Wallace, 76, died Dec. 2. Wallace first took office in 2016 and had recently been reelected to a second term. Urschel will serve until Dec. 31, 2021. The remaining two years of Wallace’s term will be filled by someone elected by voters in Xenia.
Urschel, a pastor at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Xenia who works for Dayton Aerospace Inc., according to his resume, was among eight applicants for the vacancy. He and Melody Anderson, Mike Engle, Mary Haller, Howard Horstman, Dale Louderback, Jon Martin and Faith Sorice were interviewed on Dec. 22.
Urschel was on city council in 2019 and is currently on the board of recreation and community activities.
Urschel was a write-in candidate for council after he was among two candidates disqualified from the November 2019 ballot because neither had 75 valid signatures on their petitions, the number required by Xenia’s charter. Because of a staffing error those petitions were not red-flagged before the elections board voted to certify them. Residents Christian Steen and Benjamin Patterson filed protests against his petition. Engle, former Xenia city council president, also was disqualified at that time.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Louderback, Sorice and Urschel were nominated but council voted to appoint Urschel.
The late councilman Wallace was pastor at First United Christian Church and was a social work professor at Wilberforce University.
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