Junior Council Member
ZELIENOPLE — Borough council, composed of seven elected members, will have an eighth member for the next few months.
By the end of this school year, Brooke Antol, a junior at Seneca Valley High School, will decide whether she wants to continue on the board.
Mayor Tom Oliverio swore in Brooke as the board’s latest junior council member Monday night.
The 17-year-old student will sit at the table with the other borough officials during their two monthly meetings.
She can participate in discussion of agenda items and ask questions, but is not permitted to cast a vote or sit in on executive sessions.
The Junior Council Person Program was started by the Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs about 15 years ago, Oliverio said.
The borough has had several over the years; its most recent one was Spencer Mathew.
Oliverio said he reached out to Seneca Valley school board member Reid Moon to see if any current students, who also are Zelienople residents, would be interested.
Once Brooke volunteered, the mayor interviewed her and arranged to have her be sworn in and start participating in council meetings.
Not many young people typically attend the borough meetings nor do they know what the borough government does, Oliverio said.
“This helps to give them an idea of what is going on in local government,” he said.
Brooke said she serves on student council at the high school and is considering law or public policy as possible majors for when she goes to college.
She heard about the opportunity from Seneca Valley teacher Katherine Halliday, who is also a student council adviser.
“I thought it might be a good opportunity, so I figured I could try it out,” she said.
Though she didn’t speak up during her first meeting on the board, she said the council members might ask her for her opinion on different items in the future.
