HALF MOON BAY, Calif. (AP) – A San Francisco Bay-area billionaire who closed an access road to a beloved beach is asking the state of California for $30 million in exchange for public access to Martins Beach at Half Moon Bay.
The San Jose Mercury News reports Vinod Khosla’s attorney Dori Yob quoted that number in a Feb. 3 letter to Jennifer Lucchesi, executive director of the State Lands Commission, which has been negotiating with Khosla to purchase a public right of way.
Lucchesi says her staff does not agree with Khosla’s price.
Yob did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Rich Asshole Of The Week: Vinod Khosla
Who me? Steal from the public? Never! Well, maybe just this once.
So, Vinod Khosla is one of the founders of the venerable Sun Microsystems. He was a brilliant innovator and entrepreneur back in the day. Lately, “he has been experimenting with education and global housing. Vinod is also passionate about alternative energy, petroleum independence, and the environment.”
So, he sounds like an otherwise great guy, right? Rich, successful, and to paraphrase Carl Sagan: “giving something back; a gesture of good will to the people of this little planet who have given—from whom he has taken—so much.”
As long as you filthy mendicants don’t get anywhere near his property, that is.
See, Mr. Charitable here doesn’t want revolting members of the lower-class public like you and I anywhere near his personal multi-million dollar chunk of California coastline, even though the beach he’s restricting access to is a public beach and those access rights are protected by the California State Constitution.
He just ignored that shit, unilaterally blocked off the road, painted over the signs and said “nevermind the laws, everyone out of the water” and he did it because he’s rich and can afford to hire lawyers to gin up the ridiculous (but accepted by the local judge who’d like to be invited over sometime) legal hair-split that long standing public property and resulting access rights for his relatively recently acquired tract of land are in fact invalid because ‘Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo so ha ha the beach is mine and fuck the people who grew up and lived around here before I moved in a few years ago’.
See, the guy is just another mega-rich NIMBY – he’s quite willing (and able) to steal from the public in this case because it suits his desires, which as a guy with a metric fuck-ton of money apparently know no limits. Given his billions, he could likely have re-routed access to the beach or re-landscaped so it doesn’t disturb his 45 cabanas, or his view or whatever – but that’s not what he’s interested in. He wants a private beach. He wants to make OUR public beach into HIS private beach.
I live 3,000 miles away – but public lands are OURS, all of us, everyone in this nation. We’d flip a collective wig if some complete asshat like Jamie Dimon bought up everything surrounding Yellowstone and said “nobody can cross my land to get to the park anymore, too bad” but that’s exactly what Khosla’s doing, and getting away with, so far.
So congratulations, asshole! You found a legal loophole to allow you to steal from your neighbors, none of whom have as much as you are as fortunate to have – pat yourself on the back, for the rest of us, good going, buddy. Morals and ethics have nothing to do with it – you wanted it, found a nebulous way to legally justify it, you did so, and be damned to everyone else.
For shame, sir. I bestow upon thee the title of Rich Asshole Of The Week. Don’t worry too much, sir – I’m confident some of the the big fuckos on Wall Street and Capitol Hill are working overtime to dethrone you.
Author’s note: man, I’m going to start using that one as my excuse for everything from now on: “Your honor, I got high and robbed the bank, the liquor store and then detonated a nuclear weapon in the Chesapeake Bay because I have a waiver under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that I bought for $5 dollars from a flea market in Tijuana. It’s completely legal and trumps all local laws including the Constitution!”
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Khosla bought a $32.5 million beachfront property there in 2008 and two years later closed access to the beach.A state law passed in 2014 directs officials to consider taking the right of way by eminent domain if negotiations fail.
| Vinod Khosla Wants Californians To Keep Out of Martins Beach (npr.org) | ||
| 208 points by the_arun 755 days ago | past | web | 161 comments | ||
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BILLIONAIRE SAYS “PAY ME” MILIONS OF DOLLARS IF PUBLIC WANTS TO SEE THEIR OCEAN, HALF MOON BAY, Calif, Vinod Khosla
I googled “Vinod Khosla is an Asshole” and got this page. Thanks for posting it! A guy that rich doesn’t have many vulnerable spots, but I contend that somewhere underneath his hardened ego shell is a human being who can be affected painfully by public opinion. So, folks, say it loud and long — Vinod Khosla is an asshole!! Damage that jackass’s legacy. Give him a gift that will keep on giving after he dies. Have people give him dirty looks in public. Have people laugh at him. Have him be the punchline to jokes. Vinod called the shots — we’re just playing the game that he wants to play. Not our fault! Ball’s in your court, Vinod. What a sorry piece of shit you are.
If I had the money, i’d rent a plane with a trailing banner to fly by his compound. The trailing banner would say “Vinod Khosla is a Greedy Asshole” It would get in the papers. A bright light would be shined on his sick idiocy.
yeah, I googled Vinod Khosla is an asshole and arrived here – dude is a mega douche sack
I also googled “Vinod Khosla asshole” and got this page. I was prompted by the recent Colbert Report story here that further enshrined his ass-holicness: http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/10/03/stephen-colbert-takes-on-vinod-khosla-and-martins-beach. Glad this jerk got overruled!
His narcissistic behavior is a sickness that he is not likely to be aware of. Have pity for him.
If i went to India and got filthy rich and then disrespected the local culture, they would hang me..