County officials alert Montecito homeowners that they face prosecution, including daily fines of $850 if stones are not removed
Montecito, California, is known for being home to Oprah, a former royal family, and a stunning stretch of coastline. It’s also home to miles of trails, some of which are being blocked by residents hoping to stop people from accessing public hot springs.
Santa Barbara county has been watching encroachments on East Mountain Drive and Riven Rock Road in Montecito since at least 2022, when they sent letters to residents warning them to remove large stones.
Last month, county officials sent letters again to at least six homes alerting residents to remove the stones by 28 March or face civil or criminal prosecution, including daily fines of $850. The county insists that these roads are a public right of way.
The issue seems to be with parking at the trailhead, where a tiny lot allows for just eight vehicles. When that fills up, hikers have to park on roadsides. The hot springs contain six bright blue pools that are located 1.3 miles from the trailhead in the San Padres Forest, surrounded by a deep forest and rocky hills. It became popular during the pandemic when hiking surged in the area, and has also taken off on social media as a destination.
This reminds me of cities after the Civil Rights Act getting rid of their public pools rather than being forced to integrate them.
“It’s either just for me or no one can have it” is such a weird attitude.
People with wealth that want privacy also want cool things near them. You can’t have both unless you’re mega wealthy.
Like Oprah?
Yeah, but this is here pre-megawealth home.
Her megawealth home that satisfies this is in Hawaii.
It’s a GOOD thing we don’t TAX these Wealthy People! Otherwise they might have to give US access to the National Parks we paid for since they won’t be able to Afford the Fines!
finland has income based tickets. We could, theoretically, do that here.
what’s that? America holding The Rich accountable for their misdeeds?
Well I guess there’s a first time for everything.
In
front ofin front ofon Oprah's house
It’s not clear if the stones have been cleared.
🤡
More like, “we just got paid to not do anything about it”. If they wanted those stones cleared they would have brought a fucking excavator, got shit done, and fined the people responsible over $10,000 for the cost of moving them.
$850/day to someone who owns a house worth an average of $7.2m really isn’t much. These people are wealthy beyond belief and can easily pay that penalty. If the punishment for bad behavior is only a fine, then the bad behavior is effectively legal for the rich.
$850/day to someone who owns a house worth an average of $7.2m really isn’t much.
~ $26K/month, $312K/year.
Oprah could pay that annually by herself and not even notice the expense.
I have said it before and I’ll say it again. Oprah is too powerful and, honestly, I bet she has nukes.
Oprah could pay that annually by herself and not even notice the expense.
I’m wondering if she would though, as it might affect her profit-making, if the politics of it went bad.
Then again, she could probably buy California at this point.
Pretty good money for the town though.
Montecito has so much money and influence that any freeway construction in the area has to avoid Montecito because they hate the noise and traffic. They are also used to getting their way. They want to be a small town of multimillionaires but the problem is that they are between a big city and a national park.
And a small but significant private liberal arts college (Westmont)
Wow. This is like those homeowners that were sued for blocking access to the beach in Malibu.
Rich people seem to like to buy expensive property near nice natural resources and then try to keep those filthy poor away.
You don’t own the beach and you don’t own the hot springs, you rich fucks!
They’re too poor to afford buying the beach? Pathetic.
What is it with you humans and your insistence that nothing matters unless you can keep it away from those who need it most?
While I agree with the sentiment, I don’t think it really applies in this case.
That said, people shouldn’t be blocking access to a public area just because they’re upset about something
How not, they hate that poor people are using the hot spring
How is a hot spring something that people NEED to use? You’re acting like it’s a necessity of life to go use it. It’s not. And the people using it are poor? That’s a pretty damn big generalization you’re making there to try and further your point.
They still should NOT be blocking people’s access to anything, but don’t turn this into something it’s not. The destination and their wealth aren’t what matters here. They’re pissed that there are more people around and trying to do something about it. This is a common theme with any tourism heavy area.
Money sure seems to bring out the moronic meanness of people dont it
Great… now I got to do a side quest to get to the hot springs.
There needs to be hefty fines, with a time component, accumulating since the first notice
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honestly why don’t they do a park and ride somewhere else and then just have a bus/shuttle service on high traffic days?
It’s public land, fuck those people. They can sell their house and move if they don’t like it.
That would be even worse to them than parking. They might see a homeless person!
