Markasaurus

In a testament to just how ridiculous the ballot initiative process is in California, Proposition C on the San Francisco Ballot proposed to (somehow) obtain Alcatraz Island from the federal government and turn it into a “World Peace Center.” Sponsored by a bizarre fringe political party from nearby Marin County, this was a proposal for the City of San Francisco to buy Alcatraz from the National Park Service, tear down the historic prison and build some sort of monument on the scale of the Taj Mahal. While all the votes haven’t been counted, it looks like the proposition is going to fail by a margin of about three to one.

The extremely questionable part about this issue is the matter of how it arrived on the ballot in the first place. This group must have been able to get in the neighborhood of 10,000 signatures to qualify for the ballot measure… which means that 10,000 people in San Francisco must have thought it was worth the effort and expense to put this on the ballot.