The City of Santa Barbara should have a standing, verified record of where its residents actually stand on local issues.
Add your name behind this idea. It's a signal to the Council that residents care, not a binding vote.
“I have watched this Council for twenty years and the only tally anyone keeps is applause volume. Write it down where nobody can argue about what was said, and put the votes next to it. That is the whole ask.”
“I back the record existing. I still say whoever signs up for a website is not the town, so the number I will watch is the one at the top of the front page: how many of us are actually counted.”
One statement per resident · no replies by design · statements against belong here too; they feed the review · endorsements open with verification · attribution shows only what each resident chose to share.
This is the platform's founding question, and it is kept here as a worked example of how every proposal travels: an ask enters, gathers verified backing toward the published threshold, earns a guaranteed review, and a gate decision is published either way. This one did not travel that road, because no residents existed yet to back it. It was submitted by the founder and advanced editorially on August 5, 2026, the same day accounts opened. The backing meter and the two persona statements below are computer-generated examples, labeled, so a first visitor can see the mechanics; real statements from signed-in residents appear beside them. The live issue is EXA-000.
1. Research packet. No agenda to extract, so the pipeline grounds the idea instead: which body would decide it and by what instrument, and whether the city has considered it before. It is a search of the public record, with any cost or feasibility figures cited only where a document states them.
2. Neutrality audit. The same adversarial audit every candidate issue gets, published verbatim.
3. The gate. Editorial review decides. Advanced: the proposal becomes a live issue with a document code and an open ballot, and this page remains as its genesis record. Not advanced: the reasons are published right here. Either way, the answer is on the record.
If a ballot opens, backers are notified, never auto-registered. Backing was “decide this”; your position stays yours to mark.