Priscilla R. Tyson

(Chair: Finance; Health & Human Services; Workforce Development; and Ad Hoc Assignments Committees)

Committee Member of: Veterans' Affairs;  Development; Recreation & Parks; and Small & Minority Business Development Committees.

A dedicated leader and lifelong resident of Columbus, Priscilla R. Tyson joined Columbus City Council in January of 2007. As a member of City Council, she has worked for job creation, economic development, safety, and a high quality of life in our city.

Councilmember Tyson has chaired several Council committees since she began her service. In her current role as chair of the Finance Committee, she leads the effort to pass the city’s General Fund and Capital Improvements Budgets. As chair of Health and Human Services and Workforce Development, her work addresses many of our community’s most urgent priorities, including access to quality healthcare and job training.

Councilmember Tyson’s proudest achievements include securing partnerships to reopen city recreation centers that were closed as a result of budget cuts; upgrading our recreation centers’ HVAC systems so that they would be air conditioned in the summer; creating the Landscape Enhancement and Beautification of Public Spaces grants; funding the Columbus Art Commission for the first time since its creation;  funding new dog parks; increasing funding for code enforcement to recruit more small and minority businesses for nuisance abatement contracts; and updating the Columbus Civil Rights Code to include protections for people on the basis of age, disability, sex, gender identity or expression, familial status, and military status.

Councilmember Tyson is an advocate for our community at the federal and state levels. She is the vice chair of the National League of Cities’ (NLC) Community and Economic Development Steering Committee, and vice president of the NLC’s National Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials. In these roles, Councilmember Tyson and her partners in municipal government champion the interests of cities and towns before federal elected and administrative officials. She performs a similar role at the state level as a member of the board of the Ohio Municipal League.

Public service has been Councilmember Tyson’s passion throughout her distinguished career in the public, private, and non-profit sectors. As vice president of community development at National City Bank, and then as vice president of community relations at Ohio Health, her charge was to help those institutions expand their outreach and service to the community. From there, Councilmember Tyson went on to found City Year Columbus, where she spent thirteen years at the helm of an organization that provided thousands of hours of volunteer service to students and teachers in our public schools. City Year empowers young people while teaching them about leadership and civic engagement.

Councilmember Tyson serves on the board of the Greater Columbus Arts Council, the advisory committee of Partners Achieving Community Transformation, and as the Services to Youth chair of The Links, Inc. She is currently serving as a member of the Columbus Education Commission. She has served on numerous boards and committees, including the Community Shelter Board, the Central Ohio YMCA, and the Columbus Chamber of Commerce’s Government Affairs Steering Committee. She is also a former president of the Columbus Civil Service Commission.

Councilmember Tyson has been honored with the prestigious YWCA Women of Achievement Award, the Urban League’s Equal Opportunity Award of Excellence, the Ohio Hispanic Coalition’s Padrino Award, the Columbus Education Association’s Martin Luther King Humanitarian of the Year Award, and numerous other recognitions.

Councilmember Tyson grew up in the Shepard community in Northeast Columbus, graduated from the former Eastmoor High School, and earned her Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Franklin University. She and her husband reside in Eastmoor and are the proud parents of five grown children.