The Governance and Ethics Committee on Oct. 30, 2025, approved a proposed council policy setting procedures to accept, distribute and disclose tickets or passes received by the City of Santa Clara. The committee voted unanimously to forward the draft to the full council with an added amendment prioritizing ticket offers to council members who serve on committees or boards related to the item when tickets are limited.

What was approved

The policy as forwarded to council would:

- Define permissible public purposes for city receipt/distribution of tickets or passes, including ceremonial occasions, promotion of cultural/educational/recreational events, economic development outreach and intergovernmental relations.
- Require a ticket administrator (city manager or designee) to receive tickets that are offered to the city, ensure distributions serve a public purpose and complete FPPC Form 802 (recipient disclosure) for posting on the city website.
- Prohibit outside providers from earmarking tickets for particular individuals; the city will distribute tickets per policy and procedures.
- Explicitly exclude complimentary NFL game tickets from city distribution; the policy does allow other stadium-related entitlements (for example, museum admissions) and non‑NFL event tickets to be distributed for public purposes.

Committee amendment and vote

The committee adopted an amendment directing staff that, when the city purchases a table or receives a limited number of tickets for an event, priority for the available seats should be offered first to council members who serve on committees, boards or agencies directly related to that event’s subject matter; staff will document the priority process in implementing procedures. The motion passed unanimously.

Why the policy was proposed

City staff said the city receives multiple offers of tickets from venue promoters, partners and organizations; without a policy, distribution has been inconsistent and the city has sometimes declined invitations to avoid perception issues. The policy was benchmarked against other cities (San Jose, Mountain View, Oakland, Los Angeles, San Diego) and aims to normalize a transparent process and rely on Form 802 reporting to reduce individual reporting confusion.

Quotations

“We very much want to align with that, and I think in our prior discussion, a number of comments really centered around events, as well as the 8 0 2 form,” City Manager Jovan Grogan said in introducing the item.

“We are proposing to exclude any tickets from the 40 niners for NFL games,” Maria Le, assistant to the city manager, said during the presentation.

Implementation and follow-up

Staff will prepare the formal council policy for a full council hearing, implement administrative procedures (ticket administrator process, priority distribution rules, public posting of Form 802 disclosures) and publish city-filled Form 802 filings on the city website. The committee asked staff to include concrete examples and to ensure alignment with the gift policy review currently in progress.

Ending

The policy aims to let the city accept and distribute tickets in a way that supports public purposes while providing transparency; committee members emphasized staff should keep the process practical and publish clear examples.