Has anyone's county created a County Energy Transportation Reinvestment Zone (CETRZ) under Tex. Transportation Code §222.1071, for the purpose of obtaining state funding for road projects?

My Commissioners are interested in creating one and foolishly think I know how to do it. In turn, I am looking for someone who will let me plagiarize their forms and take credit for their wealth of knowledge. I should be too proud to do something like that, but I am an elected official after all.

Look on the TAC website. Jim Allison and Bob Bass just had a webinar today from the TAC offices and gave some great information including forms, agenda wording, and public notice wording for the public hearing. They also recorded the session for viewing later. I think that would be a great start and should be of some help there.

Here's the link.

As I read the relevant statutes, creating one of these requires a hearing at least 30 days before establishing the zone, and you must post notice of the hearing at least seven days before the hearing.

Did anyone see anything preventing a county from designating the whole county as a CERTZ?

I can't seem to open the "Example Application" on the linked site. Does anyone have a copy they'd be willing to share?

Allison and Bass suggest using information from the Appraisal District (survey information or plat numbers) to describe the geographic area of the CETRZ. Don't you think it would be sufficient to say "all land located within the borders of Hale County and to the south of Farm to Market Road 37 and the west of Interestate 27?" It seems to me that would be sufficient to identify the property for tax increment account purposes.

One potential issue with declaring too big an area (such as the entire county) as a reinvestment zone would be that any increased tax revenue from the zone are to be committed solely for transportation use in the zone for ten years.

Be seriously careful about creating a large zone. If I am reading the implications of the reinvestment, you will be committing a healthy percentage of the tax revenue from the zone to road projects in the zone -- not the general fund.

Right now, I think ours will look like a bunch of snakes on a county road map...long and skinny...

Our Commissioners established a CETRZ last year. Recently, I came across the AG Opinion issued August 14, 2014 (GA-1076). The AG opined that the CETRZ would be subject to challenge under article VIII, section 1(a) of the Texas Constitution because it requires ad valorem taxation to be equal and uniform. If your county has a CETRZ, has there been discussion to undo it?

Not at all. I know one county filed suit based on TxDOT purportedly not following the appropriate rules in dividing the pot. To the best of my knowledge no one has worried particularly about this one.

More recent AG opinion, same topic: KP-0004, Feb 26, 2015

Where did you find it? When I go to the AG's website, I get an error message that states -invalid color space.

I may be misreading your question, but if you go to "Around the Agency" on the top bar on the AG's homepage, and then click on "Index to Opinions" on the submenu that pulls down, you can search and pull up opinions by number. The new site design is not very helpful for finding opinions, for sure!

I was able to find the opinion; however, the "invalid color space" omitted page one of the text and I had to begin reading with page 2.