DADE CITY – The Pasco County Metropolitan Planning Organization is laying the groundwork for a merger with similar groups in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties that may attract more federal funding for larger-scale transportation projects.
Tania Gorman, executive director for Pasco County MPO, said state legislation asked the three MPOs about a year and a half ago to engage in an exercise on what a merger may look like. Pasco leaders agreed to a scope of work Nov. 14 that involves hiring a consultant with legal expertise in how MPOs work to guide a merger by July 1, 2027.
The consultant would deliver drafts for a Memorandum of Understanding, an apportionment plan, organizational structure, cost estimates and other details.
Pasco County leaders have heard some pushback on the plan coming out of Hillsborough County.
“We all work together and there’s the availability of having more funds for all of us,” Pasco Commissioner Ron Oakley said Nov. 14. “Because a lot of these roads and the widening of these roads help all of us that are in this region.”
Oakley pointed to the need to widen U.S. Route 301. Even though Hillsborough County has more of the highway on its side than Pasco County, Oakley said widening the route would help everybody.
Justin Hall, of the Florida Department of Transportation, told the Pasco County MPO that while there was a leader from Tampa that expressed an opinion regarding the merger, the City of Tampa had yet to do so.
Pasco Commissioner Kathryn Starkey encouraged colleagues not to be consumed by “us against them,”
“What I want everyone to remember is the money that we get for our county is still coming to our county and same with all the other counties,” Starkey said. “The purpose of this regional MPO is to work together on large federally funded projects. The fact of the matter is those are probably going to start in Hillsborough because that’s where the issue is and then it’ll spoke out from there.”
Defining membership
The Regional MPO would consist of 25 voting members, including Port Tampa Bay and Tampa International Airport. The other 23 voting seats would be determined by population, so Hillsborough County would get 11 seats, Pinellas County would get eight seats and Pasco County would get four seats.
The Pasco County MPO discussed how small cities would be represented in the Regional MPO. Ultimately, members decided that one of the four seats on the Regional MPO would be devoted to someone representing the cities. The cities would pick their representative and a voting alternate.
