Divide the Ride

Tonsing concedes that Caldara has been able to exploit the rifts among board and staff to his own advantage. "I get caught up in them, and I guess I regret that," Tonsing says. "His strategy has been regrettable but effective."

The Klein-McCroskey alliance has also been instrumental in launching a series of public debates about Guide the Ride featuring boardmembers. Tonsing claims the debates have cut into Transit '97's opportunities to bring speakers to civic groups and have featured far more vigorous arguments against the plan (by Caldara) than for it. From Tonsing's perspective, Klein's "pro" pitch has been particularly weak, since it basically urges people to put their faith in RTD's volatile leadership.

"You've got to have trust in the plan and trust in the people who will administer it," Klein told the movers and shakers of the City Club of Denver at the Brown Palace last month. "If you think the legislature is going to run RTD, you're mistaken. We will control the way Guide the Ride will be administered."

Klein says he's not pursuing any agenda of his own but merely seeking to make a "full disclosure" about what voters are being asked to approve. Yet even as the Transit '97 allies on the board have seen their association with the campaign come under attack, they have come to question the motives of the rest of the board--including Ben "Trust Me" Klein. "He's manufacturing controversy as we speak," Tonsing says.

Last week Tonsing discovered that, minutes after a conference to set the agenda for the board's monthly public meeting, Klein used his authority as chairman to instruct the executive secretary to place two additional items on the agenda for discussion: the issue of same-sex spouse benefits for RTD staff (which Klein had brought up months before) and a review of the general manager's salary. Neither can of worms was something Tonsing wanted to open, particularly two weeks before the election.

"The timing is suspicious," Tonsing says. "I don't know of anyone who particularly wanted to address these [issues] before November. There's no other explanation but that they're both going to arouse passions on the board."

But arousing passions has never been a problem at RTD; it's consummating the act that seems to elude the board. Last spring, when the state legislature voted to send the Guide the Ride referendum to the voters, one little-noted provision of the bill amended the requirement that two-thirds of the RTD board must approve any future light-rail construction. If Guide the Ride passes, the major transit improvements in the plan can proceed on a simple majority of eight votes.

The measure was a prophetic piece of work, given how badly support for the plan has unraveled among the group that first brought it to the public. The days are long gone when two-thirds of the RTD board can agree on anything.

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