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Local governments in some Pennsylvania communities are facing a continuing crisis: a shortage of residents willing to step up and serve.
“We simply have fewer young people in rural areas than we used to, and those individuals who are living in rural areas tend to be a little older on average,” said Kyle Kopko, the executive director of the Center for Rural Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvanians will hit the polls on May 20 for the primary, choosing from among thousands of candidates seeking to run local government. Roles for mayor, council member, auditor, elections judge and others offer nominal pay and sometimes, long hours. And, officials say, there are sometimes not enough people willing to run for local office, to fill open seats or to give voters options.
The deadline to file objections to candidate nominating petitions is March 18. The general election is Nov. 4.
Pennsylvania is a state of small towns: Just Texas and Illinois have more, according to the U.S. Census.
In Glenfield Borough, Mayor David Orbison, 72, says he is “the oldest member of our governance.” About 200 people live in the town, which sits along the Ohio River.
“We do have trouble interesting people in general in participating in our local government,” he said.
Holding a local position can be time consuming, according to the results from a survey by the Center for Rural Pennsylvania. Almost half of the respondents said they spent 20 or more hours each month on the job.
“It’s really important to remember that municipal officials need to spend a lot of time on government matters. It’s not a little bit of work for some individuals,” he said.
Those hours are often in addition to a full-time job, volunteer work, and family commitments.
Awareness can be another reason residents don’t get involved, said Colin Sisk, director of elections for Beaver County.
“Folks just don’t realize how those roles impact the kind of day-to-day life of their community,” Sisk said.
Roles that receive the least interest seem to be municipal auditors, whose job is to examine financial records and operations to ensure accountability and improve government services, he said.
“A lot of municipalities don’t have folks to run at all for that office,” Sisk said.
Some municipalities have been able to move away from electing auditors to hiring certified public accountants or accounting firms to deal with the lack of interested candidates.
“In some municipalities the office doesn’t exist anymore because of the apathy,” Sisk said. “Not all municipalities are empowered to do that under the law.”
In past years, some Beaver County municipalities had no candidates on the ballot, leading to voters writing in their own candidates, Sisk said.
“There are some years where somebody doesn’t realize it, but their neighbor thought it would be funny. They wrote them in for auditor and there was only one viable write- in vote and they’re like ‘Wait, you just sent me a letter saying I won an election,’” Sisk said.
In nearby Fayette County, director of elections and voter registration Marybeth Kuznik has counseled baffled residents who were elected without a clue they might be selected.
“Somebody writes them in, and they go ‘Hehe, you’re a big politician now I wrote you in’ they’re going to get elected and then the person doesn’t want it,” Kuznik said. “They don’t have a clue what [the position] is sometimes but they’ll take it and then we have problems because they either don't show up or they don’t want to do the training.”
Most often, she said this has happened with poll worker and election judge positions.
Lawrence County Democratic Party chair Tim Buck said he’s been focusing on drumming up interest in serving in local government.
“We have to do more education. We have to interact with more people in the county,” Buck said. “We’re out on every avenue that we can look at, but it’s tough to get people in today’s times to basically stick their head up and say ‘Hey, I’m good.’”
The party didn’t run any candidates last year in a number of primary races, including Pennsylvania House of Representatives 9th legislative district, 8th legislative district and the Pennsylvania Senate’s 47th legislative district.
Daniel Effinite, a member of the Lawrence County Republican Committee, said his party has also been working hard to get more people to run for local office.
“We’re interested in ... anybody that reaches out to us and shows interest in government from a Republican standpoint,” he said. “We like to consider ourselves a friendly bunch and we will help anybody that has a real interest in politics that we feel is in it for the right reasons.”
Despite past challenges getting people to run for office, Orbison said he’s seen more people express interest in recent years.
“Fortunately, recently we have been able to attract interest of some younger and family-oriented people....who have a great investment in seeing the borough grow,” he said.
David Ward, 30, is a city council member for New Castle. He urged said it’s never too late for young people to get involved in local politics.
“I think running for office is a perfect opportunity to get engaged. Educate yourself and make changes to your community,” he said.
Ward said that a step in getting more people interested in running for local office is to communicate how these positions affect day to daydaily life in their communities.
“A lot of times community members are ignorant to certain positions and they don’t realize how they can help or hurt them. We need to explain how this person helps you and what their position is, what they’re doing in our county and how it affects them and hopefully that gives them a spark,” he said.
As for making sure people are prepared to hold office, Ward recommends that people get more involved in their community by attending city council and school board meetings to learn how their local government works and to hear about the concerns other members of the community have.
