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Hillsborough TPO directs staff to keep airport/port seats "off the top" and donate one seat to Pasco in regional MPO talks
Summary
At a May 5 special meeting, the Hillsborough TPO voted to direct staff to tell Pinellas and Pasco it prefers an option that preserves off‑the‑top voting seats for the airport and port and donates one Hillsborough population seat to Pasco; a substitute motion to change seat counts and restore transit agencies as voting members was rejected.
The Hillsborough Transportation Planning Organization on May 5 instructed staff to respond to Forward Pinellas’ counterproposal by keeping Port and Airport seats "off the top" of a proposed regional board and by donating one of Hillsborough’s population‑based seats to Pasco County, a move the board framed as a compromise to move regional merger talks forward.
The action followed a long staff briefing by Executive Director Johnny Wong, who described a two‑phase study funded in part by a $500,000 FDOT grant to a consultant, and who outlined three apportionment options put on the table by Tri‑County partners. Wong said Forward Pinellas had declined to approve its draft apportionment and instead proposed alternatives that would allocate all 25 voting seats by population, which raised concerns that Hillsborough’s larger population share…
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