salinas-council

Salinas City Council

What came before the Salinas City Council and its committees, what was done with it, and how each member voted.

from datasets import load_dataset

items = load_dataset("chrissoria/salinas-council", split="train")
votes = load_dataset("chrissoria/salinas-council", "votes", split="train")

Where it comes from

One source: the City's legislative system (Legistar), at salinas.legistar.com, read through its public API at webapi.legistar.com/v1/salinas. Nothing is added to what the City entered there, and nothing is corrected.

Agendas here run from 2014-03-25 to 2026-10-15, across 21 bodies: the Council, its committees, and the boards and commissions the City keeps in the same system. Votes are recorded from 2014-04-08 to 2026-09-29.

Tables

The five tables, and the columns listed first in each, are the same in every council and board dataset made this way, so two can be set one on the other: san-diego-council and sd-county-ordinances are two. matter_id joins items to agenda_items and votes; meeting_id joins meetings to them; item_id joins a vote to its agenda entry.

items

The text of ordinances and resolutions is in salinas-ordinances, under the same matter_id.

meetings

meeting_id, date, time, body, location, the meeting's page (url), its agenda and minutes (agenda_url, minutes_url) and how many items were on its agenda; then agenda_status, minutes_status and last_modified as the system has them.

agenda_items

votes

member and vote. A vote is AYE or NO, however the City spells them, or the City's own word in capitals: ABSENT, EXCUSED, ABSTAIN, RECUSED.

members

One row for each unbroken time someone sat on the Council: name, district, role, start, end, and whether that time covers today (serving). The system keeps a term for every office a member holds and every name the Council sits under; terms that overlap, or follow one another within a month, are one row here, with the role of the latest. The Council sits in this system as "City Council". first_vote, last_vote and votes are counted from the votes here, in any body. Someone who votes at the Council's meetings and has no term on record has a row too, with no dates.

What to know

• The source does not say which district a member sits for. district is typed in: for those now serving from the City's own pages, for earlier members from Wikipedia and what is commonly recorded. It is empty for a member elected by the whole city, such as a mayor or an at-large member, and where the record does not make clear who a name is.
• A member's start and end are as good as the terms the system has on record; first_vote and last_vote show when they are actually seen.
• A vote the clerk entered twice is here once.
• A vote is here only if the clerk entered it by member. An item passed without a recorded roll call has an action and no rows in votes.
• Committees and commissions are included; body says which.
• Meetings to come are listed, with nothing done yet.

How it is made

build_legistar_council.py in cat-pol-datasets. The records are public records of the City of Salinas; this compilation is released under CC0.