Boots, Hats, and Texas Government with J.D. Clark (S4E05)

J.D. Clark is a young county juror in Wise County Texas, a suburb of Ft. Worth, growth is the biggest challenge. Growth and keeping the old west and cowboy image of Texas. JD has the hats and boots to go with his Texas roots. Listen and hear about government in Texas.

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Transcription

David Martin: This is the good government show.

J.D. Clark: You know, I’m not a cowboy, but maybe I can play one on TV. We don’t need to argue over whether we like the growth or don’t like the growth. It’s coming, it’s coming. So instead, how do we manage it? How do we want it to look? In the classroom, you’ve got to be able to reach a wide range of students that are all in different places, and I think we have to be able to do that with constituents too.

Good government doesn’t always mean that we always have to agree, but it means that we listen to each other and we try and solve problems together without just asking somebody out because they disagree with us. We’re not doing things just for us. And today we’re trying to set things up that make our community better for other people a long ways down the road.

I it’s neighbors representing neighbors. We don’t live somewhere else making decisions for that county. We’re here with you. And that’s that’s what local government is and what I hope people see.

David Martin: Welcome to the Good Government Show. I’m your host, Dave Martin. On this episode, we’re putting on our boots and headed down to the Wild West in Texas. I talk with JD Clark. He’s a county juror in Wise County, which is, part of the Fort Worth area of Texas. This is the heart of cowboy country, which is part of the appeal and challenge of being elected to manage the county.

A different title in a typical county commissioner title. And it’s got a little bit of history. And we talk about that, that and cowboy boots and hats and JD has a few and he’s also a guitar player. So we talked a little about music growth and growth management are big issues in Wise County and the weather. And it does get hot in Texas.

And when I met JD in Austin, it was hot. he’s also a former teacher who has turned to public service. And I ask him why teachers make good elected officials and this year, JD was elected second vice president of Naco. And we talked in Austin just after his election and get a national view of government.

The Good Government show is sponsored by our Co. That means our community. Our Co has found a way to make government more effective. Our Co provides the o u r platform. And this is an app that blends in-person and digital interactions to connect people with their government, their county, their town, their state. The Our Co app transforms meaningful conversations into reliable data.

They can turn results into projects and programs the community has essentially already approved and sort of like a flash poll by phone, but without the call. And in real time and wherever community members are, maybe they’re at their house or their office or, whether out just talking about local issues. maybe the choice is between putting in more local busses or expanding the bike lanes.

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After you get done with this episode, hear more good government stories with our friends at How to Really Run a City. Former mayors Kasim Reed of Atlanta and Michael Nutter, a Philadelphia, and their co-host, journalist and author Larry Platt talk with guests and other mayors about how to really get stuff done in cities around the nation. Check them out where you’re listening now or through their nonprofit news site, The Philadelphia Citizen. Dot org slash podcasts.

So we always start with the hardest question. First, if you would, identify yourself, tell us your name, your title, where you’re from.

J.D. Clark: I’m JD Clark, and I am the county judge and was county Texas county judge.

David Martin: That’s a unique title. does it mean anything?

J.D. Clark: It does actually. So then. And that stems from when Texas was first created and divided up into counties, very sparse population. She had elected officials that had a whole lot of responsibilities that fell under them. And the county judge literally was the judge of the county, but also handled the administrative government. And as well as we’ve grown, we’ve kept those titles.

But, the duties change from county to county based on how big you are. So in was county, we’ve hit a couple population thresholds where we’ve been able to get statutory county courts created. So I’m a county judge in name. I do keep all my judicial training up. I do, you know, some some minimal judicial work throughout the year, will probate mental health hearings and all that.

in larger urban counties, the county judge is strictly administrative budget policy. That’s mainly what I am with some judicial. But then in the more rural, especially West Texas counties, the county judge also sits in the county court and presides over county court and handles the administrative into the county. So.

David Martin: So tell me where Wise County is.

J.D. Clark: We are just northwest of Fort Worth, Tarrant County. We’re on the northwestern edge of the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex.

David Martin: What is the biggest difference between Dallas and Fort Worth?

J.D. Clark: I would say that Fort Worth very much, even as they they grow so much in population. I mean, Dallas is is an international metropolitan city, you know, and Fort Worth is as well. they’re they’re not to the size, of course, of Dallas, but, rapidly growing area. But they hold very tightly to that cowboy culture and the idea of the stockyards, the Fort Worth Stockyards being, a hub of the community.

And and even as you grow and have urban things, it’s very much a western city, a cowboy city.

David Martin: Well, that was the place where everyone brought the cattle. So they got it there for the cattle drive up north back in the Old West, right?

J.D. Clark: That’s right. That’s exactly right. So that was that’s where they started out from. And they still drive cattle down through the stockyards every day. People on the streets to watch the longhorn herd come through the stockyards.

David Martin: They still do that.

J.D. Clark: To do that.

David Martin: Have you ever done that? Have you ever worked, as a cattleman?

J.D. Clark: not in the stockyards? No. so I’ve helped out with working cattle with with friends and family members places. And I’m not real good at it. And so I’m a county judge, so.

David Martin: Okay. Fair enough. All right. How do you look at all of the top of a horse at the hat?

J.D. Clark: Yeah. Oh, I think, you know, I’m not a cowboy, but maybe I could play one on TV.

David Martin: Okay. All right, fair enough. Is is, is this area, is it still a Western? You know, it’s still got a Western vibe. Is it like. I mean, is you said it was the Old West. Is it still.

J.D. Clark: Yeah. Yeah, it is, it is. And, you know, Fort Worth or slogan is where the for the West begins. And we feel very much that way and was county too. And you know, we’re, we’re a county like a lot of counties across the nation that’s experiencing all the growing pains and things that come with that. We’ve got, you know, Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex, one of the fastest growing areas in the nation.

And so then our county being adjacent to that, we’re, you know, the next frontier, really out of the metroplex is people look for more places to develop and more housing demand and more places for people to go and live. And so we’ve been a traditionally rural agricultural county, a lot of limestone quarries, a lot of natural gas production.

But we’re also grappling with now a lot of suburban growth, bedroom communities, housing developments coming into US County, and all the growth and service demand that comes with that.

David Martin: Okay, I’m going to get off this in a minute, I promise. I’m a boy from Brooklyn. I’m not from there. But that’s where I live. explained cowboy culture to be.

J.D. Clark: So cowboy culture, I think is very much, you know, it’s in the art, it’s in the food, it’s in the, the fashion, the clothes that people wear and and, you know, and in that area, you know, you’re in jeans and boots for a business meeting with the jacket, you know, and that’s, that’s that cowboy culture. And, it’s it’s an.

David Martin: We don’t we don’t do that in Brooklyn.

J.D. Clark: It’s an independence and a self reliance, I think. And, you know, it it can be, it gets hot and it gets dry. It can be a tough place to live. And you, you roll with the elements and you deal with wildfire. You deal with the drought. And then over the weekend you can be dealing with flash flood as well.

And that can change overnight.

David Martin: We’re here in late July in Austin, Texas. It’s 103 degrees. What’s the weather.

J.D. Clark: There? It’s about the same. We’ve had a brutally hot summer. It’s always hot in Texas in summer. This summer feels worse.

David Martin: Okay, okay, so I got lucky when I came out here. you sort of hit on this a little bit. Urban growth, suburban growth, urban sprawl, suburban sprawl. How do you handle this?

J.D. Clark: Yeah. And that’s that’s a big question in the work every day is, how do you make sure that the quality of service is keeping up with the amount of quick growth? And and it’s also new things that come up, you know, in, in Texas, we don’t have. And then incorporated county, we don’t have zoning authority. We don’t have much ordinance making authority outside of a few things for health, safety and public welfare.

We have to keep up with, like a lot of counties where, you know, we struggle with staffing and recruiting and retaining folks. A challenge we have in particular is, you know, a blessing and a curse. There’s pros and cons of being next to a major metropolitan area like that one. And one of the cons is with all that growth, we’re so close to those very large cities, they can pay so much more than we can right off the bat, especially when it comes to public safety deputies.

And so we try and you know what? What we can’t maybe match them in salary. We try and pitch on, you know, benefits, quality of life, being in being in a smaller county. And that’s a struggle there too, because you’ve got big boys next door that can start you at 20,000 more than our county can. And that’s a struggle for those guys coming out of police academy trying to decide where to make a career.

And those dollars matter.

David Martin: How do you balance? You said, you know, there’s sort of that old West feel to it. How do you balance maintaining the Old West feel with the, folks who are trying to move in and, and the suburban growth?

J.D. Clark: And that’s something we talk about a lot, not just within the county government, with our city partners in the chambers of commerce and all the civic organizations. As we know we’re growing. We know we’re going to continue to grow. And I tell people when I go speak to different groups, we don’t need to argue over whether we like the growth or don’t like the growth.

It’s coming, it’s coming. So instead, how do we manage it? How do we want it to look? And I believe in most of the new residents that I meet, they don’t look. It was county and our cities and was county and think, gosh, I want to go live there because it looks like every other place that I could pick along the highway.

They’re looking for somewhere in this region to live. And they come out to US County and they find a lot of these, these great communities with the historic town squares that are still there and the historic storefronts, and you’ve got family businesses that have been owned by the same family for 50 plus years. They lock that. And so I think our challenge there is we have to reach out to these new residents and help bring them into the community and let them be part of it, not just cross our arms and say, oh gosh, it’s another housing subdivision.

Okay, well, let’s look at as an opportunity instead to say, we’ve got a bunch of new neighbors to teach you about Wise County, share our county history. Tell them how US County came about, some of the big historical events that have shaped who we are and what we passed down as stories and and let them be part of it.

And then they’ll, you know, they love the historic downtowns, too, even though they didn’t grow up there. So let them be part of it and let them buy into it. That’s how we keep that culture, even as we grow.

David Martin: Do you have a couple of saloons with the old swing of doors down there?

J.D. Clark: So we, we actually have a, a place on the square in Decatur, our county seat, and it’s still got the old pillars out in front, and there’s still a notch mark where a bullet hit it. there in the.

David Martin: That’s fine. I know no shootouts in any bars lately.

J.D. Clark: Oh, no, not in a long time. Thank God it’s.

David Martin: Good. Nobody said there was a shootout on horseback with their guns out. you talked a little bit about the, the stockyards. How how much of a commercial driver is that? So?

J.D. Clark: So it’s huge for our region, us. And so Fort Worth and Tarrant County next door to us. But that that’s such a hub. And we’ve got coming off of that, we’ve got, a massive business called National Roper Supply in Ross, and it’s a nationwide business serves the the cowboy roping industry, competitive roping. And they they started as a local Western store and have grown into I think their their customer mailing list is like 2 million or something like that.

It’s massive. And they’ve got all these training facilities, event facilities for all these cowboys who do roping. And it’s become a hub for a lot of world champion cowboys, champion cowboys from Brazil. They’ve relocated there, have their ranches there now so they can work and practice there close to DFW airport and can get to whatever rodeo there need to get to quickly.

But at the same time, that’s a tourism driver. people that follow rodeo, follow cowboy sports, cowboy lifestyle. They’re coming to our region because they want to see the stockyards. They want to go to the Fort Worth stock show every year. They want to come out and see in Ross and buy a pair of boots. we’ve got a guy named Jeff Biggers who’s just this brilliant, hat maker, custom makes hats, and people come out and want to get a hat made for their head.

David Martin: Did he make.

J.D. Clark: You a hat? He did make me a hat. He did? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that would have helped when it’s too hot for it. So, too hot this time of year. But. Yeah. And it’s, it’s a huge driver for us. And so that’s the other thing is it’s, it’s not just, a cowboy culture that we love because we grew up there, but it’s an important part of the economy.

David Martin: How many hats do you have?

J.D. Clark: I have two hats.

David Martin: Just two.

J.D. Clark: Just two. I’m not a big hat wear, so. Okay.

David Martin: how many I again, I’m from Brooklyn. How many hats? The most. Most folks have.

J.D. Clark: Oh, I don’t know. you know, and you’ve got multiple. Yeah. Because you’ve got different hats for different times a year, and then you got assets you work in, you got dress hair since you’re wearing to a nice event. So now if we get into how many pairs of boots do I have? I have a whole lot more boots than anything.

So that’s, Yeah.

David Martin: How many pairs of boots do you have? Oh, I’ve.

J.D. Clark: Probably got 8 or 10 pairs of boots.

David Martin: So, how do you decide which to wear?

J.D. Clark: You know, just depends on. And some, some you can sit better with suit pants. some are beat up, and that depends on what I’m doing that day. And, we’ve got, we’ve got a historic county courthouse restoration project going on with the Texas Historical Commission. So it’s a lot of dust flying right now. So I’m going to wear a more nastier boots on those days.

Well, I’m having to go in there.

David Martin: So you’ve mentioned history a few times. Give me a real brief history of, of your county.

J.D. Clark: Was county, was incorporated in the 1850s. And it was, it was a pretty rugged place for a long time in the 1800s. That was, that was in Comanche country. And so you had people coming out and settle there, starting up some small little settlements, lots of, lots of pretty wild and brutal history about then those settlers and the Comanches coming in and, one of the one of the most famous Comanche stories is the Babbitt family massacre there, near the town where I grew up, Chico.

And, you know, some children were then taken by the Comanche, and they ended up raising them for a number of years. And then the, the they grew up and they ended up coming back to US County and and living and working in the area on a ranch. And just you think about those kinds of stories and that wasn’t that long ago, you know, that that was that was frontier out there.

And so, I try and keep that in perspective, too, that we’re we’re a young county in, in the grand scope of, of history. And we still got a lot of growing to do. And, it’s, you know, start started that frontier. And then we had a lot, a lot of limestone quarries there. It’s, big Oil and Gas County always, cattle and, peanut production.

We used to have a lot of peanut production there. And in the northwest corner of the county where we got a lot of sandy soil. And so it’s really been, an interesting transition to see, you know, as we’ve relied on different things and seen booms and busts. And now, with our local economies diversified a lot just with the growth, as you have more people live there, you have more opportunities for business and different types of business.

David Martin: What’s making people come to us?

J.D. Clark: I think what’s making people come to was, is that, number one, you just got the rapid growth to the region. And so then as I look in the region where they want to settle, you still have a lot of land available in was county. You’ve got a, pretty low tax burden in the county compared to other places, especially if they’re moving from other states a lot of the time.

you’ve got a lot of small town feel you do, and you’ve got smaller schools. If you’re a family that’s that’s interested in that for your kids. But at the same time, you’re right. Next door to major metropolitan areas, whether you need to commute into work, even if it’s just a couple days a week, or if you want to be near Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, we’re out there.

It’s just kind of a sweet spot. So we sit on to 87 and three 8114. You can get anywhere you want to go pretty quickly.

David Martin: I’m sure the Convention and Visitors Bureau is going to love this interview.

J.D. Clark: I hope so, I hope so. We’re always promoting Last County. Oh.

David Martin: I’m started to talk to more people with your background who are teachers first, is there anything about being a teacher that lends itself to being a good county commissioner? County judge? I do.

J.D. Clark: I think that, you know, being a teacher, you think about teachers teaching and talking, but teachers do a lot of listening as well. I think teachers have to learn to be very perceptive to what people might not be saying. And what I mean by that is you have, you have a student below in your classroom in the morning acting out, in, in a foul mood.

You can’t just do your, your knee jerk reaction. Do I gotta crack down on this kid for acting this way? But instead, as you know, more students and understand more about the different home lives your students have, you don’t know what was going on at home that morning or last night. you know, I might be the person that I might be the only person that says anything nice to this kid all day.

And so I have to step back a little bit from my initial reaction and try and understand more about where they’re coming from into my classroom that day. And, at the same time, too, I think that it helps us as elected officials that have been teachers before. I think that we as we teach, we hopefully develop some skills to present issues in a, in a simple, clean cut way that narratively, everybody can understand in a classroom.

You’ve got to be able to reach, a wide range of students that are all in different places. And I think we have to be able to do that with constituents, too, and help them understand what we’re working on, what the objective is and, and what we’re going to focus on.

David Martin: So if you can explain it to a sixth grader, you can explain it to a voter.

J.D. Clark: That’s that’s the hope I think I think so, so but but I think there’s a lot to that though, because, you know, you think about if you work in county government every day, you take some, some pieces of knowledge for granted that, that when you work in anything every day, that if you’re trying to talk to someone else about it, they may not have the same background information you do.

So how do I make somebody understand all the different things that county government does without boring them to death? And that’s the same struggle with a student, too, you know?

David Martin: Do you ever find yourselves as a as a county judge talking to people and thinking, oh my God, I’m back in the classroom?

J.D. Clark: Yeah, I do, and I did a was part of a panel on broadband infrastructure to the West Texas County Judges and Commissioners Conference back in March. And I had a guy come up to me afterward and he said, I can tell that you were a teacher when I listen to you present this. And so I’m going to take that as a compliment and maybe, maybe not, that it felt like a lecture.

David Martin: And I understand you taught, English, history and guitar.

J.D. Clark: Yes, I did, yes, I did. So, anybody that’s taught to, especially in smaller schools know that you get other duties as assigned. So, you know, primarily started teaching seventh grade reading, got eighth grade English and journalism with that. And then we were looking at adding some new electives, trying to find some new unusual electives for our students to fire them up a little bit.

my principal that I worked for knew that I like to play guitar. And he said, what about trying a guitar elective? And so I taught sixth grade guitar. And, you know, on the on the first day when you get 27 sixth graders in a room with guitars in their hands for the for the first time, you’re thinking, what have I done?

But then by the end of the year, you’ve got them all on stage in front of their parents playing songs together, and you’re like, okay, that’s why we’re doing this, you know? And they’re they’re so excited and it’s pretty amazing to see that progress. And then I ended up teaching sophomore world history.

David Martin: Have you, any of your guitar students become actual performers, players, professional guitar players?

J.D. Clark: not professional. And, that, I think is probably a reflection on me and not them. but, you know, I do know that some of them still play and, and, you know, I still run into and keep in touch with a lot of them, and some of them still play. And just like I do enjoy it as a hobby and a relaxation thing and so so that’s cool because I know that we started that together.

And they’ll probably teach one of their kids to play someday.

David Martin: So what’s scarier? Standing in front of a room as a county judge or standing on stage performing with your band, which you said you did?

J.D. Clark: you know, I don’t I don’t know that either of them I think of is scary. I think that’s, you know, the play in music that’s that’s for fun. And you just sharing something for entertainment or art’s sake. but, you know, here.

David Martin: At a bar.

J.D. Clark: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And there, I guess you just want to play what they want to hear so they don’t throw something that’s, that’s less likely to happen with a group of county officials. But, you know, here it’s it’s not scary either, because as you interact with other county officials, we’re all in the same boat, whether we’re, rural county or suburban county or urban county, we all have the same.

We all have concerns and things we’re trying to figure out. And how are we going to make this work? And it’s good to come here and be together and realize we’re all in the same boat. We’re all trying to do what’s right at home, and none of us are perfect, and we’re always struggling to figure out how to do this project a little bit better.

David Martin: Well, we’re going to we’re going to talk to you and see how you figure it out. Government right now because we’re going to go with our questionnaire. Are you ready?

J.D. Clark: I didn’t know there was a questionnaire but I’m ready.

David Martin: Yes, yes. You are not properly prepped for you. I think you’re you’re friends ready to set you up. So that’s all right. So you I think you said two terms so far as, county judge. You’re you’ve served eight years. and I think you you had a background before that in city government, right?

J.D. Clark: That’s correct. I served on city council and then as mayor in my hometown of Chico, and that’s Chico, Texas, not Chico, California. So it’s about a thousand people, just over a thousand people.

David Martin: Okay. So from the city perspective, in the county perspective, define good government.

J.D. Clark: I think it’s an understanding what challenges your your is facing today and trying to solve those in a way that also contemplates what challenges, maybe coming up down the road so that we’re not just mandating things. And I think the good government is, listening to constituents. Good government doesn’t always mean that we always have to agree, but it means that we listen to each other and we try and solve problems together without just asking somebody else because they disagree with us.

David Martin: How do you define success and good government for yourself and your success?

J.D. Clark: I think that for me personally, when when I go home, at the end of the day, as I’m driving home, I think about, well, even on the rough days. Did you make a little progress on something that’s been worrying you at night? And, progress isn’t always big and progress could even be, you know, I had I had a phone call where somebody that maybe we’ve been at odds on a project worth.

We. We came to a consensus on something on that phone call, and that’s progress. And then bigger steps. You know, I love at the county level that I could drive by something next week and point to and say, hey, we made that better. You know, we identified that last week or we got equipment rolled on that, that road and we made that better.

And, and I love that because we’re responding to things in real time and some things you may never see the fruits of, or, you know, I may be an old man and see something, see something get resolved one day and say, hey, we started planting those seeds back in 2023 when I was in office, and I’m so glad somebody carried that through.

And it’s it’s finally paying off for this community. And I think, you know, that’s, I’ll butcher the quote, but, the quote about, you know, you have to you have to plant seeds of trees that you may not sit in the shade of. The other people will, you know, and that’s just part of the deal, is we’re not doing things just for us.

And today we’re trying to set things up that make our community better for other people a long ways down the road.

David Martin: What should the people use as their measurement for success by you and your fellow county judges?

J.D. Clark: Do you look at the work I’m doing and it doesn’t mean you have to agree with me 100% of the time, because I don’t think there are any of us that are. But do you look at me? Do you look at other county officials and say, you know what, at the end of the day, I know that everything that’s driving him and his professional decisions is that he’s trying to do what he believes to be right for his community.

And, you know, how how do they know that? How do they do that? I think a lot of that is is incumbent on me in communicating and explaining and explaining where I’m coming from and what I’m trying to achieve. And then hopefully people can gauge that and say, hey, I may not agree with him on this project, but I know that he’s doing it from the right place in his heart.

And I think that’s that’s the measure of a county official doing the right thing. Is are we approaching it for what’s best for the community, not what’s best for me as a politician.

David Martin: And as a people don’t feel like they’re getting what’s best for the community. What should they do?

J.D. Clark: Oh, they’ll probably get a new one. you know, that’s that’s one of those. What I would hope they would do is that they would engage with me and say, hey, I think, I think we’ve got an issue here or I’m not sure why you’re doing this here. I think you’re coming at this the wrong way, because the worst thing that can happen to any of us is county officials is to get stuck in an echo chamber where we’ve just got allies with us.

Who? Yes, yes, yes, you’re doing a great job. if you don’t think I’m doing a great job, talk to me about that, too, because obviously I’m either missing something there in the work I’m doing or I’m missing something there in the communication that I’m doing. And we need to understand each other better. Where I’m coming from, what you’re perceiving and where maybe you think we ought to be going.

David Martin: So you served eight years at the county level to the city level before that. What would you like people to know about how government works, how government operates?

J.D. Clark: I think that’s what people need, to see. and I hope they see and realize about their local government is we know there’s a lot of stereotypical bad that we can point to about government. You know, people hear that word and have a lot of negative reactions and sometimes for good cause we we see a lot of ugly because, you know, we usually see the bad actors, they get a lot of press.

But, always encouraged to see other local officials because like at a convention like this, this is full of people who, for the most part just decided to get involved in their community. And we had different trajectories that took us there. And we’ve ended up in county government. And this is a lot of people who are just neighbors of you, people at the post office with you, people at the grocery store with you.

It’s it’s neighbors representing neighbors. We don’t live somewhere else making decisions for that county. We’re here with you. And that’s that’s what local government is and what I hope people see.

David Martin: Do you think they see it? Do you think they are there? What’s the feedback?

J.D. Clark: I think they do. And and in my community, I definitely believe that to be true because, you know, we’re about 70, 70, 2000 people. It’s still small enough that if you want to know your county official on a personal basis, you can, you know, and, all the time, you know, people know where I’ll go get coffee every morning.

David Martin: And I was going to ask, what’s it like to go get coffee or go to dinner or have lunch? The kid, the county.

J.D. Clark: You know, they, I get hit a lot in the morning at the coffee shop and it it’s usually, you know, it’s usually, hey, update me on this project or where are we on this? And, and I love that. And that’s, that’s work too. It’s not just in an office. It’s out in the community. you know, you’ll you’ll be at dinner with the family and, and generally, people respect that.

They may come by and say, hey, I need to come see you next week. And it’s like, please do that. You know, call me or I’ll pull up my phone right now and say, well, this is an afternoon. I have a lot of flexibility, and I don’t mind that that’s the job because it’s neighbors helping neighbors and working with neighbors.

And if I don’t hear from them, I don’t know.

David Martin: Who’s your hero in government.

J.D. Clark: My hero in government.

David Martin: Who inspires you to get into this?

J.D. Clark: Yeah. What what inspired me to get into this? I would say more than anything who inspired me to get into it? and it was a couple things my students inspired me, because, you know, when I started with them in seventh grade and then got moved to the high school, I had a lot of the same students year after year, and so got to know them really well.

And especially when we got into the history realm talking about that, they had such a negative just as sophomores, a negative perception of of government. And so I would talk to them about, well, you guys know me and I’m the mayor in my hometown down the road. And so let me see how that works. And okay. And so I thought, well, that’s the key there.

If you know somebody in government, you’ve got a little bit different perspective of of that person and that level of government. and so just just seeing that, I thought we got to do better and we got to do better at home. And then the other thing is, is, my senior commissioner on the commissioners court, Kevin Byrne.

So he’ll be he’ll be so irritated that I mentioned him on here, but he he is such a mentor to me. he he knew me before I, got involved in county government. And I consider him a, a friend and a mentor. And he does county government for the right reason. He just wants to make it a better place to live.

he he doesn’t care if he’s the one that sees the final outcome or gets the credit. He just wants to make sure that the work’s getting done. And I learned so much from him. And,

David Martin: It’s that a lot of trees.

J.D. Clark: Yeah, he’s planted a lot of trees. And and I’m honored to serve on on court with him. And I learn from him every day.

David Martin: I have never been to Wise County. I have never been to Fort Worth or Dallas, for that matter. I’m coming to visit. What do we have? Take me out to lunch. Take me out to dinner. What are we eating? What’s the. What’s the special cuisine? And, And Wise county.

J.D. Clark: Oh, gosh. And that’s, we’ve got so, so many, great options there. I don’t even know where to begin, but we’re going to have to do multiple meals. we gotta have a great place in Boyd, Texas, there in Wales County called Gogo Gumbo that, you look at it from the outside, and you, you think, well, this looks like just a little home town place.

You’re going to be just blown away by the food in there. we’ve got got some great restaurants on the square in Decatur, and we’ve got great barbecue. We’ll go out to Greenwood. It’s a little unincorporated community. You get the best hamburgers out there. It’s like stepping back in time. It’s called Greenwood Grocery, and it’s a little bitty community grocery store out there.

in the North. Beautiful part of county with all the trees. You order a hamburger. And literally the walls are shelves of grocery items because they’re it’s it’s a store, you know, but you get a hamburger and it’s like going back in time and it’s so great and, so many good options and great Tex-Mex. And please come visit.

David Martin: Oh, well, I guess I’ll stop in for the burger. I guess it sounds like.

J.D. Clark: We get to show you around. All right.

David Martin: I know you started your career as a teacher, but did you have, an idea of getting into politics at some point? Was that always something on your radar? Were you high school class president?

J.D. Clark: no, I mean, I was I was a class officer in high school. but, never, never considered politics as a career. And, you know, I got into the city council thing just because I wanted to help out in my hometown, and and I love it. And I still live just north of that hometown. But as, as I got deeper and deeper into it and realized more about local government, I just fell so in love with that form of government.

And, I mean, what better job is there to do? And it ties in with the reasons that people go into teach. You feel like that you’re going in each day and trying to put in the work to make a difference for somebody, and you can’t beat it.

David Martin: This is the good government show. We like to wrap it up with a good government story. Tell me, good government project that you’re proud of.

J.D. Clark: Okay. We just, we just wrapped up, a project. We actually got a Naco achievement award for it this year. we did a private public partnership for a broadband infrastructure project with a great internet provider there, and was county. We used some of our American Rescue Plan funding to do a public private partnership with them, to do a hybrid fiber and cbrs spectrum wireless infrastructure.

And we’ve hit more than now. There’s 100 Meg minimum speed available to no more than 95% of our households and businesses in the county. And for us is, largely unincorporated county. there’s there’s some really areas of sparse population and there’s a lot of geographic and tree canopy. And to be able to have new service available that covers pretty much the whole county at those 100 Meg speeds and up.

It’s a game changer for residents quality of life and for education and health care. Small businesses, people that are wanting to start a small business at home but didn’t have the internet speed available before they can now. Or maybe they don’t have to drive in to the metroplex now. They can work from home a couple days a week because they’ve got the internet available, and I think that we are going to we just wrapped that up this spring, and I think we’re going to be seeing this, this more competitive broadband service and higher speed broadband service pay dividends for our constituents and businesses for a long time to.

David Martin: Another tree planting.

J.D. Clark: Absolutely, absolutely. And I hope that people are able to benefit from that for years from now, long after I’m here.

David Martin: All right. JD Clark, County judge of Wise County, Texas, thanks so much for stopping by. Great conversation. and, you know, good luck. Thank you.

J.D. Clark: Thank you. And I’ll see you in county. All right.

David Martin: We’re going to board burgers, barbecue, some Texas.

J.D. Clark: Let’s go.

David Martin: All right. Thank you.

Where do you get your news from? Where do you get your state and local government news from. Because that’s getting harder and harder. And it’s essential to stay updated with your community. And it’s becoming increasingly important to know what’s going on in other cities and states, because they’re likely facing challenges that you’re grappling with, too, or you’re going to face eventually.

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I see it in my inbox every morning. I check it out and you should too. Thanks again. Route 50. We’re excited to have you on board and being a partner here at the Good Government Show.

What is it the county government does? That’s the question county commissioners get asked the most. And the simple answer is everything on the Good Government show. We’re so lucky to have talked with so many county commissioners and other county officials that have shown us how effective county government is. County government dates back to get this 1634, making it one of the oldest forms of government in the United States.

Think about it. Roads. Highways. Hospitals. Schools. Recycling. Law enforcement. Water. Sewers, and most of the county. Those services are maintained by the county that’s county government. The National Association of Counties represents all 3069 counties across the USA. Naco helps county government work better together through things like sharing best practices. When county government works well, well, that’s just good government.

Okay, so my words, but his idea on why teachers make good elected officials. If you can explain it to a sixth grader, you can explain it to a voter. And as you hear, government is all about listening. A good conversation with JT Clark County Jr of Wise County, Texas. Well, that’s our show. Thanks for listening. Now make sure to subscribe where you’re listening right now.

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**This transcription was created using digital tools and has not been edited by a live person. We apologize for any discrepancies or errors.