The $41M question: where the city's next decade actually goes
As the 2026 budget lands on the council desk, we traced every major line item — from the new fire station to the long-debated transit corridor — to understand what growth has quietly cost residents.
By Marcus Vane
City Hall Correspondent
Sample story. This file is a template so you can see the article layout with real formatting. Replace the body below with your reporting, or delete the file once you have your own lead story.
Open the front-page lead with the single most important fact you found — not a scene, not a summary of the meeting. Readers should know within two sentences what changed and who it affects.
How to write a story in this site
Every story is one markdown file in src/content/stories/. The block at the
very top between the --- lines is the frontmatter: it sets the headline, the
dek, the category, the date, and the byline. Everything below it is the article.
Use ## for section headings, ### for subheadings. Regular paragraphs need no
markup at all — leave a blank line between them.
Bold marks a key figure or finding. Links look like this one to the city site. Both are styled to match the rest of the paper.
Quoting a source
Block quotes carry weight on this layout — save them for the line that matters:
The quote that best captures what a named source actually said, on the record.
Presenting numbers
Tables work well for budget and vote breakdowns:
| Line item | 2025 | 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Public safety | $0.0M | $0.0M | — |
| Roads & transit | $0.0M | $0.0M | — |
| Parks & trails | $0.0M | $0.0M | — |
And lists work for the short version of a long process:
- What the council decided
- What it costs, and who pays
- What happens next, with a date
Close with what to watch and when — the next meeting, the next vote, the next deadline. That is what brings a local reader back.