Vinod Khosla is suing two California agencies and one county claiming he’s been harassed since restricting access to Martins Beach. Photo: The Guardian/Energy Trends Insider
Noted Silicon Valley asshat Vinod Khosla, who as the owner of land abutting Martins Beach in Half Moon Bay has used his great wealth to block public access to the coast since 2010, is at it again. This time, in a shotgun approach to continue his losing fight, Khosla has filed suit against two public agencies and one county, claiming that they’ve harassed him.
Get a load of the delusional claim at the center of the new lawsuit: That there has been “a concerted effort by state and local officials to single out, coerce and harass one coastal property and its owner for refusing to cede its private property rights.”
And that the legal actions seeking to force him to open access to the beach were undertaken for “purely personal and political reasons.”
The new lawsuit, filed at the end of September, targets the California Coastal Commission, State Lands Commission and San Mateo County. And for good measure, Khosla is asking a federal judge in Northern California to strike down a 2014 state law that would allow the government to purchase a right-of-way to access Martins Beach through eminent domain.
An attorney for Surfrider told The Mercury News that the new lawsuit is “a laundry list of whining and complaining.”
“I just don’t get these guys,” Mark Massara said. “The amount of time and money and effort they’re spending, and all they’re doing is blowing smoke.”
Previous owners had always allowed surfers and beachgoers access if they paid a small parking fee. Although that practice may have been unconstitutional and fairly dickish in its own right, it gave the public access and sufficed to avoid conflict. But Khosla, who bought the property in 2008, blocked it off in 2010, setting in motion a legal storm that has yet to see an end.
Last winter, Khosla, a billionaire who does not even live on the $32 million property, told the state that, sure, he’d open the public access road again — for a mere $30 million.
In late 2014, a judge ordered Khosla to open the gate blocking the road to the beach. But Khosla hasn’t complied, instead employing an army of attorneys to let the matter drag out in court.
