About Sunshine Data

Sunshine Data is a Marion County civic intelligence platform — built by one person, powered by public records, and designed for residents who want to actually understand their community.

Florida's Sunshine Law, Chapter 119 of the Florida Statutes, guarantees every citizen the right to access government records. That law exists for a reason. But access to records and the ability to make sense of them are two very different things. Most public data is buried in government portals, exported in formats nobody can read, or scattered across a dozen agencies with no connection between them.

Sunshine Data connects those dots — and when the data tells a story worth telling, we tell it.

What's live today

• City of Ocala Finances — every dollar the City of Ocala has spent since 2019, searchable, sortable, and exportable.
• Marion County Finances — $1.1B in county payments and 9,600+ purchase orders, searchable by vendor, department, and date.
• Marion County Real Estate Intelligence — 572,752 parcels, $93.4B in total assessed value, 355,090 building permits, and 67,228 active businesses — all in one place, searchable by owner, address, or parcel number.
• The Sunshine Files — a public records intelligence digest published Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Local news, business filings, permit data, and original data analysis sourced directly under Florida Sunshine Law.
• Marion County FSBO — browse properties, permits, and ownership data for every parcel in Marion County, free and without an account. List your home directly, no agents, no commissions.

What we do

We interpret public records. Every number, pattern, and name on this platform comes directly from a public source — the Florida Division of Corporations, the Marion County Property Appraiser, the Marion County Building Department, the Marion County Clerk of Court, and others. We didn't create this information. It already existed. We organized it, connected it, and made it readable.

When the records reveal something meaningful about how Marion County operates, we say so — in articles, in data visualizations, in plain English. Every claim we make is backed by the source records, cited on the page, and open to correction if the data says otherwise. If you find an error, tell us. We update.

What we're not

We're not an advocacy group. We don't endorse candidates, raise money for causes, or campaign for specific policy outcomes. We have no advertisers and no political affiliation. The only interest here is an informed community.

Accuracy and corrections

Everything on Sunshine Data is sourced. If you believe a specific claim is inaccurate — on any page, in any article, in any data view — email justin@sunshinedata.io with the claim and the correction. If you're right, the page gets updated, and the correction is noted publicly. That's the standard.

Who built this

My name is Justin Justice. I'm a data engineer, Marion County resident, Army Infantry veteran, and father of three. I moved to Ocala in 2019 and started noticing things about my community that weren't easy to find answers to — so I built the tools to find them.

Sunshine Data is independent. It always will be.

Questions, tips, or public records requests you'd like help navigating? Reach out at justin@sunshinedata.io