Lubbock City Council District 4 covers portions of South Lubbock, largely between Slide Road and University Avenue.
In March, current District 4 representative Brayden Rose announced his resignation for personal and familial reasons.
Rose took office in May 2024. Whoever is elected to take his position will serve out the remainder of his term and a regularly scheduled election will take place in 2028.
Early voting in the Lubbock City Council District 4 Special Election runs June 15-23 and Election Day is June 27.
The race to determine Rose’s replacement has five candidates: Gary Boren, Stephanie Ferran, Tim Green, Bill Curnow, and Boyd Goodloe.
KTTZ reached out to each of the candidates and did not receive a response from Stephanie Ferran before publication.
You can find interviews with the other District 4 candidates here.
Bill Curnow works in IT security and has served Lubbock through his nonprofit work and on citizens' boards and commissions.
The following transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Samantha Larned: Sitting down now with Mr. Bill Curnow, running for Lubbock City Council District 4. Mr. Curnow, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Bill Curnow: I work in the IT industry, I work for Plains Cotton Cooperative Association, and I've been there almost 27 years now. I'm in the security side of things. I'm in information security, so high tech agriculture.
Moved to Lubbock to attend Texas Tech University in 1990. Met the reason why I stayed in Lubbock in 1992. We've been dating ever since, and got married just a little over 26 years ago. I bounced around a lot growing up. One of the more interesting questions I've got to one on the campaign trail is, what is your hometown? I know of three different answers to that question: where were you born, where did you grow up, or go to high school, and where do you live? Lubbock is home. I was born in Florida. I've lived in New Jersey, California, New Jersey two more times, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Caracas, Connecticut. Summers in Columbus, Ohio. And have gone to two different high schools, one in Hong Kong and one in Connecticut. Two different universities, one in Pennsylvania, one here in Lubbock, and that's an interesting way to grow up, and those are all various definitions of hometown. Lubbock is home.
Samantha Larned: What motivated you to run for District 4?
Bill Curnow: You know, I've been serving the citizens of Lubbock in one way or another for over 20 years, and get the question every now and again, ‘Why don't you run for city council?’ And for the longest time, it just didn't make any sense. And a couple years ago the math started turning out a little bit differently, and then finally this year the math turned out the way I needed it to turn out.
So Brayden stepped down, for all the right reasons – let me be clear about that – and presented an opportunity that I don't think any of us were ready for, but I thought I was dumb enough to be up for the challenge, and decided to give it a go.
This community is a vibrant, growing community, one that has certainly grown tremendously since I moved here. And I see where we're heading now, I see where we could be heading, and I'd like to help get us there. We certainly have challenges. We haven't necessarily fixed all the mistakes we've made in the past, but we're correcting them little by little by little. And we're finally beginning to take care of what we've already built, and I'd like to make sure we continue, because it's certainly far cheaper to maintain than it is to rebuild. And as I said, I'd like to help leave Lubbock a little bit better than the Lubbock I found, and if I can do that on the city council, and if I could be entrusted to do that, I'd be honored to do so.
SL: Can you tell me a little bit about the experience you would bring to city council?
BC: If you look at the macro level, my work in the Red Cross and my work with United Way doesn't really look like it's city council related, except both are relationship-oriented and both have a certain amount of risk management triage and creative thinking on your feet, especially in the Red Cross.
I learned way, way, way back then that the best time to ask for help from a partner is not at the scene, but months earlier. Establishing that relationship, usually over barbecue, this is West Texas, after all. But it's much easier to work and collaborate with a friend in the middle of the night in sweaty or freezing cold conditions than it is to meet a new person and try and figure out a solution. That was one of the very first lessons that I learned. Over on the United Way side, they really allowed me to dig into the advocacy side. And I've been privileged enough to speak on behalf of the United Way campaign, carrying that message forward, a message of positivity, a message of hope, a message that tomorrow, if we all work together, we'll be a little bit brighter, and that's something I'd like to bring to the rest of Lubbock as a whole.
It's the people. It's the relationships. It's understanding how systems works, how the community works together – and it's understanding, and this is a lesson really I leaned in on when I was at the Red Cross – we are six hours from help here in Lubbock, Texas. Five, if you're creative driving, it is up to us to come together as a community, neighbor helping neighbor organization, helping organization, businesses partnering with churches, partnering with government, partnering with nonprofits. We are in this together to make sure that everyone does have a better day, and that we are able to respond to the challenges that we face out here. We're in it together, and I'd like to be a part of it at the center of it.
SL: What are some of the issues you've heard from voters in the district as you've been campaigning, and what do you see as priority items?
BC: The obvious ones are public safety, roads, and water – we'll call that infrastructure. Data centers have become an issue as well, which has always struck me as odd, because I sit 25 feet from a data center and never really given it a whole lot of thought, but they have become an issue too. And taxes, everyone's bothered, and understandably so, by their tax bill. There's a thousand different reasons why all of these are issues, and it matters to each individual in the community for their own reasons.
One of the good things, fortunate things we have in Lubbock, when it comes to public safety, is [Lubbock Police Department] is actually winning. Three years in a row of lowering crime rates in this community. They've done it with massive amounts of overtime. They need help. Not just, we need additional officers on the street, and understand, for every officer we put on the street, that's actually four that we're hiring because of shifts. It turns into a mental health and physical health issue for the officers. If we abuse them, they are our most valuable resources in that department. We cannot afford to replace them. Like everything in this campaign, it's easier to maintain the individual than it is to fix and repair the individual. Same can be said for the Fire Department. Long gone are the days when firefighters go back after the fire call they go back to the station, they kick their heels up, play games for a little while. Those days are over. They are running more calls than ever before. They really don't have downtime during that 24-hour shift, and the 48 hours between shifts is really insufficient to reset, heal, and get ready for the next shift. We need to start taking a serious look at their manpower and what we could do to improve that situation. That's public safety in a nutshell. Both organizations doing an outstanding job. LFR, really all the work that they've put in to allow us to be an ISO 1 community that's helping our citizens with their insurance at home, that's bringing new businesses, such as Leprino Foods, to Lubbock. Because of that rating, we need to continue to support them by taking a look at their manpower and what we can do to help them out with that.
Roads, yeah, we got some bumpy roads around town, and I was glad to see that earlier this year the City of Lubbock jumped on some of those pothole issues. The councils in the past few years have been doing that by trying to squirrel away a little bit more money every year. They're trying to shoot for about a million dollars in addition every year, net year over year over year, to do that, and I think it's a great way to stay on top of it. I'd like to help support that and see if we can't do a little bit more, because again, it is much cheaper to maintain these roads than it is to rebuild these roads. Total rebuild is when we start getting into bond issues, and there's a time and a place for bond packages, but it is so much cheaper to maintain what we have.
On the water side of the house. We talk a lot about our 100-year water plan, which is over 10 years old now, so it's no longer a 100-year water plan. It needs to be a living document. Just because we have a 100-year plan doesn't mean the job is done. We need to continue to look for new ways to not only conserve but find new sources and find creative ways to reduce what we're using throughout the city. Leprino Foods is an interesting one. They're a high water user, but they then produce just as much clean stream quality water that can be used for other industry that goes right back into our system. Lake 7, which has only taken 20 years, I think, to get through the planning process, is almost ready, and I think they hope to break ground on that in the next couple of years. And I'm really looking forward to that, because it will provide yet another source of water for Lubbock and provide additional opportunities. When I talk about the 100-year water plan being a living document, it is my hope that the citizens that come after us in 100 years are talking about their 100-year water plan. That's how we need to think about it. Every year, we need to be pushing that further and further out, so that we can continue to grow and thrive as a community.
In terms of the AI data center, I get concerns. I absolutely get concerns. I also get that there's a lot of misinformation out there, and so I want to be very, very careful what we're talking about here. My initial cut on any major project is, let's take a look at the individual project. I am not a fan of blanket yes, blanket no answers. I want to take every proposal, every industry that's coming to town, every business that's coming to town that requires a trip through council chambers, and remember, not all of them do, but I want to make sure that we are taking a look at that project as a whole. Is it a good project? Is it a good match for Lubbock? Does it benefit the citizens? Is it a net gain for us? I don't want to find ourselves in a situation, briefly in the Hill Country. They approved a data center with 35 years of tax abatements. Tell me how that makes any sense whatsoever. You want some abatements, we can talk about that. I'd prefer it if they were on a declining scale. But just that hoss off and say I'm against AI data centers? No. They don't use near the water that they used to. During initial load in? Sure. We also have Leprino Foods that's producing stream quality water that could go into a data center during initial load in of their closed loop system. After that, closed-loop systems do not lose a lot of water unless they're leaking. So, long term, there's not a lot of water concerns. There's certainly energy concerns. Every new power plant that is coming online or projected to come online in the United States, their energy output is already reserved by a data center. So we do need to take a look at that, and we need to take a look again at the total package that they're bringing to play, and how they plan to address that issue for themselves, or we're not going to talk to them about it. The legal, ethical, moral concerns with AI, that is a topic for another day. It's really not the business of the city council to look at those issues. If it is currently a legal business, we'll take a look at it, but we need to take a look at it and make sure it makes sense for the residents.
SL: What specifically would you want to see from a developer with a data center project?
BC: I want to know if they have fully thought through all of these issues. And understand all the projects that have been slated for 2026, it's estimated less than half will actually move forward. There's a lot of speculation. We may be in a bubble, we may not be in a bubble. The bubble burst yesterday, it's going to burst next week. No one knows right now. It's a bit of a gold rush. And so whenever you've got a gold rush situation, it can be very, very confusing. Have you thought about it? Do you know the size? Do you know the design? Have you sourced your chips? Because that's not easy to do right now. Have you figured out water usage? Have you figured out where you're going to get the electricity from? Because we don't have the spare electricity laying around. Are you going to build generation on site? Great. Some of the really, really popular generation modes don't work well at night, so what are you considering? Is this a combination of nuclear? Is this a combination of wind? Is it solar? Is it good old fashioned nat gas? Is it all the above? You show me a well-thought-out, well-constructed plan, and I'll have a conversation. You show me a bunch of ‘Well, we're still working out those details.’ I'm not interested in talking to you. Come back when you have a plan.
SL: Something else you mentioned, we constantly hear talk about how Lubbock is a growing city, but talking about something and responding to it are two very different things. Where are you seeing some of the impacts of this growth, and what do you think the city should be doing to not only respond but prepare for it?
BC: You know, I have been hearing Lubbock is a growing city since I moved here. When I was driving here, it took me all of 10 seconds to go from Wolfforth to Lubbock. When I first moved here, that was a five-minute trip down 82nd Street. It was just nothing but cotton fields out there. The challenge is to understand where the growth is, not necessarily to guide that growth, but to try and stay ahead of it best you can. You're never going to. There's always going to be development that occurs just past the last intersection you would plan for growth for. You need to recognize that your plans need to adjust. You need to plan near, medium, and long-term for growth.
Do I wish we were doing more infill growth in the city of Lubbock? Absolutely. Roads are already here, grocery stores are already here, the fire stations are already here. The lots, it's not as easy to just buy up a block, because those people live there. Sure, there may be some vacant lots, or maybe some older properties around here, but you have to do it while still respecting the people that live there. It's harder to redevelop in town. I support all efforts to do so. People are moving out to the outskirts because people have always wanted to move out to the outskirts. They want a little bit more room, they're chasing a particular school district, there's a whole host of reasons why people are attracted to the outskirts of town. We need to recognize, though, that it does mean we're going to need to extend some water pipes in the ground. We're going to have to extend some sewer. That means we'll eventually need to have a new fire station. Police stations, we've done a pretty good job with the community policing side, although I think the plans do call for the possibility we may need one over on the west side, and we're certainly growing that direction. That may be the next thing that we talk about.
It's understanding that the job is never done, and it's also understanding that you may think you know what the next 10 years are going to look like, and then you wake up in the morning and the day says, ‘No, we're going to do something different.’ Pivoting is good. I had a friend, a mentor, back on the Red Cross board a long, long, long time ago tell me ‘Change is inevitable, growth is optional.’ And we need to have leaders that aren't afraid to say, ‘Yep, got that one wrong. We need to pivot.’
SL: On that note, have you thought about what your prioritization in budget and proposals would be if you were elected?
BC: If you've never seen the City of Lubbock budget, it is… well, we used to have things called phone books, it's like two of those put together. It's incredibly thick, and it's because we are no longer the small, charming little town that I moved to in 1990. We have grown into a real city with real issues and real services, and it is not the easiest thing in the world to say, ‘Well, I'm going to go in and I'm going to cut this department and cut that department and cut that department, that's going to free up all this money in order to do x, y, and z.’ A city the size of Lubbock, it is about trying to move the needle a little bit. Maybe we can trim a little bit here, maybe we can redirect some funds there. We can start looking at priorities. Certainly becomes a little bit easier when we start talking about an economic downturn, because there's more leverage that you can pull in a situation like that. But when it comes to the budget overall, the other thing that's important to realize is the council takes a budget recommendation provided to them by staff, and then they massage it and manipulate it. There's usually a very good reason behind every one of those asks.
One of the challenges that I had when I was on the Community Services and Development Board, I remember when I was chair one year, it seems like we had, oh, $30 million in asks from local nonprofits, and about $4 million to spend, and that was an annual challenge. It's really identifying where taxpayer spend provides the highest quality of benefit to the residents of Lubbock, ideally for the most residents as possible, but it's also recognizing that every once in a while you need to fund a silly little public arts project, such as wrapping the traffic signal posts downtown in murals, which cost us next to nothing, and I absolutely love it. It's delightful. Or occasionally you have to invest in a park. Because the City of Lubbock budget is more than the core services, it is more than public safety, infrastructure, fleet maintenance. It is also about trying to foster a community that people not only want to continue to live in, but want to move to. That is the only way, by growing our population in hand with growing our businesses, in hand with developing new industries, that we get a vibrant, stronger community. It needs to be an organic growth. You don't do that by taking a wrecking ball to the budget. You do that by taking an incredibly sharp and precise scalpel, trimming a little here, trimming a little there, and trying to make the best use of the limited funds entrusted to the city by its residents.
SL: Alright, I think that is an excellent note to end on. Any last-minute thoughts here?
BC: This has been an incredible process, and I have met some wonderful people out in the community, and I have been reminded of the characters of neighborhoods that I hadn't been to in a while, or had simply driven by, and never gone into. The incredible diversity of homes and ideas and thoughts that we have in this community is what attracted me to this place in the first place. I've lived in smaller towns. I've lived in much larger metropolises. There's a reason I like Lubbock as a home, and it's the people. It's the people you meet every day, it's the person who will not drive by you when you're stuck on the side of the road without stopping for help. We've got something special out here in West Texas, and I'd like to try and preserve of that, best I can.
SL: Bill Curnow, running for Lubbock City Council District 4. Thank you so much for joining us.
BC: Thank you.
You can find KTTZ's interviews with other candidates in the special election here.
Early voting runs June 15-23 and Election Day is June 27.