City Council Work Session on 2026 Legislative Priorities – January 20, 2026
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City Council Work Session on 2026 Legislative Priorities – January 20, 2026
The Valdez City Council held a work session on January 20, 2026, to review and refine state and federal legislative priorities for 2026. The meeting included updates from federal lobbyists Jack and Eric of CHCG Capitol Consulting Group on recent appropriations victories, and state lobbyist Kim Hutchinson on the challenging fiscal environment in Juneau. Council members discussed streamlining priority lists, setting a date for the annual DC fly-in, and focusing on key items such as Coast Guard development, secure rural schools, housing, child care, outdoor recreation, and state-level issues like the gas line tax holiday and education funding.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Ralph Fry, the new Legislative Information Officer for Valdez (six-month role), introduced himself and offered to assist with legislative communication and committee monitoring.
Discussion Items
Federal Priorities
- Eric from CHCG reported that the $5.5 million earmark for the radio tower was included in the Commerce Justice Science bill, which passed both chambers and now goes to President Trump for signature. The remaining half will be requested in FY27.
- Updates on other federal issues: Secure Rural Schools (SRS) funding passed through FY26 with back payments; housing legislation (Road to Housing Act, Housing for the 21st Century Act) is being tracked; health care provisions including $4.6 billion for community health centers; highway reauthorization expiring September 30, 2026; and the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) as a potential funding source.
- Councilmember Love suggested adding outdoor recreation as a federal priority, referencing the Meals Hill Master Plan and potential EDA grants. Councilmembers generally supported condensing the federal list to a shorter, actionable set.
- City Manager Nate Divalics recommended focusing on Coast Guard/sea otter development as top priority, followed by SRS, then aligning with existing council priorities: housing, child care, and recreation/tourism.
- Jack from CHCG noted the need to schedule the DC fly-in and secure high-level Coast Guard meetings.
State Priorities
- Kim Hutchinson highlighted the coming fight over the gas line tax holiday (permanent property tax exemption), which could put Valdez’s 20-mill rate under scrutiny. She also identified the residential property tax exemption as a priority with a good chance of passage.
- Councilmembers raised the need for a park ranger at Thompson Pass, maintaining DOT staffing (especially Thompson Pass road crews), supporting Prince William Sound College (noting its nursing, millwright, and marine programs), and advocating for the public employee retirement system bill (passed House but stalled in Senate).
- City Manager noted additional opportunities: rural health care funding ($500 million/year for 10 years), co-utilization of the ferry terminal, and protecting local education funding from legislative changes.
- Councilmember Jim emphasized the value of a robust but targeted list; others agreed to keep the state list longer due to greater influence opportunities.
Fly-in Date
- The group agreed to target the week of March 2, 2026, for the DC fly-in, as that week both chambers are in session (House not in session the week of March 9).
Key Outcomes
- Council reached consensus to streamline the federal legislative priority list to focus on: Coast Guard development (including feasibility study for icebreakers), Secure Rural Schools reauthorization, and the three council priorities (housing, child care, and recreation/tourism).
- For state priorities, the city will maintain a broader list but emphasize local control over taxation (resisting the gas line tax holiday), education funding, and specific requests: park ranger for Thompson Pass, Prince William Sound College support, and Thompson Pass DOT staffing.
- The DC fly-in was tentatively scheduled for the week of March 2, 2026, pending confirmation. A draft document reflecting the updated priorities will be prepared for council review and formal vote.
Meeting Transcript
Okay, we're gonna go ahead and uh give me a minute. Go ahead and kick off our work session for state and federal policy priority. Um you want to take a step at leading us out through this, Nick? Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Um we're gonna start off with uh the federal priorities. So we've got uh Jack and Eric with CHCG Capitol Consulting Group here with us uh later on in the conversation. We've also got Kim Hutchinson from for the state lobbying efforts. Um in the packet, we put uh an update. We took your old legislative priorities and we added you know, just kind of what's happened since you created those priorities for a couple reasons. One, so you had a good clear picture of what's been done, but for two, just kind of a starting point for what you want to have as future priorities. Um we can certainly talk about any and everything that's going on in DC uh with Jack and Eric, and I'll defer to them on on most of this. I think um what I might advocate for when it's all said and done is we had a fairly lengthy list of federal priorities. I I think it's good for us to have a priority focus of you know a couple of items. There might be other items that are more secondary that can be on the list, so to speak, but I think it's always good to focus on the things that we're really concerned with. Um again, Jack and Eric can kind of tell you how many how many balls they can keep in the air reasonably. And just some thoughts that I've been having. Say took my first couple of trips here to DC. In doing so, I've kind of starting to get a lay of the land of of what makes sense and what's what's worthwhile and how much time you have to advocate for various things. And uh I think it's good for us to just really just hone in on what on what's the most important, but also being aware of the things that do matter. Uh Jack, I don't know if you have any thoughts or comments on that opening salvo. No, I think that's great. I think um I'm gonna turn it over to Eric and he can give you an update on where sort of everything stands back there in Washington DC. Um, we can go through some of our um past priorities and then make sure that uh vice with mayor and city council that um priorities for the upcoming fly-in um are accurately defined, and then I think we need to set a date um for that fly-in, get that secured and nailed down. I know Mayor, you had some uh some of your training trips that'll be coming up um during part of that, but we'll have a discussion on that, and then uh and then we can kind of wrap up and go from there if that's all right. Yeah, that is. Uh Mayor, can we pause for a moment? Uh councilmember Lally isn't able to connect. Can I patch him in by phone? Yeah, sure. Just give us a second here. Hello. Hi, Joe. This is Elise. We're trying to patch you into the work session. Can you hear us okay? Yeah. We all good. All right, go ahead, Eric. Perfect. Thank you. Uh so just sort of a quick Washington DC uh update. Uh Jack and I are pleased to uh let you know, and Nate may have already informed you that the radio tower uh funding. Uh that bill that the earmark was included in did pass both the House and Senate. So it now goes to President Trump for his signature. Um that was located in the Commerce Justice Science Bill. Uh and that 5.5 million dollars uh is half of the funding we need for the radio tower. So once the FY26 process uh concludes, uh we'll be requesting uh the additional dollars in the FY27 process. And Jack and I are monitoring uh appropriations deadlines for that uh once we finish up uh with this current appropriation cycle. As of right now, both chambers have have passed uh six appropriations bills, which represents half of the appropriations bills that need to be passed. January 30th is the deadline for passage for all the appropriations bills.
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