— Jeff Ward, Lehigh Valley News Briefs
Before we get to the real business, I’m going to ask all Northampton County Commissioners to speak into their microphones. When they don’t, nobody watching the YouTube channel at home can hear anything.
Also this: the idea that all branches of government are supposed to work in lockstep is nonsense. If that were the case, we wouldn’t need branches of government. We’d just have a tsar.
People sometimes go to public meetings and say in a childlike manner, “Why can’t you all work together?” Here’s why: they shouldn’t. If they did, we could all be in trouble. Some people would get everything, and the rest of us would get a raw deal.
Our government is designed to argue with itself, and it has been arguing with itself for almost 250 years. Don’t be naive.
Anyway, Northampton County Commissioner Lori Vargo Heffner won re-election today as president of county council. Council members are known as commissioners, as I’ll note for about the 600th time.
Vargo Heffner is a Democrat. John Goffredo, a Republican, is the new vice president.
Democrat Jeff Warren put himself up for president. The final vote was 5-3, with Republicans Thomas Giovanni, John Goffredo and John Brown, along with Democrats Heckman and Jeff Corpora, voting for Vargo Heffner. Warren voted for himself and was also supported by Ken Kraft and Kelly Keegan.
Vargo Heffner abstained. She had the option to vote last and had five votes by then.
The outcome was in my humble opinion predestined. Perhaps the vote of Corpora could not be predicted by those not on the inside, but consequential votes have gone typically gone against the Warren/Kraft/Keegan axis on council. Not all, because most votes are routine, and are often unanimous.
Warren said he ran because he wants council to work better with the administration of County Executive Lamont G. McClure. Warren also said that while he wants to work with the administration, he would not necessarily agree with it on everything.
Warren also said there was a lot of “discord” in 2024 in county government. There was, but that is not a bad thing.
Certainly the tone of some meetings and some comments could be more civil, but how many Northampton County residents care? McClure again did not seek a tax increase and that is what most people care about.
Warren also said Vargo Heffner might be on the ballot this year. At-large council seats are up in 2025 but holding a leadership post on a legislative body has not been an issue earlier.
Heckman often reminds his colleagues that council is independent. He did again on Monday.
“I think though that we have to very clear that the county government is two parts,” he noted, excluding the courts, which complete the executive/legislative/judicial split.
“If you want respect, give respect,” Heckman also said, referring to the administration.
Keegan said Vargo Heffner did not meet with McClure in 2024. Vargo Heffner said she tried to find times to meet with him but the times didn’t work out.
I don’t know what happened, and don’t much care. The less government does in private the better.
McClure and Vargo Heffner can talk at public meetings and they have. They can meet in private if they wish, but there is so little press coverage of local government, and so few people care, that I prefer everything to be on the record.
McClure has kept taxes down. His budgets speak for themselves. He fell short on a couple big votes, one for a health center for employees, and then on a bond issue for a new office building and parking deck at the government center in Easton.
Heckman, vice president in 2025, did not seek the office again. According to Lehigh Valley Ramblings, he is not going to run for council again this year. Heckman alluded to that during today’s meeting.
Goffredo won with the votes of himself, Giovanni, Brown, Vargo Heffner and Corpora. Heckman voted for Corpora, and Kraft, Keegan and Warren voted again for Warren.
So the council, with a 6-3 Democrat majority, has a Republican vice president. It is not unprecedented in local politics for the minority party to get a spot. This also gives the northern tier of the county — Goffredo lives in the Slate Belt — a little more attention.
Goffredo said something at a meeting once that hit the nail on the head: many residents don’t care about county government or even know who holds the offices.
Unless a county resident has a relative in prison or at the Gracedale nursing home, they probably don’t care.
The county provides a lot of essential services, including the 911 center. It buys open space — a McClure focus, with the approval of council — and provides all kinds of human services for people who are young, old and in need, but I don’t think a lot of residents outside the system see that.
Lastly, there was no controversy about re-appointing attorney Chris Spadoni as the solicitor to county council. His selection was unanimous.
Before today’s meeting, Stephen J. Barron Jr., the director of finance, went over new technical capabilities in council chambers at the government center in Easton.
They sound like good improvements, but unless people speak into the microphones, it won’t matter.
Lehigh Valley News Briefs 