You’ve got to step foot in the dirt.
That thinking propels Dare 2 Dream Farms, where Megan and Jeremy Raff do more than sell chickens and vegetables.
Day after day, the couple welcomes children and adults to the rolling property—to explore the barnyard, learn about crops, shop the honor-system farm stand there and depart with a habit-changing appreciation for healthy living.
Officials say the farm is an important node providing nutrition to the Lompoc Valley. It distributes food boxes and supplies mobile farmers’ markets, all while accepting EBT payments for people who receive government assistance.
But the dream could come crashing down—threatened by an overdue $65,840.11 Santa Barbara County tax bill—$50,664.25 in principle and $15,175.86 in penalties and interest.
“We may be forced to shut our doors,” Megan Raff told the county Board of Supervisors this month.
In response, the board and county staff members are exploring ways to tap public funds and help the farm stay open, as long as the solution isn’t a gift and doesn’t set a precedent for other struggling businesses.
TOT troubles
The Raffs’ financial stresses stem from four short-term “farm stay” rentals at their Lassalle Canyon Road tract, a former diatomaceous earth mine located on the southwestern edge of the Lompoc Valley.
“Farm stays let guests… wake up on a working farm, hear the roosters, collect eggs,” the Raffs said in a written appeal seeking either forgiveness or partial relief of their tax bill. “For many, it is the first time they have slept somewhere food is actively grown around them.”
Every hotel, motel and short-term rental operator across the unincorporated county is required to collect and pay transient occupancy tax (TOT) when people stay for 30 or fewer consecutive days.
Enforcement is up, aided by technology and a push by the county Treasurer-Tax Collector’s office to root out violators via three-year audits.
The county in its $1.66 billion fiscal year 2026-27 budget will put an estimated $25.4 million in TOT toward a $431.2 million discretionary general fund. By comparison, property taxes put toward that same fund will total an estimated $337.75 million.
‘We were waiting for the county’
The Raffs acknowledge they failed to pay TOT from April 2022 to September 2023 and February 2024 to March 2025. Their negligence stems from a period in which rules for short-term rentals on farmland weren’t clear, they say.
Adopted in 2024 after years of consideration, the county’s Agricultural Enterprise Ordinance took effect in January 2025. It governs and encourages agri-tourism through farm stays and small-scale campgrounds and, among other elements, farm stands and small-scale special events.
The Raffs launched their first short-term rental in a small trailer in 2016 to help stabilize revenue.
“I did not know that TOT taxes were due at that point,” said Jeremy Raff, who served on a volunteer committee to help craft the ordinance. “Once we started developing the ag enterprise ordinance, I didn’t know what the TOT taxes were going to look like. There could have been a reduction in what the TOT owed was going to be, or completely not owed at all.
“We were waiting for the county to figure out what they were going to do,” Jeremy Raff said, adding in hindsight he wishes he’d paid the tax bill in protest. “It bounced around so many times with the ad hoc committee… It was just very difficult for us to know what to do.”
‘A fair transition’
Citing financial hardship, the Raffs say the bill they now face is unmanageable. It far exceeds the farm’s annual net income, they say, and follows a loss of about $6,000 a month the Raffs say they no longer receive from the federal government, which cut a farm produce purchasing program that helped stock food banks.
Only four to five acres, or roughly 10%, of the 40-acre Dare 2 Dream property is farmable, meaning profit margins are small, the Raffs say.
“This assessment cannot come from excess profit,” Jeremy Raff said. “There is none. It would come from cuts.”
Added Megan Raff: “The first cuts are the community-facing programs.”
“We are not asking to avoid compliance going forward,” said Megan Raff, who serves as board chair of the nonprofit Santa Barbara County Food Action Network and vice chair of the nonprofit Route One Farmer’s Market. “We are asking for a fair transition into compliance.”
‘A different standard’
Dare 2 Dream sits squarely in the county’s Third District represented by Supervisor Joan Hartmann.
A resident of the Santa Ynez Valley, Hartmann for years has championed farm stays and other agri-tourism opportunities.
Hartman said she understands how the Raffs, as farmers first and not hospitality experts, missed meeting their obligation.
“It’s not an absentee-owned vacation rental or an urban investment property or a lodging operation unrelated to what’s happening on the land,” Hartmann said. “In my mind, they go to a different standard.
“If we could grant relief, it really needs to rest on a finding that a public benefit exists,” she said, highlighting the farm’s role in providing low-income people access to food, which she said directly supports county policies designed to boost the distribution of healthy food.
“In the Lompoc Valley this is really significant,” Hartmann said. “There’s not a lot of grocery stores.”
‘Magically coming up with money’
At the Raffs’ appeal hearing on July 7, supervisors showed no interest in outright forgiving the tax bill.
But they did appear open to finding a creative approach to helping the farm.
One idea was for the county to contract with the farm to do what it’s already doing—work that includes occasional school tours and nutrition education—as a round-about means of reimbursement.
Another suggestion was to help support the farm with some portion of $250,000 in cannabis tax revenue earmarked for youth programs.
“I’m very sensitive about saying we’re magically coming up with money,” county CEO Mona Miyasato told the board, noting the county recently laid off dozens of employees to balance its budget.
Tax collectors working with county counsel are expected to make formal recommendations before Aug. 25, when the supervisors are scheduled to revisit the Raffs’ plight.
‘A wash or something’
If funding is approved, it would be the first time the board has embraced such a response to TOT strife.
“We’re all worried about precedent,” Hartmann said of the board. “I more than anybody have held the line up here, because once you start going down that slippery slope, where are you going to end up? But I do think this case is really distinct.”
Fifth District Supervisor Steve Lavagnino drew a similar comparison.
“To me this is completely different than the items we’ve been hearing before, where people are in the business of short-term rentals and not being there present,” Lavagnino said. “If we could come to some sort of agreement that there’s a wash or something, that’s kind of what I’m looking for.”
Public support
As the Raffs have pleaded their case, the county has received dozens of letters of support from people and organizations.
Lompoc resident Heather Kline said the Raffs have created more than a farm. “They have built a community resource.”
Dr. Patrick Tolosky, a resident of Freeport, Maine, recalled living at the farm in Spring 2017, through the World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, or WWOOF, exchange program.
“This set the foundation for my professional career in medicine with a focus on the intersection between food, nutrition and human health,” Tolosky wrote.
A testimonial like that shows Dare 2 Dream helps develop food system leaders, Jeremy Raff said.
“This is a moment to focus on results, not just rules,” he said. “The result the county says it wants is viable working farms that protect agriculture, educate the public, expand food access and strengthen the local food system.”
