State legislators representing the Federal Way area touted a few recent wins for their constituents, including funding for local projects as well as support for housing and public safety.

30th District State Rep. Jamila Taylor (D), Rep. Kristine Reeves (D) and Sen. Claire Wilson (D) presented a summary of the 2025 regular legislative session via Zoom to the Federal Way City Council on July 15.

The legislative session ran Jan. 13 to April 27. The three legislators shared updates on how they were able to advocate for city and community priorities and also outlined the context of the session.

When Federal Way city leaders shared their priorities with the legislators at a breakfast in November 2024, they focused on requests for more surveillance cameras and the budget for transportation projects.

As previously reported by the Mirror, the city leaders also requested that state legislators focus on maintaining local control over homelessness issues, reducing barriers for the construction of new condominiums, and increasing mental health and addiction resources.

“We were very aware of the local control of the homelessness issue and how the city wanted us to oppose those policies that might limit the ways to address that,” Taylor said.

Taylor said this “was taken into consideration,” and legislation that might have threatened that local control “did not pass or did not come out of committee… so the message was heard by the right folks.”

The city also advocated for legislative support in expanding the availability of condominiums.

Taylor shared that the legislation she sponsored “to reduce the barriers of new construction of condos did pass and was a priority of the governor’s office as well as the housing committee.”

At the November breakfast, Federal Way city leaders also expressed concern about possible changes to public defender case load limits and the added cost burden this would put on cities.

Taylor shared “the state was able to provide $13.5 million in grants” for public defense to try to deal with that issue.

While the requested Flock cameras were not able to be funded, Reeves shared that they instead focused on fulfilling the governor’s directive to provide funds for local municipalities to increase their number of police officers. Flock cameras have license plate reading technology that can help police locate a suspect quickly.

Although city law enforcement is typically funded locally rather than at the state level, legislators this session provided grant money to add to city resources because “it was important that we do the work to provide and support for stronger public safety options,” Reeves said.

In addition to sharing updates on wins during the session, the legislators also shared the context of the most recent legislative session, including pressures caused by the state’s budget deficit, transitions of leadership at the state and federal level, and some emotional circumstances affecting the climate of the session.

Reeves described how the event of a new Washington governor impacted the session, saying that the new leadership added a challenge “particularly at a time when there was a lot of instability about what was coming out of the federal government, what kind of approach was the new governor going to be taking, the new agency leads would be taking.”

She added that there was also “a lot of tragedy and loss during this legislative session,” including the passing of former Speaker Frank Chopp during this legislative cycle and Sen. Bill Ramos as well as “several lobbyists I won’t name here because none of you know them.”

This “created a a climate and a culture this legislative session where that tragedy and that loss was particularly palpable,” Reeves said.

The session also brought personal hardships, including Taylor suffering a stroke and the recent loss of her mother.

Balancing the budget in a deficit year was very challenging, and Reeves said they focused on “strategy around preservation and protection of the services that so many of our community members have come to rely on. So maintaining core service services and public safety issues” were “top of mind.”

This meant investing in law enforcement resources, and also strengthening the food security network, per the governor’s request.

“We know that with some of the executive orders that came out and some of the abolition of some of the federal offices that food security was very much at risk for many of our community members, including meals in schools, senior food bank meal programs, etc. So, we worked very hard to strengthen that food security program,” Reeves said.

Reeves shared that they also focused on protecting vulnerable communities, describing how it was “really really important to this delegation, but to the state as a whole that we maintain public school funding.”

Although that funding wasn’t “perfect,” she said they were also able pass funding for the special education community to ensure that they were getting strengthened resources.

She also highlighted that they “did some really big work to address housing supply and affordability throughout this legislative session, including rent stabilization.”

Despite all these challenges, the legislators secured funding specifically for the 30th District and $4 million of projects, which will include $1 million for El Centro de la Raza Mercado, $766,000 for Pacific Bonsai Museum renovations, $1 million for Fusion Family Center expansion, $258,000 for Youth and Young Adult Shelter planning, and $1 million for YMCA Camp Kilworth restoration.

Local transportation investments included securing $9.9 million for the City Center Access Project in Federal Way and $100,000 for South 314th Street improvements.

The legislators also shared how they decide what requests or proposals they will focus on trying to fund.

Wilson described how a successful priority request needs to be very specific and include a specific solution to a problem. This means including whether it is legislation, funding or something else that is needed, and details such as who the problem impacts and what the solution will specifically change.

“The more specific … you can be and we can come together and be, the more likely we are to really hone down and potentially get things funded,” Wilson said.

She also shared some insight into the importance of requesters meeting deadlines and being responsive.

The legislators are now out of session and all three expressed their desire to hear from community members and leaders about their needs and priorities during this time.