Like TURF
Follow TURFDFW transportation board meets in SECRET
Link to article here.
Regional Transportation Council meets in secret for the first time
MICHAEL A. LINDENBERGER - 10 November 2011
The Regional Transportation Council held its first closed meeting Thursday, and officials later adjourned without ever saying what the session was about.
About an hour after kicking scores of staff, consultants and other observers out of the meeting, RTC members opened the doors and then quickly adjourned without comment.
They were able to meet in secret by citing an exemption to the Texas Open Meetings Act that allows public bodies to meet in private when they want to talk about economic incentives they plan to offer a firm that is considering moving to their jurisdiction.
In addition, the law provides an exception to allow the body to consider “commercial or financial information received from a business prospect to locate in the region.”
So what was the meeting about?
No one was saying. No action was taken in public session.
Several RTC members, including Dallas County Commissioner Mike Cantrell and energy executive Jere Thompson, said they could not comment. Bill Hale, the Texas Department of Transportation’s chief engineer for the Dallas district, said members had been warned not to speak under penalty of potential criminal prosecution.
Officials referred questions about the meeting to Arlington attorney Pat Remington, who serves as outside counsel for the North Central Texas Council of Governments and occasionally for the RTC.
Remington, a former Arlington City Council member, would not say whether such a warning had been issued to RTC members and could not comment on the matters discussed in the meeting. He said only that through its funding decisions, the RTC makes choices that can affect businesses’ decisions about investments and thus plays a role in economic development.
For that reason, Remington said, it was entitled to the same exceptions to the public meeting act that cities, counties and other bodies enjoy.
He said a new situation has arisen that necessitated the private briefing, but he could not explain what.
The Regional Transportation Council is a 43-member planning body made up of members appointed by city councils and county commissioners, and others, including representatives from the state Transportation Department, area transit agencies and the North Texas Tollway Authority.
The council makes decisions about which transportation projects can be put into long-range plans, applies for federal grants and — through agreements with the Texas Transportation Commission — often has the final say about which major projects get state funding and which do not.