Orrville mayor’s first year had challenges, but Plybon learned a lot
Orrville mayor Matt Plybon is wrapping up his first year in office. “This job is kind of 24/7," he said. "You have to work to find that work-life balance. It goes by quickly, and you can’t get to everything you want to. You have to prioritize.”
When he took over as mayor of Orrville on the second day of 2024, Matthew Plybon figured he would probably be flooded with things to do. The first-year mayor, though, also probably figured that would be metaphorically.
In early August, thanks to the remnants of Hurricane Debby, things changed in a flash — a flash flood to be precise — as on Aug. 8 Debby parked right over the heart of the city and dumped nearly 8 inches of rain in an hour.
Plybon had his first crisis — one of the worst in the city’s history.
The flood was one of three key events Plybon felt defined his first year in office. Looking ahead to 2025, changes in the city’s housing situation and restructuring the fire department will be among possible highlights.
“I knew it would be a full-time commitment, and I came from a background of education where we would teach and work for a certain amount of time and you’d get a little breather,” Plybon said. “This job is kind of 24/7. You have to work to find that work-life balance. It goes by quickly, and you can’t get to everything you want to. You have to prioritize.”
The flood, among other things, illustrated that precisely. First was a new police chief — Cory Seiler took over that gig on July 5 — along with a few departures and retirements that made for a bit of transition.
The other was negotiating a new contract with the city workers. Those were things Plybon knew about in advance and could plan for.
There was nothing, though, to ready him or anyone else for a hurricane’s leftovers to potentially wreck the city.
“The one thing that worked against us was we didn’t have any warning,” Plybon said. “We had a concert planned in the park. We considered canceling, but you know how the weather reports go. It was a very rare event. It was basically just a little sliver of rain that just poured right around our Main Street area all the way to the south.”
When Debby was done making quick work of Orrville, Plybon said the city was even quicker to spring into action. He had high praise for the leadership, with the four directors — Janet Strimlan (finance), Steve Wheeler (safety service), Jeff Brediger (utilities) and Cheryl Kirkbride (law) — stepping up in a big way.
“If all of us were new like me, we’d have had a problem,” Plybon said. “The one thing that got us through was our directors and our supervisors right on down through all our workers. We just got right to work. I had a fire captain that was in a basement with water up to his chest turning off water. We have the four directors who have the depth of knowledge and can answer our questions. I just wanted to make everyone safe.
“That really challenged all the departments. I can honestly say the police, the fire, the street, all came together. We got through the night. That was tough. We almost lost the wastewater plant. We came within a couple of inches of that. It took us about three weeks of getting some stuff back up to par. That was definitely the biggest challenge of the year.”
That was exacerbated by the location of things. Because the storm that caused the flood was centered over Orrville, it missed outlying areas entirely. Plybon said that left Orrville ineligible to receive federal help.
The mayor went on to praise everyone in town — leaders, businesses and citizens alike — for reacting to the situation and keeping damage to a minimum.
“The biggest thing was personal property damage,” said Plybon, who had no estimates for the cost of the loss. “The sad part of it was the city couldn’t do anything about that.”
Looking ahead, Plybon is making sure city revenues are secure going forward and plans on carefully budgeting to make sure needs are met, barring natural disasters.
“Every turn there’s always something going on, like legislation, that takes a little more money from our revenue,” he said. “We need to use our budgeting very carefully so we can plan some long-term things.”
The mayor also said he’s hoping to see more housing starts and an upgrade in housing altogether. Orrville, like much of the county, has demand outpacing supply.
Transitioning the fire department from part-time to full-time also is on the agenda. Part of that plan includes putting an addition on one of the fire stations to help accommodate the shift to full-time employment.
“That’s going to be a big push,” Plybon said. “Then we’ll look at other things. We’ll work with developers and some plans, and this could be two or three years down the road.”
One thing Plybon got from his first year on the job was experience. He’ll no longer be a first-time mayor or a rookie in city government.
Everything is a learning process. Like any job, the longer one does it, the more the speed at which things come at them slows down.
“It’s a huge learning curve, and I think I made it down on the other side of the curve,” Plybon said. “A lot of it is experience. There was a lot of ‘I didn’t know I needed to do that.’ Experience is your best instructor.
“There’s been a lot on the plate, and we’re finishing up the year strong, and a lot of different things have gone on, but I feel definitely more confident in everything. I knew it was going to be a learning curve. Growing up in Orrville, everything is worthwhile. It’s been a great situation.”