In the lead-up to the Nov. 3, 2026, election, Boulder Reporting Lab asked each of the 19 mayoral and city council candidates to answer our questionnaire. Their answers are presented in a random order, but you can jump to each candidate’s responses, listed alphabetically below. See all of BRL’s 2026 election questionnaire questions and candidate answers here.
Mayoral candidates: Taishya Adams • Aaron Brockett • Jameson “Jamo” Goldstein • Aquiles La Grave
City council candidates: Benita Duran • Sam Fuqua • Jill Grano • Rachel Rose Isaacson • Ryan Jamieson • Tina Marquis • David Martus • Scott Rendleman • Jamillah Richmond • Ryan Schuchard • Lynn Segal • Tara Winer
Three candidates — Lisa Ann Jacobs, Fred Smith and Lee Gilbert — did not respond to BRL’s questionnaire.
Many downtown Boulder businesses report struggling with rising costs and stagnating sales, while about a quarter of downtown office space sits empty.
A recent Boulder Chamber report found that sales tax revenue rose last quarter compared with the same period a year earlier. But that growth masks challenges in some industries. A June city report, for example, found that Boulder’s restaurant industry showed signs of declining revenue, fewer customers and staffing cuts.
In recent years, councilmembers and local advocates have proposed several ways to help local businesses and reduce commercial vacancies, but some prominent proposals have stalled or been dropped.
This year council considered reducing the tipped minimum wage to provide relief to local restaurants, but voted in July to leave it unchanged. In the spring a resident-led group proposed a tax on vacant commercial space, but dropped it in favor of the vacancy tax council placed on the ballot, which would apply only to vacant homes.
This summer, councilmembers considered creating a Downtown Development Authority (DDA), which would direct a portion of future tax revenue growth toward investments in downtown and University Hill, leaving less available for other city needs. The Boulder Chamber and Downtown Boulder Partnership advocated strongly for the DDA, while several local political groups, including the Boulder Progressives and PLAN-Boulder, opposed it. The proposal to put it on the ballot failed on a 4-4 vote.
Several candidates said they would support a DDA if the proposal returned to council.
Candidates offered a range of other ideas to help downtown businesses, including faster permitting, making it easier to open new businesses and launch commercial pop-ups, repurposing empty retail and office space, and offering grants to help local businesses get started.
Some candidates also proposed expanding free parking, supporting a commercial vacancy tax, and using downtown events and festivals, including Sundance, to draw more customers. A few proposed adding more affordable housing downtown or making downtown feel safer for visitors.
Question: 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?
Mayoral candidates
Taishya Adams
Taishya Adams
Age: 52
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 seriously 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.
Jamo Goldstein
I would simplify and speed up city permits for new businesses and renovations so an entrepreneur is not paying rent on an empty storefront while waiting through avoidable delays. I would meet regularly with local owners, publish clear timelines and points of contact, and revisit rules that create cost without a demonstrated benefit.
To bring customers downtown, I would support year-round arts and cultural events, clean and welcoming public spaces, and reliable ways to get there by bike, bus and car. Any downtown investment authority should have clear boundaries, public financial reporting and priorities shaped by the businesses and residents affected. We can strengthen downtown while preserving the local character that brings people there.
Aaron Brockett
Aaron Brockett
Age: 53
We need to make permitting easier in the city for many common needs, including tenant finishes and commercial to residential conversions. We should also offer city economic vitality grants to small businesses to help them get into empty retail spaces they might not otherwise be able to afford, as well as look at reducing fees for items like outdoor dining.
Aquiles La Grave
Aquiles La Grave
Age: 47
Vacant office space continues to be at a record-high level; many restaurants continue to struggle. The city needs to focus on those things which it can control. Provide free parking in its public garages for the first two hours. The city needs to process permitting faster and eliminate unnecessary costs associated with obtaining permits. Title 9 reform to ensure that when a business wants to open or expand within the city limits, they do not have to navigate a maze of regulations. The city needs to maintain a clean and safe environment in the downtown area. The city should encourage all employees who work remote to return to work.
For far too long, the city believed the Flatirons were its economic development plan. The Flatiron are not an economic development plan and the city needs to act like local businesses are partners whose success generates employment opportunities, economic activity and tax revenue, not as just one more group of constituents to regulate.
City council candidates
Tara Winer
Tara Winer
Age: 68
To reduce vacancies, I would cut the red tape in our Planning and Development department. Right now it takes too long and costs too much for a business to open or even renovate. Every added month of process is rent a small business owner is paying with no customers coming in. Streamlining this review process would let commercial space turn over faster and cheaper. All downtowns need refreshes to stay exciting and relevant, and ours does too.
I love the idea of a permanent Farmer’s Market. It would bring people downtown regularly, generate sales tax revenue, and give people opportunities to start a small businesses because it is a lower overhead option than a bricks-and-mortar store. I would like to see an upgraded Arboretum Path connecting the Hill to downtown, which right now is poorly lit and unattractive. Perhaps a promenade, like the High Line in NYC, with better lighting, landscaping and public art.
Many Colorado cities use TIF financing to support their new projects, so I would consider supporting a DDA 2.0 as long as it receives input from all tax entities, stakeholders, and the broader community. Community input is crucial.
Lynn Segal
Lynn Segal
Age: 49
Don’t let Tebo and WW Reynolds take us down with the ship. Charge them heavily for empty or low use commercial and spread the wealth so all can prosper. Bring the residents downtown with services they actually buy like hardware store, functional clothes, groceries. Let citizen organizer groups work out how to activate this by diversifying incentives. More steady income is better than less overpriced gear.
Scott Rendleman
Scott Rendleman
Age: 58
I would support a reconsideration of the Downtown Development Authority to focus on assisting businesses open or expand downtown or on University Hill. I would prioritize making it easier to open or expand a business in an empty storefront by reducing overlapping and unnecessary regulation, which tend to lengthen review of applications. Reviews across departments of business applications should also have a dependable schedule. The delay that business owners encounter because of city review needs to be half of what it currently is.
Jamillah Richmond
Jamillah Richmond
Age: 42
One policy change I would advocate for on Council to help businesses stay open and reduce commercial vacancies is a commercial vacancy tax. Similar to Ballot issue 2J, the Residential Vacancy Excise Tax, this tax would be levied against commercial landlords whose properties are unoccupied for 183 days or more, and could be assessed at as little as $4 per square foot of vacant space. The tax would apply to vacant commercial spaces over 400 square feet, and would increase yearly, at 1.5x, 2.0x, and 3.0x, or for as long as properties remain empty.
This tax would accomplish two things: first, it would incentivize commercial landlords to fill their spaces with tenants, helping revitalize Boulder’s downtown and bring much needed sales tax revenue, and would also help lower rents for existing tenants, as more tenants paying rent could offset landlords’ need to increase rents in the first place. It is important to acknowledge, however, that without rent control, landlords can still raise rents, making this tax helpful, but not guaranteed to keep commercial rents low.
Rachel Rose Isaacson
Rachel Rose Isaacson
Age: 29
I would make it easier and less expensive to put vacant spaces back to work. Business owners should not have to navigate an unpredictable permitting process to renovate a storefront, adapt an older building, or open a new use downtown. I would establish a single point of contact for small businesses, publish clear requirements and review timelines, and examine where fees or rules create unnecessary barriers to modest renovations and temporary uses. I would also explore incentives for property owners who activate long-vacant spaces, with clear public benefits and accountability.
Bringing customers downtown requires more than filling storefronts. More homes downtown and nearby would give local businesses a steadier customer base throughout the week. I would improve safe walking and biking connections, reliable transit, wayfinding, cleanliness, lighting, and welcoming public spaces. I would also work with businesses and arts organizations on events and cultural programming that give residents reasons to visit, while helping local businesses benefit from Sundance.
Downtown is an important source of sales-tax revenue, so its struggles affect the city budget as well as individual livelihoods. I would listen directly to owners and workers, track vacancies and permitting times, and adjust policies based on what is helping businesses stay open.
Ryan Jamieson
Ryan Jamieson
Age: 46
City policy: Permitting. Businesses can spend months paying rent while navigating land-use, change-of-use, and building approvals, and shortening that is free rent relief. I’d widen substitution of use so more changes of use skip discretionary review, and use every flexibility available under the existing-building code so modest conversions don’t unnecessarily trigger whole-building upgrades. I’d also publish a plain-language guide for every permit and actual review times every quarter.
More customers: I supported the Downtown Development Authority, an established redevelopment tool in Colorado, and I’d bring it back built right this time, with the library district, county, and school district at the table early and the most likely first projects called out explicitly. I’d make pop-ups and events easier to permit, especially around Sundance, and put more officers on foot on Pearl and the creek path more frequently. Since 2019, downtown property values are down 19% and sales tax revenue is down 10%, and that sales tax pays for open space, fire, and human services, so this matters citywide.
Benita Duran
Benita Duran
Age: 65
I would want to see the DDA return to the table and a full discussion on what it will take to move that forward for the benefit of downtown and UHill. There are steps council can take to address budgets and dedicated funding that is potentially impacted by the district formation. It is doable. I would be sure the city isn’t delaying business use or permitting; and we more aggressively offer to help businesses and shape some creative collaborations of shared uses of some of the vacant commercial spaces.
Jill Grano
Jill Grano
Age: 44
We need to make it easier for local businesses to open and try something new. Rewriting Title 9 is a top priority for me. I would simplify changes of use, make temporary shops and pop-ups easier, and speed up reviews for adaptive reuse. Long, unpredictable reviews cost money, especially for a local owner paying rent while waiting to open.
I would strengthen the city’s economic vitality office so local owners have more help finding space, navigating permits, and staying open. The office should pursue grants for small businesses and court larger companies to fill vacant offices. We can no longer rely on Boulder’s beauty and charm to attract businesses when there are more affordable and welcoming cities around us.
I would also reform zoning to discourage more luxury townhomes and condos that sit empty and encourage more smaller homes our workforce can afford. More people living near downtown means more regular customers for local businesses.
Finally, we need to get the basics right. People need to feel safe going downtown and to the Hill, which means clean, safe public spaces and a greater emphasis on curbing open drug use.
Dave Martus
Dave Martus
Age: 59
Simply put, Boulder needs to compete to attract new businesses. Our lived experience is the exact opposite. We need to transform into a business-friendly city through a clear permitting and operating environment. Simply put, this lowers costs for new businesses. Improving public safety, for example, by matching police patrols to operating hours will make our commercial districts more attractive to customers.
We need to make Boulder cool again. We have lost our edge in this area, but we can regain it.
Sam Fuqua
Sam Fuqua
Age: 62
My understanding is that there is no standard city process for permitting “pop up” shops and art galleries–temporary uses of vacant retail spaces. These can help small businesses, artists and nonprofits reach new customers and increase variety–something new that brings people downtown. We should create a simple, quick standard permitting process. I would start by reviewing processes in cities that have standardized pop-up permits.
I also suggest building more affordable housing in the downtown area. More people living downtown–including the workers who keep downtown going–means more potential customers for downtown businesses. City promotion and facilitation of events and festivals should be a priority. As should continuing to make it easier to re-configure retail and office spaces for other uses.
Commercial land trusts may also offer a partial solution. For example, the Denver nonprofit Urban Land Conservancy uses land banking and land trusts to develop and maintain permanently affordable residential and commercial real estate. Could we identify one or two downtown buildings and work with the right partners to create a commercial land trust offering below market office and retail?
Ryan Schuchard
Ryan Schuchard
Age: 49
Downtown’s struggles reflect a nationwide pattern of vacancies, aging buildings, and high costs, and Boulder needs a multifaceted approach to adapt downtown to a world it wasn’t built for.
This term, I’ve worked to strengthen city finances, pressed for a citywide customer service hub, and led council’s push on Xcel outages that hurt downtown businesses. I’ve also deepened collaboration with CU and co-led council’s bicycle security priority.
Priorities:
- Fill empty storefronts. Allow and drive more housing downtown through Title 9 reform, since it’s one of our most important places for homes, and nearby residents fuel the downtown economy and 15-minute neighborhoods. Develop an evidence-based vacancy plan and a restaurant vitality effort. Ease paths to worker cooperatives.
- Make downtown a place people want to be. Invest in a safe, clean, secure-by-design public realm. Expand activation like common consumption and public-benefit amenities catalyzed by Sundance. Build public restrooms and drinking fountains, and pilot a transit circulator.
- Make the city easy to work with. Conduct a fee reasonableness review and speed permitting. Back the Customer Experience effort so owners get clear answers fast. Continue to hold office hours downtown every Thursday at the Main Library cafe.
Tina Marquis
Tina Marquis
Age: 55
In the short term, we need to make sure Sundance is a success. While it is only two weeks long, the city will benefit all year as we grow our creative economy. In addition, we can use our learnings from Sundance to support other large scale events, bringing new visitors to Boulder.
I am also excited about the redevelopment of the East bookend by the farmer’s market, including a year-round farmer’s market. By reusing our city-owned buildings, we have the potential to create a unique new area to add vibrancy to our downtown area. As mentioned previously, I am supporting funding to ensure the downtown and Hill areas along with our parks and bike paths are safe and inviting to visitors. Finally, the commercial vacancies continue to be an issue on the 2nd and 3rd floors. I have met with community members about how difficult it is to fill or convert these spaces and look forward to exploring new ideas this second term.