Councilmembers, Staff Lobby for Flagstaff Priorities

Councilmember Khara House, Vice Mayor Miranda Sweet, and I–along with Deputy City Manager Joanne Keene, City Attorney Sterling Solomon, and Senior Project Manager Christine Cameron spent two days in Washington D.C. meeting with members of Congress and agency staff. We’re grateful to be given time on the calendars of Congressmembers Eli Crane and Greg Stanton and Senators Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego. We also met with staff from the Department of Transportation, Federal Aviation Administration, U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources and Environment, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. There are many projects important to Flagstaff residents, including road improvements, wildfire risk reduction and forest health, the airport, flood mitigation, water resources, public safety, and housing–and we used this time to talk about these issues, what our community is doing about them, and what assistance we need. Senator Kelly and then-Congressman Gallego were helpful and supportive of our FY25 Congressionally Directed Spending Requests and three of our priorities were poised to receive funding in the budget. Those were dropped with the recently passed Continuing Resolution, so we’ve requested them again, plus a few others for the FY26 budget.

You can find details about all of these issues, projects, and funding requests in our Federal Lobbying Packet linked below. These priorities have been discussed in several city council meetings as well.

I advocate also through organizations I’m a part of such as the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Alliance to End Childhood Hunger, Climate Mayors, and Mayors Against Illegal Guns. We’ve all got to keep making those calls and writing those letters. Diversification of our transportation networks through safer streets for cyclists and pedestrians is, in most cases, not supported by the Trump administration. Extractive industries such as logging, mining, and oil drilling are likely to play a major role in this administration so our support for evidence-based public lands management is more important than ever. Flagstaff’s carbon neutrality plan calls for increased electrification of transportation and building energy–another direction not supported federally. Massive cuts to programs such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs (SNAP), Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and Meals on Wheels put millions of children and youth, pregnant women, individuals with disabilities, and American seniors at risk for malnutrition and hunger. I’ve included contact information for Senators Kelly and Gallego and Congressman Crane below.