Utilities, franchises and solid waste
How much of the council's recorded discussion was about utilities, franchises and solid waste, and how contentious it was, year by year.
Scores of the written record, normalized by era. Minutes are the clerk's summaries, not transcripts: tone is muted and the style changed with each clerk and era, so every score is compared only with meetings of the same minute-style era (1962-1979 narrative minutes, 1980-2004, 2005-2016, 2017 on) and shown as a percentile of that era. Signals: divided and failed votes, motions that died for lack of a second, tabled or postponed items, amended motions, ordinance readings that stalled, hearings with objections, public appearances, the length of an item's discussion compared with its era, and words such as "objected", "protest", "concern", "thanked" or "commended", each kept with the sentence it came from. Only pages whose reading scores at or above the archive's score target count. The record is scored, not people: no resident is named or scored, and members appear only through their recorded votes. Meetings named as the most contentious or most congenial are published only after a person reviewed them.
320items on this topic
213meetings
3.0%share of discussion (era average)
11contentious items
4divided votes
A recurring struggle: contentious items in 6 decades (1960s: 1, 1970s: 1, 1980s: 2, 1990s: 3, 2010s: 2, 2020s: 2).
Items per year
| Year | Items | Share of the year's items | Contentious | Mean contention |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1963 | 1 | 1% | 0.07 | |
| 1964 | 1 | 1% | 0.05 | |
| 1965 | 2 | 2% | 0.01 | |
| 1966 | 2 | 3% | 0.06 | |
| 1967 | 1 | 2% | 0.11 | |
| 1968 | 3 | 2% | 0.09 | |
| 1969 | 10 | 6% | 1 | 0.13 |
| 1970 | 5 | 3% | 0.14 | |
| 1971 | 3 | 4% | 0.08 | |
| 1972 | 3 | 2% | 0.07 | |
| 1973 | 9 | 11% | 0.14 | |
| 1974 | 2 | 2% | 0.18 | |
| 1975 | 4 | 3% | 0.11 | |
| 1976 | 9 | 5% | 1 | 0.08 |
| 1977 | 11 | 7% | 0.10 | |
| 1978 | 9 | 5% | 0.05 | |
| 1980 | 1 | 1% | 0.00 | |
| 1981 | 6 | 2% | 0.06 | |
| 1982 | 1 | 1% | 0.11 | |
| 1983 | 5 | 2% | 0.07 | |
| 1984 | 7 | 2% | 0.14 | |
| 1985 | 10 | 7% | 0.06 | |
| 1986 | 5 | 3% | 0.15 | |
| 1987 | 3 | 2% | 0.10 | |
| 1988 | 21 | 7% | 1 | 0.14 |
| 1989 | 8 | 4% | 1 | 0.10 |
| 1990 | 16 | 7% | 2 | 0.16 |
| 1997 | 1 | 10% | 0.15 | |
| 1998 | 2 | 1% | 0.15 | |
| 1999 | 14 | 3% | 1 | 0.10 |
| 2000 | 6 | 3% | 0.05 | |
| 2001 | 5 | 2% | 0.10 | |
| 2002 | 1 | 1% | 0.10 | |
| 2007 | 1 | 2% | 0.16 | |
| 2008 | 6 | 2% | 0.00 | |
| 2009 | 2 | 4% | 0.06 | |
| 2010 | 1 | 0% | 0.00 | |
| 2012 | 4 | 1% | 0.08 | |
| 2013 | 8 | 1% | 0.03 | |
| 2014 | 7 | 2% | 1 | 0.14 |
| 2015 | 4 | 1% | 0.06 | |
| 2016 | 5 | 1% | 0.06 | |
| 2017 | 1 | 0% | 0.06 | |
| 2018 | 35 | 5% | 0.07 | |
| 2019 | 17 | 2% | 1 | 0.06 |
| 2020 | 17 | 3% | 0.07 | |
| 2021 | 16 | 3% | 1 | 0.07 |
| 2022 | 2 | 0% | 0.00 | |
| 2024 | 1 | 0% | 0.03 | |
| 2025 | 1 | 0% | 0.00 | |
| 2026 | 5 | 1% | 1 | 0.21 |
Reviewed examples
Examples appear here once meetings on this topic have been reviewed by a person.
Data last updated October 21, 2026. Built from the archive's documents; see how the data is built.