Vacancy Boards are a little-utilized facet of municipal government that only activate when there is a tie vote among elected officials seeking to fill a vacant seat on the elected governing body, and in a couple of other cases. That doesn’t happen a lot.

The vacancy board consists of all of the current members of the governing board (in Ambler’s case, the borough council) and the appointed vacancy board chair, who is a qualifying resident of the municipality. If the municipality has a mayor, the mayor is not included.

During the November meeting of Ambler’s borough council, the council members had scheduled a vote to appoint a replacement for Amy Hughes, who had recently resigned from the council as a representative of Ward 1. Hughes resigned on October 7th, and the council had 30 days to appoint her replacement.

The vote was four to four, and Mayor Jeanne Sorg declined to cast the deciding vote. That decision triggers the need for the vacancy board to convene. But what happened next was a surprise.

Instead of scheduling a special meeting for the vacancy board to meet, the vacancy board chair, former borough manager Mary Aversa, was called to the podium to cast the tie-breaking vote.

While the vacancy board is primarily composed of members of the borough council, it is, in itself, a separate body from the borough council, and as such, falls under the Sunshine Act.

A document prepared in 2021 by the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors outlines all the required actions that townships take, which necessitate the issuance of legal notices. Yes, we know that Ambler is a borough, but the portion of the document that mentions a vacancy board (page 3) refers to the Sunshine Act (which applies to all municipalities and their boards and agencies). This document states:

A meeting of the vacancy board must be advertised as a special meeting with at least 24 hours’ notice. [Sunshine Act, Section 709]

The relevant portion of Section 709 reads, “An agency shall give public notice of each special meeting or each rescheduled regular or special meeting at least 24 hours in advance of the time of the convening of the meeting specified in the notice.

Ambler gave no such notice.

While conducting this research for this article, we came across an article on the website of a law office in Pittsburgh that reviewed the laws surrounding the filling of municipal vacancies. We contacted the two authors, attorneys Michael T. Korns and Anna R. Hosack of Babst Calland, and asked them to clarify whether vacancy boards require a special meeting with notice or whether the chair of the vacancy board could cast a tie-breaking vote during the council meeting. Korns, a public sector and land use attorney, responded as follows:

I can’t offer a legal opinion on the specific situation below without reviewing all that transpired.  I can say that the vacancy board is a municipal board and must follow the Sunshine Act like any other body, so it must advertise its meetings and post an agenda at least 24 hours in advance, so if they did not do that, I believe the appointment would be invalid, but again that is just the general rule and not meant to be a definitive opinion on the actions of the body below. 

Part of our research was looking for news articles about vacancy boards holding special meetings. To our surprise, we found one about Ambler.

In 2015, The Times Herald reported what was essentially the same situation as the one in 2025. A council member resigned, and the appointment vote was a 4-4 tie. It also details how a special meeting was planned and held to allow the chairperson of the vacancy board to break the tie. From the article:

With a rare tie on its hands, council was forced to employ the help of vacancy board Chairman Norman LaMastra to cast the deciding vote. At that meeting, council President Sal Pasceri said it was the first time in his memory that such a vote was necessary.

Each candidate’s resume was sent to LaMastra so that he could make an informed decision when called upon June 23.

The meeting of the borough council that resulted in the 4-4 tie was held on June 16, 2015. The special meeting of the vacancy board was held on June 23, 2015. The borough’s website has minutes from this special meeting available.

We asked the members of the current borough council to address what we have outlined and received the following response from Council President Glynnis Siskind:

As you referenced, the last time there was a tie vote for filling a vacancy on Council was at the June 2015 Council meeting. Since the chair of the vacancy board at that time was not in attendance at that meeting, a special meeting was held a week later in order for them to cast the tie-breaking vote. This vote could not be delayed until the next regular meeting as Council does not traditionally hold a regular meeting in early July, and the next Council meeting would have been too late.

At the November 5, 2025 Council Committee meeting, the chair of the vacancy board had been asked to attend in case of a tie and was able to cast the deciding vote that night, so a special meeting was not necessary.

As you can see, Siskind does not address the requirement to provide notice to the public that the vacancy board would hold a meeting as required by the Sunshine Act. The vote was taken the same night for their convenience. In 2015, a member of the council, Nancy Deininger, called in from Germany to cast a vote during the special meeting of the vacancy board.

We asked the other members of the council if they would like to address the situation, but we did not receive any replies.

The person appointed to fill the vacant seat to represent Ward 1 was Tracy Pavolic.

Anyone who feels there is a violation of the Sunshine Act at the municipal level can file a complaint at the appropriate court of common pleas.