A proposed restructuring of Metroplan, the long-range transportation planning agency for central Arkansas, was approved by the agency's board Wednesday with little discussion and no dissent.
The restructuring, which includes a revamped board, a beefed-up executive committee and a new committee structure, is designed to improve communications between the board and its committees and allow the board more information to make decisions.
Tab Townsell, the Metroplan executive director, dismissed criticism that the new system was aimed at eliminating the Regional Planning Advisory Council, a 40-member volunteer group that served as a conduit for public input in developing the long-range transportation plan for the region.
"It's not going away," he told the board. "It's being modified."
The council also provided a platform for criticism of the $630.7 million project to improve the Interstate 30 corridor through downtown Little Rock and North Little Rock.
The council voted several times against recommendation changes to the long-range transportation plan to accommodate the project, which includes replacing the I-30 bridge over the Arkansas River and widening the 6.7-mile corridor to 10 lanes from six.
The council recommendations aren't binding on the board, composed of the region's county judges and mayors. The board backed the project.
Barry Haas, a longtime community activist and project critic, was the only person to speak against the restructuring proposal, which he called a "grave mistake."
The council "has done exactly what you as a board should want an advisory group to do and that's to tell you the truth," Haas said. "The RPAC more closely represents what the public, the community, the people would want in relation to I-30 than the votes the board took."
The 40-member council will be replaced with three 25-member committees with different policy responsibilities, including economic vitality, transportation systems and livable communities. People on the council will be eligible to serve on the new committees.
"Each of those pieces are going to be much less effective than a unitary advisory body," Haas said.
But Townsell told the board the council wasn't meant to be a "deliberative body. The new committee structure will provide "multiple voices to help inform your deliberations."
Under the restructuring, the committees would develop their policy recommendations, which would then go to a beefed-up executive committee of the board, which would in turn make its recommendations to the full board.
The executive committee now consists of the board president, vice president and secretary, and has little responsibility.
Under the proposal, the committee would be expanded to include all county judges; mayors from all cities with populations of over 50,000; mayors from one medium-size city in each county except Pulaski County, which will have mayors from two medium-size cities on the committee. Also, mayors from two small cities in the region will have seats on the committee.
The restructuring also will eliminate another advisory body, the Technical Coordinating Committee, which is composed of city and county planning and public works staff. Its members also would have places on the new committee structure.
The board also would be expanded under the proposal to include representatives from the Little Rock Port Authority and Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field.
They would join the state Transportation Department and Rock Region Metro, the transit agency for Pulaski County, as members of the board and have voting powers when the board considers transportation-related matters.
The full board, which now meets every month, would meet every other month under the proposed reorganization. The executive board would meet in the months that the full board didn't meet.
Metro on 10/04/2018