Charleroi’s Nancy Ellis wins 2 races, will serve on council

Council will appoint a new mayor after the new council members are sworn into office in January.

Despite winning the Charleroi mayor’s race by seven votes, Nancy J. Ellis will not return to the position she once held.

Instead, she’s heading to council, saying the town needs her vote more than her title.

Ellis, who also won one of four available council seats in last month’s general election, announced her decision after the Washington County Elections Office certified the results on Thursday.

She secured 299 votes in the mayoral race, finishing ahead of Republican candidate Ernest Merritt, who received 292.

Twelve scattered write-ins rounded out the count.

Her choice means the borough will now need to appoint a mayor in January, a decision that will fall to the new council once members are sworn in.

The certified results confirmed Ellis’s narrow win, but they also confirmed a choice she alone had to make.

Under borough rules, she could accept only one seat. Ellis said she spent days thinking through the impact her decision would have on Charleroi, then turned to the people who helped put her in the position to choose.

“I have spoken with a lot of people that went to a lot of effort to support me, and they’ve asked me to accept council, and that’s what I’m going to do,” she said. “It’s not really what I want, but looking at the town as it is, looking at the council situation as it is, I think we need that vote. And I want to have a say.”

Ellis said walking away from the mayor’s office was difficult, especially after serving in the role before.

“I definitely wanted to be back in the mayor’s office,” she said. “I have strong emotions about it — it was a difficult choice for me. But I feel this is what I have to do for the people that supported me and the town I really care about.”

Ellis will now join a returning lineup on council, where Democratic incumbent Paul Pivovarnik and Republican incumbents Larry Celaschi and Joseph “Joe” Smith also secured seats in a tightly packed field.

She thanked voters for backing her in both races.

“I can’t express how much I thank the voters for their faith in me and their support,” she said. “I feel that no matter what was said, they know me and what I stand for and I appreciate that they voted their opinion.”

Ellis said the next council will have to put aside long-running internal conflicts if Charleroi hopes to move forward.

“We need to stand together and work together. We’re kind of down, we’re not out, we’re not giving up,” she said. “The animosity has to stop. The childishness on the part of certain people has to stop. We have to be somewhere where people want to come because they know there’s cooperation, and they’re not going to be put in the middle of nonsense.”

She said economic development will be one of her top priorities when she takes her seat in January.

“We’ve gotta sell our town. We’ve gotta sell people on coming to Charleroi,” she said. “Charleroi has always been a beautiful town. It is magical. We have to focus on that.”

Ellis said her decision comes down to where she believes she can make the most impact.

“This craziness has to stop,” she said. “I want to build up. Tearing down, there’s too much of that.”

Newly elected members will be sworn in at the borough’s reorganization meeting in January.