Methodology
How OpenNewYork sources, transcribes, enriches, and indexes public meeting records.
What we hold for Rochester
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
- 405
- Bodies covered
- 29
- Earliest record
- January 6, 2025
- Latest meeting
- October 29, 2026
Minutes are published on the body's own schedule, often weeks after the meeting.
145 published motions. A decision can only be extracted where minutes exist.
Known source problems
- October 29, 2026 · Zoning Board of Appeals — No content available for enrichment (empty transcript + no agenda/minutes)
- October 28, 2026 · Rochester Public Library Board — No content available for enrichment (empty transcript + no agenda/minutes)
- October 26, 2026 · City Planning Commission — No content available for enrichment (empty transcript + no agenda/minutes)
- October 22, 2026 · Civil Service Commission — No recording found within the 7-day media watch
- October 20, 2026 · Bureau of Architecture and Engineering — No content available for enrichment (empty transcript + no agenda/minutes)
- October 19, 2026 · Rochester Land Bank Corporation – Monthly Board Meeting — No content available for enrichment (empty transcript + no agenda/minutes)
- October 19, 2026 · Monroe County Library System Board — No content available for enrichment (empty transcript + no agenda/minutes)
- October 19, 2026 · Rochester Roots HDFC — No content available for enrichment (empty transcript + no agenda/minutes)
- October 15, 2026 · City Council — No content available for enrichment (empty transcript + no agenda/minutes)
Bodies covered (29)
2023-3C Lead Service Line Replacement Project · Administration · Board of Ethics · Bureau of Architecture and Engineering · City Council · City Planning Commission · Civil Service Commission · Electrical Examining Board · Examining Board of Plumbers · Monroe County Library System Board · Neighborhood Presidents · Olean Kennedy development site revitalization public meeting · Project Review Committee · Public Information Meeting · Public Input Meeting · RURA Meeting · RURA Public Hearing · RURA Resolution Review Committee · RURA Resolution Review Committee Meeting · Rochester Housing Stability Fund · Rochester Land Bank Corporation · Rochester Land Bank Corporation – Annual Meeting · Rochester Land Bank Corporation – Monthly Board Meeting · Rochester Preservation Board · Rochester Public Library Board · Rochester Roots HDFC · Stationary Engineer/Refrigeration Operator Board · Traffic Control Board · Zoning Board of Appeals
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.