OCTA Debates Leaving Government Group
A kind of declaration of independence was debated at the Hall of Administration on Monday.
The issue: Should the Orange County Transportation Authority secede from the Southern California Assn. of Governments by attempting to have itself or some other local agency declared a separate “metropolitan planning organization” for transportation in Orange County?
The final vote: 6-5 to suspend, at least temporarily, all efforts to do so.
“I would like it to be handled at the county level,” board member Luarann Cook said. “We’ve got to bring everybody to the table, not just the OCTA.”
The issue could be worth as much as $7.5 million in federal transportation funds to the county over the next six years, OCTA officials say. That’s the approximate difference between the annual $446,000 Orange County receives from the federal government now and the $1.75 million officials say it would get if OCTA or another county entity did its own transportation planning and procured the funds directly.
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