Methodology
How OpenWisconsin sources, transcribes, enriches, and indexes public meeting records.
What we hold for La Crosse
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
- 164
- Bodies covered
- 49
- Earliest record
- January 5, 2026
- Latest meeting
- October 28, 2026
Minutes are published on the body's own schedule, often weeks after the meeting.
297 published motions. A decision can only be extracted where minutes exist.
Known source problems
- October 14, 2026 · Bicycle-Pedestrian Advisory Committee — YouTube: Quota cooldown until 2026-11-02T21:56:21.437Z — channel at 100/100 uploads in 24h
- September 9, 2026 · Council Planning Meeting - Joint session with La Crosse County Board of Supervisors — YouTube: Quota cooldown until 2026-11-02T21:56:21.437Z — channel at 100/100 uploads in 24h
- August 31, 2026 · City Plan Commission — YouTube: Quota cooldown until 2026-11-01T04:11:33.427Z — backlog yields to fresh meetings: 23 owed from the last 7 days, 9 slots left on channel UCgqAv-FVFcqshh
- August 26, 2026 · Economic and Community Development Commission — YouTube: Quota cooldown until 2026-11-01T04:11:33.427Z — backlog yields to fresh meetings: 24 owed from the last 7 days, 10 slots left on channel UCgqAv-FVFcqsh
- August 24, 2026 · Common Council — No content available for enrichment (empty transcript + no agenda/minutes)
- August 24, 2026 · Board of Public Works — No content available for enrichment (empty transcript + no agenda/minutes)
- August 17, 2026 · Board of Public Works — No content available for enrichment (empty transcript + no agenda/minutes)
- August 17, 2026 · Board of Zoning Appeals — YouTube: Quota cooldown until 2026-11-01T04:11:33.427Z — backlog yields to fresh meetings: 23 owed from the last 7 days, 9 slots left on channel UCgqAv-FVFcqshh
- August 13, 2026 · Common Council — YouTube: Quota cooldown until 2026-11-01T04:11:33.427Z — backlog yields to fresh meetings: 24 owed from the last 7 days, 12 slots left on channel UCgqAv-FVFcqsh
- August 10, 2026 · Climate Action Plan Steering Committee — No content available for enrichment (empty transcript + no agenda/minutes)
Bodies covered (49)
Arts Board · Arts and Culture Board · BPAC · BPAC 011326 · BPAC 021026 · BPAC 031026 · BPAC 041426 · BPAC 051226 · BPAC 090826 · BPAC 101326 · Bicycle-Pedestrian Advisory Committee · Board of Estimates - Discussion / Review / Finalize Recommended Operating Budget · Board of Estimates - Discussion / Review / Finalize Recommended Operating Budget, if needed · Board of Park Commissioners · Board of Public Works · Board of Zoning Appeals · City Plan Commission · City Plan Commission - Special Meeting · City Plan Commission - Special Meeting per Sec. 2-34 La Crosse Municipal Code · City Plan Commission - Special Meeting- CIP Public Hearing · Climate Action Plan Steering Committee · Common Council · Common Council - Special Meeting per Sec. 2-34 La Crosse Municipal Code · Common Council - Special Meeting per the Order of Mayor Shaundel Washington-Spivey · Common Council - Special meeting called by Mayor Shaundel Washington-Spivey · Common Council - Special meeting per Mayor Shaundel Washington-Spivey · Council Planning Meeting · Council Planning Meeting - Joint session with La Crosse County Board of Supervisors · Council Planning Meeting - Special Meeting · Council Planning Video · ECDC MEETING 042226 · Economic and Community Development Commission · Finance & Personnel Committee · Finance & Personnel Committee - Per the order of Council Member Erin Goggin, Chair of F&P · HPC MEETING VIDEO 082726 · HPC Meeting Video 02262026 · HPC Meeting Video 11202025 · HPC Meeting Vidoe 01292026 · Heritage Preservation Commission · Human Rights Commission · Judiciary & Administration Committee · Judiciary & Administration Committee - Special Meeting per Sec. 2-34 La Crosse Municipal Code · La Crosse Center Board · La Crosse WI - VoteCast Web Training · Neighborhood Revitalization Commission · RDA 042326 · RDA012226 · Redevelopment Authority · Video for F&P
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.