Methodology

Where every number comes from

No figure appears on this site without a source document in the registry. The registry renders at Sources, and every data table carries its own source line naming the document it rests on.

Every document is archived locally at the moment of citation, with the retrieval date recorded, because municipal PDFs move and get revised in place. Primary documents beat reporting: where a number exists only in news coverage, the site says so or leaves it out. Certified election figures were transcribed by eye from the certificates (several PDFs have no usable text layer) and re-checked against the document before publication.

Unknown is not zero

A figure that was not published renders as "not available". It is never shown as 0 and never silently omitted.

The site does not derive what it cannot source. Ballots cast are never computed from turnout multiplied by electorate; a levy share is never computed from an incomplete year; a capital figure with an unknown basis gets a null and a note rather than a guess. One deliberate exception runs in the safe direction and is labelled on the page where it happens: the 2022 electorate, derived from the certificate's own count and percentage.

Comparability

Budget line items get renamed between years, so any multi-year series carries mapping notes saying how each year's printed label was assigned. A "project cost" can mean total cost, city share, or construction only; every capital figure carries its basis.

Different definitions are different series. The City and the County count encampments differently, and the two counts never share an axis. The same applies to city versus CMA population figures, and to permits versus starts versus completions. A methodology change draws a series break on the chart, because a methodology change looks exactly like a real trend.

Elections data

The results archive covers 2003–2022. Every year except 2003 is transcribed from the certified declaration; 2003 comes from an unofficial source, is marked as such, and is excluded from derived figures.

People are matched across elections by a hand-maintained registry rather than by name-matching, with every merge recorded and checkable. Incumbency is derived from the certificates rather than from who is well known.

Candidates

The candidate list is transcribed from the City Clerk's certified list of August 24, 2026, with the transcription date shown. Before certification nothing on the list was final and single-candidate races were not called acclamations; a candidate who had not filed was never described as not running.

No questionnaire in 2026

This site did not send candidates a questionnaire in 2026, and the placeholder page that had been reserved for one has been retired. Where a candidate's views appear, they come from what the candidate has already said in public, under the rules below: every candidate in a race checked against the same sources, every passage verbatim and attributed, and a race shown only once every candidate in it has been checked.

What candidates have said

Candidate statements on the issue pages and profiles are verbatim passages copied from an archived copy of their source, never paraphrased by this site, and never labelled for or against. Sources are campaign websites, indexed news coverage, and the candidates' own social media posts; each passage names its source, links to it, and shows the date the copy was taken. A passage from news coverage says whether it is the candidate quoted, the reporter's reported speech, or the reporter's characterisation, and is attributed to the outlet. Passages are short and capped; the article is the record.

Fairness is structural: every candidate in a race is read the same way, from the same kinds of source, and a race is shown only once every candidate in it has been checked. A candidate with nothing located on an issue is listed as such with the date we checked, because absence is a finding and never a blank. Statements are gathered in a dated research batch and reviewed by hand before publication; a build check proves every published passage appears in its archived source, and a passage that fails that check cannot publish. A statement is removed only if it is not verbatim or is misattributed; a candidate who changes position gets a newer passage added, not an older one deleted, and every change is logged at updates and corrections.

"The record shows": when a figure sits beside a passage

Some passages state a number. Where this site already publishes an official figure for the same quantity, that figure is printed directly beneath the passage, in one sentence, with a link to the page that carries its source line. The rule is mechanical: the passage must state a number or a quantified claim, and a page on this site must hold an official figure for that same quantity. The sentence reports the site's figure and its provenance; it does not call the candidate right or wrong, and it never paraphrases the candidate. A passage with no counterpart figure on the site gets nothing, even when one might be wished for, and the site does not go looking for a figure in order to add one. The list of pairs is kept by hand and checked at build time so that every link resolves to a published passage and a live page.

Council votes: the selection rule is that there is none

Every vote the minutes record by name is published at council votes: the whole set, transcribed from every council and committee minutes document on the City's meeting system, with nobody choosing which ones appear. The rest of council's business passes on a voice vote, which the minutes print as an outcome and nothing more; those outcomes are listed on each meeting's page as outcomes only, never as anyone's position. Because a recorded vote is the exception, absence from the table is not absence of a position, and the page says so beside every table. (Until September 15, 2026 this section promised a selection rule that had already been superseded by publishing everything; see corrections.)

Who runs this site, and corrections

The About page discloses who runs the site, how it is funded, and its independence rules. Errors are corrected on the page where they appear, and every correction is logged in full at Corrections: what was wrong, what it says now, when it changed, and who flagged it. Nothing is silently edited.