Methodology
How OpenWisconsin sources, transcribes, enriches, and indexes public meeting records.
What we hold for Beloit
These are coverage figures — how much of the public record we have published. They are not an accuracy measure, and we do not currently publish one.
- Meetings
- 180
- Bodies covered
- 54
- Earliest record
- January 5, 2026
- Latest meeting
- November 2, 2026
Minutes are published on the body's own schedule, often weeks after the meeting.
165 published motions. A decision can only be extracted where minutes exist.
Next scheduled meeting on record: November 4, 2026.
Known source problems
- October 23, 2026 · City Council — No content available for enrichment (empty transcript + no agenda/minutes)
- October 21, 2026 · Municipal Golf Committee — Whisper returned empty transcript (silent or unprocessable audio)
- October 21, 2026 · Plan Commission — Whisper returned empty transcript (silent or unprocessable audio)
- October 20, 2026 · Landmarks Commission — Whisper returned empty transcript (silent or unprocessable audio)
- October 14, 2026 · Park, Recreation & Conservation Advisory Commission — Whisper returned empty transcript (silent or unprocessable audio)
- October 12, 2026 · Appointment Review Committee — Skipped: no speech: 0 words in 1030 min of recording
- September 30, 2026 · Community Development Authority — Whisper returned empty transcript (silent or unprocessable audio)
- September 23, 2026 · Public Notice (Collective Bargaining - AFSCME) — Whisper returned empty transcript (silent or unprocessable audio)
- September 23, 2026 · Plan Commission — Whisper returned empty transcript (silent or unprocessable audio)
- September 22, 2026 · Alcohol Beverage License Control Committee — Source video returned 404 (clip removed by city): https://beloit.granicus.com/DownloadFile.php?view_id=2&clip_id=2036
Bodies covered (54)
Alcohol Beverage License Control Committee · Appointment Review Committee · Appointment Review Committee (cancelled due to lack of business) · Board of Appeals · Board of Appeals (Cancelled due to lack of business) · Board of Appeals (Cancelled, no applications received) · Board of Appeals (Cancelled, no applications) · Board of Appeals (Cancelled, no business items to discuss) · Board of Appeals (Cancelled, no business to discuss) · Board of Ethics · Board of Review · City Council · City Council (Amended Agenda) · City Council Regular Meeting (Amended) · City Council Regular Meeting (Amendment #2 · City Council Special Meeting (CM Candidate Deliberation) · City Council Special Meeting (CM Candidate Negotiation) · City Council Special Meeting (PFC Candidate Interview) · City Council Workshop · City Council Workshop (Amended) · City Council Workshop (Strategic Plan Workshop) · Community Development Authority · Community Development Authority (Cancelled, no business items to discuss) · Council Workshop and/or Special Meeting · Council Workshop and/or Special Meeting (CM · Council Workshop and/or Special Meeting (CM Candidate Deliberation) · Council Workshop and/or Special Meeting (CM Candidate Interviews) · Council Workshop and/or Special Meeting (CM Search and Comm Policy) · Council Workshop and/or Special Meeting (CM Search) · Council Workshop and/or Special Meeting (Fundraising/Sponsorship/Donation Policy Discussion) · Equal Opportunities Commission · Equal Opportunities Commission - Workshop · Landmarks Commission · Landmarks Commission (Cancelled, no business items to discuss) · Municipal Golf Committee · Park, Recreation & Conservation Advisory Commission · Park, Recreation & Conservation Advisory Commission (Cancelled due to lack of agenda items) · Plan Commission · Plan Commission (Cancelled, no applications) · Plan Commission (Cancelled, no business items to discuss) · Police & Fire Commission · Public Notice · Public Notice (Badge Pinning - Fire Department) · Public Notice (Badge Pinning - Police Department) · Public Notice (Badge Pinning and Awards Ceremony - Police Department) · Public Notice (Candidate Forum) · Public Notice (Collective Bargaining - AFSCME) · Public Notice (Community input Session with MGT) · Public Notice (Council Photo) · Public Notice (Ribbon Cutting E Grand Ave) · Public Notice (Ribbon Cutting) · Public Notice - Memorial Day Parade · Traffic Review Committee · Traffic Review Committee (Cancelled due to lack of business)
Where the records come from
We pull official meeting videos from city platforms — Granicus, CivicPlus, PrimeGov, Swagit, and YouTube — once per city per day. Agendas come from the city's public agenda system. Nothing is republished without an official source.
How transcription works
Every meeting is transcribed with word-level timestamps, then enriched with AI to extract decisions, agenda items, public comments, and civic issues. Transcripts may contain errors; video and original audio remain the authoritative source.
How search works
Search is hybrid — keyword matching plus vector similarity — inside Meilisearch. Results are real records (meetings, agenda items, dev applications). The summaries on each result card were produced during enrichment and are reviewed periodically. Written answers come only from the assistant, described next.
How the assistant answers questions
The “Ask about” assistant answers plain-English questions from the same records search uses: agendas, minutes, transcripts, recorded decisions and development applications. It does not answer from general knowledge about your city. It is free with a sign-in.
Every statement in an answer links to the meeting it came from, so you can open the agenda, minutes or the moment in the video and check it yourself. When the records do not cover a question, it says so instead of guessing.
It keeps a recommendation separate from a decision. A planning commission that votes to recommend denial has not denied anything; the council decides next, and the answer says which body acted and which body acts next.
Known limits. Until a body approves its minutes, a vote may be known only from the recording; answers label those votes as recording-based. Not every meeting has a transcript or minutes yet, and coverage differs by city (see the coverage figures at the top of this page). Like the summaries, answers can contain errors.
Before a change to the assistant ships, we rerun a fixed set of real residents' questions with checked answers and compare the results. Passing that set does not guarantee every answer is right, which is why every answer shows its sources.
AI limitations
AI summaries can contain errors. Always verify legal actions, vote counts, and named-person attributions against the official video, transcript, and minutes. Where records are incomplete, we mark the gap rather than guess.
Corrections
Spotted a problem? Email corrections@opencityrecord.org with a link to the page and a description of the issue. We review every correction and update the affected record.