Let's go ahead and get started then.

I'd like to call this meeting of the Assembly Legislative Committee to order at 1052.

We were scheduled until 1150 today, although I doubt we will need all of that time.

So first item business, let's start with member introductions in the room.

Aaron Baldwin Day, Anna Brawley.

Zach Johnson.

And I do not believe we have any members on the phone.

So with that, let's just go ahead and dive into business.

Does not look like we have our state lobbyists on the phone.

So I think we can skip over item 4A.

And I think uh folks this meeting will talk about recent assembly and uh administration visits to Juno and feedback we got from the legislature.

And so I think with that, I'd like to turn to policy director Mr.

Clauda to start the conversation off.

Yes, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Uh some of the big activities to report on to this committee from the last month or so are that uh the mayor and chief of staff went down to Juneau on the 11th and 12th of February and had and also brought the port director uh Terry Ametum with them too, and um held uh um several yeah pretty two pretty full packed days with meetings with with uh Anchorage legislators uh and to go to support the legislative program and and especially to talk about um the port of Alaska and the progress that's being made there um with uh with construction starting you know this summer and um also the ongoing need to uh provide funding for port modernization.

So um they had good conversations about that uh um you know interested in the possibility of a of a general obligation bond um and um you know many many other topics uh as well um and then I went down last week along with you know several members of the body to the Alaska Municipal League conference and um also uh had several meetings with legislators um you know same kinds of issues um I found it to be really productive and I know that members um Brawley Baldwin Day will will have um probably more to say about that but uh we are you know of course watching several bills that are that are active right now uh and um also working another thing I wanted to mention related to our legislative program working with representative Mina on one of the items which is about the the uh rates for general relief for assisted living so uh so she is working on on drafting some legislation working with uh with myself and with uh Thea Agnew Bemben and the mayor's office to um and that was something a connection um that uh member brawley helped help to bring about and facilitate as well so uh so we're hopeful that some legislation can can advance there that would help to make uh that program more viable for assisted living in a way that helped create more housing opportunities um for people with with that need more complex care um we are watching um a few a few different bills that are that are active um um representative colomb has a bill on property tax exemptions and this is something that AML is tracking really closely the the the kind of thrust and spirit of the bill is something that would allow local governments to have a lot more control over the optional exemptions for to property taxes so so something that I think generally local governments would like there are some specifics to the bill that may need to be sort of worked through it does have a low threshold where um for requiring exemptions to go to voters if they're more than 7500 each which which could be could be complicated for some uses of of property tax exemptions.

There's a bill too that um SB 218 that relates to taxes on electrical co-ops uh it would uh it would uh basically eliminate that tax which is a very small amount statewide it's about three million dollars but anchorage has been getting um about uh over one million of the three million that are that are that's collected and so it's actually something that would cost us about a million dollars a year if it if it were to pass and so that's something we we are talking to legislators about and making sure that they know um about that it you know every every little bit of cut that we get you know is is you know problem for us and there's a lot of those that have accumulated over the years um and then of course we're we're also watching um hp 136 which is uh representative cop's bill related to railroad um easements too which um has some kind of complications for AWO for utility access and for um other other work that that we may want to do as well as the municipality so um those are so those are a couple of couple of highlights for for folks uh happy to take any questions or continue on with the discussion that's the oh member baldwin day thanks Mr.

The the railroad easements.

Uh that is HB 136.

HB 136.

Okay.

Um is um is repulum's property tax exemption bill the same or similar to the legislation that rep Gray is carrying of a similar nature.

Uh through the chair to member Baldwin Day.

Actually, there those are um they're they're kind of interesting.

They're they're two two pretty separate efforts that are I think trying to achieve some of the same kinds of goals.

Um the difference is that that uh representative Gray's bill adds a couple of categories of optional exemption that municipalities could enact, whereas Representative Colomb's bill was is designed to basically hand over the power of all of forming all kinds of optional exemptions to local governments, um, subject to to voter approval.

Uh so that so they're they're in some ways kind of pointing in the same direction, but going about it a bit differently.

Thank you.

Member Brawley.

Yeah, um, well, first, I guess I'll just disclose I used to work for representative Gray.

I left employment on January 9th.

Um, so and and I actually didn't do a lot of work on HB13, but we uh that's the optional exemptions bill and the assembly passed a resolution in support of it.

So um another kind of nuance with that bill, Gray's bill, HB13 versus Coulomb's bill, HB 291, I believe, um, is really the question about, you know, if if it's over 75,000 of value and it needs to go to voters, that was a big discussion in-house community and regional affairs committee.

I know representative Ruffridge in particular had concerns about, you know, you know, is the assembly just gonna do what it wants, essentially, that was the concern versus sending it to the people.

Um, but one of the questions I think that we've raised about the implications of Coulomb's bill is um 75,000 limit makes sense for something like the residential exemption where it's a literal dollar amount that you're getting exempted from your property value.

Um, but we also use exemptions for uh various economic development projects.

So you could have an exemption that is, you know, maybe a million dollars if it's a very major project and it's foregoing those property taxes, um, and that could be per year, it could be total value, right?

There's lots of different ways to measure it.

So I think that's really the question is if it's over 75,000, what does that just mean essentially everything goes to voters?

What if one project is 50,000 and the other one is 2.5 million, right?

I mean, that's probably a very large spread for what we're talking about.

Um, but but do both of those go?

Does that impact individual projects?

Right.

There's kind of questions like that where the the logic applies to some types of exemptions and it really starts to break down when you look at the others.

Um and there's others certainly in current law that other communities are using um for you know energy rebates or things like that.

So um anyway, so that's really a question is okay.

If you step outside of what you think of as the residential exemption or the senior exemption, and you look at how these are used, what does that actually mean?

So and that's a question I posed to AML as well.

Certainly mayor's consideration.

Uh Mr.

Clowda, uh did you have more.

Um yes, yeah.

And I I think that's that's a really key question.

We've used things like the economic development incentive under state statute.

That's how we uh what we that was the basis for doing our housing incentives, and those would be hard to formulate, you know, if if they needed to go to voters each time, right?

Um, or to create the category of exemption.

So that would be that would be challenging.

Um there's maybe one other thing, Mr.