Tara Winer has served five years on Boulder City Council and is seeking a third term. Her priorities include reducing red tape, maintaining core city services and keeping Boulder relevant by encouraging science, business and art.
Winer describes herself as moderate but says her positions depend on the policy under consideration. She has previously received endorsements from PLAN-Boulder County, Boulder Elevated and Better Boulder, groups associated with Boulder’s moderate political bloc and support for walkable development. She has also been endorsed by prominent local Democrats, including U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse and state Sen. Judy Amabile.
Winer has often supported positions favored by the business community. She voted with the council majority to adopt a smaller minimum-wage increase than state law allowed after restaurant owners raised concerns. She also supported placing the creation of a Downtown Development Authority on the ballot, though a council majority declined to advance it.
Winer has also shown a willingness to reconsider her positions. After initially opposing zoning changes allowing more housing types near bus corridors, she ultimately supported the proposal. She said a conversation with former Councilmember Rachel Friend about wanting her parents to live next door in a duplex helped change her mind.
Winer emphasizes remaining accessible to residents, including those who disagree with her. After voting to approve the $5.8 million sale of a downtown parking lot for a hotel, she offered her phone number to opponents and told them, “I will be here for you.”
A grandmother of three, Winer is particularly invested in issues involving children. She supported including a lap pool in the proposed tax measure funding city facilities after South Boulder families advocated for replacing their recreation center. Reimagine South Boulder Rec Center, the group leading that effort, has endorsed her.
In 2024, Winer confronted a man shouting anti-Chinese slurs near children at a University Hill event. The man punched her and threw her to the ground, leaving her with bruised ribs and other injuries.
Winer’s local government involvement began in 2016 with the Chautauqua Access Management Plan working group. She later served on the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board and other city working groups. She currently serves on the Downtown Boulder Community Initiatives Board.
Winer works as a senior brand manager at ePromos Promotional Products and has more than 40 years of experience in sales and marketing. Born and raised in Brooklyn, she raised three daughters in West Philadelphia before moving to Boulder with her husband more than 12 years ago. Her daughters also live in Boulder County.
Occupation: Senior Brand Manager
Neighborhood: Chautauqua
Rent or own?: Own
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?
Our best opportunity is to bring another Holiday-type neighborhood to the Area 3 Planning Reserve. I have been talking about this since my first term in 2021, and it’s easier to put middle-income housing there because land costs are cheaper. Through annexation agreements, the city can require middle income ownership housing in a way we can’t within the city limits. I’d want what made Holiday attractive to middle-income residents: a large green space and playground, and beautiful architecture built around duplexes and triplexes.
I want more resources behind our House-to-Homeownership program, which offers up to $100,000 toward a market-rate home with no resale restriction.
Regarding regulations, Title 9, our land use code, is complicated and confusing, and rewriting it needs to become a Council Priority. Regarding process, many perfectly good housing projects get pulled into Site Review: months of extra work, a concept review, back and forth with staff, a public hearing, then a planning board vote. I want to fix the timeline, not the design standards. Permitting has gotten so complicated that people need to hire a consultant to get through it, adding cost to building or renovating a home. This needs to change.
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?
One approach Boulder hasn’t really tried at scale is supportive housing with services included, for people experiencing mental health or addiction challenges. Right now we have a voucher system: it gets someone an apartment, but for people who have mental health or addiction challenges, that alone often isn’t enough. Without support on-site, those tenants can struggle to stay housed, and it can create quality-of-life problems for neighbors, especially families with kids nearby.
Bluebird, our permanent supportive housing on 30th Street, does this differently. It has a support services team on-site to help residents work through mental health and addiction issues, rather than handing someone keys and hoping for the best. That model works better, and I want to bring more of it.
Regarding how to pay for it: mental health and addiction services are the county’s purview, not the city’s, and I have told a county commissioner that directly. I would push the county to put more of its behavioral health dollars into staffing supportive housing sites like this one, with the city contributing through our existing human services funding and by helping identify land or facilities.
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?
The $400M backlog did not happen overnight. Boulder’s largest revenue source, sales tax, has flattened because of remote work, empty downtown offices, and slower retail sales, and the state reduced assessed values which reduced our property taxes.
We did adopt a Facilities Master Plan in 2021 but it wasn’t fully funded because of competing fiscal priorities and the need to maintain important city services. Regarding spending: I agree with the community-led idea for an independent performance auditor who reports to Council. Boulder’s current auditing only checks financial compliance, not whether programs actually work. This type of auditor will rebuild public trust and will save us money in the long run.
Regarding oversight: One of the things the Alpine-Balsam project taught me is that we need regular updates to the Council on big capital projects. I would also like to see comparisons of our costs compared to what peer cities pay for similar work. Learning from mistakes is important to me. That means looking way back to when this project started 11 years ago, and honestly looking at every aspect of the process.
Flock: Would you end Boulder’s use of automated license plate readers, yes or no? Why or why not?
Automatic License Plate Readers perform an important public safety function. They take a picture of the outer exterior of the car including the license plate, not the interior. ALPR’s are especially effective in Amber alerts and stolen vehicle cases (a 34.5% drop since Boulder adopted Flock). Flock helped BPD with the June 1 terrorist attack on Pearl St. Mall.
However, no one wants to live in a surveillance state. The community’s concerns are real and we need to address them. Our data already ended up in federal hands once: from 2022 to 2025, Boulder’s Flock data was on a national network that Border Patrol searched more than 100 times before we caught it and restricted access to Colorado agencies only. We must continually close gaps as we find misuse. We need to limit how long the data is kept, and we need to make sure data is not misused by individual officers. So heavy guardrails need to be required.
The city of Boulder, according to a press release, will carry on engagement and policy conversations with the community through mid 2027. Our City Manager said “we want to advance public safety work while safeguarding civil rights” and I agree.
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?
Yes. In the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI), the first two rows of homes backing up to Open Space, or about 1,500 feet into the built environment, hardening should not be optional, in my opinion.
The ordinance should require removing flammable trees and bushes near structures, 1/8 inch screens on vents so embers cannot get in, and a 5-foot noncombustible perimeter around the home.
There are homes that are part of HOA’s that are right on the WUI, for instance in South Boulder on Shanahan Ridge. Our ordinance should require HOAs in high-risk areas to the same standards as all other homes.
Regarding cost, our Wildfire Resilience Assistance Program already offers up to $2,000 per property through the Climate Tax, and the county provides another $500 per household. For many people on the WUI, that still won’t cover the costs. We need to raise the amount both the city and county offer per household.
Is the city doing enough to push Xcel Energy to prevent or limit wildfire-related power shutoffs? What more should it do?
The Xcel Partnership is producing some results. The city got Xcel to commit to harden infrastructure on five feeders serving Boulder. Xcel must now coordinate with the city’s Office of Disaster Management and give advance notice before calling a Public Safety Power Shutoff event. Xcel is adding and upgrading transformers at the Sunshine and NCAR substations. The 9216 power line, in our highest-risk wildfire zone, is being rebuilt.
Undergrounding is underway in our highest-risk areas, near Jay Road along Highway 36 and at Chautauqua. Xcel is also planning underground cable replacement for the West Pearl and Civic Center area, which will help with downtown PSPS events.
However, will Xcel do what it promised? Xcel is a monopoly, and even with PUC oversight, we can’t assume it will follow through, so constant monitoring is necessary. Community members are frustrated at the poor communication from Xcel during outages. However, Xcel recently made cuts in its customer service department. How does that make communication better? We’re all hoping for fewer wind-event outages this winter, but hope isn’t good enough. We need actual consequences, tied to our franchise agreement, if Xcel misses its own wildfire mitigation deadlines.
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?
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.
Closer: Imagine it is November 2027, one year after your election. What is one specific thing you will have accomplished?
To accomplish something in just one year, that item would have to be listed in the Council Priorities list we make at our retreat. In a 2026 City of Boulder survey, wildfire hardening was the #1 concern among community members. I agree with the community; this is one of the most urgent things we can do right now. I think it is possible to accomplish some mandated wildfire hardening for the homes closest to the WUI in just one year.
The $2000 per property offered by the city through the Climate Tax and the $500 per housing from the county will not be enough so we will need to figure out how to fund this. But this priority is something I would like to push for 2027.
If you would like to tell me the one specific thing YOU would like Council to accomplish, I would love to hear about it. Please reach out to my campaign email: tara@taraforboulder.com.