Mitt Romney in Dispute Over His Beach Mansion

It's your semi-regular edition of "What's Mitt Romney Up to These Days, Anyway?"

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ABC 10 San Diego

“It’s always frustrating to get a building permit on the ocean,” Ann Romney said recently on a San Diego TV station, in a classic example of Ann Romneyisms that are true but probably wouldn’t attract much sympathy among voters were her husband still in politics.

Indeed, if Mitt Romney thought moving across the country would save him from the kinds of impassioned waterfront landowner disputes over public beach access you see all the time on Massachusetts waterfronts well, he was wrong.

In your Friday edition of “What’s Mitt Romney up to now that he doesn’t care what you think,” the Los Angeles Times reports that the California Coastal Commission must decide whether he can build that 11,000-square-foot mansion on his property in La Jolla California (you’ll remember it as the one with plans for a car elevator.) Though he already received approval from the San Diego Planning Commission, the Coastal Commission got involved because Romney attracted the ire of one local citizen “who is known in La Jolla for his commitment to preserving beach access,” as the Times diplomatically phrases it. He’s a man who has since moved away from Romney’s neighborhood but is still filing a complaint to say that the property was surveyed incorrectly in a way that allows for a bigger structure than should otherwise be there.

Maybe its just because we’re from here, not there, but this story really does evoke the politics of the small, wealthier coastal towns of Massachusetts. One Romney supporter tells the L.A. Times that the neighbors who are complaining about his house “didn’t vote for Gov. Romney and in fact represent the radical left wing,” and hey, we, too, have lots of people who didn’t vote for Gov. Romney. He must feel right at home over there. [L.A Times]

Update: An L.A. Times columnist reports that the Romneys have received the Commission’s approval. Bring on the car elevator!