RTD: Vote tax-wary & union-tough

Here are my picks for director races in RTD. It's one of Colorado's biggest governments, and as such should have the benefit of competitive party-labeled campaigns. But I couldn't get fellow Republicans to back my Senate bill to that effect years ago, so we're stuck with guesswork and the grapevine as far as knowing who the good guys are. My definition of good guy is a transit board member who will (1) resist the crazy move for higher taxes to rescue the busted FasTracks plan in lieu of a realistic makeover and (2) hang tough against the unions who have been gaining ground on the agency since Dems took over the statehouse.

Shorthand for those qualities is a Republican voter registration. Unfortunately there's not one in all the races this year, in fact 3 of the 8 races don't even feature a contest. That's another result of the nonpartisan obscurity in which RTD merrily spends our money.

So my recommendations are:

District A - Bill James, unaffiliated but tax-wary and union-tough

District G - Republican Jack O'Boyle

District H - Republican Joe Stengel

District M - Republican Ramey Johnson

On District F our research came back inconclusive, but incumbent Yamrick is bad on taxes and unions, so call it a coin flip between Tobiassen and Staples.

District D, District E, and District I are the ones where incumbents will get a free ride (unlike the $20 ride you get on light rail when all costs are factored in) to reelection, as they have no challengers.