Sunday, May 5, 2024
When it comes to big, consequential decisions, it is important for stakeholders to have a seat at the table.
Where the Tex-21 transportation infrastructure alliance is concerned, Granbury and Hood County officials don’t just have a seat at the table. They have taken on positions of leadership.
The city and county have partnered to host the first in-person meeting of Tex-21’s U.S. Highway 377 Corridor Coalition.
It’s part of ongoing efforts by local leaders to ensure that the rapidly growing community, deemed the ninth fastest-growing county in the country in 2018, gets its fair share of highway dollars.
The workshop will take place on Friday, July 29, at the Lake Granbury Conference Center.
The city is donating use of the facility, and the county is picking up the lunch tab.
The agenda is “robust and informative,” in the view of County Judge Ron Massingill.
Representatives of cities and counties that are involved in Tex-21 will be there as well as some that have not yet joined. Speakers will include state and local officials as well as representatives of the Texas Department of Transportation.
“We’re reached out to various entities, stakeholders that are along the 377 corridor, and are inviting them to come to this meeting,” said Granbury City Manager Chris Coffman, who is one of Tex-21’s nine vice chairs.
He said that the meeting is to “highlight the importance of this road as a corridor for Texas as Texas continues to grow.”
Coffman stated, “We’re not a lobby organization. It’s really just a collaboration effort by all these different entities to discuss transportation needs across the state.”
State Sen. Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury, is among the scheduled speakers. He will be followed by Ghassan Khankarli, director of the city of Dallas’ Department of Transportation. Khankarli will speak on Vision Zero, a multi-national road traffic safety project.
District and area TxDOT engineers will be present, Coffman said, as will Benbrook Mayor Jason Ward, who will speak on the years-long U.S. Highway 377 expansion project that took place in that city.
A session titled “US-377 TxDOT Highway District Discussions” will feature six TxDOT officials, including Caroline Mays, director of planning and modal programs.
That discussion will be followed by the “Tex-21 US-377 Corridor Coalition Session,” whose participants will include Coffman, Granbury Mayor Jim Jarratt, Massingill and Cresson Mayor Teena Conway, among others.
The conference will be from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m., with lunch catered by Hard Eight BBQ.
At its regular meeting on June 14, the Hood County Commissioners Court unanimously approved spending up to $4,500 to feed attendees, which are expected to number more than 100. Coffman said Monday that registrations were continuing to come in and that he did not yet have a head count.
During the lunch break, the keynote speaker will be Texas State Demographer Lloyd Potter.
Jarratt said that he has heard Potter speak and that he gives a “beautiful presentation.”
“Eighty-seven percent of the population of Texas lives on the east side of Interstate 35,” Jarratt said. “They are asking for the same road dollars that we’re asking for. How big do you think their voice is versus how big our voice can be?”
Jarratt made that comment from his second-floor office at City Hall on Thursday, July 7 — the one-year anniversary of his first Tex-21 Zoom meeting, which he attended at Coffman’s invitation.
The mayor stated that Tex-21 is “not Granbury’s voice. It’s every county, every city, every mayor, commissioner, whatever, talking to every state representative up and down this row. Our voice gets bigger. We get heard more.”
The city of Granbury has been part of Tex-21 since its inception about 25 years ago.
Coffman, who became Granbury’s city manager in spring 2015, said he became involved with Tex-21 after the departure of councilman Mickey Parson, who was the city’s liaison with the group.
“What we’re trying to accomplish is bringing statewide awareness to the importance of how Highway 377 is a federal highway that goes from Del Rio all the way to the Red River,” he stated. “As we deal with our local issues with 377, we also have the need to highlight the entire state of 377, so we’ve reached out to various entities, stakeholders that are along the 377 corridor, and are inviting them to come to this meeting.”
LEADING THE WAY
Jarratt, who was sworn in a year ago this month, is helping to build the U.S. Highway 377 Coalition. He has traveled with Massingill to speak to other mayors and representatives of local governments, encouraging them to join the alliance.
Massingill provided a written statement to the Hood County News about the importance of Tex-21.
“Most people are not aware of the fact that US-377 is a 460-mile-long highway, stretching from the Rio Grande to the Red River,” he wrote. “Additionally, most do not realize that the highway crosses 15 counties, 32 incorporated cities, 7 TxDOT highway districts and the districts of 7 U.S. Congressmen and women, 8 state senators, and 15 state representatives.
“If the corridor is expanded one county to the east and west, suddenly this coalition could include a large swath of Central and West Texas. At its southern end in Del Rio, Val Verde County, US-377 is an international gateway into Texas from Mexico. With proper improvements, US-377 would become a highly beneficial trade corridor, bringing freight directly to the DFW metroplex without going through the congestion found on I-35.”
He continued, “For this to be a reality, US-377 needs the combined attention of the cities, counties and 7 TxDOT districts along the corridor. That’s why we are hosting and supporting this meeting.”
Jarratt noted that TxDOT has previously designated dollars to alleviate bottlenecks in such places as Benbrook and Cresson, where a bypass is under construction and expected to be completed next year.
“Where’s the bottleneck today?” he posed. “We’re sitting right here in it.”
