councilman feller mocks liveaboards

Approving the purchase of a new, $500k police boat – on slip renters’ dime – City of Oceanside councilman Jack Feller directed a bizarre request from the dais at Captain Fred Armijo of the Oceanside Police Department, regarding the old boat:

“And I hope you just don’t turn that boat over to a slip renter for a liveaboard. ‘Cause they probably, uh, they probably won’t move it for the next hundred years.”

click for audio

Yep, that happened, at the November 19th, 2014 Oceanside city council meeting, Item 13 here, or on youtube.

As a liveaboard, I am taken aback by the gleeful disrespect and lack of knowledge displayed by someone whose decisions affect my life so closely. (The City of Oceanside is my landlord, who recently doubled my liveaboard fee, and also increased my rent by 30%, in a vote Feller-Felien-Fern for, Wood-Sanchez against. Curiously, the for block reversed its vote for a special business interest group less than a year later.)

Let’s take a look at how much ignorance Feller managed to pack into such a short statement:

1. The boat cannot be sold, as Captain Armijo just finished explaining.

2. Boats do not come with a liveaboard permit. It is issued to a person.

3. The idea of restricting the intended use of a boat by a new owner is plain kooky.

4. Boaters, liveaboard or not, pay for the privilege to move or not move a boat at their sole discretion and whim.

5. Some liveaboards rarely use their boats for transportation. They don’t have to. There are many non-liveaboards who use their boats even less. Some just enjoy sitting on a boat in a slip. Some enjoy drinking alcohol on the dock in lawn chairs all day. And others just enjoy the idea of having a boat at the ready, and never even visit.

6. Liveaboards must move their boats once a year to the police dock for inspection. That’s three times as often as non-liveaboards, and one hundred times in a hundred years.

7. Liveaboards  are people, too, not some smelly trash that deserves to be the butt of Feller’s elitist jokes.

In conclusion, deep fried butter wrapped in bacon. I mean, have you seen the fella? Zing!