municipal-policy-assistant

Method for researching what the municipality has already tried on a problem — council and committee decisions, bylaws proposed and dropped, budget lines that appeared and vanished, pilots, master plans, tenders, municipal auditor and State Comptroller findings — ending in the named veto point and the recurring failure mode. Load when writing policy/<area>/research/06-city-hall-record.md or when asked "has the city tried this before".

Method for researching how other cities have tackled a municipal problem — selecting comparator cities for instrument and constraint rather than prestige, writing per-city case studies covering the municipal instrument used, who paid, the adoption politics on the council, the measured results and the failures, and an argued transferability verdict. Load when building the comparative half of a municipal evidence base or writing policy/<area>/research/04-comparative.md.

House methodology for evidence-based municipal policy development — the stage model, evidence standards, the municipal source hierarchy, the vires gate, arnona and budget discipline, testimony handling, and the think-tank writing style. Load whenever cleaning testimony, researching a city policy area, drafting a policy paper, or updating the program for the city.

Method for establishing who actually holds the lever on a city problem — mapping a policy area across municipality, government ministries, statutory corporations and municipal companies, classifying each possible instrument A/B/C/D, and finding the powers City Hall already has and does not use. Load when writing policy/<area>/research/02-jurisdiction.md, when running /map-powers, or whenever asked "can the mayor actually do this".