# City Council Watch — New Ordinances & Upcoming Meetings (`m_ctim/city-council-watch`) Actor

Given a list of cities, get new ordinances/resolutions filed since a date and upcoming council meeting agendas — pulled from each city's own Legistar API, the system behind most US city council websites.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/m\_ctim/city-council-watch.md
- **Developed by:** [Timothy Kelvin](https://apify.com/m_ctim) (community)
- **Categories:** News
- **Stats:** 1 total users, 0 monthly users, 0.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

Pay per usage

This Actor is paid per platform usage. The Actor is free to use, and you only pay for the Apify platform usage, which gets cheaper the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-usage

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## City Council Watch — New Ordinances & Upcoming Meetings

Give it a list of cities. Get back new ordinances/resolutions filed since a
date, and upcoming council/committee meeting agendas — pulled straight from
each city's own **Legistar** system, the software behind most US (and some
Canadian) city council websites.

Built for local journalists, government-affairs and lobbying professionals,
real-estate developers tracking zoning votes, and civic-tech researchers who
currently check multiple city council sites by hand.

### Input

```json
{
  "cities": [{ "client": "seattle" }],
  "sinceDate": "2026-07-01",
  "keywordFilter": ["zoning", "housing"],
  "matterTypeFilter": [],
  "includeUpcomingMeetings": true
}
```

| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| `cities` | array | One entry per city: `{ "client": "seattle" }`. The client code is the subdomain of that city's Legistar site. |
| `sinceDate` | string | Only include matters introduced on or after this date (`YYYY-MM-DD`). |
| `keywordFilter` | array of strings | Only keep matters whose title contains one of these (case-insensitive). |
| `matterTypeFilter` | array of strings | Only keep matters whose type exactly matches one of these (e.g. `"Ordinance"`). |
| `includeUpcomingMeetings` | boolean | Also fetch upcoming council/committee meetings (default `true`). |

**Finding a city's client code:** open that city's council site — if it's
Legistar-powered, it'll redirect to or link `https://<client>.legistar.com`.
`seattle.legistar.com` → `"seattle"`. Not every city runs Legistar, and not
every guess matches the subdomain exactly (e.g. some counties use a
different code than their common name) — an unsupported/incorrect client
code fails that one city gracefully and the run continues with the rest.

### Output

Two kinds of records, tagged by `kind`:

```json
{
  "kind": "matter",
  "client": "seattle",
  "matterId": 17394,
  "file": "Appt 03569",
  "title": "Appointment of Kelli Larsen as Director of the Office of Housing.",
  "type": "Appointment (Appt)",
  "status": "Committee Agenda Ready",
  "body": "Housing, Arts, and Civil Rights Committee",
  "introDate": "2026-07-28T00:00:00",
  "agendaDate": "2026-08-12T00:00:00",
  "passedDate": null,
  "url": "https://seattle.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=17394&GUID=..."
}
```

```json
{
  "kind": "meeting",
  "client": "seattle",
  "eventId": 6814,
  "body": "Select Committee on the Comprehensive Plan",
  "date": "2026-08-05T00:00:00",
  "time": "9:30 AM",
  "location": "Council Chamber, City Hall\r\n600 4th Avenue\r\nSeattle, WA 98104",
  "agendaStatus": "Final",
  "agendaFile": "https://legistar2.granicus.com/seattle/meetings/.../Agenda.pdf",
  "url": "https://seattle.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?..."
}
```

### How it works

Direct calls to each city's own Legistar Web API — no scraping, no proxy,
no key:

- Matters (legislation): `webapi.legistar.com/v1/{client}/matters`
- Events (meetings): `webapi.legistar.com/v1/{client}/events`

Both are OData endpoints with server-side date filtering
(`MatterIntroDate ge datetime'...'`), so this actor only pulls what's
actually newer than `sinceDate`/today rather than filtering client-side
after downloading everything.

### Pricing note

Billed per **city queried**, not per matter or meeting returned — a city
with 50 new ordinances this month costs the same as one with 2.

# Actor input Schema

## `cities` (type: `array`):

One entry per city, e.g. { "client": "seattle" }. The client code is the subdomain of that city's Legistar site (seattle.legistar.com -> "seattle").

## `sinceDate` (type: `string`):

Only include legislative matters (ordinances, resolutions, etc.) introduced on or after this date (YYYY-MM-DD).

## `keywordFilter` (type: `array`):

Only keep matters whose title contains one of these (case-insensitive). Leave empty for all matters.

## `matterTypeFilter` (type: `array`):

Only keep matters whose type exactly matches one of these (e.g. "Ordinance", "Resolution"). Leave empty for all types.

## `includeUpcomingMeetings` (type: `boolean`):

Also fetch each city's upcoming council/committee meetings (from today onward).

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "cities": [
    {
      "client": "seattle"
    }
  ],
  "includeUpcomingMeetings": true
}
```

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "cities": [
        {
            "client": "seattle"
        }
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("m_ctim/city-council-watch").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "cities": [{ "client": "seattle" }] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("m_ctim/city-council-watch").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "cities": [
    {
      "client": "seattle"
    }
  ]
}' |
apify call m_ctim/city-council-watch --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,m_ctim/city-council-watch"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/MGJ0tgAArc3jkxzL3/builds/bzTas89ch09b6r4HO/openapi.json