Boulder Reporting Lab launches vote tracker to make city council decisions more publicly accessible

Boulder Reporting Lab is launching a vote tracker to document how members of the Boulder City Council have voted on a range of city matters.

This project is in its early stages. So far, we’ve compiled all officially approved meeting minutes since the swearing in of the current council on Dec. 7, 2023, organizing votes into a single, publicly available spreadsheet. No such record currently exists. The project page is here.

The primary goal of this project is to better inform voters about where their councilmembers stand on key city issues, particularly in the lead-up to the 2025 election and beyond. Future phases aim to examine earlier councils to identify trends and provide historical context for current news reporting. With more data, the public will be able to see more clearly where the differences lie.

The project seeks to promote transparency, making it easier for you to see what your elected officials are deciding — a fundamental role of our public service newsroom. Currently, these meeting minutes are only available in PDF format through the city’s central records archive, making it difficult to compare votes across time. 

The spreadsheet is based primarily on official, signed meeting minutes and includes information on councilmember attendance and votes on ordinances, housing projects, landmark applications, ballot measures and other city business. The most recently approved minutes are from the Sept. 19, 2024 city council meeting. This resource will be periodically updated as new meeting minutes are published.

The spreadsheet also seeks to document informal votes not captured in official minutes, such as nods of five — when at least five councilmembers signal agreement to move an item forward without a formal vote. We’ve coded every vote by topic, allowing you to see how each councilmember voted on issues like housing, climate change, the budget and more. 

So far, the council has voted unanimously on at least a dozen ordinances but has split on several key issues. These include the micro-unit housing project at 2206 Pearl Street, whether to consider a ceasefire resolution regarding the war in Gaza, and changes to rules for public participation at council meetings. 

Additionally, councilmembers have rarely called up new housing projects for additional public hearings or to send them to boards or commissions for further review, effectively approving these developments without extra scrutiny. Exceptions include a proposal to redevelop the site occupied by the Dark Horse bar and grill and a proposed multi-family project on Glenwood Drive.

At this stage, the vote tracker does not document call-ups for landmark alteration certificates or many votes taken on the consent agenda — a group of items often approved together without discussion. However, we plan to expand the tracker to include more comprehensive information.

We are building this as a community resource and welcome your feedback. Please explore the dataset and share your thoughts with John Herrick at john@boulderreportinglab.org.