Press Conference on March 30, 2026, Previewing the March 31 Legislative Meeting
Press Conference on March 30, 2026, Previewing the March 31 Legislative Meeting
Chairman Phil Mendelson held a press conference on March 30, 2026, to outline the upcoming legislative meeting scheduled for March 31, 2026. He discussed a wide range of agenda items, including building code changes, motor vehicle insurance updates, school funding, juvenile curfew extension, a veto override on ICE legislation, and several other measures. The Chairman also took questions from reporters on topics such as the single stair building code, the White House ballroom, Commander's stadium parking garages, a potential business activity tax, budget delays, and the impending shutdown of the DC streetcar.
Consent Calendar
- One Front Door Amendment Act: Modifies the building code to allow buildings below four stories to have a single entrance for ingress and egress instead of two, provided sprinkler systems and other requirements are met. The Chairman cited statistics that fire fatalities are not caused by inability to exit the building, but rather occur inside apartments. This bill will be on the consent agenda for first reading.
- Motor Vehicle Insurance Modernization: First update to minimum insurance requirements since 1986. May be delayed two weeks if a fiscal impact statement is not available due to the Office of Revenue Analysis being consumed with the mayor's budget.
- Library Ebook Licensing Fairness Amendment Act: Similar to legislation adopted in at least ten other states, aimed at reducing high e-book prices for libraries through market pressure.
- Nominations: Confirmations for the Board of Library Trustees, Green Finance Authority Board, and DC Water and Sewer Authority Board.
Public Comments & Testimony
No public comments were taken as this was a press conference.
Discussion Items
- Single Stair Building Code (One Front Door Act): The Chairman stated the statistics overwhelmingly support the change and that there was little controversy at the hearing, though the executive expressed some unease. The bill will be on the consent agenda.
- Juvenile Curfew Extension: The Chairman supports the emergency extension, noting that the curfew (groups of eight or more) has led to no arrests and is used to disperse large gatherings. He believes the votes are present for passage, despite earlier uncertainty from Councilmember Pinto. He expressed a desire to move beyond the need for a curfew but cited current trends and police staffing challenges.
- Open Meetings Legislation: The Chairman supports the emergency and temporary extension, emphasizing the need for candid conversations among elected officials, while maintaining that any action must occur in public meetings.
- Veto Override on ICE Legislation (Robert White’s Bill): The Chairman is confident the override will pass because the original bill was approved unanimously. He noted that both ICE bills (body-worn cameras—signed by the mayor—and incident reports—vetoed) will go to Congress regardless. He defended the bills as reasonable accountability measures and criticized ICE's tactics.
- White House Ballroom: The Chairman expressed concerns about the proposed ballroom's height (40-foot ceiling, question of reducing to 38 or 36 feet) and massing (larger than typical 150 square feet per person). He is disturbed by its potential to overwhelm the White House wing and plans to review materials before the Thursday vote.
- Commander’s Stadium Parking Garages: The Chairman stated that 110-foot parking decks seem too high and will be examined closely, noting he had not previously been aware of such tall structures.
- Business Activity Tax: The Chairman said it is too soon to discuss movement, as the budget has not been submitted. He noted the Chief Financial Officer indicated implementation would take at least a year and warned against adding a business activity tax without offsetting reductions in other business taxes (e.g., personal property tax, franchise tax, paid leave fee), as originally envisioned by the tax revision commission.
- Budget Delay: The Chairman criticized the Chief Financial Officer’s office for lack of urgency, noting that the first iteration of the financial plan took five days to produce. He emphasized the iterative process requires more responsiveness and said the mayor has not yet submitted the budget. Consequences include freezing MPD payments and reprogrammings.
- DC Streetcar Shutdown: The Chairman expressed sadness over the streetcar's end, attributing its failure to poor planning (e.g., no logical termini like Union Station or Minnesota Avenue) and lack of support from the city. He rejected the idea that a costly network expansion would have saved it, calling such spending a luxury the government should not pursue.
Key Outcomes
- No votes were taken at the press conference, but the Chairman outlined the expected actions for the March 31 legislative meeting:
- The Committee of the Whole will mark up six measures, including the One Front Door Amendment Act, Motor Vehicle Insurance Modernization, and library ebook licensing.
- Final readings are scheduled for the Schools First Amendment Act (adding average position cost as an inflationary factor for school budgets) and the Holding Company System Amendment Act.
- Emergency legislation includes extension of the Nationals ballpark lease (likely through 2054 or 2059), juvenile curfew extension, disapproval of a fire truck purchase, and temporary open meetings legislation.
- A motion to override the mayor’s veto on the ICE incident report bill will be considered; the Chairman expects the votes to be there.
Meeting Transcript
Why don't we get started? Good morning to everyone. This is the press conference that I have before legislative meeting, and tomorrow, March 31st, the council will have a legislative meeting. Even though it's the month of March, this will be the regular monthly meeting for the council. Because originally when we scheduled this, we would be on recess on April 7th. So we're going ahead with tomorrow, and hence we have the press conference today. The committee of the whole will meet first, and the committee of the whole will be marking up six measures. Two are symbolic name designations, transfer and recognition tax appeals amendment act, one front door amendment act, uh the one front door amendment act uh is a modification to the building code. So the buildings uh below, I think it's four stories, can have one entrance for egress and ingress and egress rather than two. Um I know that when I first looked at this bill, I thought that was a little bit weird and a little bit odd that there would be uh we would go from two entrances to one. Uh it uh evidently is in the code in a number of other cities, I believe New York City. And uh when we had the public hearing, the statistics uh, which to me was uh compelling, are that uh when there is a fire in an apartment building, uh people are not dying because they cannot get out of the building. Uh they're actually dying in their apartment if they die. Um so the notion that you have to have uh two points of entry and exit uh statistically just is not borne out as necessary. There are some other requirements. Uh for instance, there has to be a sprinkler system, because that's what really makes a difference in terms of fires and fatalities. Uh there's some other uh building code requirements, which I do not remember offhand. Uh but all of that together, uh the statistics are overwhelming that um uh one one um as the bill is entitled, one front door is adequate. So that's being marked up. Motor vehicle insurance modernization, which would be the first update to our minimum insurance requirements for motor vehicles. This will be the first update since I believe 1986. Um, although my staff told me we may not have a fiscal impact statement yet because I believe ORA has been consumed with the mayor's budget, and um in which case we'll just move it two weeks until we have the um fiscal impact statement. There are um other measures that were reported out of committees. Um the library ebook licensing fairness amendment act um and uh two, three nominations, confirmations of mayor's nominations for the Board of Library Trustees. The um library ebook licensing fairness, uh if you're interested, I recommend you read the report because the report is much better than whatever I'm gonna be able to say. But uh essentially this is uh an act that we've seen adopted similar form in other states. When there are, I think it's a minimum of ten states that have adopted similar legislation. Uh there'll be enough uh states who are participating that this will affect uh the prices that the e-book sellers are charging, which apparently is phenomenally high. And um, that's what this is about is um trying to force to the market a reduction in the fees that libraries have to pay for e-books. There are also several nominations to the Greek Green Finance Authority Board and the uh DC Water and Sewer Authority Board. Uh that's the committee of the whole. So that last part uh beginning with the library discussion is all reported out of other committees, so not for markup in the committee as a whole. We have a legislative meeting to follow. There will be um, I'm not gonna go over everything, but final reading on the school's first amendment act of 2026. You all will remember that uh several years ago the council adopted a bill called School's First in Budgeting Amendment Act that um essentially says that on the individual school level uh in DCPS that schools budgets from one year to the next cannot be cut, but have to be maintained and in fact increased with an inflationary factor, which could be equal to the UPSFF increase or the CBA collective bargaining agreement uh teacher increase. What this bill does, it's getting final reading tomorrow is to have one other inflationary factor, and it's the hire of the several inflationary factors. And what we're adding is uh an increase in the average position cost. If this sounds very technical, it probably is. But the goal here is to maintain stable funding in our individual schools. I think this is a reason why we're seeing improvements in test results in schools, also reduction in teacher turnover and principal turnover, because this budget stability really enables uh school and the school leader to build from one year to the next. And I'm happy to answer questions about that in a moment. The Holding Company System Amendment Act, which is final reading, completely boring title, but it basically what it does is it maintains Disby in compliance with uh federal regulatory requirements. And um it's not controversial. The um the exchanges were supposed to go into effect uh last year. Uh we were given a bit of a stay as long as this legislation is moving, which is why it's moving. And uh price gouging bill, seasonal pricing and price gouging amendment act um simplifies our price gouging law when there is an emergency, so that essentially it's tied to what the prices are rather than trying to figure out what changes are in the wholesale market. Um I'm gonna skip to the uh non-consent agenda. The um 2607 Connecticut Avenue and 411 Kansas Avenue Northwest Timeline Extension, tax forgiveness. Those are two properties that are owned by and developed by, so others might need or some. Uh the 2607 Connecticut Avenue was budgeted.
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