Anna would leave McKinney's seat on the region's main transportation funding board and share a new one with Allen, Celina, Prosper and Melissa under draft bylaws the Regional Transportation Council took up for the first time last week.
The council is the policy board that decides how federal and state transportation money is spent across the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Of its 45 seats, 28 go to cities, and smaller cities share theirs in groups called clusters, each with one voting member.
Where Anna sits now and where it would go
Under the bylaws the council adopted in November 2022, Anna shares one seat with McKinney, Fairview, Princeton and Melissa. Prosper and Celina are grouped with Frisco, and Allen shares a seat with Lucas, Wylie, Rowlett, Sachse, Murphy, Parker and Lavon.
The new draft splits those groups up. McKinney would keep a smaller cluster with Princeton and Farmersville, Frisco would keep Little Elm, The Colony and Providence Village, and Fairview would move to the Rowlett and Wylie group. Anna, Melissa, Prosper, Celina and Allen would form their own cluster with one seat.
The count is driven by population and jobs. The membership table attached to the draft lists Anna at 36,935 residents, one of the five cities whose combined numbers come to 1.10 of a full city seat by the council's formula.
Dallas would lose a seat
To keep the city total at 28, the draft cuts the seats held by Dallas, Highland Park and University Park from six to five. The draft also folds six cities that have passed 5,000 residents or jobs into existing clusters: Argyle, Crandall, Caddo Mills, Farmersville, Haslet and Pilot Point.
Michael Morris, transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, which staffs the council, told The Dallas Morning News the shift reflects growth in the region's northern counties. "It's not good news to hear if you're sitting in Dallas," he told the paper. "But that's the math."
