MPO Board meets for 1st time since vote to dilute El Paso’s representation
The El Paso Metropolitan Planning Organization, or MPO, met for the first time Friday since a controversial vote to cut the size of its board in half.
The board — which makes decisions on millions in transportation funding in the Borderland — is made up of mayors of all local municipalities, state reps and transportation agencies.
It’s been nearly a month since the controversial decision to cut the board size from 30 to 15, eliminating 7 of the 8 seats at the table for the City of El Paso.
The Federal Highway Administration quickly weighed in, pointing out any changes to the board would require approval of the largest incorporated city in the region, the City of El Paso.
The idea was to create equal representation and keep entities from hoarding funding before projects are ready, but El Paso City Council made it clear it did not approve of the changes since most of the projects are in El Paso.
Some members of Council, like El Paso City Rep. Dr. Michiel Noe, went as far as saying they felt like they’d been “stabbed in the back.”
Nearly all 30 members of the board showed up for Friday’s meeting and vowed to forge ahead, despite the now failed attempt to reduce the board size.
There was some confusion at the start of the meeting about whether the board needed to vote to rescind the Oct. 21 vote before it could move forward.
“We asked the Federal Highway Administration to render an opinion,” MPO board member and City Rep. Cortney Niland said. “They said, in the abundance of caution, what they would do was take formal action to rescind the action that was taken at the last board meeting. Because that item was not posted, we could not do that. So what we did (Friday) was go ahead and move forward on a few action items, because they are imperative to keeping the transportation projects of this City moving forward.”
Among the actions the board approved, $4.4 million for a 2-year courtesy patrol program that would help motorists stranded on the freeway. The program would be handled by private contractors, not TxDOT.
The MPO plans to vote on rescinding the Oct. 21 vote to reduce the board size at its next meeting on Dec. 16.
