FOIPub is designed to make local government easier to understand without asking readers to trust an unexplained summary. The public record comes first, and uncertainty stays visible when the record is incomplete.
Official meeting pages, agendas, packets, minutes, recordings, resolutions, ordinances, contracts, studies and other public records are preferred. Secondary reporting can provide context or a lead, but consequential claims should point back to the strongest available primary record.
Detailed meeting briefs separate the lead story, a 60-second summary, key things to know, verified decisions, public-comment themes and source links. Preliminary pages may appear before every supporting document is available and are upgraded as the record improves.
FOIPub publishes member-by-member positions only when an official recording, minutes or another reliable primary record supports them. If passage is clear but the exact tally or individual responses are not, the result is published without inventing the missing detail.
FOIPub may identify outside input, outside drafting, or a relevant financial or contractual relationship when reliable records establish it. Outside participation is not treated as evidence of wrongdoing, motive, coordination or quid pro quo.
Issue Trails connect a consequential topic across multiple meetings, votes and records. Missing chronology is not filled by inference. Each milestone should link to the strongest available source or a FOIPub meeting record that itself links to the source.
FOIPub can index petitions, complaints, written submissions and similar items once they enter the public record. Personal addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and other unnecessary contact information are not republished merely because they appear in a government document.
The available record does not establish where material policy language or the proposal originated.
Reliable records show an outside person or organization supplied information, recommendations, advocacy or requested action.
Reliable records show an outside person or organization supplied proposed language, a model policy, draft ordinance or comparable drafting assistance.
Reliable records show a relevant payment, contract, grant, employment, consulting, vendor or other formal financial relationship connected to the policy process.
Minutes may be posted after video, packets may gain attachments, and later records may clarify an earlier question. FOIPub is built to revisit recent coverage and update it when stronger evidence becomes available.
Livingston, Montana is FOIPub's first full locality dashboard.
Material factual corrections should be disclosed rather than silently rewritten.