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The Board of Supervisors’ decisions

132,417
decisions recorded from 1906 to 2026
161,015 rows in the table, 28,598 of them not a decision
By decade

5,935 in 1900s · 23,193 in 1920s (the highest) · 21,398 in 2020s

Decisions per decade; the 2020s run to 2026.

Decisions by topic, 1906–2026

Each of the 132,417 decisions has one subject, so the bars add up.

The street21.1% of decisions27,967
Land and building20.4% of decisions27,075
Public money16.6% of decisions22,006
Running the city13.6% of decisions18,031
Doing business11.3% of decisions14,953
What the city runs8.0% of decisions10,558
Getting around5.9% of decisions7,819
Civic life3.0% of decisions4,008

The table, to download

Precision of the locations

All 161,015 rows, by the most precise place their line gives.

Names its own block2.9% · can be mapped4,739
Street address11.5% · can be mapped18,553
Between two streets4.9% · can be mapped7,871
Street corner15.2% · can be mapped24,539
Street only24.7% · cannot be mapped39,758
No place given40.7% · cannot be mapped65,555

Understand

What is one row?

One item the Board dealt with, as printed, with a link to its scanned page. The 28,598 rows that are not decisions are kept and marked.

A decision132,417
A vote outcome only, described in another row22,133
Public comment on a file1,733
Cut in half by a page break1,361
Departmental report text1,264
Page header or footer1,242
An index row687
Too damaged to read178
How did each row get its subject?

A column on every row says which way, so the table can be filtered to one kind of reading.

A person read the sentence shape it shares with others93,823
A pattern checked against a person’s reading36,129
A person read the Clerk’s file title20,141
Subject read from the clause after the opening formula5,419
A person read the row3,510
Same sentence as a row already read, with other scan errors1,738
Subject named by the fund the money came out of255
What do the 24 columns hold?

In the order of the file. Every column in full, with its values ↗

idStable key: volume and item number
yearThe year the Board acted
dateMonth-day where the volume printed one
kindOne of 5 values
headingThe title the volume printed above the item
textThe line as printed, original spelling and scan errors kept
source_urlOpens the scanned page
record_typeOne of 8 values
topicOne of 8 values
subtopicOne of 66 values
actionOne of 12 values
streetsThe street names the record itself printed, | separated
refers_to_decision_numberFor a bare vote outcome, the decision number it points at — the thread back to the row that describes what was voted on.
how_we_know_whereHow precisely the record said where it happened.
why_no_placeOne of 2 values
blockAssessor block, when there is one
longitude
latitude
amountsEvery printed figure, | separated
amount_countHow many.
plain_lineOUR one-sentence reading of the record in plain English, 6-11 words, written from the item's full text — NOT the Board's wording.
importanceOURS, not the Board's: 0-100 for how much the record matters, read off the plain_line by a reader applying a written rubric.
plain_line_cautionWhy a written line is doubtful, | separated, blank when it is not.
classified_byOne of 7 values
How should the table be counted?

One row is one thing the Board dealt with.

Topic is single-valued, so no row is counted twice — but the topics sum to the rows that carry one, not to every row.

Do not count rows whose record_type is not decision into subject figures — they are page furniture, index rows, or a bare vote whose description lives in another row.

Say which denominator you used: all rows, decisions only, or classified rows only. All three are legitimate and they differ.

Where does the record come from?

318 scanned volumes of the Board’s Journal of Proceedings and minutes at the Internet Archive, 1906 to 2016: 115,673 rows.

402 meetings in the minutes the Clerk of the Board publishes, 2016 to 2026: 45,084 rows.

See also

MapThe same decisions, placed on the map year by yearSourcesSources of the money pages
Next sectionBudgetAdopted and spent, by department

Source: the Board of Supervisors’ Journal of Proceedings and minutes (Internet Archive) and the Clerk of the Board’s published minutes, 1906–2026.