually stand up against his swinish behavior. Even after six years of this jerk's crud they still caved in like a sand castle facing the waves.
I think the biggest problem most of the commentary have is the of ability to read. The previous owner didn't allow free access, so it was never come and go as you like. Access was granted on what the prior owner saw as demand-based. The road is, and has always been, on private property and controlled.
The beach may be public, but you can't just walk over someone else's property to get to it. California is so fucked up with the sense of entitlement all around. This guy isn't obligated to pay anyone's way across his property. Find your own way.
Buy a boat, prasail, whatever to the beach, but the dude's property is just that. He doesn't owe the slip and fall Nation access on his road just so these people can sue, and that's what they will do.
Gavin is a political whore who knows his limitations for once.
I should have thought that ownership of land does not allow one to block a right of way along that land, and so eminent domain and expropriation of the property is not required; the local sheriffs department would enforce the right of way, and if there were any problems, it would go to the courts, in which it would be a simple open-and-shut case, quickly decided... no matter how much money one were to spend on lawyers in the hopes that it might be otherwise.
If this is not the case, clearly there are fundamental problems with California's legal system, and they should be corrected forthwith. The whole idea of having a law is that it shall be obeyed.
Great, some spoiled asshat illegally bars access to the public coastline, so let's wreck the regional environment so nobody can use it, killing all of the local marine life (including endangered species) not only there but everywhere else the ocean would promptly spread the oil to:
http://environment.about.com/od/petroleum/a/oil_spills_and_environment.htm
"Ramblers have been banned from pop star Madonna's country estate for half the year because of the risk of being shot.
...
But the Countryside Agency has agreed that ramblers will be banned from the open part of the land from September to February - during the shooting season.
During the rest of the year the small section of land will be open.
The ban has been enforced because the singer said there was a chance that walkers could be accidentally shot as shoots are held on the land."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wiltshire/4092285.stm
In California, I guess it is "shooting season" very much all year round
There's a very clear and present public need for an accessway to what is public land.
Just invoke Eminent Domain and seize the road at the bare minimum surveyed price, and give this guy a big hearty middle finger. At the very least, it would show the people that Eminent Domain laws are NOT strictly used for the benefit of the rich against the poor.
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