Welcome to Beyond the Minutes!

For years, Michael Tierney of Wild Star Books provided an invaluable service to Maumelle residents by summarizing City Council meetings in an easy-to-read format. His posts made it possible to keep up with what was happening at City Hall without having to sit through hours of meetings.

After Mr. Tierney lost his bid for reelection in 2026, I started wondering how I was going to keep up with City Council. Was I really going to have to watch every meeting on YouTube or dig through the official minutes just to find out what happened?

Well, that didn’t sound like much fun. So I built this site.

Welcome to Beyond the Minutes — City Council meetings, minus the meeting.

The idea is simple: Beyond the Minutes provides easy-to-read summaries of Maumelle City Council meetings, highlighting the important discussions, decisions, and votes. Just the information you need to stay informed, without having to sit through the entire meeting.

Will these recaps be as detailed as Mr. Tierney’s? Probably not. And they certainly won’t have the firsthand knowledge, context, or occasional insider perspective that made his posts so interesting. But they should give you the important bits without requiring you to devote an entire evening to local government.

I do my best to keep these recaps accurate, but mistakes happen. If you spot something I’ve missed or gotten wrong, please let me know. The original meeting videos are available if you’d like to see exactly what was said.

A quick word about advertising

Yes, you’ll see ads here. But don’t worry — I’m not interested in filling the site with flashing banners, miracle weight-loss pills, or whatever questionable product the internet is trying to sell this week.

Advertising on Beyond the Minutes is reserved for local businesses. If you own or operate a business in Maumelle and would like some affordable exposure to your neighbors, I’d love to hear from you. Multiple sponsorship levels are available.

Just drop me a line at sponsormaumelle@dietrichduke.com.

Advertising helps cover the cost of running the site, but it doesn’t buy influence over what gets included in the meeting recaps.

And finally…

This isn’t an official City of Maumelle website, and I’m not trying to become the town’s next political commentator. I just think residents ought to be able to find out what their local government is doing without having to make a part-time job out of it.

If Beyond the Minutes saves you a little time and helps you stay informed about what’s happening around town, then it’s doing exactly what I built it to do.

Thanks for stopping by, and welcome!