On Nov. 8, Texas voters gathered at polls across the state to vote  on 10 proposed constitutional amendments. The proposition items in the Texas Constitutional Amendment Elections included some of the following: keeping property tax exemptions for the families of disabled veterans, allowing for the issuance of general obligation bonds by the Texas Water Development Board, and allowing for the issuance of general obligation bonds of the State of Texas to provide student loans. You can see the results of the election in this Nov. 9 Austin American Statesman article. Voters approved 7 of the 10 propositions. The proposition that we blogged about a couple of weeks ago that would allow a county to issue bonds to finance the development or redevelopment of unproductive or underdeveloped areas (Proposition 4) did not pass.

In addition to the Constitutional Amendment Election day this week, the Regional Transportation Council held its first ever closed meeting on Nov. 10 to discuss economic development incentives. The RTC, comprised of 43 members including local elected and appointed officials from the DFW metropolitan area and representatives from the area's transportation providers, meets on the second Thursday of each month. An exemption to the Texas Open Meeting Act allowed the Council to meet behind closed doors. No one is exactly sure what the Council discussed in the meeting, but Michael Lindenberger, a transportation reporter at the Dallas Morning News, has a few ideas. Read about them here.

In other news this week, The Regional Transportation Council - and many Texans in the Denton area - received some bad news: there is not enough money to rebuild I-35E from Dallas to Denton. Discussion on this major project has been underway for more than ten years. In fact, this project was a key element of local officials' effort to encourage lawmakers to give TxDOT the authority to fund and build toll roads in return for future toll receipts during the 82nd Texas Legislative Session. A six-person advisory committee authorized by lawmakers, will decide which approach to building the highway would be most suitable to proposed to private companies. The committee was told that fully funding the project is not feasible.

According to a blog post by Lindenberger on Nov. 10, "The $4.7 billion project is so expensive that private investors would require about $3 billion in public money before they would be willing to develop the highway as a mixed project including new tolled lanes and reconstructed interstate lanes, new frontage roads and more. There is only about $600 million in public money from all sources available to build the road."

One funding idea, according to Lindberger's post, "...would be to build toll lanes first to create a revenue stream that would eventually help pay for additional free lanes."

Read the full post including feedback from Michael Morris, elected chair of the advisory committee and Denton County Commissioner, Hugh Coleman here.

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