A state district court’s ruling this past Tuesday sent longtime North Texas transportation chief Michael Morris back onto the job one week after North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG) Executive Director Todd Little fired him.
The ruling marks the latest turn in a contentious power struggle between the NCTCOG and its own subordinate Regional Transportation Council (RTC) over who controls transportation policy and funding decisions in North Texas.
Rick Bailey, chair of the Regional Transportation Council and a Johnson County commissioner, told Fort Worth Report that Morris would return as soon as this past Tuesday.
“I’m elated that Michael Morris is going to be joining us as soon as today,” Bailey said.
Morris’ return comes days after NCTCOG announced that he had “concluded his tenure” after more than 40 years of service to the region, including 36 years as the RTC’s Director of Transportation where Morris has wielded tremendous political power allocating billions of dollars of federal, state and local taxpayer money to transportation projects across the region.
Prior to Morris’ reinstatement by the court, NCTCOG had named Dan Kessler, who served as assistant director under Morris, as interim transportation director as the agency launched a national search for Morris’ replacement.
Morris’ refusal to retire puts him squarely in the middle of a fierce internal political battle inside the NCTCOG, and in the courts, over who has authority to hire, fire, and direct transportation staff in North Texas. The internal fight is likely to be expensive for North Texas taxpayers and a major distraction for years from NCTCOG/RTC’s core mission of alleviating traffic as the case slowly moves through the courts.
Morris’ Exit Came Sooner Than Planned
Morris had previously announced plans to retire once NCTCOG hired his replacement. He also expected to move into a consulting services contract as part of his retirement transition.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Morris said at a December 11 RTC meeting that he planned to transition away from the director role only after a replacement arrived. “I’m going to transition away from director,” Morris said at the time. “I am here until a new director arrives; I’ll be moved to a professional services agreement.”
Little’s April 28 decision to fire Morris disrupted that plan. Little fired Morris last Monday before the court issued a temporary injunction reinstating him early this week. Bailey told Fort Worth Report at the time, “Michael Morris was terminated yesterday,” adding, “In my opinion, it was unwarranted.”
Sources speaking to DX on background said that Morris, who has served as transportation director since 1990, never really planned to retire quietly. These sources with direct, first-hand knowledge of the situation say the reality is that Morris never wanted to give up the powerful role he’s now held for 36 years.
Instead, they said, Morris and some of his allies have been working behind the scenes for some time in an effort to thwart NCTCOG’s leadership’s plan to retire Morris. When that battle was seemingly lost politically inside NCTCOG, Morris and his allies on the RTC manufactured a legal fight against their own parent organization.
DART And Toll Road Fatigue
Both the NCTCOG and RTC are made up of elected officials appointed by various taxing entities across the region although the body has no direct accountability to voters. As an increasing number of government reform-minded, politically conservative members were appointed to the NCTCOG board and RTC membership, hard questions started to be asked about Morris’ judgment, decision-making, favoritism towards certain allies and projects that benefitted them, and whether Morris has held too much power for too long.
Some of these newer members claim that RTC membership has been co-opted by DART interests and that the RTC has effectively become a proxy for Morris’ long-time DART obsession despite the many problems the system has experienced.
Rockwall County Commissioner John Stacy, who is Rockwall County’s delegate to the RTC, told DX, “Rockwall County shares a seat on the RTC so we have half a vote. This current move is nothing more than a power grab by the big cities who have DART and other regional rail and bus systems.”
Stacy continued, “Rockwall County has zero interest in regional public transit, couple that with being only half a vote and that is why we struggle to even get a simple FM Road widened in our County. Over the last 20 years Rockwall County has been among the fastest growing counties in the nation, yet we struggle to get the RTC to support expansion of our roadways.”
“The RTC is currently a mutiny by regional transportation supporters and it really hurts suburban counties like Rockwall who will never be a part of a system like DART,” Stacy concluded.
This internal drama is playing out against a backdrop of increasing public frustration with worsening traffic, complaints about the proliferation of expensive, unpopular toll roads, and the recent suburban DART member city revolt.
Morris has been the leading advocate for continued DART expansion and the RTC provides much of the funding for the transit agency that’s been plagued by crime and safety issues, as well as questions about the high cost of continuing to sustain and expand DART when less than 1% of commuters actually use the trains.
The COG and RTC members that spoke to DX consistently reinforced that decades of heavy, disproportionate spending on DART and privately-owned toll roads at the expense of new non-tolled road construction was a direct contributing factor to the worsening traffic snarl and gridlock DFW is now experiencing.
Allegations of Explicit Threats and Intimidation
Many of the sources DX spoke to for this story did so on background citing fear of reprisal by Morris and his allies – both politically in terms of standing up challengers friendly to Morris for their elected seats, as well as the cities they represent being punished by Morris by not prioritizing projects and being allocated their share of RTC funding.
Specific examples of overt threats to some RTC members by Morris personally to kill funding for projects in their areas were shared with DX and will be the subject of a future article.
At least two sources allege that Denton County Transportation Consultant, John Polster, along with some other Morris long-time allies on the RTC, threatened elected officials in DART member cities who sent the DART question to their voters demanding they rescind their scheduled DART elections or risk ending their political careers or having their RTC funding cut off.
Little’s employment as Executive Director was also threatened by Polster who was characterized by RTC members on background as a “highly paid lobbyist” who bullies RTC members with threats and intimidation tactics.
One source remarked that, “36 years is long enough and Morris has had too much power and influence over the RTC for years now”. The source added, “Many transportation staffers were relieved that Morris was finally going to be moving on and expressed so openly to their superiors. They’re now absolutely deflated with the court’s decision to put him back in charge.”
“It’s All About DART”
The legal fight now centers on who controls the transportation department: NCTCOG’s executive board and executive director, or the Regional Transportation Council, the MPO policy committee and regional transportation policy body that’s legally subordinate to NCTCOG.
Some RTC members have argued that the transportation council should control hiring and firing decisions for transportation department staff because it serves as the policy-making body for the region’s Metropolitan Planning Organization.
Little and NCTCOG have maintained that NCTCOG, as the council of governments and fiscal agent, controls personnel decisions. Transportation staffers operationally are employed by and work directly for NCTCOG and not the RTC who principally sets transportation policy, prioritizes transportation projects and budget allocation.
The Morris dispute follows months of tension over DART, suburban withdrawal efforts, and regional transportation funding in general.
Earlier this year, Morris proposed a legislative strategy for the upcoming 90th Texas Legislature to address what he described as “a host of concerns, including transportation authorities’ boundaries.” The RTC board did not approve the proposal, and Morris said legislation was “off the table” from his end.
One day before a major RTC vote in February, the Dallas City Council approved a resolution supporting a reduction of Dallas’ voting share on the DART board to 45%. The move formed part of a broader effort to keep suburban member cities from holding May 2 withdrawal elections.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Addison, Farmers Branch, Highland Park, Irving, Plano, and University Park had advanced withdrawal elections before negotiations intensified.
Irving, Farmers Branch and Plano later rescinded their DART elections after DART board changes and after the RTC agreed to allocate $75 million for a DART/member-city partnership. The latter has been characterized as a mob-style payoff to those cities to compel them to rescind their DART referendum elections.
Several including Plano, Irving and Farmers Branch did just that. Addison, University Park and Highland Park followed through with their DART referendums, with Highland Park being the only of three whose residents voted to discontinue DART service and funding.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, as DART tensions escalated last year, Dallas Democrat state Rep. Yvonne Davis accused DART officials of pushing an “outright lie” about her role in the legislative fight, while Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price accused DART leadership of running a “malicious whisper campaign.”
In a July 2025 letter to Price, then-DART Chair Gary Slagel said the agency had intended to seek replacement funding from the RTC for DART’s General Mobility Program, but that funding “unfortunately has not materialized.”
“Mafia Style Payoffs” To Cancel DART Elections
That funding package now sits at the center of a broader fight over Morris’ future, Denton County’s role in the Morris saga, and whether North Texas’ most powerful planning body handles major decisions transparently and ethically.
At a February 12 RTC meeting, members approved a Scenario 2 plan involving $75 million over five years for a DART/member-city partnership. Sources told The Dallas Express those funds were allocated to DART to effectively pay off member cities not to hold DART referendums in their communities.
During the same meeting, Denton County Judge Andy Eads, a strong Morris ally, moved to amend the plan by adding $65 million for the Denton County Transportation Authority and $40 million for Fort Worth Trinity Metro, bringing the total budget amendment to $180 million.
Eads’ additional $105M in funding requests and associated projects were not on the original published meeting agenda for the vote which some NCTCOG/RTC members allege was an explicit violation of the Texas Open Meetings Act that will likely be referred to the state’s Attorney General’s Office to investigate.
One source who was present at the meeting told DX that Eads publicly commented during the discussion that Denton County would never see any money once Morris is gone so he needed to make the amendment.
The amendment passed 22-12. The full amended motion passed 31-2, according to RTC minutes.
Eads was contacted by DX for comment and agreed to answer questions by email but never responded.
Denton County And An Alleged “Quid Pro Quo”
Public records show Denton County filed for a temporary restraining order in Denton County court on April 6, less than two months after the RTC approved the $180 million allocation, to prevent the NCTCOG Executive Board from replacing Morris, a legal maneuver Eads made to ensure that Morris was still Director to deliver the $105M in funding he successfully secured with his last minute amendment.
One source present at the February meeting where Eads’ $65M funding allocation for the Denton County Transportation Authority was approved characterized the legal action as “a quid pro quo” between Morris and Eads. The same source claims the $40M Eads amended to include the Fort Worth Trinity Metro was to secure additional votes for his amendment.
RTC documents tied April transportation project delays to that lawsuit and referenced emergency funding needs caused by legal action affecting the region’s MPO status and fiscal-agent structure.
RTC members then voted during an emergency meeting to allocate $5 million in response to legal action affecting regional transportation governance as the council joined Denton County’s lawsuit over hiring decisions.
The April 30 RTC agenda states that transportation items did not appear on the April 23 NCTCOG Executive Board agenda “due to the Denton County lawsuit.”
The April 30 agenda also included a $5 million emergency funding item for “unforeseen needs resulting from recent legal action” that affected the MPO status and fiscal agency. The agenda said the RTC did not need the funds for legal matters and would return unused funds. The NCTCOG/RTC members DX interviewed questioned using $5M of taxpayer funds for a subordinate agency (RTC) to sue the parent agency (NCTCOG) for the sole purpose of rescuing Morris.
Morris’ Longtime Power & Influence Under Scrutiny
After an unusual delay that sources suggested was more political gamesmanship by Eads, Denton County officials transferred the case to the appropriate venue in Tarrant County.
A district judge there later rescinded much of the Denton County order. That decision cleared the way for Little to fire Morris last week. Tuesday’s ruling sent Morris back to his job as the legal fight now continues with no determinable timeline or resolution.
Morris has long ranked among the most influential political figures in North Texas despite being an unelected bureaucrat.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, critics have called him the “King of the Roads,” “King of DFW Politics,” and “King of Gridlock,” reflecting the power he has wielded behind the scenes for decades.
In August, Morris told The Dallas Express he had “nothing to do” with a July letter from then-DART Chair Gary Slagel that asked suburban mayors to drop reform efforts in exchange for funding.
“He sent me a copy. I still haven’t read the letter, I don’t know what’s in the letter,” Morris said at the time.
Morris also told The Dallas Express in August that he had not explored retirement and remained focused on the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
“I’m not walking away from helping the region implement the most important set of special event projects we’ve ever had,” Morris said then.
Less than five months later, Morris announced his retirement transition.
No End In Sight For Commuters
The RTC and NCTCOG influence billions of dollars in road, rail, bus, bicycle, and air-quality projects across a 16-county region.
The fight leaves North Texas’ central transportation planning organization facing a dramatic leadership dispute, an active legal battle, and new scrutiny over the integrity of the process over how regional leaders choose projects and allocate transportation funds.
With FIFA World Cup events approaching, lingering questions about the value of DART, and growing negative public sentiment growing more palpable about toll roads and traffic, the Morris dispute has grown beyond an internal personnel matter — the NCTCOG/RTC civil war has become a massive distraction to North Texas transportation progress while DFW residents continue to sit stalled in the worst traffic in the region’s history.
“It’s just ridiculous,” noted one RTC member. “All of this just to save Michael Morris who’s been failing at his job now for 40 years.”
