Legislative Committee

All right, I'm going to go ahead and call this meeting to order. It is 10:53. We're here for the Assembly Legislative Committee meeting. We're noticed today until 11:50 AM, and we will start with member introductions in the room.

Janice Park. Anna Brawley. Donald Handlin. Yarrow Silvers. I'm Zach Johnson, and on the phone we had Member Baldwin-Day.

Yes, I'm here and I'll be there in person shortly. Okay, great. We'll wait till you get here in person to take up your item then. And then we also have Member McCormick.

Thank you. All right, so since we're still waiting on Member Baldwin-Day to arrive in person, I think we'll just go ahead and move to an update from Mr. Cloutier.

Yes, uh, thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I think, uh, I have a little bit of a recap prepared for the end of the regular legislative session, if that would please the committee. Sure. So we, uh, you know, we had a really busy— obviously a really busy session that's— that ended up in a different direction than, uh, very different from how we thought it was going when it started, right?

Like, I think that all the indications that we had at the very beginning were that we were looking at a very lean budget, not much to speak of in the way of a capital budget, which is similar to last year, where, you know, so that where we didn't have a lot of hope of getting a lot of funding for municipal-specific projects. And then of course that was upended when we saw the oil prices go up as a result of international events and the revised revenue forecast that meant that the state was going to get quite a bit of revenue. So the big items to run through from our legislative program, I have some items from our legislative program and a few other items of interest, and some of the stuff I did I'll send out in an email to the Assembly, but there's a few things that I can expand on or that I actually forgot about in the last one. But we are, you know, all of this is subject, or a lot of this is still subject to vetoes, right? So that as of the last time I had checked, both the operating and capital budgets had not been transmitted to the governor, which would then sets off the 20 days that the governor has to issue vetoes on, you know, line item vetoes on, on those budgets.

But we do have $15 million that was secured in the capital budget for the Port of Alaska with an additional $10 million waterfall. So if oil prices stay above $80 per barrel through the end of— or through the first half of the fiscal year, which is just through the year 2026, then we get the additional $10 million. So a total of $25 million for the port from that. Very high likelihood of that waterfall coming through based on prices are. So that was a huge win, I think, for us.

I think a big effort there. I definitely would give, you know, mention Wendy Chamberlain, our primary lobbyist. I think did a lot of work to help make that happen, but we all put in a lot of effort with our congressional, with our, with our Anchorage delegation. And so that, that worked very well. Representative Schragi as Capitol Budget Chair, I think, helped us out a lot on that.

The Community Assistance Program also got about a $50 million disbursement, which was It was about $20 million last year. I don't know exactly the amount that Anchorage is going to get from that, but this program gives fairly unrestricted funding to municipalities. I mean, it can be used for a broad range of uses. We had been getting something like $4 million a year and often less than that. So we should be getting a larger amount of money, but I don't know exactly how much it's gonna be.

But that was very good. AML did a lot of lobbying on that and we've always lent our voice to that effort too. Of course, we had our Defined Pension Benefit Bill, we know what happened there. It passed and then was vetoed and failed to override. One item we had in our program for increased rates for General Relief.

This is an issue that for a lot of people that are unhoused or that are in our shelter system, they have, they really should be in an assisted living environment, but for whatever reason they've fallen through the cracks and aren't eligible for Medicaid that would pay for that. There's the General Relief Assistance Program that could, but it has very low rates. So we had pushed for a rate increase there, and there is a small rate increase that's in the operating budget. So that went through, which could provide some help to us on that issue. There's the— on attainable housing, HB 184, which incorporated some work from Senator Dunbar, and what allows ADA to— it gives ADA this explicit legal authority to finance workforce housing facilities.

So multifamily housing, essentially. And that's something that we've we've worked on strategically that could be really helpful for getting more housing built. We saw the increased funding for schools. It wasn't in our program, but I think it was something that the Assembly passed resolutions of support on that, and that we always supported as well as the administration. So it looks like about $144 million that are going to schools.

ASD's portion of that looks to be about $37 million total. That's kind of in two buckets between energy relief payments and then other operating funds. So that was something that we looked upon really favorably. I thought that was a great thing. There's also this issue of the required local contribution for school funding, which is, ended up being, I think, another big win for us.

The required local contribution, you know, is tied to values. And I think, you know, I think you guys heard a lot about this in the run-up to the education levy that we put on the ballot, right? That the required local contribution can increase substantially. We have to give, we give more money to schools, to the school district. That doesn't mean that ASD gets more money overall.

The state reduces their contribution, and it also makes it harder for us to put our optional contribution in because it's squeezing all of our other revenues. The state formula doesn't jive very well with our local tax cap formula, so creates that problem. So there was originally, Senator Bjorkman's bill would have created a 2% increase limit so that the required local contribution could only go up by 2% per year. That bill, that didn't succeed, We ended up with an amendment into another piece of legislation that caps that at 4%. And that's a very big win.

If we'd had a 4% win last year when we were talking about our levy discussion, that would have cut our required local contribution about in half, or the increase in it about in half, I should say. So it would have created a much better situation for us. Creates a little bit more predictability as well because that number can jump around a lot. So that's something that's really big. There had also been the governor's, the mental health budget, the governor's proposed budget had cut the homeless assistance program from 10, from that had been at $10 million to about $5 million.

And so, and this program funds a whole bunch of, it doesn't come directly, it doesn't have money that goes directly to us, but through AHFC goes to a lot of providers in our community that are providing housing services and various forms of supportive housing. For people that have experienced homelessness, and the cut in that program would have reduced that capacity, and it would have likely left the municipality to kind of absorb that challenge. So we worked hard along with folks like the Coalition on Homelessness and some of the other organizations involved to advocate for getting that funding back to the regular level. So the governor's budget had cut it in half, and the original version of the House budget, House mental health budget, retained that cut, and then we got it inserted into the Senate version that the House concurred with. So that was a huge win.

We have Representative Gray's bill on optional property tax exemptions that the Assembly had supported by resolution, which creates some optional exemptions for first-time homebuyers, for affordable housing, for mobile home parks as well, so that the municipalities can optionally create these exemption programs. There were several other pieces too that, not in our legislative program, but the election bill, I know that the Assembly had tracked really closely and the Clerk's Office tracked really closely. That, of course, passed, bipartisan bill, then was vetoed, and the veto override narrowly failed as well. So that too, but otherwise, I can kind of pause there and see if folks have any questions on that or any of our activities during the session. Thanks.

First, I'll note that we are joined in the room by Daniel Voland at 1059 and Member Baldwin-Day went from the phone to real life at 11:01. And I see Member Brawley once again in queue. Yeah, thanks. Um, I have a couple comments and questions. One on the election bill.

I think historically that has been in our legislative program, so we might have neglected to put it there, but that's been a priority. And just to say on the record, I think it's unfortunate that that was vetoed, like many other things. You can say that about pretty much all of the things, but, um, but specifically, just to be clear, it benefits Anchorage because in addition to putting some changes into state elections like ballot curing that we have found to be very good for making sure everybody can participate, but also it would have allowed us to basically clean up our voter rolls, which means mailing out fewer ballots to people that don't even live in the state anymore or aren't alive anymore, which has a cost impact and also has, it inflates, or I should say it deflates our voter turnout because it's calculated on the number of ballots that are mailed out. And Jamie, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but so just to be clear, there wasn't a nexus with this, and so hopefully we can continue to add advocate in addition to the things that specifically change state law, it could save us money and can help us clean up our roles. So anyway, but my question is on House Bill 13, the tax exemptions, obviously that we need to see what happens.

Is there active advocacy from the MUNI to say please don't veto this, or kind of should, should we take any action at this point?

We haven't taken any on HB 13. We haven't, we haven't taken any proactive communications with the governor's office about vetoing or not vetoing on any particular bill, actually. And part of that is we want to be— sometimes it's not helpful to do that, to be candid. Yeah, that might be something just to ask our lobbyist Wendy to keep an eye on. I know there's been activity in the past to kind of quietly advocate for things, but I also understand what you're saying.

And that's a good— actually, and that's— yeah, Ms. Chamberlain is a good conduit for that as well. So that's right.

Member Handlin. Yeah, you had said 20 days. Isn't with the special session that we have, if it's transmitted to the governor, doesn't that window shorten down for his time to do vetoes?

Through the Chair, Member Handlin. I, to be totally honest, I don't know procedurally how it all works, but the reporting that I've seen on it is reporting the 20-day figure on the, on the, on the capital budget as being the timeline that the governor has. I think it's 15 during regular session and 20 when not in session, but I think, or, and I think special session, I believe, follows the 20-day rule. That's my best understanding. Don't hold me to it.

I think, doesn't it also maybe change the timeline around the time that the legislature has to contemplate a veto override vote?

And through the Chair, I gotta be honest, I don't completely know the timeline on that for the timeline for veto overrides because some veto override votes have taken place, you know, months after the original veto. And so I don't know what time restriction there is on that.

Something with a question related to HB 13. Is the administration currently working on any proposals to say take advantage of some of the new categories for optional property tax exemptions? Yeah, Mr. Chair.

We are looking at that. We have a— we're going to be introducing soon a first-time homebuyer AO. Some of these things we think, you know, legally could be justified under some existing statutes, even if HB 13 doesn't get signed into law, but it certainly helps to have that more— made more explicitly clear in statute. So there's that. There's some exploration around what we could do with mobile home parks as well.

And so it does open up some new conversations and new possibilities, I think, that we're interested in.

Member Vohlt. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Nolan, through— or when we had the conversation around the sales tax, one of the questions— and I haven't been following Representative Gray's bill closely enough, even though I am a housing enthusiast.

One of the things we had talked about was the potential to exempt or essentially separate out commercial property versus residential property when considering a property tax offset if we brought a sales tax forward. Does his bill have anything to do with that? Would it allow us to say residential property owners, you're going to get this property tax offset, but commercial properties, you know, the Walmarts of the world, you're gonna continue to have to pay the full property tax. Through the Chair to Member Bohlen, that is a really, it's a really excellent point. That was in, he's had a few versions of his bill that have gone through committee substitutions and amendments, and there was at one point a provision like that in the bill that I don't think made it into the final version, because I was just looking at the final version, and that, I don't believe that that made it in where you could separate.

Basically, I think the mechanism was to provide additional optional exemptions for residential, and I'm trying to recall if that's in there or not. I don't— actually, actually, as we're talking, yes, it is, because it has to be owner-occupied, has to be their residential, and you can create an additional optional exemption for essentially all owner-occupied housing. So yes, it is in there. Okay, great. Thanks.

Member Brawley. I should have also said, since it's within the one-year disclosure, I used to work for Representative Gray, but it was a period of time after the Assembly passed a resolution in support of that, and I didn't really work on that bill directly. But yeah, I think the answer is it's not the easy version, but you can basically stack enough exemptions to get to that situation. And the thing to really solve that I don't know the answer to is the rental housing, because just it's a fundamental fact that property taxes are paid by property tax owners. If you're renting, other people are contributing and paying to that payment, but the person who gets the relief is the person who paid the tax.

Taxes at the end of the day. So that's the part that is hard, that this bill is not going to sufficiently do on its own.

Anything else from Mr. Collada?

All right, well, thank you for the, uh, the update. Appreciate it. With that, we will circle back up the order to a discussion, uh, presentation on the Basics Act, and that will turn to, uh, Members Holden and Baldonde. Want me to kick us off and then—. Yeah.

Okay, great. So you have before you a draft resolution. This is something that members Baldwin-Day and Martinez and myself wanted to bring forward. Member Baldwin-Day and I had the opportunity to learn about this legislation when we attended the National League of Cities conference in Washington, D.C. about, gosh, was that like a couple months ago now? Seems like it was really recent, but I was really excited to work on this because it pertains directly to our work on the AMATS Policy Committee and some of the funding sources that come into the municipality.

Also, George Martinez, Member Martinez, is our, our rep who, when it comes to the national— what is it, it's NACo, National Association of Counties— and they also support this legislation. And I think that the reason that both the National League of Cities and the National Association of Counties support this legislation is because it gives localities more local control. In, in addition to bolstering funding, it provides more local control on how that funding is spent. So you can see outlined in the resolution that there is more support for repairing bridges. So it essentially builds on and adjusts the bridge formula program.

That would pertain to potential projects in, in Anchorage, such as the Tudor Road improvements, some potentially some improvements on Gamble and Ingra. Those are mentioned in the resolution here, but we've also talked about bridge projects in Eagle River and other parts of our community.

It also focuses on road safety. It strengthens the Highway Safety Improvement Safety Improvement Program funding. And to me, this is like the most important piece of this legislation. Folks may remember that the state sort of threatened to pull $18 million of safety projects from Anchorage. That was Highway Safety Improvement Program funding, or I call them HSIP.

I don't know if that's the short version that engineers would use, but right now that funding is essentially unilaterally decided by the state.

Prior examples of HCIP funding projects would be the Minnesota Cheese Grater, for instance. And so what this does, it makes sure this, this bill, the Basics Act, ensures that 25% of the HCIP funding is delivered regionally in both urban and rural areas, and it gives local governments direct access to that capital for proven safety projects. So it essentially allows localities to, to help decide how at least a portion of that funding is spent. Um, and I think that's important because, um, you know, uh, there's a lot of stats, you know, regions and local governments own and operate more than 75% of the nation's roads.

Additionally, nearly half of locally owned principal arterials are in poor condition, and locally owned roads and bridges are twice as likely to be in poor condition. So I think what this does is it helps balance the scales a little bit more to ensure that local priorities are met and that we can have more safety and better maintenance on our local roads as well, making use of some of this federal funding. And I think with that, I'll turn it over to Member Baldwin-Day.

Yeah, thank you. I think I'd like to, I'd like to back up just a step and talk about mechanics, because I think the mechanics are important in understanding why this act is so critical to sort of the future of transportation planning. So we are a part of a metropolitan planning organization which is called AMATS. You all have heard us toss that acronym around, but essentially that, that is the nexus point for planning for the state and also our local government. So this is, this is the point where those things intersect and federal funding flows through that funnel, essentially.

And we're talking about federal funding on the order of like tens of millions of dollars. This is not insignificant funding that comes our way for transportation projects. And the MPO itself, AMATS, has its own mandate and its own staff, and they essentially are tasked with doing this planning and this coordinating work, and it is required to be continuing, coordinated, and comprehensive. That's the mandate that's given to every MPO to make sure that local governments and the state government are having this ongoing conversation about how we're going to build and manage our roadways and our infrastructure. Why this is important is because MPO responsibilities have actually expanded faster than the funding that has been allocated to MPOs to do the work of planning and coordination.

And so part of what the Basics Act also does is it allocates additional funding to the organization itself and allows for that coordinating work to be done in a more efficient way, for the funding essentially to match the responsibilities. Responsibility. And I think this is critical in Anchorage because AMATS currently does the bulk of our transportation planning and organization for the municipality, even though they are not necessarily a municipal structure. So they have taken on quite a bit of burden that would ordinarily be, be borne by our own planning department. So I think that's an important piece of this legislation, is it actually empowers the MPO to do its work in a more efficient way.

And the other thing that it does, which Member Voland alluded to, is it It does help us align sort of the realities of ownership with funding streams. So at this point, there's a disproportionate amount of federal funding that goes to the state, even though the state doesn't maintain municipal systems. And this is a kind of a holdover from the days when we were working on expanding the national highway system and we were really focused on building new stuff and not necessarily maintaining what we had already built. And we know this is kind of the story of Alaska in general. We build things, we don't necessarily have a plan to maintain them.

And so part of what Basics does is it corrects this sort of nationwide trend of prioritizing federal dollars to build new things rather than using federal money to maintain what we have already built and now is falling into disrepair. And then the last thing is certainly the prioritization of safety and maintenance and community-identified needs. We just went through an exercise at AMATS to prioritize is the projects that we as a community would like to see on the next Highway Safety Improvement Program. And as an, as an MPO, we can only suggest the projects that we would like to see the state fund, and that's, and then it's out of our hands. So we can rank projects, we can make a great case for why these safety projects need to happen in Anchorage, but ultimately it is the state It's the state who decides how Highway Safety Improvement Program money is spent.

And they can choose not to fund the projects that we put forward, even if they are extremely critical life, health, and safety scale types of projects to make our roadways safer. So it returns some agency to us to be able to say, no, we, we really do need pedestrian improvements and vulnerable road user improvements on Muldoon. We really do need to move projects forward in other places where the state has deprioritized them. And so that, that element of local control and returning some of that funding to local control is really a critical element here. So all, all things that, that I think benefit Anchorage to a significant degree and one that I hope that our congressional delegation will get behind.

This makes a difference, especially when it comes to us being able to address the very real safety issues on our roadways and the hazards that exist as a result of the built environment and the way it's been constructed. So happy to answer questions. I also have one more thing to add. Yeah, go ahead. In addition to the Highway Safety Improvement Program funding, another thing to note is that this Legislation also increases funding for the Surface Transportation Block Grant, or STBG funding, and that's important because that is the most flexible federal transportation formula program, and that is something that is decided when it comes to putting together our, our TIP, for instance, our Transportation Improvement Program, coordinated by our MPO, and so, you know, decided by the members of the Policy Committee, which includes the state and Assembly and mayor's designee.

That is something that is sort of more collaborative and decided together, those priorities. And so just more federal investment with a lot of flexibility for that program. Thanks.

Thank you. Any questions for the sponsors?

Member Brawley. So just to be— to make sure I'm understanding, and I'm reading the back, obviously we're asking our, our congressional delegation to co-sponsor or at least be supportive. Um, and so this is a separate bill from what's currently the Surface Transportation Reauthorization Bill, or is this considered that? Because I know those are every 5 years, they're like the Farm Bill, it's something they have to do. Often they layer on a bunch of other policy stuff with it, but it sounds like right now you're nodding There's two different bills, so we're saying please make them the same bill.

Yes. Okay, thanks.

Good. Um, yeah, through the chair, and my understanding too is that, um, and actually I was just chatting with Mr. Youngineland right before this, but, and he had a little bit of a different view, but, but my understanding of, of the Basics Act was that it's sort of meant to be incorporated into the Surface Transportation Reauthorization, right? Um, so that, that was, that was my understanding of it. Um, and I, and I'll add For a comment on behalf of the administration, you know, it's a very, you know, it's an excellent piece of legislation. I think that we look on it really well.

And also I'd add that Brownstein, Hyatt, you know, our federal lobbyists, they have a very strong transportation, you know, expertise within them too. And so, you know, one of our lobbying team was a former chief of staff to the U.S. DOT secretary, for example. And so we, you know, we have a lot of horsepower to help you know, not only get support the bill but also to sort of shape it in other ways that are favorable. Um, there, the, in the broader surface transportation reauthorization, there, there are some programs that need to be reauthorized that we've benefited from, like the Port Infrastructure Development Program, PIDP, that we've received funding for.

That actually, its authorization is going to end, and so that needs to be renewed. And then there's, there's opportunities to shape some of the other funding sources, um, both for the port and for other things that, um, shape some of the requirements and criteria around them to make— to increase our eligibility, for example, as well. So we're definitely going to be tracking this closely.

Well, if you— so if you're interested, it was actually related to the question we just Yes, just please introduce yourself quickly for the record and then jump in. I'm Aaron Yoganathan, I'm the Executive Director of AMATS. Did you ask whether the Basics Bill was a separate bill from the reauthorization bill for transportation? Yeah, just trying to understand where those are, right? So you have the current one, IJA, the infrastructure bill.

The Basics Bill will replace the infrastructure bill because you were at the end of your IJA period. It ends October or September of 2026. So what they have right there in provision for basics is it will take into effect October 1st, 2026, replacing the IJA bill. That's why they have to go through and reauthorize certain programs to continue them moving forward. There are certain things in, uh, basics or IJA that will continue forward kind of on their own, but by and large, the basics bill will supersede the infrastructure bill that's in place right now.

So it's not two separate I mean, it is because one's in place and one's a brand new one, but this one will replace the old one.

Back to Member Brown. Yeah, thanks. Actually, Aaron, I had a question maybe you can answer. What—. Because I'm trying to— and thanks for clarifying, because I do understand that kind of 5-year author is like the Farm Bill is another version of that or different topic.

So I guess two questions. One, I'm vaguely remembering that there was some policy change that, that favored maintenance more heavily versus new construction. Is that—. Maybe I'm not remembering that correctly. I know I've read about this bill a while ago, but I'll be honest, I don't think that's been decided fully yet because they're just kind of still getting through committees and markups and changes are happening.

So I would wait before I say anything on that because there's a lot of information that's going out there like wanting to expand capacity for roadway projects and really focus on reducing congestion. We're not sure what the final version is going to look like, so I would hold off for now on that. Yeah, then I would, I would just note for everyone who's tracking it that that is something to keep an eye on because I think the, you know, a lot of our federal policies basically prioritize or force new construction over maintenance of what we have, and that's not really the mode that we're in in this century. Um, so anyway, and then the other question I had was, I've seen in other cities there's been this bubbling up of kind of anti-bike lane, anti-right, and there's this— there's the reactionary streak that's happening through all of these kinds of policies that doesn't really track with what I think is real life and what most people want in cities. Um, that's my opinion, but I'm just curious if there's any, I guess, risks or things where we would see money clawed back if we, for example, are building a multi-use path next to our road or things like that.

I guess I just want to flag that as another risk because we're seeing that play out in other cities, and certainly that dynamic is going to be true at the federal level as well. But so I don't know if Aaron or others who are tracking the bill right now have any pulse on that. I don't see anything so far from the versions that are out there that they're going to be clawing back money or they're going to try and really keep communities from building this infrastructure. I think that there's still some way to go, One thing I will note is the carbon reduction program is set to be removed at this point, which is specifically focused on a certain aspect of the transportation system. That's the only thing I see in there about being removed or that you would have to be careful utilizing funding for moving forward.

So just keep in mind. Thanks. Yeah, I think those are kind of the areas that I think we want to at least keep an eye on. Thank you. And the follow-up to, to Member Brawley's question there in terms of how funding may be spent and which priorities are.

So it sounds like there aren't prohibitions or restrictions on perhaps building new multimodal paths or anything like that, but I've also heard that there's funding or opposition using funding for reducing lanes. I mean, is that a differentiation? Is it to say like we could build a new path but if we're talking about taking any existing roadways and repurposing that, that that would be considered a prohibited use? For the infrastructure bill that's being worked on right now, I don't see anything in there, but there are other things out there, like for example, the Freedom to Drive initiative that's being looked at by the Department of Transportation. We also have seen recently that the SS4A, the Safe Streets for All discretionary grant program, which is expected to continue into the new authorization bill with an increase in funding, has had some pushback about lane reductions or reducing of capacity on roads as a safety component, that there seems to be some disagreement about that.

Outside of other uses, so like our regular standard STBG funds or other things, we have not seen a pushback on the federal level at this point about doing that. I think a lot of it comes down to you just need to make sure that you do a really good job at doing the analysis is having good justification for it and making that information available to everybody.

Member Bohlen. Thank you, Aaron. I feel bad because I didn't give you a heads up. I actually didn't know that you'd be here, but I'm glad you are. Now I get to pick on you.

It's kind of your fault. Okay, so, you know, pertaining to your understanding of the Basics Act itself, I, you know, as I mentioned, it increases the STBG funding. I wonder if you might kind of explain the type of projects that STBG funding is able to be used on. And then also, with the HSIP funding, maybe sort of the same types of projects or interventions and what it might mean if we had a little bit more local prioritization of projects from that funding source. So STBG is the most flexible, I believe you already said that, so it can be spent pretty much anywhere on anything.

It doesn't have the same limitations that some other funding sources have. I will note that Alaska and Puerto Rico have kind of an exemption from the rest of the United States where we can spend our funding, our federal funding, anywhere on any road. So even like the NHPP funds has a lot more flexibility on where it can be spent, whether it's on a national highway system or not. So STBG type project could be Fireweed. So you all know the Fireweed project that's happening right now, or some of you know the project— Fireweed project that's happening right now.

That is STBG funded. Another project could also be the Downtown Trail Connection. Part of that is with STBG. It has some other funding sources as well. STGB really is our most flexible source that can be used—.

Anything. If you think of it and it qualifies, it can basically happen. And so that's like kind of really good for us to see an increase in that funding source because of that flexibility. HSIP, HSIP is a little bit of a challenging one right now, just because of the type of projects that have been done in the past. We're not really sure what this is going to look like moving forward, just because there's been some changes even at the state level about what type of projects they fund.

You know, the community really coming together and saying, maybe we don't want that, maybe we want something else. And then what the feds determine is eligible as part of the project for HSIP. HSIP. Some good things that are being looked at for HSIP, as you know, the Inger-Gamble lane reduction is being looked at, the undergrounding of utilities for Inger-Gamble. So there's a lot of flexibility even in the HSIP program, as long as you can demonstrate that there's a current safety need.

And that is its own kind of challenge because it has to have a certain number of serious injuries and fatalities over a certain number of period. So if you have one every 10 years, It may not qualify as high as other projects. So that's why we really look at the high crash corridor network that AMATS developed in coordination with the state and the muni and really focus on those locations. And that's what HSIP hopefully can help us kind of focus in those areas.

Anything else on the Basics Act? Just one general comment. Member Baldonday. Yeah, I would love for us as a— I would love to wise for the legislative committee to, to track some of these pieces of federal legislation that have direct impact on our localities. A lot of federal legislation is, is more, more impactful to states, but we're starting to see more and more federal legislation that impacts municipalities and towns and cities.

And I think it would be wise for us as a body to start paying more attention to what's happening at the federal level in addition to the state policies that obviously affect Anchorage. So stay tuned, you may see more things coming from, from me that pertain specifically to federal legislation. Well, that is a great segue actually to the thing I was going to bring up next under a schedule of upcoming meetings. Now typically the— our focus here has been more on state legislative matters, and so this committee usually goes dormant over the summer. So if we wanted to meet again in June, as is currently scheduled, you know, I mean, I think the question would be, would there be enough items on the agenda to make it worth the members' time?

So again, since we won't really have a lot of state policy to discuss, although I guess we can kind of see what developments come out of Juneau, perhaps at least an update there. I think if members see items that they want us to bring up in this committee, certainly flag them. And I think if if we can find that there's sufficient business to discuss to justify having the meeting, then we will calendar it. Otherwise, I don't think I'll drag you down here just for the sake of doing so. So certainly feel free to weigh in if you have things that you want us to consider there.

I'll note that I checked in with our lobbyist, Wendy Chamberlain. She's in a committee hearing this morning, so she won't be able to join us. Something about a gas line, who knows.

So with that, I think that takes us through the entirety of our agenda today. I will look around and see, is there anybody here for audience participation? Oh, before we do, uh, Member Brawley. Yeah, just very briefly, um, I would certainly support, uh, not having a meeting if there isn't pressing business, um, and, and perhaps in July as well, but I'll leave that to the, to the leadership. Um, but I would also say when we do have a more final understanding, especially of the budget impacts from legislative action, I think just written update would be helpful.

And I really appreciate Mr. Clowder's update that was sent to members, um, but I think more specifically kind of what does community assistance look like, and those kind of things could be an email. The classic, we don't need a meeting, it's just an email. But, um, but I think those do have a direct nexus on our budget conversation. So just saying that would be the one thing to at least provide information, which isn't a meeting. So thanks.

Absolutely. Or I guess if it's real bad, then we do have a meeting. But yeah, and with, you know, federal items as well, we can think about what is the timeliness of it. So yeah, thank you, reasonable request. All right, with that, audience participation.

Am I required? No, no, absolutely. Am I required? I—. Okay, well, I'm not seeing anyone in the room.

I don't think we have anyone online. So with that, thank you everybody for your time today, and with that, we will be adjourned.

Yes.

Take care. Bye-bye.