The America’s Cup is killing us!

Pub date March 6, 2013
SectionPolitics Blog

First Larry Ellison and his rich cronies try to perpetrate an audacious real estate scam on San Francisco, after pitting us against other cities to host his America’s Cup race. Even though we were able to scale back that swindle, they still evicted Teatro ZinZanni from Pier 27 so they could profit from overpriced waterfront concerts at the spot they supposedly need for their boat race — lying, cheating and corrupting the system along the way.

Then we learned that Ellison, the world’s fifth richest man, and the other 1-percenters on the America’s Cup Organizing Committee, may stick San Francisco taxpayers with a $20 million bill for their race because they’re all too greedy and selfish to honor their private fundraising commitment – which they could cover by simply writing checks for amounts they would barely notice, and which they’d probably find a way to write off of their taxes anyway.

And now, on top of all those outrageous indignities … they’re killing people!

Well, maybe Ellison and his crew aren’t actually committing murder. But during last weekend’s venerable Escape from Alcatraz triathlon – which was moved up from the warm-ish summer months to the frigid winter because the yachts are apparently unable to share the bay for a few hours one morning – one man died of a heart attack and 150 participants had to be rescued (three times the normal number) because the water was so dangerously cold.

Just one more example of how overentitled rich people, with the active complicity of the Mayor’s Office, are having their way with San Francisco, heedless of the consequences.