Mayor Jac seemed to be the reluctant councilor at last night's meeting, pointing out that only 12% of the population is of school age. Is the subtext "only kids should care" ? A more prudent pol might add parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts to their voting block calculations.

Of course parents will argue for their kids but let's also credit others in the community with being enlightened enough to see that everyone benefits from educating the next generation of citizens to be productive and useful members of society. I'm not talking about property owners seeing their house values climb but about how we all benefit by building a good community, one kid, one class one school at a time.

Better to spend on schools now than prisons and food stamp programs later!

Why can't the city seek corporate sponsorship for some of these Shoreline projects?

Thank you to Daniel Debolt for his articles to bring this issue to our attention and thank you to the Share Shoreline group for spearheading this push.

I just read the original March 2010 article and can't figure out the real reason why the MVLA school district is not behind this in a more vocal way. I read that they're better funded with the Los Altos property taxes, but why would anyone in the right mind leave millions of dollar on the table? What's the REAL reason?

They need to eliminate this "special tax district". You need to keep entire Mountain View competitive.

"Among the projects in the works are new soccer and baseball fields on Garcia Avenue..." Who lives on Garcia Avenue to use these fields???

By the sound of some of their arguments, they want to turn Mountain View into Redwood City and Shoreline into Redwood Shores. I vote NO to this right now. Any city council with such inclination should be voted out.

Give the same privileges to Shoreline business district as Symantec/Netscape business district area and eliminate to the special tax for Shoreline.

Most of these money will go as salary rises for people like Goldman and other folks in the school district. very little if not nothing will be used in using these funds for the kids. ANother robbery scheme by the school districts by inciting parents to get involved. Just watch the salaries and benefits, travel expenses of these school district officials go up like crazy so that they can buy more houses, yachts, shop at Tiffany's,etc..Welcome to land of Oppurtunities, folks. 3 yerars from the folks who are making $300K in the school district will be making $500k or above. salaries, travel expenses, benefits are all destined for the sky now.

Why do these parents not look at themselves for a larger Parcel Tax to support their school. I guess it's easier to strong arm the city. How many students reside in the Shoreline Community?

Response to GDM: Parents/residents are NOT strong arming the city. They are simply exercising their constitutional right to express their preference in how their city is run. Parcel Tax? Sure why not - specially when Prop 13 is gone and many residents and businesses start paying their fair share and providing the funds that are needed to run the schools. I sincerely hope you will join them and dedicate endless weekends and evenings to work on that problem.

The City Council's decision to move cautiously but intentionally is the smart move. The City has a history of keeping reserves for "rainy day" contingencies, and it has served us well in the past.

If we've learned anything about the boom and busts that California continues to suffer from, its that spending all of your money and saving none is foolish.

Thanks to the "Share Shoreline" parents. Mountain View in last one year so many things were cut in MV schools. Class sizes etc... Investment for future!

Great job Share Shoreline.

This comment was moved from a duplicate thread that has now been closed:

@James "Seems a pitance considering the many billions of dollars of income generated there?"
by Randall Feb 9, 2011 at 10:14 am

@ jupiterk

Let's see the data to show that someone at the district makes $300k. Or that your opinion?

@curious

I remember reading somewhere in the local newspapers that one of the exec is making $300K. Aside from yoru question, do you think that most of these will be used for the kids and the school? You are clueless to think that this money will be used for productive purposes. I bet 95% will be used in giving themselves substantial rises and the top guys taking home more, travelling around,..may be you ahven't been reading newspapers how local /state/federal officials/employees are getting paid.

@jupiterk -
... this isn't a new tax, simply a reallocation of funds from one public agency to another.
Even if I bought into your rant on how "all public employees are corrupt, why is it better for the money to stay in one group of public employees (Shoreline District, Golf Course employees...?) vs. another (School District)?

Which tax source would pay for investments in a world Expo at Moffitt Field? Would this possibly be future Shoreline spending? (bridges etc.)

I'm so tired of MV having one of the lowest per-student spending in the nation. MV, the home of enterprising know-how building a better future for the entire world, is failing to fund basic education.

Thank you, Share Shoreline, for recovering some of the taxes from our large globally-successful enterprises back to basic ed in this time of desperate state budget crises.