Is Santa Clara Moving
in the Right Direction?
Santa Clara once led California in municipal ethics. Its nationally recognized ethics program was studied and copied. Residents trusted it.
In 2008, ten years into the program, 87% of Santa Clara residents said the City was going in the right direction.
In 2024, just 40% said the same thing.
Something is wrong.
Santa Clara now faces four decisions that will either rebuild public trust through ethical leadership—or deepen a City Hall culture that ignores ethics, rejects criticism, excludes the public, and fails to protect public trust.
The choice is now in the hands of the people. Is this status quo the best we can do? What kind of City will you help Santa Clara to become?
What You Need to Know In Two Minutes
- Santa Clara was on its way to becoming one of the most ethical cities in California.
- In 2010, voters approved a new stadium (14,628 to 10,505) in a city of approximately 116,000.
- Over time, belief that the City was going in the wrong direction increased from 13% to 60%.
- The ethics program has been dismantled, and the Code of Ethics & Values and Behavioral Standards is about to be replaced.
- Major decisions are are increasingly being made without meaningful attention to ethics or public trust.
- All political power is inherent in the people
It Worked...Then It Didn't
For more than a decade, the Ethics & Values Program worked.
Then it didn’t.
Since 2015, the ethics program has been quietly dismantled. One piece at a time.
By the time most residents noticed, there was nothing left to save—only something to rebuild.
What Happens to City Decisions When Ethics Is Optional and Public Trust Is Ignored?
Over the past four years, a clear pattern has emerged.
City decisions, public records, and Civil Grand Jury reports tell a consistent story:
The Council thinks ethics is a political weapon and an unnecessary limit on their power, rather than understanding ethics as the way government and officials act when the City is at its best earning the trust of the people.
Here we’ve documented ten examples of decisions that would likely have been very different if the City had asked—and answered honestly—two questions to improve public decision-making:
- Why, if at all, is this the right thing to do for the people of Santa Clara?
- How, if at all, is this likely to build public trust?
1. 49ers-backed PACs poured over $10 million into supporting their preferred candidates and opposing their opponents in the last three elections. Once elected, those officials voted for virtually every major 49ers initiative without public discussion of conflicts of interest or the appearance of conflicts.
THE FACTS: Over the last three elections, 49ers-funded PACs have spent more than $10 million to elect a compliant council super-majority (5 of 7). In 2022, they outspent one council challenger 43-to-1 and outspent the Mayor 8-to-1. Every candidate signed a pledge to "publicly repudiate" unfair attacks—none ever did. In public, they say they wish the 49ers wouldn't spend money on their campaigns. That's easy to say when you're the one benefiting.
Since taking office, this majority has voted to support virtually every major 49ers initiative—settlements, stadium deals, FIFA World Cup hosting—without ever publicly discussing the apparent conflict of interest created by the campaign spending that put them there. The 49ers' franchise value has grown from $1.4 billion to $8.6 billion during this period.
TRUSTWORTHY LEADERS WOULD: Publicly acknowledge the conflict. Discuss it openly. Recuse when appropriate. Demonstrate that their votes serve the people, not their campaign benefactors.
WHAT WE'RE GETTING NOW: Silence on the conflict. No recusals. No discussion. Just 5-2 votes for the 49ers agenda.
2. Fired the previous City Manager and City Attorney after they tried to hold the team accountable, leaving the City and the Stadium Authority without permanent executive leadership for 14 months and 17 months respectively.
THE FACTS: They first fired City Attorney Brian Doyle after the 49ers reportedly wanted him "gone." Five months later, and two days after City Manager Deanna Santana raised concerns about a 49ers executive's conflict of interest, the 49ers-backed majority fired her.
The city was left without a permanent City Attorney for 17 months and without a permanent City Manager for 14 months. During that leadership vacuum, the Council majority held 57 closed-door meetings with 49ers lobbyists in just nine months—one every four days. They met in groups of two and three: Hardy and Chahal at 3:30 p.m., then Jain, Becker, and Park at 5:00 p.m. the same day. Their calendars disclosed nothing more than "SCSA/49er matters."
The August 2022 settlement was signed with no permanent City Manager and no permanent City Attorney to push back. The next day, 49ers PACs received $700,000+ to support the Council majority's campaigns (Becker for Mayor; Chahal, and Hardy for district seats).
TRUSTWORTHY LEADERS WOULD: Protect officials who fulfill their fiduciary duties—even when it's inconvenient or unpopular with campaign supporters. Ensure permanent professional representation during sensitive negotiations or postpone them until replacements were hired.
WHAT WE'RE GETTING NOW: Officials who challenge 49ers interests don't last long. Officials who cooperate get campaign support.
3. Elected indicted colleague as vice-mayor and allowed him to vote on 49er issues for 20 months after he waived his right to a speedy trial and until he was convicted of felony perjury and misdemeanor failure to do his duty by lying under oath about leaking a confidential Civil Grand Jury document to the team so they could attack it when it was released.
THE FACTS: In October 2022, Councilmember Anthony Becker leaked to the team's top lobbyist, Rahul Chandhok, a confidential Civil Grand Jury report—"Unsportsmanlike Conduct," which was sharply critical of the Council majority's relationship with the 49ers.
This gave the 49er crisis communication team four days to mount a campaign to discredit the report as a "political hatchet job," to claim the District Attorney and the Civil Grand Jury were motivated by politics, to point out all the "errors" in the report and its methodology, and to claim the Mayor had already leaked the report to the S.F. Chronicle. There were also reports that the 49ers had hired opposition researchers to dig up dirt on the Civil Grand Jurors.
The District Attorney launched an investigation, which led to Mr. Chandook being granted immunity, testifying that Mr. Becker had leaked the report to Mr. Chandhook and the Silicon Valley Voice. Later, Mr. Becker was asked if he had leaked the report and he lied about it under oath. Mr. Becker pleaded not guilty, waived his right to a speedy trial, and twenty months later, was convicted of felony perjury and a misdemeanor for failing to do his duty.
THE TIMELINE:
April 2023: Becker indicted on felony perjury and misdemeanor failure to perform duty. He refused to resign.
April 2023 – December 2024: His colleagues made him Vice Mayor and let him vote on every 49ers issue for 20 months—citing "innocent until proven guilty." That's a legal standard. Public trust asks: Can this Council Member act independently?
July 11, 2023: Three months after indictment, Becker participates in the Council's last substantive discussion of ethics, an hour-long conversation at the end of a lengthy Council meeting. The Council Chamber was empty. Staff made no recommendation. The agenda item was unclear — revisit the ethics commission they'd already rejected.
What followed revealed what this Council really believed/believes about ethics, the former ethics program, Santa Clara residents, public trust, and themselves. Becker moved to reject the commission because it would "just be used as a political weapon."
November 5, 2024: Lost re-election bid.
November 6, 2024: Trial began—the day after he lost.
December 5, 2024: Convicted. Jury deliberated less than three hours.
December 6, 2024: Resigned—one day after conviction, 11 days before his term ended.
April 4, 2025: Sentenced to 40 days in a county work program picking up trash.
The 49ers had spent over $3 million supporting his campaigns. They did not support him in his last election bid.
After his conviction, Becker told his probation officer the whole thing was "about politics."
The DA said: "Some may have grown used to public officials lying. Committing perjury to the civil grand jury is not a white lie, an exaggeration, or politics. It is a crime and a serious abuse of the public trust."
TRUSTWORTHY LEADERS WOULD: After indictment, at the very least, he should recuse himself from 49ers-related votes to protect the integrity of City decisions. Having supported him through two elections, and having met dozens of times with him, could anyone, including the 49ers, think he could make an independent judgment about them? Trustworthy leaders would recognize that the legal precedent (innocent until proven guilty) does not apply when it comes to the public's perceptions of trustworthy leadership. Trustworthy leaders would act to protect public trust.
WHAT WE GOT: They made him Vice Mayor. They let him vote on every 49ers issue for 20 months. During depositions, one Council colleague testified Becker had told him that he leaked the report. During the trial, that colleague changed his testimony and said he must have been “confused.” Two colleagues spoke at his sentencing asking the judge for no jail time.
4. Had legal ethics "training" where the City Attorney told them: "If you don't feel like you have a conflict, it's ok to vote." That advice flies in the face of most conflict laws and
THE FACTS: During state-required ethics training, the City Attorney's office told council members: "If you feel like you are not being influenced by personal interests, why should you remove yourself?"
This directly contradicts the "appearance of impropriety" standard cited on the same training slide.
WHY THIS MATTERS: The appearance standard exists because the public cannot see inside officials' minds. We can only see their actions. When officials who received $10+ million in PAC support vote on 49ers matters without recusal, it looks like a conflict—regardless of how they feel inside.
Every ethicist knows we are terrible judges of our own bias. That's why appearance standards exist—because the public can only see what you do, not what you feel. "I don't feel conflicted" is exactly what conflicted people say.
TRUSTWORTHY LEADERS WOULD: Teach the actual standard: Appearance of conflict damages public trust as much as actual conflict, because appearances are all the public has.
WHAT WE'RE GETTING NOW: Training that gives conflicted officials permission to vote anyway. The City Attorney provided cover for the Stadium Authority majority to vote for the 49er agenda meeting after meeting with no recusals, conflict resolutions, or even discussion of the principles at stake. His flawed training about appearance of conflict also provided an excuse for his own silence about the appearance of conflict over the past three years.
5. Since March, 2024, have been gutting the integrity-focused ethics code and behavioral standards behind closed doors, with no review, and no public input
THE FACTS: In July 2023, the Council approved hiring a consultant to "review ethics documents."
8-month unexplained delay before City staff created an RFQ for a document review of current ethics document and recommendations for next steps.
City posted RFQ on normal posting site; send separate letter to eight law firms; hired LCW and lawyer the City worked with frequently before. Rushed responses and contract by March 2024. October 15, 2025 public records request for the contract was delayed five times until January 16 when it was closed. Contract sent was a 2021 contract and an extension in 2024. Neither was for the ethics RFQ. Also requested and not sent were communications with the consultant changing “review ethics documents” to “replace ethics code.”
1 year of work behind closed doors
Zero public input
March 2025: Consultant presented a "replacement" code—not a review at 10 a.m. on a weekday morning at a public meeting of the Governance & Ethics Commission which typically has one or two members of the public in chamber or participating virtually.
WHAT THE REPLACEMENT CODE DOES:
Covers only City Council (not the elected Police Chief, elected City Clerk, commissioners, or staff)
Reduces 8 values to 6
Eliminates all behavioral standards
Requires only that Council "obey the law"
Does not apply to Stadium Authority
If approved, it's unclear whether staff and anyone else required to follow the Code remains covered by any ethics code at all.
RECORDS REQUESTS: A public records request for the contract and communications showing how "review" became "replace" was delayed six times over three months and closed without providing the documents on January 18, 2026, two days after the consultant presented draft documents for potential approval. These documents were not discussed because the consultant presented her first report on the independent ethics commission.
The records request did show that the City did not follow its usual RFQ process to hire the consultant. City staff chose to send an "informal RFQ" to eight law firms, two of whom responded. No ethics consultants were invited to apply, including the Markkula Center whom the Mayor had recommended during the July 2023 meeting and Joanne Speers, the former head of the Institute for Local Government, who was now in private practice, whom Dr. Shanks had recommended. Mr. Becker rejected the Markkula Center. Mr Park rejected Joanne Speers.
The City Manager made an impassioned plea to the Council not to include specific consultants in the motion, so the City's fair RFQ process could be implemented. There was nothing fair about this process, since City staff decided to hire lawyers to develop a rules-based Code, rather than ethicists to review a values-based Code. City staff selected LCW, a law firm who has defended the City in lawsuits filed by city employees for 40 years. So much for hiring an independent contractor using the City's normal RFQ process as the approved motion called for.
TRUSTWORTHY LEADERS WOULD: Follow the open, inclusive process that made the original code a state model. Engage stakeholders. Build consensus.
WHAT WE'RE GETTING NOW: A closed-door rewrite that abandons 25 years of progress. Trustworthy leaders would have built on the extensive work done by a partnership of city officials, staff, and residents.
6. Have let the Stadium Authority operate for a decade as an "ethics free" zone--no ethics code, no ethics oversight, and only 26 words about ethics and integrity in their governance documents .
THE FACTS: The Stadium Authority manages Levi's Stadium—a $1.3 billion public asset generating hundreds of millions in annual revenue.
It has never adopted an ethics code, ethics oversight, or ethics enforcement. It has never employed an ethics consultant for expert advice.
Three Civil Grand Jury reports recommended ethics reforms for stadium governance. The recommendations have not been implemented.
The same five council members who vote as a bloc for 49ers interests on City Council also control the Stadium Authority.
SOMEONE REJECTED A STADIUM ETHICS PROPOSAL THREE TIMES: In 2009, 2010, and 2011, Dr. Shanks submitted proposals to senior city staff to make a special effort to identify and resolve ethics issues in Stadium negotiations. Dr. Shanks had become alarmed because the stadium discussions were raisisng every ethics issues municipalities confront, but, in this case, the Council was ignoring these issues.
Dr. Shanks proposed that he train City Staff on completing an "ethics impact report" each time the Council was to make a Stadium decision. The EIR would identify ethics issues involved in the decisions and the good governance principles for thinking through, and resolving, those issues. City staff would make their recommendations as usual, but the recommendation would be backed up by an ethics report and public trust risk assessment.
The proposal was rejected without public discussion by some one or some group each of the three years Dr. Shanks submitted it.
TRUSTWORTHY LEADERS WOULD: Apply the same ethical standards to stadium governance. Include good governance protections in the Charter Review. Establish independent oversight.
WHAT WE'RE GETTING NOW: A decade of operating a billion-dollar public asset with zero ethical guardrails. The same unresolved conflicts and apparent conflicts of interest. The same closed-door decisions. The same 5-2 votes.
7. Know the political election game is rigged in their favor, but they shrug and say, "It's all legal. What can we do?"
POLITICS? Politics is the way we negotiate, make decisions, handle conflicts, elect representatives, and plan our future in community. It belongs to all of us and is supposed to done for the community's benefit.
THE FACTS: The City's voluntary campaign expenditure program sets a limit on what candidates can spend on their political campaigns. It was $25,111 in 2024. The City asks candidates to agree voluntarily to that limit.
If they accept: They get some perks (e.g., half the cost of the ballot statement).
If they exceed the cap: Penalties apply.
If they don't sign: It hurts their reputation.
So most candidates sign.
THE FINE PRINT: Independent expenditures don't count toward the cap.
So PAC-backed candidates can:
Sign the voluntary cap
Claim they "kept their promise" to limit spending
Sit back and watch the PAC spend unlimited amounts on their campaigns—money they say they know nothing about
THE REAL IMPACT: Candidates who are passed over by the 49er PACs struggle to get their messages out while 49er-PACs flood the media channels for their selected candidates—while those candidates claim they played by the rules.
As it stands, the voluntary spending cap creates a false appearance of fairness, disadvantages candidates without PAC support, and rewards those who benefit from the loophole while claiming clean hands. A program that enables deception kills public trust.
WHAT'S HAPPENING NOW? Nothing. But cancelling this program should be on any review of City election programs or election resolutions. Such a review should be part of the plan to protect self-government discussed above.
AN INVITATION TO PARTICIPATE: On this site, anyone can read any of the content on the site and use the contact form to communicate directly with Dr. Shanks. Anyone who wants to participate in forums, add comments when comments are requested, or engage in the community discussions must be a member of Public Trust Partners, our online community of practice. This means filling out the form, selecting an anonymous user name by which you will be known on the site, and getting screened to be sure you are a real person, not a bot. Public Trust Partners are also held to the community standards described here. The First Public Forum asks the community for its best thinking what the city or any groups in the city can do about the 49ers' involvement in city elections. We are particularly interested in candidates who were not supported by the 49er PACs. Public Trust Now invites all candidates who ran against 49er PAC candidates to share with Dr. Shanks and the public what it was like to run a campaign when your opponent is supported by 49er PAC independent expenditures? What, if anything, can be done to level the playing field. Your personal stories of the experience will be helpful for others to read about? We are also interested in hearing from those who were supported. What do you think?
8. Are doing nothing to protect the City from a known threat to self-government
SELF-GOVERNMENT? In self-governing cities, residents—not a single powerful corporation—decide who governs, what information voters receive, and whose interests City Hall serves.
THE FACTS: For three elections since 2020, 49er-funded PACs have spent $10+ million to secure 5 of 7 Council and Stadium Authority seats. The 2022 Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury found that "...these five members can—and do—vote in a manner favorable to the team" The upcoming 2026 election has three open seats: Mayor, District 2, and District 3.
Santa Clara has detailed plans for disasters that might happen—earthquakes, floods, fires. But there is no plan for a disaster the city knows will happen, because it has happened in each of the last three elections. The Levi's Stadium lease runs through 2054, with options to 2074. That's potentially 15 more election cycles.
WAIT & SEE:
Will 49er PACs now try to buy the mayor's office, elected at-large to speak for all the people? She has been a clear team critic?
Will the PACs keep their hold on District 2 & 3?
Who are the PAC-selected candidates?
How are they selected?
Who, if anyone, will run against them?
How much money, if any, will the PACs spend?
What's the 49er attack strategy?
Have all candidates signed the State Code of Fair Campaign Practices?
Is anybody publicly repudiating any of the attacks, including what will happen if they continue to attack?
What are the facts, if any, behind the attacks and the rebuttals?
TRUSTWORTHY LEADERS WOULD:
Address the threat head-on and on-going.
No silence or going dark.
Publish a timeline.
Set a planning deadline.
Engage residents, experts, and ethical campaign specialists to develop an effective response that builds public trust—before the damage is done.
WHAT WE ARE GETTING NOW:
Nothing. No planning. No public discussion. No asking for public input on what to do to honor first amendment rights and at the same time build public trust that the voters choose who governs, information that gets sewnt out, and how City Hall act. None of that is included in the regular 5-2 votes for the 49ers agenda.
9. Are excluding the Stadium Authority from comprehensive Charter review and are expecting people to approve the Charter without the Stadium Authority.
THE FACTS: The City is conducting a Charter Review—the first comprehensive update in years. But the Stadium Authority, which manages a $1.3 billion public asset, has been excluded from the scope of the review.
Three Civil Grand Jury reports documented governance failures tied to the Stadium Authority. The same five council members who vote as a bloc for 49ers interests on City Council also control the Stadium Authority. The Authority has operated for over a decade without an ethics code, without independent oversight, and without meaningful public accountability.
A Charter Review that ignores the Stadium Authority is like a home inspection that skips the foundation. Voters are being asked to approve changes to how the City operates while the entity at the center of the City's biggest governance failures gets a pass.
TRUSTWORTHY LEADERS WOULD: Include the Stadium Authority in any comprehensive Charter Review. Address the governance failures documented by three Grand Juries. Give voters a complete picture before asking for their approval.
WHAT WE'RE GETTING NOW: A Charter Review designed around the problem, not through it.
10. Are planning to leave the ethics infrastructure and public trust protections entirely in the hands of this and future Councils instead of embedding into the Charter an independent, impartial, transparent, and accountable ethics and public trust regime, which Councils can make stronger, but never weaken or remove.
THE FACTS: Over 14 years, successive councils have quietly dismantled Santa Clara's nationally recognized ethics program—without a single public hearing, without resident input, and without anyone officially announcing what they were doing. Resident confidence collapsed from 91% to 40%.
The ethics code, the training program, the core values, the ethics consultant position and idependent advice, the Campaign ethics program, Vote Ethics —all either eliminated, weakened, or ignored. None of these required a public vote to cancel. That's the problem.
Charter-level protection means voters—not a council majority—decide whether ethics and public trust infrastructure stays or goes. Without it, the next council can finish what this one started: a City Hall culture that practices politics without principle, government without ethics, and, ultimately, a City without trust.
TRUSTWORTHY LEADERS WOULD: Embed a values-centered ethics Code for everyone, including the Stadium Authority and other public/private partnerships, training, expertise, advice, ownership, a development plan, funding, and other components of a best practices public trust regime. This also includes an independent, funded, staffed ethics or public trust commission, with subpoena power and a robust set of sanctions. It should also include a smaller appeals Board.
WHAT WE'RE GETTING NOW: No plans to include ethics in the Charter. No public trust protections. The same approach that produced 14 years of decline—and hoping nobody notices.
Four Decisions Will Shape What Happens Next
Now the same City Council that made the ethically questionable decisions we listed above faces four decisions that present a genuine opportunity to rebuild public trust — perhaps the most significant opportunity in a generation.
But the 49er PAC majority and senior City staff, who have enabled them for the past three years, are approaching these decisions the same way they have approached ethics, accountability, and public participation since they were elected in 2020: hire a consultant they control, structure the process to limit public input, and reach a predetermined conclusion.
The window to change that outcome is open at this moment in mid-March 2026. It will not stay open long.
Why Public Trust Now
For four years, residents have complained. Three Civil Grand Jury reports have documented ethics and governance failures. An ethics expert has been raising the alarm publicly since 2022. The City's own survey shows 60% of residents believe Santa Clara is going in the wrong direction.
Nothing changed. If anything, the complaints and reports have only sped up what we can only describe as an anti-ethics and anti public trust agenda.
We hope there is another explanation: gross incompetence,
Someone realized the easiest way to stop ethics complaints is to eliminate the ethics code — so they are replacing Santa Clara's comprehensive, values-centered Code with a follow-the-law compliance document, drafted behind closed doors by a law firm.
Someone realized the more they rejected an independent ethics commission, the more the Civil Grand Jury would keep recommending one — so now they are studying it, asking questions that cities of every size have already answered, until they can say: we studied it, and it's just not right for Santa Clara.
That is what this site does. Here is what we promise:
We will be fact-based. Our analyses ask what a reasonable person would conclude with access only to what the public can access: what does this document actually say, and what does it mean for public trust? We follow the evidence. We correct errors when we find them.
We will cover what is happening — the ethics code revision, the ethics commission study, the Charter Review — through an ethics lens, so residents are informed about what their government is doing, or failing to do.
We will tell you what the documents mean — not just what they say. Grand Jury reports, contracts, meeting transcripts, public records. Translated into plain language, analyzed for their ethics and public trust implications.
We will create space for genuine democratic dialogue — because the City has been steadily removing opportunities for residents to speak to their government, much less to one another. That space needs to exist somewhere.
We will not tell you what to think — but what to think about, how to think it through, and how to turn thought into practical and effective action for the common good.
We will be honest about what we don't know — and rigorous about what we do.
The Bulldozer Is Already In the Yard
Twenty-five years ago, a long-time Santa Clara resident on the ethics ordinance committee pulled Dr. Shanks aside after one of the committee meetings. He didn't want Dr. Shanks to be disappointed if other residents didn't respond to the request to participate in the ethics development process.
"You've got to understand," he said. "Santa Clara residents won't respond to City Hall unless there's a bulldozer with the City's name on it in their front yard. It's already knocked down the fence and it's on its way to the front door. Then they'll respond."
After working on this site for the past three months, we believe that bulldozer has arrived. It has already knocked down the front fence, and it's on its way to the front door. There is no time to lose.
The people are the only force with the political power to change a city's direction. Thomas Jefferson understood what this moment requires:
Whenever the people are well informed they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.
Article II Section 1 of California's Constitution makes it law:
All political power is inherent in the people. Government is instituted for their protection, security, and benefit, and they have the right to alter or reform it when the public good may require.
The public good needs your attention. Public Trust Now is here to help.
What You Can Do
Santa Clara was once a role model for ethical leadership and public trust. Residents can help the City become that again. Here's how to start.