‘Defining member’ of State College council resigns. Here’s how the vacancy will be filled

State College Borough Council member Divine Lipscomb is resigning from his seat, and the remaining council members will soon begin the process to fill the vacancy.

In his resignation letter, he said the decision to resign was difficult and spoke of the “immense privilege” it has been to serve on the council. His last day will be May 12.

During Monday’s council meeting, he said he’s resigning because he and his family are moving.

“We’ve decided at this juncture, it was time for us to explore other parts of the world that could use some of our advocacy work and our training that we picked up here in our Happy Valley community,” Lipscomb said. “Because there’s so much privilege here and so much access to resources, it’s imperative to not just keep all the resources in one place. So, we decided that we should spread some of this power to the rest of the world, or at least different parts of the country.”

Many council members spoke highly of Lipscomb and the work he did for State College. Council member Gopal Balachandran, who ran for council alongside Lipscomb, said that while he was happy for him, he was emotional about the change.

“I not only considered you a colleague, but a very, very dear friend, and I remember everything that we went through when we were part of that slate to get elected, and what a big difference it was,” Balachandran said. “Now it feels kind of normal that council would look and appear this way, in terms of reflecting not just age diversity … within the borough of State College, but also racial and ethnic diversity. And that was really — it’s because of a lot of the work that you did.”

Mayor Ezra Nanes said Lipscomb is a “defining member of council” who has a voice of wisdom and a perspective that is important and valuable to the community.

Lipscomb made history when elected in 2021 as the first Black member of council. He is also believed to be the first member that was previously incarcerated.

Filling the vacancy

The process the council will use to fill the vacancy is the same process they’ve used for the three previous vacancies, Council President Evan Myers said.

Lipscomb’s resignation is effective May 12, and the council will have 45 days to fill the vacancy from that date, Borough Manager Tom Fountaine said.

Registered voters in the borough interested in being on the council can submit a letter of interest by May 3. The public can also submit questions they’d like to hear the applicant address by May 1.

During the May 6 council meeting, the council will begin discussions about who has expressed interest in being an interim council member, and will finalize the questions for the candidates, Myers said.

“We’ll take the public’s questions; we’ll have our own questions. We’ll synthesize those together. We’ll decide these are the top five questions, the top seven questions, whatever we say and then they will be provided to the folks that have submitted their desire to be considered as council members,” Myers said.

More information on how to apply for the seat and submit questions will be posted to the borough’s website this week.

During the May 13 work session, the qualified candidates will give presentations to the council. On May 20, the council will review and discuss the candidates and will vote to appoint a person to the vacant seat through Dec. 31, 2025.

The voting process will look a bit different compared to its normal voting process, where any council member can make a motion or a second. For this process, each council member’s name will be put in a cup and a random drawing will indicate who will first nominate the candidate they want on the council. The council will then vote in that order.

“If person X is nominated first and person X gets four votes, then no more votes have to be taken. They become a council member. But if person X gets three votes, person Y gets three votes, and we’re tied, we have to start again. Or there may be more than two people that are nominated; there could be six people that are nominated because there’s six of us,” Myers said.

During a previous vacancy appointment process, the council went through several rounds of voting before a candidate received enough votes, he said.

Myers stressed that the process should be transparent and that all deliberation will be done in public. He referenced an article published by the Centre Daily Times and Spotlight PA last year, which outlined that state law provides little guidance on what the process to fill a vacancy should look like, and public input is not required.

“Many communities, in fact, most communities in the … Commonwealth of Pennsylvania do not do what we do. To be elected to council, to be elected mayor, we all stand before the voters and they ask us questions. We have to give our answers; they make the decision. We can’t do that exactly the same way because we can’t hold an election … so, we have to represent the voters, we have to represent that transparency,” Myers added.