Methodology
How OpenArkansas sources, transcribes, enriches, and indexes public meeting records.
What we hold for Fort Smith
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
- 95
- Bodies covered
- 19
- Earliest record
- January 6, 2026
- Latest meeting
- November 2, 2026
Minutes are published on the body's own schedule, often weeks after the meeting.
114 published motions. A decision can only be extracted where minutes exist.
Next scheduled meeting on record: November 9, 2026.
Known source problems
- October 14, 2026 · Parks and Recreation Commission - Regular Meeting — Source video returned 404 (clip removed by city): https://fortsmithar.granicus.com/DownloadFile.php?view_id=4&clip_id=2679
- October 13, 2026 · Planning Commission and Board of Zoning Adjustment — No content available for enrichment (empty transcript + no agenda/minutes)
- October 13, 2026 · Central Business Improvement District - Regular Meeting — No content available for enrichment (empty transcript + no agenda/minutes)
- September 17, 2026 · Property Owners Appeal Board - Appeal Hearing 2 of 2 — No content available for enrichment (empty transcript + no agenda/minutes)
- September 16, 2026 · Property Owners Appeal Board - Appeal Hearing 1 of 2 — No content available for enrichment (empty transcript + no agenda/minutes)
- September 16, 2026 · River Valley Communications Center Board - Regular Meeting — Source video returned 404 (clip removed by city): https://fortsmithar.granicus.com/DownloadFile.php?view_id=4&clip_id=2669
- September 14, 2026 · Future Fort Smith Committee - Regular Meeting — Source video returned 404 (clip removed by city): https://fortsmithar.granicus.com/DownloadFile.php?view_id=4&clip_id=2662
- September 9, 2026 · Parks and Recreation Commission - Regular Meeting — No content available for enrichment (empty transcript + no agenda/minutes)
- September 8, 2026 · Planning Commission and Board of Zoning Adjustment - Regular Meeting — No content available for enrichment (empty transcript + no agenda/minutes)
- August 25, 2026 · Board of Directors - Study Session — Source video returned 404 (clip removed by city): https://fortsmithar.granicus.com/DownloadFile.php?view_id=4&clip_id=2475
Bodies covered (19)
Audit Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting · Board of Directors - Regular Meeting · Board of Directors - Special Meeting · Board of Directors - Special Meeting / Study Session · Board of Directors - Strategic Workshop · Board of Directors - Study Session · Central Business Improvement District - Regular Meeting · Civil Service Commission - Regular Meeting · Future Fort Smith Committee · Future Fort Smith Committee - Regular Meeting · Parks and Recreation Commission - Regular Meeting · Planning Commission and Board of Zoning Adjustment · Planning Commission and Board of Zoning Adjustment - Regular Meeting · Property Owners Appeal Board - Appeal Hearing 1 of 2 · Property Owners Appeal Board - Appeal Hearing 2 of 2 · Property Owners Appeal Board - Regular Meeting · River Valley Communications Center Board - Regular Meeting · Sales Tax Review Committee - Regular Meeting · Transit Advisory Commission - Regular Meeting
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.