Phoenix City Council Data

A comprehensive data collection and analysis project for Phoenix City Council voting records.

Overview

This project collects, processes, and stores voting data from Phoenix City Council Formal Meetings. The goal is to build a public transparency database covering 10 years of council voting history (2015-2025).

Data Sources

Source	Data	Method
Legistar API	Meeting metadata, agenda items, vote tallies	REST API
Legistar Website	Individual votes, document URLs	Playwright scraping
Phoenix.gov	YouTube video links	Manual/semi-automated
YouTube RSS	Recent video links	XML parsing

Data Collected

• Meetings: Date, type, document URLs, video links
• Agenda Items: File number, title, description, vote tally, action
• Individual Votes: How each council member voted on each item
• Council Members: Name, district, term dates

Project Structure

PhoenixCityCouncil/
├── Scripts
│   ├── fetch_2020_data_enhanced.py    # Q1 2020 data collection
│   ├── fetch_2024_data_enhanced.py    # 2024 data collection
│   ├── fetch_2024_data.py             # Basic API-only fetch
│   └── fetch_youtube_videos.py        # Video URL extraction
│
├── Data (CSV)
│   ├── phoenix_council_2020_Q1_enhanced.csv
│   └── phoenix_council_2024_Q1_enhanced.csv
│
├── Documentation
│   ├── DATA_COLLECTION_WORKFLOW.md    # Step-by-step workflow
│   ├── DATA_EXTRACTION_COMPARISON.md  # Source comparison
│   ├── OPERATIONAL_MODES.md           # Backlog vs incremental
│   ├── OPTIMIZATION_RECOMMENDATIONS.md
│   ├── SCRAPING_PROCESS.md            # Technical details
│   ├── PhoenixCityCouncil_DBdraft.md  # Database schema
│   └── CLAUDE_USAGE_GUIDE.md          # AI assistant usage
│
└── README.md

Quick Start

Prerequisites

pip install requests playwright
playwright install chromium

Collect Q1 2024 Data

# Basic API data
python fetch_2024_data.py

# Enhanced with individual votes
python fetch_2024_data_enhanced.py --start-month 1 --end-month 4

Collect Q1 2020 Data

python fetch_2020_data_enhanced.py --start-month 1 --end-month 4

Output CSV Format

Column	Description
MeetingDate	Date (YYYY-MM-DD)
FileNumber	Legislation ID (e.g., "24-0123")
AgendaItemTitle	Item title
EventItemTally	Vote count (e.g., "7-0")
EventItemVideo	YouTube video URL
Kate Gallego (Mayor)	Individual vote
...	(all 9 council members)

See SCRAPING_PROCESS.md for full column list.

Council Members

2024 Roster

District	Member
Mayor	Kate Gallego
D1 (Vice Mayor)	Ann O'Brien
D2	Jim Waring
D3	Debra Stark
D4	Laura Pastor
D5	Betty Guardado
D6	Kevin Robinson
D7	Yassamin Ansari
D8	Kesha Hodge Washington

2020 Roster (Different Members)

District	Member
D1 (Vice Mayor)	Thelda Williams
D6	Sal DiCiccio
D7	Michael Nowakowski
D8	Carlos Garcia

Database Schema

See PhoenixCityCouncil_DBdraft.md for the full database schema designed to support:

• Member voting history
• Controversial vote tracking
• Attendance statistics
• Legislation search

Data Collection Status

Period	Status	Rows	Video Coverage
Q1 2020	✅ Complete	636	84% (5/6 meetings)
Q1 2024	✅ Complete	639	100% (6/6 meetings)

License

This project collects publicly available government data for transparency purposes.

Contributing

Contributions welcome! See the documentation files for technical details on the data collection process.