Erie County MPO committee proposes bylaws rewrite to change voting seats, limit nonvoting members

The Erie County Metropolitan Planning Organization coordinating committee discussed a draft rewrite of its bylaws at its June 11 meeting in Summit Township, proposing to reallocate voting seats using vehicle-miles-traveled data, limit which agencies hold nonvoting membership and add officer term limits.

Committee members said the rewrite seeks to modernize the MPO’s structure and ensure compliance with federal and state requirements. The draft would change the organization’s formal name to the Erie County Metropolitan Planning Organization, set a five-year term limit for officers, and alter how the chair’s vote is handled so the chair votes last rather than only to break ties. It would also reduce the list of nonvoting members to the Federal Highway Administration, the Federal Transit Administration and the Department of Community and Economic Development.

Those leading the bylaws subcommittee said they used vehicle-miles-traveled data from PennDOT as the primary metric for assigning a subset of additional votes to municipalities, boroughs and townships that carry the most traffic. “We felt that we had to change, especially in the metro area,” a subcommittee presenter said, explaining that the distribution is intended to keep the same total number of voting seats while shifting some seats among jurisdictions.

The proposed seat changes shown to the committee would, in the coordinating committee, reduce the City of Erie’s allocation from six votes to four and increase Erie County’s votes from one to two. Several boroughs and townships would gain single votes under the proposal; some authorities would lose or keep votes depending on the configuration presented. Presenters said their goal was to preserve a manageable total number of voting members (23 in the draft) while making representation more reflective of roadway use.

The proposal prompted extended public and member comment. A longtime county official argued the county council should be explicitly represented on the MPO, saying, “the county council should have a liaison on this program,” and noting the county’s growing budgetary role. City representatives pushed back that the city remains a major population and activity center and cautioned against treating seats held by authorities as automatically “city” votes. As one city representative said, the port and transit authorities “serve county residents too.”

Committee members also raised practical concerns about quorum and participation if the membership expands. One member suggested the bylaws could set an adjusted quorum so more jurisdictions can hold seats without regularly preventing business for lack of a quorum.

The subcommittee said it will take the comments into account. "We will probably push that back at least another set of meetings to get more time for input," a staff presenter said, indicating the draft would be revised and recirculated. Committee leadership asked members to submit written comments: “Please follow-up with an email to Emily in the subject MPO bylaws so that she can track them,” a committee chair said.

No formal vote on the bylaws occurred at the June 11 meeting. The subcommittee plans to collect written input, revise the draft, and return the bylaws for further review by the Technical Advisory Committee and the coordinating committee at a later date.

The discussion ran for more than an hour and touched on historical membership changes dating to the 1960s, metrics considered for redistribution (population, road miles and vehicle-miles-traveled), and the practical effects of shifting seats on smaller boroughs and larger townships. Several speakers urged the subcommittee to add a scheduled review clause to the bylaws so membership can be revisited as demographics and travel patterns change.

Meeting materials included a clean and redlined draft of the bylaws distributed to members in advance. The subcommittee’s next meeting date and the timeline for formal adoption were not finalized at the June 11 meeting; members were told the process could take several more months to incorporate public and municipal input.