LocalMatters

Local government, made legible

Understand what's happening in your community.

Local government shapes daily life — housing, schools, roads, taxes, public safety. LocalMatters turns hours of public meetings into legible, source-linked summaries you can follow.

Explore your community → For newsrooms

Pulled from recent public meetings

For residents

Know what's happening where you live.

Free to use for residents.

  • Personalized alerts on the topics you choose
  • An every-other-Friday community newsletter
  • Understand local decisions in minutes, not hours
  • Links directly to the source so you can review the record for yourself

Choose a community to learn about:

Champaign, IL Urbana, IL Fort Wayne, IN
For newsrooms

Cover more local government with the team you have.

Monitoring infrastructure for reporters who have more ground to cover than time to cover it.

  • Monitor every meeting across your coverage area
  • Surface overlooked stories, quotes, and public comment
  • Claims link directly to the source

Don't see your town?

We're adding communities based on where people ask us to go. Tell us where to look next — no promise, but it moves you up the list.

What we believe

Local government should be easy to follow.

Accessible to everyone

Public meetings are already public. We make them legible — plain English, short, and skimmable in a few minutes a week.

We use AI responsibly and transparently

AI helps us process thousands of hours of meetings. We (humans) set the standards, audit the outputs, and publish our reviews and corrections. See how it works.

Grounded in the public record

When we show a quote or note that a council voted 6–1, you can click straight to that moment in the meeting. We link back to primary sources wherever we can, so you can check for yourself.

For participation, not replacement

Our goal is more residents at the meeting and more journalists with the leads they need — not fewer. Learn why we're building it.