About OpenBarrow
What is OpenBarrow?
OpenBarrow makes Barrow County Board of Commissioners meetings easier to understand. Every published meeting is broken down into individual agenda items with plain-language summaries, so you can quickly find out what was discussed and why it matters.
Who built this?
I built this because I wanted to make local government more accessible. Barrow County publishes agendas and packets, but they can be dense and hard to parse. OpenBarrow takes that information and presents it in a way that anyone can read in a few minutes.
How does the AI work?
Each agenda item's summary is generated using an AI language model (Claude by Anthropic), then reviewed and edited by a human before publication. The AI reads the raw agenda text and produces a 2–4 sentence summary answering "what is this and why is it being brought to the board?" The AI is instructed to preserve conditional language — if staff recommends something, the summary says "staff recommends," not "the board approved." Every summary is AI-assisted and human-reviewed.
What are the limitations?
I'm not a lawyer and not a journalist. Summaries may contain errors or miss nuance. Always refer to the official agenda and packet documents for authoritative information. Dollar amounts and parties are extracted automatically and may not capture every detail.
How do I report an error?
See something wrong? Email openbarrow@example.com.