Robert Taylor and his family moved to the village of Ostrander in 2007, shortly thereafter, he started attending village council meetings. Monday evening he was sworn in as mayor of the village.
During council’s Feb. 11 meeting, Larry Crile, citing personal reasons, tendered his resignation as mayor.
Taylor, 47, said he was originally appointed to council to finish someone else’s term. He said he has since been elected to two consecutive terms and served as council president for four years.
“Somebody had stepped down, and Larry was kind of like you’re an engineer and you have a pretty good head on your shoulders,” he said. “Then he asked if I wanted to finish out the term. I finished the term in 2009. I’ve run twice, and I’m now finishing my second term.”
Taylor said he will finish out Crile’s vacated term, which ends Dec. 31, 2019.
“I think I’ll probably run again as long as nobody yells at me too bad,” he said
Council appointed Chris Greasamar to finish out Taylor’s term as president, and the village is currently looking to appoint a new council member to fill the empty seat.
In the months leading up to Crile’s resignation, Taylor said he had discussed it with him, so it wasn’t a surprise.
“He said it’s time for you young bucks to run things,” Taylor said. “But, I don’t feel like a young buck anymore.”
Taylor added he has similar thoughts as Crile about the small village community that is now seeing an increase in development.
“I’m trying to keep things as they have always been here,” he said before echoing the words he had heard Crile recite before: “We know the growth is coming. You can fight it or you can embrace it. We want to embrace it and control it, so it works out for the best for everybody.”
Taylor said a lot of the people aren’t happy about it, but the village is close to downtown Columbus and growth is going happen.
“We’re going to keep doing what we’re doing,” he said.
Taylor grew up in Fremont, Ohio, later moving to Springfield where he graduated from high school. He then attended Ohio University, where he obtained a civil engineering degree.
“Basically, I went to work for the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) after college,” he said. “My wife was teaching in Marysville.”
Taylor said it was his wife who found the house in Meadows of Mill Creek where they live now.
“We kind of looked in the windows, but the price was too high,” he said. “It set for a while. The price came down, and everything worked out. It was convenient because it was between Delaware and Marysville.”
Taylor said he left ODOT five years ago and went to work for the City of Dublin as the infrastructure asset management engineer.
