By Chris Bennett
In the annals of clashes between government control versus private
property rights, Michael Ballard’s story is standalone. Ballard faces
$120,000-plus in fines for allowing his farm manager to live on his
California farm.
When Ballard let Marcelino Martinez, a 23-year career employee, live
on-site in a trailer, Santa Clara County officials reacted with a blitz
of code violations. Yet, those same officials permit thousands of
homeless to reside in tents, shanties, and RVs across the county without
penalty.
Bottom line, according to the county: If Martinez lives homeless on the
streets and commutes to work on the farm, no problem. However, if he
resides on the farm in a trailer—even out of site from public roads and
neighboring properties—the action is illegal and deserves draconian
fines.
Ballard is unbowed, represented by Institute for Justice: “Our city
roads and cul-de-sacs have rows and rows of homeless camped on public
property and that’s just fine with the county—no repercussions for
anyone. However, I’m being prosecuted because my vineyard manager and
his family live on my private property.”
“I’m fighting the county and I’ll never listen to power-crazy
bureaucrats that tell me I have to kick a family off our place,” Ballard
adds. “Never. I want the public to know the shocking details and see
extreme injustice by our own government.”
Soapbox Love
In 1996, Michael and Kellie Ballard bought Savannah-Chanelle Vineyards in east-central
California outside Saratoga—60 acres of exquisite beauty overlooking
redwoods and rolling hills.
The surrounding Saratoga community, tucked beside Silicon Valley,
consistently ranks at the top of per capita income and home value in the
United States. Big-name tech entrepreneurs reside in Saratoga and want
their homes cleaned, lawns mowed, and tables waited—creating a massive
housing crisis.
“The labor-based population cannot afford a place to stay,” Ballard
explains. “It’s not a secret. Most people cannot find a house or
apartment to rent.”
Additionally, beneath the affluence of the region, a Santa Clara
County-wide homeless debacle has developed. “People want to pretend this
problem is something other than what it is,” Ballard explains. “You’re
not even supposed to say ‘homeless’ anymore, because it’s supposedly
disrespectful to the homeless. Everyone loves the soapbox, but when
visitors from out-of-state see the homeless on our streets, they can’t
comprehend what’s happened.”
Since 2013, Marcelino Martinez, Ballard’s vineyard manager and long-time
employee, has lived at Savannah-Chanelle Vineyards in a 42’ trailer with
water, electricity, and septic hookups, alongside his wife and three
children.
“The Martinez family is also our family. They could not find housing and
we wanted to help,” says Ballard. “The trailer sits by itself in a
redwood grove down a hill from our winery and can’t even be seen from
most spots on our property. Literally, it bothers no one.”
In September 2017, Santa Clara County got an anonymous call about sewage
dumped in a creek on the Ballard’s operation. County inspectors visited
Ballard’s land and found the charges were fabricated.
However, while on the vineyard property, inspectors spotted Martinez’s
trailer.
“They saw the trailer and said, ‘What is that? No one’s allowed to live
in an RV trailer in the county.’”
A bureaucratic nightmare began.
Bullfrogs and Shotguns
Ten days later, a notice from the county arrived in Ballard’s mailbox,
demanding removal of Martinez’s trailer within two weeks, and declaring
the structure a “public nuisance.”
The irony was stark: If Martinez and family slept on county streets—no
fines and no foul. However, if Martinez dared to sleep in a trailer at
the farm of his employment—instant county rebuke.
“Ludicrous,” Ballard says. “We’re on 60 acres of private property,
bothering nobody, and the trailer is not even visible to the public. The
man who lives inside works in our vines and is integral to all the
physical parts of our operation. Yet, the county was ordering me to
throw him and his family off our property. Homeless is just fine with
the county; a trailer in Saratoga is not.”
(Santa Clara County declined Farm Journal interview requests regarding
Savannah-Chanelle Vineyards.)
In 2019, county officials levied $1,000-per-day fines on Ballard: Remove
the trailer or fork over $365,000 every year. “Hell no,” he says. “I
wasn’t going to make a family homeless.”
Ballard sought a solution via a prefab dwelling for the Martinez family.
Best laid plans. Building any structure—even an 850 sq. ft. home—was a
bureaucratic maze filled with exorbitant expense.
“We looked into developing a parcel, knowing the county might approve
and might not; knowing it would take a couple years; and knowing it
would total maybe $100,000-plus just for the pre-permit application
process.”
Convoluted, complicated, and costly, and toe-tagged with a laundry list
of checkoffs, Ballard notes. “It took us one year to complete the
geological studies and road composition, have a septic system designed,
retest an existing well, and get electricity and a fire hydrant
approved.”
“Meanwhile, as we’re spending all this money, county officials said we
were taking too long,” Ballard says. “After that, we assembled enough of
the preliminary engineering work to put in our first application.
Several months later, the county countered with another laundry list of
things to do.”
And then COVID hit. By law, Savannah-Chanelle Vineyards was shuttered for two
years.
Following COVID in 2023, Ballard’s property was hit by a catastrophic
landslide that closed the winery for a full four months. “And next it
was flooding in 2023-24 that closed us for five months,” Ballard adds.
“One thing after another, and the whole time, the government is telling
us we’re taking too long to follow their endless list of building
requirements—all to house a family on our private land.”
The fines, although reduced to $250, and later $100 per day, kept
stacking, tightening the pressure on Ballard and Savannah-Chanelle
Vineyards.
The county was hunting a bullfrog with a shotgun, Ballard contends:
“Look at the power of the bureaucracy over our lives at the local and
national levels. Rules are necessary, but these agencies and
institutions keep regulating to justify their expansion and existence.
They always grow and never shrink. The end result is a loss of reason by
the government and a loss of liberty for the citizen.”
Individual Liberty
In 2024, attorney Paul Avelar and Institute
for Justice stepped into the fray and took over Ballard’s appeal
for relief.
“This injustice is absolutely bewildering to the public,” Avelar
describes. “The county tells Michael Ballard, a landowner and business
owner, to kick a family—bothering no one and working hard—to the street
or get fined $100 or even $1,000 per day. Then Michael is required to
endure a permitting process that drags for years and costs at least tens
of thousands of dollars before building even begins. It’s hard for
people to believe.”
The fines imposed by the county, since dropped to $100 per day, but
totaling over $120,000, are a massively outsized penalty for a minor
violation, and a breach of the Eighth Amendment’s excessive fines
clause, Avelar insists. “A daily accruing fine means that every day is a
new harm to the Ballards. The Institute for Justice has taken over the
Ballard’s appeal to assert the Eighth Amendment, as well as due process,
and we believe no fine is appropriate.”
“Michael Ballard used his own land to solve a problem for a friend and
farmworker in a county with arguably the most severe housing crisis in
the country, and the government cracked down,” Avelar adds. “That is
madness.”
Ballard is adamant: Reason will prevail. “In the United States, we don’t
have a democracy ruled by the whim of the masses. Our forefathers gave
us a constitutional republic steered by elected representatives of the
people. That’s a very distinct difference, and crucially important
because it means our elected leaders have authority, but are restricted
by the Constitution, which protects individual liberty.”
“That’s what is abused in my case—individual liberty,” he adds. “And I
see it abused in so many cases across this country because the
government seeks more and more control of private property. It’s
undeniable and getting worse with time.”
Ballard concludes with a line in the sand. “I don’t care about the fines
or prosecution. I will protect the Martinez family and the county will
not put them on the street.”
