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Lobbyist outlines 2025 legislative outcomes; Forest City staff to finalize 2026 agenda this fall
Summary
City lobbyist Shelley Helders reviewed major 2025 state budget outcomes, including operating, capital and transportation budgets, and asked council to identify two to three near‑term priorities for a 2026 supplemental session; staff set a September–October timetable to finalize the city legislative agenda and meet the delegation.
Shelley Helders, the city’s lobbyist with Gordon Thomas Honeywell, briefed the Forest City Council on the outcomes of the 2025 Washington State legislative session and next steps for the city’s 2026 legislative agenda. Helders summarized the budgets passed in 2025, said the session considered 2,387 bills and passed 433, and flagged constrained capital and transportation funding that will shape the second‑year supplemental session in 2026. She urged council to identify the top two or three priorities this fall and to coordinate those with the city’s legislative delegation ahead of the 2026 short session.
Why it matters: the city received $1 million in the new capital budget toward downtown reconstruction, but the capital budget overall was smaller than the previous biennium, and transportation funding remains constrained. Helders…
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