RTD Directors oversee the entire RTD region, but they’re elected from geographic districts like Boulder County’s District O, shown in the light-colored areas above.
Regional Transportation District (RTD) directors oversee operations and budgets for the entire RTD transit system, but individual directors are elected from geographic districts. District O spans much of western Boulder County, including the City of Boulder, Jamestown, Louisville, Lyons, Nederland, Ward, parts of Longmont and Superior, and a large portion of unincorporated Boulder County. Directors serve four-year terms, and they would be term-limited after two terms. RTD elections are non-partisan, so you won’t see the candidate’s political party affiliation on the ballot – though they certainly could be registered as individuals as members of a party. There are only two candidates in this year’s race, and the candidate with the most votes wins.
Lynn Guissinger
Lynn Guissinger
Lynn Guissinger is the incumbent Director serving District O. She was first elected in an uncontested race in 2018. Today, she serves as the First Vice-Chair of the RTD Board, and has served as the Board’s chair of Communications and Government Relations, and the Board’s Treasurer since being elected. She also served as the Board’s liaison with the Governor and the legislature-appointed RTD Accountability Committee, and she worked with the legislature and staff to help develop the “Free Fare for Better Air” campaign. This program offered free transit fares for RTD and other Colorado transit services for the month of August 2022, thanks to funding from the State of Colorado.
Guissinger has lived in Boulder since 1980, and earned her juris doctor degree from CU-Boulder. In the legal world, she clerked on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and assisted Judge Breitenstein as Special Master to the U.S. Supreme Court (acting as trial judge to advise the US Supreme Court) on two interstate water cases. She practiced at Holland & Hart, and later taught Land Use Planning Law and Local Government Law at University of Colorado School of Law in Boulder.
Guissinger’s current business, Catalyst Communication, partnered with city transportation departments around the country (including Seattle, Cambridge, Denver, Boulder, Tucson, Anchorage, and others) to market and promote their transit, biking, and walking options. Catalyst Communication worked for years in the bicycle and outdoor industries, and Guissinger has worked with advocacy efforts in these areas.
Her election to the RTD Board was her first time winning elected office, but she had served her community in volunteer capacities a number of times before being elected in 2018. This has included the following transportation-related experiences: City of Boulder Transportation Advisory Board (two years as Chair); City of Boulder Greenways Advisory Committee; Commuting Solutions Board; and Community Cycles Capital Campaign.
Guissinger put her RTD campaign on hold in August, in order to run in a Democratic Party vacancy committee race for the Colorado House of Representatives in House District 10. She did not win the party’s nomination for HD 10, but the entire vacancy committee process only lasted a few weeks, and she re-entered the RTD race shortly thereafter.
Campaign Website: https://www.lynn4rtd.com/
Richard O’Keefe
According to a Denver Post Q&A, Richard O’Keefe is a financial technology sales executive. He earned a bachelor of science degree from Northeastern University in Boston, and a M.B.A. from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He has several decades of management experience in the private sector, including managing $1+ billion organizations.
While O’Keefe qualified for the ballot months ago, I had seen very little evidence of his running an actual campaign until very recently. Several media Q&As include links to a website, but the links don’t link to any actual information.
Readers (and writers) who are short on time might wish to turn to the Q&As to understand O’Keefe’s positions and differences between him and Guissinger. Here are links:
Denver Post: https://www.denverpost.com/2022/10/14/rtd-director-district-o-candidate-questionnaire-2022/
Hometown Weekly: https://www.coloradohometownweekly.com/2022/10/16/rtd-district-o-richard-okeefe-2/
Colorado Public Radio: https://www.cpr.org/2022/10/17/vg-2022-rtd-board-of-directors-district-o-lynn-guissinger/
Richard’s Take
Vote Guissinger, though I feel I need to disclose that I worked for her 2018 campaign. As a result, I’m going to keep this next part simple and readers can visit her website or contact her directly for more information.
Guissinger has decades of relevant experience in transportation, including involvement with roadways, transit, cycling, and other modes. As a former attorney, she’s more than capable of understanding the legal issues RTD might come up against, and as a business owner she understands finance. She has often been to the state Capitol to testify on bills relevant to RTD or to meet with legislators. Finally, she’s served four years on the Board and has been selected by her peers to a number of leadership positions. The people of District O are in good hands, and there’s really no need for new representation in this district right now.
Voters might not wish to base their decision on what I’m about to say, but O’Keefe’s campaign has not been visible, at least to me, until mid-to-late October. That’s a problem to me when it comes to running for public office. At a quick glance, he seems to have extensive professional experience, but it’s not directly transportation-related. He claims experience in turning around financially-troubled agencies, and RTD is to a certain extent financially troubled, but RTD has full-time management and staff dealing with finance, plus it’s also a transit service that has to meet the expectations of a very wide range of transit users. Again at a quick glance, he might be an asset to RTD at some point if he chooses to make that type of commitment, but Guissinger brings a more comprehensive package and direct RTD experience to this table.
