Council Tackles Targeted Technical Measures as Budget Season Heats Up

If you are a fan of shorter Council meetings, then March or April may just be the best time of year for you.

Every year, usually during the months of March and April, one by one, every agency in the District government comes before Council committees twice, first for a performance oversight hearing, then for a budget hearing. This core responsibility is a worthy but heavy lift for the Council, with hours and hours of preparation, actual hearings, and follow-up required. The Council indulges in little else during this period, in many ways the busiest phase of the year.

As a result, if at all possible, the Council handles the densest and meatiest legislation prior to, or following, budget season. So, often, less legislation is voted on in the months coinciding with the performance oversight and budget cycle—hence the shorter spring Legislative Meetings.

However, legislatures are not legislatures if they do not legislate, so the weighty responsibilities of performance oversight and budgeting are no excuse for the Council to relent on that front. But generally, legislation taken up during this time of year requires a specific timely motivation or trigger, as each example below will demonstrate.

One emergency measure passed at the most recent meeting came as a timely consequence of a February 11 Council hearing on the state of the District’s legal medical cannabis industry on one hand, and the status of efforts to shut down illegal so-called “gifting” shops on the other. After hearing that further, accelerated action was required on the latter front, the emergency bill passed by the Council takes action on several fronts. First, it allows any unlicensed cannabis business that applied to convert to legal status, but which remain unlicensed today, to be summarily closed after April 1. Businesses that sell mushrooms or other Schedule 1 substances, regardless of whether or not the unlicensed business continues to sell cannabis, can also be summarily closed. And finally, even licensed businesses can be summarily closed if they present an imminent threat to public health and safety.

Another measure addressed by the Council at its most recent Legislative Meeting was not urgent in and of itself, but the motivation for its immediate consideration was instead efficiency. In recent years, the Council has increasingly been approving one-off, case-by-case legislation authorizing liquor licensed establishments to offer extended hours of operation and liquor service during specific, individual special events, such as the Olympics. Under past practice, every time an appropriate event occurred, the Council would need to legislate, in advance, on an emergency basis, the additional hours.

The legislation passed on the first of two necessary votes by the Council at its most recent meeting would allow the Alcoholic Beverage and Cannabis Administration (ABCA) to provide extended hours in defined event-based circumstances without necessitating individualized Council approval. Participation in the additional service hours would remain limited to only those businesses who preregistered to take advantage of them. Prior to the Council’s second and final vote on the measure, one final attempt will be made to ensure that ABCA has the flexibility it desires, but that the circumstances meriting additional service hours be more tightly defined so as to avoid excessive usage.

Another measure addressed at the most recent meeting was a technical correction, but one made time-sensitive due to the deadline-based nature of the drafting error involved. When the Council passed a bill in 2023 regarding the sealing of criminal records for non-dangerous non-convictions, and in other cases, the bill had an effective date of October 1, 2027. However, due to a drafting error, the deadline could have been interpreted to instead be March 1, 2025. This was problematic both due to the fact that that date is in the past, but also because none of the necessary precursor processes meant to be developed in the upcoming two and a half years are currently in place. Through Council action on emergency and temporary legislation, these drafting errors were rectified and the prior effective date was reinstated.

An additional piece of legislation approved at the most recent Legislative Meeting dealt with the tax status of the much-discussed and much-incentivized commercial to residential building conversions seen as critical to downtown revitalization. Under a recent Office of Tax and Revenue policy interpretation, downtown buildings being converted from commercial to residential use would not have their property tax classification changed over until construction was 100 percent complete and the property was in use in its new status.

The emergency measure passed by the Council changes the timing of the tax transition, instead triggering it when construction commences. Given the fact that commercial property tax rates are more than double residential rates, and that such conversion projects are notoriously complicated and time-consuming, the accelerated timetable for the transition will not just remove a barrier to such projects, but will also provide an incentive for their rapid commencement.

The Council’s next Legislative Meeting is scheduled for (no joke!) April 1. As is often the case early in a two-year Council Period, the Council’s stated hope is to hold just one Legislative Meeting a month (usually on the first Tuesday), and one Committee of the Whole meeting a month (usually on the third Tuesday). We will be sure to notify you of any deviations from this hopeful plan.