Kid on a rope.
Like a river, like a river, sh-
Like a river, like a river, sh-
Like a river, like a river
Shut your mouth and run me like a river
To the River.
The River.
To the River.
Yeah the River.
Shut your mouth and give me the green ticket to the River.
Parks Management Company employees will never tell you that you’re free to drive past their checkpoint at First Crossing, at the end of Paradise Road in Santa Barbara County, and park in unpaved pullouts along River Road on the way to Red Rock swimming hole and use the Santa Ynez River.
They will never voluntarily tell you this fact on their own accord.
Instead they demand you pay them money.
Apparently, as evidenced by their years-long routine behavior, Parks Management Company, in seeking to maximize profit, instead trains its employees not to readily inform the public of their right to pass and park without payment.
Apparently the corporate manager of our public lands seeks to fool as many people as possible into paying a fee that they are not legally obligated to pay in order to boost the company’s bottom line.
Why else would the company fail to address and fix this problem and instead do nothing about it? Why else do so many of their employees through the years always act the same?
The law is clear.
You are not obligated to pay Parks Management Company anything.
But they will not tell you this fact.
And they will attempt to make you believe that you cannot pass and cannot park to use the river unless you pay.
Sometimes these employees will lie while in pursuit of your money and will tell you information that is not true to make you think you are obligated to pay.
Sometimes these employees will threaten you with calling company management or the sheriff.
All of that has happened to me.
If you didn’t know better you’d be left with the impression that payment is lawfully required.
You might even believe that you were dealing with a ranger from the United States Forest Service instead of a company hack.
The way in which Parks Management Company has its operation set up in the checkpoint and the manner of the uniformed employees is a cheap imitation of a state or national park front gate entrance.
To the unknowing person it may be easy to confuse the booth and stop sign and all the other posted signs and the uniformed person pressing you for money with something other than a dishonest corporate employee trying to swindle you.
Yes. Swindle.
Parks Management Company is running a swindle, a racket, an outrage up on the Santa Ynez River.
I have for years argued with this company’s employees, as noted in the previous posts linked at the bottom here.
I have always won the argument, eventually.
Because the law is on my side, on our side.
Sometimes I was threatened with having the sheriff called on me. Sometimes management was called.
But I have always won the argument in the end. In the end I was always vindicated by being allowed to pass free of charge.
The secret green pass for free parking.
Charlie: So that’s why you sent out the golden tickets!
Willy Wonka: That’s right. So the factory is yours, Charlie. You can move in immediately.
Grandpa Joe: And me?
Willy Wonka: Absolutely.
Charlie: But what happens to the rest…?
Willy Wonka: The whole family. I want you to bring them all.
—From the movie adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
For the first time ever in my experience, starting this season, Parks Management is issuing a document acknowledging and proving what I and many other people have long argued is true.
The company will give you a bright green mirror hanger pass if you are parking in unpaved pullouts and not using the “improved” Day-Use areas with BBQ grills, picnic benches, pit toilets, and paved parking lots or the paved Red Rock parking lot.
The employee in the booth will not tell you this freely and will never hand this green pass over without being asked or even pressed.
Even when you ask them they may hesitate or resist.
On Memorial Day, when I asked for a green ticket, the lady did not readily hand one over.
She hesitated and began to hem and haw and was not forthcoming with the ticket. My wife seated beside me at the time commented on her hesitant behavior as we drove off after getting the ticket.
Only when I reached into my center console in my vehicle to grab an old green ticket and said something about having an example of what I wanted did she respond as necessary, as lawfully required.
Several days earlier this middle-aged blonde woman with short hair falsely stated that my children were using the Day-Use fee area when in point of fact they were not.
My children were swimming in the river.
And swimming in the river is not a pay-to-play for fee Day-Use activity. There is no question about this point. None whatsoever.
This lady of Parks Management ill repute lied to my face.
I instantly disputed her accusation. She backed down.
Why would she lie or misinform me?
Was she lying? Was she being intentionally misleading and dishonest?
Or was she making an honest mistake? Was she so poorly trained by Parks Management and ill prepared to carrying out her job that she told me something she thought was true but was false?
And if she made an honest mistake why hadn’t Parks Management Company educated her on this point and trained her accordingly when she took the job?
I am not sure of the answers to these questions.
But it’s a fact that such behavior on the part of their employees redounds to the financial benefit of Park’s Management Company when the unknowing public is pressured into paying fees based on this sort of misinformation.
It’s in the financial interests of the corporation to keep their employees ignorant of this issue regarding the right of the public to park and recreate without payment.
Is this the reason why so many of their employees so often tell me incorrect information when pressuring me for payment?
A person that was ripped off.
On several different days recently I took a look around at cars parked in dirt pullouts along River Road, where no fee is required, and all the vehicles had paid tickets hanging from mirrors or on the dash, as shown in the photo above.
All those people unknowingly paid a fee that they were not legally required to pay.
The people don’t know that Park’s Management Company is ripping them off.
Related posts on this blog:
