To do.

But they've been quite restrictive, and I haven't seen that that's attracted juveniles simply for the fun of violating the law.

Yes.

If you can talk a little bit about this question of whether or not you have the votes on the emergency end.

When we were here the last time, I know you had mentioned you thought you had the votes.

What makes you think on this end, I guess how confident are you going into tomorrow that we may or may not pass on the emergency end if you had to speculate?

If I if I had to speculate, I would say I'm optimistic because there are conversations taking place, because there are some efforts at uh looking at uh tweaks to what we have adopted previously, which would make members more comfortable.

Uh I mean, frankly, I think all the members should be comfortable because the um this is a phenomenon, a that we we've not seen in years past, maybe last year, but not uh certainly not when I was growing up or any of you were growing up, these large gatherings um facilitated by social media um and maybe in part to uh generate more social media and uh so uh this is something that uh the government needs to come to grips with, and we're not alone.

Um this is happening in other cities, so I'm optimistic, but I'm not gonna stand before you right now and say yes, there are nine votes.

And on the record, should there be an emergency vote taking place tomorrow?

What will be your votes on the emergency end, the temporary end, and the permanent end?

Yes.

I intend to vote favorably across all three legislations.

And as I said, I think uh majority of the members are there as well.

Any other questions on this?

Yes, more hands.

I got it off to other topics.

Let's take Megan or Susan Curfew.

Uh no, other topics okay.

We'll let Megan go first.

Okay, thanks.

Um I wanted to ask about uh some things on the budget.

Obviously, child care and the pay equity fund seem to once again be um a major area of debate for the council this year after the mayor's proposal.

I wanted to get a sense of where you stood on the proposed elimination of the pay equity fund.

Um obviously the mayor has said that she wanted to prioritize the child care subsidy funding, saying that pay equity fund isn't working as an affordability tool, though others have disputed that is its intent.

Um, and I'm wondering how you're thinking about this.

Well, I've not polled members, but uh if comments that I've heard as well as where members were last year, uh is if what I have heard is um guidance.

I would say that uh the council overwhelmingly wants to see the pay equity fund restored and wants to see the child care subsidy adequately budgeted.

Um certainly that's my view.

The uh what the mayor proposed with regard to the child care subsidy program is I think about 10, 15 million dollars short of what current year spending is.

I do think that there need to be some um control so that the spending doesn't grow beyond what we budget, but it's my hope that we will be able to fully fund what we are subsidizing today with regard to child care subsidy.

With regard to the um the pay equity fund, um the uh mayor all but said at her presentation to the council a week ago that uh it was not her desire to zero that out.

Um when I say zeroed it out, as I recall the numbers are roughly uh sixty million dollars towards salaries and twelve million dollars for health care, she budgeted the health care, but not the sixty million.

Now that's not to say that uh she wasn't looking at cutting it, but it wasn't her intent to zero it out.

You'll recall the mayor borrowed a page from the council and had uh with her presentation a contingency list, and this was on her contingency list.

And I'm glad that the mayor is um taking guidance from the council and approaching the budget.

I just wish I'll leave that alone.

Um so it's my hope that uh we will be able to restore the funding to the pay equity fund.

Uh let me say this.

I think there is a misunderstanding about what these two programs are about.

The um city recognized eight years ago that child care is not just simply babysitting, but it is actually an opportunity for early education.

There's a whole lot of learning and education that occurs uh at infancy in the first several years thereafter.

It's the reason why we have pre-K3, PK4, universal pre-K3 and 4 in the DCPS, because we recognize that this isn't just babysitting, but it's actually early child education.

Recognizing that, what the city did roughly a decade ago was to require that early child educators or I could say child care workers have to have credentials.

The credentials can be varying from just uh a certificate to a bachelor's degree.

If we're going to require these credentials, then the child care workers ought to be paid more.

This was legislation the council adopted in 2018 or 2019 that said uh that they should be paid comparable to what DCPS pre-K3PK4 educators get paid.

Now the specifics of that or the details of that um could be a little bit different, whether the pay is equal, but the thinking is the theory is the program is the policy is that um these early child educators should be credentialed and therefore should be paid more.

That's what the pay equity fund is about.

The child care subsidy is addressing the affordability of child care.

So if early child educators are to be paid more, the cost of child care becomes higher and becomes unaffordable for most folks, most families.

And so we have the child care subsidy.

What do we get for the child care subsidy?

Well, we do make it possible for parents to put their kids in child care.

We make it possible for children who are in child care to get quality child care that is educational.

But what we also get is families who then can work.

Uh so they don't have to stay at home because they can't afford child care.

Uh they can work.

So this is good for the workforce.

This is good for employers in the district.

This is actually good for families that need to have income, and it's good for the children who are benefiting from quality child care.

So that's what these two programs are about.

It's not just simply let's subsidize the pay in the one sector of the economy, or let's just pay for babysitting.

It's much more complex and I would say rich.

Helping children and helping working families.

Martin.

So you briefly mentioned the the mayor's, I guess her version of the council's contingency list, all of which is dependent on this 180 million dollars that the CFO is keeping away from both of you.

We obviously know where you stand on that one.

You would like access to that money, the mayor would too.

But what are the what are your plans moving forward to actually get that money?

Like what steps are you willing to take to make sure that the money gets turned over to to the council, I guess at this point to use for budgeting purposes.

And I'm assuming that if you got that money, you guys would be able to come up with your own contingency list.

Like the mayor's contingency list is not written in stone, right?

Uh the mayor's contingency list is not written in stone.

Although the strategy is an excellent one, as I said, since she was borrowing tried and true council um practice.

The um I will be talking with colleagues about how to go forward with accessing the um dollars that the chief financial officer is withholding, has withheld from the mayor and has said he's withholding from the council.

Um just so that everybody understands, um the budget is based on revenue estimates, and the CFO is conservative in his revenue estimates, and that's okay as I stated it.

However, last year the CFO was off by three-quarters of a billion dollars.

That's not okay.

Because that means that taxpayers are paying for government programs that are actually not supporting government programs, but instead are just going into the reserves.

So we have a policy, a goal that is best practice according to the government finance officers association, and that is that we should have reserves equal to 60 days operating expenses.

And uh right now, meaning uh as of the close of last fiscal year, we were at 66 days.

The mayor tried to access that six days, which is a couple hundred million dollars, and the CFO wouldn't let her do that.

So that's more money in the reserves than we need in a context of revenue estimates that uh are uh conservative to the point of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Um and then on top of that, there is um the revenue that the CFO has said multiple occasions that would come to the district because we chose not to couple with uh the federal tax code for the current filing season, and that's uh you said 160 million.

I think it's actually because of some retroactivity, about 240 million dollars.

So add 240 to three-quarters of a billion to a couple hundred million in the reserves, there's a whole lot of cash.

Now I could put this differently.

Um I was given a report on how much cash the city had at the close of the fiscal year, September 30th, and it was, if I remember correctly, 4.9 billion dollars in cash.

Looking at the budget director to tell me if I got that wrong.

I think it was 4.9 billion dollars in cash that the city had.

But the CFO is concerned that um uh is concerned about liquidity, whether there's enough cash on hand.

Our total um budget, local funds budget is about 11 billion dollars, just to give you a sense of how much cash there is.

Yeah.

When is when is his term up?

Next year.

Next year.

Um and uh were you surprised by obviously there's there's money that the mayor can't touch.

Um were you surprised by I guess was there um movement that she could have made in terms of um uh yes, we're in a bit of a um uh were you surprised that um the budget wasn't higher given we're dealing with inflation, we're dealing with all these other issues, and that the budget was actually less than years prior.

Um, or that the mayor's hands were tied to a certain extent, and like she was saying that um that we're dealing with um wanting to be smarter with our dollars, not to paraphrase the mayor, but I was not surprised by the um number of cuts.

There may be some very specific cuts or reductions that I didn't uh know about, so maybe that was a little bit of a surprise, but I knew that we were going to see widespread uh cuts in her budget.

Um the fact is that the city's budget has grown uh substantially over the years.

If I remember correctly, the local fund budget is at least 50 percent higher than it was a decade ago.

Um that kind of understates it uh this year compared to last is less, but the year before was about a billion dollars more in the budget, gross budget.

Um that's a whole lot of increase in spending.

As you know, I held hearings last fall about overspending by some agencies.

Um I do think that there's room for reshaping the budget, but I also would like us to try to look uh more structurally at the budget, and what do I mean by that?

That we're using one-time dollars for one-time things, not for recurring programs, and that we also have a financial plan that actually reflects what our spending is, and what do I mean what we want our spending to be?

And I'll just give this as an example.

The mayor's proposed budget comes with a four-year financial plan.

The financial plan has to be balanced.

This is a requirement of the district government.

It's a good thing actually.

So that's what it's examples like that that illustrate what I mean when I say structurally sound.

And if I can ask about RFK, there's an RFK zoning bill that's being discussed tomorrow afternoon.

Um how would this bill impact RFK development moving forward and do you expect any pushback from the rest of the council?

Um I don't expect any significant pushback.

The uh as you know, the commander stadium was approved last year on 11 to 2 vote, and uh so I think members will see that this is about um the is it the next step toward uh achieving the RFK campus redevelopment, that stadium plus all the associated uh retail commercial and uh and residential development.

Um the the site, the RFK campus right now in the comprehensive plan is designated as uh open space and parks.

And uh that's clearly not is what is in envisioned, nor is it what we voted on last year.

So the comprehensive plan has to be revised to reflect 6,000 residential units and uh lots of commercial retail space.

The um zoning cannot change until the comprehensive plan changes, so that's what tomorrow is about is a hearing on that legislation.

So this is very procedural.

I I'd like to characterize it that way.

It's not anything new and different.

Mr.

Seagraves.

Uh just a couple if we could run through uh ride in power.

I'm just wondering there in court, and there's also the claims from councilwoman former counsel uh I mean councilmember white that he's been getting pressure, including um uh uh I'm sorry, I mean uh you know I'm talking about.

No, I don't.

I know you.

So on the ride and power, can you talk about have you received any pressure um from their chief of staff or from anyone uh rising to the level of even threats uh that we're hearing about um uh uh directed toward people we know that they're in court, I think maybe even today or tomorrow.

Just is is there a resolution there?

And what do you think of just the tone of what's going on there?

You're talking about empower, which has been um held to be illegal by court on numerous occasions.

That's correct.

Yeah, so one of the beauties about my approach toward life is that sometimes I'm oblivious when I'm being threatened, so I'm not aware of any threats against me by them, or any pressure tactics by them.

Um and if there was, then I would of course report it, but uh um I'm not gonna be intimidated.

The um I have not been following it closely.

I'm just aware that in power has been held to be illegal for gosh.

Um I think court after court after court, they went up to the Court of Appeals at least once, if not twice, they're they're I frankly don't understand what they're thinking is because they're they're um however they want to characterize themselves as legitimately operating, nobody else has seen it that way, and we all have to comply with the law.

Uh back to the budget to people who don't make a distinction between capital and operating budget, a lot of just residents, taxpayers who see a lot of money going out the door to monumental to the commanders uh at a time where you just described a budget process that's probably gonna result in a lot of cuts to things and uh things like child care costs going up.

What do you say to residents who are frustrated that uh again I understand the distinction between capital and operating, but a lot of people just don't make that distinction and they just see a lot of money going out the door to billionaire team owners at a time when average families are struggling.

Well, I say a couple of things.

One is that if we didn't uh if we didn't uh put the dollars into, for instance, the commander's project, the RFK project, including the commander stadium, uh that if we didn't do that, uh that money would not be available for operating costs like SNAP and TANF and child care subsidy.

That's one thing I say.

So in the end, the distinction is important, you can't walk away from that.

Uh I would also say that the it investments like uh keeping the arena downtown and developing the RFK site are investments, and just that.

They're investments.

So they will actually uh generate more revenue for the city, which will then put us in a better position to fund TANF and SNAP and child care subsidy in the future.

Um and then I would also note that for the commanders, although there's we are beginning to spend uh the 200 million dollars that was promised or committed with regard to uh infrastructure improvements, uh the bulk of that investment is not going to take place for a number of years, so doesn't address it's not a solution.

It's kind of irrelevant to the current challenges with regard to TANF and SNAP and the child care subsidy.

Um I would add as well that both the arena investment and the commanders or RFK campus investment uh are largely if not entirely tied to revenues that will be generated from the site.

So if there were no football games, no events whatsoever, and no stadium um, there would be no revenue that would pay for this stuff, and then again we would not be building this stuff, or they would not be building this stuff.

So I didn't say that very well, but um a large part, if not all of the cost of these investments is coming out of the revenues, the proceeds from these sites.

And then on two other topics on the persuade you're all excited by my answer.

It was thrilling.

The ticketmaster uh court case uh sarcastic judgment against Ticketmaster.

Um do you see that impacting the resale ticket legislation that uh book Charles Allen is is pushing forward that that maybe that needs to be adjusted now because of this finding.

A lot of people kind of looked at that as favorable as the resale legislation is somewhat favorable toward Ticketmaster.

Obviously, this ruling shows Ticketmaster in a different light.

The honest answer is I've not been briefed on it, so I couldn't give you a much of an informed answer.

My last question then is uh on the politics playing out in the race for delegate.

Uh council member Pinto had put up the opposition re research uh paper on her website, she defended that, then she walked that back, somewhat apologized, redacted some of the personal information.

What are your thoughts of just the tone of what we're seeing?

Uh you know, you had a former challenger level some accusations and ch charges against you for a misstep that you acknowledge publicly making.

But when you look at the the delegate race that seems to be one of, if not the the ugliest right now going on, what what do you make there?

Well, we're actually seeing that I think in uh several different races.

Um I'm gonna avoid getting into the specifics or the particularities, but I will say this.

I've always believed that uh the best campaigning is positive campaigning.

Uh I want you, I'm not saying this campaigning for myself.

I want a candidate to speak for why they are worthy, why uh they deserve your vote.

That's what I think a candidate should do.

And I get that there is a belief out there that attacking one's opponent is um helpful.

Um if nothing else, I think it's kind of messy, but uh I think that uh the better approach is to emphasize accentuate the positive.

Sir, should Vincil resign uh over these.

Oh, I'm not gonna get into that at all.

Late to the game, yes, sir.

Always on time, never late.

I'm on God's time anyway.

Uh I'm pretty sure my colleagues already touched on this, but I just wanted to get a sense of um what dialogue discussions have been taking place uh since March 31st as it relates to uh the curfew legislation.

I'm pretty sure my colleagues already touched on this, but I just wanted to get a sense of um what dialogue discussions have been taking place uh since March 31st as it relates to the curfew legislation.

Uh there have been a number of conversations.

Um I have talked with uh several members.

I know members are talking to each other.

Um of the members are talking with the mayor, I've spoken with the mayor.

Uh there are a lot of conversations taking place.

So in in terms of that conversation, I just wanted to get your thoughts on, you know, as it relates to police community relationships.

Uh during the committee hearing, I believe it was last week or not too long ago, Councilmember Pinto, she did um emphasize the need for MPD to be more relational with the young people who are out there.

And those comments came not too long before video surfaced at a metro station of um NPD taking young people off of bikes and throwing them uh supposedly.

So I'm just trying to get a sense of what's the conversation as it relates to that, just mitigating um concerns about young people versus uh mitigating concerns about NPD relationships and the degree to which they're you know going at them.

If I'm understanding your question, I would say both are important.

So um I remember when uh community policing was the buzzword around police reform and police improvement in the district, and community policing I think is still important, and that is uh police building relationships with the community.

Um so to the extent that uh folks are talking about that or folks think that there needs to be more attention to that, I completely agree.

Um and that may be part of what is being discussed between members and the mayor.

Um there are 3100 officers in the department, and it's possible that uh that uh it's not 100 percent officers who act appropriately, that there could be one or two who are not appropriate.

Um I'm sort of obliquely referring to the incident you mentioned with the bicycle.

Um and we do have ways of dealing with that, such as the independent office of police complaints.

So as far as the permanent legislation, where do you stand on that?

And again, if you touched on that when I was on my way down here, you know, I do apologize, but please indulge.

No, I I support both the emergency and the permanent.

Okay, uh, I wanted to move on to um fourth district headquarters.

Uh there was a body found uh uh around this time on Monday, and NPD.

Monday, meaning last week.

Yes, sir, Monday, April 13th.

And Metropolitan Police Department didn't release a statement until Thursday.

Uh I wanted to get your thoughts on that as it relates to uh NPD's responsibility to the community to maintain transparency to keep them abreast of things that are going on in the community.

I'm asking that because ANC commissioners went up to MPD um for information.

I was told that they weren't given much community members.

Um there was were talking about it.

There were videos being posted online, and for three days, MPD did not issue a public statement.

As a matter of fact, a public statement did not come out until I stood in the lobby of 4D requesting um the police report that I never got via email.

So I'm gonna stay away from all the details because I think it needs to be investigated so that we understand all of the facts, but I will say this.

Um hanging in the District of Columbia is extremely unusual.

And of course, the hanging of a black man evokes the worst memories.

Um I think that it's incumbent on MPD to get ahead of that issue, which apparently they did not do.

Based on what I know, it's not clear the cause of death.

And uh it may take some time to figure that out.

Was it a suicide?

Was it um a murder?

Um that may take some time, which is unfortunate.

But I do think that MPD and now the government needs to be as ahead of this issue as possible.

Because even if it was a suicide, uh people have a it it it's understandable that people would that this would evoke just the worst memories, and um that that we cannot allow.

Just for clarification, my understanding was that he was Latino, but I would suppose that your point still stands.

Oh I do want to have one more question for the time being at least as it relates to the 180 million dollars or so that's currently in limbo.

What's more than 180 right you said about 230 depending on more than 230.

Depends on how how you're counting okay I heard 230 last time how much is it now?

Well it depends on how you're counting as I mentioned before the um revenue estimates are always conservative and last year they were conservative to the tune of about 850 million dollars.

On top of that the revenues from the tax legislation that the CFO has acknowledged but not recognized in the revenue estimates and then on top of that is the roughly 2.2 billion dollars in the reserves which is more than what um our goal or the GFOA goal is for reserves.

You add it all up and you get a lot more than 160 million dollars so I got one more question and it just came to mind um this budget cycle what is your commitment you and the other at large council members to best ensuring that Ward eight residents get what they call their fair share.

I'm asking in the context of their council member no longer having chairmanship of a committee and which in some people's eyes relinquishes him of more uh power and leverage so what is your commitment to ensuring that what eight residents get their just due well um fair share is a uh political question I would note that in years past when the councilmember did share a committee I don't recall that there were additional dollars added in the budget for Ward 8.

There was this pro um dollars moved around um there are five members of the council who are citywide and so each of them represents Ward 8.

Um as we go through the budget process I can only speak for myself I will be looking at what requests are coming out of the Ward A community and uh what projects this would probably be more on the capital side um and Ward 8 um might be underfunded and see if we're able to address any of that I would add as well that uh Ward 8 tends to have more of a lower income population than other wards and therefore a lot of our social service programs are important to them and I think it's fair to say that all of the council members are very much uh concerned about cuts to these social service programs and uh wanting to see as much of those cuts restored as possible I'm being told I'm out of time you may be the last question.

Can you just summarize in so it seems to me like you you have a high degree of confidence that the permanent curfew legislation will pass.

Yes.

Less of a high degree that the emergency will pass and that's because of the difference between seven and nine votes needed correct but I use the phrase optimistic I'm optimistic with regard to the emergency.

And how would you characterize for the permanent a high level of confidence that's that's more than optimistic on your on the Mendelssohn scale.

Correct of okay I appreciate that.

If you if you want I'd be happy to give you a lesson in my lexicon after after this.

I appreciate that yes we may I think I'm out of time you're supposed to say it more loudly like thank you all very much see you tomorrow