{"id":280481,"date":"2026-05-05T23:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T23:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/280481\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T23:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T23:40:08","slug":"judge-reinstates-north-texas-transportation-chief-michael-morris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/280481\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge reinstates North Texas transportation chief Michael Morris"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Michael Morris is back on the job, for now, as transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, after\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/news\/article\/morris-ouster-signals-battle-transportation-22241183.php\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a judge reversed his firing<\/a> while a lawsuit moves forward.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement,\u00a0NCTCOG public affairs director Caroline Vandergriff confirmed the move.<\/p>\n<p>Morris had been ousted by Executive Director Todd Little, a move that drew pushback from members of the Regional Transportation Council, who questioned the authority behind the decision.<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit was filed by Denton County and the Regional Transportation Council against\u00a0NCTCOG and members of its executive board. They argued the firing overstepped authority and disrupted the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/news\/elections\/article\/dart-leaders-respond-withdrawal-election-results-22239047.php\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">region\u2019s transportation planning<\/a> structure.<\/p>\n<p>The judge\u2019s order is a \u201cpreliminary measure\u201d that \u201cdoes not address the merits of the case,\u201d\u00a0Vandergriff said, but it restores Morris to his post for now as the case proceeds.<\/p>\n<p>It forbids the\u00a0NCTCOG and other defendants from pursuing a replacement for Morris, according to WFAA-TV (Channel 8).<\/p>\n<p>Morris has been an influential player in North Texas transportation for more than three decades. The\u00a0NCTCOG is a regional planning organization and its RTC is a 45-member group of elected officials from all over North Texas in charge of setting policy for the Council of Governments.<\/p>\n<p>The council\u2019s executive board will meet Wednesday. A trial date has been set for Nov. 9.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Morris is back on the job, for now, as transportation director for the North Central Texas Council&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28,93339,89512,88573,88339],"class_list":["post-280481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-tp-future-of-north-texas","tag-tp-texas","tag-tp-traffic","tag-tp-population"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}