Atherton resident Marc Andreessen Apr 18th 2020: "It's time to build"[0]
Andreessen family 2 years later: "IMMENSELY AGAINST multifamily development! I am writing this letter to communicate our IMMENSE objection to the creation of multifamily overlay zones in Atherton... They will MASSIVELY decrease our home values"[1]
I've never been able to figure out what's so great about Atherton. The houses are big, but other than that, it's nothing special. Woodside is a nice horse community with hills and sequoias. Los Altos Hills used to be; there was a time when the Los Altos Hunt ran the town. Palo Alto is next to Stanford. Portola Valley used to have more patent holders per capita than anywhere else in the US. Atherton is just a bedroom town on flatland with big houses.
sometimes that's it... you're thinking they are not great and if others feel the same, then it's no wonder they feel insecure and are fighting footing for recognition.
Atherton residents include people like founders of A16Z, Stephen Curry and others. The funny thing, 10-15 years ago, a number of residences were second houses and generally empty.
Back about 15-16 years ago, there was an international incubator BlackBox based out of one of the properties in Atherton.
The state should be able to collect damages for frivolous NIMBY lawsuits. I don’t care if they’re ashamed. If they’re fine paying more taxes to behave like idiots, who cares.
> Where do the fundraising events for House, Senate, and the State House happen
Atherton is wealthy. But it’s surrounded by the Bay Area. Atherton is uniquely civically engaged, but that’s about it. Palo Alto, Los Gatos, Cupertino and San Francisco can each muster more capital than it can, to say nothing of LA.
> expand that exemption from CEQA to include a public project for the institution or increase of other passenger rail service, which will be exclusively used by zero-emission trains, located entirely within existing rail rights-of-way or existing highway rights-of-way.
Unfortunately it does not works as intended all the times. From what I have personally observed, everything falls down to the city planners on the interpretation of the code changes.
I'm confused; AB2503 does specify some building standard changes ... to be studied and then adopted by 2032.
We're talking about how it exempts many things from CEQA litigation. Since it's been less than a year, I'm not sure how well we can gauge its effectiveness.
I agree completely and empathetically and vehemently with the idea behind the message.
The slop & aggressively poor argumentation, the kind that I think would have caused me to fail it if I tried it in speech & debate in middle school, leaves me feeling empty.
They keep saying $400M, $400M, $400M, $400M, and the only cost they came up with is $20M. It makes me uncomfortable to support the overall cause if this is how it'll be played, because, setting aside morality of tactics, it's not playing to win. Anyone who is at the margins will see it plainly and be given a reason not to listen.
i we are going to complain about AI content then i suggest we also include some evidence to make the argument at least somewhat insightful. i'll start: pangram gives this a 100% score, on account of the em-dashes. remove those and the score drops to 49%.
Note to future selfs? -selves? - around Opus 4.6 release it got good enough people tried laundering it all the time, and around 4.8 the group dynamics were such that it was worse to call it out then do it. Regardless, there was still enough of a taboo around it that the way people would try to launder it began to often include an AI-generated "sources" table, which was also aggressively bad, but lord knows no one reads those. So it was just another sigil that misled.
Local governments are obsolete, a holdover from when you had to have a government entity over areas within a day’s horseback ride. States should disestablish these towns and counties and reorganize them as administrative subdivisions of the state that answer directly to the governor and state legislature.
That sounds too extreme. I like Australia where states (ok much less populated than US states!) have certain building powers esp. to build rail infra but local can manage planning rules pertaining to an area but within a state level framework.
Andreessen family 2 years later: "IMMENSELY AGAINST multifamily development! I am writing this letter to communicate our IMMENSE objection to the creation of multifamily overlay zones in Atherton... They will MASSIVELY decrease our home values"[1]
[0] https://a16z.com/its-time-to-build/
[1] https://therealdeal.com/san-francisco/2022/08/08/marc-andree...
Back about 15-16 years ago, there was an international incubator BlackBox based out of one of the properties in Atherton.
The state should be able to collect damages for frivolous NIMBY lawsuits. I don’t care if they’re ashamed. If they’re fine paying more taxes to behave like idiots, who cares.
Atherton is a vibe, but it's an older demographic of tech and finance successes (the 1990s-2000s scene).
Atherton is wealthy. But it’s surrounded by the Bay Area. Atherton is uniquely civically engaged, but that’s about it. Palo Alto, Los Gatos, Cupertino and San Francisco can each muster more capital than it can, to say nothing of LA.
> expand that exemption from CEQA to include a public project for the institution or increase of other passenger rail service, which will be exclusively used by zero-emission trains, located entirely within existing rail rights-of-way or existing highway rights-of-way.
We're talking about how it exempts many things from CEQA litigation. Since it's been less than a year, I'm not sure how well we can gauge its effectiveness.
The slop & aggressively poor argumentation, the kind that I think would have caused me to fail it if I tried it in speech & debate in middle school, leaves me feeling empty.
They keep saying $400M, $400M, $400M, $400M, and the only cost they came up with is $20M. It makes me uncomfortable to support the overall cause if this is how it'll be played, because, setting aside morality of tactics, it's not playing to win. Anyone who is at the margins will see it plainly and be given a reason not to listen.