As Lakeland residents are preparing to vote in the upcoming mayoral election, The Lakeland Banner reached out to both candidates, Josh Roman and Connie McCarter, with the same set of questions about their backgrounds, priorities, and vision for Lakeland’s future.
This article features Mayor Josh Roman’s responses to the questions submitted by The Lakeland Banner. We hope his answers help residents better understand his perspectives, priorities, and plans for Lakeland’s future. Once we receive responses from challenger Connie McCarter, we will publish her answers in a separate article to provide voters with the same opportunity to hear directly from both candidates.
We hope this Q&A gives residents a clearer understanding of where each candidate stands on the issues that matter to Lakeland’s future.
1. Tell us about yourself and your family.
Ursula and I have called Lakeland home for 25 years, and we’ve raised our daughters, Baylor and Mallory, here. Professionally, I’ve owned Roman Insurance locally for 15 years, so I know what it means to meet a payroll, balance a budget and earn people’s trust one conversation at a time. Before becoming mayor, I served a Vice Mayor, Industrial Development Board Founder, and EDC Member. What led me to run was simple: I wanted Lakeland to plan its future on purpose instead of letting it happen by accident. As a parent, I wanted great schools close to home. As a business owner, I wanted us to spend every tax dollar like it was our own. That’s still why I’m running.
2. What is your short-term vision for the next four years?
Finish what we started and keep taxes low. My top priorities:
- Recruit the right businesses to fill out our already approved Gateway projects, so commercial growth helps pay for city services instead of homeowners.
- Keep our schools fully funded while some neighbors have frozen theirs.
- Stay on track to eliminate every failing road by 2030.
- Open the Community Center/YMCA and Aquatic Center in 2027, with programs for kids, families and seniors.
- Stay ahead on public safety, building on the Sheriff’s Office presence on Canada Road and the new TN Highway Patrol District 4 headquarters.
All of it while keeping the lowest property tax rate in Shelby County.
3. What is your long-term vision for the next 20 years?
In 20 years, I want Lakeland to still feel like Lakeland: quiet neighborhoods, the lake, and the kind of place where you know your neighbors. The way to protect that is to plan growth instead of reacting to it. That means concentrating commercial development at our gateways and main corridors, where it adds tax base without pushing into neighborhoods. It means investing in schools, roads and parks before demand outruns them, because waiting only costs more, as we learned on school construction. And it means keeping a strong, self-sustaining tax base so the next generation inherits a city that’s financially healthy, not one that has to raise taxes to catch up like in 2013.
4. How would you balance growth, infrastructure and quality of life?
Growth should pay its own way and come with a plan. We’ve proven that approach works. We’re investing $136–$180 per resident each year in paving, about four times what neighboring cities spend, while keeping the lowest tax rate in Shelby County. We built the Lakeland Prep campus ahead of demand rather than after it. We also brought in major public safety assets without burdening taxpayers, including the THP District 4 headquarters at no land cost to the city. Going forward, I’ll keep steering commercial growth to our planned corridors, require new development to fit our infrastructure, and keep investing in roads, schools and services before residents feel the strain.
5. Why should residents choose you?
Because I have a record you can check, not just promises. Under my leadership, Lakeland kept the lowest property tax rate in Shelby County with no increase after reappraisal. We completed the K‑12 Lakeland Prep campus, earned Level 5 Academic Achievement, and Lakeland Elementary is a National Blue Ribbon School. We tore down the crime motels near I‑40, and we recruited businesses like ALDI, which was headed for the Memphis side until we found a way to bring it, and its sales tax, home to Lakeland.
If re-elected, here’s what residents can measure me by:
- No property tax increase.
- Zero failing roads by 2030.
- The YMCA open in 2027.
- New businesses filling our Gateway projects.
- Schools that stay fully funded.
Josh Roman
Mayor, Lakeland, TN
