Newport Beach yacht owners are having the most massively petulant sad because — with their silt-filled harbor undredged since World War II and their seawalls crumbling — the City Council has to raise money to pay for its at-risk infrastructure. This means the yacht owners will no longer be able to pay … wait for it … one hundred dollars a year for their slip rental. For their triple-decker yachts.
But this has been a stressful season here along the tranquil waterfront lined with multimillion-dollar homes.
An increase in city rental fees for residential docks that protrude over public tidelands created a furor when it was approved last week by the City Council.
It also prompted a call to boycott the boat parade and festival of lights by a group calling itself “Stop the Dock Tax.”
“It costs us thousands of dollars to voluntarily decorate our homes and boats to bring holiday smiles to nearly 1 million people,” organization Chairman Bob McCaffrey wrote to the city. “This year, we are turning off our lights and withdrawing our boats in protest of the massive new dock tax we expect the City Council to levy.”
Bob McCaffrey is going to take his Christmas parade and go home! Where he will not put up lights for the birth of our lord and savior, the baby Jesus! Because someone somewhere needs him to pay for the thing he’s been getting for almost free! Why does the Newport Beach City Council hate Christ?
The city’s five-year plan for the harbor calls for $29 million in long-overdue maintenance. Its silt-filled channels haven’t been fully dredged since the Great Depression. Ancient, leaky sea walls protecting neighborhoods need to be repaired or replaced.
“We have the makings of a perfect storm like they did on the East Coast” during Superstorm Sandy,” said Chris Miller, the city’s harbor resources manager. “The sea walls are nearing the end of their useful life.”
How will these individuals that own multimillion-dollar homes on the ocean ever afford up to $3,200 per year to dock their fancy yacht-boats? How will you plebes live without holiday smiles?
Play us out, Kevin Drum:
No matter how well they do—and the rich have done very, very well over the past few decades—their blood boils at the thought of contributing so much as an extra dime to public coffers, even if the money is specifically earmarked to improve their own communities.
We know where they could find some money.
[Los Angeles Times/Mother Jones]
{ 180 comments }
Okay, say they block the seawall getting built and a hurricane comes in. Then they lose the much more expensive yachts. I have a feeling these people inherited their money, since they show a total lack of ability to think ahead.
Don't worry — FEMA will cover the cost of a replacement yacht.
We should set them all adrift on a FEMA re-education yacht.
Oh please oh please oh please – yes!
They're technically second homes to qualify for the mortgage interest deduction.
Why do you say that? They could easily just be, y'know, your average CEO.
Cause-and-effect is lost on these folks.
The desire the rich have to take away the last crumbs from the poor is stronger than any envy the poor have had for the excesses of the rich.
It totally blows being rich this year.
Nevertheless, I wouldn't mind having the opportunity to weep softly into my Perrier Jouet while the house staff prepares foie gras and filet mignon.
As long as I could play with all my Apple toys, my big screen tv, and knowing I make more in interest than I will ever need…that would more than satisfy me. I'm really lusting for an iPad 4 and the mini iPad and trying to win both through every giveaway I can find…
They should gift the money to the more deserving. Like me.
I'll share, don't worry.
You know who else refused to pay for his own shit?
Mitt Romney?
Piero Manzoni?
"Can it, buddy!"
Oliver Cromwell?
A curse upon him
Traditional Irish Coffee recipe begins "You start with coffee as black as Cromwell's heart…."
Speaking of the devil, why is it still a debate in England about whether or not he was a dictator?
Thomas Crapper?
Herbert Hoover?
Every teenager who's ever been, or will be, born on the planet?
The wedding guests at Cana?
That cheap fucking cousin of mine?
Woody Allen at the San Marcos deli in Bananas?
Minnie the Moocher?
Four-times bankrupt Donald Trump?
All of them, Katie!
Bob Cratchit?
How many yachts
Could a boycott cott
If a boycott could cott yachts?
Other'n that, I got nothin'
There once was a rich prick from Newport
Who was representative of his cohort
He wouldn’t pay for his mooring
If it meant taxes soaring
So Newport turned into No Port
Maybe the could work an extra shift or two at MacDonalds on Christmas to make the money they will need to pay the tax.
And that's why…you never interview a petulant millionaire about a small, common-sense tax increase.
Or use "common sense tax increase" when talking with them. heh.
these people are being so dramatic it makes me want to set myself on fire
These people are being so dramatic it makes me want to set them on fire.
#fixt
That's counter productive you should set them on fire…
with votes.
Look at what the homosexuals have done to me, Michael.
they couldn't just blow that out?
My favorite line (from a Wonkette poster) on this subject was.
“People who use hyperbolic political rhetoric to make a point are just like Hitler”
Yeah, and all generalizations are wrong.
Could you do it down on the Newport waterfront, you know, for the excitement and sparkle, now that the bazillionaires are sulking in their mansions?
Literally?
The idle rich need something to do with themselves. It gets boring sitting at the dock of the bay, wasting time
This has set the conversation at the Balboa Bay Club on FIRE! The vitriol! The outrage! The spitting and cursing! The insolence! The indignant dashing of the shrimp fork to the floor! They are savaging their wait staff and valets! You will rue the day, petty functionaries. RUE THE DAY!
Wait, so you're telling me they are taking their boats and going home?
You should see the dollies and dishes on those things. Everything is nailed down.
there's always money in the dock tax
Big yellow joint, the big yellow joint, I'll meet you down at the big yellow joint.
Well. I'm taking my yacht and going home. Nyah.
Sitting on the (unrepaired) dock of the bay
watching the yachts sail away…
How about if they donate all that money they're saving on the boat parade and decorations.
But that's for the community. The extra tax goes through a wormhole in space directly to the Kremlin in 1966.
To what? They are doing the boat parade for the enjoyment of OTHERS!
where once there was a yacht, now…there is…..nacht! heyyyyyy!
So I have to pay $165 per month to park my Honda in a garage in Long Beach but James Van Smitheringcock the IV only has to drop a c-note to have his floating cocaine palace safely interred in the Newport Docks?
This is make me so upset that I'm gonna stop selling his wife those Mexican diet pills she loves so much.
Yes, but how many jerbs have you created?
Don't punish her, just raise the price.
These NewPorsche Beach moochers are causing me to revisit my earlier view that rising sea levels are an entirely bad thing.
they should just sail their yachts to portugal, down ol south america way
Nothing brings the baby Jesus a bigger smile than an opulently decorated yacht.
Camel. Eye of needle. Socialism!
Was out there on business two weeks ago, walking around Balboa Island, signs on almost every dock – Stop the Dock Tax!!! Background – massive, CA-style Christmasa decorations, wine bottles opening and the low chuckling of the rich.
Were they home made signs? Or perhaps signs that were made professionally, and might have cost more than, say, oh, a hundred dollars???
Home-made??? heh, not a chance. Nicely done by some poor slob in Irvine, no doubt.
When will the tyranny of making people pay for the services they receive end.
“It costs us thousands of dollars to voluntarily decorate our homes and boats to bring holiday smiles to nearly 1 million people,”
You people are lucky they even decorate their multi-million dollar boats for you bastards…
They're not smiling with you, they're smiling at you. While they're sharpening their machetes. With votes.
Yeah…but I bet having proper flood control and strong seawalls will bring smiles to a lot more.
$3100 increase / 999,000 smiles = who the fsck do you think you're kidding, Bob McCaffery?
So, some dock-sucking will ensue?
Yes, just before the rear admiral gets there.
they don't mind losing their tripple-decker yacht to a hurricane because they've got a quadruple-decker's worth of insurance on it
No Christmas Smiles for the common folk. Well, unless they want to pay for it. Why do the wealthy feel so entitled?
How dare you make me pay a fair rate for a service I need and use!!
Yacht to Somalia, assholes. And I hope the pirates get you.
They should just buy surplus assault landing craft and convert them to yachts. Then they could just park on any old beach they wanted.
I guess these guys are the 47% Romney was talking about.
So…The rich yacht owners expect people who won't get any tangible benefits to pay for the infrastructure repairs that would make their boat docking a more pleasant experience.
What a bunch of fucking crybabies. I miss the old days, when the Emperor could proscribe familes and confiscate their assets, for the Empire.
And cut off their heads. With votes, of course.
“It costs us thousands of dollars to voluntarily decorate our homes and boats to bring holiday smiles to nearly 1 million people,” organization Chairman Bob McCaffrey wrote to the city. “This year, we are turning off our lights and withdrawing our boats in protest of the massive new dock tax we expect the City Council to levy.”
It bears repeating, but somewhere, a queen is sorely missing her drama.
Typical elite class, sponging off of the gubmint they allegedly despise.
This would never happen in Galt's Gulch.
Hope that guy didn't get his anchor scratched.
Seafood?
The last time I saw a mouth like that it had a hook in it.
Everybody knows the game is rigged. You have to be a fucking sucker to keep playing a crooked game. What the fuck have I wasted my life for?
wow, just when I thought I couldn't hate Orange County RepugliKKKans even more – from screaming at kids & parents at a mosque; to the sanctimonious fat hypocrite Rick Warren's zillion dollar church, now this!
Fucking O.C. and their "white people's problems."
I just came back from Mexico. Wait till they find out there are no footrests on the planes in business class!
Don't forget the TBN scandal and TV preachers buying $100,000 motorhome for their dogs.
We'll all just have to console ourselves by marveling at the million Christmas lights in the TBN parking lot. Holy. Shit.
Sweet Baby Jesus! That's some fine whiny ass titty baby complaining!
Him?
We don't need your yacht dock scene, ya freak bitch!
Come on now, the town's poor and middle class are supposed to pay for amenities used by the very rich. Haven't we learned anything from our sports stadiums?
Back in the day, we called that sort of arrangement, "feudalism". Nowadays, though, we understand that the REAL road to serfdom is universal health care and a system of progressive taxation. Or, apparently, luxury taxes to fund the preservation of said luxuries, or really, any taxation for the rich at all.
In wingut-land, avoiding feudalism somehow destroys freedom, and is actually fascism, which is the same thing as communist. No it doesn't make any sense; but then it's not supposed to.
Thing is, paying for the shit you, yourself, use isn't even an "economic system", per se. Most of the time, it's just called civilization.
$100?!? Fuck I paid $800 per summer 10 years ago for my pontoon boat on a lake in Wisconsin.
It's an outrage!. You should stop amusing the locals by boycotting the opening of Walleye season this year!
Your knowledge of Wisconsin fishing is suspicious, Fat Bob. But I just might do that – my war cry will be "White Bass only!"
Jesus! We had a cabin cruser on the Mon River when I was a kid and we paied way over 100 a month. Bitchy Rich ass holes.
Those poor rich people did so much working, hiring groups of undocumented immigrants below minimum wage to decorate their yachts for them.
Torpedo los!
City ought to privatize the boat dock concession; let the invisible hand of the market bitch-slap these yachties.
I'd prefer a free market solution without the middle-man – just auction dock slips every year.
I'd go just to watch. Maybe carry a sign – "VICTORY! WE STOPPED THE DOCK TAX!"
You'll be able to have your yacht valet parked by an actual Romney for only $800.
If they really wanted to entertain millions they could take their yachts offshore and all take turns jumping overboard.
They're good Republicans. I'm sure they wouldn't mind paying fees that cover dredging, sea wall repair, and a healthy profit for the shareholders.
Fuck you richies (someone who pays for a slip). Let the harbor silt up and go to hell.
Bingo. Let's see them run their boats around, showing off their little holiday lights on sand bars.
Actually, if left to nature, that part of the coast line would return to a wetlands and we would have a far superior protective barrier from storm surges.
Hundred bucks won't even get you a three hour tour.
I can get an around-the-world for that in some neighborhoods in Brooklyn.
But it doesn't include a tip. Or a visit to the free clinic afterwards.
O/T, but yes, Sen. Inouye will be buried at Punchbowl.
This whole habor can be shipped to Afghanistan, no one has lost any.
Jizz at Newport.
Every now and then a story comes along that put's the problems of the world in perspective. This isn't that story. Fuckin' whiners.
Let bears pay the Bear Tax! I pay the Homer tax.
Why can't the Bermuda Triangle extend to Newport Beach?
Time to sink their ships, with "votes" made of canon balls.
***“It costs us thousands of dollars to voluntarily decorate our homes and boats to bring holiday smiles to nearly 1 million people,” organization Chairman Bob McCaffrey wrote to the city. “This year, we are turning off our lights and withdrawing our boats in protest of the massive new dock tax we expect the City Council to levy.”***
Dear Bob,
Boo-Fucking-Hoo.
Love and kisses,
The City Council
They spend thousands of dollars decorating homes that are situated behind gates guarded by armed security and really, how many lights can you cram onto a boat, any boat. And anyway this money comes from what line item in their household budget?
If you can dock your boat somewhere else, and pay less, then move your boat. If not the free market has spoken.
The probably just want a little Socialism thrown their way by having the Federal Government pay for it.
Bought a boat once. It came with a "complimentary discount" on 1 year at the Yacht club in which the original owner docked it. That was the WORST 1 year of our lives. Made us hate the boat. Snobby bastards. The next year, we put in at the municipal marina for 1/4 the cost. Much nicer people. Plus, our tiny little 30 footer was akin to us parking a house trailer in the suburbs.
Once on the train from Milan to Venice, I shared a compartment with a American yacht appurtenance salesman who was on his way to a convention. I asked him what kind of boat a yacht appurtenance salesman had, and he told me "None; if it floats, flies, or fucks, it's cheaper to rent it."
Definition of a yacht – a hole in the water you throw money at.
Seriously, the higher end you go the more absurd the upkeep gets. Buy a fucking fiberglass low end boat and it lasts forever – high end beautiful sail craft, by comparison, rotting from the day it is made.
Two greatest days in a boat owner's life.
1. The day they buy it.
2. The day they sell it.
So glad I don't have that money pit anymore. :)
Still waiting for these fuckheads to just go Galt already.
And how many of those yachts are registered in the Caymans, allowing their owners to dodge paying any property tax on them?
Let em keep the dock deal, but let's stop using tax dollars to guarantee their home insurance for those multi-million dollar oceanfront homes.
It's a slippery slope because basically every dollar any of us earn is the by-product of drug money laundering X prostitution to the power of Somalian warlord child armies. So yeah if you benignly agree to pay a higher fees, it's pretty much an invitation to the poors to gather en masse for some cool throat slitting parties. Party on Garth!
I wonder where Wonkette poster C Thurston Howell III is. I'd like to hear his thoughts on this.
Really. Maybe it hits too close to home and he is sobbing and/or laughing too hard to comment.
Better get used to coughing up some dough, rich people.
The docking tax, is that the same as slip rental? In Washington, DC it used to be $100 per foot based on boat, yacht, length. Maybe it is time to bring those Somalian pirates over here so we don't have to sail all the way over there.
First, they came for the Yacht owners, and I said nothing, because I'll never own a yacht…
Next week, the Newport Beach Tea Party, where they dress up in tuxes and top hats and throw Mexican dwarfs overboard.
Would it work? Would people do it? I have no idea.
What's wrong with using eminent domain to confiscate one of the rich mothrerfucker's houses, sell it and use that to pay for the seawall and dredging? Hell, if they can take middle class people's houses so they can build a mall, then they can fuck with the rich too.
Oh, Oscar, you really don't care!
What's "Yachttie" for "guillotine", mateys?
Hang them from the yardarm of course.
Well, there's "keel hauling" and "walking the plank" .
Take your undockable boat on a three hour tour, Thurston.
Newport Beach should just be glad that the Stop the Dock Tax organization chairman isn't Emilio Largo. Fuckin' Disco Volante has the best slip in the marina, and Largo and his other organization don't take no shit.
Not putting up christmas lights as a bargaining chip. Now that's rich!
They could run a maudlin ad asking for donations…
"For just 30 cents a day, less than the cost of a Werther's Original, you can help a needy yacht owner this holiday season…"
Having sat on a Harbor Commission for 5 years once, I remember the only constant thought I had the entire mental cement duration – Screw the Rich…
I've said this before and I'll say it again: The super rich are the cheapest, most whiny and paranoid lot among us.
Boat elevators would be a prudent and cost effective solution.
There's always money in the banana stand.
Does that tax apply to those using the VIP entrance to the harbor?
It's been said many times, many ways… FUCK THE RICH WELFARE ASSHOLES.
The approach is all wrong. You have to make the payments seem exclusive. Those who cannot pay must be made to look like they can't afford to pay. Don't invite people to the seawall club and then see what happens.
I have a shit filled cess pool where they can park their boats for free. Contact me: stinky at fecalpit dot net
HahHaha, have you been to Newport Beach? The women there are ageless in the same way a lump of polystyrene is ageless- that is, their lips, breasts, and cheekbones will live on long after humanity is a distant memory. And have you been to Fashion Island, their "destination mall"? If you've ever doubted consumerism is a religion in the United States, a quick trip to this garish temple of overpriced garbage will clear that up for you right quick.
In short, this doesn't surprise me one bit.
Lucky Dockees!!
Let them eat quiche!
“It costs us thousands of dollars to voluntarily decorate our homes and boats to bring holiday smiles to nearly 1 million people…” You see, simply paying one's taxes does not qualify as "conspicuous consumption" in the game of "my holiday light dick is bigger than your holiday light dick" game. I would classify these people as whiny cunts, but that would be an insult to perfectly useful cunts everywhere.
Scrooge McStingey's deserve only milk and a cheese sandwich.
Fucking boat people, man…
Never a torpedo-armed submarine around when you need one.
There is always money in a banana stand.
It's hardly worth being rich anymore. If it wasn't for being able to buy whatever I wanted, live in a verdant, crime free suburb or a Michigan Ave. condo with armed doormen, enjoy the finest health care available anywhere and have politicians clamoring to cut my taxes and do my bidding, I might give it all up.
Oh, this is the Orange County, California Newport? Orly Taitz's county? Nothing to look at here, folks. Just move it along.
If this passes, the yacht-owners might as well take out an ad in I'm Poor Magazine.
I visited Newport with a friend from Providence years ago; we went there on a whim. It happened to be the annual regatta, and the blue bloods were out in full force with parasols (!!!), top-siders, Izod shirts and New England lock jawed speech patterns. I swear I saw a pair of penny loafers with Krugerrands inserted! Buffy, I nearly tossed my cookies!!!
Maybe those dolphins the Navy's trained could do a practice underwater demolition.
"They overhead someone say there wouldn't be holiday lights, and they went stone cold fucking nuts!!"
Keelhaul the well-heeled.
I was sad because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had to pay more than $100 per year to moor his yacht.
Actually I have shoes.
I have to wonder how many of these rich fucks actually take their yachts out of the slip. If it's anything like Shilshole in Seattle probably not too many, these are just expensive floating party barges.
I was born in Newport Beach and lived many years in OC, though my family was far from rich. I attended Corona Del Mar High School while living in the only trailer park in Newport Beach.
I had a friend named Woody (I shit you not) who was originally from AZ. His family came out one year for the holidays, and they invited me out on their boat for the Newport Harbor Christmas boat parade. What I did not know is that their boat was a pontoon boat. It was awesome. Surrounded by multi-milliion dollar gin palaces on a fucking pontoon boat. The looks of snobbery were delicious. A true Beverly Hillbillies experience.
These Newport Beach fascists are awful. How dare anyone actually expect them to be responsible for covering the infrastructure costs associated with their hobby.
What cheese goes best with a nouveau white whine?
Look, you don't get to the point of owning a yacht if you pay for stuff.
Rrrrr, these Yachts Pirrate Newporrrt Beach can't be pirrrates anymore. Don't pay morrre than 100 doubloons. Just sail to Somalia, they will fit in just rrright. Rrrrrr
My new response to EVERY story now:
Oh for fuck's sake!
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