{"id":109705,"date":"2026-02-10T03:08:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T03:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/109705\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T03:08:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T03:08:17","slug":"upper-darby-council-president-announces-mayoral-bid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/109705\/","title":{"rendered":"Upper Darby Council president announces mayoral bid"},"content":{"rendered":"

Keffer, who took office in 2020, was arrested and charged<\/a> in late January for driving under the influence. She has since apologized and has been seeking treatment<\/a>, but her physical absence led to a power vacuum in township government that Burke sought to fill<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

While he got elected to his current post as a Democrat in 2019, an ongoing feud with the party<\/a> led to the Upper Darby Democratic Committee formally condemning Burke as well as Councilmembers Laura Wentz and Matt Silva<\/a> in July 2022.\n<\/p>\n

Township government has been divided between two factions<\/a> for more than a year. On one side there is Burke, Wentz, and Silva as well as three Republican council members. And on the other side, Keffer\u2019s administration has the support of the remaining five Democratic council members.\n<\/p>\n

The party pledged to ensure Burke and the two other council members \u201cdo not hold elected office as Democrats again\u201d in the township, citing their role in delaying the allocation of $35 million of American Rescue Plan Act funds and \u201cobstructing\u201d township business.\n <\/p>\n

Burke subsequently switched his affiliation to Republican. As such, Burke\u2019s mayoral run will be as a Republican.\n<\/p>\n

He said his father was the first Democrat to ever be elected to council in Lansdowne in 1976 for a four-year term. Burke said his father eventually came back in 1992 and served as the only Republican on Lansdowne\u2019s council.\n<\/p>\n

This is not Burke\u2019s first mayoral run. He ran before a little more than a decade ago. He said his strategy is still the same.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to make a change, just like I wanted to make a change 12 years ago, or two years after that, and three years ago. And I\u2019m still willing to knock on doors, to fight for Upper Darby \u2014 to continue to make a change and to make the right change,\u201d Burke said.\n<\/p>\n

The Upper Darby Republican Committee is endorsing Burke\u2019s bid for mayor.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keffer, who took office in 2020, was arrested and charged in late January for driving under the influence.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[212,147,149,148,150],"class_list":["post-109705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-upper-darby","tag-delaware-county","tag-upper-darby","tag-upper-darby-headlines","tag-upper-darby-news","tag-upper-darby-township"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}