In the News
Young Saylor narrowly loses bid for council
By Crystal Lee | Enterprise staff writer | December 03, 2009
Aaron Saylor, 28, would have been the youngest member in recent memory to serve on the City Council in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Despite his loss in Tuesday's runoff election, Saylor, a first-time candidate for public office, said he believes his campaign made a difference in motivating the young people in his community to get involved in government.
Saylor is the son of Davis Mayor Pro Tem Don Saylor.
'We've broken ground for a younger group of candidates,' the younger Saylor said in a phone interview Wednesday. 'In the course of this campaign, we really did help shift that paradigm. We didn't shift it far enough, but I think we've made a lot of progress for young people in Cedar Rapids.'
Cedar Rapids has a population of about 120,000 - about 82,000 are registered voters - and there is a pattern of poor retention of young college graduates, Saylor said.
'People come to Iowa for college and then leave after college,' he said, noting that students living in Cedar Rapids have little representation in city government.
Saylor, a Davis High School graduate, is an investment Realtor for buyers and sellers of manufactured housing communities. He moved to Cedar Rapids, his wife Jennie Ocken's hometown, four years ago and is active in the community.
He grew up in Davis with his father Don, his mother Julie and sister Kate.
Saylor's first exposure to politics and community involvement came when he was 12 years old, helping his father run for the Davis Board of Education. Aaron was in charge of the button-making machine for the campaign. He said the entire experience made a lasting impression on him.
Aaron Saylor finished with 45 percent of the votes in the low-turnout runoff election, while Donald Karr Jr. grabbed 55 percent and won an at-large seat on the nine-member City Council. In at-large elections, voters select a candidate for each open seat.
Candidates must get at least a quarter of the votes to win a seat outright, which is why the Nov. 3 poll results led Saylor and Karr Jr. - the top two candidates with less than 25 percent of votes - into a runoff election.
Saylor said he learned a lot from the campaign process, but is not sure at this point whether he will seek public office again. He said he does know, however, that he wants to continue to be engaged in the community in some capacity and is exploring his options.
'This was my first campaign where I was a candidate and it was a very different thing, learning to accept that people will be critical and that my stances on issues are going to have an impact on people,' Saylor said.
'It's been humbling (and I thank) the people that came forward to help me run. ... I'm familiar with the amount of time it takes to have a long campaign and to hold office, but, in this case, it was a very compressed campaign. We were trying to build a house at the same time that we were building the foundation.'
His father, Don, said he was taken aback when Aaron first announced his candidacy, but he said he'd also be very surprised if Aaron didn't run for office again.
'I believe he has learned a lot about the community that he has chosen to live in and a lot about being in public service,' Don Saylor said. 'Aaron has always been a very empathetic listener and a problem-solver, so I knew from an early age that he had those skills.'
- Reach Crystal Lee at clee@davisenterprise.net or (530) 747-8057. Comment on this story at www.davisenterprise.com
