How we assess choices and candidates

How do we judge?

Our philosophy is explicit so you can inspect it, use it, or reject it. We keep three layers apart, because mixing them is how voter guides quietly tell people what to think.

We assess two things about each candidate and never merge them. Quality of the public case asks how well their published material shows understanding, a workable approach, a path through authority and funding, a way to measure results, and a willingness to learn. Alignment asks how that approach relates to our stated values and judgments. A well-argued case we disagree with can still score well on quality.

Silence is not opposition. When the reviewed sources say nothing, we say so instead of guessing.

How to disagree with us

• Every judgment links to its reasoning and sources.
• Every candidate stays comparable even if you reject our approach.
• Campaigns can reply before grades are published, and corrections are dated.

From topic findings to overall alignment

At launchThree of the seven policy areas are published so far, so no overall grade is shown. An overall grade is a judgment across every area; it will appear when all seven are published, under the rules below.

The homepage shows High, Medium or Low alignment with our stated values and established policy judgments. “Not enough evidence” is a separate finding, never a low grade or a zero. Quality of the public case remains separate and appears in the detailed assessments.

Policy area and overall grades are explicit editorial syntheses with written reasons. We do not convert labels into points, average them, or give a policy area extra weight because it has more subtopics.

• High: affirmative alignment on the values or established positions central to the assessment, without a material conflict. The explanation identifies the basis and any limits in coverage.
• Medium: meaningful but partial or mixed alignment. Explain which choices align and which costs, safeguards or consequences remain unresolved.
• Low: a substantiated, material conflict with a named core value or established policy judgment. Agreement elsewhere does not automatically cancel it.
• Not enough evidence: missing positions prevent a defensible judgment. A narrow set of commitments can support a policy area assessment without establishing overall alignment.

The overall rationale names the candidate’s consequential agreements, disagreements and coverage gaps. A Low policy area is not automatically an overall Low; the explanation must keep that disagreement visible and explain the broader judgment. Likewise, a High on one topic does not establish High alignment across an entire policy area.

These new syntheses and the underlying policy area findings are drafts. They need editorial review and the publication checks below before being presented as published assessments. They are not endorsements or personalized matches.

Research notes by policy area

• Housing and homelessness
• Public safety and emergency response
• Getting around (coming after launch)
• Local business and downtown (coming after launch)
• City finances and accountability
• Parks, libraries, culture, and public space (coming after launch)
• Children, schools, and aging (coming after launch)

Sources

Candidate findings use only what candidates have said or done in public: their campaign sites, archived with a date and hash, and council votes from the minutes for incumbents. News characterizations, endorsements and fundraising are not used. Quality scores are made with names hidden first, then checked against the record.

City facts come from adopted budgets, audited financial reports, staff reports and minutes. Every number on these pages links to its document and page. Where a record could not be found, we say what we looked for instead of treating the gap as proof.

All candidate statements, archived September 27, 2026 (research; its tiers are historical, not grades)

What we reviewed for each candidate

Campaign sources and council records establish the evidence available to us. Review coverage describes the research; it is not an alignment grade.

Who pays, and what it buys: method

Spending is the council's adopted FY 2026-27 General Fund operating budget, by department, exactly as the budget addendum reports it. Capital projects ($19.9M) are not included.

Revenue is the adopted FY 2026-27 General Fund revenue. Who pays is our estimate, built line by line: property-related revenue is split by each property class's share of assessed value on the 2026 tax roll; utility users tax uses typical household utility bills; sales tax assigns visitors 2% of their measured shopping and meal spending and residents a per-household amount, with businesses, workers and regional shoppers paying the rest; parking and service charges use stated splits by payer, which are assumptions.

Renters' share includes property tax their landlords pay, which is largely carried in rent. Amounts are rounded to the nearest million; about $7.5M of revenue is not assigned to any payer group.

The estimate counts who pays, not who uses services. Visitors drive much police, fire, beach and traffic spending, so the gap between what each group pays and what it costs is smaller than the revenue split alone suggests.

• FY 2026-27 adopted budget addendum: General Fund revenue, printed pp. 4–5
• FY 2026-27 adopted budget addendum: General Fund operating budget by department, printed p. 11
• SM-Gov estimate of who pays, by revenue line, method below

Every city fund: method

Every fund's operating and capital amounts are the council's adopted FY 2026-27 figures from the budget addendum's fund summary. Funds are grouped by what they pay for and how they are funded; the grouping is ours, not the budget's.

The gross total adds every fund. The city's own citywide total subtracts reimbursements and transfers between funds. Revenue is shown only for the General Fund; we have not estimated who pays for the other funds.

• FY 2026-27 adopted budget addendum: budget summary by fund, printed pp. 11–14

How we score candidates

Two findings for each candidate on each topic, shown side by side and never merged.

Quality of the public case: five standards, 0–3 each

Strong 11–15 · Adequate 7–10 · Thin 3–6 · Not gradable 0–2 or no source. A zero means the reviewed material does not show that standard, not that the candidate lacks it.

Alignment with our philosophy

Alignment is judged only against our three values and the positions each policy area marks as ours. Provisional directions and open questions are never used to grade anyone.

Fairness rules

• Same inputs: every candidate is assessed from the same kinds of sources over the same window.
• Length is not merit: the best answer to each standard counts, not the number of statements.
• Blind first: statements are scored with names hidden, then checked against the record, and every change is logged.
• Right of reply: campaigns receive their findings at least 72 hours before publication; responses and corrections are published with dates.
• Show the work: every finding links to the statement or vote behind it.

Who we are