Legislative deadline Tuesday – Action needed now!

Tuesday February 16 is the deadline for bills to be approved by their house of origin – House bills out of the House and Senate bills out of the Senate.

If a bill does not meet this deadline it is deemed dead for the year unless the legislation is necessary to implement the budget, in which case there are no deadlines. Obviously, specific provisions of dead bills may be attached to bills still moving but that is not always easy.

Please, we need you to make a call or send an email to your legislators now.

Ask your legislators to support the following:

• Fiscal flexibility – SHB 3179 and SSB 6424 provides cities and counties flexibility in raising and spending money.
• Local stormwater funding – SB 6851 and HB 3181 would assist cities in meeting their stormwater management requirements. Funds are generated by increasing the Hazardous Substances Tax from 0.7 percent to two percent.
• Adjusting timelines for local GMA update obligations – SSB 6611 and SHB 2992 would provide a three year extension for current deadlines for mandated Growth Management Act (GMA) plan reviews and updates in all 281 cities and 39 counties.
• Open public records – SB 6367 allows public records requestors to be directed to the specific website links where the responsive documents may be found. Cities believe this bill will lower the cost of responding to public records requests and allow the use of new technology.
• Enhanced penalties for negligent driving resulting in death or injury – SSB 5838 creates a new traffic infraction for drivers who cause death or bodily harm to pedestrians, bicyclists, wheelchair users, and others.
• Abatement of nuisances involving criminal street gang activity – SHB 2414 would provide another tool for cities to address growing gang problems.

Ask your legislators to oppose the following:

• Changes to utility lien authority – SSB 6261 specifies that cities can only collect four months of unpaid utility bills from rental property owners, whether or not the city uses the lien authority as the collection tool. Cities remain opposed to this proposal as currently drafted.
• Wrongful death liability expansion – SSB 6508 is an unprecedented expansion of Washington’s wrongful death statute, greatly increasing the number of people who may file a wrongful death claim and ask for damages. This bill is estimated to cost state and local governments millions of dollars each year.
• Restrictions on rental housing inspections – SSB 6459 significantly restricts cities’ ability to implement local rental housing inspection programs. These programs are a useful tool for cities to improve deteriorated and unsafe housing conditions.
• Decriminalizing DWLS 3 – SB 6490 would decriminalize driving with license suspended in the 3rd degree (DWLS 3), reinstate the driving privileges of anyone whose license had been suspended due to DWLS 3, and remove the $75 relicensing fee. This bill undoes legislation adopted just last year authorizing relicensing programs to address DWLS 3.

More specifics on these proposals can be found in their respective sections of this Bulletin.

Thank you for contacting your legislators. Your help is necessary to achieve our desired outcome for all of these bills.

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