By Dr. Tom Shanks
At Friday’s Santa Clara City Council’s Governance and Ethics Committee meeting, committee members asked their legal consultant to research Ethics Commissions in “similar cities” and return with information about lower-cost alternatives, commissioner selection, and staffing requirements.
They’re asking the wrong questions.
No city is similar to Santa Clara. No other California city faces this perfect ethics storm:
- An NFL team that spent $13 million capturing the political system
- Council members serving simultaneously as Stadium Authority Board members — regulating themselves and regularly voting for 49er interests
- A City Manager and City Attorney hired 17 months after the Council fired their predecessors. Is it any wonder that this City Manager and City Attorney appear to defer to the team and to the Council?
- Three Civil Grand Jury reports condemning the majority for putting “49ers’ interests ahead of the city’s interests”
- A Council member convicted of leaking confidential reports to the 49ers — whom the Council elected Vice Mayor and allowed to vote on 49ers issues for a year without a word from the City Attorney
- Completed the dismantling of a nationally-recognized ethics program when 91% of residents said the City was “moving in the right direction” (now 40%).
That’s why Santa Clara needs a unique and independent Ethics Commission designed for this crisis and designed to succeed.
What ethics crisis?
The City Council? Captured. They vote 5-2 on virtually every 49ers issue, claim no coordination despite PAC money flowing days after settlements, and reject oversight as a “political weapon.”
The City Manager? Silent. No ethics directives since taking office. Signed NDAs giving the 49ers control over public information. Delayed hiring an ethics consultant for seven months, then worked behind closed doors to replace — not review — the award-winning code.
The City Attorney? Compliant. Tells Council members if they feel no conflict, they can vote. Never discusses appearance problems publicly. Never explains why the 49ers PAC’s millions in spending creates the appearance of a conflict – and why that matters.
The Ethics Code? About to be replaced with a code that sets the bar at the law, not at government at its best.
Ethics Issues? The last full discussion the Council had was on July 11, 2023, in the last hour of a five-hour meeting, when they rejected the ethics commission a second time.
When all these internal checks fail, who protects the public?
Other cities don’t need ethics commissions because they don’t have Santa Clara’s ethics problems. Their councils aren’t captured. Their city managers provide independent judgment. Their city attorneys give candid advice.
Santa Clara needs an Ethics Commission because its normal safeguards have been systematically dismantled or corrupted.
The city needs independent, adequately funded, empowered, proactive, transparent oversight committed to residents’ interests — roles the Council, City Manager, and City Attorney should fill but don’t.
Dr. Tom Shanks set up Santa Clara’s award-winning ethics program from 1985 to 2015. He was the Executive Director of Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics from 1992 to 1999.
This is rich! See Roger Kint aka Suds Jain letter below. Suds is telling the Governance committee to oppose an ethics commission. Of course! We know Suds has no ethics. So what are you gonna’ do, Suds? Listen to yourself?
Dear Governance and Ethics Commission members Jain, Chahal and Park.
Do not support implementing an ethics commission. This is yet once again a ploy by Mayor Gillmor to use against all of you or others in the future. This committee will be stacked with Gillmor loyalists.
If you support such a committee you are setting yourselves up for ultimate failure especially Councilmember Jain.
Do not listen to the comments or demands of Tom Shanks and Wanda Buck, both plants by Gillmor to push this ridiculous ethics commission. The fact that they want this commission so bad for the last few years really should make you question all the motives.
If they lied about you all in grand jury reports and during council meetings imagine what they will do with a commission rooted in Gillmor’s agenda. Remember how convenient Gillmor had this solution as part of her Anti-Corruption plan in 2022.
You can do better than giving into the demands of a tyrant.
Roger Kint
Kevin Park. MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCATE
5 MONTH DELAY. CPRA REQUESTS
Nothing is going to happen as long as Kevin Park has his way. He kept talking about his personal injuries by staff and fellow council members. It was the worse meeting I have ever watched. Lee B
And they will support each other because they have the majority.
Santa Clara is a mini-DC.
Wake up Santa Clara! The 49er five are bought and paid for! Stop the madness!
This is an election year for two council positions and Mayor! AND a chance for a recall of Mr. Jain!
Doesn’t Santa Clara deserve folks who have the best interests of residents, first and foremost, in the decisions that are being made?
Do the 49er five demonstrate anything that is close to leadership and ethical behavior that the City is proud of?
Does the leadership and guidance of the City Attorney and City Manager seem ethical and right to you?
Doesn’t an Ethics Commission make sense due to all of the egregious City problems that have been so well documented so many times?
Shouldn’t the Civil Grand Jury have a break without so much to say about Santa Clara, which seems like all the time? Doesn’t anyone find this embarrassing?
There is a chance to get a head start on new beginnings — sign that recall petition so the recall of Suds can be on the ballot in March – where ALL VOTERS GET TO DECIDE! Let’s wash that Suds right out of his chair.
Having this City Council design a new ethics commission is like have the ‘ox design the henhouse.
Santa Clara’s current discussion of a potential ethics watchdog has glaringly omitted a crucial failure: a hands-off attitude toward enforcement of state conflict of interest rules vis-a-vis the 49ers in their management of Levi’s Stadium. As details of 49ers president Al Guido’s deal with FIFA came to light, I publicly stated that his signing of the FIFA agreement as both the Stadium Authority’s manager and as the Bay Area Host Committee CEO was a violation of state law. In response to my urging that the deal was void and that Mr. Guido should be sanctioned, the City Attorney told me that it was not his job to enforce conflict of interest rules even against the 49ers executives who are subject to state conflicts laws. Such an abdication of responsibility for ensuring that the City’s dealings are legal cries out for an independent commission that will enforce ethical standards not just for elected and appointed officials but for consultants who have been delegated municipal powers to manage public assets.
25 public record act requests on Suds Jain delayed for four months