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Edmonds Planning Board adopts ChatGPT draft of April 9 minutes and agrees process for future use
Summary
The Edmonds Planning Board voted to accept a ChatGPT-generated draft of April 9 meeting minutes and to pilot using ChatGPT plus staff editing as an official minutes workflow, with guardrails on prompts, staff review and a legal check.
The Edmonds Planning Board voted to adopt a ChatGPT-generated draft of its April 9 meeting minutes and to pilot using ChatGPT combined with staff editing as an official record-keeping tool.
Board members and staff discussed how much human review is required, who will supply prompts and produce the AI draft, and whether to formalize the approach. The board directed two members to work with the staff member who has been generating the drafts to create a standardized prompt and guidance for staff review; the board also asked staff to seek a legal review before fully institutionalizing the process.
Board members said ChatGPT-produced drafts captured public comments and conversation detail more consistently than the city’s existing administrative notes, but they emphasized the need for predictable, documented prompts and an explicit staff-review step. One board member reported it took about 30 minutes to edit an AI draft into an accurate record; the volunteer who produced recent AI drafts said he could generate new drafts in two to three minutes but would provide his exact prompts for transparency.
The motion to approve the ChatGPT version of the April 9 minutes carried. In a subsequent motion, the board voted to adopt a policy of using ChatGPT drafts edited by staff as the board’s official minutes format going forward, subject to the prompt-template and staff-review safeguards and pending legal review.
The board also voted to table further discussion and final approval of two other past meeting minutes until staff and the volunteer could reconcile and circulate corrections.
Next steps assigned in the meeting included: (1) two board members and the volunteer who prepares AI drafts will draft a standard prompt and interim guidance for staff review; (2) staff will estimate the ongoing staff time needed to edit AI drafts and will ask the city attorney’s office for a legal review of adopting AI-assisted minutes as an official record; and (3) the planning office will circulate revised minutes for board review before final adoption.
