Earlier this month, I highlighted the fact that one of Obama’s closest billionaire buddies, Silicon Valley oligarch, Vinod Kholsa, had aggressively moved to block access to the very popular Northern California destination Martins Beach. The post was titled, Silicon Valley Billionaire Buys Popular Beach and Then Blocks Public Access, in which I wrote:
Vinod Kholsa, co-founder of Sun Microsystems and well known Silicon Valley venture capitalist, is at the center of a lawsuit revolving around the popular Northern California destination Martins Beach, located six miles south of Half Moon Bay. The beach has always been popular with families and surfers alike, and the prior owners had always provided access for a $5 fee. Mr. Kholsa has taken a different approach, which has consisted of putting up a locked gate to block the beach’s only road access point and painting over a billboard welcoming people to the beach.
At the time, some expressed disbelief that such a good so-called “liberal” would take this action, but it is now clear these people were in serious oligarch denial. We now learn from the SF Gate that:
There had, until now, been a note of uncertainty about why beach owner Vinod Khosla decided to kick people off Martins Beach, but the billionaire venture capitalist made his motives pretty clear, according to this Chronicle story by Melody Gutierrez.
The green tech titan does not want the hoi polloi touching what he believes is his sand, tidelands or surf.
“Martin’s beach is private property, including the sandy beach and the submerged tidelands seaward of the mean high tide,” argued lobbyists hired by Khosla in a letter to state lawmakers. “There are no existing ‘public’ lands to which access is needed.”
The techie tycoon’s hired guns were trying to convince lawmakers to vote against a bill by Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo requiring the State Lands Commission to buy the road or obtain access rights to Martins Beach, 6 miles south of Half Moon Bay. The Senate passed the bill 22 to 11 Wednesday. It will now be taken up by the Assembly.
This is part of a greater destructive trend occurring within U.S. society. As the 0.01% get more rich and more powerful, more aspects of public life will be shut down to everyone else, especially the exponentially growing modern American serf class.
Nothing that a few envelopes filled with cash spread around San Francisco like an adult easter egg hunt for peasants won’t solve…
Full article here.
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
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no problem ron or rand paul will take care of this. no wait, why not pay the guy off with bitcoins
How is this not open-and-shut squatting?
The public has been using that beach for over 20 years with the knowledge of the owner, right?
That land was there before he was born and it will be there long after he is dead. He doesn’t own anything. He is only renting it for a brief time before he shuffles off this mortal coil.
In centuries past, humans visited that spot, perhaps to fish or rest, and paid nothing to do so. What a fool he is. He thinks paying for it makes it his.
I’ll tell you one thing I won’t be paying for: Sun Microsystems products and services.
Aloha from Hawaii, where all beaches are accessible by the public.
“it will be there long after he is dead. ”
You must not be too familiar with the California coastline.
From the linked article:
“…the parking lot eroded into the sea…”
You missed the point entirely.
And whose fault is that? Or didn’t it occur to you that maybe you missed it?