The Full Story of Santa Clara’s Rise As A Role Model for Public Ethics (1998-2012)
The Most Ethical City in California
In 1998, the people of Santa Clara said, “Enough!” to the negative political culture that was growing in the City, most visible during win-at-all-costs election campaigns.
The City soon entered into a partnership with Dr. Tom Shanks and Santa Clara University’s Markkula Ethics Center that lasted through 2015. That partnership gave the City access to public ethics research and best practices developed in the 20 years after Watergate and the start of Federal Ethics Programs.
Those ethics reforms and best practices had not yet been implemented and adapted for local government. Santa Clara was one of the first cities in California to develop an integrity-focused Code of Ethics & Values, which defined public ethics as the way the city organization and everyone involved with Santa Clara City government acts when they are at their best earning public trust. Through an inclusive public process, City stakeholders decided that Santa Clara should become “the most ethical city in California.” The City worked hard at that for fourteen years, from 1998-2012.
From Shared Values to Clear Standards
Through their representatives, all City stakeholders (residents, city council, commissioners, and staff) first reached consensus on the City’s core values, then wrote the Ethics & Values Code, and, a few years later, the Behavioral Standards so everyone had a clear picture of what the values looked like and didn’t look like in practice, what was acceptable and what was not.
Training Leaders and Engaging Voters
The City did extensive training with those who were expected to live the Code every day. Over eight elections. the City also taught voters how to hold candidates accountable in the ballot box for campaigns that built public trust. Voters were the Ethics Program’s accountability mechanism.
As then Mayor Patricia Mahan explained, “Our goal was not to influence the outcome of elections. Our goal was to improve the ethical behavior of candidates.”
Embedding Public Trust in Everyday City Work
The Santa Clara Ethics & Values Program was an all-hands activity. Santa Clara promised residents that the City would work hard to make those ethical standards and core values real in the everyday culture of City Hall and in the life of the City. Those goals became part of everyone’s job description in 2000 when the Ethics Code was adopted, reinforced in 2003 with Behavioral Standards for Commissioners, and reinforced in 2008 with the Behavioral Standards for Council Members.
Santa Clara Became an Ethics Role Model
- 2002 – The League of California Cities (the professional association for most every California City and town) awarded Santa Clara its first Helen Putnam Award for excellence for the Ethics Code and made Santa Clara’s Code Development Process a State model. The award category was Enhancing Public Trust, Ethics, and Community Involvement.
- 2006 – 91% of Santa Clara residents said the City was “moving in the right direction.”
- 2007 – The League gave the City the Helen Putnam Grand Prize Award for the Vote Ethics Program, the only time the City has received this prize.
- 2008 – The United Nations recognized the Campaign Ethics and Vote Ethics Programs as global best practices.
Why All This Effort
The City had two main goals that motivated the work of so many for 14 years. The first was to increase public trust, which the City defined as “the people’s confident reliance that their city government works hard at all times, in public and in private, only for the best interests of the people of Santa Clara.” Personal, private, or special interests never displace the people as the Government’s top priority.
The second goal was to make Santa Clara City Hall a great place to work. The City recognized that it needed people of competence, character, and courage, who make a career in public service because they are committed to identifying and meeting the needs of the people they serve and care about. The City recognized that none of these people wanted to work in a City whose leadership ignores ethics, thinks it’s an enemy, or uses it as a political weapon. These good people wanted to be led by ethical leaders who make every decision after first considering its impact on public trust.
The Preamble to the Code
When the process was finished and the City had the body of the Code completed, the Ethics Ordinance Committee wrote the Preamble to the Code to put in one paragraph what had motivated the work of so many stakeholders for two years, to whom the Code applied, and why it mattered. Specifically, it explained:
- Why the Code and ethics were central to democracy in Santa Clara. This first sentence also described the three core behaviors of trustworthy leaders–as reminders to leaders and as promises to the people:
- The proper operation of democratic government requires that decision-makers be independent, impartial, and accountable to the people they serve.
- The Code’s specific purpose:
- The City of Santa Clara has adopted this Code of Ethics & Values to promote and maintain the highest standards of personal and professional conduct in the City’s government.
- Who was required to follow the Code:
- All elected and appointed officials, City employees, volunteers, and others who participate in the city’s government are required to subscribe to this Code…
- What the Code required of them now and into the future:
- ...[U]nderstand how it applies to their specific responsibilities and practice its eight core values in their work.
- The Code’s long-term goal, necessary for the survival, success, and flourishing of any government that describes itself as democratic:
- Because we seek public confidence in the City’s services and public trust of its decision-makers…
- Both the method for accomplishing that goal and the evidence that would show the City and its decision-makers had fulfilled their promises to the people:
- …[O]ur decisions and our work must meet the most demanding ethical standards and demonstrate the highest levels of achievement in following this code.