Open Council User’s Guide

Your complete guide to using opencouncil.xyz — London, Ontario’s council transparency tool

What is Open Council?

Open Council is a free website that makes London City Council’s meetings, votes, and decisions easy to search and understand. Instead of digging through PDFs and government websites, you can:

  • Read what happened at any council meeting since 2011
  • See how your councillor voted on every issue
  • Ask questions in plain English and get answers from an AI assistant
  • Track which councillors agree with each other — and where they disagree
  • Compare councillors on attendance, voting patterns, and more

The site is built by volunteers at the Institute for Community Sustainability and is completely free to use.

Getting Around the Site

When you first visit opencouncil.xyz, you’ll see the homepage with:

  • A search bar at the top — type anything to search the whole site
  • Quick links to committees, councillors, and recent meetings
  • The AI chatbot — ask questions about council in plain English

The navigation menu at the top has dropdown menus for:

  • Committees — browse by committee (Planning, Budget, Civic Works, etc.)
  • Councillors — view all current and former councillors
  • Recent Meetings — jump to the latest meetings

On mobile, tap the hamburger menu (three lines) to open navigation.

The AI Chatbot

The chatbot is the heart of Open Council. It lets you ask questions about council meetings, votes, and decisions in plain English — no need to know exact dates or agenda item numbers.

How to Use It

  1. Click the chat icon in the bottom-right corner (or use the chat box on the homepage)
  2. Type your question — for example:
    • “What happened at the last council meeting?”
    • “How did my councillor vote on the budget?”
    • “What has council done about homelessness this year?”
    • “Did the OEV BIA funding request pass?”
  3. The chatbot searches through meeting transcripts, minutes, motions, and vote records to find the answer
  4. It will cite which meeting and date the information came from

Tips for Better Answers

  • Be specific — “What did council decide about the fireworks bylaw in 2024?” works better than “fireworks”
  • Name councillors — “How did Sam Trosow vote on…” gets targeted answers
  • Ask follow-ups — the chatbot remembers your conversation, so you can ask “tell me more” or “who voted against it?”
  • Ask about vote breakdowns — “Who voted for and against the parking amendment?” gives you the full roll call

What It Knows

The chatbot has access to:

  • Meeting minutes and motions from August 2011 to present
  • Full meeting transcripts (automated speech-to-text recordings) for many recent meetings
  • Vote records showing exactly how each councillor voted
  • Councillor attendance and statistics

What It Doesn’t Know

  • The chatbot only knows about London City Council — it can’t answer questions about provincial or federal politics
  • It may not have the very latest meeting if minutes haven’t been published yet
  • Automated transcripts can contain errors (they’re speech-to-text, not manually typed)

Contextual Questions

When you’re on a specific page (like a councillor’s profile or a meeting page), the chatbot shows suggested questions relevant to that page. Click any suggestion to ask it instantly.

Meeting Pages

Every council meeting has its own page. You can find meetings by:

  • Clicking a committee name in the top navigation
  • Browsing by year (click a year like “2026” in the sidebar)
  • Using the search bar to find a specific topic

What’s on a Meeting Page

Each meeting page includes:

  1. Meeting title and date — which committee met and when
  2. Link to eScribe — takes you to the city’s official minutes on their website
  3. Full transcript (when available) — the complete word-for-word record of what was said, inside a collapsible section. Click “View full transcript” to expand it
  4. Votes section — a list of every substantive vote that happened at the meeting

Understanding the Votes Section

At the bottom of each meeting page, you’ll find a Votes section showing:

  • Only substantive votes — routine procedural stuff (approving minutes, adjourning, etc.) is filtered out so you only see real decisions
  • Item number and title — what the vote was about
  • Motion text — the actual wording of what was voted on (shortened if very long)
  • Result — ✅ Passed or ❌ Failed, with the vote count
  • 🔥 Fire indicator — appears on close votes where the margin was 3 or fewer (these are the controversial ones!)
  • Roll call — for contested votes (where councillors disagreed), click “View roll call” to see exactly who voted Yea, Nay, or was Absent. Councillor names link to their profile pages.
  • Unanimous votes simply show “Unanimous (15-0)” without a roll call, since everyone agreed

Vote Explorer (/votes)

The Vote Explorer at opencouncil.xyz/votes is a searchable, filterable list of every substantive vote since 2011.

Searching

Type in the search bar at the top to find votes about specific topics. You can search by:

  • Topic keywords: “homelessness”, “parking”, “budget”, “fireworks”
  • Councillor names: “Trosow”, “Franke”
  • Meeting names or item titles

The search checks motion text, item titles, meeting names, and councillor names all at once.

Filters

Use the dropdown menus to narrow your results:

  • Year/Term — default is “Current Term (2022-2026)”. Change to a specific year or “All Years” to go back to 2011
  • Meeting Type — filter by committee: Council, Planning & Environment, Budget, etc.
  • Result — show only Passed or Failed votes
  • Vote Split — the most useful filter:
    • Contested Only (default) — shows only votes where councillors disagreed. This is where the interesting stuff is.
    • All Votes — includes unanimous votes too
    • Close Votes — only shows votes where the margin was 3 or fewer. These are the most controversial decisions.

Reading the Results

Each vote card shows:

  • Date and meeting (clickable — takes you to the full meeting page)
  • Item title — what was being voted on
  • Motion text — abbreviated version of the formal motion language
  • Result badge — green for passed, red for failed
  • Roll call — click “View roll call” on any contested vote to see the full breakdown

The list loads more votes automatically as you scroll down (infinite scroll — no need to click “next page”).

Councillor Pages

Each councillor has a detailed profile page. Find them at opencouncil.xyz/councillors.

What’s on a Councillor Page

Scorecard — colour-coded cards at the top showing:

  • Attendance rate — what percentage of meetings they attended
  • Vote participation — how often they voted when present
  • Yea rate — how often they vote yes

Voting Record — a visual bar chart showing the split between Yea and Nay votes, broken down into:

  • All votes — every recorded vote
  • Substantive votes — with procedural votes removed
  • Budget votes — votes specifically on budget-related items
  • Dissent rate on contested votes — how often they vote against the winning side when council is split

Attendance — their attendance record broken down by year, with a trend indicator (improving, stable, or declining)

Voting Alignment — shows which councillors they most and least agree with. For example, you might see “Most aligned with Anna Hopkins (92.9%)” — meaning they voted the same way 92.9% of the time.

Committee Activity — how many votes they cast in each committee, and their participation rate in each

Notable Dissenting Votes — a list of recent split votes where this councillor voted against the final outcome. This is particularly interesting — it shows you where they took a stand that didn’t win.

Compare with others — click the “Compare” button to see a side-by-side visual comparison with another councillor.

Councillor Rankings

Visit opencouncil.xyz/councillors (the index page) to see all councillors ranked by:

  • Attendance — who shows up most
  • Vote Participation — who votes most often when present
  • Dissent Rate — who goes against the majority most often

Toggle between current council and all councillors (including former ones from past terms).

Voting Alignment Matrix

Visit opencouncil.xyz/councillors/alignment for an interactive heatmap showing how often every pair of councillors votes together.

How to Read It

  • Green cells = high alignment (they usually vote the same way)
  • Red/orange cells = low alignment (they frequently disagree)
  • Hover over any cell to see the exact percentage
  • Click a cell to see details about which votes they agreed and disagreed on

This map quickly reveals the voting blocs on council — who are allies and who are on opposite sides of most issues.

Committees

London City Council does much of its work through standing committees before items come to full council for a final vote. Each committee has its own page:

  • Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee — big-picture policy decisions
  • Community and Protective Services Committee — housing, homelessness, social services, policing
  • Planning and Environment Committee — development applications, zoning, environmental issues
  • Civic Works Committee — roads, water, transit, infrastructure
  • Corporate Services Committee — internal city operations, IT, HR
  • Budget Committee — annual budget deliberations
  • Audit Committee — financial oversight

Each committee page lists all its meetings with links to individual meeting pages.

Watchlist & Alerts

(This feature requires creating a free account with your email)

Watchlist

Click the eye icon (👁) on any page — a meeting, a committee, a councillor — to add it to your personal watchlist. Visit opencouncil.xyz/watchlist to see everything you’re tracking.

Your watchlist works even without an account (stored in your browser), but if you sign in with your email, it syncs across devices.

Alerts

Visit opencouncil.xyz/alerts to see recent activity on items you’re watching. When new meetings happen or votes are recorded on topics you care about, they’ll show up here.

The search bar (🔍) at the top of every page searches across:

  • Meeting titles and dates
  • Councillor names
  • Committee names
  • Meeting transcripts and content

Type a few words and results appear instantly. Click any result to jump to that page.

Dark Mode

Click the moon/sun icon in the top-right corner to switch between light and dark modes. The site remembers your preference.

Browsing by Year

The sidebar (or the year pages) lets you browse meetings by year. Each year page shows:

  • All meetings held that year, grouped by month
  • Committees that were active that year

Tips for Getting the Most Out of Open Council

  1. Start with the chatbot — if you have a question, just ask. It’s the fastest way to find information.

  2. Use the Vote Explorer for research — searching “homelessness” in the Vote Explorer shows you every vote council has taken on homelessness, who voted which way, and whether it passed.

  3. Check your councillor’s page before election time — their attendance rate, voting record, and alignment with other councillors tells you a lot about how they actually govern (not just what they say).

  4. Look at the alignment matrix — it reveals the real power dynamics on council. Who votes together? Who’s the outlier? This context helps you understand why certain votes go the way they do.

  5. Filter for close votes — in the Vote Explorer, select “Close Votes (≤3 margin)” to see only the decisions that could have gone either way. These are the ones where your councillor’s vote truly mattered.

  6. Follow contested votes, not unanimous ones — unanimous 15-0 votes are usually routine. The real stories are in the 8-7 and 9-6 splits.

  7. Check the “Notable Dissenting Votes” section on councillor pages — it shows where they took a stand that didn’t win, which often reveals their actual priorities.

Data Sources

All data comes from publicly available sources:

The data covers August 2011 to present, updated regularly as new meetings occur.

Reporting Problems

If you notice an error, a broken page, or an AI answer that seems wrong:

We’re a volunteer project and appreciate every bug report!

Open Council is a project of the Institute for Community Sustainability. The code is open source and available on GitHub.