I spent six years as Routt County Treasurer. Every budget I signed had to answer one question first: what are we buying, and what does it cost? The Yampa Valley Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) is asking voters to skip that question.
This November, voters in unincorporated Routt County, Steamboat Springs, Craig, Hayden, Oak Creek and Yampa will decide on a new half-cent sales tax for the RTA. Voters approved forming the authority last year, and that ballot didn’t ask for a dime. This one does.
A blank check
Start with the money. In late July, a survey told voters the tax would raise about $1.25 million a year. The ballot now says $7,875,197. That’s a sixfold swing, and the explanation offered was “human error.” The authority’s own consultant told towns in 2025 that a full cent would raise about $12 million. The numbers were sitting in their files.
If you can’t project the revenue, why should anyone trust you with the spending?
Then read the ballot itself. It asks for $7.9 million a year “and by whatever additional amounts are raised annually thereafter.” It has no end date. It lets the RTA keep every dollar above the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) revenue limits. And it lists purposes, not routes. One of them is planning for future commuter rail from Craig to Yampa. We don’t have the buses yet, and they’re already budgeting for train talk.
And there is no spending plan. Oak Creek Mayor Melissa Dobbins, who calls herself a “major advocate” for the RTA, cast the lone vote against sending the tax to voters. She said she’s been flooded with questions about how the money would be used, and she can’t answer them because the RTA isn’t there yet.
When a supporter on the board says that, voters should listen.
What we do know is the overhead. The RTA posted an executive director job at $150,000 to $180,000 a year, and it’s hiring a branding and marketing firm. That’s salary and logos before a single new bus rolls.
Show us the plan
For those of us in South Routt, this one hits close to home. Service on Highway 131 between Steamboat, Oak Creek and Yampa was a top selling point when this authority was formed. In 2025, the RTA’s own consultant priced it at roughly $300,000 to $550,000 a year, less than a tenth of what this tax would raise. A year later, there’s still no schedule, no stops and no start date. The executive director’s salary alone would cover half the cheapest version of that route.
I’m not against rural transit. Our valley is growing, and some of our neighbors need a ride to work, to the doctor and to the airport. But you don’t hand over a blank check and hope the plan shows up later.
Come back with a real route map, a real budget and an end date. Then ask the voters.
Until then, read the fine print, and vote no.
Brita Horn is fire chief of Rock Creek Volunteer Fire Department, former Routt County Treasurer and Public Trustee, former chair of the Colorado GOP, and a ranch wife in Routt County. She founded Western Firebrand, a voice for ranchers and rural families built on Faith, Fire, Farm, Freedom and Finance. She writes here as a private citizen.
