Wannabe Cali Governor Gives Up Against Beach-Blocking Billionaire VC
8th December 2016
At an extraordinary meeting of the normally staid State Lands Commission on Tuesday, a series of lawyers, local residents and surfers lined up to encourage the commissioners to follow their staff’s recommendation and use the extraordinary power of eminent domain to force Vinod Khosla to sell a parcel of land that covers the only entrance to Martins beach in San Mateo county.
The Sun Microsystems cofounder, who is worth $1.5bn, bought a 90-acre plot of land alongside the popular surfing spot in 2008 for $32.5m before closing public access in 2010. It has been tied up in legal disputes ever since.
Despite the state of California passing a specific law designed to force Khosla to open up access or sell the relevant piece of land (and bypass his novel legal strategy), he has refused to back down during two years of negotiations and talks have gone nowhere. That finally led the commission’s staff to make the extraordinary recommendation to the commission that it use its power to force a compulsory purchase. If voted on, it would be the first time in 78 years of existence that the commission would have done so.
But after 90 minutes of testimony and nearly an hour in closed session, the commissioners backed down and instead asked staff to “report back on the specific steps and process elements associated with the condemnation.”
In Hillary Country, he who has the gold makes the rules. Democrats talk a good fight about ‘power to the people’, but when the chips are down the guy who has the chips gets his way.