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Repeal and Reenactment of the Nuisance Ordinance

Board Letter
Ventura County Board of Supervisors • Oct 6, 2026

The Ventura County Board of Supervisors will hold a public hearing on a proposed ordinance to repeal and reenact the Nuisance Ordinance, establishing procedures for abating public nuisances and imposing administrative penalties up to $10,000 per violation. This aims to modernize code compliance and expedite responses to threats to public health and safety.

Vina Groundwater Sustainability Agency Presentation

Presentation
Chico City Council • Oct 6, 2026

The City of Chico, a member of the Vina Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA), is reviewing a draft Periodic Evaluation and amended Groundwater Sustainability Plan. The plan aims to manage groundwater sustainably, protecting municipal water supply, domestic wells, and environmental resources like the urban forest. The City Council will provide feedback on the plan.

Agreement for Permit-Ready Accessory Dwelling Unit Plans

Agenda Item
Danville Town Council • Oct 6, 2026

The Danville Town Council will vote on a resolution to authorize the Town Manager to execute a $49,460 agreement with Inspired ADUs, Inc. for the development of five permit-ready Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) plans. These plans, funded by a state grant, will be available to residents at no cost, aiming to streamline ADU construction.

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Performance Audit of the Vacant Property Tax

Report
Oakland City Council•Jul 13, 2026

format_quoteSource passage

Receive An Informational Report From The City Auditor On The Performance Audit Of The Vacant Property Tax

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Latest updates

epistimi notifications panel showing new filings

September 23, 2026

New: notifications for the government bodies you follow

epistimi now notifies you when a government body you follow publishes a new filing, such as an agenda, a proclamation, or a policy committee packet. A bell in the header shows what's new and lets you mark everything as read, so you can stop checking portals by hand and open the original document the moment it appears.

epistimi coverage: 415 organizations across 39 states

August 30, 2026

epistimi now covers more than 400 organizations

epistimi now tracks 415 government bodies across 39 U.S. states, up from 330 sources in July. The growth is concentrated in the local layer of government: city councils, county boards, and municipal agencies that generalist search tools and most public-records platforms cover poorly. You can browse every organization we follow on the Sources page.

epistimi sources milestone

July 7, 2026

epistimi surpasses 330 sources scraped

We've crossed a new milestone: 330 government sources now scraped and searchable on epistimi. Our focus remains on the local layer of government, city councils, counties, and infrastructure authorities, that generalist search tools and even most public-records platforms cover poorly, if at all. These bodies produce some of the most consequential documents for local reporting, and they're exactly where existing tools fall short. Growing this coverage is central to how we're building epistimi.

International Journalism Festival

April 20, 2026

epistimi at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia

We had a great time at this year's International Journalism Festival in Perugia, connecting with journalists, researchers, and media thinkers from around the world. It was a valuable chance to share what we're building and hear directly from the people who work with primary sources every day. We also came away with a list of interesting new tools for investigative journalism that caught our attention, which we wrote about here.

Frequently asked questions

epistimi is a search platform for official government documents. It brings together records published by city councils, county boards, and local agencies, makes them searchable in one place, and shows you where in each document an answer comes from.

Document search is the foundation. We are adding features that help professionals follow, save, and cite public records as part of their everyday work.

epistimi is built for people whose work depends on official government sources: journalists and researchers, legal counsel, regulatory advisers, compliance teams, and real estate and land-use professionals.

If you need to know what a local government decided, when it decided it, and which document shows it, epistimi is built for you.

The search covers official government documents and publications, including ordinances, resolutions, agendas, minutes, transcripts, staff reports, and audits. These come from local government bodies such as city councils, county boards, mayor's offices, comptrollers, planning commissions, agencies, and public authorities.

epistimi covers more than 400 government bodies across 39 U.S. states, including city councils, county boards, and municipal agencies. You can browse the full list on our Sources page.

Coverage is actively expanding, and additional government bodies can be suggested via the Sources Request Form.

Google is designed to search the entire web. This platform is purpose built to search only official government documents and publications.

Instead of sending you through outdated pages, secondary sources, or blogs, we focus exclusively on authoritative sources from government bodies and make them searchable in one place. Every result leads you directly to an official, government‑issued document.

Compared to navigating individual government websites, this saves time by eliminating fragmentation, inconsistent layouts, and manual searching across dozens of portals. Many public documents are published as low‑quality scans that are difficult to search, so we apply OCR to make their contents discoverable.

Yes. Follow the councils, boards, and agencies you care about, and epistimi notifies you in the app when they publish a new filing, such as an agenda or a committee packet. Email alerts for followed bodies and topics are in development.

No. epistimi does not cover case law, court filings, or federal regulations, and it does not offer citator features. It covers the local legislative and administrative record: the ordinances, resolutions, minutes, transcripts, and staff reports that local governments publish and that are rarely found in one place elsewhere. It is designed to work alongside the tools you already use.

Yes, for now. epistimi is free while we build and expand the platform. As coverage and capabilities grow, we plan to introduce paid plans, including plans for teams, while keeping the tool affordable and accessible for individual journalists and researchers, including freelancers.

You can ask the smart assistant questions about a document you're viewing. It responds based on the information available in the document and always points you to the specific section where the information appears, so you can verify the source yourself.

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