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It is infuriating that one individual A) has the audacity to believe they are entitled to such a rare publically beneficial property and B) has the power (bot

It is infuriating that one individual A) has the audacity to believe they are entitled to such a rare publically beneficial property and B) has the power (both politically and financially) to see this battle through.

inscionent 7y ago
Look around the world is overflowing with individuals engaged in A and B
- munk-a 7y ago
  All of those individuals are infuriating - they can be examined in isolation as grouping them together will lead to fatigue by volume. > If only one man dies of hunger, that is a tragedy. If millions die, that’s only statistics. Let's just focus on the one for now.
vanusa 7y ago
Were it just one individual. Unfortunately there's a whole lot of people who adhere to the general mindset from which Khosla derives his sense of entitlement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Californian_Ideology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Californian_Ideology
- woah 7y ago
  Incredibly far stretch to turn one guy illegally blocking a road into a straw man against an imagined political grouping from the 90’s
whack 7y ago
> has the power (both politically and financially) to see this battle through It is absolutely infuriating that a rich individual can get the type of "justice" that the rest of us can never hope to achieve, in the legal system. Or as Peter Thiel put it when he bankrupted Gawker: "If you're a single-digit millionaire like Hulk Hogan, you have no effective access to our legal system." Unfortunately, this suit is unlikely to make any difference in the above, and it doesn't seem like anyone cares about fixing the above problem. Maybe I'm just being a fundamentalist who's blowing it out of proportion. But my sense of fairness is constantly outraged by how ridiculously hard it is for any layperson to get justice in today's legal system.
- mikeyouse 7y ago
  > Or as Peter Thiel put it when he bankrupted Gawker: "If you're a single-digit millionaire like Hulk Hogan, you have no effective access to our legal system." Which is amusing since the lawyer that Thiel used is constantly suing on behalf of single-digit millionaires to stifle free speech all over the country (including threatening to sue the NYT for reporting on Harvey Weinstein's crimes). Not a whole lot of principles in that group.
  - mc32 7y ago
    I think that's a bit harsh. Even people who confess and for whom the prosecution has good evidence, can and will get lawyers or public defenders. How would you feel if a public defender took the position of "nah, this gal is clearly a criminal, we have seen the footage --its a pass, let her represent herself".
    - mikeyouse 7y ago
      These are civil suits voluntarily launched by 'aggrieved' parties. I don't think there's any reasonable comparison to public defenders.
      - mc32 7y ago
        Ok, what if lawyers were biased and "simply" declined to represent one class of people because I dunno, they are "debtors" and don't deserve representation against an authoshop which ripped them off.
        JackRabbitSlim 7y ago
        They do, all the time. You have no expectation of legal council outside of criminal law. Debt collectors are running roughshod on the poor and vulnerable.
        jacobr1 7y ago
api 7y ago
I really wonder why he's choosing this hill (err I mean beach!) to die on and how he doesn't see what damage this is doing to his public image. Even if he does have a point this makes him look absolutely horrible and it's not like letting a few people on the beach is going to impact his lifestyle in anything beyond the most trivial way. I just don't quibble over minutia like that. I don't get people who do. This seems like a gigantic waste of time and resources where even if you win you lose.
- nosequel 7y ago
  You have to realize that Vinod Khosla is one of those people who is used to people just following his orders. He was successful, he owns Khosla Ventures (KV) and probably never gets called on his shit. Suddenly locals, surfers, and The Surfrider Foundation starts to push back and he thinks he can just squash them, because /s obviously he's better than them. Let's be real, he was never in that house. I'd venture to say he spent maybe 30 days per year in that house? Like any other rich asshole with a vacation house in prime territory he bought it and wanted to keep any riffraff away. He thinks he deserves it and not for one second did he think about his public image.
  - pmiller2 7y ago
    Well, I, for one, have tried to avoid companies funded by Khosla Ventures since this story initially broke. I doubt a lot of people feel strongly enough to do that, but there are some.
    - bscphil 7y ago
      Given that I had never heard of the company until this post, I was surprised by how many companies I've heard of that they funded. From their portfolio page[1]: Academia.edu, AppNexus, Arista Networks, DoorDash, GitLab, HackerRank, Impossible Foods, Instacart, "Just, Inc.", Scribd, Square, Stripe, Teespring, Vox Media https://www.khoslaventures.com/portfolio/all-companies https://www.khoslaventures.com/portfolio/all-companies
abstractbarista 7y ago
So do we - or do we not - have decent property rights? It sounds like the land never should have been private in the first place, given how special it is. Otherwise, if I own it, I should be able to keep others off of it. You don't actually own something that you cannot control access to. If you disagree, then keep your front door unlocked, because I'm moving in with some friends later this week.
- compiler-guy 7y ago
  Property ownership comes with easements and other legal restrictions all the time. I have to give the power company access to the power pole on my property, and I knew that when I bought it. Public easements to public beaches are quite normal.
  - abstractbarista 7y ago
    That's very reasonable. Sounds like it's time to pass a law in CA that requires property owners to have an easement offered to the public for beach access. Have such an easement recorded for all real estate parcels touching the coast. Done. I know they have that 1976 law mentioned in the article, but clearly that was not strongly written so as to force this.
    - TheCoelacanth 7y ago
      It was, but the owner is a billionaire who thinks he is above the law.
      - abstractbarista 7y ago
        Oh. Well in that case I'm sure this will be quickly resolved in the public's favor. I hope it's not one of those 'feel-good' laws written like "All Californians should be able to access the beaches" (without specifying actionable frameworks like easements and such).
        7y ago
PHGamer 7y ago
well A makes sense if you believe in private property at all. I can see not being on his side but its true if it was not public but private property before the only way the government should legally allowed to appropriate it is via eminate domain and the compensation to the property owner.
hummel 7y ago
A complete jerk
gwbas1c 7y ago
When I read this article, it looks a lot more complicated than that. > Khosla, in legal filings, said he “was willing to give the business a go, and continued to allow members of the public to access the property upon payment of a fee. But [he] soon faced the same problem the Deeneys had faced: The business was operating at a considerable loss, as the costs of keeping the beach, the parking lot and other facilities in operable and safe condition significantly exceeded the fees the business generated.”
- chipotle_coyote 7y ago
  To the best of my knowledge (and a reading of the actual law text), the 1976 Coastal Access Act doesn't require private owners to provide and maintain facilities for public beaches -- it simply doesn't prevent them from doing so. The Deeneys chose to make Martins Beach a business, and more than likely started doing so before the Coastal Access Act passed. Khosla is absolutely within his rights to stop maintaining "the parking lot and other facilities in operable and safe condition"; the battle is over whether he's within his rights to block access to the beach entirely just because he can't find a way to turn a profit from it -- and whether the limited access he's currently granting is enough to meet the law's requirements.
  - sdnlafkjh34rw 7y ago
    Yes this is my understanding as well. He just needs to give access. He doesn't need to provide any infrastructure (which would be unfair to any homeowner).
    - gwbas1c 7y ago
      > Yes this is my understanding as well. He just needs to give access. He doesn't need to provide any infrastructure (which would be unfair to any homeowner) Which makes me inherently distrustful of how the media portrays this article. What does "give access" mean? I've encountered a narrow footpath path along a property line in Hawaii to "give access" that was mainly used by people in the neighborhood. If I remember correctly, both beachfront properties on either side had fences. In San Diego, I encountered a narrow stairway between two condo buildings; but there were so many public parks and streets that came up to the beach that I didn't understand the point. I'm not a lawyer, but could Vinod satisfy the law by having a narrow footpath along his property line?
rayiner 7y ago
In fact, the opposite is true, and the reporting around this issue is a great example of how the media doesn't care about facts but instead cares only about narratives. It's important to understand that this dispute involves two separate tracks of issues, one where Khosla has been winning, and one where he has been losing. The first issue is the property right. An ancient doctrine called the "public trust" doctrine holds that the waters and beaches up to the high tide line belongs to the public. Moreover, it holds that, generally, there is an easement across private land to access that area. However, California is a johnny-come-lately state. As a result, under Supreme Court precedent (Summa Corp. v. California), the state doesn't have easements over certain private property that dates to Mexican land grants: https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2193&context=elq https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?art... (p. 429-430). Based on that precedent, the California Court of Appeals has held that there is no easement (as a matter of public trust doctrine) over Khosla's property: > While the public trust doctrine can protect access rights over private land, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to extend that protection to private land certified under the 1851 federal law implementing the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, where the federal or state government had not asserted an interest in title proceeding. Therefore, the court of appeal in Friends I found that, because the Martin’s Beach property had been certified under the 1851 law without any mention of a public interest and never passed into state ownership, there could be no common law public trust easement over the land to the water. There was a subsequent suit based on an alternate theory: that although there was no common law easement, an easement arose because the previous property owner "dedicated" the road to public use. The California Court of Appeals rejected that t heory too. https://www.jurist.org/news/2019/11/ca-appellate-court-rules-publics-access-to-martins-beach-is-not-a-permanent-right https://www.jurist.org/news/2019/11/ca-appellate-court-rules.... > As such, according to the common law of public dedication, the court determined that Martin’s Beach is not dedicated to public access. Opinion here: https://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/nonpub/A154022.PDF https://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/nonpub/A154022.PDF So now we are on the third string legal theory (from the article): > State officials have been following these cases closely and are now taking a swing at the fight. The new lawsuit asks the court to consider unexamined evidence that shows that the beach, as well as the gated road, have been historically used by the public — citing a common law doctrine known as “implied dedication.” We've gone from an easement under property law, to a "public dedication," to "implied public dedication." That brings us to the second legal issue, which is whether Khosla needs a permit to build a structure to close the road to the beach. Even though courts have repeatedly held that there is no public right to use the road, the California Coastal Commission has found that it can use its powers to control development on the coast to keep Khosla from actually vindicating his private property right. So far, the State has been successful on that front. But after last year's loss on the underlying property rights issue, that position gets harder to justify. The State can only go so long using its authority over the building of fences to keep open a public easement that courts have repeatedly held does not exist. Hence this lawsuit. As to your point (B)--it's a wonderful thing that private citizens have the financial resources to fight the State and vindicate their legitimate property rights. The opposite of that is tyranny.
Gatsky 7y ago
There was a profile in Forbes on Khosla or something like that, and one of his employees said something along the lines of 'Khosla is pursuing this beach matter so that anyone that deals with him knows how tough and tenacious he is.' It wasn't entirely clear if this was that employee rationalising the fact his boss is a bastard, or actually the truth. As twisted as this logic may be, I guess it is plausible some egotistical old guy would think this way. Edit: This is the quote: "The “beach issue,” as it is called internally at Khosla Ventures, has surprisingly not been a problem in the office. “It’s an incredible negotiating tool for me,” said Samir Kaul, another partner at Khosla Ventures. When a company was trying to “screw” the firm, Mr. Kaul brought up news articles about the beach at a meeting. “I said: ‘My boss is going to the Supreme Court for a beach he’s never gone to. We’re not posturing here. This guy’s not going to settle,’” Mr. Kaul said. “And then I just sat there." https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/technology/vinod-khosla-beach.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/technology/vinod-khosla-b...
ChuckMcM 7y ago
I would agree that it is uncomfortable to watch but what the law "wants" is pretty clear, and Khosla has lost at pretty much every turn. Now the state is suing to create sanctions on him if he fails to abide by previous decisions to make the beach accessible. Rather than be infuriated, be comforted in the fact that in spite of all his money he has been unable to overturn this law. He has made a lot of lawyers rich doing it, and will have paid a chunk of San Mateo's superior court's budget this year in fees. And he still lost. Now the state and coastal commission are getting a court order so that they can start fining him without the need to go to court. Think of it as a really really regressive tax on a rich land owner. Let's say he writes it off as the cost of doing business and just keeps paying fines. Well I could single handedly double the budget that the coastal commission has available for keeping beach access open. That's a lot of resources.
- xyzzyz 7y ago
  > Khosla has lost at pretty much every turn. What do you mean? He won at every turn. The courts have ruled that there's no easement, and that the public have no access to the water through his property. https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2193&context=elq https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?art...
  - ChuckMcM 7y ago
    This article in the times (https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-martins-beach-supreme-court-20181001-story.html https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-martins-beach-supr...) which discusses that the Supreme Court left the previous ruling of access intact sounded like a win for the Costal commission.
    - xyzzyz 7y ago
      I guess you could call it a win: it required Khosla to keep the road open until he gets a fencing permit. Khosla took it to court on principle, since he believed that such injunction is already takings: indeed, since the courts affirmed that public does not have access to his property through the road, stopping him from blocking such access issues illegal. Since he has every right to get such a fencing permit (as there is no easement, right of way or any other public access through his property where he wants to fence it), in a perfect world he’d simply apply for such permit and promptly get it. In reality though, it is highly likely that the state of California will try to use the fence permitting rights it has to stop him from exercising his property rights, which is exactly what Khosla tried to ensure cannot happen in his Supreme Court petition.

inscionent 7y ago

Look around the world is overflowing with individuals engaged in A and B

munk-a 7y ago
All of those individuals are infuriating - they can be examined in isolation as grouping them together will lead to fatigue by volume. > If only one man dies of hunger, that is a tragedy. If millions die, that’s only statistics. Let's just focus on the one for now.

vanusa 7y ago

Were it just one individual. Unfortunately there's a whole lot of people who adhere to the general mindset from which Khosla derives his sense of entitlement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Californian_Ideology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Californian_Ideology

woah 7y ago
Incredibly far stretch to turn one guy illegally blocking a road into a straw man against an imagined political grouping from the 90’s

whack 7y ago

> has the power (both politically and financially) to see this battle through It is absolutely infuriating that a rich individual can get the type of "justice" that the rest of us can never hope to achieve, in the legal system. Or as Peter Thiel put it when he bankrupted Gawker: "If you're a single-digit millionaire like Hulk Hogan, you have no effective access to our legal system." Unfortunately, this suit is unlikely to make any difference in the above, and it doesn't seem like anyone cares about fixing the above problem. Maybe I'm just being a fundamentalist who's blowing it out of proportion. But my sense of fairness is constantly outraged by how ridiculously hard it is for any layperson to get justice in today's legal system.

mikeyouse 7y ago
> Or as Peter Thiel put it when he bankrupted Gawker: "If you're a single-digit millionaire like Hulk Hogan, you have no effective access to our legal system." Which is amusing since the lawyer that Thiel used is constantly suing on behalf of single-digit millionaires to stifle free speech all over the country (including threatening to sue the NYT for reporting on Harvey Weinstein's crimes). Not a whole lot of principles in that group.
- mc32 7y ago
  I think that's a bit harsh. Even people who confess and for whom the prosecution has good evidence, can and will get lawyers or public defenders. How would you feel if a public defender took the position of "nah, this gal is clearly a criminal, we have seen the footage --its a pass, let her represent herself".
  - mikeyouse 7y ago
    These are civil suits voluntarily launched by 'aggrieved' parties. I don't think there's any reasonable comparison to public defenders.
    - mc32 7y ago
      Ok, what if lawyers were biased and "simply" declined to represent one class of people because I dunno, they are "debtors" and don't deserve representation against an authoshop which ripped them off.
      - JackRabbitSlim 7y ago
        They do, all the time. You have no expectation of legal council outside of criminal law. Debt collectors are running roughshod on the poor and vulnerable.
        jacobr1 7y ago

api 7y ago

I really wonder why he's choosing this hill (err I mean beach!) to die on and how he doesn't see what damage this is doing to his public image. Even if he does have a point this makes him look absolutely horrible and it's not like letting a few people on the beach is going to impact his lifestyle in anything beyond the most trivial way. I just don't quibble over minutia like that. I don't get people who do. This seems like a gigantic waste of time and resources where even if you win you lose.

nosequel 7y ago
You have to realize that Vinod Khosla is one of those people who is used to people just following his orders. He was successful, he owns Khosla Ventures (KV) and probably never gets called on his shit. Suddenly locals, surfers, and The Surfrider Foundation starts to push back and he thinks he can just squash them, because /s obviously he's better than them. Let's be real, he was never in that house. I'd venture to say he spent maybe 30 days per year in that house? Like any other rich asshole with a vacation house in prime territory he bought it and wanted to keep any riffraff away. He thinks he deserves it and not for one second did he think about his public image.
- pmiller2 7y ago
  Well, I, for one, have tried to avoid companies funded by Khosla Ventures since this story initially broke. I doubt a lot of people feel strongly enough to do that, but there are some.
  - bscphil 7y ago
    Given that I had never heard of the company until this post, I was surprised by how many companies I've heard of that they funded. From their portfolio page[1]: Academia.edu, AppNexus, Arista Networks, DoorDash, GitLab, HackerRank, Impossible Foods, Instacart, "Just, Inc.", Scribd, Square, Stripe, Teespring, Vox Media https://www.khoslaventures.com/portfolio/all-companies https://www.khoslaventures.com/portfolio/all-companies

abstractbarista 7y ago

So do we - or do we not - have decent property rights? It sounds like the land never should have been private in the first place, given how special it is. Otherwise, if I own it, I should be able to keep others off of it. You don't actually own something that you cannot control access to. If you disagree, then keep your front door unlocked, because I'm moving in with some friends later this week.

compiler-guy 7y ago
Property ownership comes with easements and other legal restrictions all the time. I have to give the power company access to the power pole on my property, and I knew that when I bought it. Public easements to public beaches are quite normal.
- abstractbarista 7y ago
  That's very reasonable. Sounds like it's time to pass a law in CA that requires property owners to have an easement offered to the public for beach access. Have such an easement recorded for all real estate parcels touching the coast. Done. I know they have that 1976 law mentioned in the article, but clearly that was not strongly written so as to force this.
  - TheCoelacanth 7y ago
    It was, but the owner is a billionaire who thinks he is above the law.
    - abstractbarista 7y ago
      Oh. Well in that case I'm sure this will be quickly resolved in the public's favor. I hope it's not one of those 'feel-good' laws written like "All Californians should be able to access the beaches" (without specifying actionable frameworks like easements and such).
      - 7y ago

PHGamer 7y ago

well A makes sense if you believe in private property at all. I can see not being on his side but its true if it was not public but private property before the only way the government should legally allowed to appropriate it is via eminate domain and the compensation to the property owner.

hummel 7y ago

A complete jerk

gwbas1c 7y ago

When I read this article, it looks a lot more complicated than that. > Khosla, in legal filings, said he “was willing to give the business a go, and continued to allow members of the public to access the property upon payment of a fee. But [he] soon faced the same problem the Deeneys had faced: The business was operating at a considerable loss, as the costs of keeping the beach, the parking lot and other facilities in operable and safe condition significantly exceeded the fees the business generated.”

chipotle_coyote 7y ago
To the best of my knowledge (and a reading of the actual law text), the 1976 Coastal Access Act doesn't require private owners to provide and maintain facilities for public beaches -- it simply doesn't prevent them from doing so. The Deeneys chose to make Martins Beach a business, and more than likely started doing so before the Coastal Access Act passed. Khosla is absolutely within his rights to stop maintaining "the parking lot and other facilities in operable and safe condition"; the battle is over whether he's within his rights to block access to the beach entirely just because he can't find a way to turn a profit from it -- and whether the limited access he's currently granting is enough to meet the law's requirements.
- sdnlafkjh34rw 7y ago
  Yes this is my understanding as well. He just needs to give access. He doesn't need to provide any infrastructure (which would be unfair to any homeowner).
  - gwbas1c 7y ago
    > Yes this is my understanding as well. He just needs to give access. He doesn't need to provide any infrastructure (which would be unfair to any homeowner) Which makes me inherently distrustful of how the media portrays this article. What does "give access" mean? I've encountered a narrow footpath path along a property line in Hawaii to "give access" that was mainly used by people in the neighborhood. If I remember correctly, both beachfront properties on either side had fences. In San Diego, I encountered a narrow stairway between two condo buildings; but there were so many public parks and streets that came up to the beach that I didn't understand the point. I'm not a lawyer, but could Vinod satisfy the law by having a narrow footpath along his property line?

rayiner 7y ago

In fact, the opposite is true, and the reporting around this issue is a great example of how the media doesn't care about facts but instead cares only about narratives. It's important to understand that this dispute involves two separate tracks of issues, one where Khosla has been winning, and one where he has been losing. The first issue is the property right. An ancient doctrine called the "public trust" doctrine holds that the waters and beaches up to the high tide line belongs to the public. Moreover, it holds that, generally, there is an easement across private land to access that area. However, California is a johnny-come-lately state. As a result, under Supreme Court precedent (Summa Corp. v. California), the state doesn't have easements over certain private property that dates to Mexican land grants: https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2193&context=elq https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?art... (p. 429-430). Based on that precedent, the California Court of Appeals has held that there is no easement (as a matter of public trust doctrine) over Khosla's property: > While the public trust doctrine can protect access rights over private land, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to extend that protection to private land certified under the 1851 federal law implementing the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, where the federal or state government had not asserted an interest in title proceeding. Therefore, the court of appeal in Friends I found that, because the Martin’s Beach property had been certified under the 1851 law without any mention of a public interest and never passed into state ownership, there could be no common law public trust easement over the land to the water. There was a subsequent suit based on an alternate theory: that although there was no common law easement, an easement arose because the previous property owner "dedicated" the road to public use. The California Court of Appeals rejected that t heory too. https://www.jurist.org/news/2019/11/ca-appellate-court-rules-publics-access-to-martins-beach-is-not-a-permanent-right https://www.jurist.org/news/2019/11/ca-appellate-court-rules.... > As such, according to the common law of public dedication, the court determined that Martin’s Beach is not dedicated to public access. Opinion here: https://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/nonpub/A154022.PDF https://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/nonpub/A154022.PDF So now we are on the third string legal theory (from the article): > State officials have been following these cases closely and are now taking a swing at the fight. The new lawsuit asks the court to consider unexamined evidence that shows that the beach, as well as the gated road, have been historically used by the public — citing a common law doctrine known as “implied dedication.” We've gone from an easement under property law, to a "public dedication," to "implied public dedication." That brings us to the second legal issue, which is whether Khosla needs a permit to build a structure to close the road to the beach. Even though courts have repeatedly held that there is no public right to use the road, the California Coastal Commission has found that it can use its powers to control development on the coast to keep Khosla from actually vindicating his private property right. So far, the State has been successful on that front. But after last year's loss on the underlying property rights issue, that position gets harder to justify. The State can only go so long using its authority over the building of fences to keep open a public easement that courts have repeatedly held does not exist. Hence this lawsuit. As to your point (B)--it's a wonderful thing that private citizens have the financial resources to fight the State and vindicate their legitimate property rights. The opposite of that is tyranny.

Gatsky 7y ago

There was a profile in Forbes on Khosla or something like that, and one of his employees said something along the lines of 'Khosla is pursuing this beach matter so that anyone that deals with him knows how tough and tenacious he is.' It wasn't entirely clear if this was that employee rationalising the fact his boss is a bastard, or actually the truth. As twisted as this logic may be, I guess it is plausible some egotistical old guy would think this way. Edit: This is the quote: "The “beach issue,” as it is called internally at Khosla Ventures, has surprisingly not been a problem in the office. “It’s an incredible negotiating tool for me,” said Samir Kaul, another partner at Khosla Ventures. When a company was trying to “screw” the firm, Mr. Kaul brought up news articles about the beach at a meeting. “I said: ‘My boss is going to the Supreme Court for a beach he’s never gone to. We’re not posturing here. This guy’s not going to settle,’” Mr. Kaul said. “And then I just sat there." https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/technology/vinod-khosla-beach.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/technology/vinod-khosla-b...

ChuckMcM 7y ago

I would agree that it is uncomfortable to watch but what the law "wants" is pretty clear, and Khosla has lost at pretty much every turn. Now the state is suing to create sanctions on him if he fails to abide by previous decisions to make the beach accessible. Rather than be infuriated, be comforted in the fact that in spite of all his money he has been unable to overturn this law. He has made a lot of lawyers rich doing it, and will have paid a chunk of San Mateo's superior court's budget this year in fees. And he still lost. Now the state and coastal commission are getting a court order so that they can start fining him without the need to go to court. Think of it as a really really regressive tax on a rich land owner. Let's say he writes it off as the cost of doing business and just keeps paying fines. Well I could single handedly double the budget that the coastal commission has available for keeping beach access open. That's a lot of resources.

xyzzyz 7y ago
> Khosla has lost at pretty much every turn. What do you mean? He won at every turn. The courts have ruled that there's no easement, and that the public have no access to the water through his property. https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2193&context=elq https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?art...
- ChuckMcM 7y ago
  This article in the times (https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-martins-beach-supreme-court-20181001-story.html https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-martins-beach-supr...) which discusses that the Supreme Court left the previous ruling of access intact sounded like a win for the Costal commission.
  - xyzzyz 7y ago
    I guess you could call it a win: it required Khosla to keep the road open until he gets a fencing permit. Khosla took it to court on principle, since he believed that such injunction is already takings: indeed, since the courts affirmed that public does not have access to his property through the road, stopping him from blocking such access issues illegal. Since he has every right to get such a fencing permit (as there is no easement, right of way or any other public access through his property where he wants to fence it), in a perfect world he’d simply apply for such permit and promptly get it. In reality though, it is highly likely that the state of California will try to use the fence permitting rights it has to stop him from exercising his property rights, which is exactly what Khosla tried to ensure cannot happen in his Supreme Court petition.