Three candidates are running to represent the Central Lubbock District 3 on the city council, after outgoing councilmember David Glasheen announced in December 2025 that he would not be seeking reelection.
The third candidate to join the race to replace Glasheen was Gil Caley, PFLAG Lubbock's interim president and lead editor for The Catalyst Media. Caley said he decided to run after feeling dissatisfied with decisions made in Glasheen's city council term. Caley sat down with KTTZ to talk about his campaign and the issues he's focused on for District 3.
Election Day for Lubbock's 2026 municipal election is May 2 and early voting runs April 20-28. You can find more information and polling locations here.
The following interview has been edited lightly for clarity.
Brad Burt: Gil, thank you very much for joining us.
Gil Caley: Absolutely. Thank you very much for having me.
Brad Burt: For starters, tell our listeners a little bit about yourself.
Gil Caley: A little bit about myself is, I've lived in Lubbock for about 10 years. I've lived in District 3 for about two or three now. And I was originally from Dallas-Fort Worth, but I have a little bit of family background here in West Texas. So my grandmother was originally from Petersburg, and my grandfather worked for a little bit in Snyder, before he went to college. They met at Texas Tech in the 50s, and they got married and had my dad, and the rest is history.
BB: That's great. What motivated you to run for District 3?
GC: What motivated me to run for District 3 was just a lot of the things that were going on, especially in Glasheen, the heat of his term: the impact fees, getting those taken off, as well as just there was that whole drama with First Friday a couple years back, if you remember, with First Friday Art Trail and LHUCA and just that whole circus over the state drag ban, it just really interfered with the stuff that people really like and enjoy about Lubbock. And it felt like the citizens didn't really have a whole lot of say in that and one of the reasons why I wanted to run for office was because I wanted to be somebody that people felt like they could talk to and actually would listen to them.
BB: You brought up a couple of the issues that have been real mainstream for a lot of people in Lubbock. But what are some of the issues that you've heard from voters in that district?
GC: Some of the things that I've heard more directly about, especially from our little meet and greet that we had a couple of weeks ago, people were talking about the stray animals was a big thing, and also, homelessness has been a more pressing issue, especially as of late. I know that some of the homeless encampments, especially on the east side, have been growing, and as more and more homeless people have entered the city. It's also spread out through the rest of our district, and so people are really concerned about how that's going to shape up, especially in a city like Lubbock that is growing and on the cusp of becoming a bigger city.
BB: What are some ways that you have heard or thought to address homelessness in Lubbock?
GC: So, you know, I'm a big fan of nonprofits, like Open Door and spaces that take that housing first approach and do whatever they can to help get people off the streets and into a better financial situation where they have some set of stability that they can use to build their life on.
But, I think from the city side of things, one of the things that we can do is really focus on addressing the housing crisis, which is, you know, affordability is one big problem that we have here in the city. I mean, we're building a lot of housing, but much of it is to the south and to the west, which is… homeless people cannot afford a mortgage. They probably don't even have the credit to secure a mortgage. I think the city's made some strides, like we're building some better housing, like in downtown, especially next to Pickering Park. I'm really pleased by how that's going.
But I think that we can harness some of the new things that have passed through this Texas Legislature, like they've approved the ability for cities and local governments to actually take advantage of mixed-use zoning. And I would like to see more of that transitional-type zoning take place here in Lubbock. Not necessarily going straight to the ugly, five-on-ones – if you know what those types of buildings are – where it's like four layers of apartments, and then the first layer is business. I don't want to jump straight to that. But just building more apartments, especially like in our district, where we have a lot of single-family housing, a lot of it maybe not necessarily up to code, or abandoned properties. There's a lot of room for us to look at what already exists and renovate some of that into apartments or town homes, so that way we can increase the supply of housing more towards the center part of the city, where it's a little bit more affordable.
BB: You talked about the growth that Lubbock has seen in sort of the southern and western parts of the city. District 3, obviously, is the very center. So people wonder about development in that district, and one of the big things that we've seen was actually the student housing that is currently under construction on 19th Street that saw a lot of pushback from people in that district. Did you agree with the pushback that was presented on that housing and how would you present these to people in the district in a way that would be supported?
GC: I've had a little bit of mixed feelings about the subject myself, because I know the situation with housing at Texas Tech. I know that students are really hurting for places to live in Lubbock these days. There's not enough room on campus to house all the first-year and incoming students, and they're trying to increase the supply of student housing that's accessible to them, so that it's not burdening Texas Tech as much.
I definitely feel like student housing, though, is a very different situation from other types of apartments. You know, we're stuffing, like, four students into one four-bedroom apartment, but with a shared common area and a kitchen. And it doesn't necessarily mean good things for Tech Terrace or where we're trying to keep more of a very specific vibe, and we're trying to cater to a very specific campus-based community, especially the faculty and staff. If students start having student housing in Tech Terrace, what happens to the faculty and staff? Where do they have to live? Where do they move to? I welcome more of that multi-family, multi-person dwelling stuff being built near campus. Because I think, like I said, it does good things for the supply of housing and the options that are available to people. I just think, maybe we might pick a different neighborhood. Maybe somewhere else.
I know one of the concerns that has been brought up to me, especially at that meet and greet, was the safety for pedestrians crossing 19th Street. There's not really a whole lot in terms of traffic calming measures in that area to where people will really feel safe crossing, like six lanes of highway traffic, basically, to get to and from campus. I mean, most of the time when people go to and from Tech Terrace, it's by bike, because just walking is not really that safe.
Really, I would like to see more construction, not necessarily right there in Tech Terrace, but maybe more so to the southeast, like in the Heart of Lubbock. I know we have a lot of stuff, like in this corner of the woods where, you know, there's houses that are abandoned, just kind of sitting there. And this neighborhood has its own set of problems. I know that for sure, but I'll leave this alone; I know this is somebody else's territory I'm talking about here.
But you know, where can we work with folks on this side of the city to kind of resolve both the issue of the lack of supply for the students, but also doing it in a way that respects the local culture, takes care of what people's needs are from the faculty-staff and also from the regular citizens of Lubbock, the people who are born and raised here? That way, it doesn't feel like too much of a shock all at once.
BB: You talked about the pedestrian safety concern that some people have mentioned, and District 3 in particular has not just parts of Texas Tech, but lots of schools and parks in this district of the city, and we have seen, even recently, issues with pedestrians getting hit. As a city council member, would this be something that you would address?
GC: Oh, 100%. I mean, like I said, I mentioned traffic-calming measures before. You know, building in medians wherever we can to reduce the likelihood that somebody's going to get hit by a car, also increase safe areas for pedestrians to be. I know that one thing that was brought up was, I had a voter come to me at the meet-and-greet before, she wanted to talk about building an overpass going from the Tech Terrace side to the University side. And she was referencing, specifically, the other one that we have crossing the Marsha Sharp that a lot of students use, especially people who bike to and from campus from North Lubbock. Introducing something like that onto 19th Street, so that there's another way for people to go that isn't like crossing seven lanes of traffic. So those are just a couple of the things that I'm looking at as far as making it a little bit safer for pedestrians.
I know bike lanes is another thing that I would like to see a little bit more of, especially in that neighborhood, since a lot of the people in Tech Terrace and in the adjacent neighborhoods use bikes to get to and from work, school, etc. So anything that I can do to make it a little bit easier for the pedestrians and for the bikers, without necessarily being as much of a burden on the people who are driving still, because I know we're also a pretty deep car culture city too.
BB: One of the issues you talked about was also the stray animals and the overpopulated shelter that Lubbock is dealing with. How would you go about supporting Lubbock Animal Services and addressing some of the stray animal issues?
GC: That's been a consistent issue that has come up for me, pretty much as long as I've lived in Lubbock. I think it's been a topic for mayoral and city council races since like 2016-2017. It's consistently come up as a problem, and everybody runs on it, but then when they get into office, not a lot really moves on that front. I would definitely say working with the city manager to figure out an Animal Services budget, and look at maybe building another facility for Animal Services, because what we have right now is not enough to handle the amount of animals that there are in Lubbock.
I'm from Watauga, Texas, which is like a town of maybe like 80,000 people tops, and we have at least two or three different animal services places where you can drop off stray animals. We have a better staffing as far as people that can actually drive around and pick up animals that are strays. So just doing more stuff like that, increasing what we have. For a city of like 200,000, it's a shame that we only have one, and it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, especially with the number of animals that are roaming around out there. It just makes me think of when I was visiting one of my H&R Block offices a couple weeks ago, I got chased down by two big dogs, and they were chasing after an Atmos Energy truck at the same time. So it's like we really have to do something about this. It's everywhere
BB: You talked about this being something that needs to be an important part of the budget. All three candidates that are running for District 3 right now would be new introductions to city council, which are coming on right as the city council will be preparing to enter the budget discussions, which is a major part of the city council's role. Have you thought about, were you to be elected, what would be some of the items that you would present with your budget proposal?
GC: There's a couple of things that really come to mind. And really so my concern about budget is really just protecting certain areas from cuts. Like I would really like to protect the library budget and protect the health services budget, because I think those two departments just provide so much in value to the city overall, that I really would not like to reduce their budgets in any way, because they're already very short-staffed at the health department and at the libraries.
But the other thing I thought of with respect to the budget is, of course, like I said, talking to the city manager about coming up with a budget proposal for increasing the Animal Services budget. I mean, we are kind of under-budgeted in a lot of different areas.
The major problem that we have with our budget is that we have like a multi-million dollar shortfall. And I would say that's probably priority number one is figuring out how we're going to address our deficit as a city, with respect to our revenue and our expenses. I would address that first before I get to any of the other stuff, but I would like to amend that deficit and fix it without having to take away from the things that people rely on.
BB: But I mean, as you talked about, like affordability already is a major issue for the city. How do we go about amending that deficit issue without increasing the cost for taxpayers?
GC: I mean, that's kind of a tricky thing in general. I mean, when it comes to taxes at the municipal level, we can't really raise taxes. We can't raise taxes without it necessarily going to a referendum and having to be like a vote with the people who live in Lubbock. So, I mean, overall, I like things like impact fees. I feel like we lost out a lot when we took that away, even if it doesn't contribute a lot to the revenue, it alleviates some of the cost, especially as far as the city building new infrastructure out to the south and west side, where we're annexing a lot of land. I like measures like that. Anything that we can do to shift some of that burden away from the average Lubbock taxpayer, and put it more so on the people who want to develop here. I'm fully in favor.
BB: David Glasheen, the current representative for District 3, has raised a lot of concerns when it comes to the scope of Lubbock's public health services as sort of a policy. What do you see as the function of Lubbock's Public Health Department, and what is your idea of the value of this service?
GC: The thing about health in any municipality is that the upfront benefit is not always obvious to people. But health departments do an incredible amount of work as far as managing infectious disease, which – if people have to take off for work and stuff like that, that can really hurt the city's economy, right? And so, it's sort of like a very indirect benefit that we get from our health department.
But I think they do a lot of important stuff, like around, both dealing with regular infectious diseases, like the flu, Covid, all of that, but also providing testing for things like STDs, whatever kind of issue is very common among the population. I mean, it's always better for our city to have as many healthy people as possible, right? That's our supply of people who can work and make money, and then the money they're making, they're putting it back into the local economy. So we could probably make it without a health department, but it would do a lot of damage in the long term, just not a lot of damage that is immediately visible. If people get sick and they're no longer able to work, that’s more and more folks that are going to be reliant on government assistance. And can Lubbock really afford to support all those people long term if we have more and more folks that are disabled? Probably not.
BB: That’s a valid question. So politics at the state and national level has become increasingly divisive, and continues to move in that direction, but the city council is a non-partisan position. What is it like to set aside your personal politics to ensure you're reaching all of the residents in this district?
GC: It's honestly not too difficult at the municipal level, because a lot of it is very kitchen table and very close to what people are just experiencing on the ground. So it really isn't that much of an effort to put aside my personal politics, because my personal politics are just: I like to listen to what people's actual lived experiences are and think about, how can I synthesize all of these diverse groups of people and their individual interests together to do what provides the best common good? For me, I used to always describe myself as an independent. I don't really think of myself as being like a member of any particular political party. You know, I really just want to see people in District 3 taken care of, and that's the most important thing.
BB: Working on the city council requires working with other council members and city staff, but also listening to residents, which – like you say – it doesn't matter what party you support at that level. But it will require listening to people that you disagree with. Could you give an example of a time that you may have changed your mind or reconsidered something because of a person that you listen to?
GC: Oh, my God, I can think of so many, but I can't isolate it to any specific one. I mean, I've changed my mind about all kinds of things from like high school till now. I used to always think of myself as a very staunchly free-market person, and I just used to think that the government should just keep its hands off. But after seeing what happens in some countries like the Philippines, where the government is very hands-off, it doesn't really work out so well for a lot of people.
And it wasn't really the result of any interaction with one specific person, but more so just going to the place and meeting my family members and seeing people in that area like what, what their struggles and their day-to-day dealings are. And I mean, the government will spend money to try and do things that help people. But like, just recently, the Filipino government spent trillions and trillions of pesos, which is like billions of U.S. dollars, on what were supposed to be flood control projects and all of that ended up getting pocketed by the people that were supposed to develop that infrastructure, and it went right back into the into the pockets of politicians and their children. And there was a huge amount of outrage about that, because, otherwise, the government is extremely hands-off and just lets the market do its thing. So my perspective now has shifted to ‘Okay, the government clearly should just be taking care of people.’ I mean, if it's not doing that, what good is it for? So I've become a little bit less free market, in that respect. I still think, you know, commerce is important, but that's just one of my biggest lifelong shifts.
BB: Gil Caley, candidate for District 3. Thank you very much for sitting down with us.
GC: Absolutely. Thank you very much for having me.
You can find conversations with other candidates in Lubbock's municipal elections here. And check out KTTZ's 2026 Mayoral Candidate Forum here.