Advocacy Priorities Blowing in the Wind

I write this as the wind continues to howl outside and the terrible impacts of December’s power outages are fresh in my mind … And as the wind blows, so blows the Boulder Chamber’s 2026 advocacy agenda.

When our businesses are excited about an economic-development opportunity, the Boulder Chamber rallies community resources to secure it. When there’s a threat to a local industry, a specific business or our collective economic interests, we gather the forces to fight it. And when our businesses need support, we do everything we can to provide it.

It’s all consistent with the theme of our mantra: “We build community through business.”

With sales-tax revenue a primary source of funding for our city, our community needs healthy business and a strong economy to achieve our other environmental, social and quality of life goals. Thus, when wind blows a hole in business operations and kills critical holiday traffic, our community has a shared interest in meeting the needs of our businesses. That is why the Boulder Chamber’s 2026 advocacy agenda places a priority on actions and policies that will help our business recover from last month’s power outages and prevent this sort of disruption for the future.

The City of Boulder has already reached out with measures like free downtown parking and an expanded tax filing deadline. However, for some businesses and their workforce, the revenue losses have been devastating — on a par with other natural disasters. To alleviate these punishing impacts that the recent windstorm and power outage exacted, the Boulder Chamber advocacy agenda will seek creative short-term support to help them overcome the damage and regain their footing. We also must learn from this experience and work with the City of Boulder to build better resilience and response measures that support business continuity in future power shutdown scenarios.

All that said, the wind will continue to blow in Boulder and, combined with our drier climate, there is increased fire risk. Our long-term answer cannot be to shut off power to our businesses and residents every time these troubling conditions present themselves. Period. Full stop. That means we need to work with our electric power provider, Xcel Energy, to make the investments that will reduce fire risk to the greatest extent possible. This will take engineering creativity, this will take financing willpower, and this will take further priority attention in the Boulder Chamber’s advocacy. We also will look for Xcel to support our community’s resiliency measures.

But the wants, needs and interests of the Boulder business community don’t just blow with the wind. As such, there are many other business concerns our community needs to address that stand atop the Boulder Chamber’s advocacy priorities for 2026.

We will persist in our opposition to the City of Boulder’s unilateral minimum-wage increase — among only three cities across all of Colorado. Assuming additional priority focus for the Boulder Chamber’s 2026 advocacy agenda, though, is the particularly strong blow to local businesses with tipped workers. Paying waitstaff a higher minimum wage on top of the tips these workers receive — placing their total compensation well above minimum-wage rates — has dealt a death blow to many of our local restaurants. Boulder needs to stop the bleeding and take advantage of hard-fought legislative authorization (Thank you, State Sen. Judy Amabile and State Reps. Junie Joseph and Lesley Smith!) to provide a lower base wage that accounts for higher tipped worker compensation.

Middle-income housing also will take center stage for the business community in 2026. We need to provide housing for the slice of our workforce that isn’t eligible for typical affordable housing. We look to throw everything at resolving this issue, including a reduction in the very affordable housing linkage fee that contributes to a higher base cost for middle-income units. Other strategies include reduced permit fees and regulatory hurdles. When it’s a priority, blowing more hot air won’t do. We need to explore every policy option that offers a promising solution.

Which gets us to the gale force impact of high office vacancy rates. I spoke of the pall that hangs over our community due to the post-COVID-19 surge in unoccupied commercial space. It means less business activity in town, fewer patrons for our local shops and services, and deflated community vibrancy. Filling those offices will demand thoughtful programs and policies that draw office workers back to town or create alternative uses for vacant space. Increased incentives, marketing and regulatory reform will all be on the table toward that end in the Boulder Chamber’s advocacy for 2026.

This space is too short to list all the Boulder Chamber’s priority advocacy work for the year ahead (think homelessness, development district financing and Sundance Film Festival preparations as just a few other examples). These priorities don’t just adjust to temporal blowing winds. For, as the seer of wind blowing, Mr. Bob Dylan, puts it, “How many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn’t see?” The challenges our businesses face, as well as the opportunities, are well-established and demand our attention.

Fortunately, through thoughtful analysis, collaborative problem-solving and ardent advocacy, I’m confident we’ll all find that “the answer is blowin’ in the wind,” and we will turn those answers into positive outcomes for our businesses, the economy and our community.