The Regional Transportation District debuted a digital tool last week that officials said is the first of its kind they’ve seen for open meetings use — at least in the Denver area.

Utilized by the agency’s Board of Directors, the online discussion tool will allow board members to discuss work plans and plan for upcoming meetings under the public purview, which is required by Colorado open meetings laws involving an elected quorum of at least three people.

The tool is hardwired into the agency’s Microsoft Teams channels, Director Chris Nicholson said. Whenever a message is sent into the channel, that message will be posted on the online board.

Nicholson, who led the charge on the initiative, said the idea arose after a number of new board members who had been in the habit of discussing policy over Slack before their election realized they could no longer do so in the same manner once they held office.

“You can’t even have three people on an email. I can’t email two other directors at the same time unless I bcc them and say ‘here’s what I think about this issue’,” Nicholson said. “It’s just ridiculous in a digital age. No normal person works like this.”

The team consulted RTD legal staff while creating the tool to ensure its compliance with Colorado open meetings laws, Nicholson said, adding that open virtual/video meetings had previously served as the public’s way to observe the discussions at hand.

“If you’re able legally to do that, it’s not a huge step to the idea that a public chat room, which is essentially what this tool is, would also be legal,” Nicholson said.

Days before its implementation, Nicholson also informed Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition Executive Director Jeff Roberts about the soon-to-be-live discussion tool.

“I’ve been doing this job for about 12 and a half years now, and I don’t think I’ve seen anything exactly like this,” Roberts said. “It does seem like something that technology allows at least for some experimentation here.”

While Roberts appreciated the initiative Nicholson took in streamlining internal communication while still making those discussions accessible to the public, he still had some concerns about the tool complying with the “real-time” aspect of the open meetings laws.

“The intent of the law is for people to be able to observe, listen to their elected officials, members of public bodies have these discussions in real time,” Roberts said. “Is this in real time? It seems like it could be if someone is paying attention to this on an ongoing basis.”

Roberts added that, to ensure full compliance with the meaning and intent of the law, he would recommend the agency adopt some sort of sign-up system that would allow people to get notified when there are new comments.

Both Roberts and Nicholson said they hadn’t heard of any similar system being used by government agencies, either in the Denver area or otherwise. Officials from the mayor’s office, the auditor’s office, and the Department of Public Health and Environment confirmed Thursday that they did not have a similar system and also had not heard of other agencies implementing it.

Currently, the online board is broken out into four discussion topics: the 2026 executive work plan, the 2026 operations, safety and security work plan, the 2026 finance and planning committee work plan and the 2026 performance committee work plan.

Nicholson said that during its two-month pilot, the tool will mainly be used for discussing when and how those work plans will be presented at upcoming meetings, ironing out a process the director deemed as previously “cumbersome.”

If the pilot is successful, meaning board members have become comfortable using the tool to discuss agenda items, the agency may use it to have deeper conversations about topics in a way that allows board members to express their opinions in the same manner they would for any discussion item, he added. The board would continue to only take votes during in-person meetings when members of the public also have a chance to comment.

“I like the fact that they’re being cautious with this, that they’re putting it out there only to develop their agenda and not really have actual policy discussions on this yet,” Roberts said. “I do think there are things that may not be technically what the open meetings law requires, but the spirit of what they’re doing does seem to be about making sure the public can more fully participate in their process.”

Those interested in following the discussions can access the tool at rtd-board.rtd-denver.com.