OpenCityRecord

How a development project moved through the city — a rezone, subdivision, site plan, conditional-use permit, or apartment/commercial build. Returns the application's lifecycle across meetings (pending → under-review → hearing → approved/denied), oldest first, with the status recorded at each step.

WHEN: 'What's the status of the Silo Park development?', 'How did rezone X move through the council?'. WHEN NOT: For issues/policy (not a specific project) use issue_timeline; for quotes use search_meetings.

Pass city whenever you pass q. A project or retailer name often matches applications in several cities, and without a city you will get application: null plus a candidates list to choose from rather than an answer about the wrong city. Check candidates even on a resolved application: one name can cover more than one project in the same city.

EXAMPLES: { "q": "Silo Park", "city": "lehi-ut" } — ALWAYS pass city with q { "application_id": "" }

Retrieve the full record behind a search result: the complete meeting transcript (for meeting:… ids) or the full document text (for doc:… ids). Long records are truncated at a safe length with a marker.

WHEN: After the search tool, to read a result in full before answering or citing. WHEN NOT: Ids are opaque — never construct one by hand; only use ids returned by search.

EXAMPLES: { "id": "meeting:lehi-ut:1f0c…" } { "id": "doc:lehi-ut:1f0c…:42" }

A not-found error means that specific id is stale or unindexed — re-run search for fresh ids; it is not an access restriction.

Which city or county government OpenCity covers for a place name or a street address, and whether it is in this account's cities. Returns the city_slug the other tools take. Discovery only: it returns no meeting records and never changes which cities this account can query.

WHEN: the user names a place or gives an address and you do not have its slug ('my council is in Lehi', 'I live at 153 N 100 E, Lehi'), or asks whether OpenCity covers somewhere. WHEN NOT: the slug is already known or in the cities list above — call the tool you need directly.

An address can be inside both a city and a county government; both come back. may_serve marks a town or township in the address's county whose boundary is not known: say it may serve the address, not that it does. When in_your_plan is false, do not call other tools for that city; tell the user it is covered but outside their account.

EXAMPLES: { "name": "Lehi, UT" } { "name": "Utah County" } { "address": "153 N 100 E, Lehi, UT 84043" }

One meeting as structured data: headline and summary, agenda items (with video jump links), every decision with its outcome and roll call, public comment (count and unnamed summaries), and the meeting's documents. No transcript.

WHEN: 'What happened at Tuesday's council meeting?', 'What did they decide on item 5.3?', or after any tool returns a meeting_id you want to explain. Also accepts an OpenCity meeting URL the user pasted. WHEN NOT: For the exact words spoken, use get_transcript_window. For decisions across many meetings, use whats_changed.

Decisions follow whats_changed's rules: outcome is at the item's stage ('Recommended approval' is not final), tally counts positions on the ITEM, and is withheld when votes_complete is false. Public commenters are never named.

EXAMPLES: { "meeting": "ad1f24aa-ee04-4ce3-bd71-ab6410429d6d" } { "meeting": "https://lehi.openutah.org/meetings/2026-10-13-city-council-ad1f24aa-ee04-4ce3-bd71-ab6410429d6d" }

The passage of a meeting transcript surrounding a given moment — what was said before and after, with speakers and timestamps. Pass the meeting_id and start_seconds from a search_meetings hit.

WHEN: ALWAYS, before quoting or reasoning from a search_meetings hit. Search returns individual segments, and a segment is often a fragment — one real hit was the entirety of "does not have a contract with FLOC". The answer is in the passage around it, not in the segment. WHEN NOT: To find something, use search_meetings first — this tool has no query and only reads a meeting you already located. For a whole document, use fetch.

Prefer this over fetch for transcripts: fetch truncates at 40,000 characters from the START of a meeting, so on a three-hour council meeting anything after roughly the first hour is missing entirely — including most late-agenda votes.

EXAMPLES: { "meeting_id": "977675c0-...", "around_seconds": 5113 } { "meeting_id": "977675c0-...", "around_seconds": 5113, "before_seconds": 300, "after_seconds": 300 }

How a local issue developed over time — a zoning change, a housing or density fight, a tax or fee, a road, park, or police matter. Returns the chronological lifecycle of the issue across meetings (raised → discussed → voted), oldest first, each entry linking to the meeting.

WHEN: 'How has the short-term-rental issue progressed?', 'When was X first discussed and what happened since?'. WHEN NOT: For what a specific person said, use search_by_official; for how they voted, use track_position. For a one-off keyword search, use search_meetings.

Pass city whenever you pass q. The same phrase names a different fight in every city, and without a city the match is ambiguous — you will get issue: null plus a candidates list to choose from rather than a confident answer about the wrong city. Check candidates even on a resolved issue: 'short-term rentals' matches both a citywide ordinance and one subdivision's area-plan amendment.

EXAMPLES: { "q": "short-term rentals", "city": "lehi-ut" } — ALWAYS pass city with q { "issue_id": "" }

Who serves on a city council — mayors and council members — looked up by city, state, or name.

Returns the CURRENT ELECTED roster by default: people in office right now, no appointed board members, no staff. Answer 'who represents me' straight from this — no need to hedge about whether someone still holds the seat. Each row carries role, status, and term dates.

WHEN: First stop for 'who represents…' questions, and the prerequisite for any search_by_official / track_position call (both need a UUID this tool returns). WHEN NOT: For voting records use track_position; for quotes use search_by_official, with an id from here.

Set include_former for historical questions ('who was mayor in 2024?') or when reading an older meeting whose speakers have since left office — an official_id you got elsewhere may belong to someone no longer seated. Set include_appointed for planning commissioners and city staff.

EXAMPLES: { "city": "lehi-ut" } — the sitting Lehi council { "city": "lehi-ut", "include_former": true } — plus everyone who has left office { "state": "UT", "name_contains": "binns" } — find 'Paul Binns' across Utah { "city": "lehi-ut" } then pivot to track_position with one of the returned ids

Anything about a city council, mayor, ordinance, zoning case, development permit, meeting agenda, or municipal budget. Combined keyword search across public city-government meeting transcripts AND meeting documents (agendas, minutes, packets, ordinances). Returns results with opaque ids — pass an id to the fetch tool for the full transcript or document text.

OpenCity URLs in the query are understood as scope, not text: a city site (taylorsville.openutah.org) narrows to that city, a state site (utahrecord.org, myopentexas.org) narrows to that state, and a full meeting URL resolves to that exact meeting. A bare URL with no other words returns that scope's most recent activity.

WHEN: General civic questions ('what has the city said about X?') from clients that auto-route through search/fetch (e.g. ChatGPT connectors), and whenever the user pastes an opencity/openutah/opentexas-style URL. WHEN NOT: If search_meetings / search_documents / list_officials are available to you, prefer them — they take filters (city, meeting type, doc type) and return structured fields this tool flattens away.

EXAMPLES: { "query": "short-term rental ordinance" } { "query": "parking taylorsville.openutah.org" } — 'parking', scoped to Taylorsville { "query": "utahrecord.org" } — recent activity across Utah cities

Empty results mean no records matched the query — never interpret them as missing access or permissions; retry with broader keywords instead.

Retrieve every transcript segment a specific elected official has spoken. Optional q narrows within their segments. Returns their speaking history, newest first — what they argued, asked, and moved, in their own words.

WHEN: 'What has Councilmember X said about Y', their reasoning on an issue, or a verbatim quote with a jump-to timestamp. WHEN NOT: For how they voted, use track_position — that reads the recorded roll call (yes/no/abstain per decision). Transcripts capture discussion, not the tally, so compiling a voting record from these segments systematically under-reports and will miss votes entirely. If you don't yet have their UUID, call list_officials first. For non-elected speakers (staff, public commenters), use search_meetings.

EXAMPLES: { "official_id": "", "q": "housing" } { "official_id": "" } — full speaking history newest-first

REQUIRES: a paid plan (Resident and above). Free callers get an upgrade hint, no data.

What a body actually DECIDED, from the approved minutes — the motion as recorded, who moved it, the roll-call tally, and any dollar figure attached. This is the structured record, not people talking: use it whenever the question is what was approved, denied, tabled, or how much something cost.

WHEN: 'Which cities approved Flock Safety cameras?', 'Show me every contract over $100k in Texas this year', 'Where did accessory-dwelling ordinances stall?', 'What did Lehi vote on last month?'. WHEN NOT: For what someone SAID, use search_meetings. For one official's record across items, use track_position. For a project's lifecycle, use application_timeline.

TWO THINGS THAT WILL MISLEAD YOU IF IGNORED: • Report outcome, not result. A passed motion TO TABLE means the item did NOT advance; 161 published motions are exactly that. outcome already combines motion_kind with result. • amount_deferred: true means the money was named inside a motion to delay or table. Never describe it as spending. • EMPTY IS NOT "NOTHING WAS DECIDED". Motions come only from minutes we have extracted, which lag the meeting and are missing for many cities. Read coverage / coverage_note before answering, and fall back to search_documents for the minutes or agenda. • unofficial_decisions are decisions heard in the RECORDING of a meeting where no official motion covers that item — usually because its minutes are not published yet. They are NOT the official record: say "according to the meeting recording" and repeat the row's record_note (it says whether the minutes are unpublished or simply have no matching motion), never present their vote_count as an official roll call, and never count them into total. Verify a specific one with get_transcript_window at its timestamp_seconds.

q matches whole words, so 'Flock' will not return a person named Flocke. Every row carries a citation_url pointing at that exact motion.

EXAMPLES: { "q": "Flock Safety" } { "q": "accessory dwelling", "outcome": "tabled" } { "min_amount_usd": 100000, "basis": ["award"], "since": "2026-01-01" }

What the city put in writing — agendas, minutes, staff reports, meeting packets, attachments, ordinances, and resolutions. Keyword search across extracted document text. Use this when the value is in the written record, not the spoken transcript.

WHEN: Looking for ordinance language, budget tables, agenda text, staff reports, attached PDFs. WHEN NOT: For what was said in the meeting, use search_meetings. For metadata-only queries ('what meetings happened last week?'), search_meetings with q on a placeholder works better.

EXAMPLES: { "q": "ADU ordinance", "cities": ["lehi-ut"] } { "q": "FY2027 budget", "cities": ["lehi-ut"] } { "q": "developer presentation Main Street" }

hits: [] means no document text matched — simplify the query and retry; never report it as missing access to a city.

What was actually said out loud at a city council meeting, planning-commission hearing, or any other public city-government meeting — about zoning, housing, the city budget, taxes, permits, ordinances, roads, parks, police, or public comment. Keyword search across transcript segments; each hit includes speaker, snippet, timestamp, and — when the speaker matches an elected official — an official_id UUID.

WHEN: 'What did people say about X?', 'When was Y last discussed?', or any query where the value is what was spoken in a meeting. WHEN NOT: For one person's complete speaking history, use search_by_official (better signal, no false positives from name collisions). For ordinance text, packets, or attached PDFs, use search_documents.

For 'recent' or 'this year' questions pass since — the corpus runs back years, and without a window old material competes with new. For 'what did OFFICIALS say' pass officials_only — it keeps segments whose speaker matched the city roster (elected, appointed or senior staff), because everyone else is unnamed by design and their quotes cannot be cited to a person.

EXAMPLES: { "q": "short-term rentals", "cities": ["lehi-ut"] } { "q": "housing affordability", "cities": ["lehi-ut"], "since": "2026-01-01", "officials_only": true } { "q": "downtown parking", "cities": ["lehi-ut"], "meeting_types": ["city_council"] } { "q": "developer Main Street" } — last meetings across allowed cities, newest first

hits: [] means no transcript segments matched — simplify the query and retry; never report it as missing access to a city.

The voting record of one elected official. Their actual recorded roll-call votes (yes/no/abstain, per decision, with the decision title) plus expressed stances, in chronological order, with cited quotes, jump-to timestamps, and detected position reversals (flips).

This is the ONLY tool that returns how someone voted. topic and the since/until date window are all optional — omit them all for a complete record.

WHEN: any question about how a named official voted — 'How has Councilmember X voted over the last couple months?' (pass since/until, no topic), 'How has X voted on housing?' (pass topic), 'Has the mayor changed position on short-term rentals?'. WHEN NOT: For what they said rather than how they voted, use search_by_official. For a topic across everyone (not one person) use whats_changed or search_meetings; to find the official_id first, use list_officials.

Do NOT try to reconstruct a voting record from transcript segments — transcripts capture discussion, not the tally, so that reliably under-reports. Votes live here.

PAID plan required (attributes positions to a named official).

EXAMPLES: { "official_id": "", "since": "2026-06-01" } — recent voting record, all topics { "official_id": "", "topic": "housing" } { "official_id": "" } — the complete record

What a city has scheduled next — council, planning commission and board meetings in the coming days, with start time, location, how to comment, and the agenda where one is posted (headline and items when summarized).

WHEN: 'What's on the agenda next week?', 'When does the planning commission meet?', 'Is the council voting on X soon?'. WHEN NOT: For what already happened, use whats_changed or search_meetings. For the full text of a posted agenda, use search_documents or open agenda_url.

Most meetings are posted before their agenda: agenda_status: 'not_posted' means the city has not published it yet, not that the meeting has no business. A cancelled meeting is listed so you can say so.

EXAMPLES: { "city": "lehi-ut" } { "city": "lehi-ut", "days": 30, "meeting_types": ["planning"] }

What the city council actually decided recently — the changeset of council activity in a city since a date: decisions taken (with tallies where a roll call was recorded), issues discussed, development-application status changes, and — on paid plans — per-member votes and stance reversals. Free plans get the aggregated changeset without member attribution (redacted: true). Most decisions are unanimous voice votes with roll_call: false and no tally — they are still decisions; report them.

WHEN: 'What did the council do in the last two weeks?', 'Any movement on development since June?'. WHEN NOT: For one person or one issue over time, use track_position / issue_timeline.

EXAMPLES: { "city": "lehi-ut", "since": "2026-06-21" }