Public Trust Partners Community Standards

Public Ethics Now, Advocates for Public Trust

Creating a Safe Space for Dialogue


Calling for ethical leadership and rebuilding public trust require a space where residents can speak honestly, listen deeply and be heard, and work together across divisions to improve city decision-making and quality of life.

Some cities have created safe public spaces where meaningful dialogue can happen without fear of retaliation or ridicule. Santa Clara is not now one of those cities.

Santa Clara has also been quietly reducing opportunities for the public to speak to its government.  Now, effectively, the only time the public can address the Council is during 2 minute comments about an agenda item or 3 minute public comments about anything under the City's jurisdiction.  With those, the City Council can not respond because the topic is not on the agenda. 

Public Trust Now is creating a safe space for public discussion.  We imagine this more as a place to dialogue rather than debate. (See the difference between dialog and debate here.)  But we'll see how that goes. 

We want this to be a place where Santa Clara stakeholders can speak about their experiences, listen to understand different perspectives, test ideas, dialogue and debate solutions vigorously while treating each other with respect, challenging power structures constructively, and building trust to support officials who want to lead ethically.

The home page presents the City's ethics and public trust stories, tracing the decision to become "the most ethical city in California" and the ten years the City pursued that goal; how that goal changed when the 49ers came to town; the dozen years the City has been dismantling the Ethics Program; and the four decisions the City is about to make that will determine whether the City rebuilds ethical leadership and public trustt, or continues what the majority of Santa Clara residents believe is the wrong direction.   

Cities Can Change Quickly


If a large number of residents say clearly "Enough!" to the status quo and the City's ignoring ethics issues,  change becomes possible.  These are complicated issues, but, if we can engage with one another as people sitting on the same side of the table trying to resolve complicated problems, as opposed to warring factions sitting on opposite sides of the table trying to win, then we may come up with better solutions that we have in the past.

That's the purpose of the standards described below.  They help to create a discussion space where we can figure out how to advance ethical leadership, good governance, and public trust.

Guidelines for Participation

DO:

  1. Criticize or challenge issues, policies, and systems—not personalities
  2.  Provide evidence and sources for factual claims, no misinformation, sweeping generalizations, or writing off whole groups of people
  3. Try to understand deeper interests and needs, not just positions people have taken
  4. Acknowledge when you're uncertain or speculating
  5. Respect different viewpoints and lived experiences
  6. Treat everyone the way you would treat honored guests in your home
  7. Use your PEN name consistently to build a safe space
  8. Frame criticism constructively: Turn criticism into positive goals for the next time we do the program, make a decision, face an election, etc. .  (For example, instead of criticizing, "Candidate X's volunteers stole my signs. Turn it into a positive goal:  Next time, no one steals campaign signs)
  9.  Distinguish between ethics failures and honest mistakes
  10. Ask clarifying questions before assuming bad intent

DON'T:

  1. Attack other community members' characters
  2. Share or attempt to discover others' real identities
  3. Post information you know or suspect is false
  4. Use your PEN name to evade accountability for harmful speech
  5. Impersonate officials, organizations, or other PEN names
  6. Assume bad faith when good faith explanations are possible
  7. Discourage others from participating through intimidation
  8. Make definitive claims about others' motivations or character

Moderating the Discussion

We moderate with a light touch, trusting the community to self-regulate most of the time. Our goal is education and course-correction, not ostracizing someone or punishing them.

We Will:

  1. Invite any community member to alert Dr. Shanks to any posts that appear to violate these standards. Use the "Alert Moderators" button in the footer or in other places
  2. Remove comments that clearly violate these standard
  3. Issue private warnings for first-time or borderline violations
  4. Work with members to understand and correct problematic patterns
  5. Provide clear explanations when we take action
  6. Protect members who report violations from retaliation

We Will Suspend or Remove Accounts When Someone:

  1. Repeatedly violates standards after warnings
  2. Destroys someone else's reputation or causes serious harm to other members
  3. Uses their PEN name in bad faith to evade accountability
  4. Attempts to identify or expose other members
  5. Engages in illegal activity

We Will Report to Authorities:

  1. Credible threats of violence
  2. Evidence of illegal activity
  3. Attempts to hack or otherwise compromise the system

Privacy Commitment

Your PEN name protects you from retaliation. We protect your real identity:

  1. Only verified Santa Clara stakeholders can participate  (Stakeholder=anyone concerned about Santa Clara ethics)
  2. We ask for your real name and contact information to verify that you are a real person, not a bot
  3. No one but the site administrator has access to your identity
  4. We will never sell, share, or leak your information
  5. You can delete your account and data at any time (Through the Withdraw button in the footer)
  6. We use industry-standard security protocols.

See the Privacy Policy for complete details.

The Spirit of These Standards

These rules exist to create the conditions for honest dialogue about difficult topics. We're all learning together how to rebuild trust—in our institutions, in each other, and in the democratic process itself.

Some conversations will be uncomfortable. Some will surface real disagreements that can't be easily resolved. That's okay. That's democracy. What matters is that we engage each other with the respect we'd want for ourselves, the patience to understand before judging, and the courage to speak truth while leaving space for others to do the same.

We're not asking for perfect agreement. We're asking for good faith, mutual respect, and a genuine commitment to making Santa Clara's governance and future better. If you can contribute to those things,  you belong here.

Thank you for participating.  Please tell people you know about us and invite them to join.  As always, if you have any suggestions, raise them here or email them privately to Dr. Shanks at drshanks@publictrustnow.com.