ALLENTOWN, Pa. – “So, it’s from the kitchen to the government center?” 69 News reporter Bo Koltnow asked Josh Siegel inside his Allentown home.<\/p>\n
“Yes. This is my impromptu office,” he said while at his kitchen island table.<\/p>\n
And kitchen table issues are what Siegel says he’ll be serving when he officially heads the county table as the Lehigh County executive.<\/p>\n
“The first one is housing. That’s going to be my biggest mission from day one, is making sure that Lehigh County, and the public sector in general, takes a bigger role in building more affordable housing,” he said.<\/p>\n
His goal is 6,000 new affordable housing units in the next 20 years, funded through a revolving self-sustaining housing fund that wouldn’t use taxpayer money.<\/p>\n
“I believe in the old school mantra,” Siegel said. “The Democratic Party, the FDRs, the LBJs, the JFKs. I believe that the public sector is the one that’s supposed to step in and make sure that people have security and prosperity.”<\/p>\n
Siegel also wants to expand voting access, increase the number of drop boxes and improve public transportation.<\/p>\n
It’s been a quick political ascension for the recently turned 32 year old.<\/p>\n
Elected to Allentown City Council in 2019, Seigel became a state representative in 2023 and now is Pennsylvania’s youngest-ever county executive.<\/p>\n
“I’m eternally cognizant of the fact that I have to prove that I have the emotional maturity and the vision to actually manage a large bureaucracy, which is why I put together a really extensive transition team,” he said of his position as being the youngest in the state to hold the county executive position.<\/p>\n
Despite being criticized by some for being too vocal a critic of President Donald Trump, Seigel won’t back down. He has a local resilience and response to Trump.\u00a0<\/p>\n
From immigration, cuts to social services, or health care, Seigel vows to protect all citizens from what he calls destructive policies coming out of the White House.<\/p>\n
“I want to govern in a way that I believe is inspiring and inspirational for folks, no matter what side of the aisle they’re on. I’m trying to build a county that looks out for everyone,” he said<\/p>\n
Siegel takes his seat Monday, Jan. 5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. – “So, it’s from the kitchen to the government center?” 69 News reporter Bo Koltnow asked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[2313,119,121,120,6375,16438,36194,17294,8596,17554,36195,36196],"class_list":{"0":"post-68370","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-affordable-housing","9":"tag-allentown","10":"tag-allentown-headlines","11":"tag-allentown-news","12":"tag-democratic-party","13":"tag-josh-siegel","14":"tag-lehigh-county-executive","15":"tag-public-sector","16":"tag-public-transportation","17":"tag-transition-team","18":"tag-voting-access","19":"tag-youth-leadership"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68370","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=68370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}