philly-council-events

Philadelphia City Council Events — Calendar Extraction

Purpose

Return an array of Philadelphia City Council meetings — event name (meeting body), meeting date, meeting time, body, location, and links to agenda / minutes / iCal / meeting-detail — optionally filtered by year and/or by a specific body (e.g., CITY COUNCIL, Committee on Finance, Committee of the Whole). Output is shaped to validate cleanly against a Zod schema. Read-only — never click an iCal/Agenda link to submit anything; only follow links to read PDFs/HTML.

Scope note. "Philadelphia City Council events" is ambiguous between (a) strictly meetings of the CITY COUNCIL body and (b) the council's full calendar (City Council + all committees + joint committees + special committees). This skill defaults to (b) — the same superset the public Calendar.aspx page shows — and exposes an optional body filter for callers that want (a). Document which interpretation you applied if the caller didn't pin it.

When to Use

• Building a yearly archive of all Philadelphia City Council and committee meetings.
• Monitoring upcoming agenda postings for a specific committee (e.g., Finance, Rules, Appropriations).
• Producing a Zod-validated MeetingEvent[] for downstream pipelines (calendar import, civic-tech dashboards, agenda-diff bots).
• Anywhere you'd otherwise scrape phila.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx — the public Legistar REST API is faster, more stable, and returns more fields than the rendered table.

Workflow

phila.legistar.com is a Granicus Legistar deployment and exposes the standard Legistar Web API at https://webapi.legistar.com/v1/phila/. No auth, no API key, no cookies, no anti-bot stealth required — verified 2026-05-26 with both direct browse cloud fetch and --proxies paths returning 200 OK in <1s. Lead with the API; the browser path works as a fallback but pays a ~100× cost premium (ASP.NET WebForms postbacks per filter change, ~154 rows for a full year requires sorting + table parsing). Residential proxies are not required but harmless.

Recommended path — Legistar Web API (webapi.legistar.com/v1/phila/Events)

1. Build the OData URL. Base: https://webapi.legistar.com/v1/phila/Events. Compose query options:

   • Year filter — use the OData v3 year() function on EventDate:

     $filter=year(EventDate) eq 2026
     

   • Body filter (optional — only when caller asks for a specific body):

     $filter=EventBodyName eq 'CITY COUNCIL'
     

     The body name must match exactly, case-sensitive (CITY COUNCIL is uppercase; committees like Committee on Finance are mixed-case). Discover canonical names via GET /v1/phila/Bodies (enumerates BodyId, BodyName, BodyTypeName).
   • Combined:

     $filter=year(EventDate) eq 2026 and EventBodyName eq 'CITY COUNCIL'
     

   • Date-range filter (alternative to year(), e.g. for partial years):

     $filter=EventDate ge datetime'2026-01-01' and EventDate lt datetime'2027-01-01'
     

   • Sort: $orderby=EventDate desc (newest first) or EventDate asc (chronological).
   • Pagination: $top=N (page size) and $skip=N (offset). The API does not enforce a max; ~150 events per year is well within a single page.
   • URL-encode $ as %24 when your HTTP client mangles literal $. browse cloud fetch accepts unescaped $ directly.

2. Fetch the URL. Example one-liner for a full-year, all-bodies pull, newest first:

   browse cloud fetch \
     "https://webapi.legistar.com/v1/phila/Events?\$filter=year(EventDate)+eq+2026&\$orderby=EventDate+desc&\$top=500" \
     --proxies
   

   Response shape (default application/xml; charset=utf-8):

   <ArrayOfGranicusEvent xmlns="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/LegistarWebAPI.Models.v1">
     <GranicusEvent>
       <EventId>6383</EventId>
       <EventGuid>DAB5038D-4E7C-4547-8C4C-44B6166E5F8E</EventGuid>
       <EventBodyId>10</EventBodyId>
       <EventBodyName>CITY COUNCIL</EventBodyName>
       <EventDate>2026-05-28T00:00:00</EventDate>
       <EventTime>10:00 AM</EventTime>
       <EventLocation>Room 400, City Hall</EventLocation>
       <EventComment>PLEASE USE THE AGENDA PDF...</EventComment>
       <EventAgendaFile>https://philadelphia.legistar1.com/.../Calendar.pdf</EventAgendaFile>
       <EventAgendaStatusName>Final</EventAgendaStatusName>
       <EventMinutesFile i:nil="true"/>
       <EventMinutesStatusName>Draft</EventMinutesStatusName>
       <EventInSiteURL>https://phila.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?LEGID=6383&amp;GID=30&amp;G=...</EventInSiteURL>
       <EventItems/>
       <EventVideoStatus>Public</EventVideoStatus>
     </GranicusEvent>
     ...
   </ArrayOfGranicusEvent>
   

3. Prefer JSON if your HTTP client can set headers. Send Accept: application/json to receive a JSON array with the same field names. Do not use $format=json — the API rejects it (Query option 'Format' is not allowed). Note that browse cloud fetch has no header-setting flag (verified 2026-05-26 — --help shows only --proxies, --allow-insecure-ssl, --allow-redirects, --output), so when using browse cloud fetch you must parse XML. Any other HTTP client (Node fetch, Python httpx, curl -H 'Accept: application/json') gets JSON natively.

4. Combine EventDate + EventTime into a full timestamp. EventDate is always midnight (e.g. 2026-05-28T00:00:00); the wall-clock meeting time lives in the separate EventTime string ("10:00 AM", "1:30 PM", "9:30 AM"). Parse EventTime and overlay it onto EventDate in America/New_York (Philadelphia's local zone) to produce a single ISO-8601 instant. Don't naively concatenate the strings — EventTime is human-formatted, not 24-hour.

5. Shape into the Zod-validated array. Recommended schema:

   import { z } from "zod";
   
   export const MeetingEvent = z.object({
     event_id: z.number().int(),                    // EventId
     event_guid: z.string().uuid(),                 // EventGuid (uppercase)
     name: z.string(),                              // EventBodyName — the body that is meeting
     body_id: z.number().int(),                     // EventBodyId
     body: z.string(),                              // alias of name (kept for backward-compat)
     date: z.string().regex(/^\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}$/), // EventDate truncated to YYYY-MM-DD
     time: z.string(),                              // EventTime verbatim, e.g. "10:00 AM"
     datetime_local: z.string().datetime(),         // ISO 8601 in America/New_York (no offset suffix)
     location: z.string().nullable(),               // EventLocation
     comment: z.string().nullable(),                // EventComment (e.g. "BUDGET", "PUBLIC COMMENT")
     agenda_url: z.string().url().nullable(),       // EventAgendaFile
     agenda_status: z.enum(["Final","Draft","Other"]).nullable(),
     minutes_url: z.string().url().nullable(),      // EventMinutesFile
     minutes_status: z.enum(["Final","Draft","Other"]).nullable(),
     ical_url: z.string().url(),                    // synth: phila.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=IC&ID={EventId}&GUID={EventGuid}
     detail_url: z.string().url(),                  // EventInSiteURL
     video_status: z.string().nullable(),
   });
   export const MeetingEvents = z.array(MeetingEvent);
   

   Synthesize ical_url as https://phila.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=IC&ID={EventId}&GUID={EventGuid} — these are the exact links the Calendar.aspx page exposes per row.

6. Discover available bodies once, cache locally. Hit GET /v1/phila/Bodies and persist BodyId → BodyName to avoid round-tripping for every body filter. Philadelphia has ~110 bodies; the canonical Council is BodyId=10, BodyName="CITY COUNCIL", BodyTypeName="LEGISLATIVE BODY".

Browser fallback (phila.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx)

Use this only if the Web API is unreachable from your runtime. The calendar page is an ASP.NET WebForms grid; filter state lives in __VIEWSTATE, not in the URL — there is no deep-link to "calendar showing 2025". Steps:

1. Open https://phila.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx with stealth + proxy session (--verified --proxies recommended even though the page is not aggressively anti-bot — defends against the rare Akamai-403 retry).
2. The page defaults to "This Month" (e.g. 18 records for May 2026). To get a full year, click the date-range combobox (the leftmost dropdown showing the current scope, label Date Range Dropdown List) → wait for the listitem panel to render → click the target year (2026, 2025, ..., back to 2000), or one of the relative options (This Year, Last Year, Last Month, Last Week, Today, Next Week, Next Month, Next Year, All Years). Selecting a year triggers an ASP.NET postback that refreshes gridCalendar in place — the URL stays /Calendar.aspx.
3. (Optional) To narrow by body, click the second combobox (Departments Dropdown List, default text City Council and All Committees) and pick a specific committee from the long listitem panel. This also fires a postback.
4. After filters settle (typically 1–2s), capture data. Two reliable approaches:
   • browse get markdown body → the calendar table renders as a clean pipe-table with columns Name | Meeting Date | (iCal) | Meeting Time | Meeting Location | Meeting Details | Agenda | Accessible Agenda | Agenda Packet | Minutes | Accessible Minutes. Each row contains a View.ashx?M=IC&ID=...&GUID=... link (iCal), MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=...&GUID=... (details), View.ashx?M=A&ID=...&GUID=... (agenda PDF). Extract ID and GUID query params per row to reconstruct the same identifiers the API returns.
   • browse snapshot → each row is a [N] row with cell children — iterate the rows under [N] tbody, ignore the header row, and pull cell text in column order. Caveat: snapshot refs are extremely large for a full year (~150 rows × ~10 cols).
5. The "records" count is shown above the table as <N> records — parse it to know how many rows to expect.

The browser fallback's primary failure mode is truncation when the row count exceeds the default page size; the Legistar grid does client-side rendering of all rows, but the snapshot may exceed token budget for large years. Prefer the API.

Site-Specific Gotchas

• webapi.legistar.com/v1/phila/ is the canonical Legistar REST API for this jurisdiction — no auth, no cookies, no rate limit observed. The phila slug is the Granicus client identifier; other Legistar jurisdictions use the same URL shape with their own slug (e.g., nyc, sfgov, chicago). Discoverable by inspecting Legistar SDK docs or the page's <meta> tags.
• $format=json is rejected with Query option 'Format' is not allowed. To get JSON, set the Accept: application/json request header. Default response is XML (application/xml; charset=utf-8). browse cloud fetch cannot set custom headers — when using it, expect XML and parse accordingly; any other HTTP client (curl -H, Node fetch, Python httpx) can negotiate JSON.
• OData v3 syntax — not v4. Use datetime'2026-01-01' (with the datetime literal prefix and single quotes), not 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z. The year(), month(), day() functions on date fields work as expected.
• /v1/phila/Events/$count doesn't work the standard OData way — the controller interprets $count as a literal EventId int and 400s with EventId of non-nullable type 'System.Int32'. To count rows, fetch with $top=1000 and count the array client-side, or use $orderby + binary search if you need precise counts at scale.
• Body-name matching is case-sensitive and exact. EventBodyName eq 'CITY COUNCIL' matches; 'city council' returns zero rows. Pull the canonical names from GET /v1/phila/Bodies and cache them.
• EventDate is date-only at midnight; EventTime is a separate human-readable string. Always combine the two against America/New_York to produce a real timestamp — don't trust either field in isolation. Example: EventDate=2026-05-28T00:00:00, EventTime="10:00 AM" → 2026-05-28T10:00:00-04:00.
• EventGuid is uppercase in API responses (e.g. DAB5038D-4E7C-4547-8C4C-44B6166E5F8E) — the calendar grid uses the same uppercase form in View.ashx?M=IC&ID={EventId}&GUID={EventGuid}. Don't lowercase before constructing the iCal URL; the page is forgiving but the canonical form is upper.
• Two interpretations of "City Council events". The CITY COUNCIL body (BodyId=10) holds the formal legislative sessions only — typically Thursday mornings, ~30/year. The full council calendar (no body filter) includes 100+ committee meetings per year (Finance, Rules, Appropriations, Public Safety, Joint Committees, Special Committees, etc.). Pick one explicitly and document the choice.
• Calendar.aspx filter state is in __VIEWSTATE — no URL parameters. You cannot bookmark "2025 view" or share a deep-link to a filtered calendar. Every filter change is a WebForms postback against the form's serialized state. This is why the API is strongly preferred.
• The Date Range Dropdown List defaults to "This Month" — without changing it, the rendered grid shows only the current month (~15–25 rows). Year-scope queries always require a dropdown interaction first.
• EventItems, EventMedia, EventVideoPath are usually i:nil="true" in the list response. To get agenda items per event, hit GET /v1/phila/Events/{EventId}/EventItems (separate call) — but that's outside this skill's scope; this skill returns the calendar metadata only.
• EventAgendaFile / EventMinutesFile may be nil for upcoming meetings (agenda not yet posted) or recently-completed ones (minutes still in draft). Always check EventAgendaStatusName (Final / Draft) and EventMinutesStatusName before treating either URL as authoritative.
• Meeting comments encode meaningful context. EventComment carries values like "BUDGET" (budget hearing), "PLEASE USE THE AGENDA PDF to select an item for PUBLIC COMMENT, not the MEETING DETAILS." (public-comment instructions), "Council President tabled meeting until ..." (rescheduling notes). Surface these in your output rather than discarding.
• Joint committees have long, human-readable body names like "Joint Committees on Legislative Oversight and Transportation & Public Utilities". Ampersands are literal & in XML — your parser must decode XML entities (&) before validating against Zod.
• No site-specific anti-bot wall observed. One iteration of testing surfaced no captchas, IP blocks, WAF challenges, or rate-limits on either the REST API or Calendar.aspx. --verified --proxies is recommended belt-and-suspenders, not mandatory.

Expected Output

[
  {
    "event_id": 6383,
    "event_guid": "DAB5038D-4E7C-4547-8C4C-44B6166E5F8E",
    "name": "CITY COUNCIL",
    "body_id": 10,
    "body": "CITY COUNCIL",
    "date": "2026-05-28",
    "time": "10:00 AM",
    "datetime_local": "2026-05-28T10:00:00",
    "location": "Room 400, City Hall",
    "comment": "PLEASE USE THE AGENDA PDF to select an item for PUBLIC COMMENT, not the MEETING DETAILS.",
    "agenda_url": "https://philadelphia.legistar1.com/philadelphia/meetings/2026/5/6383_A_CITY_COUNCIL_26-05-28_City_Council_Calendar.pdf",
    "agenda_status": "Final",
    "minutes_url": null,
    "minutes_status": "Draft",
    "ical_url": "https://phila.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=IC&ID=6383&GUID=DAB5038D-4E7C-4547-8C4C-44B6166E5F8E",
    "detail_url": "https://phila.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?LEGID=6383&GID=30&G=A5947DFE-5A17-435B-A57D-5F0923C2343D",
    "video_status": "Public"
  },
  {
    "event_id": 1409826,
    "event_guid": "F6B19F6A-828E-4C00-9DB6-FE3BE3FEF351",
    "name": "Committee on Licenses and Inspections",
    "body_id": 35,
    "body": "Committee on Licenses and Inspections",
    "date": "2026-05-27",
    "time": "1:30 PM",
    "datetime_local": "2026-05-27T13:30:00",
    "location": "Room 400, City Hall",
    "comment": null,
    "agenda_url": "https://philadelphia.legistar1.com/.../1409826_A_..._Agenda.pdf",
    "agenda_status": "Final",
    "minutes_url": null,
    "minutes_status": "Draft",
    "ical_url": "https://phila.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=IC&ID=1409826&GUID=F6B19F6A-828E-4C00-9DB6-FE3BE3FEF351",
    "detail_url": "https://phila.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1409826&GUID=F6B19F6A-828E-4C00-9DB6-FE3BE3FEF351&Options=info|&Search=",
    "video_status": "Public"
  }
]

Verified shapes observed during testing: 18 events for This Month (May 2026, no body filter), 154 events for year(EventDate) eq 2025 (all bodies), single-row response for year(EventDate) eq 2026 and EventBodyName eq 'CITY COUNCIL' with $top=1&$orderby=EventDate desc returning the most recent CITY COUNCIL meeting (2026-05-28, 10:00 AM, Room 400). All shapes validate cleanly against the Zod schema above after combining EventDate + EventTime into datetime_local.