Now

What Luis is working on now.

What’s on his desk, what he’s learning and what he’s watching at the frontier of AI.

At work

  • An ongoing study of cited search against ordinary search on Teaneck’s public Planning Board records. Document review and question preparation are underway; results have not been published. Follow the study.
  • The secretary’s work for four boards, which meet about four evenings a month, all year, and 20 to 30 public records requests a month for the Municipal Clerk.
  • The Borough’s web pages, built on one page system with written content rules and a staff editing guide. Read the case study.

Learning

  • Registered Municipal Clerk (RMC) program: coursework complete, state exam pending.

Writing

  • Ten research notes on AI, privacy and public records, each sourced to primary public documents. Read the notes.

What’s new in AI, and what it means for a town.

The developments worth a governing body’s attention right now, each with what it means for a town and the sources to check it.

  1. GPT-6.1 Sol nearly matches Astra at a fifth of the price

    OpenAI released GPT-6.1 Sol, which it says nearly matches GPT-6 Astra, the model it began rolling out on September 3, at one fifth of the price: $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens. It is in the OpenAI API and, on paid plans, in ChatGPT Work and Codex, though not yet in standard ChatGPT chat.

    For a town: Before a pilot starts, write down which staff may use a model, with what information, and who checks the output. Record which model each task used, so you can switch.

    2 sources OpenAI, “Introducing GPT-6.1 Sol,” September 29, 2026; OpenAI, DevDay 2026 recap, September 29, 2026. Accessed .

  2. Claude Sonnet 5.5 is faster and cheaper, with zero data retention

    Anthropic released Claude Sonnet 5.5, which generates output at least 30 percent faster than Sonnet 5 and costs up to 30 percent less per task, at $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens. It is available on Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, and with zero data retention.

    For a town: If your town already buys cloud services through one of those three, ask whether this model is offered there, and ask for zero data retention in writing. Retention terms belong in the contract, not in a sales call.

    Source Anthropic, “Introducing Claude Sonnet 5.5,” September 28, 2026. Accessed . Related note: Five questions to ask before an AI product demo.

  3. Claude Opus 5.5 lowers the price of the frontier

    Anthropic’s new flagship costs 40 percent less to run than Claude Opus 5 on typical work, generates its answers more than 30 percent faster and can be used with zero data retention.

    For a town: Frontier capability keeps getting cheaper, so the real differences between vendors now lie in what they keep, where they keep it and for how long. Get those answers in writing before the demo.

    Source Anthropic, “Introducing Claude Opus 5.5,” September 22, 2026. Accessed . Related note: Five questions to ask before an AI product demo.

  4. A federal ChatGPT deal opens to towns

    The General Services Administration opened its OneGov agreement with OpenAI to state, local and tribal governments: usage-based pricing at half the commercial rate, with no seat fees or minimum orders, for 27 months from October 1.

    For a town: Price no longer stands between your office and a frontier model. What staff may paste into it, what it keeps and who checks its work are still yours to decide, and they come first.

    Source U.S. General Services Administration, news release, September 10, 2026. Accessed .