From the Director: AWC Legislative Policy Development Process in Full Swing

With this new process, the membership adopted six very general resolutions at the Annual Conference. Now, it is the responsibility of the Legislative Committee to flesh out those resolutions and propose a series of specific issues to be recommended to the AWC Board for inclusion in AWC’s legislative agenda. The Legislative Committee is divided into five subject matter subcommittees, and has reviewed legislative requests from member cities for inclusion on the list of recommendations to the Board.

Each of the subcommittees has met one or more times since the first meeting on August 15, and additional meetings are scheduled. The following is a list of the preliminary legislative priorities as identified by the subcommittees:

• Limiting Liability for Offender Supervision
• Offender Medical Costs
• Initiative 933 – The Property Rights Initiative
• Infrastructure Funding
• Streamlined Sales Tax (SST)
• Telecommunications – Statewide Franchise Agreements

To date, the subcommittees are reviewing an additional 56 issues. After additional deliberation and discussion, the subcommittees will refine the list and present their recommendations on priority issues to the full Legislative Committee on November 17. The Legislative Committee will then prioritize the proposals that they will forward to the AWC Board for consideration. The AWC Board will review those recommendations and finalize the 2007 AWC Legislative Priorities during their meeting on December 1.

There are still opportunities for city officials to submit suggestions for legislation – either at the remaining AWC Regional Meetings (see www.awcnet.org/regionalmeetings for more details) or by contacting Jim Justin at jimj@awcnet.org.

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