Hacker News Reader

Comment by eksith | Hacker News Reader

At the risk of sounding indelicate, why did he buy the property when the real possibility of maintaining public access was there? I can understand he wanted some peace and solitude, but if that's the case, there are options available to him as a billionaire that aren't available to the vast majority of the populace.

Access was in the law books before his purchase and claiming the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo as being present before the 1972 Coastal Zone law is ridiculous in the extreme. There were many other things legal in 1848 that aren't today for very good reasons.

  "The judge could have fined Khosla $15,000 a day for every day the gates were shut, 
  but she waived all fines."

Why?

View on HN

The judge had to twist the law to get the decision everyone wanted. She said closing the gate was "development" and therefore needed a permit which he didn't get. That's already quite a stretch, it would have been capricious to tack on a fine.

You're referring to :

  Mallach agreed with Surfrider that closing the gate amounted to “a change 
  in intensity of use,” That change, she said, could be considered development 
  under the law. As a result, she said in her ruling, Khosla must apply 
  for a coastal development permit if he wants to close the gate or make other 
  changes to the property.

Removing public access means he intends to use the land privately. While what constitutes "use" is debatable, these are moot points considering the laws passed in 1972 and 1976:

  prohibit homes or developments from blocking access to beaches. They essentially 
  make the entire coast, including all beach property below the mean high tide line, 
  public property.

> Removing public access means he intends to use the land privately

The argument was that he wasn't removing public access; he contends public access never existed: "the Deeney family, which set up the first cabin in 1918, had always charged people to access the beach, a clear indication that it was a private beach prior to 1972"

As I understand it, this ruling hinged on the former, not the latter. I think a fine would have been unreasonable - this a disagreement over technicalities in the law. On the other hand, what guys like David Geffen are doing in Malibu is blatant knowing disregard for the law, and fines would be completely appropriate in cases like that.

Because some folks think that laws only apply to people who can't afford good lawyers.

Often enough they're right, in practice, but not this time.

A $22 million fine would have been a great lesson.

Doubtful. The dude has a net worth of $1.5 billion. He would have made back the $22 million as interest from his investments within a matter of weeks.

In Iceland they have an interesting idea. Many fines are assessed as a percentage of your income rather than being a fixed amount.

The debate around doing that in the US would be incredible. Some people would see it as being unequal treatment under law. In one way it is; in another way it isn't.

Basically the same in Sweden. Many fines are defines in days wages rather than in fixed amounts. So the judge will simply fine someone 30 days wages and not worry about what that amounts to for that particular person

That sounds like that could cost a poor person more than a rich person. If a poor person pays 30 days wages he won't be able to pay rent. If a rich person pays that then it could not impact them at all.

That sounds like that could cost a poor person more than a rich person.

Well obviously, but that is true of all fines. And you cannot argue that a system where the poor person pays $1000 and the rich person $4000 is harder on the the poor person than a system where everybody pays $2500.

Do you have a citation/link to anything describing this system in Iceland? I have heard of similar systems in Finland and maybe Norway or Sweden but never Iceland. It would be interesting to know if the banking collapse has changed anything.

I believe the golemotron is incorrect. For example, http://autos.aol.com/article/highest-speeding-fines/ points out that Finland's fines are a percentage of income, while Iceland's is merely expensive. "In Iceland, higher fines are justified by their supporters by the danger of driving on roads that can turn quickly from tarmac to gravel, often leading to unintended consequences for fast drivers."

You're right. It was Finland I was thinking of.

If your net worth is $1.5 billion, what % of your annual income would serve as a deterrent?

You're right. It should be tied to net worth rather than income.

Net worth is difficult to calculate, which is why schemes like wealth (vs. income) taxes are likely impossible to implement.

Prince Alwaleed accused Forbes of underestimating his wealth - imagine how difficult it must be when people are trying to get the lowball figure.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com