Oh yeah, I know it's a bit um just coordinating the way you keep things I've done for the Glexal button is the special uh something that we do, but I think it's minus uh actually uh but it's also a look at the chip.

I think I see that we have to go.

Oh, that's what it's basically what I should see because we can't say always section.

All right.

Good morning, everyone.

It's great to have you all in here.

I always look forward to this time of the year.

Because we hardly ever get a chance to sit in the same room with our amazing delegation.

Representative Marsha Moray and Renetta Austin are at a memorial, so they won't be able to join us this morning.

They did reach out and we have some good conversation required too.

For the sake of live streaming and people that are tuning in this morning, colleagues, I'm going to ask that we go around the table and just introduce our name and our district or why you position in where you represent.

We start over Representative Jeffers.

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you.

Good morning, Mark African Building Mayor Pro Tim City of Durham, including the president of the Pan Carolina League Municipalities.

Good morning, everyone.

Carl Rest at large city council members of Durham One is a special welcome to Senator Chile.

It's exciting to have you here.

So welcome.

Good morning.

I'm Natalie Murdoch in the North Carolina State Senate representing Senate District 20 at South Durham, South Point Mall area, White Cross, and all of Chatham County.

People forget I have the entire county.

So I'll begin my day at the state of the city at Silar City.

Thank you.

And I too would like to welcome Senator Chetlett.

Now we have Senator Chandler Abrams, and she is the ball of fire and looking forward to your energy.

So today we're basically this is uh the council's legislative committee where we meet with our delegation, our state uh representatives from the Senate and the House.

And we talk about our legislative priorities.

And uh colleagues, what I'd like to make sure we do today is it's all about feasibility.

Um what is feasible leaving this room?

Uh what is feasible from our delegation's standpoint, but I'm excited to say that we have officially hired uh state and federal lobbyists, and today we will spend time with our statewide lobbyists as well, check me.

And um guys are awesome.

Uh and they literally are everywhere, and they're tentacles reached deep into the General Assembly.

Uh, so I'm confident that we have chosen the right team.

Um anywhere from living, you know, they got your own air mattress in the General Assembly to uh I was at the U.S.

Conference of Mayors, and I'm going to give my luggage at nearly midnight out of the hotel, and there they are.

So they are literally everywhere, and I'm looking forward to working with them.

So today we'll uh we don't have a lot of requests.

We're going to hear from the city's chief of staff, Carmisha Wallace, who's going to talk about our staff um legislative priorities, and then we'll name our uh just some council legislative priorities and to our uh delegation members and our lobbyists.

What I'd like to hear from you is, you know, we we like to be honest and hear um what you think can actually you know work, what you think we can achieve, and we're also fortunate to have Mayor Pro Tem as the state's president of the North Carolina League municipalities, which represents all municipalities across the state of North Carolina.

So we have quite a suite or inventory of options to explore the legislative agenda.

Um yeah, we'll we'll we'll do that.

But at this time, I'll pass it over to uh Carmesha Wallace, and um she'll introduce Czech May Government Relations to talk about the landscape of the 2025 long session, which is like our legislative trends that are already happening, and then we'll get into our priorities.

So uh good morning, everyone, and thank you, Mr.

Mayor, uh Mayor Pratim Middleton, members of the city council, and certainly to our uh Durham delegation.

I do want to thank you for taking the time to be with us this morning, but also honor and respect um the representative uh Alston and Representative Morey, who are not here this morning to attend a colleague uh memorial service.

I know that you all have old days today, so I'm gonna turn it over to as the mayor mentioned.

Uh John Easterly over to Chin.

Well, good morning, uh Mr.

Mayor Proteo members, also uh members of the delegation.

I'm John Easterling.

I'm a partner at Jake May Government Relations, born by my colleague and partner uh Nelson Freeman.

Uh I myself have been with his team for a little over uh five years.

We've had the uh privilege and honor to represent uh not just municipalities across North Carolina, but also the Metro Political Mayors Association as members of the League of Municipalities, and so uh our experience in uh local municipal issues, um certainly one that is immense uh uh and expands across North Carolina.

Um as we've had a conversation with Carmesha.

Uh one of the things that we wanted to talk about was the landscape of the 2025 long session.

Um as we've concluded now the um biennium uh from the last legislative session.

We come into this legislature, and there are a lot of new faces, um a lot of different leadership changes that take in place.

The House has an entirely new leadership team uh with Speaker Destin Hall is the new House Speaker with Representative John Bill, who's moved from majority leader to rules chair, representative Brendan Jones from down to Southeastern North Carolina, who is now the new majority leader.

And on the Senate Democratic side, uh represent uh Senator Sidd is the new Democratic leader replacing uh long-term Senator former Speaker Dan Blue.