“Let all Oz be agreed, I’m wicked through and through.”
— Elphaba in the musical Wicked
Residents of small-town Kittredge, Colorado, can still recall the day the “evil lady” from the big city rode into town on her broomstick. With those piercing dark-brown eyes and her pointy wide-brimmed, black hat, Taralyn Romero would spend the next year terrorizing her neighbors, depriving them of their most treasured community landmark.
… That’s the version of events some in the town remember.
But for Taralyn, the story played out a bit differently.
What could she possibly have done to earn herself such a wicked reputation so quickly? Her only real sin was daring to fight back when the town and its local government demanded her land. The feud that ensued would earn her the title “The Wicked Witch of The West.”
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
It was love at first sight when Taralyn Romero saw the land she would later buy in Kittredge. Those majestic mountain views, the trees that touch the ski, and the beloved Bear Creek that ran behind the property—it was all something out of a picturesque travel magazine drawing her in like a siren’s song.
“[When] I found out I got the house, I was overjoyed,” Romero said. “Couldn’t believe my luck.”
A born-and-bred Coloradan, Taralyn loves her state and can’t imagine living anywhere else. After spending the COVID-19 pandemic trapped in a Denver high-rise, she decided an escape to a more rural area of Colorado—farther into the mountains—would do her soul good.
But the return to nature wasn’t the tranquil transition she had envisioned. In just a few short months after Taralyn and her fiancé moved to Kittredge, their newfound sanctuary came under attack.
As their first spring turned into their first summer in Kittredge, Taralyn noticed a constant flow of people into her backyard. Surely, this was just an innocent mistake, she thought to herself. After all, her property line backed right up to Bear Creek and a public park.
Then it happened again … and again … and again.
This wasn’t just a few people here and there. Taralyn explained that it “quickly turned into 55 people on my property in my backyard accessing the creek from Kittredge Park, every single day of the week, no break whatsoever, for the entire day.”
Eventually, Taralyn ventured down to the creek to get some answers. The creek-goers, she came to learn, were not on her land by mistake. In fact, according to her uninvited guests, it was Taralyn who had made a mistake.
When Taralyn bought her property, the sellers left out one very important detail. For as long as anyone could remember, the prior owners had allowed visitors to access the part of the land that backed up to Bear Creek. As far as the Kittredgers were concerned, this portion of the land was public property.
She never meant to go viral.
This information was less than ideal. But Taralyn is not malicious or unreasonable. She completely understood why so many people would cherish the land near the creek. She had been drawn there herself. As the new kid in town, she decided not to make a fuss out of it. If the visitors loved the land as much as she did, surely they would treat it with respect. And so long as they did, there was no reason to tell them to leave.
Her generosity was soon put to the test.
As much as the visitors claimed they cherished the land, they didn’t show it. Creek-goers would leave trash behind and let their children and dogs dig holes into the ground, damaging the vegetation. Taralyn was also becoming increasingly aware of the liability concerns. If someone injures themselves in a public park, the government can be held responsible. Taralyn’s land might be treated like public property, but at the end of the day it was privately owned. If anyone were to get hurt while visiting the creek, she could be held legally responsible, whether she invited them there or not.
Despite her concerns, she continued to accommodate visitors.
There wasn’t much she could do about the liability issue, but she could try to control the damage to the vegetation. She placed “NO DIGGING” signs on the property, assuming this was a reasonable request to make of her guests. When she saw children digging one day, in clear view of the sign, she went down to the creek and asked them to stop. She had no idea that this moment would force her to cross the threshold from hero to villain.
‘I’ll Get You, My Pretty’
The children’s grandmother did not take kindly to Taralyn’s request. The confrontation grew tense and hostile. Still, Taralyn thought the conflict had been nipped in the bud. Nothing could be further from the truth. Immediately after the encounter, the grandmother went online to a Kittredge community Facebook group and shared what had happened. But according to her story, Taralyn was an “evil lady” who had screamed, used vulgar language, and scared her grandchildren.
The pitchforks were out. The witch hunt was on.
Gossip spread like wildfire in community Facebook groups and apps like Nextdoor. The town was buzzing with horror stories of run-ins with Taralyn. They called her a “rich” outsider and suggested she might even be a big-time developer who was trying to “destroy” their town. As the tall tales became ever-more sensationalized, Taralyn’s infamy grew.
Colleen Duke, one of the community members in a Facebook group, remembers one commenter saying, “She’s just so rude and she’ll yell at your children and she’ll intimidate you with dogs.”
Taralyn had unwittingly earned a new nickname. From that day on, she would be dubbed “The Wicked Witch of The West.” Community members saw her “NO DIGGING” signs as an act of war, and some even suggested that the signs were an act of vandalism—on Taralyn’s own property. Taralyn felt uncomfortable in the community, like she’d become the neighborhood villain. A resident admitted to spitting in her food when she dined in a local restaurant. Taralyn even got death threats. Her side of the story didn’t matter. The narrative had already been written. To the town, Taralyn was wicked.
Had any one of her neighbors bothered to sit down with Taralyn and try to work out some sort of compromise, the situation may not have escalated like it did. But feeling vulnerable and unsafe, Taralyn cut off public access to her land with a rope wire in the summer of 2022.
The town was ready for battle.
As if the public ostracism wasn’t enough, the community’s new solution was to use the local government to rob Taralyn of her property rights.
Kittredge vs. The Wicked Witch
The County came for her land. Taralyn told them by email that she would be willing to lease her land to the County for what she described as “basically free.” She didn’t want to lead with a specific dollar amount until she received a reply, but it was her intent to lease it for $1—the same amount Evergreen Park and Rec leases the Jefferson County-owned land for each year. The County never responded to her email.
“The more that I tried to defend myself, the more aggressively I got attacked.”
Taralyn Romero
The County later offered to buy her backyard for $75K. She had no desire to share her property with what she described as a “waterpark.” She told them she would sell, but they would have to purchase her entire property so she could wash her hands of the whole matter.
The two parties could not reach an agreement.
In complete disregard for Taralyn’s constitutional property rights, the Board of County Commissioners sued her for access to her land in the summer of 2022. They argued that because the past owners had allowed the public on their land for so long—something Taralyn was never made aware of when she bought the property—it should be open to public use. Had she known about the practice, she may not have purchased the land at all.
In the lawsuit, the County used the public’s affection for Taralyn’s property as grounds for claiming public access. “Members of the public and neighborhood adults specifically used that area for themselves and their families to access the creek,” the County alleged. “Families and neighbors recall with fondness children playing in the sand and the creek bed daily over the warmest months of the year.”
This is the crux of the government’s easy (and illegal) solution to complex property disputes: If the public likes a plot of land—or an oceanfront view, or a private road, or a creek—the public should get to use it, the government says. Never mind that the Constitution forbids the taking of public property for public use without just compensation. And never mind that the public’s fondness for private property is not grounds for violating a constitutional right.
Worse, in Taralyn’s case, were the lies the County asserted in their claim. The County wrote that Taralyn and her fiancé acted with “aggression and intimidation towards Park visitors and children.” Oddly enough, the County failed to mention the harassment and aggression on the part of community members.
“The more that I tried to defend myself, the more aggressively I got attacked,” Taralyn said. “I was robbed of a chance to defend myself. And that’s where things are going from online drama to real-life danger.”
Powerless as she felt, Taralyn didn’t want to give up on her new home.
She had an idea. She wasn’t going to be able to change her reputation, but she could use it to her own benefit. Insults only have power if you let them. And when city hall won’t listen, you can raise your voice on social media.
Taralyn had been documenting the town’s harassment on her phone. She decided to take all the video footage and upload it to TikTok.
As she created her username, there was only one appropriate choice. So with a little rebellion in her heart and a sense of humor, Taralyn became “The Wicked Witch of The West” on TikTok.
The Court of Public Opinion
She never meant to go viral. TikTok was just supposed to be an outlet for Taralyn to express herself and tell her side of the story. On August 3, 2022, she began uploading videos showing the severity of the situation and the town’s incendiary reactions.
To her surprise, one of her videos garnered 4.4 million views. Even more shocking, the comments were overwhelmingly positive, with viewers sympathetic and outraged on her behalf. Finally, people were listening to her side of the story. Her videos began circulating like crazy and her followers were growing. She leaned into her online persona and continued to tell not only her story, but the stories of others who found themselves fighting for their property rights as well. Her account began to grow: Now, two years after she started posting, Taralyn has over 237,000 followers and 4.8 million likes.
As her videos grew in popularity, people in the town began to see the whole picture, and some even reached out to Taralyn and her fiancé and apologized for misjudging the situation. TikTok had helped Taralyn win in the court of public opinion.
Without meaning to, Taralyn had become an influential advocate for property rights. If that made her wicked, so be it.
The government can’t force property owners to turn their private properties into public parks.
Who Is the Real Villain?
When Pacific Legal Foundation found Taralyn’s TikTok videos, we knew we had to sit down and talk. After all, Taralyn’s exhausting experience is something many PLF clients understand all too well.
And just like Taralyn, PLF is dedicated to helping property owners protect their land from greedy governments.
In New Mexico, PLF is currently litigating a case on behalf of Lucía Sanchez, a rancher and land planner for a local tribal government. Lucía’s family has owned property in Rio Arriba County since 1942. She has always felt a powerful bond to the land that connects her to her heritage.
The property backs up to a national forest, which the government has used as an excuse to claim her land for public access. This concerned Lucía, especially when anglers and others arrived, unannounced and uninvited, to use the streambed on her private land.
In 2022, the New Mexico Supreme Court stripped away her property rights, after a group of non-profits led by the Adobe Whitewater Club of New Mexico filed a petition. The groups asked the court to invalidate new regulations that affirmed owners’ rights to exclude the public from private streambeds.
Now Lucía is powerless to stop trespassers from taking fish from her stream by the dozens. Just as in Taralyn’s experience, trespassers also left behind trash. Despite her best efforts, Lucía’s cattle have gotten sick from eating the trash. Yet there is nothing she can do to keep trespassers at bay.
Pacific Legal Foundation is helping Lucía fight for her right to own and use private land without interference from the public, which is critical and sacred not only to Lucía but to anyone whose property rights stand in jeopardy.
The government can’t force property owners to turn their private properties into public parks. In case after case across the United States—including two of PLF’s recent Supreme Court victories, Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid and Wilkins v. United States—people like Lucía and Taralyn are fighting for their right to exclude people from their own land.
The Ongoing Fight
Taralyn’s courage to stand up for her rights sparked an online movement that has brought national attention to the issue of property rights. She has used TikTok to draw support, not only for her own case but for others as well. Her content is helping to personify the complex legal stakes by showing the real-world consequences of governments stripping people of their constitutional rights.
As far as her own story goes, Taralyn was forced to settle and “split the baby,” as she puts it, giving the County about 40% of her backyard in exchange for a settlement of a quarter of a million dollars. While her own fight to defend her property has come to an end, that doesn’t mean she has stopped speaking out.
Taralyn’s social media presence continues to grow as she works to help others fight back.
Taralyn has made herself a force to be reckoned with, and she’s having fun in the process. She’s found amusement in wearing her “Wicked Witch of the West” nickname as a badge of honor—but make no mistake, the true villain of her story is the government, for failing to protect Taralyn’s private property rights.
