Government Affairs Update

The NTTA’s leadership and staff have made more than 39,000 points of contact to local, state, and federal elected officials during 2009, with 99 percent of the outreach being proactive.

Most recently, NTTA leadership worked collaboratively with officials from Texas Department of Transportation and Regional Transportation Council (RTC) to develop proposed funding and project delivery scenarios to advance Southwest Parkway/Chisholm Trial in Tarrant and Johnson counties. The potential scenarios were presented to the RTC and elected officials along the corridor in December. While there remains significant work to be done in the coming weeks, the cooperative spirit in which the proposals were developed is being recognized as a positive step for the entire region.

The NTTA Legislative Committee, led by Board Vice Chairman Victor Vandergriff (Tarrant County), held its first meeting to kick off preparation for the 82nd Texas Legislature. Other members of the Committee include Kenneth Barr (Tarrant County) and Bill Moore (Collin County).  The Committee first heard a report on local and federal initiatives, followed by a proposed timeline to ramp-up development of the NTTA’s legislative goals for the next session. NTTA staff will continue to work under the direction of executive and committee leadership and will begin planning outreach meetings with the NTTA’s member counties and other key elected leaders over the next several weeks to discuss potential legislative initiatives.

For more information on the NTTA's Government Affairs program, please contact Carrie Rogers, the NTTA's assistant director of Government Affairs, at (214) 224-2269 or crogers@ntta.org.