CVTA highlights outreach gains, names hire and presents leadership awards

The Central Virginia Transportation Authority used its June 6 meeting to recognize long‑time members, announce a staffing addition and review outreach metrics intended to raise public awareness of the authority’s work.

Chair Davis presented a new CVTA lifetime achievement award to John Hodges (unable to attend) and the Frank J. Thornton chairman’s award to Rex Davis. Frank J. Thornton, the authority’s chair emeritus, reflected on the organization’s origins; Rex Davis accepted the chair’s award and said he prioritized meeting constituents, listening to local priorities and helping projects advance.

Chet Parsons, the CVTA executive director, told the authority that staff have filled a new executive director administrative assistant position; the hire will begin at the end of the month and the authority plans a formal introduction in August.

The outreach presenter (packet identifies the presenter and PlanRVA involvement) described a social strategy launched in December that increased posting frequency on LinkedIn from about five posts per quarter to 25, introduced video and boosted engagement metrics. "We went from sort of 5 post to 25 post," the presenter said, and reported nearly 4,000 impressions (up 638% from the prior quarter), 33 reshares (up 560%) and a 12.15% engagement rate, which the presenter noted is well above a typical 3–6% industry average. The presenter identified a recent video post featuring Chet Parsons about roughly $906,600,000 in allocated funding as the top performer.

Members asked clarifying questions about which platforms the authority uses (the presenter said LinkedIn), the content mix for monthly posts and whether PlanRVA would share content on other channels such as Instagram and Facebook. The presenter said the strategy aims to educate the public about CVTA’s role, spotlight projects and drive traffic to a new website. Members were asked to follow and reshare posts to broaden reach.

The meeting closed the public portion of the agenda by moving to a closed session motion to conduct the executive director’s annual review under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act; the chair asked non‑authority attendees to leave and instructed that recordings cease for the closed session.