Made by a neighbor who wanted to keep up.

Why this exists

A lot of what shapes daily life in Chico — parks, roads, housing, rents, the police budget — actually gets decided at city council meetings. They're open to everyone. But they start at 6pm on a weeknight and can run for hours, right in the middle of dinner, homework, and bedtime. For a lot of us, especially anyone with kids, being there meeting after meeting just isn't realistic.

I wanted to keep up anyway, and I figured I wasn't the only one. So I built a pipeline that turns each meeting into a plain-language recap: what passed, who voted how, and why it might matter. Not to replace showing up — the opposite. The point is to make staying informed easy enough that you can show up when something matters to you, speak up, and vote with a clearer picture of who's been doing what. Free, nonpartisan, about three minutes a meeting.

How recaps are made

1. Everything starts from the official record. The City of Chico publishes meeting video, agendas, and minutes through its Granicus archive. I pull the agenda and generate a transcript of the full meeting video.
2. AI drafts from the official record. I use AI (Claude) to draft each recap from that transcript and agenda, and to extract roll-call votes with timestamps. The draft always links back to the source video, so every claim can be checked against the recording.
3. Uncertainty is marked, not hidden. The pipeline cross-checks names against the official member roster and vote tallies against the roll call it hears in the recording. Details that can't be fully verified are either left out or shown with a dotted underline — hover or tap one to see exactly what's uncertain and why.
4. You can verify everything yourself. Every recap links to the full meeting video and transcript. The video is always the authoritative record.

Machine transcripts are imperfect (names especially), which is why each recap's transcript tab is labeled as machine-generated and why the video, not my text, is always the authoritative record.

Neutrality

The recaps describe what happened and who voted how. They don't characterize anyone's motives, endorse candidates, or take positions on ballot measures. If a recap ever reads like it's rooting for a side, that's a bug — tell me.

Corrections

When I get something wrong, I fix the recap and note the correction on the page — corrections are noted, not buried. Spot an error? Email hello@chicopublic.org or DM @chicopublic and I'll check it against the recording.

Who's behind this

Chico Public is made by Matt Johnston, a Chico resident, and published under Lupine Legacy. It has no funding from — or affiliation with — the City of Chico, any campaign, or any political group. Meetings are public records under California law; these recaps are independent summaries built on them.