With the Houston City Council At-Large Position 4 heading to a runoff, voters face a clear choice between two candidates offering sharply different approaches to citywide leadership.
Former councilmember Dwight Boykins and attorney Alejandra Salinas emerged as the top finishers in a crowded field and are now vying for a seat that represents all Houstonians, not a single district. The seat became vacant after Letitia Plummer resigned in July 2025 to run for Harris County Judge.
The city of Houston has set the run-off date for the open at-large council seat, At-Large Position 4, for Dec. 13, 2025 (Saturday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.). Early voting will run from December 1–9 (Monday through Saturday: 7:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m.; Sunday: 12:00 p.m.- 7:00 p.m.).
In the November 4 general election, no candidate exceeded 50% support, prompting a run-off. Salinas led with approximately 21% of the vote, followed closely by Boykins with about 20%.
To help readers compare their priorities and governing philosophies, The Houston Defender posed the same set of questions to both candidates: on citywide failures, budget constraints, public trust and what distinguishes them from one another. Their answers reveal contrasting views on experience versus fresh leadership and their ideas on tackling long-standing infrastructure and public safety challenges at City Hall as Houston heads toward the runoff election.
Question 1: At-large members must serve the entire city, not one district. What are the top three citywide issues you believe Houston has failed to address effectively and what specific legislative or budget actions would you take in your first year to change that?
Boykins: First thing I’m going to do is meet with the mayor, the council members and the agenda director to make certain I understand where we are on a very important initiative for the city called the East Water Purification Plant. This is where 73% of the drinking water and bathing water used in the restroom comes from. The city is trying to determine if they don’t build a new plant or renovate the current plant, which is already aged, then the question becomes, how are we going to pay for it? Will we issue bonds that create new debt or bring the private sector in?
The second thing I want to do is make certain that the ReBuild Houston infrastructure program that we passed, which I was a part of in 2011, has the funding for that program stay in place in a lockbox. I want to establish an ad hoc committee to oversee the protection of that fund, ensuring that street and drainage repairs, as well as pothole replacements, are in place throughout the city.
The third thing, I want to expand my seniors assistance fund to help seniors with minor home repairs at no cost. Currently, we have repaired over 607 homes for seniors and I want to continue that city-wide.
Salinas: This campaign has started from a place of listening and learning. I’ve had a lot of conversations and a lot of different coffee shops, sat down with engineers and also did a police ride-along, where I sat in a car and understood the experience from law enforcement.
Based on those conversations, three major issues rose to the top. The first is affordable and reliable city services, just getting the basics right as a city, picking up the trash on time and regularly picking up the recycling and actually going to recycling, fixing the potholes and the basic infrastructure of our streets, and then it when it comes to a strong infrastructure, making sure that we’re making smart decisions about protecting our communities and our homes from flooding.
We’re losing billions of gallons of water underground due to leaky pipes, which is causing sinkholes around the city and we know what happens when power doesn’t work. We can’t allow that to happen with our water infrastructure, so making the investments we need to remedy.
Then, public safety. That’s an above-all approach to giving law enforcement the resources they need. For example, making sure they have enough cars to patrol the city, but also turning to known community-based approaches to policing. In Boston, they’ve had tremendous success with focusing on hot spot areas, not just with increased enforcement, but by bringing in more mental health resources, more Job Corps resources, more drug rehabilitation resources, giving people an option to engage in a new life rather than engaging in recidivism. I want to champion some of those programs right here in Houston.
There are budgetary limits to doing all this. So how do we pay for those programs? I think one step is being more proactive in the grants that we are seeking from our state, federal and private partners. Right now, there are departments in the city of Houston that don’t have dedicated grant writers who aren’t focused on bringing in additional dollars.
So, one of the first things I want to do is hire some dedicated grant writers to just be focused on, how do we bring in additional dollars to the city of Houston, so cities like New York, LA and Chicago don’t get it all, but that we have a fighting chance at some of those dollars, and then looking at other ways that we can bring in additional revenue to the city, but I think before we bring in additional revenue from taxpayers, we have to start with more communication and transparency about how your dollars are being spent.
Question 2: Residents consistently cite issues like public safety, illegal dumping and aging infrastructure as their concerns. Which issue will you prioritize first when you assume office and how will you fund improvements without straining the city’s structural deficit?
Boykins: As an at-large council member, you work with the district council members that have the 13 district council members that have a $1 million allocation called a council district service fund. You meet with each one to determine which one has the illegal dumping issues and see what they have allocated funding for. In other words, they have a HOT (Homeless Outreach Team) team that may go out and pick up illegal dumping, or they have cameras that may be helping. I want to get with them and not get in front of them, to see what they have in place.
Then my experience being that I’ve worked with federal agencies in the past, go to Washington, DC, set up a meeting with the Department of Justice and see if there’s additional funding that can be used to bring in security methods to help with public safety initiatives in throughout the city of Houston, and divide that money among the 13 districts that we get funded.
You must have a balanced budget according to the city charter, but you want to make certain that you’re not leaving out basic city services that will help with the quality of life, from picking up trash, recycling and making certain that seniors have access to the multi-service centers.
Salinas: The issues that are priorities for me are affordable, reliable city services, safer neighborhoods and a strong infrastructure, getting creative about how we’re bringing in additional dollars for the city of Houston.
Illegal dumping is a very important issue in the city of Houston. It’s as much of a public safety concern as some of the things that our law enforcement has to deal with because of the nuisance that it causes in communities. A very natural place for us to start in combating that is using the power of the purse that the city has. There are a lot of contractors, hundreds of millions of dollars that we dole out to give to companies to do work for the city. Let’s make sure that those companies have a clear plan in place as to how they’re going to handle the dumping the size associated with their projects, and let’s hold them to account. If companies are not following through, we’re going to remember that the next time they come up for another city contract.
It’s not just corporate bad actors. Sometimes there are people in these communities, or people around the communities who are coming in and engaging in this. How we challenge tackle that issue needs to be a conversation we’re having with folks in the community. Is it increased fines? Is it being more stringent on when the city takes action, and increased enforcement? We can’t go too far and have all the surveillance that the community doesn’t want, but if the community wants additional surveillance, let’s support the efforts that folks in the community are amenable to.
Question 3: In what ways do you distinguish yourself from your opponent and this seat’s predecessors?
Boykins: I don’t know my opponent. I just met her during this campaign for the first time. So I don’t want to say I know anything about her. I do know that I have experience. I have the endorsements of every single industry, from the police department, the fire department, the city of Houston employees, the sheriff’s department, former mayor Lee P. Brown, every Mayor Pro Tem you can think of, and now the Harris County sheriff.
What separates me is that every single business, industry and law enforcement and community business groups support my campaign because they know I can hit the ground running. I demonstrated that when I was on the council for six years, I brought a quality grocery store into a neighborhood, a brand new multi-service center and a fire station to the Sunnyside area. Experience matters and I’m ready to hit the ground running.
Salinas: I was very honored to receive the endorsement of the Houston Chronicle in this runoff election.
I’m someone new, someone with fresh ideas. My opponent served on council over a decade ago, and I have much respect for his service, but I’m trying to bring a new, sort of fresh experience to council.
I spent 20 years of my life taking on big fights in both advocacy, whether it was organizing students at my local high school and nationally for President Barack Obama, and as a trial lawyer right here in Harris County, taking on some big companies and holding them to account.
In my pro bono practice, representing people like Teneshia Hudspeth and Lina Hidalgo when the Republicans tried to overturn our election, and representing students in Magnolia ISD when they were being kicked out of class just because of the style of their hair, I’ve taken on these fights, I’ve gotten things done for the community and I want to take all those lessons of being a partner at one of the best law firms in America, learning how to organize nationally and at a local level, to bring that advocacy and consensus building to council. That’s what sets me apart in this race.
