Comment by jkyle | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jkyle | Hacker News Reader

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From the article:

> Khosla bought the 53-acre property for $32.5 million in 2008 and kept the beach open to the public for two years despite the fact that he was paying $500,000 to $600,000 a year in maintenance costs and liability insurance.

> In 2010, after receiving county court orders -- which he believed were unfair -- to keep the beach access open 24/7 and charge visitors $2 for parking, Khosla ordered his property manager to close the gate permanently.

Seems like it's not so clear cut. I mean, he was eating 500-600k a year without complaint maintaining the property for the public. That's pretty generous. Seems it was a dispute over parking and fees...and considering how trivial $2 is compared to the 500k+ he was already paying it just feels like there's a bit more to this story than "Koshla is an evil 1%'r".

edit

So, it was exceptionally hard finding anything from Khosla himself on the issue. But I did find a few more details on why the beach was closed.

So, when he got the property he allowed the same access as the previous owners. Which was generally accessible during the day, but typically closed at night, during bad whether (often during winter), and when "inconvenient" which I assume is when property managers were on vacation or whatever. This level of access has been confirmed by the previous owners, the Deeney's, in their court testimony.

So, for some unknown reason, the county issued an order to the property manager for them to a) reduce parking fees to $2 (which is what they were in the 1970's) and b) to keep the gate open 24/7.

Khosla's managers/attorney's/whatever thought this was a significant historical change in access policy and so fought it, closing the property until the dispute was resolved.

I got all this from the following article: http://www.mercurynews.com/san-mateo-county-times/ci_2616631...

Well, I guess putting armed guards to block access [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinod_Khosla#Martin.27s_Beach_d...] paying to layers and financing black PR campaigns is expensive. No surprise it could be $500-600k. Or did he actually spend it on cleaning the beach? edit: Or had this $500-600k number been pulled out of thin air, just like 70% number?

According to the article, he spent the 500-600k in the years prior to the dispute when it was open for maintenance and liability insurance.

The dispute was over a court order to also provide parking at a required rate of $2. (just repeating the article that was linked, I'm no expert on the legal details of this case)

Yes but any of that 500-600k cost which was actually required of him could have easily been known by him at time of purchasing the property. Saying you don't want to pay the required upkeep on something because it only benefits others and not you personally after you get it is pretty assholish.

I updated my original post, but the case was never about that expense or about the level of access historically provided. It was about a court order that required a change to the level of access and support in comparison to what had been provided by him and all previous owners.

In that it told him he could ONLY charge $2 for parking vs the presumably free (EDIT: incorrect assumption on my part, as previous owners also charged a fee, but I can't find any indication that he was being limited to a lower fee than they charged) parking on the road people had been getting with previous owners....

Effectively the court was allowing him to recoup some of his cost with parking, just not at the rate he wanted.

Edit: Oh your original post referred to one up several more levels, when I wrote this response I thought it referred to the post I replied to, but noticed no significant modifications.

Yeah, it also required 24/7 access 365 days a year. Which was above and beyond what everyone else had provided in the past.

It also noted that, at the time, the area's use had declined significantly due to smelt fishing decline which is why the previous owner sold it.

So, when the dispute occurred, he'd been providing the same access as ever when a mandate came out of the blue saying he had to provide a significantly higher level of access than was historically required and whatever extra costs that might incur on a beach that was largely unused at the time overall and during the periods of closer in particular.

So he was like "wtf, why?" in a very legal sense (the only sense that would work in legal disputes). And _only_ after the case went viral as some kind of down with the 1%'rs! rally cry did people actually start bothering to go visit the site...to make a point.

I'm sure the novelty will wear off and then they'll be some property manager that has to sit up there through the night and winter for....nobody.

The 24/7 access 365 days a year wasn't mentioned in the article you linked that you said you got 'all this' from. So would you please provide that source. I see them saying it needed to be open during the winter, and in previous reports I read in one of the other links in this thread that he had tried to close it all winter but has more recently had it open some days during the winter.

Also I fail to see how the decline of the areas use would have anything to do with its availability, this isn't a use it or lose it situation. Can you explain how reduced usage of the beach should effect its availability at all?

There are a lot of unsupported statements going on for both sides if I take the ones that they seem to agree on I get something of a narrative like this.

He bought the property.

He kept the beach open similar to the previous owners.

Tried to charge $X amount for parking.

People complained, and the court told him he could only charge $2.

He said well fuck you guys I'll just close the beach.

He won a case to close the beach.

He lost a 2nd case forcing him to open the beach.

He lost a 3rd beach forcing him to open the beach.

He started opening the beach sometimes. Is it more or less than the previous owners? Well this seems to be where the core disagreement is with no real support or evidence provided to the public for either side.

I think he comes off sounding like a dick, especially at the end of that article that quotes him repeatedly which you linked, where he tries to re-frame the issue as one of conservation. You apparently see him as an entitled land owner, we clearly disagree. However if you would like to continue this, which there is no need to as I believe we have reached an impasse I would ask that any numbers you use are ones I can verify. Thank you.

Vinod had bought services of a "public-relation management company" to address the issue of this negative PR that he had in regards with the Martin's Beach. That's where 500k number might have came from. Taken out of the air, just like 70% number?

And I wouldn't be surprised that this PR company would try to make a "hero" out of Vinod. And present him as a "hero, who is spending his own private money to support local surfers".

If you want to check facts, don't read blogs/potentially paid articles. Just go to the facts that a non-profit public foundation, created to protect our beaches provides. This foundation is generally spends its efforts on organizing beach cleanups. These are unambiguously good guys. In that case they've had to spend efforts on a lawsuit :(. Anyway, as a public non-profit they just don't have the ability to misrepresent facts or tell fat lies (unlike privately hired PR companies, layers or bloggers). So I'd just trust the facts as they put them:

http://www.surfrider.org/campaigns/entry/open-martins-beach#...

http://martinsbeach.blogspot.com/p/get-involved.html

http://martinsbeach.blogspot.com/

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