Half of transit agency board seats on Nov. 8 ballot have only write-in candidates
By Jon Murrary, The Denver Post
When voters in large chunks of metro Denver unfold their ballots, they’ll notice a conspicuous blank — with not even one candidate listed to represent their district on the Regional Transportation District’s Board of Directors.
Four of the eight board director seats that are up in the Nov. 8 election lack ballot-qualified candidates, leaving a write-in field as the only option. Of the rest, just two have competitive races. Six candidates, most of them incumbents, made the ballot overall, continuing a sharp drop in recent election cycles.
The sparse field points to an unsettling reality: At a time when metro Denver’s sprawling transit agency faces historic challenges — navigating the fallout of pandemic-induced shifts in ridership, overcoming stubborn staffing shortages and defusing frustrations over promised rail projects it simply can’t afford — few people stepped up to run for its board.
Current board directors, candidates and transit advocates cited several factors that might deter potential candidates. Whatever the reasons, a political observer expressed concern about the implications for RTD, one of the few U.S. transit agencies governed by an elected board.
“This dearth of candidates puts in vivid relief the governance problems of RTD,” Denver political analyst Eric Sondermann said. “Service on the RTD board is at the very bottom of the political food chain. It is becoming ever more evident that the current process for selecting board members does not meet the massive challenges of the agency and does not serve the interests of transit users or, more broadly, of the taxpaying public.”
In the four empty races, write-in candidates will serve as a backstop that averts any vacant positions on the 15-member body. At least one write-in candidate in each district filed a required affidavit by the state’s July 21 deadline.
Read the full story at The Denver Post