San Francisco Citizen

Work with me here. The recent America’s Cup scrimmage event up in San Francisco’s Great White North got this kind of reaction in the pages of the Marina Times:

“This event brought exactly the right kind of crowd to the Marina.”

Uh, white people with some extra folding money to spend – that kind of crowd?

Mmmm…

Anyway, you’d think that the friendly Marinites would similarly welcome the Feds landing Alcatraz tour boats at Fort Mason, right?

No.

Let’s hear from socially awkward, born-into-the-one-percent District Two Supervisor Mark Farrell in the very same pages of the Marina Times:

“The National Park Service’s (NPS) intention to study Fort Mason as a possible location for its Alcatraz tour ferry service is one of those ideas with serious and long-lasting impacts that must immediately be put to rest.”

(Yeah, it’s one of those ideas, huh? So like, Alex, I want “Ideas with serious and long-lasting impacts that must immediately be put to rest” for $1600?”)

Apparently, one set of aquatic tourists is the best thing in the world and another set of aquatic tourists is the worst thing in the world?

OK fine.

Hey Marina, look at this! You think the future can’t cross a bridge ride through a tunnel?

Now here’s the kicker. The reason why the white people of the Marina are worried about the Fort Mason proposal is that it’s a lead pipe cinch, owing to the lack of NIMBY laws on federal land:

“What makes the idea even more distressing to residents and establishments in the Marina is the lack of local environmental review and input that would be available. The NPS stated that environmental review of the Fort Mason site would be conducted under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and not under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), because Fort Mason is federal property. Without a CEQA process in place for Fort Mason, the enormous changes contemplated in the Marina will never be considered by our local government, and any NEPA appeal would have to take place in Washington through the federal courts. In my letter to the NPS, I asked that since they are prepared to undergo a CEQA analysis for the sites located at the Port of San Francisco piers, they should do the same for the NPS-owned piers at Fort Mason…”

So, don’t come here, Feds. Don’t come here where it’s super easy to do business, you know, without dealing with millionaire NIMBYs for decades, oh no, don’t even think about it! Feds, you must immediately put the idea “to rest.”

Well, we’ll just have to wait and see how that works…