Vote tracker
How the Council voted.
A structured record of Altoona, Iowa Council roll-call votes — motion text, mover/seconder, and the aye/nay/abstain/absent breakdown — sourced directly from official meeting minutes.
Recorded votes
Applies to vote search, the charts, the property and business directory, public comment, and official remarks.
Each year counts the meetings whose minutes could be read. Other sessions are work sessions, special and budget meetings. Before 2020 most of them are known only because a later meeting approved their minutes; the City never posted those minutes, so what happened at them is unknown.
Record profiles
Council and mayor profiles
Open a source-bound profile for the people named in the records shown by the selected year.
* Vote records come from automated parsing of the City’s posted minutes. The count is best-effort and has known limitations, such as meetings without posted or readable minutes. See the methodology and known limits.
Selected member
Recorded vote summary
* Meeting and document coverage
Suggestions are addresses and businesses or applicants named in the records currently available for the selected year. Freeform search also matches agenda items, motions, and named members.
Vote key: aye = yes, nay = no, abstain = declined to vote, absent = marked A in the minutes: not present for that vote. A member who arrives late is marked absent on the items before they arrive. Moved and seconded come from the 1 and 2 marks, which also count as aye. A blank mark records no position; those votes carry a note.
| Details | Selected member | Vote / presence | Member positions | Source |
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Cumulative record
Roll calls over time
The Mayor's office
The Mayor casts no roll-call vote, so aye/nay/abstain don't apply; this tracks presence, presiding, and signing instead, from the same roll calls and the minutes' presiding and signature lines as everything above. Obeys the Year filter above.
Meetings presided by someone other than the Mayor
Every meeting in this period the minutes record as presided by a Mayor Pro Tem or Council member instead of the Mayor, with the Mayor's own roll-call status that same meeting (read from that meeting's own roll call, not assumed).
No votes are logged here yet.
This tracker contains only records with a source link and exact minutes locator. Coverage is limited to the meetings and member positions currently verified against the official archive. Browse the official agendas and minutes archive directly for the complete document history.
Methodology and coverage limitsHow this tracker is built
This tracker lists only Council roll-call votes that carry a direct minutes locator from the official agenda/minutes archive. The minutes record the outcome and the motion text; the roster and status labels are applied from the current council roster, and a member not named in a roll call is treated as absent rather than inferred. A source locator proves the official record cited here; it does not prove a broader narrative or a motion beyond the published document.
Property and business directory
Matters, projects, and named businesses
Every plat, rezoning, site plan, agreement and license the Council voted on, grouped into projects and named businesses.
Names and addresses are as printed in the cited minutes, nothing more. Sources and caveats
This view classifies each vote record and consent-agenda sub-item by the kind of property/business matter the minutes describe (plat, site plan, rezoning, development agreement, urban renewal, tax increment, vacation, easement, annexation, subdivision, license/permit, lease, purchase agreement, PUD, variance) using a deterministic, keyword-and-pattern grammar over the cited text -- never an inference about ownership, parcels, or affiliation beyond what the source document names. A household matter (a fee waiver, sewer/utility relief, red tag, individual variance, or a private person named with no business form) is listed here by matter type only: its name and address are withheld, the same as everywhere else on this site. A business or project appearing here means the Council voted on a matter naming it -- nothing about operation, ownership, or effectiveness. The same plat/development name is grouped into one project across matter types (a plat, its rezoning, its site plan, its development agreement) when the printed name matches; case and punctuation differences are normalized for grouping, but names are always shown as printed. Official-bio affiliations are separately sourced from reviewed City Mayor & Council biographies and do not add or modify directory entries.
Property and business matters per year
Every classified matter the Council voted on, by meeting year. Click a year to narrow the whole page to it.
Source: Council roll-call votes and consent-agenda items in the cited minutes, workshops included; the same records as the vote search.
Projects
One card per plat or development name, grouped across matter types (plat, rezoning, site plan, development agreement, urban renewal, PUD), its matters in date order.
Cumulative meeting record
Documented Council-meeting presence
Every documented person with a source-linked presence record is shown here, grouped by role. The source basis is shown on every row.
A record of documented presence, not a current roster; Public / Others appear as counts only, never names. Sources and caveats
One merged presence record for everyone the retained Council minutes document: the Mayor and Council from the roll call, City officials and Police from City Officials Present, and Public / Others as counts only (never names) from the public-comment and audience-attendance record. The Mayor casts no roll-call vote, so their card reports presided and signed counts, never a vote share. Neither record is a current roster or a claim of office, employment, role, affiliation, identity, duties, attendance at every meeting, or participation in an action. The page-level Year and Member filters above narrow this tab too.
Cumulative leaderboard
Each row gives the share of meetings the record documents: for the Mayor and Council, out of the meetings in their tenure; for everyone else, out of every known Council meeting through the coverage date above, every session counted, workshops included. Open a row for the facts, sources and a cumulative chart (solid: documented, joined only between back-to-back meetings held; dotted: meetings in tenure; dashed: all meetings held; shaded: meetings with no readable minutes).
Public comment
What residents told the Council
Everyone the retained minutes record speaking under Citizens request to address council, what they raised, and any reply from a City official.
Summaries paraphrase the minutes and are not transcripts; private speakers appear as first name and last initial. Sources and caveats
This record lists who the official minutes say spoke during that slot, the topic, and any reply the minutes attribute to a City official. Speakers usually state their name and address, and the minutes print both; this site shows private speakers as first name and last initial, names officials in full, and never publishes home addresses or contact details. Summaries paraphrase the minutes, which already paraphrase the speaker, so they are not transcripts. Online-chat text entered into the minutes is summarized. Statements about a public official’s official conduct are reported as the speaker’s attributed statements, quoting the minutes where it matters, not as findings. Allegations against private people and details about third parties are not repeated.
How to be heard
Any regular Council meeting: speak under Citizens request to address council on any topic not on that night's agenda, and it goes into the minutes. Agenda items such as public hearings have their own comment period. Times and remote options are on the posted agenda; see the next meeting.
What residents raise
Public-comment topics by year
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Source: the Citizens request to address council item of each retained Council minutes, as summarized on this page (JSON feed).
How often residents use the public-comment slot Open for the share by year
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Year by year: minutes reviewed, speakers and online chat
| Year | Minutes reviewed | Meetings with a speaker | Share | Speaker entries | Online chat |
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Most frequent public speakers Residents who spoke at the most meetings, first names onlyOpen for the ranked list
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| Rank |
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Meetings not counted
Counts come from automated parsing of the official minutes and are a best effort. Only private members of the public are counted: Council members, the mayor, City officials and staff, police, and anyone the minutes list as speaking for an office, business, or organization are left out. Names appear as a first name only, with no initial or other identifying detail, and the list does not link to anyone’s comments or describe what they said. To correct a count or ask to be left off this list, send a correction request.
Meetings with the most public participation Meetings ranked by speakers and others presentOpen for the ranked meetings
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| Topics that drew a speaker |
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Ranked by meeting, not by person -- see “Most frequent public speakers” above for the person-ranked list. Speakers is how many people the minutes record speaking during public comment that meeting; Others present is how many people the minutes name under “Audience Present,” not counting anyone the minutes list as an official, consultant, or staff member. Audience members’ individual names are never published; only counts are. The minutes record attendance inconsistently, so a meeting missing from this list may simply be undocumented, not free of turnout. Per-year totals and a trend chart are on the Council page. To correct a count, send a correction request.
Official remarks
What officials said, per the minutes
Every remark the retained minutes attribute to the Mayor, a Council member, a police officer or another named City official, filed by year, month, meeting and agenda item.
The text is the minutes' own paraphrase of what named officials said, not a transcript. Sources and caveats
A searchable record of every remark the retained Council minutes attribute to a named City official, Council member, or the mayor, such as "Community Development Director John Shaw stated…". The text is the minutes' own paraphrase, not a transcript. Home addresses are withheld, and public-comment speakers named in a remark are shown as first name and last initial. A remark counts only when the minutes pair a named official with a speech verb, so motions and roll calls are not included, and minutes not yet on this site could not be searched. Department head reports, including the police chief's, are listed in the minutes by name only, so they add no remark text. Each remark is grouped by the title the minutes print beside the name, or the person's role on that date: Mayor, Council (including mayor pro tem), Police, or City officials. Each name links to that person's profile, and each remark links to its source page with a permalink and a citation.
Remarks per year, by role
Browse
Every remark, by year, month, meeting and item
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What was said
Every public comment, by year, month, meeting and item
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