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Daily build note · May 27, 2026

Data Center Civic Radar

A local proposal, moratorium, utility-impact, and public-meeting tracker for communities facing AI/data-center development fights, with alerts, source-linked project pages, weekly change...

Civic / Political Tracking Tools Build note published Public demo coming soon

What shipped

  • A dependency-free local web dashboard that runs with npm start.
  • Seeded watchlist with 8 pilot jurisdictions and 12 source records.
  • Alert inbox with filters for jurisdiction, status, source type, issue, confidence, and deadline window.
  • Radar item detail panel with source evidence, structured fields, timeline, resident questions, recommended actions, and uncertainty flags.
  • Manual source intake that runs local deterministic detection.
  • Weekly change brief view.
  • Markdown, CSV, and JSON export helpers.
  • Local smoke test at npm run smoke.

Architecture

  • Static HTML/CSS/ES modules plus a tiny Node static server, avoiding install friction and external credentials.
  • localStorage persistence for demo state and resettable seed data.
  • Shared detection/export modules used by both the browser UI and smoke test.
  • Deterministic keyword scanning instead of live LLM or scraping, matching the brief's conservative first-pass requirement.
  • Source-linked claims and explicit unknown fields to avoid overstating uncertain facts.

Trimmed scope

  • No Express API, SQLite, Vite, or React; the app is smaller and easier to inspect locally.
  • No live agenda, bill, utility, RSS, or news adapters.
  • No PDF extraction, auth, teams, billing, notifications, or email delivery.
  • No model-backed summarization.
  • Seed URLs are demo placeholders rather than verified live public records.

Limitations

  • Keyword detection cannot reliably identify code names, shell companies, or indirect industrial references.
  • Demo source records need replacement with verified source URLs before public use.
  • Local browser storage is not multi-user and has no audit trail.
  • Deadline sorting is only as good as source-provided dates.
  • The UI generates resident questions and research prompts, not testimony or factual impact conclusions.

Verification

Run:

``bash npm run smoke ``

Expected result:

``text Smoke test passed: seed load, detection, filtering, detail model, manual source detection, and exports. ``

Suggested next steps

  1. Add a file-backed JSON store or SQLite layer for repeatable operator use.
  2. Replace demo URLs with verified source records from the stage-1 report.
  3. Add agenda/PDF intake for pasted text plus local file extraction.
  4. Add adapter interfaces for Legistar, Granicus, Novus, state bill trackers, and utility dockets.
  5. Add a reviewed weekly brief workflow with saved snapshots and source-change diffs.
  6. Add optional email digest rendering after source quality checks are in place.