About this project
Making Bedford Easier to Follow
Local government asks a lot of residents. Meetings are long. Agendas are dense. Replays are useful, but not always realistic for busy people.
Town Board in Minutes is an experiment in making Bedford easier to follow. After each meeting, we will use publicly available meeting materials and replay video to create a short audio recap. The goal is not to replace the official record. It is to help more residents know what happened, what matters, and where to look next.
What each recap covers
- What was discussed. The topics on the agenda, plain and clear
- What was decided. Votes, approvals, and resolutions
- What is still open. Items deferred, debated, or unresolved
- What to follow next. What residents may want to track going forward
These recaps are unofficial, AI-assisted, and human-reviewed. Residents should rely on the Town's official minutes, agendas, and meeting recordings for the formal record.
Latest Recap
Coming soon: Bedford Town Board Recap
The first short recap will appear here once the next Town Board meeting audio overview is published.
All Episodes
Coming soon
Bedford Town Board Recap
A short, plain-English recap of what was discussed, what was decided, and what residents may want to follow next.
Coming soon
Budget, roads, zoning, and other things people meant to follow
A future recap focused on the practical items that affect daily life in Bedford.
Coming soon
What happened at the meeting?
A quick audio overview for residents who care about town government but do not have an hour to spare.
The production prompt
The Instruction Set
The exact instructions used to produce each recap will be published here in full once the workflow is finalized. The placeholder below reflects the current working approach.
Use the public replay video for this Bedford Town Board meeting. Create a short audio overview featuring two hosts who clearly and fairly recap the meeting for residents. Focus on what was discussed, what was decided, what remains unresolved, and what a resident might want to follow next. Keep the tone plainspoken, calm, and useful. Do not add facts that are not supported by the meeting materials. Note: The exact production instructions will be added once the workflow is finalized.
How this was built
This Campaign Shows Its Work
Town Board in Minutes is part of this campaign's open use of low-cost technology. The recaps use publicly available Town Board meeting materials. AI helps turn long meetings into short, accessible audio summaries, and human review remains part of the process.
Public meeting materials
Each recap is built from publicly available sources: agendas, official minutes, and the Town's own meeting replay video. No private information is used.
AI-assisted summarization
A production prompt guides an AI to create a short, balanced overview of the meeting — plain English, no spin, nothing beyond what the materials support.
Human review
Every recap is reviewed before it is published. The goal is accuracy and fairness, not speed.
Published and shared
For this project, we used AI to summarize a public meeting replay and produce a short podcast-style recap that residents can listen to in about five minutes.