Public safety and keeping a close watch on the city budget are the top priorities in District 1. Infrastructure and growth are also high on the list, according to conversations with incumbent Christy Martinez-Garcia and challenger Pat Kelly.
“I ran for Council because I felt that my district really needed some commitment. … I have really taken my work very seriously, and I do not take it for granted. … But there’s still so much to come,” Martinez-Garcia said.
Downtown redevelopment and neighborhood projects are underway but with more to be done, she said.
“We’ve invested about $14 – almost $15 million in street maintenance in District 1, which, we had some neighborhoods that hadn’t had that in 30 and 40 years,” she said.
Kelly ran against Martinez-Garcia in May 2022 and opted for a rematch this year. Kelly also ran against Juan Chadis in 2018, coming up 19 votes short.
“I’ve been asked by both the Republicans and Democrats that are not happy with what’s going on in District 1 to reconsider my retirement and run for City Council. I mulled it over, said a couple prayers about it, and decided, that’s probably the right thing to do,” he said.
“Looking around our district, District 1 – it’s not being well represented. … I think the City Council really needs to be people who want to serve the community and not just certain segments of the community,” Kelly said.
Martinez-Garcia saw things differently – pointing to her perfect attendance record at City Council meetings and her participation in meetings of the South Plains Association of Governments, the Electric Utility Board, the Metropolitan Planning Organization and the Veterans Advisory Committee.
Candidate bios
Christy Martinez-Garcia
- Age: 58
- Current jobs: Lubbock City Council member (District 1), publisher of Latino Lubbock Magazine.
- Hometown: Lubbock.
- Years in Lubbock: Lifelong resident (except one job in D.C.)
- Education: Texas Tech University (bachelor’s in public relations, minor in marketing); attended Lamar University.
- Career summary: Former public information officer for the City of Lubbock, worked for AT&T, experience in Washington, D.C. with NCLR, founder of Latino Lubbock Magazine and nonprofit Los Hermanos Familia, four years on City Council.
- Family: Married, one adult daughter.
- Hobbies and interests: Community service, nonprofit work and civic engagement.
Pat Kelly
- Age: 69
- Current job: Owner of a gold, silver, and coin business (Coins on Main) in downtown Lubbock.
- Hometown: Born at Fort Knox, grew up mostly in Philadelphia.
- Years in Lubbock: Nearly 50
- Education: Wayland Baptist University (psychology), South Plains College (law enforcement/criminology).
- Career summary: U.S. Army veteran (worked with nuclear weapons systems), nearly 30-year career with the Lubbock Police Department, former construction business owner, real estate and property development focused on affordable housing, current small business owner.
- Family: Married, two children, multiple grandchildren.
- Hobbies and interests: Fishing, softball (previously), coin collecting and precious metals.
Public safety
Martinez-Garcia cited a previous opinion survey and said, “One of the things that people said then was that public safety was probably one of their most important concerns.”
That’s still true, she said. Public safety includes the shelter for Lubbock Animal Services in her view.
“I personally had the opportunity to tour the building. … They have animals or pets or dogs and cats in the hallways. And I think we’re busting at the seams there,” said Martinez-Garcia.
Fire and police academies are older facilities and new ones might “increase some interest from potential recruits,” she said.
“We definitely need to consider creating a training academy that they can both use. We currently have the fire academy near the airport, but it’s aging. They’ve outgrown it,” Martinez-Garcia said.
Kelly said, “I’m a 30-year veteran of the police department. I believe in community policing. We need to get more boots on the ground and get some of them out of administrative positions.”
Police officers and firefighters are asking the city to pay more in salaries – to keep Lubbock competitive in attracting high-quality candidates.
Martinez-Garcia said, “We are dealing with ‘meet and confer.’ That’s something that I think is going to be important for our public safety, our first responders.”
The role of meet and confer was limited in the current budget because of lower sales tax revenue during much of 2025. (We explained meet and confer in this article.)
Despite the tight budget, the city allocated $2.3 million for police pay raises and $2.1 million for fire. It was an average 4 percent increase – while other city employees got a 2.5 percent increase.
Kelly said, “Most of the businesses can’t afford a 4 percent across-the-board tax hike to pay 4 percent increase. So, we need to address that. And I’m pro-police that we need a pay increase, but I would rather look and see where we can get that without trying to raise taxes to support that.”
Budget pressure
A public notice from the most recent budget cycle indicated the average homeowner was paying about 3 percent more in property taxes.
Kelly said, “I’m totally for the no new rate right now. No new additional debt for the city. You know, we need to toe the line. We need to look at our budget. We need to find where money’s being spent – where we can reallocate.”
“I’m willing to close my business down and spend time just going through past budgets and future budgets and look there where we can move money around. That’s where the key is – not keep raising taxes,” Kelly said.
Martinez-Garcia saw things differently. LubbockLights.com broke the story of a hiring freeze last year at the city when sales tax revenue fell flat.
“We definitely are still recovering from having to put a freeze on jobs – and still trying to get back into the groove now that the sales tax is back up. We’re starting to see that improve,” Martinez-Garcia said.
She’s okay with asking voters to approve a tax for things people want.
“I’ve talked with our city manager that I believe that we need to really think about a quality-of-life bond,” Martinez-Garcia said.
One example is a year-round aquatic center.
“Quality of life is still a priority for our community and for our families,” she said.
Growth, including data centers
Martinez-Garcia said, “I appreciate that LEDA [the Lubbock Economic Development Alliance] is constantly working on bringing us new business opportunities.”
For example, she was happy to have participated in bringing a Chick-fil-A distribution center to Lubbock. But a proposed artificial intelligence data center for Northeast Lubbock brings with it serious concerns, she said.
“I got to talk with them and I interviewed them. I talked to them about issues with the ecosystem or environmental issues. We talked about water concerns. We talked about just the noise pollution,” Martinez-Garcia said.
She’s concerned data centers often use a lot of water for cooling their computer servers.
Kelly said he’s been asked to look into more than one proposed data center in different areas of town.
“I just cannot agree to spend tax dollars to do that. It’s just not a viable option. We don’t have the water, we don’t have the electricity, we just don’t have infrastructure to do it,” Kelly said.
“I was approached about one in Southeast Lubbock that I really looked at to see if that was a viable area. And it’s not either, to be honest with you,” Kelly said.
The Council needs to instead focus on roads, taxes and utilities, he said.
