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.

Um the juveniles who do participate in these takeovers, many of whom I think are from outside the district.

They're just looking for the um the fun of hanging out with a lot of other juveniles.

And uh but in any event there's been some talk about whether we can do more for uh alternative programming.

And uh at the same time, there's been some talk by some members about uh having more accountability.

I think that means accountability for parents that becomes more difficult.

But uh so I think there's some conversations around that.

Um, there's a kind of uh contradictory dynamic here, which is that uh juveniles who misbehave should be held accountable at the same time.

There's a strong feeling that we should not be about arresting and um uh uh arresting teenagers and getting them into the uh juvenile justice system.

As I said, I think those uh themes are a bit contradictory.

Um personally I think that yes, accountability is important.

Uh I think to me the curfew is more about um enabling police to prevent or break up these large gatherings, not about arresting, not about uh sanctioning, but just uh breaking up these large gatherings.

As you know, the cur fire curfew doesn't of the curfew legislation we have is not a com strict complete ban on juveniles can't be out after 8 p.m.

It is that uh juveniles cannot in designated areas be in groups of um more than eight.

Uh be honest with you, I can't remember if it's more than eight or eight or more.

But um so it's groups and it's in designated areas, and the police have used that to uh break up these large gatherings.

It's different than the um curfew that's been in the law for decades, which is uh 11 o'clock or 12 o'clock at night that uh juveniles can't be out.

Any follow-up on that?

If I can just clarify on what on some of the direction of the conversations, are you talking about on the emergency bill?

Because I I think we know that you know Brianna Doe has proposed an amendment to the permanent version, but the impasse is on emergency.

So what would that do to get people to a yes?

Uh as I I don't I don't know that I have more to add.

Uh discussions about accountability, discussions about alternative programming for uh uh youth.

Yes.

Can you just kind of talk through the process or your your thought process on these past emergency votes?

Instead of just taking it and letting people vote no?

I mean, it seems like there's not the support.

Why keep bumping it and not just let people vote the way they feel on this?

Well, members are free to do that.

I think each time there's been a motion to postpone and uh the majority has approved the motion to postpone.

I think the feeling is that we would like to get to yes.

Um and as I said, we're in a situation where a majority of the members have spoken with regard to the permanent in support, uh, but we're one vote shy of the necessary two thirds for the emergency.

Um I get that there's some satisfaction for some folks if we just have a vote and maybe it's defeated.

I don't know what the benefit of that is.

Um I think it is better to try to get to nine votes, and um it's better to get to nine votes than uh just have a vote that uh fails.

If there is not enough support for the emergency tomorrow, do you see yourself pushing that vote again?

I'm not gonna speculate on what happens tomorrow.

Mr.

Seagraves.

Uh just my one more on this.

Have you talked to Zachary Parker about his vote and this and tomorrow what he's doing?

I have not spoken to him in the last couple of days.

And then can I go back to the one front door about that?

So either last night or over the weekend, there was a deadly fire in New York City.

I believe three people were killed and fourteen injured in the exact building that would fit this description, six stories, one stairwell.

Um firefighters have been against this for these very reasons, these safety reasons.

It seems the developers want it because of cost cutting measures, as you pointed out, making it more affordable.

Does that not give you concern?

No, and I think that's a, and I don't mean this as a criticism of you, but I think that's a simplistic explanation.

So I don't know the details of the fire you're speaking of.

Uh there could be a there could be other factors at work than the fact that there was a single stairwell there.

Um was the building at code?

I don't know.

New York City has had uh one stairwell um has permitted one stairwell buildings uh since the 1930s.

And there has been research done on New York City, and it has been found that there is no statistical difference between uh life safety and firefighting in the one stairwell buildings and other multifamily buildings that had multiple stairwells.

Um I don't know the details.

Was the building actually compliant with the code?

Uh did the deaths occur because people couldn't get out of the building because of the stairwell, or maybe the deaths occurred because people couldn't get out of their apartments.

Um I hate to speculate too much, but I really don't know the details there.

If they couldn't get out of their apartment, it doesn't matter how many stairwells there were in the building.

Was there a sprinkler system?

Was the sprinkler system operable?

I'm trying to think of other life safety of the sprinkler system is the most effective with regard to preventing deaths.

Smoke alarms, did the smoke alarms go off?

Or did they not?

So the legislation we have doesn't just simply permit a single stairwell.

It also, I mean, what the bill does actually is it authorizes or directs that the Department of Buildings would come up with amendments to the building code that not only would permit a single stairwell, but also simultaneously would require other life safety requirements, such as distance from the stairwell for the units.

That there has to be sprinkler systems, there have to be smoke detectors, there have to be fire retardant or fire resistant materials in the construction.

And then also following best practices in other states with regard to fire safety.

So put all that together.

Or if they did, that uh the uh deaths occurred in the units and not inability to escape the building.

I mean, I'll just add, I I was brought up believing that you should have uh two stairwells.

But the data is quite clear that uh it doesn't make a difference.

So just to bring it back to the curfew, as you well know, as we all know, it's been, I think, just shy of a year since the discussions around the curfew just started in the council.

And every time the council discussed the curfew, um more and more members started peeling off.

The first vote, I think, in June of last year was unanimous, I think, on the emergency to uh to uh to impose the these curfews.

Well, you probably looked it up, so you probably know.

That's not my memory.

My memory is that the four who have voted no have been consistently voting no.

They have not, because I remember Robert White is one good example because he talked about the streetlight rule when he was a kid and he had to be home by nine, all those things.

I'm pretty sure it was close to unanimous regardless.

But they started peeling off as you guys voted on it again and again to the point that now we have these four kind of consist consistent no votes.

Most of them have been saying the same thing.

We want alternatives.

We want the mayor to put more money into DPR, we want more things for the kids to do.

But now we're here again, the same discussion, the same require uh requests for more things to be done in the alternative.

Is there a failure on the mayor's part?

Is there a failure on the council's part to not just get address that pen that those pending requests, those pending questions for alternatives?

Uh I'm certainly not going to say that there's been a failure on the mayor's part or uh any individual council members.

The um the mayor first presented the uh curfew proposal last summer.

There was definitely unease on the part of some members.

Now, Martin, you may be correct that it was a unanimous or near unanimous vote, but I recall that there was definitely unease on the part of some members.

Um I think that's what we're dealing with today is that there is unease.

Um I would say that fundamentally, or the fundamental factor behind the unease is a desire not to be incarcerating in uh youth.

And um, I'm speaking very, very generally.

So, because I'm thinking, for example, it didn't help uh the last meeting that uh a couple of days before there was video of a police officer who pulled a couple of young women off of bicycles that was not in a curfew zone.

It was not during a curfew time.

Um these were not two young women who were part of uh scores of teenagers.

I you know the incident I'm talking about.

And that just fueled uh the unease that some members have about uh incarcerating youth.

So the girls were not incarcerated, but the police were involved, and the that police officer from what I saw was heavy-handed, and that's exactly what members don't want to see with uh juveniles.

So I'm just in broad strokes, it's that um there's been unease from the beginning, and the unease has to do with to what extent we want uh police detaining and arresting uh juveniles, and that unease is what we're dealing with.

Right, but I think the question was that if you if the unease has been obvious for a year.

And it seems like not enough has been done if or anything has really been done to settle that unease.

I mean the mayor has opened some DPR centers here and there.

I think she did something over the spring.

Well, personally, I don't know what more can be done, but I'm open to suggestions.

And uh I know that uh I had conversations with a member two weeks ago where the member was saying, uh, you know, we need accountability.

Well, what does that mean?

And I didn't get a suggestion.

Yes.

Um could we uh could we back up to the uh change in car insurance requirements?

So you mentioned that you thought that that was going to be a contentious issue.

I think it's some discussion around it.

A contentious issue.

Well, well, what exactly uh do you base that on and and and why are you concerned about that?

Well, what does it involve?

Well, I've seen some lobbying against the legislation, which actually kind of surprises me, but it doesn't surprise me, and that is that uh it will increase premiums and also increase the rate of uh uninsured motorists.

Um the experience in other states doesn't support that.

Um but more importantly, in my view, is the fact that the um the mandatory minimums have not increased in 40 years.

Forty years.

That's 1986.

So the cost of a car in 1986 was maybe 10 to 15,000 dollars.

The cost of a car today is maybe 40 to $60,000.

Um, but the mandatory insurance, which covers, for example, damage to a car, um has um that hasn't changed.

Um medical costs.

So I don't have in my head what average medical costs were in 1986, but I assure you they are considerably higher 40 years later, but the mandatory minimums have not gone up.

Where is where is the the lobbying effort that you're you're seeing and speaking about coming from?

Uh well, I know that uh the insurance industry doesn't like the bill.

Uh we had a hearing, and uh my recollection is that the hearing, the hearing was actually held by the Committee on Business and Economic Development, I believe it was last fall or the fall before.

I think it was the fall before.

And um looking at the list of witnesses, uh pretty much everybody was in support of the bill except for uh uh representatives of the insurance industry.

So I kind of see it as a I see it as a consumer protection issue that uh um it protects all of us if everybody has adequate insurance, and these are minimums, so people can have more, but the minimums should not be dated in the last century.

Uh happy Monday, Chairman.

Well, happy Monday to you.

Sir.

Uh so you were pretty clear that you hadn't spoken with uh councilmember Parker for a couple of days now, but I didn't want to gather your thoughts on the youth testimony from last Thursday.

Yeah.

Um what came to mind for you as you heard the youth testify uh before the youth affairs committee, and what bearing does that testimony have on tomorrow's outcome for you, you know, as it relates to youth programming and just that balancing act you were talking about as it relates to the involvement of police?

There's definitely a value in listening to youth and what their perspective is.

I'm not sure how many of those who testified are the ones who are uh causing the problems that we've seen with these takeovers.

And we have a responsibility to look at the picture more broadly.

And the well-intentions of youth who come to these takeovers is one thing, but when some of the juveniles in these takeovers then start to get into destructive behavior, we have to look at that, and we have to deal with that.

So just responding to that question.

Um structurally, you know, to your point that the youth who testified might not be the same youth who are engaging in those behaviors.

Do you consider that more of a structural issue, you know, in terms of young people's access to the Wilson building and you know, maybe like some correlation between those who are causing trouble and them not really being engaging of the D.C.

Council or the Council not engaging them?

I don't see it as a structural issue.

Um I don't see that at all.

So I don't share the Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety.

So I don't know to what extent they've looked at other cities, but I've my uh understanding is that cities across the country are dealing with this, and looking at best practices with other cities, I think is important.

And as I said, I think that we also have to uh take into consideration the destructive behavior that we have seen, uh both in damage to property as well as violence between individuals at these takeovers.

Um I think that that uh those considerations are paramount.

I do have other questions, but you just keep inspiring these new questions.

Uh I keep hearing the word juvenile.

Better inspiring something.

I keep hearing the word juvenile being used, and my understanding was that the language that uh Councilmember Crawford introduced would X that out and use youth.

So I'm hearing you still using it, but I'm just trying to understand like at what point will the council or just any branch of government start embracing the language around youth and not juvenile.

Well, I appreciate where Councilmember Crawford was coming from.

And I get that we should be aware that uh the use of the term juvenile can sometimes have um a negative connotation.

Uh I'm not going to stay away from that word, though.

Um you may have noticed that I have been alternately using the word youth and juvenile.

So and my use of the word juvenile is not intended to have a negative uh connotation.

Just the fact that somebody is a juvenile is not negative.

We were all juveniles at one point.

I understood.

Um wanted to move on.

So about 15 minutes ago, um DHS released uh some statistics as it relates to the truancy diversion program, and my understanding is that there's been a 71 percentage, 71 percent reduction in truancy among the 800 or so young people who have gone through the program.

And um that statistic has been tied to um legislation that Mayor Bowser included in her budget support act to expand this program uh citywide.

I wanted to get a sense from you about where do you see the expansion of that program fitting in FY27 budget deliberations?

You know, do you see um space to allocate monies toward that program?

Do you and do you get a sense that the program was truly successful in the last two years in terms of uh making sure that young people are getting to school?

Well, I'm not aware of the statistics that were released this morning.

I am aware that last week at uh a hearing of the committee as a whole, uh this issue came up, and Councilmember Frumon, who has oversight over DHS said that the um success of that program has been underwhelming.

So I am aware of that observation from the oversight chair.

Um that program is very expensive.

And the hearings that the committee as a whole has had on the issue of truancy and absenteeism have made it quite clear that the most effective way to deal with absenteeism or alternatively attendance is to is um the school culture or school climate, meaning what the school leadership is doing to work with families and students uh to have a uh a really inviting and exciting environment for students to learn in.

What we have seen over the years is that there are schools that have been very successful at reducing truancy and chronic absenteeism.

And it's because something has changed with the school climate.

We for years were looking for what the magic formula was, and it turns out that the magic formula is simply the school climate, school culture.

And schools that uh work well with uh families and students, uh they do not have the same kind of um absenteism.

So that's not the DHS program.

I will add this as well.

So DHS has had programs over the years to help with uh attendance, uh, and I don't want to say that those programs should go away.

But the pilot that the mayor wants to make permanent uh is very expensive.

And if the mayor is going to complain about how the cost of the pay equity program for child care workers is becoming too expensive, or that the child care subsidy is becoming too expensive.

Um we are at the uh formative stages of another program that is this DHS truancy program that will become too expensive.

When we costed it out, my recollection is that the cost if we were to scale this up to cover all schools would be $50, $60 million a year.

And we don't have that kind of money.

So I have not seen whatever the statistics are that you referenced this morning, but uh that's at odds with what the uh oversight chair said last week.

If there are no other questions, I'll try to get my comments.

Uh this is double dipping.

Well, triple quadruple dipping, but I got to.

Um I do have one more.

Uh so there's been some concern among as you know among public charter school leaders about uh fixed costs on the early child care uh center and um compensation being outside of the per pupil funding structure for them.

Uh I wanted to get a sense from you, of course.

Uh what is your mindset in terms of exploring the possibility of a structure where the city takes on all of that for the public charters just as it's doing for the DC public school system that's one approach or another approach is that DCPS should pay for its own expenses.

So what are we talking about here, just so everybody understands?

Uh I think the entire city believes that we fund public education on an appropriate basis.

And that's what we're supposed to do with the LEAs, the local education agency.

So DCPS is an LEA, and the different charter schools or charter school systems like Friendship is an LEA, uh KIP is an LEA, Wildflower, which I think has one uh one building is an LEA.

The LEAs are all supposed to be funded on appropriate basis, yes.

Um this year with the mayor's budget, uh roughly a hundred million dollars is going to DCPS outside of the formula, meaning not on appropriate basis.

And the charter community is furious about it.

Uh this is uh a trend that I have been criticizing for several years because on a much smaller level, the uh mayor was funding DCPS 20, 30 million dollars outside of the um the per pupil formula, but it's now a hundred million.

So that's a problem, and it's an it's an equity issue.

Uh if I remember correctly, the charter school community says it's a difference of about $2,000 per student.

That's just wrong.

Now, are we able to fix it?

Uh theoretically, the council, because the council is the appropriator, we can fix it, but we would have to unfund something in the mayor's budget in order to properly fund.

We could cut the funding to DCPS so they have no money for energy or maintenance, or we could put the money entirely into the formula, which means we would then have to roughly double it, find another hundred million dollars so that the charters are funded equally.

Uh, we're looking at it.

I don't know how we'll resolve that.

The facilities is another issue.

Uh so um the city spends uh $500 million plus or minus on DCPS facilities, school modernizations.

We don't do that for the charters.

What we do for the charters is we give them a um a payment based on a formula.

Again, it's per pupil, and um the mayor with budgets a couple years ago stopped that.

We were able to adjust that a little so that it would resume, I think uh in two years, the mayor with this budget takes that away.

So the charter sector is furious about this as well that you know the cost of facilities is going up and therefore the facilities allowance needs to go up.

And um that's that's what they're angry about.

Does that answer your question, Sam?

If you want to know what I'm gonna do about it, that's what the budget process is about is about is to figure out whether we can address these wrongs and fix them.

At this point I'm not sure what the what we're going to be able to do.

Again it's you know it's nice to say not that you're saying this but I I see this from time to time that well the council's the appropriator we can just fix it.

Well to fix it we have to cut something and as you know we're dealing with a lot of cuts that members would like to restore it.

Any other questions uh Mr Rice you'll be the last one there's been a lot of news about the there's been a lot of news about the federal takeovers of two golf courses care to comment.

Uh well I think it's inappropriate uh there was um a solution found a couple of years ago with the National Links Trust to get the three public golf courses back into good condition and public use.

Um my understanding is that um the this and this is not the first time we've seen this that the uh federal um the White House administration uh trumped up um some allegations about uh National Lynx Trust and um maybe I should say fabricated some allegations and um has tried to cancel the leases.

I don't know where that is I think that's in court.

Um that was a solution and uh I'm not quite sure what's going on now the latest news but uh I don't think this works to the good of getting these golf courses in good shape and available to the public as quickly as possible.

I think that's gonna do it.

Uh thank you all see you tomorrow morning I already s I already said there's a breakfast.

Yeah.