Who controls CoCo: The governance architecture Polis leaves behind

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice

Sal Pace knew the project before he ran it.

In October 2025, the Front Range Passenger Rail District named Pace its first General Manager. 

The district is a nominally independent, special taxing district created by the Colorado legislature in 2021 to plan, fund, and build passenger rail along the Front Range. Governor Jared Polis issued a personal statement praising the hire. According to FRPRD’s hiring announcement, Pace had co-chaired the Governor’s own Transition Committee to advance rail initiatives. 

The board chair responsible for evaluating Pace’s performance is John Putnam — a Polis appointee.

That is one loop. There are several more.

CoCo’s governance structure runs from the district level through a six-member executive oversight committee and, soon, to a restructured RTD board. At each level, the Governor’s executive branch holds a structural position. 

The structure is not hidden. It is documented in intergovernmental agreements, bylaws, annual reports, and bill texts.

Who controls the district

The FRPRD board has 17 voting members. Six are appointed by the Governor — confirmed by SB21-238, the statute that created the district. Putnam chairs the board. 

Under the district’s bylaws, the chair works with the General Manager to develop the board’s agenda before every meeting and leads the evaluation of the General Manager’s performance.

Four of the nine members of the Government Affairs and Communications Committee are Polis appointees. The bylaws designate that committee as bearing primary responsibility for ballot strategy.

FRPRD’s 2024 Annual Report lists the Governor’s office as a coordination partner for generating public support for a ballot measure. Not as a stakeholder. As a partner. The word appears in the district’s own published document, in a table describing the ballot campaign team.

Pace’s stated priority at hire: preparing a district-wide referendum for voter approval.

The oversight committee

Above the district sits the Joint Service Executive Oversight Committee. 

The JSEOC was created by intergovernmental agreement — available in RTD’s April 2026 board packet beginning at page 91 — signed in August 2025 to govern the starter service between Denver and Fort Collins.

The six voting members are the executive directors of CDOT and CTE, the director of CTIO, the general manager of FRPRD, the CEO of RTD, and the Governor’s Designee. Four of six votes belong to the Governor’s executive branch directly — CDOT, plus its two enterprises CTIO and CTE, plus the Governor’s Designee. A fifth, FRPRD’s General Manager, is held by a person the Governor personally endorsed.

Section 3.6 of the IGA does not obscure the structure. It cites it: “Article IV, Section 2 of the Colorado Constitution vests the supreme executive power of the State in the Governor.”

Voting starts at one per member. Then, once the Financial Plan is approved, votes shift to weights based on each party’s financial contribution. CTIO is contributing $176 million — financed with rental car fee revenue that faces both a pending federal appeal and a ballot measure that would redirect it to road use. When weighted voting takes effect, the executive branch holds the majority.

The JSEOC’s jurisdiction stops at Longmont. Section 2.9 of the IGA defines the Northwest Corridor as Denver Union Station to Longmont — the unbuilt FasTracks line RTD voters approved in 2004. Colorado Springs, Pueblo, and Trinidad fall outside it. FRPRD exists as the full-corridor planning district, but no operational oversight body equivalent to the JSEOC covers the southern segment.

The ballot architecture

More than a month before the April 30 term sheet was executed, CDOT signed a $3 million ballot access contract with FRPRD. The contract funds polling, coalition building, and a digital engagement platform — now live at coloradoconnector.com. Visitors are invited to attend town halls, record advocacy videos, and share pre-written social media posts. 

The contract carries a non-advocacy clause requiring all outputs to be strictly informational under the Fair Campaign Practices Act. Public dollars flowing from a state agency to a district whose board chair and four of nine ballot committee members are Polis appointees.

Twenty-five days after that contract was signed, SB26-172 was introduced. It shrinks the FRPRD voter district from 13 counties to 30 municipalities, concentrating the electorate in communities closest to the proposed stations and removing more conservative, rural areas of the corridor. The bill passed both chambers and heads to the Governor’s desk.

Initiative 175 complicates the picture. The constitutional amendment would redirect the rental car fee funding $176 million of the project to roads, bridges, and the State Patrol. On May 1, the campaign filed a 75%-threshold notice with the Secretary of State — attesting it has at least 93,179 signatures of the required 124,238 in hand. The campaign must submit signatures for verification by the May 27 deadline.  

HB26-1430 passed the Senate 22-13 on the final day of the session and heads to the Governor’s desk. Its mechanism requires explanation.

Under Initiative 175, the state budget would take an estimated $264 million hit in year one, rising to $539 million the year after. If Initiative 175 passes, HB26-1430 would activate, reducing the gas tax by 8 cents per gallon and cutting other fees by a calibrated amount — enough to offset the revenues Initiative 175 would redirect to roads. 

By shrinking those fees, the bill limits how much new money flows into the road-only fund the initiative would create, sparing programs like CoCo from the full impact.

The bill also contains a carve-out. Enterprise fee revenue is not included in the revenues Initiative 175 would capture. The SB24-184 rental car fee, which funds CTIO’s $176 million CoCo contribution, is collected through the office as a government enterprise. Whether that carve-out fully shields the rental car fee is a legal question the bill does not resolve.

The gas tax cut never takes effect unless voters approve Initiative 175 in November.

Polis, through spokesperson Eric Maruyama, offered this explanation: “The price of gas is now over $4 a gallon thanks to President Trump and his war in Iran. Of course the governor would support a bill to cut taxes and save Coloradans money, and that includes cutting the gas tax while protecting the state budget.”

Maruyama did not mention Initiative 175. He did not mention CoCo.

The RTD piece

SB26-150 passed both chambers May 5 and is awaiting the Governor’s signature. It restructures the RTD board from 15 elected members to nine — five elected, four appointed by the Governor, who may also remove appointed members for cause. The bill takes effect January 1, 2029.

That is the month CoCo is scheduled to launch. The Governor making those four appointments will not be Polis. A new Governor takes office January 2027 — two years before the seats are filled. Polis signs the bill that creates the authority. His successor exercises it.

The December vote

Governing boards are expected to vote on full construction appropriations in December 2026 before the new Governor is sworn in. RTD Board Director Chris Nicholson said in an email exchange the board will vote regardless of any ballot outcome.

The $156 million FISA commitment — drawn from a sales tax voters approved in 2004 for a rail line to Boulder and Longmont that remains unbuilt — would be drawn down through construction by January 2029. What the new Governor’s four RTD appointees inherit is not a decision to make. It is a service already running.

The sequence

March 26: CDOT signs the $3 million ballot access contract. 

April 20: SB26-172 introduced, shrinking the voter district. 

April 30: term sheet executed. 

May 5: SB26-150 passes both chambers. 

May 9: SB26-172 passes both chambers. 

May 13: HB26-1430 passes the legislature 22-13 on the final day of session. 

November: voters will be asked to approve a sales tax while electing a new Governor and vote on Initiative 175 if it makes the ballot. 

December: construction appropriation vote, regardless of  ballot outcome. 

January 2027: Polis leaves office. 

January 2029: service launches, new RTD board seated.

Every governance structure being put in place matures after Polis leaves. Every financial commitment is structured to be made before he does.

Colorado’s next Governor will inherit a train already in motion. What they do with it — or whether they have any real choice — is a question the current architecture is designed to answer before anyone asks it.

The Governor’s office did not respond to four requests for comment submitted by RMV. RTD, FRPRD, CTIO Director Piper Darlington, and JSEOC Vice Chair Herman Stockinger did not respond to questions submitted before publication.