Jill Grano

It’s been a while between Council runs for Jill Grano, who interviewed with this writer and won a seat in 2017, and is running again in 2026. She’s had a long history of civic engagement, but said part of her decision to run this year stemmed from grad school work on the history of issues including land use, housing, economic development, and other topics. She said while people might criticize the current state of Boulder affairs, her research into issues like shortages of middle-income housing suggests it’s not as new of a problem as people might think. But she did say there’s a troubling influx of institutional capital into Boulder, which has contributed to one of her sparks for entering this race, which is to “re-localize” Boulder’s economy.

“A rent check paid to Blackstone Capital leaves our community immediately and goes into their hands. I look at giant private equity and institutional investors as fundamentally extractive. None of it’s community-centered – it’s all profit driven … Capital looks for scarcity. There’s a good return on investment when there’s, when there’s scarcity … I don’t feel like we’re talking about it enough. I want to really elevate this and look for ways to re-localize our economy. So that’s my motivation,” she said.

Mini-Bio

In a 2017 interview, Grano said she has long had the public service and local government bugs, as she “got involved with her student council in 3rd grade, volunteered at a nursing home in high school, and studied political science in college.” She grew up in Williamsburg, Virginia, and eventually enrolled at the College of William and Mary where she nurtured her appreciation for political history. She had visited Boulder and hoped to transfer to CU, but completed her degree at William and Mary only to move to Boulder after graduation.
Since coming to Boulder but before 2017, she taught civics at the Watershed School, served on the board of New Era Colorado, worked as a realtor with RE/MAX Alliance, served on the board of Thistle Community Housing, and served as vice chair of Boulder’s Board of Zoning Adjustments (BOZA).

In 2017, she ran for City Council and finished third in a race for five open seats, earning a four-year term. However, she received a job offer from U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse about a year after taking office, accepted the offer, and left Council. Basically, she said it was a job offer she couldn’t refuse, but readers who are interested in her fuller rationale for this decision might wish to click this link to learn more.

She left her job with Neguse, saying her son was going to college and it’s tough to put someone through college on a public salary. She was planning to go back into real estate, when the Boulder Chamber of Commerce offered her a job as an interim senior director of policy initiatives. She later entered graduate school, earning a master’s in May 2026, and writing her thesis, in short, on the history of Boulder’s housing and economic development. She also took a 6-month position as director of housing for Sundance relocation. Her involvement in local politics has included chairing the campaign to switch Council elections from odd-numbered years to even-numbered years, and recently worked with the “Vacancy to Vitality” effort to impose vacancy taxes on vacant property.

Her campaign website is https://www.jillforcouncil.com/

On The Issues

Q – Has Directly Elected Mayor Been a Good Experience?

Grano said it would be hard to make a definitive statement since there has only been one directly elected Mayor in recent Boulder history, but she supports it and thinks Boulder should continue with it. She said she thinks it’s good for “the people” to be able to decide who sets the city’s agenda and who speaks to or for the city in times of crisis. “After the mass shooting, or the firebombing, the mayor gets up and says, ‘Hey, we’re going to be okay. We’re handling this. We’re working with police. We support our community,’” she said.

Q – Contentious Council Meetings?

During 2025, some council meetings were heated while protesters demonstrated against the situation in Gaza. Grano said “she didn’t envy” Council members during those meetings, saying it was a new situation – “we’ve had disruptors before but not that consistently,” she said. Like many candidates, she said it’s a difficult balance between ensuring freedom of speech and making sure people at Council meetings for other reasons felt safe and able to do what they came to the meeting for. Council made some policy changes in attempts to bring order back to meetings, and Grano believes the changes worked and meetings are “in a good place now.”

Q – Status of Boulder’s Economy and Needs?

Grano mentioned several times during this interview that one of her top goals is to “re-localize” Boulder’s economy. For examples, she said Blackstone Capital (HQ in NYC) has bought nearly a billion dollars’ worth of Boulder real estate since 2017, a situation that she calls “fundamentally extractive” since money from a rent check to Blackstone leaves the community. She said some cities have procurement requirements that they buy a certain percentage of goods or services locally, and would like to see this happen in Boulder. Like many candidates, she said it’s cumbersome to start businesses in Boulder, including what she called “adaptive re-use” or allowing a business property to be used for something other than its original purpose. “It’s very popular now to do spaces that are sort of like makerspace, cafe by day, wine bar, dance club, event space by night, right? And Boulder treats that like it’s 5 different uses,” she said. There are significant commercial property vacancies in Boulder, which Grano believes is a problem, and she worked as part of the “Vacancy to Vitality” group that proposed a commercial and residential vacancy tax. However, the commercial part was shelved and voters will only face the residential vacancy tax measure on this year’s ballot.

Q – Status of Boulder Public Safety?

Grano said she generally feels safe in Boulder, and noted that she believes accounts that people might see on social media paint an exaggerated picture of Boulder’s actual general public safety status. That said, she would like to see the police put a higher priority on enforcing open drug use. She supports “fully implementing” the city’s Reimagining Policing plan, including increasing staffing to reach the number of officers called for in the plan. She would support pay raises for police officers, but mentioned that she might like to tie those increases to “lowering the use of force,” and added that the city’s BIPOC community has a vastly higher rate of arrests and citations than the white population.

Q – Public Safety FROM Public Safety?

While Grano said she appreciates that law enforcement has been able to use camera footage to solve crimes, she added that “We have to be very careful and thoughtful about how our data is stored and shared.” She noted that local officials, Police Chief Steven Redfearn and District Attorney Michael Dougherty, have stood up to federal officials demanding local camera footage, but warned that it might be very difficult for local officials to protect large amounts of data from those who might want to access this data. She supports having a “public conversation” about the automated camera situation, as opposed to just leaving the issue in the hands of the City Manager’s office, adding that the discussion should include private sector cameras as well as the Flock or Axon license plate readers that have been in the news recently.

Q- Is Boulder Ready for Sundance?

With direct experience on Sundance relocation housing issues, Grano said short-term housing within the City of Boulder remains a concern. She noted that thousands of people in Boulder live in properties with HOAs, yet many HOAs don’t allow short-term rentals. “What I’m worried about most is that people are going to end up staying outside of Boulder, and that’s the worst outcome for traffic, for parking, and for just overall experience.” She added that people who stay in nearby cities will still come to Boulder for the festival and spend money while they’re here, but maybe that morning cup of coffee or other purchases might happen in other cities. “No other cities put money in for this. And yet, they’re going to have this tremendous economic benefit in part because we don’t have the spaces available, and that’s my biggest concern.”

Q – Does Boulder Need to Continue Pushing for More Housing?

Grano recalled being interviewed in 2017, and said her biggest change on the housing issue since then is “I used to be almost 100% supply side oriented … but now I’m thinking about the demand side as well.” In other words, not just sheer quantity, but also considering who will live in or wants to live in the city’s available housing stock. She said for areas zoned for high-density, she would like the city to do more for “ownership opportunities” since major institutional investors are buying up these properties in large numbers. But she said the medium and low-density areas are areas of concern to her. While she prefaced this next statement with “somebody prove me wrong, please,” she said she can’t find examples of medium-density projects over the last decade that aren’t luxury townhomes or condos. She said recent low-density development has frequently included “scrapes” of old structures to make room for luxury single-family homes, and favors looking into more ownership opportunities for “ADUs, cottage courts, duplexes and triplexes” in low-density zones.

Q – Should City Council Engage in International Affairs?

Simply, Grano said “No, I think City Council should not be engaging in international affairs.”

Q – How is Boulder Doing in Managing Homelessness?

Grano believes the city is doing a “really good job” in providing the unhoused with “rapid placement” into housing and services (note – the All Roads shelter says it intends “rapid re-housing” for people with “a shorter history of homelessness, and those with a lower acuity of need.”) Grano spoke about distinctions between the unhoused that many in Boulder are concerned about – people camping along Boulder Creek who might have substance abuse issues or criminal histories – and those who become unhoused due to economic issues. “The vast majority of people experiencing homelessness want to be housed, want jobs, and many are, are, you know, abused women. Many are families,” she said. However, she added that there is not much housing available in Boulder for people at less than 40% Area Median Income, and suggested more housing for this income level could help minimize homelessness.

Q – Climate Action?

While noting that the City of Boulder can only directly impact climate issues within the city, Grano said it will be important to look at regional impacts of current policy. For example, she said reducing in-commuting from people driving single-occupancy vehicles would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while more housing density in Boulder could reduce per capita water use compared to the irrigation needs of a single-family home with a yard in nearby communities.

Q – Is Boulder Shifting Toward Property Taxes and Fees?

While Grano said the sales taxes that municipalities largely depend on are “regressive,” she also said property taxes impact small businesses thanks to four-times-higher rates than residential property taxes. “So, I can’t make a blanket statement to say that we should keep pursuing property tax measures unless we were able to get it off the back of our small businesses,” she said.

Q – Downtown Development Authority?

Grano said she didn’t see the proposed DDA as the “right mechanism” for moving forward with Downtown and University Hill business district improvements. Like many candidates, she said the process leading up to the City Council vote was not inclusive enough considering the number of entities that had a stake in the potential tax and revenue structure. She noted that under a DDA, the tax increment financing from property taxes can only be used for infrastructure, and she didn’t believe infrastructure was the main problem facing the business districts. She said ongoing issues like the challenges of starting a small business in Boulder would not be solved, especially through a DDA that did not have regulatory authority.

Q – Rec Centers and Deferred Maintenance?

With apologies, some writers (ahem) and pundits speak of deferred maintenance and Boulder’s rec centers in the same breath. Grano noted that the proposals coming up in the 2026 Boulder bond measure are for complete replacements, not maintenance. She plainly said that “we need to maintain our buildings,” and that includes maintenance for the “life cycle of new things” that might get built into the future.

2026 Ballot Measures

  • City of Boulder $400 Million Bond Measure: Grano is a “no” on Issue 2K, but said she supports replacing the South Boulder Rec Center and might support a bond measure later that’s crafted with more stakeholder engagement.
  • City of Boulder Residential Vacancy Tax: She supports it, and worked on the measure before it went to the ballot.
  • Boulder County Childcare Tax: Yes.
  • City of Boulder Firefighter Collective Bargaining: Yes.
  • Boulder County Increase 3 Commissioners to 5: Yes.
  • City of Boulder Debt Limit Increase: She said she supports it, but it’s “tricky” because passing it wouldn’t automatically mean the city would spend up to the new debt limit. She added that the new limit would be necessary to support the current bond measure or possibly future measures.

Endorsements: Grano has received organizational endorsements from Boulder Progressives, Better Boulder, Boulder Area Labor Council, Sierra Club Indian Peaks Group, Daily Camera, and Open Boulder.

Follow the Money: Grano has received maximum $100 donations from Mayor Aaron Brockett; current Council members Ryan Schuchard and Tina Marquis; former Council member Rachel Friend; current state Senator Judy Amabile; former state Senator Steve Fenberg; current state Rep. Junie Joseph; former state Rep. Edie Hooton; District Attorney Michael Dougherty; and RTD Director Lynn Guissinger.