Unofficial Ethics Pledge Ignites Political Sparring Match

A former ethics consultant for Santa Clara is calling for council candidates to sign an ethics pledge.

But there is a problem.

Two incumbent council members say the demand is a political ploy. One even went so far as to call it “McCarthyism” masquerading as ethics.

The consultant, Tom Shanks, has been stridently critical of certain members of the Santa Clara City Council, especially since the release of a recent civil grand jury report. He is the former director of Santa Clara University’s (SCU) Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. Until 2014, he served as an ethics consultant for the city.

Attempts to get Shanks to answer for his actions failed, with him ignoring pointed concerns from one council member and requests for an interview for this article to clarify his position.

“Who is this guy?” Council Member Suds Jain said. “He has no official role. Who knows, maybe [Mayor] Lisa [Gillmor] has given him some other, secret ‘special advisor to the mayor’ role.”

In an email thread that contained Shanks, Jain and fellow Council Member Kevin Park, Jain noted the timing of Shanks’ call for him to sign the pledge. Although Jain filed nomination papers on Aug. 2. Shanks did not invite him to sign the pledge until Aug. 9.

Meanwhile, Shanks had apparently given the pledge to three other candidates — Satish Chandra, a candidate for District 1; David Kertes, Jain’s opponent in District 5; and Kelly Cox, a candidate for District 6 — enough in advance for them to put it on their candidate statements when they filed nomination papers on July 30, Aug. 5 and Aug. 1, respectively.

Harbir Bhatia, a candidate for District 1, also replied in the email thread that she was unaware of any ethics pledge beyond the one she signed with the assistant city clerk.

The move, Jain said, was “absolutely strategic.”

“If you wanted to be absolutely fair, you would have sent it to everybody at the same time,” Jain said.

Much of the pledge is redundant with the city’s pledge. Some of it calls for a commitment to ridiculous things already required of ordinary citizens — regardless of their elected status — like following the law. However, one distinction is that it calls for the candidates to “accept the findings of the Grand Jury Reports and agree that the City of Santa Clara has a trust problem.”

Jain said those reports are “full of bias and errors,” noting how he didn’t vote to fire former City Manager Deanna Santana despite the report’s claims.

Shanks never responded to Jain’s questions as to how he could agree with the findings of something so flawed.

The Plot Thickens

Adding to the drama, Park also had some pointed criticism for Shanks. Back in 2014, when Shanks was consulting for the city, Park said he had a concerning incident with Shanks that left a sour taste in his mouth. He wasn’t shy about letting Shanks know, comparing Shanks’ pledge to a communist witch-hunt.

“McCarthyism is telling the citizens of the United States, who are already supposed to be loyal, they need to sign something saying they are loyal,” said Council Member Kevin Park. “By our positions, we are supposed to be ethical.”

During his 2014 campaign, Park said he was listening to a National Public Radio news story in his car when he noticed something peculiar. Under the cover of night, he spotted a political opponent filching one of his campaign signs from his neighbor’s yard.

When he raised the issue with Shanks at a forum that was supposedly about ethics in the election, he said Shanks brushed him off. Moreover, contrary to how it was billed, the forum didn’t grapple with ethical problems, he added.

“The bigger issue was that there were many residents that came to air grievances, and a lot of them completely missed an opportunity to say anything of value,” Park said. “We had 30 minutes of people saying ‘Thank you very much. Vote for me.’”

Eyebrow Raising

So, when Shanks contacted Park about signing his ethics pledge, Park was skeptical of his intent. He suspected Shanks had some chicanery up his sleeve.

In the email exchange, in his signature colorful fashion that seems to frequently chafe Shanks, Park challenged the circumstances under which Shanks parted ways with the city and SCU.

“You did not quit as ethics advisor when the City of Santa Clara canceled its ethics program … Your contract was not renewed after 2014,” Park wrote.

And Park didn’t stop there, writing: “Your perceived ‘value’ seems predicated on your past work and titles, none of which seem defensible by you currently. Questions to the Markkula Center and the City yield nothing interesting on why you left, but it certainly did not seem like either was your idea.”

Shanks fired back, pointing to his work at SCU, for the city and “many other public and private organizations” as evidence that his reputation is “beyond reproach.” He wrote that Park’s comments are “not only misleading but defamatory” and are “obviously intended to damage [his] reputation.” Finally, he adds that Park’s response “compels [him] to consult with legal counsel.”

The ethics pledge, Shanks wrote, is “designed to confront precisely the type of personal attacks and misleading critiques” contained in Park’s response. He adds that the impetus for the pledge is to “enhance ethical governance and public trust, not to serve personal agendas or engage in counterproductive accusations.”

For someone so concerned with credibility, Park said it is peculiar that Shanks only seems to express his opinions in two places: on his website and on the Gillmor-supported blog, Santa Clara News.

“I am tired of people setting up a website and thinking it gives them credibility,” Park said. “I am going to make my own ethics pledge and demand they sign it.”

All Quiet on the Ethics Front

Requests for an interview for this article caused Shanks to demur, citing The Weekly’s reluctance to submit a written interview. However, in an attempt to get Shanks to address Park and Jain’s claims, The Weekly went against protocol, emailing Shanks a simple list of questions that could mostly be answered with “yes” or “no.”

Questions included whether he sent the ethics pledge to each of Santa Clara’s 2024 candidates and when he sent them. He was also asked for his account of his communication with Park regarding the 2014 ethics complaint.

Despite being given more than two days to respond to the simple questionnaire and a text message exchange confirming his correct email address, Shanks never responded.

Both Jain and Park said Shanks’ pledge is a trap.

If they sign Shanks’ pledge, it gets them agreeing with a narrative Shanks has been crafting for the past couple years, one that paints Park as a scoundrel. If they refuse, well, it just proves how unethical they are.

To see the questions The Weekly sent to Tom Shanks, please see the following document: Questions Sent to Tom Shanks.