Last summer, Lubbock’s municipal election continued into a runoff for the mayor’s seat. From there, former District 3 city councilman Mark McBrayer was elected, and on June 25, 2024, he was sworn into office.
Since then, it’s been a busy year for the City of Lubbock, with issues like public safety, health, development, and budget challenges being especially prominent for residents and their representatives.
Now, one year into his term, McBrayer came by the KTTZ studio to discuss his term so far.
The following transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Brad Burt: Thank you, Mayor for joining us.
Mark McBrayer: Happy to be here.
Brad Burt: Just starting off: one of the first questions I asked you about when we talked before the runoff, the first question was kind of about transparency, and you've talked about transparency. Has there been anything that you have thought where these are areas that we can improve going forward? As far as transparency for the city.
Mark McBrayer: One thing that I've wanted us to work on, and we had it in our budget for this year, but it hasn't really quite developed as quickly as I wanted it to, was to make our website where you go to City of Lubbock, more accessible, more user friendly. To put up front on it, on the first page, those ability for people to get the information that they most want when they go there.
One of my frustrations with a lot of websites, not just the cities, it's hard to navigate them and find what you need. Oftentimes, they're developed by people who have a very fine artistic sense, but they're not really thinking of, ‘Okay, I'm not coming to this website for an aesthetic experience. I'm coming for some information, and I want to be able to find it, you know, easily and quickly and what's most important, and get it out there.’ So I want that to happen, because that's a very convenient way for people to get information from the city.
But always when I'm out, I tell people, I said, you know, ‘You can call me.’ I'll give my cell phone or you can call my assistant. You know, people email me a lot. I even get written letters. You know, I still get written letters. And try to respond to those as much as possible. But I do want people to feel like that their city government is very responsive to them and very transparent with them. That's just so important. I think that is not just Lubbock, that is the nation as a whole. We're frustrated with a government that seems to have become more and more remote from us and attempts to bring it back, more in touch with what just the average person is concerned about, that's important to me.
Read more: June 15 Runoff Election | Candidates for Lubbock Mayor sit down for in-depth interviews
BB: There's been some really long public comment sections in the last year. A lot of people were really upset when the city council time changed to two o'clock because they thought it was interrupting their ability to get to public comment. Do you think that's had an effect on that?
MM: What I say when – and I understand that concern, but – it doesn't matter what time we set it. There's always going to be people who cannot come, no matter when you do it. Now, probably the better thing would be to have a variety of times, and I've thought about that. I haven't done that yet. We used to have them late. The situation with the late hours is then your staff all has to stay, you know, over time, and be there for that in case a question comes up, you know, that we need to look to them for some answers on. Now, that shouldn't be my primary concern, because that whole point of a city council meeting is not for the staff's benefit. It's for the citizens' benefit.
So it's something I might look at, but whatever time we – I could set it at, you know, midnight, and you would think, ‘Well, nobody's working at midnight.’ No, there are nurses that have overnight shifts that might have concerns. There are people who, no matter what time you set it, they can't come. But they can always reach out to us. I mean, that's not the only time you can comment. You can come in and sit down with me in my office, you know, and talk to me and have more than the three minutes. I'll schedule whatever time is needed. So accessibility is there. That's, I think, important for people to understand. I'm open. I'm available whenever they need to talk to me.
BB: One of the biggest turnouts from last year, as far as city council meetings go, was obviously the First Friday Art Trail. That meeting went for… I think that was five plus hours.
MM: That was a double whammy, and it went for a long time. And my goal again as mayor, and it's something I saw when I was on the council a little bit that I didn't particularly like, was: We're there to listen to people and to hear their concerns. We're not there to lecture them or to tell them, you know, your viewpoint is not valid. You don't know what you're talking about. You don't understand, you know, all that we have to deal with. That's not the point of it. It's to listen to them and to listen to them respectfully and patiently and make sure you hear what they're saying. That's the whole point of that.
And so I've tried to strike a different tone in some of those more contentious type of meetings. I mean, people get upset. They may, you know, say things. We need to be prepared to hear, hear them and not react to it. Unless somebody's really just, you know, going off on a particular person in an unfair manner. But I think I've only called somebody down once, you know, on that. But I just say, you know, we gotta have tough skin. And, you know, listen to it.
Read more: ‘A separate issue has been created’: Lubbock's City Council doesn’t reinstate full art trail funding
BB: You talk about public safety. Those [were] two big issues with your State of the City address this year as well. And when we spoke before your win in the runoff election, you said one of your goals was improving Lubbock PD officers’ morale and retention. Do you feel like that's something that you've accomplished or something you're still working on?
MM: Well, it's always something we'll be continuing to work on. But I think the biggest step we made in that direction this past year was to hire our new police chief, Chief Herman, and he's done a great job, I believe, of bringing the morale of our police officers back to where it needs to be and of focusing them on what's really important, what their their job is. They feel supported in doing their job and focused. And you know, these are people who are dedicated to public safety. And I think again, that's the great thing about Lubbock. We're a supportive community of our police officers, our law enforcement. We understand their importance. And it's important for them to feel that they have the support of the community as well. You know, they're not perfect people. They make mistakes. We had the unfortunate event of the officer who wasn't in control of his canine, you know, got out and attacked some people. You know, officers will make mistakes; they're human beings. But generally, they are very focused on wanting to do the job we've hired them to do, which is to protect and serve the public in the best way possible. And the chief's leadership is really important to that. He's done a great job.
Read more: Lubbock PD Chief finalist no stranger to controversy, growing pains
Now we're currently involved in the budgets. You start working on the next year's budget the minute you pass the one you've got for this year. And so we're kind of going through that process right now, and we've been in a process called meet and confer with our police officers and our fire rescue people – something we've never done before. It's not collective bargaining, but it is sitting down with each of these important segments of our public service and saying, ‘Okay, what do you need? What do you believe you need? Salary wise, equipment, wise, training, benefits, promotion, opportunities, hours, etc, etc, etc.’ And then trying to work together with them and within the limits of what we can do as a city council and a budget that we have and expectations of our citizens to achieve an agreement over a three year period. That's what we're looking at, a three year period. So there's some stability to what we're doing, but we've worked out between us. It's not just so much you come to the dais where you have to pass a budget, and everybody's kind of pushing against each other, and we don't have that much time, and some issues get pushed aside, and everything's out in the public. That's not the best way necessarily, to handle the most important part of your budget, which is your public service.
Read more: Mayor McBrayer touts Lubbock’s fast growth and public safety in State of the City Address
So we're trying this. Other cities have done it successfully. I believe it'll be successful for us. We will then come to the council with an agreement for our police officers that has been worked out, an agreement to the council that’s been worked out with our fire, and the council will then vote on it's like a contract for three years. And the council can either accept it and vote for it or vote against it and send it back and say, ‘No, you need to work on it more.’ So we're going to see how that works. It’s most likely going to be a real big pressure on our budget for this year. Because it's already, I mean, public safety is the vast majority of our budget anyway, so we're trying to address it in a way that we keep our police officers. And that's – I don't want to say that's my main concern – that's where I think we have a few more issues than our fire department in terms of retaining the officers and recruiting officers that we need, but I'm focused on both of them. But nevertheless, I think it's going to be a big, big chunk, big increase in our budget, and it's going to be a struggle for the city council then to look at the rest of the budget and to find ways to save money and to carve out things there, to excavate, you know, money out of there, so that when you lay this on top of it, you don't then hit your citizens with a big tax increase, and which I do not want to do.
And that was one of my things I ran on, is, you know, keeping your taxes low. And last year I, you know, I supported a no new revenue rate for the budget. I didn't get my way on that. Again, you know, not everybody on the council agrees with me. But the taxes did not go up much, I think, on average $200,000 house, it only went up about seven bucks in taxes, and then $12 for your water and $12 for your sewer. And so that was a total of about $30 increase on an average $200,000 house, you know, not too bad. I thought we could have done it without raising it at all, but I don't know what we're gonna be able to do this year. It's gonna be a challenge, but I'm gonna keep working to do everything I can to make sure that wherever it turns out, it's as low of a tax increase or no tax increase, if that's possible.
I can't make promises about that this year, and I can't speak for other council people either.
Read more: Lubbock City Council approves budget for the next fiscal year
BB: On that same vein. I mean, the cost of a home, total cost of a home in Lubbock – it's a growing city, that's a challenge for city council – but the cost of owning a home in Lubbock has gone up in the past few years. Is that a concern of yours?
MM: Yes, and that's why I always struggled to – I always work hard to keep taxes as low as possible. Because the burden on the average homeowner, and we say the average homeowner – an average home in Lubbock is 200,000 – well, you understand that that home probably belongs to someone who – a family that – between them maybe makes 60 to $100,000 a year, and maybe they're raising a couple of kids. I think, because it's easy for me, to think of my son and his wife and my two granddaughters, you know, and up until this year, they were both teachers. Now he's gone back to school. He wants to become a nurse, a flight nurse, eventually, and it's his goal. But I look at, you know, what they make, as far as an income and raising ‘em kids and their house, you know, value increased, which means the insurance on that house increase. The cost of raising those my granddaughters has gone up. And I'm just really reluctant as a city then to hit them with a tax increase, if I don't have to do that, if I can find a way not to do that. Especially if their income is not going up and keeping up with inflation.
I mean, if people's incomes are rising and meet or exceed the rate of inflation, well, then, you know, the city's costs go up too. You can try to meet that inflationary cost to your city by raising taxes and still not be putting a bigger burden on the average homeowner. But when wages don't go up as fast as inflation, you know, it's really hard for me then to say, ‘Well, I'm sorry. Inflation's hit us hard. We got to raise your taxes, and you got to take the hit for us, because we haven't worked hard enough, you know, to find a way to keep it from going up.’ We've got to work hard. We got to work harder at that. I think that's an expectation all the way across the government, all levels of government right now. I think we realize that government has gotten too big. City government is very efficient. I don't want to, you know, I'm not trying to throw it under the bus. Because most of what's important to people in their lives, as far as what they expect from government, happens at the city level. You know, your trash pickup, your water, your sewer, your roads, your parks, your police, your fire. All that is the most important things that any government does for you, and that's done by the city. So it's important that we do that right. I just want us to prioritize what's most important and make sure we do it well and not try to do too much and end up not doing any of it that well and meeting people's expectations.
Read more: Lubbock artists use murals to illustrate the meaning of home as housing affordability declines
BB: We're coming up on the end of the legislative session. The biggest issues, I think, that came up that were probably the most impactful for our area, being water and education. How did you feel about what we have seen from the legislation?
MM: Well, you know, we are fortunate to have Senator Charles Perry who is so focused on water for the entire state, and I think that is just critical. It's critical to us here in West Texas. And so we work very well with him, and he's worked very well with us. But I guess one of the things I'm most proud of since I've been mayor is back in January, I signed the contract in which we purchased the V8 Ranch, which will be 85% of the land we need for our Lake 7, which will supply about one-third of our water needs here in Lubbock, as well as being an incredible recreational spot right here in the city limits. It'll be a lake, ultimately, when it's finished. I think the dam will start impounding water in 2032 under our timetable, and when it fills, it will be a lake about two and a half times the size of Buffalo Springs and Lake Ransom Canyon together, and it will be a source of water for Lubbock as well. So it's part of our 100 year water plan, but it's also a real gem for us recreationally right here in the city.
Read more: Gov. Abbott signs ‘generational’ bill dedicating $20B for improvements to statewide water needs
Read more: Lubbock's mayor secures 85% of the land for Lake 7
So I think we're coming out of that whole – the legislature is good for all of Texas. We don't depend on the state legislature. We are taking care of our issues here in Lubbock very well on the water-front. School issues, you know, I try not to get too involved in them, because we got a school board and a school district that deals with that. I have my own thoughts about those issues, but I really don't try to put my thumb on that, because that's not you know what I was elected to do. There have been some other things at the state level, and we're fortunate to have, I mean, great representatives, and we have the Speaker of the House, you know, in Dustin Burrows. In Austin, a lot of times at the legislature down there, they're aiming their guns at Houston or Austin or Dallas – and something that they think has been done there, an overreach by them – but they're using a shotgun instead of a rifle. And it's kind of hitting everybody, including a city like Lubbock that's pretty responsible. And so we've done a great job, I think, of making sure that impetus down there to control cities, have state control over cities greater. Which has been something that's going on for several years now, and parts of it I don't disagree with. I think there is a tendency for cities to say how ‘Well, we stand alone. We can do what we want.’ No, you're a subdivision of a state, and the state is more important than you are. You answer to a higher authority there. So I don't want us to get too big for our britches. On the other hand, you know, I want us to have freedom to do what is necessary to do, to meet the needs of our citizens. And I think the balance has been struck pretty well this session. We're coming out of it pretty well, I think at this point.
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A lot of things that are important to us have been passed, and things that were important just because they weren't that good have not been passed. A couple I can talk about. One is tiny lots, you know. And a big push, strangely, a strange conglomeration of very conservative and very liberal people came together on tiny lots. It was one of the weirdest little alignments of stars I've ever seen. Where a city cannot have a requirement on a lot size that – it was bigger, I think of when the way it was proposed is about 1400 square feet. Think the way it's coming out is about 3000 square feet, which we don't really have that much of a problem with. The problem with the 1400 in a city like Lubbock, you'd end up in a lot with a 20 foot front on it, which, my pickup truck is 20 feet long, you know. So where are you going to park the cars that you have, that then the police or the fire have access? How are you going to run the utilities to it and the sewer and all that? It was going to cause all kinds of problems. The impetus was affordable housing, but I think they went too far on that. And I think the way it's going to come out is okay.
Frat house bill – we call it the frat house bill – was going to almost say you couldn't limit almost the number of people who could live in a house in cities with universities. I live in a neighborhood where that can be a real issue. And the way it was, in an average like three bedroom house, you can have eight people living in there, and the city couldn't do anything about it, and they could have 10 people living in it. And the enforcement mechanism, and it says the city can't do anything to really enforce it, because you can't go in and look at the lease or anything else and try to figure out how many people are actually living there. So there was no way to even enforce, you know, an eight person limit on it. And that kind of got changed. Tepper was really important on that and getting that taken care of. Just a couple other things like that that were important to us. Cybersecurity for the city passed, got through. Issue that was important to us. I think we're coming out of this legislature and pretty good. And it's great that we have who we have down there representing us. Lubbock is fortunate to have who we have in Austin.
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BB: One of the things that you have expressed concern about before, when we were talking about the student housing that was coming in was – and one of the bills that I believe it ended up passing – was the minimum protest requirement. Just kind of expanding what you need to get the super majority to approve zoning changes. How do you feel?
Because, I mean, when you started running for mayor, you were one of the only ones who voted against the South Overton project. But then you kind of expressed some concern when the 19th Street project came up, but you still voted. You still voted in favor. Does it make you concerned about what our citizens may have to deal with in protesting these changes?
MM: Yeah, it may make it more difficult. And that was kind of one of the reasons why I voted the way I did on the 19th Street one. I could see the handwriting on the wall: the legislature was probably going to change the rules and make it more difficult for us to avoid some of these big projects. And so we had a developer who wanted to develop a project there that really in so many ways, he met with the community. He addressed their concerns as better than anybody I've ever seen, and we've had several people come in to do this. He was so responsive to that my thought at the end of the day was: well, if we say no to him, and then the law changes, and the next guy comes along, he's just going to build whatever he wants to build there, and you say, ‘I don't care what the neighborhood thinks. I'm in this to build the thing that's most profitable to me, and I'm going to do it because I got the right to do it.’ When we had a guy willing to work with us and to make changes, to do setbacks, to add 100 [parking spaces]. I mean, I voted absent, not in absentia, I guess not in absentia. I abstained – yeah, I'm trying to think of the right word, I need that dictionary over there – from the vote. And then talked to him.
Read more: Texas lawmakers finalize bill limiting property owners' right to protest new homes nearby
And he added a hundred more parking spaces to it. Which was my biggest concern about it, was the number of parking spaces. Not the height of it so much. He was capping it at 45 feet – I mean, 65 feet – that wasn't that bad, but he had a setback at the 45 foot level, which I thought was good. But the parking was the most important issue for me, and he addressed that. And I thought, you know, ‘We need to say yes to this.’ Because if we don't, you know the next thing that comes along, because sooner or later, there's going to be student housing there. That was inevitable. So I thought that was the best way to do it. And again, you have to be a little bit flexible and to try to get the, at the end of the day, the best results you can. That's what politics is, is getting the best possible result.
BB: You've had these discussions both on the South Overton and the Godbold site and all these other things. In this year, we've talked about the UDC and some changes that you've considered for what would be beneficial to the city, like parking rules and everything. Are there changes that you're considering now for the UDC in that?
MM: I've got a proposal which will come up – again, I don't know whether it will get the support it needs – that would – and again, a lot of it has to do with whether the state even preempts what I am trying to do. What we have is what they call a high-density multi-use building, a zoning for high-density multi-use, which means use some mix of retail and residential. And we have several different districts in Lubbock in which you can have these high-density, multi-use facilities. The thing that I thought was strange about that was the rules and restrictions for, like the 19th Street location where you can do this, are much more lenient than the ones for even like downtown. In terms of height, you can only build up to like 45 feet downtown, but you could build the 75 feet on 19th Street. And I thought, ‘Well, why?’ That doesn't make any sense to me. And so my concern was, when you build something like this, high-density, multi-use right next to a residential neighborhood, you need to consider the needs of that residential neighborhood as well.
And so what I'm going to propose is a height limitation with setbacks, so that you don't have this gigantic wall blocking all the sun, increased parking beyond what is currently in the UDC. You end up with a facility pretty much like what is going to be built there as it is, with a few different changes. Because I felt like he, again, he did a good job of trying to address all the concerns. And I want to make sure that the fight is not, you know, when someone comes in and wants the zoning, the zoning is already set to where it takes into consideration all these issues. And then you don't say, ‘Well, we're going to approve the zoning, but developer, can you do all these things?’ You know, have the discussion after. That was a difficult discussion to have. I'd rather all those issues be addressed in the zoning itself, rather than trying to address them, you know, as you’re trying to approve the zoning.
BB: What is the process like when you're dealing with both county and state level, levels of government? Because, I mean, we've had different issues that involve the county, like the Expo Center or the building of Loop 88 and stuff like that. What has been your experience working with other levels of government and getting these things done?
MM: We're appreciative of TxDOT and building Loop 88 and if you've gone out there, my gosh, the thing is amazing, and progress is really coming along nicely on it. And it just amazes me. I grew up – I remember as a kid when they opened Loop 289 and it was on the total outskirts of town. And two of my friends and I got on our bikes that one morning, Saturday morning, and we rode all the way around the city on Loop 289. That was our goal, and we accomplished it. And now you know the new loop, and Loop 289 I think, ran along 70th Street, basically on the south side of town. And Loop 88 is out on 130th, 140th something like that, you know, that's another 70 blocks out. And it's hard to believe that Lubbock has grown like that. Lubbock is a very much a growing city. It will continue to be a growing city, largely because we have a university here. We have several universities here. We have water for our future. We are just a great place. We have a good medical, educational, agricultural, commerce, banking, those are the four legs kind of that our city stands on. Not any one thing, and so we've got a great future here in Lubbock, and we're prepared to meet that future. The state's worked with us on that. They're paving 19th Street, which is a real frustration for a lot of people, but once it's done, it's going to be beautiful. And they will turn it over to the city, and we'll maintain it after that. But that is a state project, so. And that comes sometimes frustrating, because people think we're the ones, you know, making it hard for them to have a business, keep it open, but that's really a state project.
Expo Center is something I continue to talk about because it's important to me. The citizens voted, you know, six years ago for a multi-purpose arena, after we tore down our Coliseum. They voted almost two to one for it, and six years later, we don't have it. And so my concern was, I'm very supportive of the Expo Center. I want people to understand that, first of all, because the citizens voted for it, they want it, I'm trying to deliver it. And my concern is always what's best for the citizens and taxpayers of Lubbock. Now that's a county project. It's not a city project. So I don't control it. The county controls it. But my thought, and what I think they need to consider, is, where does this multi-purpose arena need to be that it will have the greatest impact for the citizens and taxpayers of Lubbock in terms of being truly a multi-use, a multi-purpose arena: for concerts, for sporting events, for ag events and rodeos. And where does it need to be that it will bring in the most people to Lubbock? Because the whole point of these is to draw in folks from out of town to our civic center for conventions, for concerts, and they come into town and they spend their money, and they stay in our hotels, and that tax income to the city helps to offset the burden on our residents, for us when we come to impose a property tax on them.
Outside, money is always something you want coming into your city. And so where are you going to put this that will be full more days of the year, bring in more people, and will also develop more around it. You know, when you develop around an entity, private property, the property values go up. Where are more people going to build high quality hotels, restaurants, bars, entertainment venues? Where's housing going to be built? You know, on vacant land downtown, where these things can be built around our Civic Center, our convention center, and arena, that will increase property tax there. Which again, relieves the burden on homeowners, and not just for city residents, but for county. The county needs tax money, too. You know, they have their own struggles with raising taxes. And I think they need to be very concerned about, not about the center itself – I support the expo – but where does it need to be located to where it'll have the biggest benefit to the citizens in terms of entertainment and activities and bringing in increased sales tax income and property tax to offset the burden to fill the coffers so you don't have to go deeper into the homeowner's pocket to support your budget. And I think downtown is the logical, obvious answer to that and I continue to express that opinion. We'll see, you know, I'll be supportive of it wherever it is, because I think we need it. Citizens voted for it, you know?
Read more: Local leaders weigh options for the future of the Lubbock County Expo Center
But one thing we did get out of our – we're going forward with a convention project ourselves, moving forward on that. And one of the bills we had down in Austin that will allow us to have a source of income we can bond off for updating and expanding our Civic Center. So part of my plan is not just the arena, which the county citizens voted on, but expanding our Civic Center's convention exhibit hall, because we have a 40,000 square foot exhibit hall, and we really need about an 80 to 100,000 square foot exhibit hall, because we lose a lot of opportunities from people because we don't have a big enough exhibit hall. And so that's one thing I think we're going to be looking very seriously at doing, and we do have some legislation coming out of this session that's going to help us be able to do that.
BB: I mean, my concern, and I think this is probably a concern for other people, is parking already can become an issue, especially on like First Friday and Buddy Holly's got a show going on or something, and that whole lot just gets full of cars. Is the parking a consideration when you think about this?
MM: Yeah, obviously, if we do something like this, your parking will be brought into the whole equation. And of course, we, the city owns quite a bit of land downtown, just not just at the Civic Center, property. We own quite a bit as well where we can build parking. We can build multi-level parking garages. Conventions don't really – [it’s] surprising – you go to a lot of conventions, and there's very little parking around huge convention centers Austin and Houston and all that. You don't find a whole lot of parking around it, but for other kinds of entertainment, Buddy Holly Hall or, you know, a concert or a rodeo or something like that, you do. So we would address the parking issue, no doubt. We've got property. The city owns a lot of property downtown that we can convert to parking or other venues.
That's one of the questions: People say, ‘Well, you can't do a lot of the related kind of facilities you need for ag events downtown that you would have out on North University where they're thinking about building it.’ And I’m going, well, the city and the county own a lot of property downtown. We would find places to put those facilities if you get the money to build them. At the moment, they don't have the money to build what they really want to build out there. I think it's more likely they will get the money to build what they want to build if they do it downtown. People are more interested in it and people are capable of giving the money. And I know that from experience. You know people who will give to a project downtown that won't give to a project out there. So, that's why I think it's important.
BB: As we keep going into the future that we're dealing with in Lubbock, one of the things that continues to be an issue is the dog problem. You said there was some expectation out of the legislature that didn't quite make it. What are your plans?
MM: Again, I consider the dog issue part of the public safety, which is the primary obligation of a city, and you don't have to have dogs actually attacking people, although we've had that in our city. Or killing people, we've had that in our city. But just the fear people have and not wanting to go out and walk around their block, walking around the park because of fear of loose dogs, you know, running up to them. I've experienced that myself.
That's a public safety issue, and we have to address it within the limits that the state allows us to address, because dogs are considered private property in Texas, and people have property rights. The government can't just take your property away from you without providing you with due process. It's a lengthy process. It's a legal process. And so we're limited in how we can address the issue, and we have to follow all the laws in doing that. And so that handicaps us in some ways, to address it the way we might want to. But, you know, we're committed to finding a solution to it. You know, part of it is our spaying and neutering program, which people need to understand we have available to them to spay and neuter animals, which helps control the population, the number of animals. Then we have a program, whereas if your problems with your fence and your dogs are escaping, we can help you repair that fence so the dog doesn't get out. We have money available to help you, if you can't afford that, to help you fix that fence so the dog will stay, not be able to get out.
Of course, our facility can hold, I think, something shy of 400 dogs, and it's almost full. And we try to adopt out as many as we can. We send a lot out of states, out of state to other states, like, I think, Idaho and Montana. And we're always looking for ways to address the problem without having to build a bigger facility or start euthanizing a lot more animals than we do, which we don't currently do a whole lot of. You know and I love animals, but I don't like to see animals caged for years on end. You know, that's not an animal's quality of life either. So, you know, I'm not someone who's opposed to euthanasia, because sometimes I think that's the kindest thing you can do to an animal. You know, people get very emotional about animals. But animals are different from people. And I don't think they were meant to live in a cage for years on end. So anyway, we'll continue to try to address it as best we can. But it's tough. It is very tough for us.
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BB: Something that came up at the beginning of the year that kind of got lost in the conversation around the measles outbreak and everything was the public health report came out in January, described some issues that the city's been dealing with. Largely sexually transmitted diseases and substance abuse with alcohol leading to drunk driving and crashes, etc.
The report recommended a media campaign or something about drunk driving to kind of inform people on that. Do you think that that would be an effective response to these issues?
MM: I think that is something the city has an interest in doing. I mean, again, that's part of our public safety, and it's part of what our police try to control, and it's a serious problem, anywhere. Drunk driving is a serious problem.
And so there are parts about that public health, you know, information program that we had where our health department was going out and collecting information from other health providers in the community, so they're sort of shepherding a process of gathering information that didn't necessarily mean that the city was going to be addressing all these problems because – and that was concern of Councilman Glasheen is – if this becomes a program in which the city then starts having to address all these issues as a city. That's A, not our role. B, we don't have the money to do it. But to the extent that what we're just doing is gathering information and other private health providers, hospitals and people like that, are addressing it in conjunction with the city, doing what the city can do, I didn't have, necessarily, a problem with that aspect of it. But, you know, mission creep in any government, any bureaucracy, the way you sense that you're doing your job and really successful is you have more employees and a bigger portfolio. I mean, that's just natural. It's human nature. I don't criticize them. They're not bad people. Because of that, that's just, you know, what makes you feel like I'm doing my job. That's not my job. My job is to keep control on that, you know, make sure that what we're doing doesn't exceed the bounds of what we are supposed to be doing and what the citizens expect us to be doing, and what we need to be paying to do.
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And again, going back to my first principle: is there's only a limited number of things that we need to be doing, and we need to do those really well. And to the extent we extend what we do way out further beyond that in your admission creep, usually it means either you're going to your citizens for a whole lot more money, or you're not doing what you're doing very well with the same amount of money. I would rather focus on what we need to be doing our priorities and do them well and avoid mission creep wherever possible. And so that's a balance you have to figure out how to strike. And different council people and me will maybe not always agree where that balance needs to be hit, but that's what we're there to try to do.
BB: But I mean, you, like you said, these things play a role, kind of in that public safety conversation that is just one of the primary goals of the cities. Does the city lend a role when it comes to something like drunk driving, which is just so very clearly, directly tied to public safety?
MM: Yes, the more clearly it's tied to public safety and is a function of the government. Which preventative you know, to keep people from going out and driving while they're drunk is your goal. Your police are there to either impose a presence at likely spots where that's to happen, to keep people from doing that, or to arrest people when they actually do that. So that's the main role the city has in drunk driving is a presence and an enforcement matter.
You wonder sometimes, how much education will prevent somebody from getting in their car when they're buzzed and going off and driving anyway. I don't know whether you can educate them enough out of that, out of stupidity and bad decision making. But I don't think it's… I would rather put my dollars in taking that driver off the street and hitting them with a fine. That makes them think seriously about doing that again. I just think that's the better expenditure of your money, frankly.
BB: As we're getting into the summer now, we're seeing some of these hot days. We've still had some people talking about the splash pads versus the pools. Is the city thinking about approaching pools again? Or is that still a topic of y'all consideration?
MM: I don't know when we will approach the issue of pools again. The splash pads, of course, are open, and people are out there taking advantage of them, having a great time with them. I was, yesterday, at Sun N' Fun, the YWCA runs the Sun N' Fun. Which is a great place to go, and you have memberships there, you can join, and they teach your kids how to swim, and it's wonderful. The city had real issues with our pools. We had not taken care of them. They'd fallen into disrepair, and the money it was going to cost to repair them, and then having no guarantees that it would even solve the problem, that was just something we couldn't justify. Plus, I think people who are like me and you have nostalgia for the days, well, I mean, I spent almost every day at Clapp Pool as a kid. I mean, 25 cents, that's what you paid to get in. Got a basket, you put stuff in it, and got your little key that you wore on your bathing suit, went and swam.
BB: It's a great time.
MM: Yeah, it was. But, yeah, that's just not the situation we have now, and we have real problems at our pools. We were having difficulty finding lifeguards who wanted to work there because the kids were not respectful of the lifeguards. It made their job much more difficult. You know, a lifeguard bears a lot of responsibility, and people were saying, ‘I want to do it anymore.’ Well, you can't have a pool open without lifeguards. And you can't open a pool that the water leaks out of, you know, constantly. So we just were faced with a tough decision, if we ever have a pool in Lubbock again, an aquatic facility, and people say, ‘Well, you know, town like Littlefield, it has a pool. Brownfield has a pool. Childress has a pool. Why don't we have a pool?’ Those are small towns, you know, and anybody can get on their bike and ride to their pool in the matter of minutes. Lubbock is huge. You can't have one pool that serves all your citizens. It's going to be miles and miles and miles away from a lot of them. So we had four pools at one point, but no pools really in South Lubbock at all. And we just, we couldn't figure out how to do that in a way that was justifiable.
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It may come back at a point in time. And we have a number of private individuals who are looking at different kinds of sporting facilities for our kids here. You know, private money may help us do that in the future, and I'm always open to working with private entities to help us provide a better quality of life for Lubbock. At some point, you know, you may have to come back to your citizens and just put a quality of life bond before them and see if they want it. You know, I don't know whether they will or won't. That's up to them to decide. It's not us to the council to decide if they won't spend that money. But I really am eager to talk to private entities who want to help us improve Lubbock. I mean, Lubbock is a great place. If you live here and you're invested here. I mean, I watch all the people who make all these big donations to Tech, and I appreciate everything that they do. Tech is wonderful. I'll say, you know, invest in your city too. We will work with you, but this is where you live, and let's make this community the best community we can for all our citizens. And I think the best way to do that is public, private partnerships, wherever we can do that, and that's probably – for lifestyle, things and quality of life – that's probably the best way to do it.
BB: I was thinking about that during the Godeke Library conversation when Dr. Wilson said that Godeke is the only library in that corner of the city. And I just, I think people kind of lose track of that.
MM: And, yeah, Godeke is on Frankford at about 55th Street, and Lubbock now goes out to 140th street. So you know the road bonds, people say, ‘Well, why are you spending all that money in South Lubbock?’ Because that's where we've grown. That's where we need roads. Central Lubbock, North Lubbock, East Lubbock: they have different needs. They may need some streets paved and taken care of and that comes out of our regular budget, not out of our bond, usually. So yes, we address that through our general funding every year, through our budget and want to address that.
But I don't need a – you know, I represented District 3 – we don't need new roads. We've got roads all through District 3. We need to maintain what we've got. So we want to spend the money – different districts have different needs. People say ‘We want to treat all districts the same.’ Well, we want to treat them the same in that they all have their needs addressed by the city equally. You know, they're given equal consideration, but they don't all have the same needs. And so we've got to focus on what is the need of you know, District 1 versus District 4 versus District 5. You know, what do you need there and try to address that appropriately.
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BB: You heard from residents of District 2 and at least one business owner talking about those roads that need some work on. Is that something that you're thinking about as you go forward?
MM: Yes. And of course, you talk to the engineering department, traffic or out road people and say, ‘Okay, when is this part of our city scheduled for maintenance?’ You know, because we divide the city up into sections and resurface the roads and rework the roads in a section at a time. And we, last year, I think our budget was $14 and a half million for working on roads, not building roads, but maintaining roads. And we've been increasing that at about a million dollars a year. We want to get it up to eventually about $20 million and so, I made a note, you know, to figure out: when are we going to be talking about – he was talking about MLK and 50th Street at that intersection, and different issues there. So that's a heavily traveled road right there with a lot of truck traffic and everything. If you've ever been out in that part of Lubbock and driven along it, there's a lot of businesses along there with heavy truck traffic, and so it gets a lot of use and does need to be maintained.
BB: One of the issues that came up with North and East Lubbock last year was the amortization conversation. The committee came back, and the response from the committee was that the state has already kind of set up methods for taking action in the amortization conversation. Has anything been done about some of the people's concerns?
MM: You know, that was just an issue that the council generally had no real appetite for amortization. Generally, the people on our council are very much protective of private property. The state allows for amortization, but I think most people on the council felt like it was something we weren't prepared to do, at least not at this time in Lubbock. I understand the concern about vacant property, property that hasn't been used, about possibly downzoning property, which is maybe the better thing. And, you know, it's a good question. I know we are in process of looking at it, and it's a pretty lengthy process to figure out the downzoning issue, but I know our city is working on that. A map, you know, to try to figure out where that can be done. There's not a quick fix for it. That's what frustrates a lot of people, a lot of things, there aren’t quick fixes for. But I don't see amortization as being something that this council is likely to be supportive of any time.
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BB: Well, and we're coming ahead, coming up in July, actually got a conversation on the Capital Improvement Plan and amendments for impact fees. What can people expect out of that conversation?
MM: Well, I don't want to, you know, foreclose the conversation, because that will be addressed, and different people with different opinions on that will come before the council and address it. I've said that I was certainly open to looking at it. And you know the state allows you to impose impact fees on roads and other infrastructure, water and utilities, I believe, are the ones in which you can do that on. And Lubbock has chosen only to do it on roads. And the state allows you to do up to a 50 cent or 50% limit, and we only do it at the 25% limit. So we only do half of what we could do, and only a third of, I guess, a third of what we could do, and only half of what we do do. So I think the burden is not that high in Lubbock. I don't know that there's an appetite for increasing that: bringing in these other two buckets of money, or increasing the one that we already have. Of course, the concern of the people is with inflation and all that the amount they have to pay has gone up, even if we keep it at 25%.
So I don't want to foreclose that conversation. I know that people would come in addressing us on that issue and we will make a decision on that. I don't think there's a real appetite to change, you know, I don't know there's an appetite to reduce it or do away with it, but I don't think there's also much of an appetite – just my sense to – increase that, but we'll see.
BB: Going forward. What are you excited about for the City of Lubbock?
MM: Well, July 4, we're going to have a parade. This year we were able to keep that, and I appreciate all the people who stepped forward with money and contribution and volunteers to bring that off. So we're going to have a great Fourth of July. And I'm really looking forward to next year, because it's the 250th birthday of our country and I'm hoping to have a real blowout next year, the best July the Fourth parade we've ever had. So I'm glad we're still having that. Of course, looking forward to getting the meet-and-confer contracts out, so that we start when we enter into our budgets season to see where we're going to be on that. And I want to continue to work, look forward to working on expanding our exhibit hall at our convention center downtown. And maybe, you know, bring in the other aspect, the multi-purpose arena downtown. But regardless, you know, I've got efforts for downtown development that are important to me. And the street bonds continue to go forward – road bonds, I should say, rather than streets. Roads being built, Broadway being updated.
I think Lubbock is posed for a really, really positive future. We now, we're back being the 10th largest city in Texas. We dropped down to 11, really disappointed me, but we were back up to 10 now. Number 10. And Lubbock, it grows steadily at about one and a half percent per year, very steady growth, which is nice. It's steady and stable; we can work with that. And I think it's going to continue. And because we're prepared for that future, in terms of water and everything else, and people are looking at Lubbock as a great alternative because of, again, our universities, our educated workforce, our low cost of living, it's appealing.
I don't know how many people I talk to, sit beside on a plane and start talking to them, and they go, we're here in like a couple when I was flying back from Austin, they moved their business here from Denver. They had business here, but they lived in Denver, and they said, ‘We just said, we kept coming here, you know, to look after our business.’ They said, ‘This is a great place to live. Why don't we just move here?’ And they did, but businesses are looking at Lubbock because of what we have here, what we can offer them is a very attractive place. And again, when we can bring in a business who will provide good paying jobs to Lubbock and they will build their facilities here, that adds to our tax base that again, helps our city to pay for its growth without digging deeper into the homeowners pockets, which is always top of my mind.
BB: Thank you very much for coming in and doing this. It was an excellent conversation. I really appreciate that.
MM: Thank you. You asked great questions. Thank you too.
Transcript provided by KTTZ.