Vinod Khosla, Beach Villain

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You do not recall correctly. (To be fair, you’re probably correctly recalling one or more of the dozens of stories that uncritically repeated the same misinformation across the Daily Outrage-o-sphere. Those stories were incorrect, but even though some people like me attempted to correct them at the time, the more emotionally-appealing “evil billionaire blocks public beach” narrative persisted.)

It IS his private beach, and he didn’t want to be responsible for maintaining a road and parking lot and restrooms and security lighting and so on. (He offered to provide such facilities if the state would pay him $30m to construct, repair and maintain them, but the state declined. The state considered using eminent domain to acquire the road, but the price for that (and the subsequently required facilities and maintenance) could cost them considerably more than the $30m that Khosla proposed.).

The beach itself IS private (though Khosla has said he doesn’t mind people using the beach, he just doesn’t want them crossing his property and parking on his land to get there.)

The prior owner maintained a parking lot, and charged for parking. That means no public easement was created, since the access was explicitly granted by the property owner.

The property was entitled by the Federal government’s California Land Commission under the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, before the State of California existed. The Commission issued a patent which reaffirms all the terms of the Spanish grant, which included “the beaches and tidelands”, i.e., everything but the ocean itself.

The State of California applied the “all beach below mean high tide is public” rule, and the “Californians are entitled to access their public beaches” rule, to all properties entitled by the State of California.

But they cannot retroactively apply such provisions to a federal land patent that predates the State itself.

The court victory that was won was when the court upheld the California Coastal Commission’s ruling that locking the gate across the road and posting a “Road Closed” sign constituted “development” of the property (because it changed the intensity of beach use), and thus required a Development Permit from the Coastal Commission — which Khosla had never applied for.

The decision said he must unlock the gate and remove the sign.

But that doesn’t change the fact that the entire property *including the beach itself * is and always has been private property.

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Simon (and Garfunkel) said otherwise.

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Even Khosla is saying people can use the beach as long as they find some other way to get there. Do you think that given all the property he owns along the beach, which he so strongly doesn’t want any public using, that he would flippantly say that anyone can use the beach if they can get to it if he had just as strong a claim on the beach itself?

That sounds disingenuous to me. I think if he felt he had a claim on the beach, he would assert that people cannot use the beach either. Why wouldn’t he, since he is so principled about private property, and has already asserted that about the surrounding property.

I think the reason is that he doesn’t think he has a reasonable claim on the beach.

It certainly may be the case that Khosla’s lawyers have tried asserting that California should respect Spanish colonial laws that were in place before the Mexican revolution when the land was liberated from Spain, and also before The Mexican-American war when the US took over the territory from Mexico and made it part of the US. That is what lawyers do, they try all possible arguments, and see what sticks. That is why this is tied up in the courts.

But the fact that he himself, in the current time, is not claiming he can restrict people from the beach, tells me that he doesn’t believe that argument himself.

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You’re just blatantly lying here. The California Constitution guarantees the public the right to use the beach up to the high water mark, as does the Federal law that made California a state.

From the LA Times article:

“Khosla had bought 89 acres of coastal property surrounding Martins Beach two years before. He had been warned by San Mateo County and the California Coastal Commission – before and after buying the property – that he would be required to keep the public access open. Public access to Martins Beach, and to all land seaward of the mean high tide line in California, is guaranteed in the state’s constitution and mandated within the Coastal Act of 1976. Khosla closed it anyway, and he has kept it closed despite personal pleas and a legal order to reopen it.”

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IANAL, but I do know that this genus of sovereign-citizen legal theory tends to founder on the fact that when the government believes something to be the law, for practical purposes you may assume that is the law.

When it comes right down to it, the only ways to truly “own” land are (a) superior military force or (b) cooperating with the rest of society. If this guy had started out thinking “welp, people are gonna go on the beach, after all, I’m not their king”, then it probably needn’t have become a big deal for anyone.

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Cool. So, is Khosla down with the descendants of the Ramaytush people, who lived there before the Spanish, hanging out in his living room? They do, after all, have a prior claim to all the land, not just the beach.

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Correct so far.

Um, [Citation needed]

And you’re being blatantly rude and insulting here.

I have no dog in this fight; I just wanted the reported ‘facts’ corrected to the actual facts.

Last time all I got was some shit about “misusing punctuation and boldface.”

Now, I’m being called a liar.

Read the damn court decisions. They’re quite explicit about the fact that Martin’s beach is privately owned, including the tidelands.

Otherwise, never mind. No point beating my head against the wall.

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I react strongly to property rights extremists who try to expand the taking of public lands for private gain. I’ve dealt with them locally, and they will stop at nothing to own it all at the expense of the commons.

Relevant section: “and all navigable waters within said State shall be common highways and forever free;” navigable waters include coastline and rivers up to the high water mark.

Recap: Rich guy buys the right lawyers who find the right judge to show a sliver of reasonable claim and ignore previous and subsequent claims and laws. As I said, we’ve tussled with them here over navigable rivers. They buy up property on both sides of a river where, prior to statehood, someone had deed to the riverbed. Never mind that the grant was only to that family, that they are not a member of. Never mind that the right was superseded by the act of statehood. Never mind that they are trying to piece together a jigsaw puzzle of land that doesn’t resemble the original grant. Never mind that Native Americans had a preceeding claim.

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Dude, while you were digging deep for the truth did you discover there is no such thing as a private beach in California?

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That’s alot of words there smart guy but your still wrong.

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Beware of Beach Villains

beach%20villain

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Quotes from Vinod Khosla Medium piece:

“Martin’s Beach is a beach-front community of around 47+ homes and there is a road through the property to the undisputedly public beach.”

" Headlines notwithstanding, the court cases were only about access thru the property and not about the public beach."

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So if one’s property stops at the high tide mark, and rising seas cause that mark to move up the beach, thereby reducing the size of one’s property, how is it that no one has tried suing the US Government/oil companies/vehicle manufacturers/power companies/whoever for ‘stealing’ their land by allowing climate change to happen?
I thought Americans liked utterly pointless legal challenges?

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I stumbled upon this beach before he owned it. Even then it was bittersweet. It was one of the best beach experiences I have ever had, with the beautiful rock formations and bluffs framing an uncrowded beach. But getting there was a trial. The parking lot attendant wanted $5 and one of my strongest held principles is that public land should not require fees to access. I tried to find free parking, but with all the roads in town being privately owned it was impossible. I paid the $5 in hopes that it would go towards maintaining access, but the parking lots were so decrepit that I nearly got stuck in a pothole. The bathroom was in need of repairs and cleaning. It had the feel of a business that knows it plans to close.

The next time I tried to go, the gate was closed without any sort of notice explaining why. I never went back.

I have followed this issue and I think he has a valid constitutional concern about being “coerced/extorted” to run a charity business increasing access.

Where I agree most is that, as he says, he now realizes that he was too heavy handed in his defense. His statements in public and under oath have often contained Trumpian lies and distortions. He has flat out refused to follow laws. Basically he took a scorched earth approach and he is now claiming to regret having burned not only his own reputation but many of the principles that he professes to hold dear. Like honesty and transparency. I detest him and enjoy the Schadenfreude of hearing him say he regrets getting into this.

I genuinely believe he thinks he is doing a service to society, in the same way that our government reps believe they are doing a service by bombing innocent civilians.

It looks like both sides have abused their power and engaged in extortion in this battle. It saddens me when principles cause myopia and are defended with unprincipled behavior. If he hadn’t got so lost in the details a resolution could easily have been made.

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Not only that, but he basically cedes the whole thing in the first few paragraphs:

free public access has never existed at Martin’s Beach in almost a century

Court case after (federal) court case has ruled that once public access has been established, it cannot be relinquished unless there is a demonstratable, immediate danger or security hazard. In the cases where a hazard exists, reasonable effort must be made to create an alternative access.

It doesn’t matter how long ago the access existed. If someone can document the public access, his case is eventually doomed if it goes federal.

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That takes me back. The physical resemblance between me and this guy meant that I consistently got “ze plane,ze plane” shouted at me though school.

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I always liked his face. Looking through photos of him just recently reminded me that he was actually pretty good looking when he was younger.

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You’re playing the “BUT BOTH SIDES” game here, and it’s the wrong forum.

Vinod was warned BEFORE he bought the property, very clearly, that he couldn’t close off access. He did anyway because he thought being a billionaire let him get away with anything and everything.

You’re giving him credit for “apologizing” after he’d:
A) Finally caught on that he wasn’t going to win, and that he would probably get a much rawer deal in court after being such an insufferable prick about the whole thing, and realized that this was going to be a mild inconvenience,
B) Got a shitload of bad press and hate from the Cali community that takes their beaches really goddamn seriously, and probably suffered a lot of social consequences among the wealthy California folks for being such a jackass.

That’s not a meaningful apology, that’s just asking for there to not be any consequences for horribly bad behavior waaaaay too late.

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I genuinely don’t know what you mean by this being the wrong forum for acknowledging both sides. He wasn’t violent in the name of white supremacy; he just forced some people to have a less ideal beach experience. Not every issue requires full on denouncement/villification of the other side.

I doubt you are saying this is a forum for polarizing and scorching all middle ground while screaming into our echo chamber, but that’s what it sounds like you are saying.

Cory’s post on Schneier’s proposed solutions to the internet security seems to agree with his call for “apportioning liability” which is what my post was about.

I still think he is a big jerk, but I have more sympathy for jerks motivated by societal improvement than jerks with no agenda other than greed. I have more sympathy for people who make a real apology than people who refuse to apologize in any real way. One can always doubt the sincerity of a real apology, but at least he claimed responsibility for his mistake, not a “sorry if you were offended”.

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Just fyi, that’s not how your comments come across; if you have nothing personal invested, then you’ve picked a really weird ‘hill…’

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