This year’s only contested County Commissioners race for Precinct 2, a rematch between Jeremy Davis and DL Wilson, is shaping up to be a contentious battle for the seat that once belonged to the only democrat on the Commissioners Court.
In the lead-up to election day, KWBU and The Waco Bridge sat down with both candidates.
Here is the transcript, edited lightly for clarity, from our conversation with Republican incumbent, DL Wilson.
Molly-Jo Tilton, KWBU: So you've been a commissioner now for two years, and this was your first term. What did it teach you?
DL Wilson: Patience. A lot of patience. the Commissioners Court is, really, a neat product of American society and I'm learning that every day,
MJ T: In 2024, you narrowly won the precinct, and pollsters are predicting that Republicans across the ticket may face an uphill battle this election cycle. Does that change anything about how you're approaching this race going into the year?
DL Wilson: No, ma'am. No, I work for everybody. I am a conservative Republican on the ticket, but I work for Republicans, Democrats, Independents. I work every day of my career here as a County Commissioner to be elected again to work for everybody. This precinct was kinda divided, and I've worked hard in the last 23 months to unite it
Sam Shaw, The Waco Bridge: Depending on how you draw the lines, there are about two [data centers] in your precinct, the Cipher Data Center in Riesel and the Lacy Lakeview Infrakey project. Both have been controversial with rural residents in McLennan County for a host of reasons.
Regarding the Riesel Data Center, you told me in May you'd fight for the community you live in and respect. I wanted to ask, how's that fight going five months later? And as a commissioner, how are you looking at the data center industry's place in our county more broadly?
DL Wilson: We just need to learn more about the data centers. There's so much propaganda, both ways. I'm learning as I go. I've went to some data centers and listened to them, because that was one of the main concerns is the decibel levels. I'm doing my homework on it.
I have talked to Cipher for the last few months. They finally came out and visited with us or visit with me about the proposed, data center in Riesel and they've got some good things, but then they went silent on me, so it kinda concerned me. I did get a letter from them here just a few weeks ago saying that they are trying to still go forward with that.
And if you look back at our county Commissioners Court, we had a group of Stop the Data Centers that I support in the Ross area, and they came up with this agriculture district. The county attorney, did explain to us that it might not, and probably wouldn't, work but I was the only commissioner that voted for doing that because, hey, if it's never been done before, why not try it to see if it worked for our folks and our community?
And I was the only commissioner out of the, all five of us that voted for it to try to do that.
S S: And that would have made McLennan County the first in Texas with an ag district, right?
DL Wilson: Yes. I think it was, put on the books in 1982, I think. That's right. But, until you try it, you just don't know. I was all for trying it, but the other commissioners and the judge was, frowned on it because of the, the information we received from our attorney. But hey, I'm one of those kinda guys, common sense guys. Let's try it. We can dissolve it if it doesn't work and that's where we stood at
MJ T: Some other counties have looked at things like moratoriums as solutions or pauses to learn more about data centers while they, make those decisions.I know up the road, our neighbors have done that and faced some pretty serious backlash, but other counties across the state have then followed suit. Is that something that ... you think you would support?
DL Wilson: We did talk about that, but, we don't have $100 million to, to be sued over. We're just still trying to gather information on it. But I'm for the folks out in the rural area. I live in the rural area. The judge lives in the rural area. We all feel the same way, that if a data center's gonna come, we wish that the commissioner's court had more authority and regulations, which we don't have right now.
I have called, I've sent letters, it's just not coming to us right now, and hopefully the legislator this next year will look at that and give the county commissioners a little bit more authority on situations like that, especially the water and the noise levels in the counties.
MJ T: Taking a step away from the data center discussion, last year, the commissioner's court adopted a fairly controversial redistricting plan. In it, Precinct 2 was expanded to include more of Lacy Lakeview and East Waco, Bellmead, and the city of West. How do you plan to address the needs of those new communities that were added to the precinct?
DL Wilson: Precinct 2 only had 211 miles of roadway, and we didn't hardly have a quarter of the voters that the other precincts had. So if you look back at it, the years past, would that, was that called gerrymandering? Where you shrunk a precinct just to meet the needs of particular voters.
Every precinct needs to be the same amount of road miles. It's not fair for this precinct or that precinct to have more road miles when we have the same amount of employees to take care of those road miles.
Then, plus, it's the voters. So Precinct 4 is huge with Hewitt, Lorena, Woodway, and Crawford and all that, and McGregor. So we have to try to make those more fair for everybody to have the same voice into the precinct. So we're getting there. It looks like to me that Precinct 3 is gonna have to move around some more into Precinct 4
S S: There’s a nice parallel here with the unified road system. And this is this idea that you could centralize the road and bridge teams from each precinct into one location, something that we see, around Texas and for a lot of, complicated and historical reasons does not exist here in McLennan County.
County judge, Scott Felton is a big supporter of this idea, so is his, successor who's coming in, Rick Tullis. Tullis estimates it could save the county in the ballpark of a million dollars a year, but, Judge Felton said there would need to be a culture shift among some commissioners. Are you prepared for that culture shift?
DL Wilson: I've been in here 23 months, so I don't, haven't set any cultures yet. I haven't been in there a long time. I was asked in 2018 when I was running for county commissioner about the unit road system, and I agreed with it. So, we could have a bridge crew that goes around and read those bridges.
We have, we'd have a paving crew that went out and paved, so we wouldn't all have to have four machines to do those jobs. So I think that, in the long run, it would be a great thing and, 'cause I'm all about saving taxpayers money. And that, I think that would be a neat deal to have a group of men or women that are trained in this certain situation to go do.
We'd still have our own blades, and we would still have on our, some different things in the yard. But, yeah, it is a little different culture deal for them, and I think that's what they had some issues back in the, back in twenty sixteen when they started talking about it, things like that.
sam shaw: And the, the official reasoning for redistricting was to equalize the, road and bridge burden for each of those precincts. So if there was a unified system, would you still consider redistricting an important thing to consider in the future?
DL Wilson: It would have to look at it about the budget because you, each precinct gets a budget for road and bridge. So it's about how much money you're gonna get to do those jobs.And if you don't have to have all that, that might be something we can look at.
I'm not sure how Bell County does it down there. I've visited with some, some commissioners down there and see how they do it. But it all, it would all come back to those budgeting – do we have a county-wide road bridge, budget that's gonna do all the roads? And then is the engineer gonna have to step in and say, "Hey, we're gonna do all these roads over in Hewitt." Is Mart, Axtell, Riesel and Hallsburg and Tours and Leroy gonna get secondhand stuff? So see, that might be the issue that had to really be worked out. It, would a county commissioner still have the say so in what roads in your precinct are gonna get repaired.
MJ T: And you're fairly hands-on with your road and bridge crew. Do you think that might cause some tension if you were to move to a unified road system with your commissioners who aren't as, as experienced in that area?
DL Wilson: we're a good team up there. Yeah, I've got work boots on now, so that's just who I am. That's just what I've done all my career. Everybody up there has a specialty, whether it's finance, business; it's just really jiving really good right now.
We really work together good for all McLennan County.
MJ T: I wanna go back for a minute to the conversation about redistricting and when that happens, bringing in new constituents. What are you doing or have you done since that redistricting to reach out to those communities that didn't originally vote for you?
DL Wilson: I don't sleep much right now.We've been going to every event we can go to and visiting, and just get my name out there.
My name's been known for 20 years in McLennan County, whether it's TXDOT or the Texas Highway Patrol, and I was a spokesman for Texas Department of Public Safety, And I was on the media a lot, so a lot of people know my name and my face, but I go out and visit with the folks and, just shake hands, and that's what I was talking about uniting Precinct 2, 'cause it was divided. Anybody can say it wasn't, but it was.
And, and you hear my opponent talk about he needs a, they, he or we need a seat at the table, and I don't know, I didn't, I never grew up like that. I am the kind of person that I represent everybody. I don't stand on a soapbox for Democrats or Republicans or Independents. At this level, to me personally, politics don't play a role in it.
I'm here for everybody, and that's what I continue to do. You talk about all the hundred miles of roads we've repaired in the last 23 months, but to me, the exciting part is the unity I've brought to Precinct 2.
MJ T: Can you give examples of some of the ways that you have been able to bring that unity?
DL Wilson: My, my grandmother always told me that, you were born to love and you learn to hate. So I don't know, there's not [an] elephant in the room, but as far as Black or whites, I grew up in Mart. My best friends were Black, and we went to Black churches. They went to white churches with me. We spent the night with each other.I didn't know the stuff that went on in the world until I grew up. And now it's just I'm spreading the love, and I wanna be a part of everybody's events. I go, I do things.
I was the first county commissioner to ever give any money to, Pastor C down in East Waco for Thanksgiving baskets. We give the whole meal, the turkey, the food, anything that goes with a turkey dinner, and the county gave $5,000 last year. It's the first time in the history of McLennan County that we've given that organization any money through Commissioner Gibson or Commissioner Miller. So things like that just go a long way with the community, and it's not just East Waco folks that come and get those meals.
S S: The county tax rate was the source of some disagreement among commissioners this budget season. First, I just was hoping you could walk me through that disagreement, because it felt a little more fractious than previous years.
DL Wilson: Yeah. the first year, we had $90 million in our fund balance because they had, is the tax base was really good for a, for few years, and whether it was a Magnolia ride we were riding or some other things.
But this year, down in Austin, they took about $29 million away from us on the tax base that we had for small businesses, your homeowners', taxes, and they froze that. So then it comes to us and wow, we're $29 million in the hole already. So, we had to cut, cut, but I wasn't happy with the number they came up with, so I voted against it, and I think Commissioner Jones voted against the tax rate, too, that was passed this year.
I think it was a 3-2 vote.
S S: Felton said that the amended tax rate proposed at the beginning effectively kicked the liability can down the road-
DL Wilson: Oh, sure. No doubt. But we have a fund balance, like any business, you wanna keep about three months operating, in that fund balance.
That's what I try to do with my business and other businesses do, too. But at 160-something-million-dollar budget, that's quite a bit of money to keep, keeping a pile over there. But we kept that pile where it needs to be at 33%, or we voted down to where it could go down to 25% of that.
But it's a scary thought that we've, do kick the can down the road. but with the way the economy and the world's going, I didn't feel like I could put that burden on the taxpayers this year.
MJ T: So we've talked a lot about, your road and bridge background and how important that is to your precinct and to the county as a whole. But aside from that, what other improvements does your district still need, and how will you work towards those improvements if you're reelected?
DL Wilson: Like we talked about earlier, I really do economic development, and we really want to get jobs and get training. We have MCC, we have TSTC, we got a training center out in, Hewitt area.
Those things mean a lot to me, to get folks out of the circle and get them into the job duties that we have. The Greater Waco Chamber is working hard bringing these, these big companies in from all over the United States and the world, coming to Waco, Texas. And we do give some tax incentives for those big companies, but we do not give tax incentives for windmills, solar farms, or data centers. So if anybody says we do that, we do not do that.
And another thing that's really hot that we've been trying to do since I've been in there is mental health in McLennan County. My wife's works at the at the jail as a part-time nurse and I've been part of law enforcement in McLennan County for over 30 years with the sheriff's department and DPS. What’s happening in McLennan County Jail is we spend tons of taxpayers' money on felons that are over there, so recidivism is a lot, but it falls back on mental health, where they get on drugs or they're robbing folks or things like this, but we have to have a better mental health.
And we spent millions on mental health so far, we're still trying to do better and better to keep these folks out of McLennan County Jail. We have 1,400 inmates right now, which about 800 of them are felons. And we're doing the courts better, we're trying to get some more criminal courts up and running so we can cut this down, because your taxpayer money is spending around $32 million a year on housing inmates in McLennan County Jail. Where could that money go? It could make the lives of McLennan County taxpayers so much better if we could get that down.
MJ T: Talk a to me a little bit more about what can be done exactly to address that mental health issue. Is it, establishing a specific drug court?
DL Wilson: We have all that, and it's really going strong. We really have that. I've been to some graduations with the drug court, and it's just been doing fantastic, but we just have to catch up. And, and it's coming. We're spending the money on that, but for years, that wasn't a priority. And, Judge Felton has made that a priority, and we're working hard and working hand in hand with the sheriff's department at McLennan County to get that worked out.
We're the seventh largest jail in Texas. So being the seventh largest jail, you have to get a handle on it. So we're having people come into jail, and we want them to be good citizens of this world. And we have got some big companies coming into McGregor. They're really big about second chances with veterans and, people that got on the wrong side of the law. So we really look at companies like that, 'cause we want-- 'cause I, I've had people that applied for my jobs before or hear about it - “nobody will hire me 'cause I'm a felon."
Everybody needs a second chance, and we wanna make sure that's, available in McLennan County.
MJ T: You talked a little bit about tax incentives and who you do and don't give those to and bringing in better jobs. What are you looking at as a commissioner when you're looking at who gets a tax incentive, why they get a tax incentive, and what kind of jobs they're bringing?
DL Wilson: It depends, how many people they're gonna hire and we look at the salaries they're gonna bring, too. This, the one I'm talking about in McGregor that's gonna come up hopefully, it's gonna pay decent money, and, I think they're gonna hire, 300 folks.
300 here, 400 here, 200 there, that starts adding up in a little county like McLennan County, and we're growing. And we're sitting out here on I-35, which is the busiest road in Texas. We're excited about it. It's exciting times to be a resident of McLennan County.
S S: Can I ask a really random question? I was surfing Google Maps the other day, and I was like, "Oh, what's a place I haven't checked out?" And I see the SPJST Lodge, and I'm not even gonna try and pronounce it. I see you in there. Yeah. And I was wondering if you could tell me, a little bit about that lodge.
DL Wilson: That is... There's Czech lodges all around the state of Texas, and we had we had pageants back in the day, and I was a duke. And, I got to stand with the king. I was younger and, had my flat bangs.
MJ T: These the, the Czech-Slovak pageants that still happen?
DL Wilson: Yeah. It's a great place for youths to go and, have fun, visit and get some culture. I married a Czech lady, a Veselka, so I've got the Czech. We always go to West Fest. We love it, but yeah, it's just a great place you can go out there now on a Saturday night when they have a dance.
The kids are in there. It's a safe place for the kids to be, and they learn to dance and socialize and, it's a really neat place, and we love Elk Hall. And we have There was one in West. There's one in Elm Mott, they were scattered all out. It was a fun time. Thanks for bringing up that ... great picture of me,
MJ T: Okay, one last serious question. We were looking through your Facebook and through your opponent's Facebook as well. We noticed some barbs throwing back and forth, getting a little contentious online leading up to the election next month. Do you think that's helpful for your district?
DL Wilson: No, it's not, but, I stand up for myself. When I hear somebody being, untruthful, I have to stand up.I don't necessarily say talk about him, where his background's from or his age or anything like that.
So talking about my roads are one thing 'cause I'm very proud of that, and my 20 employees out there, the most diverse group of men and women that work in McLennan County: hispanic, blacks, whites, female, we have it all. We really are the most diverse group of men and women that work for McLennan County, and, we take pride in our community. So I had to say something about that, 'cause we're taking pride in our roads. we don't we have a $4 million budget, so for road and bridges out there with the salaries and everything, and the equipment.
You can't build a highway like I-35. These are county, dirt roads that are turned into gravel roads that were turned into paved roads, and they have been neglected for years. But we're righting the ship on that, and these men and women out there bought into me and my mission, and I'm their leader, but I couldn't do anything without them
MJ T: I promised you a fun question to end it off: What's a gem of the east of the county you think more people should check out?
DL Wilson: We already talked about Elk Hall. You go out there and dance and have a good hamburger, and, if you partake in adult spirits, you could have a good cold spirit and, listen to some good country music.
Mart is my hometown. We have a great town of Riesel, Axtell. Now I'm taking over Leroy, parts of Tours, so and Elm Mott has got a dirt track that I raced at, and it's been here 60 years and it's for sale right now, so hopefully we're gonna get it bought, and somebody's gonna continue to have a racetrack there for 60 years.We have a great motocross track out on Highway 6 in Harrison Switch.
But there is a monument on Trading Post Road where the Waco Indians – and that's why it's called Trading Post, 'cause that was where the Waco was actually founded, right up on that hill – there’s an old marble marker up there, but you can't get to it, it's on private property. And one day, I would love to work with that property owner to get some access to that marker so we can have the history of Waco founded by the Waco Indians, so we can go see that.
