The Regional Municipality of York
Index for Regional Council and Committee Minutes
About the Art
This piece takes the form of a funnel opening into rays- a grid of structured lines narrowing to a gold medallion, then extending back outward – to represent eight years of York Region turning municipal record into public transparency. The funnel represents the raw archive (Council and Committee minutes from more than 400 meetings) compressed and organised until it resolves into gold at the centre: the Region’s subject index, where dense, unsearchable records become findable in seconds. The satin rays extending from the medallion carry that clarity back out, representing the transparent accessibility of information to the public. Rendered digitally but built to evoke woven textile, the piece treats that filtering as a kind of craft – data organised by hand, thread by thread, rather than left as an unsorted mass.
Original artwork by Aedán Crooke of Surface Impression. No AI was used in generating this artwork.
A topic-based index of Regional Council and Committee minutes that links residents directly to relevant reports, materials and videos without needing to know meeting dates
York Region’s subject index lets residents search Council and Committee records by topic, follow direct links to source materials and find public information without knowing a meeting date.
York Region’s subject index gives residents a faster route into Council and Committee records by organizing public meeting information around topics rather than dates.
York Region receives about 400 Freedom of Information requests each year. After introducing an online FOI application system in 2023, the Region saw increased convenience for residents, but also a rise in FOI requests. The subject index was developed to help residents find information that is already publicly available before submitting a formal request and paying an application fee.
The index is organized like a book index. It categorizes topics discussed at Regional Council and Committee meetings and provides direct links to related reports, materials and videos. This shifts access from a meeting-centric model to a user-focused model. Residents do not need to know the exact meeting date, understand municipal governance structures or search through lengthy agendas to locate information.
Image Transcription
December 2018 – November 2022 Number of Public Meetings
2018 – 2
2019 – 64
2020 – 63
2021 – 68
2022 – 44
4478 unique main headings
16,359 index entries with hyperlinks
616 cross references
256 pages
Image Transcription
November 2022 – April 2026 Number of Public Meetings
2022 – 2
2023 – 54
2024 – 46
2025 – 53
2026 – 20
5873 unique main headings
22,631 index entries with hyperlinks
729 cross references
364 pages
The scale of the project is significant. The indexes span eight years of municipal decision-making from more than 400 meetings. They include 38,990 entries with hyperlinks, 10,351 main headings and 1,342 cross-references. Cross-references help users move between related topics that may appear in different places.
The index also assists staff in responding to public inquiries and can reduce the need for formal access requests. It is available on York Region’s Council and Committee and FOI webpages.
Organizing public records by subject and linking directly to source documents makes government information not only available, but easier to discover, understand and act on.
