Open Boulder Endorses Five Candidates for Boulder City Council

Slate reflects Open Boulder’s priorities: good governance, financial responsibility and transparency, community safety and emergency preparedness, and community vibrancy and affordability

BOULDER, Colo. — September 14, 2026 — Open Boulder, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to pragmatic, results-oriented local governance, today announced its endorsement of five candidates for Boulder City Council: Jill Grano, Ryan Jamieson, Tara Winer, Tina Marquis, and Benita Duran. The Board evaluated candidates with questionnaires, a joint forum, and personal interviews before making their endorsement decisions.

The endorsed slate reflects Open Boulder’s core priorities for the city: good governance, financial responsibility and transparency, community safety and emergency preparedness, and community vibrancy and affordability.

“We believe each candidate brings different strengths, and we may not agree on all policy positions, but these five candidates will bring thoughtful leadership, more accountability, and efforts to rebuild trust in the community,” said Jan Burton, Chair of Open Boulder. 

Jill Grano: Economic Vitality and Small Business
Leading the slate is Jill Grano, who represented Boulder on City Council from 2017 to 2020 and has spent two decades working across housing policy, business advocacy, and public service. Grano is running on restoring Boulder’s economic vitality, pointing to a downtown office vacancy rate now four times pre-pandemic levels. She has proposed streamlining temporary-use permits, creating new regulatory pathways for hybrid and adaptive-reuse businesses, and redirecting public spending toward local vendors, arguing that dollars spent with local businesses circulate through the community two to four times before they leave town. “Boulder should be a place where people can belong, raise families, build businesses, and grow old,” Grano says.

Ryan Jamieson: Accountability
Ryan Jamieson is running on a clear message: accountability. A former Army communications specialist and internal auditor who spent two decades building cybersecurity programs, Jamieson supports creating an independent city auditor position reporting directly to Council. He suggests requiring every new program and tax to carry “a stated goal, a measure, and a date when we look again,” and defaulting underperforming programs off unless Council affirmatively votes to continue them. He argues that without those mechanisms, failing programs persist because “nobody ever measured”.  He has pledged to hold himself to the same standard, publishing an annual scorecard of his own performance against his stated goals and is committed to working with anybody willing to do the work. We’re sure he’ll work for us.

Tara Winer: A Connection to Community
Tara Winer, a seasoned Council member seeking re-election, has built a reputation for being accessible to the voters. Her platform spans economic vitality and support for small business, community safety, sensible growth, and advocacy for recreation centers. She has built a reputation on her consistent voice for public safety. One endorser describes her as having “a real gift for listening, balancing different perspectives, and then making policy decisions that are both evidence-based and heart-centered.”

Tina Marquis: A Thoughtful Voice on Council
Tina Marquis, seeking a second term on Council, brings more than two decades of community involvement to the race, including eight years on the Boulder Valley School District board — four of them as board president during the pandemic, where she worked to increase “investments for our low-income and English-language learners.” On Council, Marquis has prioritized expanding middle-income family housing, preparing Boulder’s infrastructure for increased flooding and wildfire risk, and “creating safe public spaces, supporting local businesses”. She points to progress over her three years in office, with substantial work still ahead.

Benita Duran: A Lifelong Coloradan
Rounding out the slate is Benita Duran, a lifelong Coloradan who has spent more than three decades in Boulder public service and civic life. She served nine years as the city’s assistant city manager before moving into government and engineering consulting, including six years overseeing Denver Public Schools’ bond program, and later founded her own consulting firm. Duran describes herself as a bridge between Boulder’s progressive and business communities, with particular attention to supporting Latino-owned businesses. She has centered her campaign on strengthening the local economy, improving affordability, wildfire preparedness, and she advocates for a city government that listens, plans and delivers.