Josh Siegel’s office for the moment is the kitchen table of his Allentown home, where he is preparing to assume leadership of Lehigh County — an urban, suburban and agricultural patchwork that is home to 390,000 people, umpteen businesses, a heady mix of cultures, and every imaginable blessing and drawback of American society.
Siegel, 32, is the youngest person ever elected as a county executive in Pennsylvania. Energetic and ambitious, he is eager to follow the path blazed by some of his political heroes: Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, among others, who believed government by power and purse can lessen life’s hardships and even provide a measure of success to people left behind in laissez-faire systems.
“I believe in the old-school Democratic ways,” Siegel said, sitting in his makeshift office one afternoon a couple of weeks ahead of his Jan. 5 starting date, when he will move operations a few miles south to the Lehigh County Government Center. “I’m a firm believer that the public sector and the government has a unique and compelling responsibility to create security and prosperity for people.”
County government doesn’t have the sweeping influence of state or federal government, of course. Lehigh County’s $538 million budget is devoted to human services, the criminal justice system, elections and economic development, along with infrastructure maintenance, farmland preservation and other programs.
It’s thoroughly local, in other words, but Siegel has come to believe that trust in American institutions — battered and frayed, he believes, by the high winds of the Trump era — can be rebuilt on just this level.
He doesn’t hold back in his criticism of the president. Indeed, one of the five subcommittees of his 30-member transition team is called “Local Resilience and Response to Trump Administration.” It is exploring the impact of cuts to social safety net services, the presence and actions of immigration enforcement agents and the potential for election interference by the administration, among other topics.
By naming Trump specifically in his Dec. 1 transition announcement, Siegel raised eyebrows among local Republicans.
“My concern is that this committee doesn’t acknowledge half our community voted for the president in a year when turnout exceeded 70%,” said Ron Beitler, a Republican county commissioner. “I worry about the message that sends to half our community about whether their county government is interested in their concerns and in representing everyone.”
Still, Beitler is hopeful commissioners can work as well with Siegel as they did with the executive he is succeeding, Phillips Armstrong.
“We acknowledged differences, but end of the day we functioned effectively as a group,” Beitler said. “In a time when dysfunction is sadly the norm, I’m proud Lehigh County set an example of a body focused on good government, not party politics. I have concerns about whether that focus continues.”
While bluntly acknowledging his disdain for Trump and the MAGA movement, Siegel said the outcome of the election — he easily defeated Republican Roger MacLean — suggests plenty of Republicans find his politics and ambitions palatable.
“I prevailed with almost 61% of the vote, so more than a majority of the county clearly aligned with or expressed support for my policy platform and my vision,” he said.
That vision is largely geared toward helping people who are struggling with joblessness and stagnant wages in a stubbornly inflationary economy.
It’s the same focus he brought to his 2020-22 tenure on Allentown City Council and his now-ending term as state representative for the 22nd District, representing portions of Allentown and Salisbury Township. A special election to replace him in the House will be held Feb. 24.
Siegel said his first priority as executive is finding ways to broaden the amount of available — and affordable — housing. He also wants to expand voting access — vastly increasing the number of ballot drop boxes, for example — and improve public transportation in a region with notoriously clogged highways.
“I have a more expansive view of what I think county government is capable of,” he said. “I think county government is probably the least understood, the least valued and the least flexed or exercised in terms of its true power.
“Traditionally if you look at county government it’s basically law and order, so courts and corrections, and human services. We take care of people who are at rock bottom or desperately need serious help, either for mental health or addiction. I think county government can do a heck of a lot more.”
In his first year, Siegel wants to create a housing production fund — “a self-sustaining, recurring revenue system to built housing in perpetuity,” he said. Modeled after a program in Maryland, it would be a partnership among the county, its municipalities and the area’s nonprofit networks to build housing in a region with a deficit of about 9,000 housing units.
“This is where the old-school Democrat in me comes out,” he said. “The public sector has to step up.”
Siegel plans some changes to the executive office itself. He is resurrecting the position of chief of staff and plans to create a communications committee to broadcast the county’s ambitions and achievements through social media and other means.
In an age of diminished traditional journalism, “the county has to be its own advocate,” he said. “There are thousands of untold stories and quiet victories every day.”
Morning Call reporter Daniel Patrick Sheehan can be reached at 610-820-6598 or dsheehan@mcall.com.