The Mission

Public Trust Now sees City of Santa Clara government through an ethics lens at a critical moment—as the city makes decisions that will shape it for decades.

Among the many issues we will discuss, we will pay special attention to three interconnected projects that could rebuild public trust (or hurt it further):

• Charter Review (usually happens once every 10 years)
• Ethics Code Revision (first comprehensive update in 25 years)
• Ethics Commission Creation (recommended by three Civil Grand Jury reports, but which Council rejected twice.)

Done correctly and connected to each other, these projects transform ethics from individual personal choice into an organizational commitment.

The city would say to residents: “We will earn your trust decision by decision by paying attention to ethics as well as budget, productivity, and impact.” To everyone who works in government: “We will teach you the skills to recognize ethics issues, think them through, act with courage, communicate ethics, and be accountable.” 

Done poorly, ethics remains optional—a personal choice (or not) of every individual in government, rather than a sustainable, enduring commitment the city organization makes to its people and to everyone who provides public service. 

Done poorly, the best the people can hope for is that government officials will follow the law.

The law is the minimal expectation—what we must do to avoid prosecution. Ethics is what we ought to do to earn the people’s trust.

The difference is the difference between Santa Clara at 91% “going in the right direction”  (2008) and Santa Clara at 40% right direction (2024).

What We Mean by “Ethics” and “Public Trust”

Ethics ≠ Law

Many people think: “If it’s legal, it’s ethical.”

Wrong.

Santa Clara has already learned this lesson the hard way:

The 49ers spending over $13 million to elect Council members is legal (the Supreme Court approved unlimited independent expenditures).

But is it ethical for the city’s largest tenant to appear to buy the very officials who are supposed to oversee them on behalf of residents?

The Council majority consistently voting for 49ers interests over residents is legal (council members have wide discretion). But is it ethical when those same officials were elected with unprecedented 49ers’ money?

We can’t write laws to cover every situation. Law is the minimum standard.  Following it does not earn public trust, because it is what the people expect. 

Ethics as Skills, Not Sermons

Ethics isn’t abstract philosophy or unfair constraints on power. It’s a set of practical skills developed over 5,000 years as humans figure out how to live together.

What people discovered across time and cultures: When we act ethically—treating people fairly, being honest, respecting rights, advancing the common good—we build stronger relationships. With people we love and people we’ve just met. With residents and coworkers. Even with strangers on the road on our way to work.

The result: We get much more accomplished, with greater satisfaction and joy.

Ethics emerged not as a political weapon or an impingement on majority power, but as the answer to a fundamental question: How do we create the strongest possible relationships with everyone we encounter?

Everyone already knows how to be ethical. When we’re at our best, we earn trust almost naturally. The challenge is to be at our best every day.

That’s why ethics needs to be organizational, not just individual.  Organizations build ethical capacity through:

• Regular training, not one-and-done

• Making it routine – Ethics becomes as regular in conversation as budget or productivity discussions
• Skills development – Teaching people how to recognize ethical issues and navigate them, how to act with courage, how to communicate ethics, and how to take responsibility
• Systems support – Creating structures that make ethical choices easier than unethical ones, that celebrate role models, hiring, promotion, and many other parts of a program
• Accountability – This is the positive opportunity to present evidence that promises accepted were promises kept, clear recognition when it succeeds, clear consequences when it fails.

To residents, an ethical organization says: “We will earn your trust decision by decision.”

To everyone who works in government: “We will teach you the skills to act ethically, make ethical decisions, and earn the people’s trust.”

No One Is Exempt

Benjamin Disraeli once said, “In politics, nothing is despicable.”  Politicians sometimes act as if there’s something special about their profession that exempts them from what we expect of  every other adult human:  do the right thing, practice a set of positive core values, and be a role model.

There isn’t.

The same ethical principles that govern how we treat neighbors, make friends, raise children, run businesses, and keep promises apply to government. Actually, they apply more in government because officials hold public trust and spend public money.

When officials say “that’s just politics” to excuse behavior they’d condemn in their children, they’ve already missed the point. 

What Ethics Means in Practice

Ethics asks five questions about every decision:

1. Consequences: Does this do more good than harm? If harm is unavoidable, have we minimized it?
2. Rights: Does this respect people’s moral and legal rights?
3. Fairness: Does this treat everyone fairly, or does it favor special interests?
4. Common Good: Does this advance the community’s wellbeing, or just benefit a few?
5. Virtues: Does this reflect the character traits we want in trustworthy leaders—honesty, transparency, integrity, accountability?

We look at ethics as how officials act when they’re at their best, earning the trust of the people.

What Public Trust Means

Public trust is residents’ confidence that their government:

• Serves the public interest, not private interests
• Makes decisions transparently
• Acts with integrity
• Can be held accountable
• Tells the truth

When public trust collapses, democracy breaks down.

Residents disengage. Special interests fill the vacuum. Officials stop caring what people think because people have stopped paying attention.

Santa Clara’s public trust:

• 2008: 91% of residents approved of city direction
• 2024: Approximately 40% approval

That’s not a normal political shift. That’s systematic failure caused by abandoning ethics as an organizational commitment.

Our Approach: The “Reasonable Person” Test

We analyze decisions by asking: “How does this appear to a reasonable person outside the organization?”

This is as close as we can get to an independent third-party perspective. Not “how does the Council majority justify this?” but “what would a reasonable resident think if they saw what actually happened?”

Examples:

Question: Councilmembers under investigation for accepting 49ers gifts vote on 49ers proposals. Legal?
Answer: Probably.
Reasonable person test: Would a reasonable person think this looks ethical? No—it looks like a conflict of interest.

Question: City negotiates a major settlement in closed session without independent financial analysis. Legal?
Answer: Yes, closed sessions are allowed.
Reasonable person test: Would a reasonable person trust a process with no transparency and no independent review? No.

What We Provide

Ethics News & Analysis:

• How ethics (or lack thereof) drives city decisions
• Application of ethical frameworks to governance
• Comparative examples from other cities

Role Models & Accountability:

• Celebrate good governance when we see it
• Call out ethically questionable decisions when we find them
• Focus on decisions and actions, not personal attacks

Community Platform:

• Space for residents to engage in dialogue
• PEN Names system for safe participation
• Resources for civic engagement

Public Trust Perspective:

• How decisions affect residents’ confidence in government
• What rebuilds trust vs. what destroys it
• Structural solutions, not just complaints

Why This Matters

Santa Clara was once a national model for ethical governance:

• 91% resident approval (2008)
• UNESCO recognition as global best practice
• Two Helen Putnam awards from League of California Cities
• California’s first consensus-based Code of Ethics

What happened?

The ethics program began to collapse around the time the 49ers arrived. From 2008-2010, I proposed integrating ethics into stadium contract negotiations. Those proposals were rejected without public discussion.

With unprecedented 49ers PAC spending from 2020 forward, the city systematically dismantled its ethics infrastructure. The Stadium Authority has operated from the beginning without any ethics code or oversight despite managing a $1.3 billion asset.

The result:

• Three Civil Grand Jury reports documenting ethics failures
• One Council member convicted of perjury and leaking confidential reports to the 49ers
• Public trust collapsed from 91% to approximately 40%
• Ethics treated as optional, political weapon, or enemy

This site documents what happened and what is happening, analyzes current successes and failures, and advocates for structural solutions, policies, and processes that rebuild trust.