What's changed in Mulberry.

Zoning, permits and code questions, and who's on your ballot

At Startup Week, business owners and homeowners asked about zoning, permits and code enforcement: answers that sit in long ordinances and meeting agendas. Mulberry now reads those rules for you and gives the section numbers so you can check them.

• NewGive Mulberry an address and it will also tell you how the property is zoned, whether it's in a Design Review (historic) district where exterior work may need a Certificate of Appropriateness, and whether it's in a FEMA flood zone. The answers come from Planning & Zoning's own zoning map.
• NewAsk whether a use is allowed in a zoning district (a coffee shop, a daycare, a church) and Mulberry reads the answer from the zoning ordinance's own table: allowed, allowed with limits, needs the Planning & Zoning Commission's approval, or not listed. That's what the ordinance says, not a ruling on your project. Planning & Zoning makes that call, and Mulberry points you to them.
• NewThe rules homeowners ask about most, with their section numbers: fence heights, sheds, home businesses, chickens, short-term rentals, driveways, and each district's setbacks and height limits. Where the ordinance is silent or contradicts itself, Mulberry says so.
• NewUpcoming Planning & Zoning hearings and the latest decisions, read from the agendas and results Planning & Zoning posts.
• NewWho's running in November: every race on Macon-Bibb ballots, with the nominees checked against the Secretary of State's official results.
• NewAnswers about building permits, business licenses, code enforcement and blight, and voting rules (a felony conviction, moving, time off work to vote, provisional ballots), written from the county's and the state's own pages.
• ImprovedMore checked contacts, including building permits, code enforcement, marriage licenses, jury duty, streetlights and state business registration.

A new model, and answers you can check

At Startup Week, a resident asked Mulberry five different questions in one chat, and by the fourth it had lost the thread. We tested it against more than a hundred questions phrased the way people actually ask them, and fixed what broke.

• NewMulberry now runs on Google's Gemini 3.8 Flash, replacing Gemini 2.5 Flash. It keeps track of long conversations that jump between topics.
• NewTell Mulberry your street address and it will tell you who represents you: your county commissioner, school board member, state representative and senator, U.S. House member, and Water Authority member. Your address is used once for the lookup and is never stored.
• NewA checked directory for everyday questions like who to call about a pothole, a missed trash pickup, a loose dog or flooding, with phone numbers and websites confirmed on each office's own site.
• FixedIn a long conversation, Mulberry sometimes repeated an earlier answer instead of answering the new question. It now notices and answers the question you actually asked.
• FixedAsked who the president is, Mulberry gave an outdated answer from the AI model's own memory. Names of state and federal officeholders now come only from a checked list.
• FixedThe source links under an answer sometimes pointed to pages that had nothing to do with it. Mulberry now cites a page only when the answer actually draws on it.
• ImprovedWeb addresses in answers must come from PeachTracker's records, the same rule phone numbers already follow. Links Mulberry can't verify are removed.
• ImprovedWhen a question takes a lot of looking up, Mulberry now answers with what it found instead of running out of time.

Ready for the Startup Week showcase

Fixes found while getting Mulberry ready to be used in public at the Startup Week showcase.

• FixedAsked who made it, Mulberry once described PeachTracker as a county government project. PeachTracker is independent and not affiliated with the county, and Mulberry now says so.
• ImprovedQuestions about money over a stretch of time, like “this year,” are answered across every meeting in that stretch, not just the most recent one.
• Fixed“What did the commission decide recently?” now answers with the latest meeting that has recorded votes.
• ImprovedA New chat button clears the conversation, so a shared screen starts fresh for the next person.

The November ballot, the money, and a nightly check

A review found several wrong answers. These changes fixed them and added ways to catch the next one.

• FixedMulberry said the Public Service Commission is elected by district. It's elected statewide, so every Georgia voter votes in every race.
• FixedMulberry said nothing local was on the November 3 ballot. Two local questions are: senior homestead exemptions on county taxes and on school taxes.
• NewAnswers about the November ballot now come from a hand-checked list of every office and question on it.
• NewFollow the money: Mulberry can tell you how much the commission approved at a meeting, and what the largest items were.
• NewEvery night Mulberry is asked a set of questions with known answers, and a wrong one sends an alert.

School board votes

Mulberry can now answer questions about the Bibb County Board of Education.

• NewAsk how the school board, or one member, voted on a subject, who is on the board, or when it meets next. Answers come from the board's published minutes.

Mulberry launches

Ask Mulberry opened to everyone on peachtracker.org.

• NewAsk about Macon-Bibb government in plain English, anywhere on the site. Answers come from PeachTracker's records of agendas, recorded votes, the budget and election dates, with links to the sources.
• New“Report this answer” under every reply sends a wrong or unclear answer straight to PeachTracker.

Before a major change goes live, Mulberry answers more than a hundred questions written the way residents ask them, and every reply is read. Twice a week it re-answers a set of questions with known answers, and a wrong one sends an alert.

See something wrong? Use “Report this answer” under any reply, or email peachtracker@gmail.com. How PeachTracker sources its facts is on the methodology page.

Ask Mulberry a question →