Ask the public archive, and get cited answers

Why public bodies lose their memory every election

A public body is built to turn over — councils and boards are elected, seats change every cycle, and the clerk or manager who remembered everything eventually moves on. With them goes the reasoning behind years of decisions: why an ordinance was written the way it was, what happened the last time the body considered this project, what a resident was promised at a hearing four years ago. The knowledge exists, buried across hundreds of minutes and enacted actions no new member has time to read, and every election takes another piece. Without a way to ask the archive directly, each new board relitigates settled questions and rediscovers old mistakes.

What MinuteSmith does

• Answers that span years and actions. Ask a question and get an answer drawn from across the body's full history — minutes, resolutions, ordinances, and public comment — not a single document a clerk had to find first.
• Every answer cited to the exact meeting. Each answer points to the specific meeting, action, or ordinance it came from, so a member or resident can open the source and verify it — the AI shows its work rather than asking to be trusted.
• Institutional memory that outlasts turnover. When members are voted out and staff move on, the knowledge stays. Newly elected members can ask what the body decided and why, and get the cited history immediately instead of starting cold each term.

What you keep

• A searchable index across all minutes, resolutions, and ordinances
• Cited answers that link back to the source meeting
• Institutional memory that persists across elected-term turnover
• A private archive that is the body's own and never used to train AI models

Ask your archive

Questions this record can answer — every answer cites the exact meeting it came from:

• “Has the body considered this project before, and what happened?”
• “What is the full history behind our short-term rental ordinance?”
• “Everywhere the council discussed the bond — what did it conclude?”
• “What was a resident promised at the hearing on this development?”

Security & data handling

Private AI over your own records — your minutes are never used to train AI models. See the Trust Center and Security page; for a procurement or security review, contact our security team.

Frequently asked questions