Board agrees to amend off-road vehicle ordinance

 

County officials are cracking the whip on people who cross riverbeds and trespass private property and undesignated areas in off-road vehicles.

In an unanimous vote April 1, the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors supported amending the county’s off-road vehicle ordinance. The changes would give the Sheriff’s department and the Santa Barbara County District Attorneys Office more authority in charging and prosecuting violators, while excluding farmers, ranchers, and vineyard businesses. It could also change the violation from an infraction to a wobblet, a colloquially-used term for a law with an either-or enforcement option. In this case, a district attorney would have discretion to charge a violation as an infraction or as a misdemeanor.

 

The Sheriff’s department is proposing the changes because it claims its received increasing complaints from land owners who say unauthorized use of off-road vehicles on private property is a nuisance that disturbs live stock, damages riverbeds and violates property rights.

“People are running around and jerking around all the time on these bikes and ATVs in the Santa Ynez River,” said 4th District Supervisor Joni Gray.

Brown said the ordinance proposal would be mutually beneficial to both the county and property owners.

 

However, some ranchers and farmers whose farming activities require them to transport equipment across riverbeds and unauthorized off-road areas are raising an eyebrow at the proposed changes and cautioning officials to keep their interests in mind.

Andy Caldwell, executive director for the Coalition of Labor Agriculture and Business, called the new ordinance “poorly crafted” and said there was no good reason for the current ordinance to be changed.

 

“If you pull the trigger it will be county law,” he said to the board.

He argued that the ordinance could prevent farmers and ranchers from accessing their own property and other necessary areas they often use for business. He recommended that the board restrict recreational use of such areas and leave farmers and ranchers out of the ordinance.

The majority of property owners present at the meeting supported the proposed ordinance but advocated their own exclusion from it.

 

Bruce Steel, who owns property near Highway 246, supported the draft ordinance and said it could prevent ATV recreational users from destroying and or disturbing wildlife habitat and plants.

Gray sympathized with ranchers and farmers and called for an expedited permit process that would grant ranchers and farmers permission to enter undesignated areas without having to go through the bureaucratic processing from state wildlife agencies.

“If you try to get the permit from fish and wildlife, you may be old and gray [before it happens],” she said.

 

While there seemed to be consensus among the supervisors on the need to take action, all expressed concerns about the language of the ordinance.

“I think we’re on the right track,” said 3rd District Supervisor Brooks Firestone, “though I’m worried about some of the unintended consequences.”

First District Supervisor Salud Carbajal said he was reluctant to exempt farmers or ranchers from the proposed ordinance, claiming that their rights as business and property owners didn’t trump environmental safeguards.

“We need to tread lightly and not go down a slippery slope,” he said.

The Sheriff’s recommendation to change the violation from an infraction to a wobblet concerned 5th District Supervisor Joseph Centeno.

 

He said he was concerned about minors unnecessarily being criminalized and Sheriff deputies abusing what he termed the “attitude test,” in which an officer could initially charge an individual with an infraction, but because the individual exhibits a “bad attitude” the deputy decides to upgrade the charge to a misdemeanor.

Gray and Carbajal echoed Centeno’s concerns.

“You do need to look at the language; it puts it at a whole different level, at the second of arrest,” Gray said.

Though no final decision was made, supervisors said they didn’t want to create law “on the fly.”

“We’ll need some time to write law,” Centeno said.

The Board will return April 15 with a clearer direction and changes that could exempt ranchers and farmers and that clarifies how violators will be charged and prosecuted.

Public hearings on the ordinance will follow the April 15 meeting.