By:  Truan                                             S.B. No. 983
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
                                        AN ACT
    1-1  relating to meetings of the mayors of municipalities for the
    1-2  purpose of making appointments to certain metropolitan rapid
    1-3  transit authorities.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Subsection (d), Section 6B, Chapter 141, Acts of
    1-6  the 63rd Legislature, Regular Session, 1973 (Article 1118x,
    1-7  Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes), is amended to read as follows:
    1-8        (d)  When this Act requires that the mayors of municipalities
    1-9  except the principal city appoint a member of the board, the mayor
   1-10  of the municipality of greatest population among the municipalities
   1-11  shall serve as chairman of an appointment board composed of the
   1-12  mayors of all appropriate municipalities and shall, by notice in
   1-13  writing to all members, call meetings of the appointment board as
   1-14  necessary to make the appointments.  Appointments shall be made
   1-15  within 60 days after a position comes into existence or becomes
   1-16  vacant.  For an authority in which the principal city has a
   1-17  population of less than 300,000, according to the most recent
   1-18  federal census, in the event any mayor who serves on an appointment
   1-19  board is unable to attend a meeting, the mayor may designate
   1-20  another council member, alderman, commissioner, or other officer of
   1-21  the municipality to represent the municipality and vote at such
   1-22  meeting.  The designation shall be in writing, signed by the mayor,
   1-23  and filed with the minutes of such meeting kept by the authority.
    2-1  If the boundaries of the authority at any time include
    2-2  unincorporated areas of a county other than the county described in
    2-3  Subsection (a) of this section, the county judge of the appropriate
    2-4  county is entitled to serve on the appointment board, with powers
    2-5  equal to the other members of the board, as if the unincorporated
    2-6  area of the county were a municipality and the county judge of that
    2-7  county were the mayor of the municipality.
    2-8        SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1995.
    2-9        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
   2-10  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   2-11  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   2-12  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-13  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.