Here’s a clean, About-page-ready draft that matches the Debugging Fairfax ethos: neutral, structural, and durable. This is written to frame everything else on the site, not to persuade.
You can drop this directly into Ghost and adjust length later if needed.
About Debugging Fairfax
Debugging Fairfax is a civic transparency project focused on making local government visible, verifiable, and understandable.
Local governments publish large volumes of public data — budgets, reports, dashboards, and meeting records — but these materials are often fragmented, highly aggregated, and difficult for residents to interpret without specialized background. As a result, even motivated citizens struggle to answer basic questions about how public money is allocated and spent.
Debugging Fairfax treats local government like a software system:
- Data is the source code
- Budgets are functions
- Spending categories are variables
- Inconsistencies are bugs
- Unknowns are TODOs
The goal is not to simplify reality, but to make it inspectable.
What This Project Is
Debugging Fairfax is:
- A documentation and analysis project grounded in publicly available sources
- A method for improving civic legibility, not a platform for argument
- A systematic approach to reading budgets, financial reports, and official records
- A replicable model that can be applied to other jurisdictions
When numbers are cited, the intent is to show:
- where they come from
- what they do and do not represent
- what can be concluded from them — and what cannot
When data is incomplete or unclear, that uncertainty is stated explicitly.
What This Project Is Not
Debugging Fairfax is not:
- An advocacy organization
- A political campaign
- An endorsement or opposition platform
- A commentary site focused on opinion or rhetoric
The project does not take positions on policies, candidates, or political outcomes. Different readers may draw different conclusions from the same data, and that is expected.
Transparency Without Assumptions
Local government systems are complex. Apparent inconsistencies often arise from:
- timing differences
- accounting classifications
- aggregation across departments or funds
Debugging Fairfax assumes good faith by default and focuses on systems, not personalities. When two official numbers do not align, the project documents the discrepancy and outlines plausible explanations without assigning motive.
The emphasis is always on:
- what is known
- what is unknown
- what documentation would reduce uncertainty
Why This Exists
Healthy civic participation depends on shared facts and clear documentation. Before debates about priorities or values can be productive, residents need a common understanding of how government systems actually operate.
Debugging Fairfax exists to lower the cost of that understanding.
Replication and Reuse
Although this project focuses on Fairfax County, the underlying approach is jurisdiction-agnostic. The same methods can be applied anywhere local governments publish budgets and financial records.
Over time, Debugging Fairfax is intended to serve as a reference implementation for open, inspectable civic transparency.
Closing note
If you have access to better sources, more detailed documents, or corrections, they are welcome. Debugging Fairfax is designed to improve through revision.