Taishya Adams has served nearly three years on Boulder City Council and is running for mayor on a platform focused on climate resilience, affordability and giving the council a stronger role in city governance. Her council term ends this year, and because she cannot run simultaneously for mayor and reelection to her council seat, she will leave her current seat regardless of the mayoral election’s outcome.
In 2023, Adams was endorsed by the Boulder Progressives, Better Boulder, Bedrooms Are For People and the Sierra Club’s Indian Peaks Group. The Boulder Progressives endorsed only incumbent Aaron Brockett for mayor this year, though the group has said it may recommend how voters use their additional choices under Boulder’s ranked-choice voting system. Better Boulder has not yet announced its endorsements.
Adams has frequently broken with colleagues who shared her Boulder Progressives endorsement. She opposed raising Boulder’s minimum wage to match Denver’s by 2027, instead supporting a smaller increase because of concerns about locally owned businesses. She was the only councilmember to vote against the city’s 2026 budget and new short-term rental licenses for the Sundance Film Festival. She also opposed a transportation maintenance fee supported by most of her progressive colleagues.
Adams said the council “does not reflect the full spectrum of political views of our community” and called for moving beyond “divisive binary political slates.”
A defining feature of her campaign is her call for the council to exercise more authority over city policy. Adams wants councilmembers to take a stronger role in overseeing the Police Oversight Panel, whose members have said city decisions weakened the panel, and the city’s contract with Flock Safety for automated license plate readers. The city and police chief face a local class-action lawsuit alleging that the camera system violates residents’ privacy rights.
Much of Adams’ term has been shaped by her response to the war in Gaza. She was the council’s most outspoken critic of Israel’s war in Gaza, one of two members who voted to consider a ceasefire resolution and one of three who supported considering revisions to Boulder’s investment policies amid residents’ calls for divestment.
Adams was the only councilmember who did not sign the city’s statement condemning the June 1 firebombing as a “targeted, antisemitic attack.” The attack injured more than a dozen people and killed longtime Boulder resident Karen Diamond, 82, who died weeks later from her burns. Adams said the statement should have described the attack as both antisemitic and anti-Zionist, citing the attacker’s statement that he wanted to “kill all Zionist people.” Her decision drew national attention and criticism from Jewish residents and community leaders.
Adams founded the Mukuyu Collective, an environmental consultancy, in 2020. She previously worked for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, the American Institutes for Research as an educational equity specialist and Outdoor Afro.
She was an inaugural member of the city’s Police Oversight Panel and the first Black woman to serve on the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission.
Adams moved to Boulder in the summer of 2013.
Occupation: Nonprofit founder
Neighborhood: South Boulder
Rent or Own?: Rent
Answers to questionnaire:
Affordable housing: Market-rate homes are out of reach for many teachers, nurses, police officers and firefighters. What would you do to create more housing these middle-income residents can afford? What regulations, if any, would you change to lower the cost of building or renovating homes?
We simply need more affordable housing, which has taken a back seat to middle income housing. I let evidence guide my decisions. The evidence is clear that the demand for both permanently affordable housing and middle income housing are needed for those who live and work in our city. For too long we have prioritized luxury developments that has not provided sufficient cash in lui for to meet the growing demand for permanently affordable housing. This lack of working families has resulted in the closure of 4 elementary schools and declining sales tax revenue as other cities in our county see the opposite. With more affordable housing then we can impact the market long term, as we all know there is a housing supply issue in Boulder over all.
I will continue to advocate for a reworking of Title 9 to lower the barrier to entry without compromising environmental/climate resilience and safety. One example is making ADUs cheaper, easier, and more timely to build while also approving more density near transit corridors. We must find pathways to expedite permiting, approval timelines and inspections. Boulder’s Land Use code is identified as one of the most arduous in the country and it certainly slows down progress, but is that slow down serving the people? We can reduce cost for residents, homeowners, and builders by shortening the amount of times these approvals take, even while being mindful of our climate, fire, and culture goals.
Homelessness: What is one approach Boulder has not tried, or has not tried at scale, to address homelessness that you would bring to the council, and how should the city pay for it?
The City of Boulder is the only one with a overnight and day shelter in our County. We will need other cities in our county to expand services and support. As Mayor, I would continue to strengthen the coalition between Boulder County and area cities to braid funding, expand services, and co-create pathways for housing and work place options.
We are not alone in the need to address, fund, monitor, and decrease unhoused populations in our region. Denver has used programs like Housing to Health to reduce jailtime and arrests, as well as increase health outcomes among unhoused populations. We know the evidence, we know the need, we need collective commitment to reduce individual AND family homelessness as our economic confronts unprecedented headwinds. The funding model of the Housing to Health program involved not insignificant Federal investment which is unlikely to be successful these days, but was a good example of a public/private partnership in practice otherwise. Further philanthropic outreach toward granting organizations and partnering non-profits can help on implementation.
The path to funding will not be a straight line these days, but the money exists out there and further increasing sales and use tax or property taxes cannot be the only answer to achieving the goal to reduce homelessness. I would also be open to revisiting Safe Outdoor Streets as the staff proposal did not offer sufficient financial pathways to meet our constrained budget.
Governance: Boulder is entering its third straight year of budget cuts while facing a roughly $400 million backlog of major facility needs. How do you assess the problem, and what specific spending, revenue or management changes would you support?
We must reimagine our budgeting process and timeline. I agree with the City Manger’s recommendation to transition to a two-year budget cycle. This would allow for much deeper analysis of budget versus actuals as well as participatory budgeting process. I do believe that bonds are the best strategy to fund major facility needs; however, the current package lacks community trust and support. The package also includes nice to have’s versus what is urgent and important.
We need to revisit the criteria used for prioritization and more clear background on how cost projections are identified. We need to carefully consider how to utilize any proposed funds to address the distrust of the current issue on the ballot. Many of the city’s buildings are not fully functional and are expense to repair again and again. The fleet building has to regularly abandon work due to temperature extremes, both heat and cold, and that impact efficiency in a very negative way that makes the cost to keep it running add up in other ways. Some city buildings still have horsehair insulation which often comes with other risks such as asbestos. Perhaps it’s time to break into reserves to address the fire station upgrades considering the escalating climate crisis resulting increased wind events that threaten power lines and wildfires due to hotter, drier temps. Ultimately, we must invest in Boulder to make sure the next generation of residents are not facing the same old problems we’re facing today.
Flock: Would you end Boulder’s use of automated license plate readers, yes or no? Why or why not?
I do not support the use of automated license plate readers at this time due to documented cybersecurity issues and corporate misconduct. I advocated strongly for a pause to the contract negotiations and believe the council should weigh in on policy issues related to privacy. Right now, neither the City Manager or Police Chief can guarantee data security. The amount of documented misuse across the country is enough to make them too dangerous to be useful right now. The cities that have produced data about the effectiveness of Flock and other ALPR systems have ended their contracts largely, which is telling.
ALPR technology isn’t going away and there HAVE been limited areas where it has been helpful or even vital, but until rule of law catches up to making these systems safe and introducing proper penalties for misuse, as well as safeguarding against other agency’s overreach, this simply isn’t the right direction for Boulder.
Wildfire: Should Boulder adopt an ordinance requiring owners of existing homes and homeowners associations in high-risk areas to harden their properties against wildfire, yes or no? If yes, what should it require? Is the city doing enough to push Xcel Energy to prevent or limit wildfire-related power shutoffs? What more should it do?
As we have seen in the many wildfires that have impacted Boulder, this is not an individual problem. In cases like the Marshall fire, these incidents can spread outside of neighborhoods or even across major freeways so we need to be as prepared as possible to prevent such a disaster from hitting our community. We must find ways to require a Detailed Home Assessment just like the state requires car emission testing. We have the new wildfire urban interface map which gives us detailed information about the number of homes and we understand that though we are in the same storm, we are in different boats.
Our city is moving in the right direction. We have already required new construction in WUI areas to meet a higher standard of fire resilience to prevent new builds from being part of the problem and we need to support the community in bringing their current properties up to recommendations by the International Wildfire Standards. This also helps homeowners who may be vulnerable to insurance loss. The challenge is how to accelerate the timeline for homeowners to address issues identified in the DHA.
At the same time, we know that many homeowners are house rich and cash poor. A bill of $8,000-15,000 is not attainable. I continue to advocate for a revolving zero/low interest loan program that the City of Boulder guarantees in partnership with a local bank. This would allow a pathway for income qualified residents to make the wildfire updates necessary in a timely manner. This also expands a critical industry and talent pipeline for unionized businesses to grow and a workforce that can live and work in our city.
Local businesses and downtown: Many local businesses, especially downtown, are struggling with rising costs and stagnating sales. What city policy would you change to help businesses stay open and reduce commercial vacancies, and what would you do to bring more customers downtown?
Businesses need customers and with commercial vacancy and cost of living so high they just don’t have them. We need to diversify our city’s response and role beyond sales and property tax schemes. The City of Boulder owns 16,000 acres of agricultural land and a strong water right portfolio. We need to leverage these assets to support our locally owned restaurants and hotels. In addition, we must own our energy infrastructure through renewable energy enterprise and microgrids.
Working with the state and the Public Utility Commission will be essential partners to increasing local authority and building climate resilience. We also must serious consider a graduated commercial vacancy tax like the residential one on the ballot now. Commercial properties have sat empty for more than a decade leaving our tax base flat and leading to reduced families and school closures. We need to incentivize these spaces to be filled, leverage existing events and festivals, pilot commercial pop ups, and reduce barriers for renovations and conversions.
Closer: Imagine it is November 2027, one year after your election. What is one specific thing you will have accomplished?
Policy pathway for two year participatory budgeting process inclusive of how water supply is considered in all policy and resource allocation decisions.