State College Borough Council member Nalini Krishnankutty will run for a new four-year term in the 2025 election, she announced on Thursday.
Krishnankutty, a Democrat, was first appointed to Borough Council in 2022 to fill the unexpired term of Richard Biever. She was elected in 2023 to serve the remaining two years of the term and is currently the only woman on council.
“It has been an incredible honor to serve as a council member for the last two and a half years, in this community which has been my home for the last 37 years,” Krishnankutty said in a statement. “I am seeking reelection to continue working with our residents and local governments to maintain our high quality of life and services, increase access to resources for all residents and ensure our sustainable growth in the future.”
Krishnankutty said her experience on council and her “balanced, analytical and inclusive approach” will help to address the borough’s most pressing issues, including the long-in-the-works rewrite of State College’s decades-old zoning code.
“We have an opportunity to enhance the vibrancy of State College and ensure that it continues to be a great place for all our residents, amidst the reality of being a university town with a steady stream of out-of-town visitors throughout the year,” she said. “As we focus on revising zoning, we must be committed to sustainability, find new revenue streams, preserve our strong neighborhoods, support local businesses and increase attainable housing for residents, amidst the realities of strong market demands for student housing here.”
Drawing on her experience as a first-generation immigrant American, Penn State alumna and borough resident of nearly four decades with deep knowledge of town-gown relations, Krishnankutty said she has worked to increase resident engagement in local government, particularly participation in State College authorities, boards and commissions where they can put to use their expertise and experiences to inform policy.
She pointed to the Community Oversight Board, on which she served as the inaugural chair from 2021 to 2022, as strengthening the borough through collaboration between residents and the State College Police Department.
“COB reports have confirmed that SCPD is a stellar police department, and SCPD and COB have been working together to make it even better,” Krishnankutty said. “For example, thanks to COB’s initiative, SCPD first partnered with the Center for Policing Equity in 2022 to improve some aspects of data collection, and now SCPD is furthering those efforts of their own accord.”
At the regional level, Krishnankutty has been the borough’s representative on the Centre Region Council of Government Finance Committee for three years, including being elected as vice-chair in 2024 and 2025.
She said she is “committed to regional collaboration and cooperation that ensures valuable services to residents including our high-quality library, parks and recreation, emergency safety services, code enforcement and regional planning.”
Three State College Borough Council seats are up for election in 2025. The other two are currently held by Gopal Balachandran, who was elected to his first term in 2021, and John Hayes, who was appointed in May 2024 to fill the unexpired term of Divine Lipscomb. Neither have announced whether they will run this year for another term.
Primary Election Day is May 20. The last day for candidates to file nomination petitions is March 11.
