OpenSolano - Civic Data & Government Transparency for Solano County

Vacaville Parcels: Activating Dormant Spaces Through Public Dialogue

Ryan Wold — Fri, 15 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Every city has them. Vacant lots behind chain-link. Shuttered storefronts on otherwise busy blocks. Parcels that sit, year after year, while the city grows around them.

In Vacaville, we’ve started mapping them.

What Parcels is

Parcels is an experiment in public attention. It lists opportunity parcels in Vacaville – vacant or underutilized sites where something could happen if enough people cared about what went there.

Each parcel has a map pin, a description, and a feedback form. The form asks simple questions: What would you like to see here? What matters most to you? Would you participate?

The data is placeholder right now. The addresses are approximate, the APNs are generic, and the boundaries aren’t drawn. That’s the point – this is a prototype, not a final product. We’re testing whether the format works before investing in verified parcel data.

Why this matters

Most land use decisions happen in planning commission meetings that few people attend. By the time a project reaches public hearing, the developer has already spent months on plans. The window for meaningful community input is narrow and often too late.

What if we moved upstream? What if, before anyone filed an application, neighbors could look at a vacant lot and say: here’s what we need here?

That’s the idea behind /parcels. Not to replace the formal planning process, but to create a visible, low-friction space for people to express what they want from their city – parcel by parcel, block by block.

What we mean by “activate”

Activation doesn’t require construction. A dormant space can come alive with a farmers market, a popup, a mural, a community garden, a conversation. The first step is just noticing the space exists and imagining it differently.

/parcels is that first step: a public inventory of possibility.

How you can contribute

This is an open project. If you want to help make it real, here’s what we need:

Verify the data. The current parcel list uses placeholder addresses and APNs. If you know Vacaville’s vacant and underutilized parcels – especially downtown and along the Monte Vista corridor – we need real addresses, real APNs, and real zoning designations. The county assessor’s parcel viewer is a good starting point.
Add photos. A vacant lot looks different on a map than it does from the sidewalk. Street-level photos help people connect with a place. If you’re walking past one of these sites, take a picture and send it in.
Submit feedback. Visit /parcels, pick a site, and tell us what you’d like to see there. The form takes two minutes. Every response helps build a picture of what the community actually wants.
Share it. The more people who see these parcels, the harder they are to ignore. Share individual parcel pages with neighbors, local business owners, or anyone who’s ever said “I wish something would go there.”
Bring context. Some of these sites have history – prior proposals, environmental constraints, ownership complications. If you know the backstory on a parcel, that context is valuable.

How it’s built

/parcels is part of OpenSolano, a Jekyll static site focused on civic data for Solano County. The parcel data lives in a JSON file. Each parcel gets its own page with a map and feedback form powered by Touchpoints, an open-source platform for collecting public feedback.

The code is open source. If you’re technical and want to contribute data, fix something, or extend the concept to other jurisdictions, the repo is on GitHub.

What comes next

If people use it, we’ll invest in making the data real: verified parcels, accurate boundaries, GIS integration. If feedback clusters around specific sites, we can bring that signal to city staff and the planning commission as evidence of community interest.

The long game is a city where participation doesn’t require attending a Tuesday night meeting. Where the question “what do you want here?” is always open, always visible, always accumulating signal.

/parcels is a small experiment toward that. Try it. Tell us what you think.

Browse Vacaville Parcels

Assessing the Public Sector: Stewardship, Service, and the Tax Recirculation Loop

Ryan Wold — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A mid-sized Solano County city operates on roughly $280M a year. About a third of that now services pension obligations, and the share keeps rising. The city is also, legitimately, one of the largest employers in town — public jobs are a feature, not a bug. So is the trajectory unsustainable, or just misunderstood?

This post argues both questions are worth separating from the aggregate “is the budget balanced” question. It also proposes a lens — the tax recirculation coefficient — for thinking about how different economies respond to tax policy depending on how much of a worker’s tax dollar flows back to fund their own wage.

Three accountabilities, usually collapsed into one

When residents ask whether their city is well-run, they are usually asking three different questions at once. Separating them makes the answer more honest.

Service delivery. Outputs per dollar. Lane-miles paved, permits issued per FTE, median emergency response time, park acres maintained. These are measurable and comparable across jurisdictions. This is what most people mean by “is government working.”

Stewardship. The balance-sheet trajectory. Unfunded pension liability as a share of revenue. Pension contribution as a share of the general fund. Deferred maintenance backlog. OPEB (retiree health) exposure. Stewardship is usually invisible until it crowds out service delivery.

Economic base. Jobs provided. Wage floor set by public pay scales. Counter-cyclical employment that stabilizes the local economy in downturns. This is real value, and it rarely appears in budget documents as a benefit — only as a cost line.

A city can look fine on any one dimension and be failing on another. The diagnostic question is not “is the budget balanced this year” but “is stewardship crowding out service delivery, and how fast?” That ratio — pension-and-debt-service share versus discretionary service share, tracked over five or ten years — tells you whether the trajectory is extractive.

The tax recirculation coefficient

Here is an observation that changed how I think about my own paycheck.

I work in the public sector. My wages are paid from a pool funded by taxes. When I pay my taxes, a meaningful fraction of that dollar flows back into the same pool that pays me. My “effective” tax rate — the rate at which dollars leave my household sector and do not return — is lower than the headline rate suggests.

A private-sector worker’s tax dollar does not typically flow back to fund their own employer. For them, tax is a more straightforward one-way transfer.

Call the returning fraction r, the recirculation coefficient.

r = 0 — a private-sector worker in an industry with no public contracts. Every tax dollar is a pure outflow from their sector.
r = 1 — a fully self-funded public sector (theoretical limit; nobody’s actually here).
r ≈ 0.3–0.5 — a typical public employee in a locally-funded agency.
r ≈ 0.1–0.2 — a private-sector worker in a company with meaningful government contracts.

This is not a moral claim. It is a structural one. And it has consequences for how a local economy responds to tax decisions.

Interactive: how `r` changes the effective tax dynamic

Drag the slider to see how the recirculation coefficient changes the effective flow of a worker’s tax dollar.

Recirculation coefficient (r) 0.00

pure private typical private w/ gov contracts typical public employee fully self-funded

Headline tax rate

25%

Effective outflow

25.0%

Returns via wage pool

0.0%

At r = 0, every tax dollar leaves the worker's sector. This is the case assumed by most public finance intuition.

Why `r` matters at the policy level

Two cities with the same headline tax rate can have very different political dynamics depending on their aggregate r.

High-r economies (company towns, heavy public-sector cities). Tax cuts hurt more because residents are partly cutting their own wages. Tax hikes sting less for the same reason. The system is stabilizing but can ossify — political incentives around fiscal discipline weaken when payers and beneficiaries overlap heavily.
Low-r economies. Sharper political conflict over taxation, because the population that pays is structurally distinct from the population that receives. Budget fights are more adversarial. Reform pressure is higher but so is volatility.
Mixed economies — most actual places. The ratio shapes which coalitions form around budget decisions, which ballot measures pass, and how quickly structural problems get addressed.

This is adjacent to but distinct from fiscal incidence analysis, which usually treats “who pays, who benefits” as a static question. The recirculation lens treats it as a feedback loop.

A causal loop diagram of the city’s fiscal system

Here is an intermediately complex stocks-and-flows sketch — eight variables, three feedback loops — that illustrates how pension obligations, service delivery, and the recirculation loop interact.

Three loops worth naming:

R1 — the wage recirculation loop (reinforcing, fast). General fund pays public wages. Public wages generate tax revenue (scaled by r). Tax revenue feeds the general fund. This is the loop my opening observation describes. It stabilizes the system in normal times and makes public employment a genuine counter-cyclical asset.
B1 — the stewardship loop (balancing, structural). Pension liabilities drive required contributions. Contributions drain the general fund. The general fund that remains funds services. When pension share grows faster than revenue, services erode. This is the loop my city is losing.
R2 — the slow decline loop (reinforcing, years to decades). Eroded services increase outmigration pressure. Outmigration shrinks the tax base. A smaller tax base reduces revenue. Less revenue means more pressure on services. Once R2 dominates, recovery is expensive and slow — this is the Vallejo-in-2008 story.

The interesting policy question is which loop dominates at which horizon, and what interventions shift that. Pension reform acts on B1. Economic development acts on R2. Neither is visible in a single fiscal year.

What this suggests for civic assessment

A productive public-sector performance assessment should, at minimum, track:

Service delivery ratios — outputs per dollar, year over year, and benchmarked against peer jurisdictions.
Stewardship trajectory — pension-and-debt-service as a share of general fund, five- and ten-year trend.
Recirculation estimate — rough r for the local economy, to calibrate how tax policy will actually land.
Loop dominance — which of R1, B1, R2 is moving fastest, and in which direction.

None of these are hard to compute. Most are buried in the ACFR (the comprehensive annual financial report) that every city publishes. The work is surfacing them in a form residents can read, and tracking them over time so trajectories are visible.

That’s the direction OpenSolano is heading. If you want to help — or if you want to argue with any of the framing above — get in touch or join the next meetup.

FY2025 Budget Comparison: Fairfield, Vallejo, and Vacaville

Ryan Wold — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

How do Solano County’s three largest cities allocate their general fund dollars? We compiled FY2024-25 adopted budget data for Fairfield, Vallejo, and Vacaville to make side-by-side comparison possible.

The Big Picture

All three cities share a common pattern: public safety dominates general fund spending, consuming roughly half of every discretionary dollar. Beyond that, the similarities start to diverge.

City	Population	General Fund Revenue	General Fund Expenditure	Balance
Fairfield	119,881	$168.2M	$165.8M	+$2.4M
Vallejo	121,692	$152.7M	$158.3M	-$5.6M
Vacaville	103,590	$131.4M	$128.9M	+$2.5M

Vallejo is the only city spending more than it takes in from its general fund — a structural deficit that reflects ongoing fiscal pressures from its 2008 bankruptcy recovery and pension obligations.

Where the Money Goes

Public safety (police and fire) is the largest category for all three cities, but the shares differ:

Vallejo: 51.9% of general fund to public safety — the highest share, driven in part by consent decree requirements and post-bankruptcy staffing rebuilds
Fairfield: 47.3% — mid-range, reflecting a larger city footprint with more balanced service demands
Vacaville: 47.9% — similar to Fairfield despite a smaller population

The implication: when residents ask “why can’t the city fix the roads / open the pool / hire more code enforcement,” the answer is often that half the budget is already committed before those conversations begin.

Where the Money Comes From

Sales tax is the top revenue source for all three cities, but reliance varies:

Vacaville: 34.4% from sales tax — highest dependence, reflecting its role as a regional retail center
Fairfield: 31.1% — also retail-dependent, with Travis Air Force Base driving commercial activity
Vallejo: 28.9% — lower base sales tax share, supplemented by Measure B (a voter-approved sales tax add-on generating $15.2M)

Property tax is the second-largest source everywhere, ranging from 24.9% (Fairfield) to 25.3% (Vallejo). This relative uniformity makes sense — Proposition 13 constrains property tax growth statewide.

Revenue Per Capita

Normalizing for population reveals meaningful differences:

City	Revenue per Capita	Expenditure per Capita
Fairfield	$1,403	$1,383
Vallejo	$1,255	$1,301
Vacaville	$1,268	$1,244

Fairfield collects and spends the most per resident. Vallejo collects the least but spends more than it takes in — a gap that must be closed through growth, cuts, or new revenue measures.

What This Data Doesn’t Show

Budget documents tell you what a city plans to spend, not what it actually spends. Actual expenditures often differ from adopted budgets due to mid-year adjustments, unfilled positions, and unexpected costs. The Annual Comprehensive Financial Reports (ACFRs), published after the fiscal year ends, provide the true accounting.

This comparison also excludes:

Pension obligations: CalPERS unfunded liabilities are an additional cost pressure not fully visible in annual budget documents
Capital budgets: Infrastructure investments funded through bonds, grants, and special funds
Enterprise funds: Water, sewer, and other services that operate on fee revenue rather than general fund dollars
Special districts: Fire protection, transit, and other services provided by entities outside city government

What Comes Next

We plan to add budget data for Benicia, Dixon, Suisun City, and Rio Vista as those cities publish their FY2025 adopted budgets. We’re also building a Public Funds Tracker that will make this data interactive and include historical trends.

If you have access to budget documents we’re missing, or if you spot an error in this data, please let us know.

Data sourced from adopted budget documents published by each city’s finance department. Population figures from California Department of Finance 2025 estimates. See the datasets page for more detail on methodology and sources.

Renewing Measure T: What Journalists Should Know

Ryan Wold — Fri, 06 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This reporter’s brief outlines what Measure T is, why it’s up for renewal, the fiscal impacts, accountability mechanisms, and story angles you can localize for your audience. Copy, adapt, and cite original sources linked below.

The Basics

What it is: A local transactions and use tax (sales tax) that funds transportation investments countywide (roads, transit, safety, bike/ped improvements).
Rate: Typically 0.25% to 0.5% stacked on top of the state base. Confirm current rate and renewal proposal text for exact figures.
Term: Most renewals propose 20–30 years to support bonding and long-horizon capital plans.
Admin: Usually administered via the countywide transportation authority (e.g., Solano Transportation Authority, STA) with expenditure plans adopted by ordinance.
Voter threshold: Transportation special tax renewals often require two-thirds (66.7%) voter approval if revenues are legally earmarked; confirm with county counsel/elections.

What’s Changing In The Renewal

Ask and report on differences between the existing and proposed measure:

Rate and term: Any change to the rate or years (e.g., extend 30 years vs. sunset in 203X)?
Project list: New corridor projects, interchanges, safety hotspots, transit frequency, paratransit, safe routes to school, maintenance backlog.
Revenue sharing: City/County formula changes; “local streets and roads” flexible share vs. set-asides.
Equity and safety: Dedicated funding for underserved neighborhoods, crash reduction targets, ADA curb ramps, heat/flood resilience.
Climate alignment: Transit/bike/ped priorities, VMT reduction strategies, zero-emission bus deployment, coordination with CAPs and RTP/SCS.

Money: How Much, From Where, For What

Revenue forecast: $X per year, $Y over the measure term (state your assumed growth and elasticity; cite source memo/table).
Sources: Local add-on sales tax on taxable retail; sensitivity to recessions and retail mix shifts (auto sales, e‑commerce allocation rules).
Uses: Break down by program buckets (percentages) and example projects. Show what portion is “pay‑as‑you‑go” vs. leveraged for grants/bonds.
Leverage: How local $1 unlocks $3–$6 in state/federal funds (illustrate with recent ATP, SB1, RAISE, MEGA awards if applicable).

Quick math you can localize

Household impact: Multiply local median taxable retail spend by the add-on rate. Note that essentials (most groceries, rent, services) are not taxed.
City-by-city share: If there’s a population/road-mile formula, estimate annual allocations for each city and unincorporated area.
Backlog framing: Compare expected local streets/roads allocations to pavement management needs (PCI targets) to illustrate the gap.

Accountability & Oversight

Independent Citizens’ Oversight Committee: Membership, meeting cadence, annual reports, Brown Act compliance, vacancies.
Annual audits: Financial + compliance audits published on the authority’s website; include links.
Performance measures: Safety (KSI reductions), state of good repair, on-time delivery, cost containment, climate/air metrics.
Project controls: Programming policies, change-order thresholds, risk management, right-of-way readiness standards.
Transparency: Public project dashboard, spend-to-date, schedule status, map of funded locations.

Timeline & Ballot Mechanics

Key dates: Board action to place on ballot, ballot argument deadlines, voter guide publication, vote date, effective/sunset dates.
Ballot label/summary: 75-word limit highlights; verify claims about “no increase” or “independent oversight”.
Legal standards: Two-thirds vs. simple majority—depends on whether revenues are earmarked (special tax) or general and whether council/initiative.

Comparisons & Context

Peer counties: How Solano’s rate and program mix compare to Napa, Yolo, Contra Costa, Sonoma, Alameda.
Past performance: Delivery of prior Measure T commitments; notable overruns or under-budget deliverables.
Grant competitiveness: Whether a local match strengthens applications (ATP, SB1 Solutions for Congested Corridors, FTA/FTA CIG).

Story Angles You Can Localize

Safety first: Map deadly and severe-injury crash corridors; match to proposed safety investments.
Commute reality: Transit frequency gaps and travel-time reliability fixes for top commute flows.
Equity lens: Which neighborhoods see capital and maintenance dollars—pair with CalEnviroScreen/low-income tracts.
Main Street maintenance: Pavement and ADA upgrades in city centers; before/after PCI targets.
Schools: Safe Routes to School projects near campuses; student arrival/dismissal safety.
Procurement & jobs: Local hire, small business participation, DBE goals, apprenticeship pathways.

Sourcing Checklist (drop these links into your piece)

Ordinance + Expenditure Plan (renewal draft)
STA Board packets, staff reports, slide decks
Independent Oversight Committee bylaws, rosters, annual reports
Annual audited financial statements; single audit if applicable
Pavement Management Program/PCI reports (MTC StreetSaver)
Collision data: SWITRS summaries; county Vision Zero plans
Environmental/air: CAP, regional SCS, MTC Plan Bay Area docs
Election calendar: County Registrar of Voters deadlines

Questions To Put To Officials

What percent of the program directly reduces severe injuries and fatalities within five years?
Which projects will start construction in the first 2–3 years versus later in the term?
How will the agency keep costs in check if bids come in high—scope cuts, phasing, or additional match?
What happens if revenues underperform—what’s the contingency policy?
How will progress be reported to the public—dashboard cadence, success metrics, and independent validation?

Data Box (fill with local numbers before publishing)

Proposed rate: 0.25% (example)
Term: 30 years (2025–2054)
Annual revenue (year 1): $XX.XM (baseline)
Total program: $X.XXB (nominal)
Buckets (example): 35% Local Streets & Roads; 20% Safety; 20% Transit; 10% Active Transportation; 10% Congestion Relief; 5% Program/Admin
Oversight: Independent citizens’ committee; annual audit; public dashboard

Visuals You Can Reproduce

Map: Top 10 high-injury corridors (last 5 years) with proposed countermeasures.
Bar chart: Annual allocations by city vs. pavement needs (PCI target line).
Timeline: Renewal milestones from board vote to first construction start.

Boilerplate Language (Attribution‑Friendly)

“Measure T is a local transactions and use tax that funds transportation improvements throughout Solano County, including safety, transit, street maintenance, and bicycle/pedestrian projects. The renewal would extend the program for an additional term to continue investments and leverage state and federal matching funds. Revenues are subject to independent oversight and annual audits.”

—

Have questions or need help with data for your story? Email ryan@civic.studio and we can share sources, numbers, and map layers to back up your reporting.

Building Digital Capacity in Solano County: Data Visualization for Civic Understanding

Maria Santos — Thu, 05 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Effective civic engagement requires accessible information. Too often, municipal budget data remains locked in dense PDFs or spreadsheet formats that create barriers for community members who want to understand how their tax dollars are collected and spent.

Digital capacity building in Solano County means creating tools and visualizations that make complex civic information understandable to all residents, regardless of their technical background or familiarity with government finance.

Making Budget Data Accessible

The path from tax collection to public services involves multiple steps that can be difficult to follow. Interactive data visualizations help bridge this gap by showing these relationships clearly.

Monthly Budget Tracking

Understanding budget performance requires looking at trends over time. How does actual spending compare to budgeted amounts throughout the year?

This monthly view reveals seasonal patterns in spending and helps identify when actual expenditures diverge from planned budgets. For community advocates, this information is crucial for understanding when to engage in budget discussions and where potential adjustments might be needed.

Budget Category Breakdown

Where does the money actually go? A clear breakdown of budget allocation by category helps residents understand spending priorities.

Public safety and education typically represent the largest budget categories in most jurisdictions. This visualization makes it easy to see the relative size of different spending areas and spark informed discussions about community priorities.

Following the Money Flow

Perhaps most importantly, residents need to understand the complete flow from tax collection through budget categories to actual spending.

View every published line item as a table

Side	Group	Line item	Amount	Note
revenue	Taxes	Sales tax (Bradley-Burns)	$27506262
revenue	Taxes	Measure M sales tax	$21348950
revenue	Taxes	Property tax	$21100471
revenue	Taxes	Property tax in lieu of VLF	$15057016
revenue	Taxes	Excise taxes (Measures I & G)	$9409983	Measure I (1989/2012) utility-bill, hotel, and per-employee excise (~$3.0M) plus Measure G (2005) utility franchise/excise (~$6.4M).
revenue	Taxes	Paramedic tax	$7312900
revenue	Taxes	RDA pass-through / TI excess	$6152400
revenue	Taxes	Franchise tax	$5705593
revenue	Taxes	Transient lodging tax	$2087102
revenue	Taxes	Public safety sales tax (Prop 172)	$540000
revenue	Taxes	Real property transfer tax	$527100
revenue	Taxes	Business license tax	$435000
revenue	Fees & charges	Emergency medical fees	$6000000
revenue	Fees & charges	Recreation & facilities fees	$4954456
revenue	Fees & charges	Police & fire fees	$1145635
revenue	Fees & charges	Other departmental fees	$457618
revenue	Other revenue	GEMT program (intergovernmental)	$1442000
revenue	Other revenue	Partnership Health transport	$1000000
revenue	Other revenue	In-lieu development impact fees	$509394
revenue	Other revenue	Cell tower leases	$486875
revenue	Other revenue	Interest, penalties & rents	$382000
revenue	Other revenue	Homeowners subvention	$180000
revenue	Other revenue	State reimbursements	$145000
revenue	Other revenue	Miscellaneous	$153000
revenue	Transfers & reserves	Transfers in (CFDs & traffic fines)	$10925235
revenue	Transfers & reserves	Overhead recovered from other funds	$6574920	Internal cost allocation — General Fund overhead charged to utility and special revenue funds, shown in the budget as a negative expenditure (-$6,574,920); presented here as an inflow so the diagram balances gross.
revenue	Transfers & reserves	Drawn from reserves & one-time sources (derived)	$13428517	Balancing figure: gross uses ($164,967,427) minus budgeted revenues and other inflows ($151,538,910). The budget's own Sources and Uses schedule, which nets transfers differently, states a planned "use of fund balance" of $8,892,389 — either way, FY2025-26 spending exceeds revenue and the gap is covered from fund balance.
spending	Public safety	Police Department	$58947980
spending	Public safety	Fire Department	$45099727
spending	Public works	Public Works (general)	$12267906
spending	Public works	Park maintenance	$4125868
spending	Community services	Parks & Recreation	$11330706
spending	Community services	Housing & Community Services	$159661
spending	Administration	Finance	$5817527
spending	Administration	Non-departmental	$4760870
spending	Administration	Human Resources	$3858986
spending	Administration	Information Technology	$3497528
spending	Administration	City Manager's Office / Clerk	$3358373
spending	Administration	City Attorney	$2793011
spending	Administration	Economic Development	$1078113
spending	Administration	City Council / Treasurer	$128755
spending	Transfers out	Transfers out (capital, equipment, districts)	$7742416	Support to community development, park maintenance districts, vehicle/equipment replacement, technology projects, and capital improvement projects.

This flow diagram shows how revenue sources feed the General Fund, which then funds specific departments — here using Vacaville’s actual FY2025-26 adopted budget. Understanding these connections helps community members see how changes in tax policy or revenue streams affect the services they care about. An expanded, annotated version lives in the Budget Flow experiment.

Building Community Capacity

Digital tools are most effective when they support broader community engagement efforts:

Budget workshops can use these visualizations to help residents understand current spending patterns before discussing priorities for future budgets
Community organizations can reference specific data points when advocating for policy changes
Local journalists can use interactive charts to tell more compelling stories about municipal finance

The Role of Decentralized Identity

As civic engagement moves online, verifying the identity and credentials of contributors becomes increasingly important. Decentralized identity systems can help build trust in digital civic spaces while protecting privacy.

For example, community budget advocates could use verifiable credentials to demonstrate their training in budget analysis without revealing personal information. Journalists could verify their professional status when reporting on municipal finance issues.

Next Steps for Digital Capacity

Building digital capacity requires ongoing collaboration between:

Technical contributors who create visualization tools and maintain data systems
Community organizers who understand resident needs and barriers to engagement
Municipal staff who can provide accurate, timely data in accessible formats
Residents who participate in testing and feedback to ensure tools meet real needs

The goal isn’t just prettier charts—it’s creating the foundation for more informed, inclusive civic participation across Solano County.

Have questions about these visualizations or ideas for other civic data that should be more accessible? Request specific datasets or volunteer to help document public meetings.

Understanding Solano County's Housing Development Impact Fees

Ryan Wold — Thu, 15 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Housing development impact fees play a crucial role in funding public infrastructure needed to support new residential growth across Solano County’s cities and unincorporated areas.

What are Impact Fees?

Development impact fees are one-time charges levied on new development to help fund the additional public facilities and services that growth necessitates. These fees help ensure that new development pays its fair share of infrastructure costs rather than burdening existing residents.

Current Fee Structure Across Solano County

Different jurisdictions within Solano County have varying impact fee structures:

Fairfield: Charges fees for transportation, parks, public facilities, and public safety
Vallejo: Recently updated their fee schedule to address infrastructure backlogs
Vacaville: Maintains separate fees for different development types and locations

The Data Challenge

One challenge facing both developers and community advocates is the lack of centralized, easily accessible data on impact fees across all jurisdictions. This makes it difficult to:

Compare costs across different cities
Track how fees change over time
Understand the relationship between fees and actual infrastructure investment

Moving Forward

Greater transparency in impact fee data could help foster more informed public discourse about balancing development costs with infrastructure needs. Regular reporting on fee collections and infrastructure spending would benefit both developers and residents in understanding how these funds support community growth.

This analysis is based on publicly available data from various Solano County jurisdictions. For specific development projects, consult directly with the relevant planning department.

Municipal Budget Transparency Across Solano County Cities

Ryan Wold — Sat, 22 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

How accessible are municipal budgets across Solano County’s seven cities? A recent review reveals significant variation in how local governments present their financial information to the public.

The Transparency Spectrum

Solano County cities fall along a spectrum of budget transparency:

Most Accessible: Cities that provide searchable, downloadable budget data with clear explanations of major expenditure categories and revenue sources.

Moderately Accessible: Cities that publish PDF budget documents with some supplementary materials but limited interactive features.

Least Accessible: Cities where budget information requires multiple clicks through various pages or lacks current-year details.

Key Findings

Only 3 out of 7 cities provide budget data in machine-readable formats
Public engagement opportunities vary widely during budget adoption processes
Capital improvement project tracking differs significantly between jurisdictions

The Civic Impact

Better budget transparency enables:

More informed public participation in budget hearings
Easier comparison of spending priorities across cities
Enhanced accountability for financial stewardship
Improved data-driven advocacy by community groups

Recommendations

Cities could enhance budget transparency by:

Publishing budget data in standardized, downloadable formats
Creating budget summaries written for general audiences
Providing multi-year trend analysis
Implementing public feedback systems for budget priorities

Analysis based on public budget documents available as of June 2024. Individual cities may have made improvements since this review.

Analyzing Land Use Patterns in Solano County: What the Data Shows

Ryan Wold — Wed, 10 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Solano County’s diverse landscape encompasses urban centers, agricultural land, and protected open spaces. Understanding current land use patterns through data analysis reveals important trends for future planning decisions.

Current Land Use Distribution

Based on county assessor data and general plan designations:

Agricultural: ~65% of total county land area
Residential: ~15% (varying density from rural to urban)
Commercial/Industrial: ~8%
Open Space/Recreation: ~7%
Public/Institutional: ~5%

Urban Growth Patterns

Data from the past decade shows:

Most new residential development concentrated in existing urban areas
Limited conversion of agricultural land to urban uses
Increasing density in transit-accessible locations

The Housing-Jobs Balance

Analysis reveals spatial mismatches between where people live and work:

Many residents commute outside the county for employment
Job centers don’t always align with affordable housing locations
Transportation infrastructure impacts both housing and employment choices

Agricultural Land Preservation

Solano County’s agricultural economy depends on maintaining productive farmland:

Williamson Act contracts protect significant acreage
Development pressure varies by location and market conditions
Climate change impacts add complexity to land use planning

Data Gaps and Opportunities

Current land use analysis would benefit from:

More frequent updates to land use classification data
Better integration of environmental and economic factors
Enhanced public access to planning and zoning information

Understanding these patterns helps inform discussions about growth management, housing policy, and agricultural preservation as the county plans for future development.

Analysis based on Solano County assessor data, general plan documents, and state land use surveys.

Public Infrastructure Financing in Solano County: Bonds, Taxes, and User Fees

Ryan Wold — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

How does Solano County fund critical infrastructure like roads, water systems, and public buildings? The answer involves a complex mix of financing tools, each with different implications for taxpayers and service delivery.

Primary Funding Sources

General Obligation Bonds: Secured by property tax revenue, requiring voter approval for issuance. Recent examples include school construction bonds and transportation improvements.

Revenue Bonds: Repaid through specific revenue streams like water rates or sewer fees, often not requiring voter approval.

Special Assessments: Property-based charges for localized improvements like streetlights, sidewalks, or landscaping.

User Fees: Direct charges for services like water, sewer, and solid waste collection.

Recent Financing Trends

Increased reliance on revenue bonds for utility infrastructure
Growing use of special assessment districts for maintenance
Federal and state grants becoming more competitive
Public-private partnerships emerging for major projects

The Challenge of Deferred Maintenance

Across Solano County jurisdictions, aging infrastructure creates ongoing financial pressure:

Many water and sewer systems need major upgrades
Road maintenance backlogs continue to grow
Public buildings require seismic and efficiency improvements

Financing Equity Considerations

Different financing mechanisms have varying impacts on different community segments:

Property-based assessments can disproportionately affect lower-income homeowners
User fees provide more direct connection between usage and cost
Bond financing spreads costs over time but includes interest expenses

Looking Forward

Sustainable infrastructure financing requires:

Long-term capital planning across all jurisdictions
Regional coordination for shared infrastructure needs
Public education about the true costs of infrastructure
Innovative financing approaches for climate resilience

This analysis draws from municipal financial reports, bond documents, and budget presentations across Solano County jurisdictions.

Better public meetings

Ryan Wold — Thu, 02 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

What can we do to improve public meetings?

The decorum and formalized process in a council chambers can be understood and worked with and within, productively.

One must understand, on some level, the etiquitte of public comment. Being familiar with the agenda and the items on it, is a plus.

Very little actually happens at a meeting. Lots of words are spoken by board members, public staff, and citizens, during public comment. Ultimately, a few motions are passed, constituting the action that does occur.

Yet, there is opportunity for more productive interactions at a public a Board Meeting.

Understand what is being voted on, by whom, and to the extent possible, what are the implications of a supporting or dissenting vote by an individual, and the board. For example, consider addressing your feedback to your appropriate representative, based on where you live. Sharing good feedback to a neighboring jurisdiction may be well-intentioned, but is ultimately ineffective. Representatives value feedback from their constituents relatively more, by definition.

So, understanding how to participate begins with understanding a bit of what is and has been going on. Attending a few meetings, or watching them online is a good place to start.

The Solano County Board of Supervisors records their videos and makes them available.

Fortunately, the City of Vacaville’s City Council also records their videos and makes them available.

Online public meeting videos are a great asset and an important artifact of municipal operations.

What if we:

made the transcripts searchable
identified people in the video, talking
annotated public meeting videos with captions, statistics, and commentary
linked additional context based on past meetings and other public documents (example: link budget documents or project plans across different points on a timeline)

About Open Solano

Ryan Wold — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

OpenSolano is a way to bring people together to work on shared issues that matter to them. In many cases, the issues are civic in nature; parks, education, public safety, public services, public accountability.

OpenSolano runs this website and holds meetups to get people together to discuss local civics and play with technology to shed some light on some of the issues.

Goals for the group include sharing ideas and learning, and building things together. I’d like to see many, if not all, aspects of a city’s ontology mapped and modeled.

Ultimately, people will come with their own interests, skills, and desires, so we’ll see what makes sense, over time.

City of Vacaville - State of the City 2023 - Video

Ryan Wold — Mon, 13 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Each year, the City of Vacaville Executive Staff present on the State of the City.

Watch the 1hr 5min video