In the first of two votes that will be held today by various DC Council committees today on the D.C. United stadium bill (B20-805), the Government Operations committee unanimously approved the bill as amended. The members of the committee present were Kenyan McDuffie, Mary Cheh, David Catania, Vincent Orange, Muriel Bowser, and Phil Mendelson. One amendment takes out the declaration that the Reeves center is surplus property, meaning that it will not be swapped or auctioned any time in the near future. The building must be declared surplus before it can be sold, auctioned, or traded. It also added a provision that authorizes the mayor to use eminent domain in order to assemble the land if need by, but chairperson Kenyan McDuffie urged that power not be used. Finally, even though the matter of the tax abatements is not under the purview of Government Operations (Jack Evans' Finance and Revenue Committee already passed them), McDuffie took a moment to speak against them.

Another section of the bill will be reviewed by Muriel Bowser's Economic Development Committee this afternoon at 3:30. Should it pass there, it will then go to the Committee of the Whole, which will have to put it on the agenda for the full council. It then must be approved by a majority of the Council in at least two separate meetings of the full council; the last two of those for this year are December 2 and December 16.