RTD topic of closed session
City exploring legal options to secure commitment, funds for rail
Longmont City Council is to meet behind closed virtual meeting doors Tuesday evening to talk about the city’s legal options when it comes to pushing the Regional Transportation District to commit to and fund at least an interim Northwest Rail passenger train railroad ser vice to the city.
The city has announced Council will hold a 5:15 p.m. Tuesday executive session, closed to public view, to discuss RTD Fastracks’ Northwest Rail project and the R TD’S and city’s First Avenue and Main Street area transit station that was to be the northern hub of that project.
Council members indicated in late January they might meet behind closed doors in the next
several weeks for an executive-session discussion with city staff, and possibly a special legal consultant, about what the city’s legal options are in the event R TD does not agree to proceed with development and funding of at least an interim peak-hours commuter passenger rail service between Denver and Longmont.
Mayor Brian Bagley said during that Jan. 26 meeting he wanted that executive session held as soon as possible.
City Attorney Eugene Mei said in a Friday email that no decision has been made yet about hiring a special counsel.
The B Line, the RTD’S formal name for the route that would include Northwest Rail, currently connects Westminster Station to
Denver’s Union Station by commuter rail it opened on July 25, 2016
However, the 0.4% tax increase approved by voters in 2004 and the accompanying Fastracks transit plan for that ballot question dictates that line eventually extend through Broomfield, Louisville, Boulder, Gunbarrel and Longmont using existing BNSF Railway tracks.
But transit agency officials have previously estimated that it may be 2050 before full service could be provided on that extension.
Longmont City Finance Director Jim Golden has said that since collections of RTD Fastracks’ 0.4% voter-approved sales tax began in 2005, taxes from that sales tax paid within Longmont through the end of 2019 totaled $60,299,232. Figures are not yet available for the additional RTD Fastracks sales tax collected in Longmont through the end of 2020.
The Denver Post reported on Feb.10 that from 2005 to 2019, the most recent year for which RTD provided data, Boulder County residents contributed nearly $250 million to Fastracks via that sales tax.
Longmont Council members have previously questioned whether R TD — if it does not proceed with funding and constructing Northwest Rail service, at least during peak morning and evening commuter hours prior to eventual all-say service on the
BNSFT Railway line into Longmont — could be required to reimburse the community for the taxes paid toward the project, forced to proceed or otherwise mandated by the courts, the Legislature or the R TD board of directors to do so.
They have also asked what it might take for Longmont to actually withdraw from at least part of the routes inside, into and leaving the city in order to offset what its taxpayers are paying for Northwest Rail.
It was unclear and has not publicly been announced, going into Tuesday night’s study session, which or any of those possibilities might be discussed in that closed meeting.
U.S. Rep Joe Neguse, Gov. Jared
Polis and a number of other state and local elected officials have called upon the RTD to complete Northwest Rail service after learning that RTD CEO and General Manager Debra Johnson had reportedly said the agency was considering not completing the passenger project and exploring other non-rail options for the region.
Johnson and the RTD Board subsequently discussed the issue during a Feb. 9 study session, and the Denver Post reported that at the end of that meeting, Johnson told the board that she planned to work up recommendations in the next 60 days for consideration to address doing a more detailed design study of the corridor, among other issues.