"A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both."
— James Madison

Madison couldn't have imagined the amount of information we have today. Yet Americans know more about Washington than they do about their own local government. This shift has been documented by political scientist Daniel Hopkins, and has been ongoing since the media began to nationalize and local papers began crumbling.

Meanwhile, local officials most of us couldn’t name are making decisions that touch our day-to-day lives: what we pay in property tax, how our children’s schools are run, and whether that pothole on your road gets fixed.

Available isn't accessible

Governments have made open meeting laws and made information available by law, but there has never really been much of an effort to make it accessible. Most people aren't going to dig through city websites to pull up a meeting agenda PDF and read it.

While our jobs demand more of us, less time is available for people to be civically involved. Working people don’t go to meetings, not because they don’t care, but because the demands of daily life conflict with an involved democracy. Not saying you have to go to every meeting, or any meeting at all. But an informed populace is powerful.

So I built Publick

Publick is a website where you can find out the latest on your local government, from how the schools are doing to how many 311 requests are sitting in the backlog. You can even search for your own street, to see if there are any meetings coming up you might want to attend. Right now it covers Gloucester, Malden, and Manchester.

It isn't run by the city and doesn't endorse anyone. It's free, has no ads, and the code is open.

"Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governours, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."
— James Madison