Press & media
Writing about PlainDocket?
Everything below is free to use without asking first — copy, logo files, and where the underlying data comes from. If you need something that isn’t here, see the contact line at the bottom.
What PlainDocket is
Your Houston-area government actions, translated and sourced. Nonpartisan, always.
It is a year-round accountability site, not a one-time project: every agenda item from Houston City Council, Harris County Commissioners Court and the Houston ISD Board of Managers gets a plain-English summary, its recorded outcome, and a link to the official record it was drawn from. Ballot and campaign-finance pages follow the same rule during election season. Full detail on how it works, and the five rules it holds itself to, is on the /trust page — the short version is that nothing here is invented, everything links back to a government record, and no person on the site carries a party label.
Where the data comes from
Official sources only — never aggregators, never other civic sites:
- Council votes and outcomes — the City Secretary’s official meeting minutes.
- Upcoming city agendas — the city’s own PrimeGov agenda system, refreshed weekly.
- Harris County Commissioners Court — the county’s own Legistar meeting record.
- Houston ISD Board of Managers — the district’s own Legistar meeting record.
- District spending — the city’s published Council District Service Fund dashboards.
- Who’s on the ballot — Texas Secretary of State filings and Harris County’s election pages.
- Campaign money — the FEC and Texas Ethics Commission, as filed by the campaigns themselves.
Ready-to-use description
Two lengths — pick whichever fits.
One line
“Your Houston-area government actions, translated and sourced. Nonpartisan, always.”
One paragraph
PlainDocket is a free, nonpartisan website that translates the official record of three Houston-area governments — Houston City Council, Harris County Commissioners Court and the Houston ISD Board of Managers — into plain English, with every fact linked back to its official source. It publishes no party labels, no endorsements and no advertising, and is built and run by one Houston resident in his own time.
Logo
The wordmark is real vector outlines (not a font reference), so it renders identically anywhere you drop it. Use it as-is — no altered colors, no stretching.
Contact
PlainDocket is built and run by Brad Farrar, a Houston resident building it on his own time. There is no press office — questions go straight to the person who built it.