Three-term councilman said he will serve Taylor in other ways
With election filings now closed, three-term District 4 Councilman Robert Garcia has announced he is stepping down from the City Council dais and won’t seek another term.
However, he’s not going anywhere. Garcia said he will continue to serve Taylor, just in a different capacity.
“The first seven years were amazing,” Garcia said of his nineyear stint. “If the council continued to be like it was the first seven years I would have run, no questions. But the current
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I’m just somebody who’s here for the people.”
— Robert Garcia political atmosphere, not just in Taylor but in the entire country, is not a good place for me to be in because I’m not a politician. I’m just somebody who’s here for the people.”
As of press time, four candidates have filed applications to run for Garcia’s spot in the May 3 general election.
Garcia was first elected to the council in May 2016. Supporters said he became one of the city’s most visible leaders, not only for his actions but also for his dedication to wearing purple shirts, which he says represents bipartisanship.
“When you put purple into politics, you mix red and blue, you get purple. So I like to take the best of the red, the best of the blue. Then you mix it together and do what’s best for the community,” he said.
Sometimes what was best for the community meant pitching in with manual labor. After Winter Storm Uri in 2021, Garcia fired up his chainsaw and started cutting fallen branches to clear the roads for first responders and repair crews.
“Robert is a Taylorwide community servant. My first community service project was with Robert during the Uri storm,” said Taylor businessman Rick Von Pfeil. “We went around for days cutting things up and it wasn’t just in Robert’s district, it was all over the city of Taylor, and we had fun doing it. He loves being a public servant.”
Garcia said his most meaningful moments in office came when he was able to directly solve problems people were having.
“My first year in office I got a call from an elderly lady who said there was an electric pole in her backyard that was leaning severely. She had tried for over a year to get someone to fix it and nobody would,” Garcia said.
He worked with electricity provider Oncor to get the pole moved within a week.
“I followed up with her and she was beyond ecstatic because now I’d given her the freedom and the peace of mind to play in her backyard with her grandkids. That’s what my most rewarding achievements are, just the minor things that really changed someone’s world,” he said.
His supporters said Garcia has accomplished some major milestones in office. He is happy to see projects he worked on for years finally nearing completion, including the Donna Channel flood-mitigation upgrade and improvements to the hike and bike trail and the city animal shelter.
He was also part of the city leadership that helped bring Samsung Austin Semiconductor to town and kicked off what many consider a new golden age.
“Business-wise Taylor had been dormant for decades. Through (former Mayor Brandt Rydell’s) leadership and other leadership throughout the state and county, we gave Taylor a second birth,” Garcia said. “Taylor used to be the center of Williamson County. That all shifted west. Now, most cities don’t get a second chance at life. But with the past council, Taylor got a second chance.”
Garcia credits leaders working together for the benefit of the city with the new prosperity the town is seeing, but added attitudes have taken a different direction in recent years.
“City Council used to be nonpartisan because we were all about the people, the community,” the council member said. “There’s been a shift in politics and the political atmosphere in the last two or three years that’s really separated the community.
That’s what really tore my heart apart because when I ran one of the things I wanted to do was change people’s perspective of Taylor, not just inside of Taylor but outside of Taylor and we were doing so well.”
Garcia said social media is playing into the growing discontent he sees in city politics.
Anyone with questions about what is happening in town should contact the city’s public information officer, Daniel Seguin, Garcia said.
“Anyone who has frustrations with what they see on social media, we are here to listen,” Seguin said. “Regardless of how they felt they have been slighted in the past, if it wasn’t a positive interaction, I encourage them to reach out. Because at the end of the day we’re all people. I live up the street. We’re neighbors. We’re friends. I think people lose that in the politicking.”
Regardless of the political climate, Garcia believes there is reason for hope and optimism in Taylor.
“The majority of the previous council set Taylor up for success and it’s hard to stop a freight train once it gets running,” he said. “There are other businesses looking at coming to Taylor and they’re not all semiconductors. The Economic Development Corp. is looking at different industries. So what gives me hope is Taylor is now known on a world stage and no one can change that.”
