Todd Taylor has cast more dissenting votes than anyone on the council, and he has filed one order. Those two facts describe his year. He is the member most likely to be alone on a roll call, and the one who uses the floor rather than the filing cabinet.
The dissents
December 15, 2025: with Robinson and Brown, no on taking the Community Preservation Act grants one at a time; then, having lost, he requested the roll call on each one. March 30: he objected to Teshe’s motion to continue the inclusionary housing meeting until the City Manager returned with a revised draft, and lost 7 to 2 with Robinson. April 6: he moved alone to send the school bus camera order to committee, lost 1 to 8, and voted present on the order itself, the only present vote. April 27: no on Recupero’s three-family zoning. June 22: no on the Hines amendment that raised the inclusionary fee to $275,000.
What he has asked for
His one order, in March, called the Public Safety subcommittee into session with the City Manager and police chief on littering, loitering, noise and quality of life, broadening a Santagate order about the Civil War Memorial into a citywide question. At that meeting he named scooters and e-bikes as a problem. The $200,000 Community Preservation request for a first-phase appraisal of the library’s archives came, the Ways and Means minutes say, “following a previous request from Councilor Taylor.” He spoke for the John Ruiz statue in committee.
Attendance and role
He has not missed a meeting; he was two minutes late to the June 22 swearing-in. He has been marked absent on one roll call. He has made 16 motions under suspension. He chairs this year’s City Manager Evaluation Committee, appointed September 14.
The profile
The record shows the council’s most consistent skeptic of process and of new requirements on development: against delay when the City Manager’s draft was on the table, against the higher fee when the working group’s draft replaced it, against a new enforcement program without committee review. He has been on the losing side of every split vote this year. His interests off the floor are quality of life enforcement and the city’s history. He won District 1 in November, 253 to 139. His biography is here.