WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE
Helping Santa Clara Become the Best Version of Itself
Public Trust Now examines Santa Clara City Hall through an ethics and public trust lens.
Our goal is to improve the quality of public decisions in the City of Santa Clara by bringing the ethics and public trust issues that are already present in every important public decision into the public conversation.
Public decisions change people’s lives for better or worse. They inevitably raise questions about fairness, competing values, duties and responsibilities, consequences, public trust, and what best serves the people. Yet those questions often go undiscussed.
We help the community recognize ethics issues, understand competing viewpoints, think more deeply about difficult public problems, and work together to develop stronger solutions that better serve the people of Santa Clara.
Success is not measured by whether everyone agrees. Success is measured by whether Santa Clara consistently makes better public decisions, strengthens ethical leadership, earns the public’s trust, and becomes the best version of itself.
Imagine a Santa Clara where important public decisions routinely include thoughtful ethics analysis; where ethical leadership invites the people to where, in their best selves, they really want to go; and where meaningful public participation encourages the community’s best thinking and its strongest solutions.
This is a vision everyone can share—and one we can work together to make real.
