It may feel opaque, but it is not. It is just not at all intuitive. Read up on "sunshine laws", then go find where they post your local council/boards meetings

It may feel opaque, but it is not. It is just not at all intuitive. Read up on "sunshine laws", then go find where they post your local council/boards meetings to meet those laws. Typically, there will be a web site with all the info. Read old agendas and minutes. Go to some meetings to see how they flow - that will help understand how the info is packaged on the sites. You might want to pick a topic and trace it flow from a new topic to a proposed action to a vote. If you do that homework, it won't feel as opaque anymore. It is kind of huge, though. Each individual government entity is not too big in and of itself (aside from the federal gov), but there are just so many governmental entities that it figuring out who controls what can be a lot of effort. Read through existing policies, ordinances, and other legislation to try to get a sense of that. And take a look at citations when you do so - especially when looking at policies, there will be cross-references to navigate through it all, sometimes including citations to laws that the policy implements. Once you know how it all works, you will at least know how to engage with your local government and be part of the discussion. Actually convincing them to act in the direction you desire is another story, but step one is just learning how it all works.