Agendas & packets
The earliest signal
A first reading, a work-session discussion, a hearing set for next month.
Local, state & federal · — of US counties read daily
Every agenda in America. One haystack. Find your needle.
That map is made of agenda items: county boards, city councils, town meetings. We read every line, plus state bills and federal rules, and hand you the few that matter before the vote.
1Pick a topic. Watch the haystack.
2Pick how the needle reaches you.
Firstread alertsNew match: Solar & energy siting · a county board
now
County Commission · Agenda item 14
Moratorium on new commercial solar installations
Public hearing in 12 days · vote expected next month
+ more matches in today’s digest
Firstread · text message
New match (Solar & energy siting): Moratorium on new commercial solar installations, a county board. Public hearing in 12 days.
Reply DIGEST for a daily summary instead.
Delivered · now
Firstread alert lineincoming call · urgent topics only
“Hi, this is Firstread. A county board has put Moratorium on new commercial solar installations on its agenda. Public hearing in 12 days. Press 1 to hear it again.”
# policy-watch
Firstread APP now
Solar & energy siting · a county board
Moratorium on new commercial solar installations
Public hearing in 12 days
Government affairs › Alerts
Firstreadnow
Solar & energy siting
Moratorium on new commercial solar installations
Wherea county boardStatusPublic hearing in 12 days
Your matchesSolar & energy siting
- Moratorium on new commercial solar installationsa county board
- Setbacks for battery storage facilitiesanother county
- Siting rules for utility-scale winda city council
Needles found: 0Illustrative example alert
Real item: read the official record
“Animal ordinances” shows real items we found; the other topics are illustrative. Map shape and ink = our real county coverage (dark: monitored, faint: in progress) as of .
—of — US counties monitored
—cities, towns & townships tracked
—meeting items read in the last 30 days
+state legislation & federal rulemaking, same feed
Exhibit A · real needles
Not made up. Found this fall.
A sample of what our monitoring flagged on one topic, local animal ordinances, in recent weeks. Each item links to the government’s own agenda or record, so you can check it yourself.
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Orange County, FL · Board of County Commissioners
Exotic wildlife regulations (zoning work session)
· Board action: approved
Official record (opens the government’s page in a new tab) -
Uintah County, UT · County Commissioners
Zoning change to allow home-based and commercial breeding of certain animals
· Work session: ordinance under consideration
Official record (opens the government’s page in a new tab) -
Washoe County, NV · Board of County Commissioners
First reading: animal code amendment requiring training for pet handlers
· Second reading proposed for Nov 17, 2026
Official record (opens the government’s page in a new tab) -
Basehor, KS · City Council work session
Proposed revisions to the city animal control code
· Discussion; staff recommend approval
Official record (opens the government’s page in a new tab) -
Alpine, TX · City Council
Animals chapter amendments, including permits for exotic animals
· Public hearing and final reading
Official record (opens the government’s page in a new tab) -
Olivette, MO · City Council
Repeal and replacement of the city’s animals chapter
· Second reading
Official record (opens the government’s page in a new tab) -
Black Mountain, NC · Town Council
Animal code amendments adding language on bears
· Public hearing
Official record (opens the government’s page in a new tab) -
Hometown, IL · City Council
Ordinance amending the prohibited-animals section of the city code
· On the regular meeting agenda
Official record (opens the government’s page in a new tab)
Exhibit B · the real map
— of — counties, read every day.
The haystack up top is drawn from this data. A county counts once we’ve found where its government actually publishes (agendas and minutes, its code of ordinances, or both) and we read it daily. The rest are being worked on.
Loading map…
Coverage by state, as a table
| State | Counties monitored | Share | Cities & towns |
|---|
How it works
Hay in. Needles out.
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We gather the haystack
We find where every county, city and town actually posts its agendas, packets, minutes, notices and code, add the state legislatures and federal agencies above them, and read all of it every day. Yes, the 212-page packets too.
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We find your needles
Every new item is screened against your topics and judged in context, so a road named after a creek doesn’t set off a water-rights alert. New measures are read against the code they would change.
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We hand-deliver them
The item, the body, the meeting date and what happens next, often weeks before the final vote. Sent the way your team actually works.
What we read
The whole haystack, straw by straw.
Minutes
What really happened
Including the items that got tabled and will quietly come back.
Public notices
Required by law
Hearings, proposed ordinances and zoning changes that must be announced before a vote.
Codes of ordinances
The rules on the books
So a new measure can be read against exactly what it changes.
State bills & federal rules
The floors above
State legislation and agency rules, plus federal proposed and final rules, in the same feed as the local items. A county ordinance and a state bill are often the same idea, a year apart.
Alert delivery
However you want the needle, that’s how it arrives.
Per person, per topic, per urgency. Instant for the things that can’t wait, a daily or weekly digest for everything else.
Email
Instant alerts or one tidy digest, with the source page linked.
Text message
A short SMS when something on your top topics hits an agenda.
Phone call
An automated call for the truly urgent: a hearing this week.
Slack
Posted into the channel your team already watches.
Microsoft Teams
Alert cards in a team channel, ready to discuss.
Web dashboard
Every match, searchable and filterable, with the history behind it.
Who it’s for
People who can’t afford to miss the needle.
“Wait, when was the hearing?”
Advocacy & member groups
Hear about a proposed restriction while your members can still testify.
“They passed a moratorium where?”
Regulated industries
Energy siting, telecom, short-term rentals, retail, agriculture: every market, one feed.
“This ordinance looks… familiar.”
Policy & legal teams
Spot model ordinances as they hop from town to town, and read each against existing code.
“Why did nobody cover this?”
Newsrooms & researchers
Find the story at the agenda stage and follow a policy across jurisdictions.
Fine print, in normal-size print.
- What “monitored” means
- We’ve found where the county government (or the consolidated city-county that governs it) publishes its meeting agendas and minutes or its code of ordinances, and we read that source every day.
- Why some counties are gray
- Parts of New England, Alaska and a few other places have no county government. They aren’t counted; their towns and cities are tracked directly.
- Is it only local?
- No. State legislation and federal rulemaking come through the same pipeline. The map shows counties because that is the hard part: there are thousands of them and no two publish the same way.
- The haystack up top
- The agenda lines and the example alerts for most topics are illustrative, made up for this page. “Animal ordinances” and the and the list under the map heading are real itemsldquo;real needlesand the list under the map heading are real itemsrdquo; list below the haystack are real items our monitoring found, each linked to the official record. The shape and the ink density are real: dark where a county is monitored, faint where it is in progress.
- How we round
- Down. Always. If we’re at 92.9%, this page says 92%.
- How fresh the numbers are
- A snapshot, taken . Every number on this page comes straight from our coverage data, not from a copywriter.
Item 22: Adjournment
Meeting adjourned. You found it first.
Firstread is in private beta with a small number of teams.
Back to the haystack