It’s an idea that Christian Ragland campaigned on:
Add a non-voting student member to State College Borough Council, and it will strengthen town-gown relations, the Penn State junior has argued.
Now that Ragland has won the University Park Undergraduate Association presidency for 2010-2011, he plans to work this summer to advance the proposal among borough officials, Ragland said this week. He said he already has met with State College Mayor Elizabeth Goreham to discuss the concept.
‘This is a way we think we can hold both parties accountable to each other,’ Ragland said, referring to students and more permanent State College residents.
‘I think this is a great way to say … we want to make sure we’re in constant communication with the community so that we don’t do anything that offends them,’ he went on. He said a non-voting student seat on council also could help keep the student body informed about the borough’s actions.
‘Students are entitled to really being a voice on Borough Council,’ he said.
Goreham said the borough government welcomes students’ involvement and encourages them to run for council, but she voiced hesitation over the proposal for a non-voting council seat.
‘Everyone else who sits at the table and has a voice has been elected, vetted by the community and selected by the community,’ she said. She said an appointed representative would be ‘a very different proposition.’
‘Everybody (on the council) is elected at large, and this (non-voting member) would represent only a certain constituency,’ Goreham went on. ‘Everyone else represents the students, as well. Even though we’re not the same age, we are sympathetic. … We all represent everybody.’
Goreham, in her first year as mayor, holds on-campus office hours in the HUB-Robeson Center and has invited student organizations to make regular presentations at council meetings.
No full-time Penn State students have served as Borough Council members for at least 15 years, though several have run for council seats. Students account for at least half the borough population base, estimated at roughly 39,000 residents.
Council President Ron Filippelli, interviewed by a reporter on Thursday, said he had not yet heard Ragland’s idea for a non-voting student seat. He called the pitch a ‘non-starter’ and noted that the borough charter — its governing document — makes no provisions for nonvoting council members.
‘Students are citizens,’ Filippelli said. ‘They can run for Borough Council.’
He said he encourages ‘students to participate in local government. Students have run in the past.’
Borough Council is interested in their perspectives, Filippelli said. He said students also are welcome to serve on the borough’s appointed, all-volunteer boards, authorities and commissions, many of which advise council members on key issues.
‘If they’re interested, they should apply as any other (resident) can apply,’ Filippelli said.
Still, Ragland said he hopes to make some progress with the non-voting-member concept by the spring 2011 semester. He said he understands that ‘this will be a gradual process.’ In the meantime, he said, UPUA will continue to represent itself at Borough Council meetings.
‘We just want to make sure this is an idea that the borough can agree on,’ Ragland said. ‘We don’t want to seem like we’re trying to force our way onto the council or anything of that nature. …
‘It’s not a way to scare the borough, to say that we want to get on board and run things,’ Ragland added. ‘I think this is a way to get students interested in town-gown issues.’
