Methodology
How OpenVirginia sources, transcribes, enriches, and indexes public meeting records.
What we hold for Norfolk
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
- 417
- Bodies covered
- 63
- Earliest record
- January 5, 2026
- Latest meeting
- October 29, 2026
Minutes are published on the body's own schedule, often weeks after the meeting.
97 published motions. A decision can only be extracted where minutes exist.
Next scheduled meeting on record: November 4, 2026.
Known source problems
- October 28, 2026 · Park Place/Lambert's Point Kensington Villa Heights Task Force - Regular — No content available for enrichment (empty transcript + no agenda/minutes)
- October 27, 2026 · City Council - Formal Session — No content available for enrichment (empty transcript + no agenda/minutes)
- February 26, 2026 · Planning Commission — No content available for enrichment (empty transcript + no agenda/minutes)
- February 12, 2026 · Planning Commission — No content available for enrichment (empty transcript + no agenda/minutes)
Bodies covered (63)
Architectural Review Board · Bicycling, Pedestrian, and Active Transportation Commission · Board of Zoning Appeals · Broad Creek Advisory Committee - Regular · Church Street/South Tidewater Drive - Regular · City Council · City Council - Budget Public Hearing · City Council - ChurchSt/TidewaterDr Task Force- 3+ Councilmembers · City Council - City Manager Budget Presentation · City Council - Downtown Norfolk Council +3 council maybe present · City Council - Formal Session · City Council - Greater Wards Corner Task Force- 3+ Councilmembers · City Council - Hampton Blvd Advisory Task Force-3+ Councilmembers · City Council - Informal Session · City Council - Joint Informal Session with School Board · City Council - Legislative Dinner · City Council - Mayor's Housing Commission - 3+ Councilmembers · City Council - Mayor's State of the City Address · City Council - OV Advisory Committee - 3+ Councilmembers · City Council - Proposed Real Property Tax Increase Public Hearing · City Council - Public Event - 3+ Councilmembers may be present · City Investment Management Committee · Civic Facilities Commission · Civil Service Commission · Coastal Management and Review Board · Commission for Persons with Disabilities · Commission on Aging/Long-Term Care · Community Policy and Management Team · E. Little Creek Advisory Committee - Regular · East Side Task Force - Regular · Economic Development Authority · Emergency Management - Committee · Erosion Advisory Commission · Ghent Task Force - Regular · Greater Lafayette Advisory Committee (formerly Fairmount Park Task Force) - Regular · Greater Norview Advisory Committee - Regular · Greater Park Place Task Force - Regular · Greater Wards Corner Task Force - Regular · Hampton Boulevard Advisory Task Force - Regular · Mayor's Advisory Committee/St. Paul's Area · Mayor's Commission on Housing - Regular · Military Economic Development Advisory Committee · Military Economic Development Advisory Committee - Joint Meeting · Norfolk Arts Commission - Regular · Norfolk Community Services Board · Norfolk Criminal Justice Board · Norfolk Employees' Retirement System · Norfolk Environmental Commission · Norfolk Police Fire-Trial Board · Norfolk Public Library Board · Norfolk Recreation Commission · Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority · Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority - Budget Proposal · Norfolk Wetlands Board · Ocean View Advisory Committee - Regular · Park Place/Lambert's Point Kensington Villa Heights Task Force - Regular · Planning Commission · Planning Commission - Public Hearing · Social Services Advisory Commission · Southside Task Force - Regular · The Tree Commission · Towing Advisory Board · Veterans Affairs Commission
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.