Reconnecting Politics to Our Best Values

Public Ethics Advocate is a new, independent, non partisan, weekly ethics blog and support site that will launch on November 1. Our mission is to inform, engage, and support residents as they work with their local government, city staff, and local news outlets to secure ethical leadership, improve governance, and strengthen public trust.

For the next few months, the City of Santa Clara will be our focus because the City has serious, and growing, ethics problems.  The City's award winning Ethics & Values Program is dead. The Code of Ethics & Values, adopted in 2000, is on life-support.  The Council majority, as well as the City Manager and City Attorney,  seem to be in no rush to change that.

Watching the City Council over the past 11 months has left me with many serious questions about their ethical leadership, but the most important one is directed to all the people of Santa Clara, on any side of the City's political divides, as well as those who do not have the time, the background, or the interest to pay attention to City politics:

What are city residents to do when their local government doesn't appear to care about ethical government or public trust because they have the majority votes to do whatever they please, and there are no timely or effective checks and balances to call them to account?  

The first step toward a more ethical future is an informed public.  Public Ethics Advocate will report each week on the ethics issues involved in Council policies, City staff services, and government behavior.  We will also explore ways to support any efforts to reach consensus on a way to move forward as one community whose government is committed to following the law and practicing the highest standards of public ethics.

What's the long-term goal?

When I began working as an ethics consultant 30 years ago, I was inspired by this quote from The Soul of Politics by Jim Wallis.  It is as relevant today as it was then.

We’ve all seen how politics can reflect our worst values of selfishness, greed, divisiveness, fear, and power.

Yet we long to see how politics could reflect our best values of compassion, community, diversity, hope, and service.

Reconnecting politics to our best values is now the most important task of political life.

We will soon post a link for you to sign up for the blog.  Please tell your friends.  This blog is for everyone. Thanks very much for your time.

I'm Dr. Tom Shanks.  I've been an ethics consultant for 30 years.  I was the City's on-call ethics adviser for 16 years and have been an independent voice for ethical leadership and public trust in Santa Clara over the past year.