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This week’s issue

A city contract nobody read, and the one page that mattered

Forty thousand dollars a month for a service nobody could name. I pulled the contract, read it twice and found the one page that explained it.

No. 96 · Nov 12, 2026 · 9 min read

Stone courthouse steps on a wet grey morning

The vendor was paid on invoices the city never checked. For three weeks I followed the paper from a council agenda to a basement archive, and then asked who signed off.

This week I go through the records line by line, show you how to find the same pages in your own city, and explain what the official answer left out.

Plus: your letters about records offices, and the request that came back with every line blacked out.

Read: A city contract nobody read, and the one page that mattered

Hands sorting highlighted photocopied records under a desk lamp

Notes from the field

A morning in the basement archive

The clerk who knows where everything is, the folder that was filed under the wrong year and a tip about asking for a box.

No. 92 · Oct 15, 2026 · 8 min read

Council chamber from the back row with residents in the front rows

Next issue: Thursday 19 November

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