About
A local paper of record for Santa Barbara
The Civic Press covers the decisions that shape daily life in Santa Barbara County — what the city and county are spending, what gets built, what the schools are cutting, and which local institutions are holding on. We report from documents first: budgets, agendas, permits, filings and the people whose names are on them.
- Editor
- Craig McGowan
- Contact
- editor@sbcivicpress.com
- Corrections
- Run on the story, dated
- Founded
- 2026, Santa Barbara
Masthead
The editor is responsible for everything published here. Nothing goes on the site without an editor’s review against the underlying source documents.
How we work
- Every story lists its sources. At the bottom of each piece is the record it was built on — the agenda item, the budget document, the filing, the interview. If you want to check the work, you should not have to ask us for the paperwork.
- We report decision points, not postmortems. A comment period that is still open is worth more to you than a retrospective on one that closed.
- Verification comes before publication. Numbers are checked against the primary document, not against another outlet’s summary of it.
- Public roles, not private lives. We write about people in the capacity in which they act publicly.
- Affiliations are disclosed. When we quote someone, we say who they work for and what interest they hold.
- Corrections are visible. When we get something wrong, the correction runs on the story, dated, not quietly edited in.
Money
The Civic Press is supported by local sponsorship. Coverage is never sold, sponsorships are labeled wherever they appear, and sponsors get no say in what we cover and no advance notice of what is coming. The details are on the sponsorship page.
Contact
Tips, documents, corrections and complaints: editor@sbcivicpress.com. If you are sending something sensitive, say so in the first line and we will find a safer way to talk.
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