Good morning.

The um I'm Phil Mendelssohn, and this is the press conference that uh I have before a legislative meeting, a regular legislative meeting, and tomorrow, June 30th will be the regular legislative meeting for the month of July.

I know tomorrow's June 30th, but we actually uh have the regular meeting on the 30th and an additional meeting on the 14th of July, and then the council will be on recess, which only means that there won't be hearings or legislative meetings, but uh members will still be working.

We have a committee of the whole meeting uh to precede the legislative meeting.

There's not a lot of business tomorrow because uh we have beginning with June 2nd had a legislative meeting every Tuesday except for the 16th.

Uh so the business there's not a lot of business for tomorrow.

The committee of the whole will be marking up one measure uh that's to make an appointment to the Uniform Law Commission.

The uh other committees are four confirmations to the Board of Pharmacy that came out of the committee on health.

Nine uh confirmations to the commission on human rights, it came out of the committee on public works and operations.

I'm not going through everything that's on the agenda, but um I will note that one bill that came out of committee on public works and operations that will be getting a lot of attention, if not tomorrow, then at second reading is the resale act, which is the full name is Restructuring and Gregio Scalping Against Live Entertainment Amendment Act of 2026, which is attempting to deal with um ticket scalping and very high prices in the resale market for tickets, uh, as well as difficulty that uh consumers have getting tickets on the primary market for events.

Uh the legislative meeting will have all of the measures that come out of the committee of the whole.

There are a few contracts.

I don't think there's anything controversial there.

Two of the contracts are school, uh school uh food service, uh one with error mark and the other with Sedexo Magic.

There are three uh vendors.

I have to refresh my memory why the third is not coming before the council, possibly because it was passively approved.

Um so looking at emergency legislation, there are three measures.

The comprehensive policing and justice reform technical emergency is just a re-upping of legislation previously approved.

The entertainment establishment employee safety extension deals with creating an exception to the law that says that um retailers have to accept cash, making an exception for certain restaurants.

When I say certain, I think they have to be open um very late at night.

And uh I think also our have a alcohol license if I remember correctly, and then if they meet those criteria, they could be exempt from the cash requirement, which is the policy in the district that all retailers have to accept cash from patrons, uh recognizing that there's a significant portion of the population that's unbanked or underbanked.

Uh the third emergency measure is public service commission holdover period extension, which will extend for two of the members of the public service commission their term, additional, I believe it's six months.

Um, so their terms are up June 30th.

Ordinarily they would be able to hold over for six months.

This will uh allow additional time so that the new mayor can decide what she wants to do with regard to these appointments.

Uh, that in a nutshell is tomorrow's committee of the whole and legislative meeting.

Happy to take questions on that or anything else.

Mr.

Seagraves.

Chairman, thank you.

Um I have a couple of questions.

One uh uh on the resale act.

If I can ask about that, do you support bringing the cap back in?

Do you expect the cap to be brought back as an amendment and and do you support that being added back into the legislation?

Um I have not decided exactly where I am on that, and the reason is because I've heard arguments for and against that um having a CAP could uh drive ticket sales uh on to other markets that are harder to uh regulate, and um uh on the other hand, uh it's an effort to try to control the um how much the price increase is on tickets.

So I haven't decided where I am.

I'm not sure that amendment will be moved tomorrow.

Uh but at the moment, it's clear to me that if it's not moved tomorrow, it will come up at second reading.

Uh the mayor has put forth uh an interim and inspector general.

And I'm just wondering, given that we'll have a new mayor in a matter of months, do you expect to confirm if she puts them up for confirmation to the full term, or do you think that that's something that should be delayed so that the next mayor would have an opportunity to make that appointment?

I'm comfortable with making confirmations through uh the remainder of Mayor Bowser's term.

I I realize that mayor mayors elect always want uh the council to pause to give them an opportunity, uh, but then that just means delay with regard to um boards and commissions or even agencies where there's uncertainty who the leader will be.

Uh and then uh two more topics.

I appreciate your indulgence.

Uh do you want to weigh into the statements from first uh President Trump uh regarding uh council member Lewis George, the presumptive, well the democratic nominee at least for mayor, uh his comments and then her uh statement going back at him, like what your thoughts on what this means for DC residents kind of stuck in between this?

Uh I don't appreciate the comments from the president.

Um I don't think it's appropriate for him to uh weigh in that way on uh local issues, whether we're talking about the District of Columbia or any jurisdiction, we of course are more sensitive to this because we uh value what limited autonomy we have and so it's more of a threat, or we're more sensitive to uh interference by the federal government, but it would be inappropriate wherever the jurisdiction.

If the president has concerns with regard to the democratic nominee, he should just contact her and sit down with her and talk with her uh and have a conversation and from there decide uh if there are issues he disagrees with rather than to just uh level the kind of blanket uh criticism that he did.

Should she and the rest of us take those threats from the president seriously?

Well, I think we have to take whatever the president says seriously, uh uh and my last topic and uh is on the personal seat licensing agreement.

Will you vote on that?

Will the council be voting on that tomorrow?

I don't believe that's on the agenda tomorrow.

So there is a events DC has put a uh price tag now of 975.

Have you seen this?

Are you familiar with the Mr.

Astermule with notices?

I'm not familiar with the details, but I recalled this from the negotiation.

So they put a number on it now for nine hundred nine hundred and seventy-five million dollars, the value of those personal seat license agreements for the commanders.

Uh the commanders have said they're gonna use that money to offset their investment of 2.7 billion dollars.