George Lucas declares star war on fellow 1%ers -- Kills massive film studio project

[KurtNYC]

Local media tells a different side of the George Lucas film studio story and the end of a battle begun in 1997 to build it in a pristine California valley. The massive studio project was approved by the local board 15 years ago but local monied interests and environmental groups have kept it from being built so now a frustrated and angry Lucas says the push to build it is over and...

Lucas responded by threatening to sell the property to a developer of low-income housing. County officials pointed out that the property would be too expensive to develop for such a project and at least one opponent of the Grady Ranch project viewed it as a lame bluff.

Tom Taylor, a Lucas Valley Estates resident, pointed out that Lucas himself has never shown personal interest in the project and never attended any of the public meetings.

He also said that the impacts pointed out by residents “could be mitigated.” He said the group never intended to be unreasonable and suggested that Lucas’ quick withdrawal may mean he was looking to relocate and was using local issues to make it happen.

As for erecting low-income housing in the area, Taylor pointed out there is no access to public transportation and no amenities for residents. “Who is going to buy that property for low-income housing?”

http://www.marinscope.com/articles/2012/04/20/ross_valley_reporter/news/doc4f8f27ab73d3a851587740.txt

This speaks volumes about how the 1%ers view class warfare -- namely as something THEY can direct at each other in order to get what they want. Ugh.

[longship]

1. Homeless Jar-Jar scheduled as first resident. Neighbors really pissed.

[EFerrari]

2. I have a bad feeling about this.

[KurtNYC]

4. Me too. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering

and that is the path to the dark side.

Perhaps his Lucas' neighbors would prefer a different target for his low income housing (let's call it Alderaan)? Then name the system!

[Brickbat]

3. K&R for talking about the flaws in the petulant proposal to use low-income housing as a pawn.

[Warren DeMontague]

5. Yeah, there's no NIMBYism in Marin, no sir.

That's why you've got BART running on the lower deck of the GGB, all the way up to Sonoma.

...Not.

[Warren DeMontague]

6. I'm sure the Ross Valley Reporter is REAL fuckin' progressive.

What's the average net worth in Ross Valley? Somewhere between ungodly rich and astrofuckinnomical.

Look, Marin is a beautiful place and they've done a bang up job of keeping it from getting fucked up (unlike, say, the East Bay, or the South Bay) but the NIMBYism and paranoia of some of the folks there knows no bounds. No decent public transportation? Oh, you don't say. And why the fuck is that?

Because for 40 years they've kept out BART, they've pissed and moaned and played delaying games over the most meager attempt to put in light rail on the Sonoma-Marin axis, and you STILL either have to drive over the GGB or take a ferry from Larkspur (lovely, but...) to commute to anywhere with actual jobs that isn't Autodesk.

Marin exists in an extremely unrealistic bubble, and it makes it very hard for families to live there, for real working people to live there, and for the actual, non-independently wealthy folks that marinites NEED to, say --empty their trashcans or wait their tables-- to function there.