tldrgov

About TL;DR Gov

Why does this exist?

Local government decisions affect your daily life — property taxes, zoning changes, school policies, public safety — but most people don't have 3 hours to watch a city council meeting. We use AI to summarize what happened so you can stay informed in minutes.

How does it work?

We pull meeting agendas and minutes from Legistar, a platform used by hundreds of cities to publish their legislative data. An AI reads through the agenda items, votes, and outcomes, then generates a plain-English summary highlighting what matters most to residents.

Note: The first time you visit a meeting page, it may take several seconds to generate the summary. Subsequent visits will load instantly from our cache.

Which cities are available?

We currently support cities that use the Legistar platform and have public API access. This includes many major cities like Oakland, Boston, Chicago, Denver, and more. See the full list.

Why isn't my city listed? Either they don't use Legistar, or we haven't added them yet. Request your city and we'll prioritize based on demand.

Are the summaries accurate?

We use AI to generate summaries, which means they may occasionally miss nuance or misinterpret complex items. The summaries are meant to give you a quick overview — for official records, always refer to the original agenda, minutes, or video.

Found an error? Use the Report issue button on any meeting page to let us know.

Is this free?

Yes. TL;DR Gov is a free public service. We believe civic information should be accessible to everyone.

Who made this?

This is an independent project, not affiliated with any government or political organization. It's built with Astro, Supabase, and Claude AI.

Questions or feedback?