Little Elm would stay in Frisco's group on the North Texas board that steers federal transportation money, but that group would get smaller under bylaws the Regional Transportation Council read for the first time Nov. 5.
The council is the 45-member policy body for the region's metropolitan planning organization. Twenty-eight of its seats belong to cities, and towns that are too small for a seat of their own are bundled into clusters that share one vote.
Two members would leave the cluster
Since the current bylaws took effect in 2022, Little Elm has shared a seat with Frisco, Prosper, The Colony, Celina and Providence Village. In the new draft, Prosper and Celina leave for a newly drawn seat with Allen, Anna and Melissa, and the remaining four (Frisco, Little Elm, The Colony and Providence Village) keep sharing one vote.
A staff slide shown to the council summed up the change as keeping the Frisco cluster "but reduces size."
Seats are handed out by a formula that uses each city's population or jobs, whichever is larger. The table attached to the draft puts Little Elm at 62,684 residents, up from 51,640 in the 2022 version, and credits the town with about a quarter of a seat. Frisco accounts for most of the remaining four-city share, which adds up to 1.33 seats.
Nearby, the Denton-area cluster that includes Aubrey would add Argyle and Pilot Point, two of six cities that have newly crossed the 5,000-resident threshold for representation. Dallas would drop from six seats to five so the city total stays at 28.
NCTCOG's assistant transportation director, Dan Kessler, told the council that the region's northern counties now have more people and jobs than the current seat map accounts for, The Dallas Morning News reported.
