This week AWC hosts our annual City Action Days legislative conference! We are excited to have city officials from around the state converge virtually on Olympia to engage in the legislative process.

While we miss seeing everyone here in person, it is still possible for you to have an impact in a virtual session—it may be even easier than having to travel to Olympia.

We are especially looking forward to hosting all four caucus leaders this year. It is rare to get them all together at the same time. Their presence shows the importance they place on addressing city leaders about critical shared issues. Additionally, Governor Inslee will join us and share some remarks about issues important to cities. If you haven’t yet registered, there is still time. Make sure to join us live on Thursday—the event sessions will not be posted online after the fact, so you won’t want to miss out. Take a look at the full event schedule and then register to attend.

If you haven’t yet registered, there is still time.

Session continues to zip along, and it can be hard to keep track of what is happening. To make it a little easier, we produce our weekly bill Hot Sheet that highlights bills of interest to cities. This year we are also hosting weekly City Action Calls to share the latest news.

Friday city action calls

Looking for more frequent updates on hot legislative topics? Register for our weekly city action calls every Friday at 12:30 pm via Zoom.

As we enter the third week of session, some of the first key deadlines are drawing near. We are approaching important cutoff deadlines where bills start to “die” if they don’t advance in the process. Of course, bills are never truly “dead” and can always be revived for a variety of reasons. These “zombie” bills can come back at any time, but generally—a bill that doesn’t get through cutoff is considered done for the session. A key exception to these deadlines is any bill deemed necessary to implement the budget (NTIB).

Upcoming cutoff deadlines:

• February 3 – Deadline for bills to pass out of policy committees
• February 7 – Deadline for bills to pass out of fiscal committees
• February 15 – Deadline for bills to pass out of their house of origin

AWC needs city officials to talk to your legislators about the following:

Police reform clarifications – AWC supports bills that address needed clarification to the reforms passed in 2021, including HB 1735 and HB 2037 regarding use of force. Please encourage your legislators to support these bills.

Transportation benefit districts – AWC supports companion bills SB 5510/HB 1523 which remove the limitation on the number of times a TBD can ask the voters for a sales tax specific to transportation needs. If your city has a TBD, let you legislators know how important this tool is.

Missing middle housing density requirements – AWC opposes SB 5670/HB 1782. They create an unnecessary step that will muddle ongoing progress on increasing density and diversity in housing by mandating cities upzone all single family residential neighborhoods with little ability to reflect local circumstances—while not guaranteeing any additional affordable housing. These proposals apply to cities with a population of 10,000 or more. Cities across the state have already taken action to increase housing availability and these proposals undermine that work. Nevertheless, we continue to hear from legislators who think cities are not doing enough when it comes to housing. Contact your legislators and let them know what your city has been doing and how these proposals will impact you.

City budget priorities

With the first cut-off deadlines approaching, legislative budget leaders have begun to develop supplemental budget proposals.  At the start of session, they reviewed the Governor’s proposals; now it’s their turn to draft their own. Late last week, AWC sent a letter to the legislative budget leaders highlighting cities’ supplemental budget priorities.

As always, we appreciate your engagement and support during the session. If you have questions about the legislative process or issues going before the Legislature, always reach out to the Government Relations team. There is no such thing as a dumb question, and we are always happy to help!