MEDINA — County commissioners sent a letter to the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency on Thursday asking the board to consider eliminating a regulation that gives Cuyahoga County voting members a “weighted vote” that can be used to shut out other counties’ voting blocks.

The letter, along with commissioners’ decision to consider withdrawing the county from NOACA, was spurred by the board’s controversial vote approving a new Interstate 90 interchange in Avon last month.

The interchange was approved only after Cuyahoga County officials required Avon to agree to a revenue-sharing stipulation as a way to protect communities that may lose businesses as a result of the interchange.

The weighted vote allowed officials this leverage because under current bylaws, Cuyahoga County officials could have asked for one, which would give them 63 percent of the body’s votes, enough to vote down the interchange. Without the weighted vote, Cuyahoga would have 50 percent of the votes of the five counties in NOACA.

In order for the weighted-vote rule to be changed, a majority of the boards of commissioners in Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain and Medina counties must approve it.

“When there’s a weighted vote, there’s just no balance,” Commissioner Stephen D. Hambley, who is a NOACA voting member, said Thursday.

During the commissioners’ meeting Thursday, Hambley said Cuyahoga County officials have told him they are willing to work out a compromise with Medina and Lorain counties about the weighted vote.

Lorain County commissioners, who are also considering withdrawing from NOACA, last week sent an almost identical letter in advance of today’s board meeting in Cleveland.

Commissioners also are considering forming their own planning organization, Lorain County Commissioner Betty Blair said Thursday.

She said she would be in favor of staying in NOACA if the weighted vote were eliminated, but is not interested if Cuyahoga County officials continue trying to derail other counties’ road projects.

“They should not use that as a weapon in any other county,” Blair said. “It’s not proper, and to use it in the guise of regionalism, that’s a joke.”

Medina County officials also are exploring their options about leaving NOACA; Hambley and other county officials met with officials from the Akron Metropolitan Area Transportation Study on Tuesday to discuss joining that metropolitan planning organization.

All member municipalities of AMATS have a vote on the board, and Summit County has no weighted vote, Hambley said.

The agency encompasses Summit and Portage counties, along with a few Wayne County communities.