The Yampa Valley Regional Transportation Authority notified the Routt County Clerk and Recorder’s Office this week of its intent to go to the ballot this November with a funding question.

The notification marks another milestone reached this month for the recently formed authority as it inches toward bringing regional bus service to residents valleywide. 

Whether the RTA ultimately submits a ballot measure for this fall will depend on the results of polling, set to take place over the next few weeks ahead of the board’s next meeting on July 27, where members will likely review polling results and vote on proceeding with the funding question or retracting the notification to the clerk, RTA Chair Sonja Macys told the newspaper Thursday. 

In the short time since the RTA was approved by voters in November, the authority has made steady progress, including receiving Steamboat Ski & Resort Corp.’s first $500,000 contribution, adopting its 2026 budget and drafting a job description for an executive director.

The board agreed to issue a request for proposals this month on a polling service to get community input on various types of transit services and the revenue streams to fund them at their inaugural retreat on May 30. 

Macys said the RFP closed on Wednesday and that the authority received nine “great responses,” including those from firms with experience evaluating rider preferences that could be useful to other RTA initiatives down the road. 

The RTA’s Executive Transition Committee, comprised of Macys, board member Randy Looper, Secretary Mathew Mendisco and volunteer Sarah Jones, will meet to choose a polling firm on Friday, July 10. 

“We should see a poll in the field pretty quickly,” said Macys, who noted that the final deadline to retract the ballot question is Aug. 25. 

The deadline for the authority to notify the county clerk in writing that it plans to submit a ballot measure is July 24, leaving what Macys called a “short window” between hiring a polling service, doing the polling itself and then making a decision about whether to take a ballot question to voters. 

The potential RTA funding question comes amid a slew of potential local ballot measures for the 2026 and 2027 election cycles, including fire district consolidation, funding for home health and hospice services, and funding for wildfire mitigation and land stewardship. 

In addition to progress on the polling front, the RTA selected Washington-based hiring firm GMP Consultants to support the board’s search for an executive director, board member and Steamboat Springs City Councilor John Agosta told colleagues at Tuesday’s council meeting. 

“We actually had 14 applicants and they were 14 strong applicants, and it was tough to whittle it down to one,” Agosta said of the consulting firm search. “But our criteria was someone who understands transit, understands government, has some Colorado presence, has experience with building up strong regional transportation groups and has good references.” 

Some staff out of GMP Consultants, he added, have experience working with Denver’s Regional Transportation District and the Colorado Department of Transportation. 

Macys told the newspaper that the board is currently aiming for a Sept. 12-Oct. 19 timeframe in which to officially hire and onboard the authority’s first executive director. 

The RTA also launched an RFP for bookkeeping services. Looper and Mendisco will interview three firms, said Macys, with the selected firm to be voted on by board members at their next meeting. 

She added that the CDOT’s Clean Transit Enterprise, aimed to assist in the expansion of passenger transit, is opening its call for proposals soon, and that the RTA will likely submit a proposal to secure additional funding for the authority. 

Steamboat Ski & Resort Corp. made its initial $500,000 payment to the RTA in late April and is expected to deliver a second $500,000 installment by Aug. 1, fulfilling its $1 million annual commitment for the RTA’s first year. 

The deadline for further negotiations on contributions to the RTA from Ski Corp. is in April 2027, said Macys. 

The RTA will meet again on Monday, July 27, when board members are expected to review polling results and decide whether to officially move forward with a November 2026 ballot measure, a key step in determining how quickly regional transit service could take shape across the Yampa Valley.