Divide the Ride

This same chairman feuds publicly and bitterly with the leaders of the group running the Guide the Ride campaign, denouncing them as "interlopers" and seeking to cut off hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding for their efforts. Meanwhile another boardmember, celebrated as the "father" of Denver's existing light-rail line, promotes his own alternative plan--and makes no secret of his lack of confidence in the ability of RTD's staff to implement the megaproject or to provide an accurate accounting of its cost.

Played for laughs, the situation might be promising material for a black comedy. But is this any way to run a transit agency, when billions of dollars in tax revenues and the future of transportation in the metro area are at stake?

At RTD, it's the only way.

Light rail has forged ahead at RTD by fits and spurts, fueled by a tenuous majority of the board, whose capacity for shifting allegiances is legendary.

For the past three years, the pro-rail camp on the board has been plagued by a nettlesome group of mavericks and reformers, some of whom ran unopposed for their seats. Although the vote last spring to put Guide the Ride on the ballot carried 12-3, that healthy majority included boardmembers who didn't like the plan but believed it was time to put it before the public. An earlier vote on the plan drew only nine votes in support, and some light-rail funding has squeaked through by an 8-7 margin.

The most vocal critic of Guide the Ride has been Jon Caldara, who's been railing against rail since his 1994 election to the board. Not content with voting against the plan and testifying against it at the legislature, in July Caldara launched a formal opposition campaign to the proposal, Concerned Commuters of Colorado ("Beating the Train," July 24).

Caldara's group hasn't begun to match Transit '97, the group campaigning for Guide the Ride, in size or funding. By the end of last month Transit '97 had raised more than $300,000 and spent $219,000; CCC had raised $7,671 and spent $355. But the naysayers have made their presence felt, largely through Caldara's visibility as an RTD boardmember. In dozens of debates and op-ed pieces, he's blasted Guide the Ride as "a LoDo redevelopment plan" and "DIA on wheels."

A sharp debater, Caldara has swooped into the fray armed with reams of statistics to support his claims of the plan's outlandish cost and poor ridership. Most of the figures were prepared by RTD's own staff, which, although barred from campaigning directly for the cause, has been pressed into service by both sides to supply data.

"The staff has been used by the negative campaign," sighs boardmember Tonsing, who also serves on the executive committee of Transit '97--and who has made his own requests of staff to come up with figures to counter Caldara's claims. "They say these are RTD's own numbers, but they aren't, really. Sure, the staff operated the calculator, but that's as 'official' as it gets."

Yet Caldara has been able to score some critical points in his crusade, largely by making an issue out of Transit '97's funding. In August he managed to persuade a majority of the board, including several Guide the Ride supporters, to adopt a resolution barring RTD from entering into contracts with businesses that donated more than $100 to the tax-hike campaign. The move was unprecedented--what other public agency would cut off the cash flow for its own referendum less than three months before the election?--and brought down the wrath of the free-speech guardians at the American Civil Liberties Union.

"That resolution was aimed straight at the heart of Transit '97," Tonsing says.

Last month U.S. District Judge John Kane granted the ACLU and Transit '97 an injunction striking down the resolution, calling it "blatantly unconstitutional." Last week a federal appeals court upheld Kane's ruling, but in many ways, the resolution has already done what it was intended to do. It cast the spotlight on the bond companies and engineering firms that were donating thousands to Transit '97 (a few of whom promptly demanded their money back), and it threw the campaign's fundraising into disarray.

"That's the one thing that really had an impact," concedes Transit '97 spokesman Keith DuBay. "They gutted us from our big money. That should have been a death blow to this campaign, but it wasn't."

DuBay says the campaign had originally hoped to raise $700,000. Now the goal is $500,000, which will cut into the television-ad budget but still allow for a major blitz of radio and direct mail in the final days before the election.

The $100 cap also exposed a broadening rift between board chairman Ben Klein, a key supporter of Guide the Ride, and Transit '97. Although Caldara and Klein have tangled on a number of issues over the years, Klein enthusiastically supported the resolution, saying he wanted to run "a clean campaign." But he's also questioned the motives of the Transit '97 leadership and blasted the group for snubbing him and other boardmembers in their campaign events.

"They've just told me to go to hell, basically," Klein says. "As far as I'm concerned, they're interlopers. Who asked them to get involved in this anyway--and why?"