Civic sourcebook
The public sources behind every figure on this site, and free starting points for City of Altoona, Polk County, Iowa, and federal records. A source can establish only what its underlying document says. Records the City released to records requests, redacted, are on Records requests.
Each source below says which pages use it and, under How this data is used, what the site takes from it and what it leaves out. To report a citation that is wrong or missing, leave a message.
The same files the pages read, free to download. Each row carries the link to the record it came from. Every chart also has a Cite and download button for the rows it shows, as CSV or JSON.
Official records
The City’s own records. Most of the site’s Council, people and pay figures come from these.
Official Council agendas and minutes. Check the document date and item locator before describing an action.
Used on Votes · Council · Meetings · People · Pay
What we take: roll-call votes, movers and seconders, attendance, meeting times, officials’ remarks, public comment, and Council pay actions, each linked back to the minutes with a page or item locator.
What we leave out: public speakers appear by first name and last initial only; nothing in the minutes is corrected, so an error in the original is shown and explained.
The City no longer serves its minutes from before 2020. The copies the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine saved are the record for those years, and each citation links to that capture.
Used on Votes · Council · People
What we take: the same vote, attendance and remark fields as the current minutes, marked as older records beside every number they qualify.
What we leave out: records before 2020 are thinner: fewer meetings were saved, and some scans are hard to read. Gaps are recorded, not filled in.
City pages link to Planning and Zoning, Board of Adjustment, Arts and Culture, and library board archives.
Used on People
What we take: titles and terms for officials named in the minutes.
What we leave out: applicants and petitioners before a board are private parties and are not named.
The City’s precinct and polling-place page. Polling places can change by election; the Polk County Auditor is authoritative for voting.
Used on Civic district lookup
What we take: precinct names and polling places, linked back here.
What we leave out: the lookup runs in your browser; the street you type is not saved or sent.
Precinct and polling context, and the City’s statement that all five Council members are elected at large.
Used on Council · Civic district lookup
What we take: the at-large structure of the Council.
What we leave out: nothing beyond the City’s own wording.
The City’s and department’s current accounts of ALPR approvals, controls, and ARTIC. The annual report is the department’s own posted link. These are primary agency statements, not independent verification.
Used on Police · ALPR tracker · Why
What we take: camera counts and statements in the agency’s own words, quoted briefly and dated.
What we leave out: a statement is shown as the agency’s claim, beside the records that bear on it, never as a verified fact.
Contracts, invoices, Policy 424, a records-retention schedule, City memos, annual reports, white papers, and the shared-network export, released by the City under Iowa Code chapter 22.
Used on Records requests · ALPR tracker
What we take: the redacted copies as the City released them, hosted on this site, each with what was removed and what the batch shows.
What we leave out: exact request dates; the page groups requests by topic and season.
Vendor portals
What the camera vendors and the City’s camera program publish about themselves. These are the vendors’ numbers, shown as the vendors report them.
Flock Safety’s transparency portal for Altoona’s Flock ALPR system. Portal metrics are the vendor’s, distinct from official City records.
Used on ALPR tracker · Home page
What we take: the portal’s rolling 30-day figures, dated by the portal’s own data date, with a raw copy of each reading kept.
What we leave out: Flock and Axon figures are never added together; nothing about individual plates, searches or cameras appears.
An independent aggregator of Flock Safety transparency-portal data.
Used on ALPR tracker
What we take: the daily copy of Altoona’s Flock portal figures, credited on the tracker, and checked against direct portal readings whenever both exist; older readings come from Internet Archive captures of its pages.
What we leave out: its figures for other agencies, except the approved nearby set the tracker already shows.
Axon’s public page for Altoona’s Axon ALPR system: the policy text and the system’s transparency figures. The policy wording is a dated source document, not proof of a separate audit or local use event.
Used on ALPR tracker · Police
What we take: the page’s rolling 30-day figures, read daily, and the policy wording, dated.
What we leave out: any reading of the “Other” hit category, which the page never defines; it is shown as the vendor labels it.
Connect Altoona’s privacy FAQ describing the private-camera registry, permissioned footage requests, conditional live access, and AI video-search questions. It describes a program, not verified individual access or participation.
Used on News
What we take: the program description, quoted briefly with a link.
What we leave out: who has registered a camera; the site never lists participants.
Citywide statistics
Whole-city estimates and reported-offense series. They describe Altoona as a whole, never a street, household or person.
Sample-based population, income, earnings, workforce, poverty, housing, and rent estimates with margins of error. Area estimates are not personal or household facts.
Used on Altoona by the numbers · Home page
What we take: citywide table values with their margins of error, copied from data.census.gov.
What we leave out: anything below the city level; the estimates are never tied to an address or used to judge the cameras.
Agency-level reported offenses, clearances, rates, population, and reporting metadata.
Used on Altoona by the numbers · ALPR tracker
What we take: the agency’s reported-offense and clearance totals by year, with the FBI’s own reporting notes.
What we leave out: neighborhood or address crime, and any claim that the cameras did or did not change crime.
County and state
County and state records relevant to Altoona residents, and the law that governs records requests.
County action and meeting records relevant to Altoona residents.
Used on No page cites it for a figure; listed as a starting point.
What we take: nothing yet; listed as a starting point for county action.
County election administration, voter registration, and polling-place confirmation for Altoona precincts.
Used on Civic district lookup
What we take: a pointer for confirming where to vote.
What we leave out: voter records of any kind.
Official county portal for requesting records not already posted online.
Used on Records guide
What we take: a link for readers making their own requests.
The state board that keeps public-employee union contracts on file, including the Altoona police contract.
Used on Pay
What we take: police pay rates by title and step from the contract on file, rechecked against the contract’s own annual figures.
What we leave out: any individual’s earnings; rates only.
State and local datasets covering budgets, public safety, infrastructure, geography, and more.
Used on No page cites it for a figure; listed as a starting point.
What we take: nothing yet; listed as a starting point.
Bills, code, committee records, fiscal notes, and legislative documents.
Used on Records requests
What we take: citations to Iowa Code sections.
Official legislature PDF for Iowa’s public-records statute, including access rights, confidentiality exceptions, and fee language.
Used on Records requests
What we take: the statute the site’s requests are made under, cited by section.
Official state guidance on request methods, response timing, complaints, and records-request fees.
Used on Records guide
What we take: the board’s guidance, linked for readers.
Court announcements, opinions, and public court-record search tools. Filings and charges are not proof of guilt.
Used on Court rulings
What we take: Iowa appellate opinions, cited by court and case number.
What we leave out: criminal cases involving private people.
Transportation and roadway datasets. Check the publisher, update date, and data definitions.
Used on No page cites it for a figure; listed as a starting point.
What we take: nothing yet; listed as a starting point.
Agency announcements and public-safety information. Confirm the specific agency record before reporting.
Used on No page cites it for a figure; listed as a starting point.
What we take: nothing yet; listed as a starting point.
Courts and federal records
Rulings on ALPR and location tracking, and federal records. A ruling elsewhere describes that case, not Altoona.
Published opinions and orders. Where a court does not post a ruling itself, the link goes to the free public copy that CourtListener’s RECAP archive, Cornell’s Legal Information Institute or the Electronic Frontier Foundation keeps.
Used on Court rulings · Police
What we take: the court’s holding in a sentence or two, cited by court and docket number, with a link to the opinion.
What we leave out: the names of private parties to a case; a case is named by its docket number.
Federal awards, contracts, and assistance data. Verify recipient, award date, and local connection.
Used on No page cites it for a figure; listed as a starting point.
What we take: nothing yet; listed as a starting point.
Federal open-data catalog. The underlying agency dataset is the controlling source.
Used on No page cites it for a figure; listed as a starting point.
What we take: nothing yet; listed as a starting point.
Federal bills, actions, and congressional records. A filed bill is not enacted law.
Used on No page cites it for a figure; listed as a starting point.
What we take: nothing yet; listed as a starting point.
Federal rulemaking dockets and comments. A proposal is not a final rule.
Used on No page cites it for a figure; listed as a starting point.
What we take: nothing yet; listed as a starting point.
Maps and volunteer mapping
Volunteer-built map data. It is not a government record, and the site labels it that way wherever it appears.
The open, volunteer-built world map. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database License (ODbL).
Used on ALPR tracker · Camera check · Coverage · Civic lookup
What we take: city boundaries and roads from a saved, simplified OpenStreetMap extract, and the background map, which loads only when you turn it on in Settings. Each map credits OpenStreetMap contributors.
What we leave out: pages use the saved extract, so nothing is requested from OpenStreetMap unless you turn the background map on.
An open-source project mapping license-plate readers in OpenStreetMap and explaining ALPR systems. It is not a government record.
Used on ALPR tracker · Home page · Why
What we take: a volunteer-mapped camera total, labeled unverified, on pages that carry an on/off switch for it, which remembers your choice.
What we leave out: camera IDs, exact positions in text or downloads, and any breakdown of who runs a camera.
Outside reporting
Reporting by others, credited to the outlet and author. Their findings are cited as theirs, with a link, beside the record where a reader would look for them, and are never folded into the site’s own figures.
An Iowa-based accountability desk covering surveillance and data sharing. Report cited: “Altoona’s Plate Reader Network Goes Beyond Flock,” by Timothy C. Tucker, September 14, 2026, updated September 17.
Used on Records requests · Police · ALPR tracker
What we take: the outlet’s headline, date and a short summary as an External report card, with the author credited and a link to the report. We do not check the outlet’s claims.
What we leave out: nothing is restated as our finding until our own records show it.
National and local news outlets the site links to for context.
What we take: a link and a short attributed summary in stories, and outside coverage on a profile.
What we leave out: long quotes; the outlet’s article is linked, not copied.
Cedar Rapids reporting and resources on surveillance, public records, contracts, cameras, and accountability.
Council vote database · Sources · About EyesOffCR
Used on About
What we take: a link as a related project.
What we leave out: its Cedar Rapids figures; they describe another city.
Context
Advocacy groups that take positions on surveillance. They are linked for context; the site cites none of them for a fact about Altoona and is not affiliated with any of them.
Independent privacy and civil-liberties organizations.
What we take: links to their explainers, labeled as an advocacy group’s view.
What we leave out: their positions are never presented as a record.
Independent digital-rights organizations, listed as external resources.
Used on No page cites it for a figure; listed as a starting point.
What we take: nothing; listed as resources only.