EDINBURG, Texas - State Rep. Terry Canales, the chairman of the House Committee on Transportation, let rip when he spoke at the most recent Rio Grande Valley Metropolitan Planning Organization policy board meeting.
The Edinburg Democrat blasted the group, accusing them of passing up the opportunity to move on shovel-ready transportation projects in favor of projects that are going to take years to complete. He said the situation is particularly bad in Hidalgo County. As a result, he said, hundreds of millions of dollars are sitting in the bank not being used.
“When they don't move, we don't get extra funding,” Canales said.
The RGVMPO is the conduit for all the federal and state transportation dollars that flow to the Rio Grande Valley.
There were no reporters present at the MPO meeting, which took place Dec. 14, 2022. However, a partial recording of Canales’ remarks is available on the group’s Facebook page.
The attached audio file is a recording of Chairman Canales' remarks at the MPO meeting.
Canales’ remarks were resurrected by RGVMPO Executive Director Andrew Canon at last week’s McAllen Economic Development Corporation board meeting. In his monthly report to the directors of MEDC, Canon said the RGVMPO had received $400 million in Category Seven funding.
Canon said: “Things are looking up. We are receiving more funds to the Valley since we did the merger. It’s not as much as some would like but it is more than we have gotten previously. The task that we have now… last month we had Chairman Canales come and speak at the policy board. It is (all about) letting projects, getting projects out the door. We have lots of projects that are sitting on the shelves and lots of projects that need right of way acquisition, a lot of projects that need utility adjustments and so forth and so on. The task that we have at hand is we've asked for more but we have to start spending the day lights out of it. It is a little hard to go up to our state representatives and senators and say ‘woe is me, I need more money,’ when we’ve got a lot of money in the bank that we haven't spent. So, we're shifting gears and starting to focus on that more, to start trying to get more projects out the door for our partners and with TxDOT. So, hopefully we'll see an increase on the number of projects letting over the next year or so.”
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