Legislative Town Hall Recap
OLYMPIA UPDATE
At a February 21st Town Hall held at the Mercer Island Community and Events Center, legislators discussed a Millionaire's Tax, protection from ICE, and Data Center Regulations
Lisa Wellman, our state Senator, and our two state Representatives My-Linh Thai and Janice Zahn held a Town Hall meeting at the Mercer Island Community and Events Center on Saturday, February 21st. Among the many questions they answered from the audience we heard:
Senate Bill 6346 will create a 9.9% marginal income tax on those making more than $1 million per year, on amounts over $1 million (so if you make $1.1 million in a tax year, the 9.9% tax applies only on the $100,000 excess above the $1 million threshold). "We are blessed to have such a strong economy where we have people making that much," said Senator Wellman. "We need to do the right thing and take care of our neighbors." In a follow-up question, someone asked whether there would be a corresponding cut to the sales tax. To that, Representative Thai replied, "Sales tax is our most regressive tax. B&O (Business and Occupation) taxes also need to be reformed or restructured. We also need property tax relief for seniors on fixed incomes."
Senate Bill 6002 will create regulations regarding the use of Automatic License Plate Reader (or ALPR) cameras and keep the information out of the hands of ICE. Many people refer to these as Flock cameras because there is a private company called Flock which offers to setup and operate ALPR cameras as a service, but not all ALPR cameras are operated by Flock. They're used primarily for school zone speed enforcement, parking enforcement, and police-car-mounted cameras that help police officers spot stolen cars. Significantly, bill 6002 clearly states that the data collected by ALPR cameras is not subject to public disclosure requests. Further, the bill will make it a crime to share the data with other agencies, including ICE.
There is also a new ban on law enforcement officers using face masks in Senate Bill 5855, which further reinforces the Keep Washington Working act of 2025.
House Bill 2374 will create a definition for e-motorcycles and start a task force to define more-detailed statewide regulations limiting their availability and use. Representative Zahn, who sponsored bill 2374, wrote a poem for it: "Roses are red, violets are blue; when you see an e-moto, you should know what to do."
Senate Bill 6026 will block cities from requiring that the ground floor of new developments contain retail space. This is a challenging tradeoff; it will enable developers to create more housing units, while at the same time it will reduce the retail amenities provided to those new residents.
Data Center regulations also came up. House Bill 2515 will charge data centers a premium for power in order to keep energy prices steady for the rest of us. Every AI query uses a lot of power and a lot of water.
There were additional questions about new regulations in the works relating to the use of artificial intelligence, a sales tax on services, special education, low-income housing, voter rights, and the preservation of prescription discount programs.
For additional information on all these bills, stay tuned to our articles on TalkOnTheRock.com or query the state legislature's database directly at https://leg.wa.gov.