Denver, CO
Colorado lawmakers have RTD in sights for major overhaul — including big changes for elected board
Colorado lawmakers are drafting legislation that would deliver a sweeping overhaul of the Regional Transportation District — significantly reshaping and downsizing the governing board to remove nearly all elected seats while attempting to align the transit agency’s planning with broader housing and climate initiatives.
As formulated by the legislation’s three Democratic sponsors, who represent suburban areas, the broad outlines of the upcoming bill seek to bolster local governments’ coordination with — and influence over — the metro Denver agency. The legislators also hope to address RTD’s longstanding operator shortage and to launch the most substantial revamp of RTD’s governance structure since the early 1980s, when Colorado voters converted its board to all-elected members.
The draft has not yet been finalized, but the sponsors said in an interview Tuesday that the emerging proposal reflects their desire — shared by Gov. Jared Polis — to align the state’s climate, housing and transportation goals this year and into the future. But the changes also risk inflaming existing tensions between Denver and its suburban neighbors over the direction of the transit system.
The governor and his legislative allies plan to push denser, more strategic development, cut down on car usage and assuage skeptical local government officials who worry about the impact of those broader measures.
“We’ve been having a conversation for two years about how do we increase density and affordability of housing around transit-oriented corridors, and working with our local governments,” said Sen. Faith Winter of Westminster. “(Local governments) said, ‘That’s great, but we don’t have reliable transit.’
“So that leads us to the conversation of: How do we make sure we’re getting reliable transit and increasing transit?”
Winter, along with Reps. William Lindstedt of Broomfield and Meg Froelich of Englewood, set their sights on seeking change in how RTD operates.
The most eye-catching of their bill concepts is a plan to remake RTD’s board.
RTD now is governed by a 15-person board whose members are elected to four-year terms from geographic districts touching eight counties. According to a conceptual outline of the bill distributed by the sponsors last week, they are considering proposing that the board be cut down to seven members — all but one of them appointed.
According to that document:
- Three members would be appointed directly by the governor to represent a transit rider from a “disproportionately impacted community”; a budgeting or public financing expert; and an expert in either transportation planning, development or electrification.
- One member would be the head of the Colorado Department of Transportation or a designee.
- The Denver Regional Council of Governments would choose two members from across the region — one of them a mayor or city council member, the other a county commissioner.
- Voters within RTD’s boundaries would select the seventh member in an at-large election.
Froelich said the composition of RTD’s board was still being discussed but that there would be a mix of appointed and elected members in the bill.
She and the other legislators said they wanted the board to be “professionalized” like the panels that oversee similar transit boards elsewhere across the country — most of which, save for a handful, are appointed, not elected. The sponsors noted that in the 2022 election, four current RTD members were elected as write-in candidates because nobody qualified for the ballot.
Lindstedt said the board should “reflect the region and have the skill sets to be able to manage such a large mass transit agency in a professional manner.”
Some worry board revamp would disenfranchise riders
Several directors on RTD’s board did not respond to messages or declined to comment Tuesday. Board chair Erik Davidson said he had been told that the concepts in the bill outline weren’t final, and he didn’t want to comment because the measure was still being drafted.
Debra A. Johnson, the agency’s CEO and general manager, echoed that sentiment in a separate statement.
Board Director JoyAnn Ruscha, stressing that she was speaking only for herself, said the potential board overhaul “effectively disenfranchises people of color and our transit-dependent riders.” Local taxpayers fund and ride RTD, she said, and they should be directly represented on the board.
“I have no shame in the fact that I don’t have an advanced degree, or that I’m not a transportation planner, or that I didn’t get an MBA,” said Ruscha, whose District B includes northeast Denver and northern Aurora. “My family lived and died by the bus.”
RTD, formed in 1969, had an appointed board for more than a decade. In 1980, a bipartisan group of state lawmakers and activists spearheaded a statewide voter initiative to convert the board to all-elected members. The campaign, called “Citizens for an Accountable RTD,” passed by a margin of more than 100,000 votes.
Since then, legislators have broached the idea of adding appointed members or changing the board, but none of those efforts were successful. Among common criticisms of the elected model is that it pits regional interests against each other.
Besides the board changes, this year’s budding measure also would direct RTD to coordinate its planning with the Denver Regional Council of Governments, a planning organization bringing together representatives from metro-area municipalities and counties.
The objective is to ensure that RTD’s fixed routes align with local governments’ density and transit-oriented development objectives.
Froelich characterized the goal as “increased synergy” for work on a range of issues, including transit-oriented communities and development, meeting greenhouse gas emission targets and solving workforce shortages.
“All of that hinges upon reliable regional service from our transit agencies,” she said. “And the reason that we flow into the governance questions is (that) we want to set up a government system that gives us our best shot at that.”
The plan comes as two intertwining legislative packages begin to wind their way through the Capitol this year. One — a suite of land-use bills — seeks to encourage denser and more strategic development in Front Range cities, with a particular eye toward transit access. The other is a series of measures intended to bolster access to and use of public transit. That includes a bill to facilitate the creation of a statewide transit pass.
The ongoing debate in the state Capitol over ways to increase development along and near transit corridors has helped shape the RTD overhaul now being contemplated.
Last year, local governments opposed Polis’ sweeping land-use reforms almost uniformly, largely because of local control concerns but also over criticisms about the access and reliability of public transit.”
Lindstedt said the bill would seek to provide the type of increased accountability that local governments “so desperately ask for over the mass transit system that they rely on when they’re making those land-use decisions.”
The bill also would aim to address RTD’s operator shortage — vacancy rates were at 15% for bus drivers and 18% for light-rail train operators as of November — by embracing an existing CDOT program that trains vehicle operators.
It would also propose changes to how the agency interprets Title VI, a provision of the federal Civil Rights Act that protects people and underserved communities from discrimination in federally funded programs, including transit. Winter said the intent was to ensure RTD can provide transportation for special events or for specific populations without being viewed as violating Title VI. Examples of potential special services cited in the outline include Denver Broncos games — similar to the large-scale BroncosRide shuttle service that RTD used to offer but discontinued — and big concerts.
Broomfield mayor: “We have no control” over RTD service
The legislators said an overarching goal is to improve coordination and accountability between RTD and local governments.
Broomfield Mayor Guyleen Castriotta said Tuesday that her city and other north metro municipalities were fed up with paying money into RTD and getting little service in exchange. RTD’s post-pandemic service restorations have favored routes with higher demand and ridership, which often are in or near Denver, over geographic coverage.
Broomfield pays $17 million annually to RTD but only has one bus line — the Flatiron Flyer — that stops in the city.
“We’re forced to pay the same amount every year, but we have no control over what kind of service RTD decides to give us,” she said.
The greatest lament in northwest communities — a complaint voiced often by Polis and some other officials — is RTD’s failure, due to insufficient funding, to build out the full B-Line commuter rail train to Boulder and Longmont as promised.
Polis previewed his desires for RTD reform in his January State of the State address, in which he said that state leaders “must reexamine governance and operational efficiencies” at the agency while improving local partnerships and transit-oriented development.
Ruscha, the RTD board member, expressed concern with the bill’s overall intent, including any proposed changes to how RTD interprets Title VI. She said the board already coordinated with the council of governments.
“I do not think that this bill concept is going to address the pain points that people have with RTD, as I can see it,” she said, relying on the conceptual outline.
Chris Nicholson, a regular rider of RTD buses and trains, is a candidate for RTD’s District A board seat in the November election to represent areas including central and east Denver. He said he did not disagree that RTD needed updates to how it operates.
But he questioned why everything should be addressed in one big bill and how a requirement that RTD coordinate on service plans with the council of governments would make it more nimble. He questioned how the sponsors did their homework, noting that a presentation provided to interested parties never mentions riders — beyond the criteria for one of the governor’s appointees — disabilities, people of color or people with low incomes.
“This has not been the kind of process that has centered people who really matter in this conversation,” Nicholson said. “Those people are not the governor or the people in the legislature.”
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Memphis Orion’s steamy vision of Denver includes state-of-the-art saunas and cold plunges, salt scrubs, solariums, and towel-whipping “aufgussing” rituals.
For now, however, the amenities for his new business are limited to a steel-frame trailer behind a gutted industrial building. His custom-built, solar-powered mobile sauna, or Cobacita, fits a little over a dozen people on its wooden benches. That’s a far cry from from the hundreds Orion envisions inside his $27 million Coba Bathhouse project just a few feet away.
“I’m a connoisseur of the world of bathhouses, and I love the different technologies emerging around the world for it,” said Orion, the CEO of Coba. “The modern bathhouse is taking these traditional (forms) and updating them and bringing them to together for people who are moving away from bars and alcohol being the center of social life.”
Consisting of three buildings connected by gardens and outdoor seating areas, Coba — a combination of Colorado and bathhouse — is a concept of extreme, immersive proportions backed by veterans of the art and entertainment worlds. When it’s finished in 2027, it will sit across from the Auraria Campus on West Colfax Avenue in Denver, just south of Domo Japanese restaurant in the La Alma neighborhood.
Orion sees it employing 90 to 100 people and fitting about 400 guests at any one time. If all goes well, its founders believe it will draw roughly 300,000 people per year.
Day passes will cost $50 to $75, with $220 monthly memberships, although prices are preliminary. It’s about the cost of a casual dinner out, chief strategy officer Adam Lerner said, and arguably a value for a theme park’s-worth of wellness attractions. Lush urban gardens, tea ceremonies, wood-burning firepits, steam rituals like aufgussing (a towel-whipping, dancing group experience) and group-soaking pools are on the menu.
Coba’s buildings, including a former asphalt factory that lacks electricity or running water, are, for now, a staging area and proving ground still in need of permits, excavators and carpenters before they can match the elaborate renderings Orion and his partners have been floating to investors.
The project is slated to cost about $27 million, Orion said, with $3.5 million of that going toward the land purchase. He received a $526,200 state tax credit, since the project will include a thermal energy network, with an 800-foot-deep geothermal well planned for underneath the parking lot. The technology will use the consistent temperature deep underground to draw and disperse heat and cold as part of Coba’s electricity-hungry infrastructure.
Orion’s confident the “landmark” bathhouse will draw Denverites who are hungry for new experiences. In this case, that’s an upscale version of downregulation, a.k.a. chilling and steaming one’s way to relaxation, happiness and social well-being.
Orion, an industrial engineering and renovation expert, is surrounded by a pool of expertise. His co-founder in Coba, and the company’s chief commercial officer, is Jon Medina, a designer and producer who has worked with Meow Wolf, AEG Presents and Outside Magazine. Also from Meow Wolf: Coba’s chief financial officer Carl Christensen, the former co-CEO and chief financial officer of Meow Wolf. That immersive-entertainment company just happens to have an outpost about a mile away from Coba.
Chief strategy officer Lerner formerly led the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver. Meow Wolf co-founder Vince Kadlubek, architect Paul Andersen and others continue to advise on the project. The balance of art and culture veterans should ensure that Coba has a strong cultural appeal, its founders believe, with an emphasis on memorable experiences.
“We wanted to take the mundane and make it more adventurous,” Medina said, citing the “rain room,” where water follows people as they walk through it (a nicer version, perhaps, of the cartoon raincloud that follows around someone in a bad mood).
Coba’s layout is designed to circulate guests through the environments until they find their comfort zone(s). There’s a giant cold plunge pool that fits about 30 people — and one with even colder temps that fits 6 to 10. There’s the 60-seater room called the Ritual Sauna, water massages, a dark and silent sauna meant for solo introversion, floating pools, a rooftop garden and rentable “thermal suites.”
Renderings of the finished Coba look like a psychedelic hall of justice, albeit with Art Deco arches replaced by wavy roof lines. They conceal not just internal wellness features but also a café, space for musical performances and workshops, and lockers and common areas.
“Here the idea is to create something that maybe draws from history, but is not a direct reference to it,” architect Andersen said. “This is something very different, even otherworldly.”
Coba’s success may turn on how transported its guests feel, since it’s being pitched as a respite from stress and an excuse to put down your phone and bond with neighbors.
“We wanted to create a place that has this combination of feeling connected to nature but also modern life,” Lerner said. “Because this is not a retreat. This is actually a place that is integrated into your weekly routine. The kind of place you go to four times a month. Which is why a bathhouse differentiates itself from, say, a spa, which is a luxury indulgence.”
Lerner first met Orion at the ritualistic, art-driven Burning Man Festival in Nevada, and has maintained a friendship that dovetailed into the one-acre Coba project. Their connections are coming in handy as they hold small sessions and continue to raise funds for construction. They even recruited Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and Zach Neumeyer, the chairman of Sage Hospitality, to make remarks on their Jan. 22 “civic preview.”
Coba has the potential to outlast fads in biohacking and contrast therapy meant to tame and train the body, said Denver journalist and author Scott Carney. He’s written extensively on how the body can be conditioned to extreme environments, and his Jan. 22 visit to Coba convinced him of its pure intentions.
“There are a few other contrast therapy spots that have popped up around Denver, from mobile saunas and river jumps at the Golden library, to the sauna/plunge combos at Nurture and Archipelago, as well as SWTHZ on Tennyson,” he wrote via email. “But they are all smaller and … more specifically health-oriented. People go there for their quick hot and cold fix and then move on.”
Coba may endure because it’s social, he said, instead of just service-oriented.
Or as Coba’s founders write in their 27-page investor pitch: “Bring a swimsuit if you’d like to participate. Dress is casual. The person next to you may be in swimwear.”
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Bad air quality has unfortunately become a familiar issue in Colorado. At a few points last year, Denver’s skyline was completely blanketed with smoke, whether from wildfires in the state or nearby areas, as well as other sources.
Back in 2019, Denver launched a program called Love My Air. In its simplest form, it rates air quality as good, moderate, or hazardous. It’s a tool that lets people in the Denver area look up air quality in real time and decide how they’ll spend time outdoors.
Across the city, little boxes provide important information.
“We measure a couple of different pollutants you see up here,” said Ephraim Milton, a coordinator with the Love My Air program. “Ozone is a big one here in Colorado. PM2.5 is very common.”
Real-time information on air quality and how it affects different individuals is gathered through a network of 80 sensors, a combination of the program’s sensors and the state’s.
“It’s just very hyperlocal,” said Milton. “I mean, you go to the weather app and that, yeah, sure, that’ll tell you the general, you know, air quality for the area. But you go here to ours, and it’s definitely going to be more local.”
The program has expanded over the years and is now in Jefferson and Adams Counties, with sensors across the state and even into Wisconsin.
“They think they have six sensors in Milwaukee,” said Milton. “They’re really great partners.”
Inner City Health, a non-profit providing healthcare to underserved individuals, is a partner here in Denver.
“The technology that they’re providing affords us the ability to inform our patients and the community at large [that] today may be a good day to go outside and exercise, and today may actually be of danger,” said Charles Gilford III, the non-profit’s CEO. “Because we have folks who have asthma or COPD or different conditions that pose a risk to their safety and to their well-being.”
They have an interactive kiosk in their waiting room, but hope the program continues to evolve.
“To send a text message to our patient base and give them updates and say, ‘Hey, just as a heads up, we saw you the other day and today would be a good day to take that walk,” said Gilford. “What are the other iterations of this technology that folks can have? How can we make sure that in a society where everything is competing for our attention, we can just be that one little nudge to give people good information while they’re going about their lives, and not just in the clinic?”
This tool can also be useful in the event of a fire or nearby construction, for example. Love My Air hosts community workshops focused on education, in addition to their online resources, and the information is also used for policy and rulemaking across the state. They plan on adding multiple healthcare partners in 2026 and hope to continue expanding their reach.
Denver, CO
Visiting Angels Senior Home Care Denver Earns 2025 Top Workplace by the Denver Post for 14th Year
Visiting Angels Senior Home Care Denver
Denver, CO – January 27, 2026 – Visiting Angels Senior Home Care Denver is proud to announce that they have been named a 2025 Top Workplace by The Denver Post for the 14th year in a row! Visiting Angels Senior Home Care Denver is a home care provider in Denver, CO, founded in 2008. This recognition highlights the organization’s long-standing commitment to its positive and supportive workplace culture for its caregivers and clients.
Visiting Angels Senior Home Care Denver has ranked:
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#8 in the Medium Business category for 2025
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#9 ranking in the Medium Business category for 2024
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#59 ranking in 2023 for the Small Business category
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and more
Visiting Angels Senior Home Care Denver has earned these rankings with their excellence in maintaining a strong workplace culture year after year. The organization’s Top Workplaces profile can be viewed at:
https://topworkplaces.com/company/visiting-angels-of-lakew/denverpost/
“Earning this recognition for the 14th consecutive year is an incredible honor,” said Stephen Signor, Executive Director of Visiting Angels Senior Home Care Denver. “Our caregivers are the heart of our organization, and we are deeply grateful for their commitment to both our clients and one another. This award reflects the supportive culture we strive to maintain every day.”
About Visiting Angels
Visiting Angels Senior Home Care Denver is a locally owned and operated in-home care provider serving the Denver, Colorado area since 2008. The organization specializes in compassionate, individualized, high-quality home care in Denver delivered by experienced and dedicated caregivers.
Visiting Angels Senior Home Care Denver provides personalized in-home care services to seniors throughout the Denver metro area, helping clients maintain independence and quality of life in the comfort of their homes.
Visiting Angels Senior Home Care Denver Office:
Business Name: Visiting Angels Senior Home Care Denver
Address: 4251 Kipling St #535, Wheat Ridge, CO, 80033
Phone Number: (720) 734-5432
Website: https://www.visitingangels.com/denver/home-care-denver-co
Media Contact
Company Name: Visiting Angels Senior Home Care Denver
Contact Person: Stephen Signor
Email: Send Email
Phone: (720) 734-5432
Address:4251 Kipling St #535
City: Wheat Ridge
State: Colorado
Country: United States
Website: https://www.visitingangels.com/denver/home
Press Release Distributed by ABNewswire.com
To view the original version on ABNewswire visit: Visiting Angels Senior Home Care Denver Earns 2025 Top Workplace by the Denver Post for 14th Year
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