Los Angeles launches website to make City Council proceedings easier to follow

Los Angeles residents can now more easily track City Council legislation, search public records and share feedback through a new online platform.

Launched Monday by the city clerk’s office, the Legislative Management System website allows residents to view upcoming City Council meetings and agendas, follow legislation from introduction through a final vote, and sign up for email alerts about council activities, committees or specific legislative matters. Residents can also comment on individual Council Files, with submissions becoming part of the public record. 

“We wanted to give the public a better window into the City Council as it legislates the issues that affect their lives. This site does exactly that,” Los Angeles City Clerk Patrice Lattimore said in a statement.

The Los Angeles City Council, comprising 15 council districts, serves a total population of nearly 4 million residents, with roughly 270,000 residents per district — making it one of the highest constituent-to-representative ratios of any major U.S. city, according to Fair Rep L.A. A proposal to expand the Los Angeles City Council has been shelved for the November 2026 ballot and deferred for further study by city leaders about how a bigger council might impact office budgets, council salaries and administrative powers.

The city clerk’s office said the new website is designed to simplify searches across more than 500,000 documents and 172,000 Council Files dating back to 1970. Users can search in everyday language without knowing specific file numbers or keywords. 

The platform is built using Concourse, a public sector software provider, which also supports the council’s internal legislative operations, including document intake, agenda creation, vote recording and meeting livestreams. Development began in May and the website launched in less than six months. 

“We’re really proud of the new Legislative Management System. It’s extremely intuitive,” Lattimore said.

Los Angeles’ effort reflects a growing trend among state and local governments to make online information and services easier to navigate. 

Governments often struggle to organize digital services around residents’ needs rather than internal agency structures. Improving search and navigation can help people find relevant information without having to understand how the government is organized.

Georgia’s Secretary of State’s office launched a chatbot earlier this month to help residents find government information online rather than searching through multiple webpages or calling the agency for assistance. GABBY, short for Georgia’s Automated Bot Built for You, provides answers using information published on the Secretary of State’s website. Like in Los Angeles, Georgia officials said the tool is intended to reduce time residents spend looking for government information in addition to help ease the workload on the agency’s call center employees.

Washington, D.C., launched a redesigned city website in June to help residents find information across agencies. Rather than requiring users to navigate multiple sites or manually scan menus, the new domain doubles as a service portal by consolidating information for D.C. residents, employees, businesses and visitors on programs and agencies with real-time content updates in one place.