Incumbent commissioners will keep seats, and other results from Centre County offices
Centre County voters elected incumbents Mark Higgins, Amber Concepcion and Steve Dershem to the board of commissioners during Tuesday’s municipal election.
Tuesday’s ballot had contested races for countywide positions including the three-person board of commissioners, controller, treasurer and recorder of deeds. Other offices on the ballot that were uncontested include the sheriff, prothonotary, register of wills and coroner.
Unofficial results show most county offices, including commissioners, will remain the same. Democrats Higgins and Concepcion, and Republican Dershem, garnered the most votes for the board of commissioners. The county treasurer, Colleen Kennedy, won reelection along with Controller Jason Moser.
Less than 130 votes separate Recorder of Deeds candidates Joe Davidson and Robert Zeigler. In a text message Tuesday night, Zeigler said he is waiting until every vote is counted. Because it is close, he said it is likely within the margin to do an automatic recount.
“I will just let the process work out and go from there. This highlights the importance of every vote,” Zeigler wrote. “Outside of that, I still plan to do good local governance and community work in the meantime, while taking care of my family.”
In a post on his campaign Facebook page, Davidson conveyed a similar attitude.
“While we are slightly ahead right now, we are going to wait for every vote to be counted and let the electoral process play out,” the post reads. “Thank you for your continued support and to all those who voted!”
Of the four commissioner candidates, Higgins won the most votes. During a victory speech at the Centre County Democratic Committee’s Election Night party, he thanked several people who helped their campaign make history.
“Our victory tonight is quite possibly the first time the Democratic Party has retained control of the commissioner’s office for three consecutive terms since the creation of the Republican Party,” Higgins said.
Concepcion, who was appointed commissioner in December 2022, is also the first female Democrat elected as Centre County Commissioner, he said.
During a phone interview Wednesday, Higgins highlighted the “massive turnout” Centre County saw for a municipal election.
“The people of Centre County definitely spoke. They spoke loudly,” Higgins said. “...We’d like to thank all of the Centre County residents for showing up to vote in such large numbers because municipal elections are critical. They do determine your quality of life. You’re going to run into school board members and elected municipal officials and even county elected officials at the grocery store, at your kids’ sporting events, at arts and cultural events. You’re not going to run into the president. ... It’s your local electeds who make your quality of life and who interact with you on a daily basis.”
He said he and Concepcion are “humbled” to be reelected and will continue working with Dershem to help Centre County become “an even better place.”
Concepcion said she’s also looking forward to continuing working with the same board.
“I’m really honored and grateful for the support from our voters and their trust in me to do this role. And I’m grateful that our current board of commissioners will be continuing because I think we really do work pretty well together as a team, and that will be good for Centre County to continue with this board,” Concepcion said.
The Centre Crest renovations will be a high priority project for the next year or so, as will expanding the public safety training center and securing funds for it, Concepcion said.
“That’s going to be a very high priority going into this next year to get the funding secured for that project because it’s really crucial to ensuring that we have opportunities for our local emergency responders to have a variety of training experiences here,” she said.
Dershem and Republican candidate Marie Librizzi did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
As of 11 p.m. Tuesday, with 87 of 87 precincts partially reporting and 87 of 87 absentee/early precincts reporting, the unofficial results are as follows:
Board of Commissioners
Controller
Jason Moser (D): 20,766
Trevor Stauffer (R): 17,751
Sheriff
Bryan Sampsel (R): 29,497
Treasurer
Justin Behrens (R): 17,558
Colleen Kennedy (D): 21,049
Prothonotary
Jeremy Breon (D): 29,264
Recorder of Deeds
Joe Davidson (R): 19,365
Robert Zeigler (D): 19,238
Register of Wills
Christine Millinder (R): 29,580
Coroner
Scott Sayers (D): 33,209
Judge of the Court of Common Pleas
Julia Rater (D/R): 32,388
