Today is Documenters Day! It’s a day to celebrate the folks we train and pay to document local government meetings.
Who are Documenters? They are Greater Cleveland residents just like you. They range in age from their 20s to their 70s. They live in every ZIP code in Cleveland and most ZIP codes in Cuyahoga County.
They become part of Cleveland Documenters for a lot of different reasons: to build writing skills, to learn more about local government or Cleveland in general, to make some extra cash serving the public, or just to meet other civic-minded folks.
In this year alone, Cleveland Documenters have spent more than 3,100 hours on special assignments and covering public meetings, including:
- 143 Cleveland City Council meetings
- 39 Cleveland Board of Control meetings
- 43 Cleveland development-related meetings
- And 72 other meetings held by the Board of Elections, RTA, the Department of Children and Family Services and other agencies
Their work adds to a new public record of these meetings available to anyone at Documenters.org. The information they surface finds its way into Signal Cleveland’s meeting briefs and our newsletters. It guides our reporters and informs their work.
Documenters often have questions after a meeting. Their curiosity has led to Signal Cleveland explainers on local government, guides to local resources, and, sometimes, even a direct answer or two.
But, honestly, when we get together, the question I hear Documenters ask most often is: How do we make this information more accessible to residents so they can better understand local government?
That’s because, regardless of why they joined this community, they are all here to help make Greater Cleveland more informed and engaged.
That’s the real work of the Cleveland Documenters community: Strengthening democracy in our city.
And this work and the work of our reporters is why we’re asking for your support today. Give today and your donation will be doubled by NewsMatch. And, if you make a monthly donation, it’s matched for a full year.