Good morning.

This is the press conference that I have before a legislative meeting, and tomorrow, May 5th, the council will have a legislative meeting.

We will uh precede the legislative meeting with a committee of the whole meeting.

Committee of the whole scheduled for 11 o'clock, I'm guessing it will start later, partly because we start later, but also because the in addition to our usual breakfast where we discuss uh the legislative agenda, uh we also will be discussing the uh budget.

And that doesn't mean we're making any decisions tomorrow, but uh if I remember correctly, uh we're gonna talk about uh the mayor's proposed budget for the capital improvement plan.

That's the capital budget.

And uh so that'll take a little bit of time, plus the usual discussion about the legislative meeting.

So we probably will start later than 11, but the committee of the whole schedule for 11 and then the um legislative meeting.

And the committee of the whole will be marking up a number of uh bills, four bills, and um a reappointment confirmation of the mayor's nomination to reappoint Anthony Hood to the zoning commission.

Of the bills that we're marking up, three are um symbolic designations.

The other is the Motor Vehicle Insurance Modernization Act, which has been pending in the council for several years, so it's not a new proposal, but it would update the mandatory uh minimum insurance requirements for automobiles, or I should say motor vehicles.

They have not been updated for 40 years.

I expect there'll be some controversy around it.

Uh, we've seen that in other jurisdictions where there's controversy around uh bringing up to date the mandatory uh minimum insurance requirements for motor vehicles.

And I'm happy to answer questions about that.

Um the Committee on Housing reported out a number of measures.

A number of them are appointments or reappointments, actually confirmations of the mayor's nominations to appoint or reappoint members of the housing authority.

Um turning to the and those will then be on the legislative meeting agenda.

In uh in the uh legislative session, we will have a final reading on.

Uh I'm just gonna note a few of the bills.

There are quite a number of bills that will be on the agenda.

But uh one is the uh called the one front door amendment act, which uh follows what has been an emerging trend across the country of allowing uh low and mid-rise multifamily apartment buildings to have one stairwell as opposed to two.

And I know that at first blush that sounds like that is uh harmful to public safety.

There's been uh research around this in cities like New York City and Seattle that have had allowed one one door, one excuse me, one stairwell for multifamily apartment buildings, uh Seattle since the 70s, New York since the 1930s, and the research indicates that there's actually not an increase in deaths.

Um that uh there's not a significant difference in terms of firefighter access.

Uh and in fact, what makes a difference in terms of fires is uh life safety uh requirements such as sprinkler systems uh and using uh fireproof materials.

Uh so there may be some talk around that, but actually we're following what a number of states have now adopted as well as uh cities and other places.

And this makes a difference in terms of reducing the cost of uh housing, the construction of housing, but also uh uh enabling uh the construction of multifamily housing on smaller lots because um the uh space requirements are more efficient.

Uh there's also a bill called the Transfer and Recreation Tax Appeals Amendment Act.

Uh this went through Committee of the Whole a couple weeks ago.

The reason why I'm highlighting it here is because uh it is another effort, another step on the part of the council to deal with uh the ability of typically office buildings that are struggling with vacancies to be able to um transfer ownership and get them back into productive use.

It has to do with how the uh chief financial officer assesses the recordation and transfer taxes, which um we've seen uh situations where a building was assessed at like 200 million dollars is selling for something like 40 million dollars, and uh the transfer day transfer recordation transfer and recreation taxes are charged based on the assessed value, which in that example is like 200 million instead of what the actual uh arm's length price was, which is closer to 40 million.

So this uh should help with unlocking some properties.

The um another uh bill that's up for final reading is the Library ebook licensing fairness amendment act.

We are following uh what a number of other states have done, which is to um try if we can get enough states to do this to uh push back on what I'm going to characterize as monopolistic excessive pricing that libraries have to pay for ebooks, uh an effort by the library to um actually reduce some of its costs.

And we have a tax exemption for so others might eat uh at properties at 2607 Connecticut and 411 Kansas Avenue, which are affordable housing projects that uh suffer some reason have been caught up in CFO taxation when they're not supposed to be.

So we're trying to help there.

Uh I'm not going to go through all the resolutions, but one of note is uh appointment of Brad Belzak to the Board of Directors of the Washington Metro Rail Safety Commission.

He will be taking the place of Chris Hart, who has served for I think eight years.

Uh Chris has done a great job.

Uh but um we um he's he is submitted his resignation effective May 1st, and um Brad Belzak has impressed a lot of folks and has extensive background in uh safety.

And um that's what the Metro Rail Safety Commission is all about is to ensure that we have a safe and reliable, I should say safe metro rail system.

The uh curfew will be back on the agenda.

The permanent version is up for final reading.

And I'm told there may be some amendments.

That uh bill was approved on first reading uh on an eight to five vote.

So I'm expecting that the final reading will also be approved.

The emergencies on the agenda.

There have been conversations between members about that.

Uh I don't know where that all stands as I am standing here.

Uh the uh because there are eight votes for the curfew, that's enough for the permanent bill, but one vote shy of the necessary two-thirds for emergency.

Uh I've rarely seen this situation in this council, which generally values that when the majority has spoken that uh the minority doesn't stand in the way.

Uh but um we were unable, as you know, to get the emergency approved uh at the last two meetings.

Uh we'll see what happens tomorrow.

Um that's my quick summary of what's going on with the meeting, and I'm happy to take questions.

Maggie.

Thanks, Chairman.

Uh, can you just elaborate at all on those conversations going on between members, perhaps on any proposed changes, concessions that have been sought, or any movement in any direction, given this is well, I think there's some efforts to deal with concerns that some members have with regard to alternatives for juveniles.

Um personally have some um skepticism that uh many of the juveniles who are uh partaking in these takeovers are looking for alternatives.

And I don't mean anything sinister in that, but I think that uh uh we do have a lot of uh after hours uh recreational programming.