Little did Williamsport Mayor Derek Slaughter know that basketball hoops would serve as a successful push into local politics.
He never thought of a career path in politics originally. But when his predecessor, Gabriel Campana, wanted basketball hoops removed at Memorial Park in favor of pickleball courts, a City Council seat came calling for the former teacher and basketball coach.
That spark ultimately led him to the role of Williamsport’s first Black mayor and the youngest person to ever hold the position, at age 39.
“That was the first point when I started to get involved with politics,” Slaughter said of his talk with Campana.
“We met with the mayor — myself and a few other people — to talk to him about putting the hoops back up, how we could help facilitate that summer leagues, maybe, or what that might look like because a lot of the community, including myself, were upset that the hoops were coming down.”
The pickleball courts were built at the park on West 4th Street in 2014, but it has since included both sports.
Slaughter met with Campana prior to serving on City Council in 2016. He believed basketball courts were a positive community outlet. But the conversation also left him "looking at ways to get more involved."
Community members asked if he would run for council. Slaughter sought training in Harrisburg for seeking public office.
“I enjoyed it. I came back, met with a few people here locally that were involved in politics. 'I thought, You know what? Why not?' So, I think that was the first point where I said, ‘Okay, maybe this is something I'm gonna be interested in,'” he recalled.
Slaughter eventually ran for City Council, won, and held his seat for two years. It wasn’t something the former teacher and coach ever predicted.
“I don't think there was ever a time when I was coaching and teaching where I was like, You know what? I think in five years I'm going to run for public office. It just sort of happened,” he said.
Two years later, Slaughter ran for mayor. In 2019 he unseated Campana, who had held the position for 12 years. Slaughter was re-elected in 2023.
“If you just told me 10 years ago that you see, I'd be a city councilman and then a mayor, I would have looked at you like you're crazy. But I love it. I'm enjoying it, and it's really, it's a rewarding job,” he said.
'A piece of my childhood coming undone'
Those basketball courts symbolized the summers Slaughter spent at the park as a kid.
“That was like a piece of my childhood coming undone,” he said. “In the late '80s and '90s, the park was just packed all day and all night. It was a joke, if you lost on the basketball court at noon, you weren't getting back on until five o'clock. That's just how many people were there.”
Slaughter was born in Williamsport in 1981 to Judy and Lewis Slaughter. He grew up in the west end of the city by Memorial Park. His mother still lives in the city today but his father died about 20 years ago.
“That was my neighborhood, which I spent countless hours as a kid at Memorial Park at our summer recreation program. I went to Memorial Park for the summer rec program, the pool, the basketball courts,” he said.
Like many Williamsport area kids, Slaughter has a special appreciation for Little League Baseball, which taught him many life lessons.
“I played at the original Little League all the way through from T ball all the way to majors (little league), and that was amazing,” he reflected.
Carl Stotz, who started Little League Baseball in 1939, was still alive at the time, although he had resigned as its commissioner in 1956.
Slaughter came to know Stotz, and at age 12 was selected as a pallbearer for his funeral, as he played for Sunset, one of the four teams that had been part of the original Little League.
"One kid from each team was selected," Slaughter said. "That was definitely a very memorable part of my childhood."
Slaughter counts the former commissioner as one of his many mentors.
“Mr. Stotz was great with the kids too. After the games, he would talk to us, tell us about when he started Little League Baseball, why he started it for his nephews. You could go over to his house and take tours and all the memorabilia he had. That was unbelievable,” Slaughter said.
High school basketball and beyond
Slaughter furthered his love of sports — basketball in particular — through his time at Williamsport Area High School.
“I played basketball in high school and was fortunate enough to be part of a (1998-99) state championship team, and that was due to, in part, all the hours we spent playing at Memorial Park and during my childhood,” he said.
Slaughter went on to earn his bachelor's degree at Penn State in 2003, majoring in Information Science and Technology minoring in Spanish. He earned his master's degree in education from the University of Maryland in 2005.
At 22, Slaughter coached basketball at Chevy Chase High School in Bethesda, Maryland. The school’s head coach and fellow math teacher Steve Thompson was also from Williamsport, Slaughter said.
“He was a mentor both academically and athletically,” Slaughter said. “I still bounce questions off of him every now and then.”
Williamsport calling
Though Slaughter enjoyed his time in Maryland, something pulled him back home.
“One of the reasons I went to the University of Maryland was because it was right next to D.C.,” he said. “I loved the DMV [D.C., Maryland, Virginia] area down there. It was great. But as I started to sort of get into my professional career, young adulthood, I thought, ‘You know what? Come back to Williamsport. I think I could make some changes here.’”
Slaughter took up a role as an algebra I and II teacher, and girls' basketball coach, at his alma mater.
He continued teaching at Williamsport Area — and classes as an adjunct professor at Pennsylvania College of Technology — until he became mayor.
“I love the classroom. It was just getting to educate our youth, be around our youth, I think that's, it's energizing,” Slaughter said. “Teaching and coaching was wonderful. I miss the kids, but I'm still around it, volunteering as a coach now, so I still get to be active with our school and with our youth.”
Slaughter also said there were a lot of similarities between his careers, but just on different scales.
“I do think being an educator and a coach definitely prepared me for being in politics," he said. "Coaching [involved] dealing with all the personalities, parent concerns, frustrations ... having to work through that and be measured and talk to them in a professional manner, so that they don't elevate or escalate the situation.”
Slaughter married his wife Vanessa, a fellow Williamsport native, in 2011. The two connected over their love for basketball.
“She played basketball in college, so we kind of met through basketball. We knew each other a little bit, but then I was coaching the girls. She was helping with the summer camp that I ran," he recalled.
The pair have three young children: Jaden, Chloe and Jaslyn “Jazzy.” Slaughter occasionally volunteers as a coach for his son.
“We're very fortunate. We have great kids. They do very well in school and in athletics and in music and arts,” Slaughter said.
Mentors, inspiration, and connections
Slaughter had another mentor before he joined City Council: Williamsport’s former council president, Marlyne Whaley, was the first woman of color to serve on and lead the body.
Whaley died at age 81 in 2016. She served on council between 1999 and 2003. She later became vice president between 2004 and 2007, and then president between 2008 and 2012.
Her position helped inspire Slaughter ahead of running.
“When I was first thinking about politics, she was one of the ones that I met with, initially to pick her brain, because she had obviously done, been on city council, and knew all the how that worked,” he said.
When Slaughter became mayor, he befriended other Pennsylvania mayors, including Pittston Mayor Michael Lombardo, Lancaster Mayor Danene Sorace, and Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti.
Lombardo took Slaughter under his wing. Lombardo was once a young mayor himself — he was elected in 1997 at the age of 33.
“The last several years with Derek at the helm, he's got great leadership skills, he's got vision,” Lombardo said. “One of the things I respect so much about Derek, is his recognition of his responsibility and his responsibility to all the people, or at least as many as he can serve in terms of policy and actions that he puts in place.”
In addition to being young when elected, Lombardo and Slaughter also both held presidential positions with the Pennsylvania Municipal League. Lombardo preceded Slaughter in that seat.
“When I was serving as president of the league, you know, Derek was someone that caught my attention in terms of his capacity and his leadership,” Lombardo said. “While I was in leadership, he was second vice president, and that was one thing I was very proud of. It's great to see him as in to see the presidency in terms of league.”
Cognetti joined Slaughter among young elected officials in 2019. They both are a part of NewDEAL Leaders, a center-left network of state and local officials, and the Northeastern Pennsylvania Mayors Group.
“We were fast friends and have enjoyed working together for these last five years and strengthened, as part, both the two of us as mayors but also just as part of our northeastern Pennsylvania mayor's group,” Cognetti said.
Focus on revitalization
In 2023, Slaughter and Cognetti spearheaded usage of American Rescue Relief Action money for local parks.
Slaughter used a portion of their $25.4 million for park rebuilding across the city. Part of the money went toward Shaw Park’s splash pad. It was due to help from Cognetti’s administration, he said.
“We've overhauled every park across the city and have seen an upgrade or are getting ready to see an upgrade this year. So we're doing Newberry Park, Youngs Woods and adding a BMX bike park out in Shaw Park,” he said.
Slaughter also has focused on downtown revitalization, rehabilitating blighted properties, housing and recertification of the city’s levee system with Baltimore’s Army Corps of Engineers.
“The levee infrastructure, arguably the number one regional priority is the recertification of our levee system, and we're making great progress there, and working with our local, county, state, federal partners, to make sure that project continues to move forward.
The Otto Bookstore manager John Shableski, meanwhile, commended the mayor’s attention to growth.
“He's always willing to work with any of us in Center City here who are trying to do good things and bring things to the community,” Shableski said.
Challenges and some controversy
One of Slaughter’s main focuses has been the city’s finances.
While Slaughter was on city council, the city’s former financial director, Bill Nichols, allegedly misappropriated more than $500,000 worth of federal money intended for River Valley Transit, the city’s bus system. He was charged in September 2024.
“I don't think it's a secret the financial challenges that the city faced during my time on city council. I knew something was off with the finances, I didn't exactly know what, and I surely did not realize it was to the level that you know what it ended up being,” he said.
Slaughter’s administration has since overhauled the city’s finance department. Capital projects are budgeted with new financial software for better transparency, he said.
In his first term, Slaughter’s administration helped hire more emergency response members, including more firefighters, police officers, firetrucks and a new behavioral mental health critical intervention team.
His second term now has focused more on housing and remediating blighted properties across the city.
But his tenure hasn't been without controversy. The future of Williamsport's aging City Hall has been a contentious issue, with Slaughter vocal about his desire to sell the vacant building amid the need for expensive upgrades and repairs.
Slaughter’s position was not appreciated by all, including members of the Save Williamsport City Hall group. The preservation group, made up of local business owners, architects and historians, wants the city government to remain there.
Its future remains undetermined in the wake of preliminary findings from a consultant's report released earlier this month, with the final report expected in the month to come.
'Don't pigeonhole yourself'
Basketball was at the forefront of Slaughter’s life. The demanding position as mayor hasn’t kept him from coaching completely. He volunteers about once a month.
“I still get to be active with our school and with our youth. Although I may not be in the classroom, I'm still around it and still enjoy working with them,” he said.
He has no regrets about returning to his hometown.
“Coming back here, it's been a lot of fun. I think that I definitely made the right choice to come back to Williamsport, start my family, raise our kids here and hopefully we're making some great positive change,” Slaughter said.
Slaughter hopes other people of color, especially younger generations, are inspired and encouraged to achieve success.
“Being the first mayor of color in Williamsport and being the youngest mayor of Williamsport, it's humbling,” Slaughter said.
“Don't pigeonhole yourself or think that something is not achievable. If I'm able to do that, and people can look at my position and look at my career to motivate them, then that's rewarding,” he said. “Hopefully I can continue to give back in some way or another, the way so many people have poured into me that's allowed me to be successful.”
