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.
Boyd Goodloe operates a rental business in Lubbock and has a background in volunteer work and youth ministry.
The following transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Samantha Larned: Speaking with Mr. Boyd Goodloe, running for Lubbock City Council District 4. Thank you so much for sitting down with us.
Boyd Goodloe: Absolutely.
Samantha Larned: To start off with, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Boyd Goodloe: Well, again, my name is Boyd Goodloe. I was actually born in Lubbock, and then my parents moved to South Texas shortly after I was born and spent time in Cuero and Uvalde and San Antonio, I went through kindergarten through fifth grade in San Antonio, actually a suburb, Leon Valley, and then we moved in my fifth grade year to Fort Worth suburb of Burleson, and then I started sixth grade at Nat Williams Elementary here in Lubbock. We came back to Lubbock, and got to go to Nat Williams to Evans Junior High at that time. Now it's middle school, because ninth grade was in the campus at that point, and then part of the LEAP program at Lubbock High School, and then attended Texas Tech and graduated with a finance degree.
And then some opportunities after college, including sales and industrial and insurance, and then eventually found my way into youth ministry and served First United Methodist here in Lubbock for three years as associate youth director, and then got an opportunity at two very large churches in Houston, where I spent nine years in youth ministry there before coming back, and seven years at First United Methodist again in youth ministry.
Then an opportunity came at the end of that time with a company called Globe Energy Services, headquartered out of Snyder, but locations all throughout the Permian, and they were growing rapidly, and wanted to approach HR in a way that was more like the ministry background that I had in youth ministry for relationships with their employees. So I was on the HR team starting in 2013 and did that really until about 2019 when the chief operating officer – at this point at Become Gravity Oil Field Services – said, 'Hey, I need you to do asset management for us.’ And I ended up coordinating all the fleet vehicles, all the assets of the company, and coordinating all their capex requests and packages for that company through early part of 2025, when several of us that had worked together there decided to operate an equipment rental business with locations in Granbury, and we have a Lubbock area office now, and location, and we'll be opening in Snyder soon too, so. Getting to work a lot with the same people, just some different roles throughout my career.
SL: It sounds like you've been all over Texas, but you keep coming back here.
BG: Keep coming back. I love Lubbock, so.
SL: On that note, What motivated you to run for City Council District 4?
BG: Certainly. Definitely have one huge passion here that drove me into the race, and that is that I feel like our tax rate keeps going up. I understand appraisals go up, and so there's more revenue generated for the city in their budgets through increased valuation appraisals, and that generates more revenue. But for the last several years in a row, we've also had tax rate increases on top of that, which actually didn't generate a very large percentage of the budget. And I feel like in a budget of almost right around $950 million, there's got to be a way to design a budget that doesn't involve a rate increase, especially when valuation revenue is going up each year.
SL: So, tell me a little bit about the experience you have, and how you see that transferring into the city council role.
BG: Sure, so obviously in youth ministry, a lot of relational aspects and gifts from that standpoint, being able to listen to people and hear their concerns, and just being open to other ideas. And then in my experience in business, also budgets and managing large fleets and capex expenditures, understanding budgeting process and making sure that whatever your revenue is, your expenses aren't going to be exceeding that, or you're going to have some issues. So I really feel like I can look very clearly at opportunities that the city may have and try to prioritize those, so that we can adopt a budget that addresses the needs of our citizens and our community without having to have a tax rate increase.
SL: What are some of those priorities you would put forward in the budget?
BG: So, obviously, we have to have our first responders and our police department, under Seth Herman has done a really nice job of lowering our crime rate in Lubbock since he's taken over as chief. We have to continue with that. I do think he's probably still shorthanded on being able to get enough police officers out on the streets, so that has to be a priority. Our fire, Lubbock Fire Rescue, has to be a priority. We have to be able to take care of the needs of our citizens from that direction.
The other thing I see a lot of is we've got some infrastructure challenges. If you drive from – there's lots of places – but a great example is from 50th and Indiana, drive out to the South Loop in Indiana, you'll just see that Indiana's crumbling beneath the cars there, and we have to have a way to address our infrastructure needs as well.
SL: Going off of that, I know that road maintenance is a big concern, particularly for residents in District 4. Road bonds like those in 2022 and 2024 are intended for large scale projects, while road maintenance typically comes out of the regular budget. What are your thoughts, or what's your approach to handling those issues?
BG: Yeah, at this time the road bond or the bond issues have been the major way to address large sections that have to be addressed, mainly because probably the maintenance has been deferred to the point where they're having to be rebuilt in some of those areas. And Indiana is probably on the radar at some point to do, but so far that's been the approach that we're having to do it off of bond issues, and that may have to be the way we go for a little while ahead until we get a hold of all the rebuilding of our major thoroughfares and streets.
SL: Along with tax rates and road maintenance, are there any other major issues that you're hearing from people in your district through your campaign, or are those the primary ones?
BG: I think that's what I hear the most, is our roads, our infrastructure. People are concerned about water, we do have a long term plan for our water, we are building another lake that will do a lot toward our needs and capacity that we need to operate and grow in. So, we do have a good water plan in place, but you definitely want to protect that resource.
SL: On the topic of water, data centers have been a big concern for many West Texans. We've seen data center proposals come to Lubbock in districts one and two, but a facility like that would affect the whole city and the whole region. Have you thought about what you would require, what you would want to see from a developer with a data center project?
BG: Yeah, I definitely would be concerned if we're doing very much tax abatement for them. If we're delaying that– also concerns me that what is the lifespan of a data center? Technology changes so fast, are we going to give them a five-year tax abatement, and then in five years they'll abandon the space because they've got newer technology and moved on to something else, that's a huge concern. I know people have concerns about the water usage too. Some of the cooling methods have gotten to the point where it's more like filling a swimming pool once and not continued usage.
But I do think we as a city need to listen to the citizens of the city. There needs to be some opportunities for people to come and hear facts and share their concerns, and I think the city's trying that. I know the mayor's interested in hearing some of those concerns. We just haven't seen those put forth on much of a wide scale. I'm okay with having citizens give some input to what they really want. What are their priorities, and what are their concerns? Because if their concern is water and energy use, and you can show the facts that maybe that's not as big a concern as some of the rumors are, then that helps them in their decision-making.
SL: 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 biggest impacts of Lubbock's growth, and what do you think the city should be doing to respond and prepare for it?
BG: Well, I think a lot of our growth has been a result of Texas Tech's growth. As they've grown more students, more students need more housing, more students need more professors and support staff. And then there's been construction on the Texas Tech campus. So Tech's driven quite a bit of our growth. And then all those students, all those additional faculty and staff members, also create opportunities for businesses to address their needs. So we'll need more grocery stores, because we've got more people, and so it's really impacted many businesses, small businesses and chains, and larger businesses, and then the construction field.
But of course, agriculture's a huge part of our economy as well, and our farmers, and all the support that goes into that. There's lots of businesses that support farming as well, from the irrigation, supply businesses and tractors, and all the things that go into farming. There's just so many things that that impacts. And so we're lucky to have those two emphasis for sure, agriculture and Texas Tech, but we've got the Leprino facility now, and they are demonstrating to probably other large corporations, ‘Hey, this is a good place.’ We've got a good labor force here, low unemployment, and workers that are really ready to go to work.
SL: So how do you think the city should be handling this new development, while maintaining this aging infrastructure that we have.
BG: Yeah, our Lubbock Economic Development Association is kind of chartered to help bring in new businesses, look for new opportunities to bring people to Lubbock in a variety of ways, and as they concentrate on that, that's going to drive some of the positions of growth, like if it continues to go west and south, or if there are other opportunities around near the Lubbock airport and the business center over there, if that's driving some growth opportunities for warehousing and other large businesses to come into that place, then you've got different zones that need infrastructure support, and that will drive revenues to the city, depending on what kind of business they're in, whether they're going to be more retail or more industrial.
SL: Do you have anything else you want to share something about your campaign, about the city, your experience so far?
BG: I just, I feel like there are a lot of people like myself who feel like we have property taxes that help support the city, county, and school districts, of which we have many school districts in the greater Lubbock area, but that they want their leaders to take a look at everything very closely and make sure that the city is maximizing the dollars that have been entrusted to them through taxes, and I feel like again people like me are ready to see a no-tax-increase instead of the two years, at least, in a row that we've had just recently, and I think it's been more like three out of the last four years they're ready to see that level off and spending within the means of the city.
SL: Alright. Boyd Goodloe, running for Lubbock City Council District Four. Thank you so much.
BG: 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.