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.

The House has passed eight bills out of the chamber.

The Senate still needs to pass uh the remaining so those two bills that the house has passed, the Senate hasn't, the Senate will consider next week.

Uh and then today the House and Senate appropriators release conferenced uh defense, homeland security, labor HHS, and transportation and HUD bills.

The House rules committee is going to meet tomorrow on those bills, and then they are going to look for passage on Thursday.

So once that occurs come Thursday, if those bills do pass, the only bill we expect any hiccups would be the Homeland Security due to just some immigration disagreements.

Uh once those are passed, um, then all of the bills have been passed out of the House.

The Senate will then come back next week, and they'll have to pass the six remaining bills ahead of the January 30th deadline.

As of right now, uh, we do expect that Congress will be able to pass it.

Um, it may take the Senate a little bit longer, so there could be a technical shutdown, but there doesn't seem to be an appetite for it.

So it looks like we are going to get the FY26 process taken care of.