Posted by Laura Macias, a resident of the Blossom Valley neighborhood, on Mar 20, 2009 at 9:31 am

Hi, Daniel sorry for not getting back to you on your Shoreline story. Was out of town. In the past, I used Shoreline tickets for my self and a friend. I have no immediate family in the area so the new law apparently discriminates against single persons. I also gave tickets to friends and acquaintances on a first come basis. Good third of the time, I sent them back to the city. I also donated them for fund-raising which is specifically what Greg did. He did not refuse them but generously gave them to the Mountain View Educational Foundation.

Posted by Blake, a resident of the Blossom Valley neighborhood, on Mar 20, 2009 at 10:59 am

Good point re: discrimination against single persons. The remedy is that council members should received zero free tickets. MV residents already have a program to get early access to concerts before the general public. If that's good enough for the rest of us it's certainly good enough for the council members. (There was some recent controversy over the early access program for tickets to the group ColdPlay - maybe the council can sort out how its residents appear to have been steamrolled on this one instead of grabbing freebies for themselves). And I'm not buying the argument that the council needs free tickets to provide 'oversight' to the venue. I do like the idea of making a few tickets available for charity auctions etc. Find an equitable way to give local charities a few tickets each year for fund raising purposes only.

Posted by eric, a resident of another community, on Mar 22, 2009 at 1:50 pm

I find Macias's comment a bit petty, frankly. Discrimination? On how one uses a small perk? Come on. She is apparantly able to use the tickets when she wants, so what's the problem?

I have zero problem with council member excersizing this little bonus, and I dont care if they simply give tickets to friends. I applaud those council people that see fit to donate their tickets to worthy causes, but I sincerely hope that our community doesnt get worked up about this issue again. Whether you agree with how they run things, council people put in ridiculous hours for virtually no pay.