19-year-old elected as new mayor

Lacey Smith
Scroll Staff

Cracking open pizza boxes, attending concerts and hanging out with friends provide a few past times of a typical 19-year-old.

Christopher Portman of Mercer, Pa., however, is not a typical teenager. Wednesday, Republican Portman was sworn in as the first teenage mayor of the western Pennsylvanian community of 2,391 residents. It has been said that the Mercer area is "a land where people will come to play and eventually stay."

Portman is a freshman at Westminster College in New Wilmington about 15 minutes away from Mercer.

His first night as mayor consisted of dinner with his parents and watching his girlfriend lead cheers at a high school basketball game.

"I'm thrilled and ready to take on this job," Portman said.

His yearly income as mayor comes to $1,875.

Although the mayor of Mercer does not have much power, Portman will primarily serve as a tiebreaker for borough council votes and be an overseer for the police.

Portman already has plans for the small community. He hopes to start a private group to raise community revitalization money and fine-tune zoning to "maintain the Victorian setting of the community."

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