In the City of Marie Antoinette aka Redwood City a Modern Version of "Let Them Eat Cake!"

Like their land based counterparts floating homes sometimes have issues. Not too long ago, here at Docktown one home tilted and sank. When it did the community came out and helped but the City of Redwood City directed staff to just sit and watch. (And lest they suddenly end up having to leave and take care of family, staff had no choice but to do as instructed although fortunately things are improving.) The city’s major concern: liability. The best the top local city representative could do at the beginning was order out for hamburgers. In the following weeks, the home’s second floor was removed and it was finally righted and floated again. However it is as you can see above a shadow of its former self and needs a lot of work.

In the meantime back at the palace, City officials have been aggressively trying to buy out other residents and were finally able to buy one of the smaller floating homes in the best condition. So far all the homes that have been removed from Docktown have essentially been dismantled and destroyed. Logically the owners of the floating home that was damaged tried to negotiate with the City to swap or buy the good floating home with the one that had been heavily damaged but the City refused to be realistic. First they wanted a lot of money as they argued they had paid a lot of money (we now know from a recent public records act request less than $26,000.) Then they said that if the damaged floating home owners bought the home, they could NOT swap it out with their home but would instead have to remove it from the marina and live elsewhere. Yet the owners are being allowed to stay and try to fix a much less desirable home.

Since the public records act request process allows the City to take up to ten days to respond to my request for information, we don’t yet know how much the City paid to have the home removed and essentially destroyed. However given that the removal of an earlier much smaller boat cost $9600 it is fair to assume that they paid at least double that. When I spoke to the contractor who won the bid to remove the floating home (exact contract details will be made available as soon as they are received) to determine what had been done with the floating home and whether or not it had been saved all he would say was: ”the contract has been completed.” Which I interpret to mean it has been destroyed.

So the citizens of Redwood City, and yes it is the citizens, have now paid at least $40,000 to remove and most probably destroy a perfectly good affordable home that there was at least one needy buyer in active negotiations for and several others extremely interested in.

When elected government officials are confirmed to be modern copies of Marie Antoinette it is far past time for them to be removed from their posts. Not only is this a financially bad decision, this is a completely inhumane and unethical one and those that really made it should be held accountable.

If you were paying to destroy a floating home, and you are as these are your tax dollars at work, would you rather have the City of Redwood City destroy a water damaged floating home or a totally sound one?