WHAT HAPPENED: An abbreviated week at the General Assembly, but with action all the same. News coverage landed mostly on an ongoing gerrymandering lawsuit, education matters, disagreements over hemp legislation, and the persisting budget stalemate.
WHAT IT MEANS: Regarding the budget, today (Friday) marks the 19th day of the new fiscal year, and it's unclear when a new state budget will be in place. Gov. Roy Cooper and General Assembly leaders remain at odds on the plan, and the latter still appear to be working on an override of the veto the governor stamped upon the legislature's budget.
ON TAP: Lawmakers are scheduled for business again on Monday, which also happens to be the day
a Senate joint resolution proposed adjournment, now unlikely. Outlets including the Insider have noted enough topics to keep lawmakers busy, including votes on a
stopgap budget to continue the flow of federal grant money as the state budget impasse carries on.
THE SKINNY: The 2019 General Assembly is still in action and we're still following all matters of interest to cities and towns -- including another withdrawn attempt at legislation that would preempt local regulation of short-term rentals, covered in this Bulletin. Read on.
For the second time in a week, legislators’ worries over local preemption Monday stopped a short-term rental proposal from advancing. Discussion of a tweaked proposal in the House State & Local Government Committee meeting unfolded along the same lines as last week, with committee members objecting to language that placed so many restrictions on local ordinance-making that it amounted to preemption of local authority. In contrast to the first committee hearing, though, this week, the committee solicited public comment on the proposal. The League spoke in opposition, along with hotel and lodging interests. Combined with committee members’ concerns, this opposition caused proponents of the measure to pull the bill from consideration before a vote was taken, with promises to try to reach compromise. Cities and towns thank the bill proponents for continuing to discuss the bill language. In the meantime, legislative leaders removed a key committee assignment for the measure, leaving it likely to only receive a hearing in the House Rules Committee, if the bill should come back before legislators. The timing for this future hearing is unclear. Read more about Monday’s committee discussion in “Push to block cities on Airbnb rules lives to fight another day,” from WRAL.
