ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Lehigh County voters will pick between two executive candidates with wildly different visions at a time when state and federal funding is expected to grow tight.
On one side is Republican Roger MacLean, a former Allentown city councilman and police chief.
The 73-year-old presents himself as an experienced leader capable of reaching across the aisle. If elected, he said he'll protect the status quo by looking to avoid tax increases and preserving the county's quality of life.
On the other is state Rep. Josh Siegel, a Democrat representing parts of Allentown and Salisbury Township.
The 31-year-old said the county needs fresh blood willing to pursue unorthodox answers to issues such as the housing shortage and burdensome property taxes.
Democratic incumbent Phil Armstrong is term-limited after serving eight years in office.
The winner of the Nov. 4 election will succeed County Executive Phil Armstrong, a Democrat who is term-limited after eight years in office.
The winner of the Nov. 4 election will oversee a $558 million operation tasked with protecting vulnerable children, seniors, veterans and those battling mental health and addiction problems; operating the Lehigh County Jail and Cedarbrook, the county-owned nursing home; preserving farmland and open spaces; running elections; and financing critical services such as LANTA and the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission, among other duties.
Approximately 78% of the county's funding originates from the state and federal government; local property taxes and fees are expected to generate $120.8 million in the 2026 proposed budget.
But that reliance on outside funding means the county may be forced to make tough choices in the years ahead. Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed into law in July, Congress will reduce funding for Medicaid and SNAP benefits, also known as food stamps, over the next decade.
Both candidates have acknowledged the reduced federal funding will likely force the county to rethink how it pays for popular programs that protect society's most vulnerable.
Siegel seeks to address housing, explore sales tax
Siegel said the county needs a leader willing to go to bat and use the office's bully pulpit to rail against the Republican Party and President Donald Trump. The administration's policies are actively harming county residents, so local leaders need to step up and push back, he said.
While some critics will tell him to stick to his lane, Siegel said that continuing to focus on strictly local matters would be akin to seeing a house on fire but arguing about its dishwasher.
"All politics is national. People view much of what we do through a national lens, and they want to know where you stand on what's happening in this country," he said.
Siegel is running with some ambitious proposals. Given the potential for lost funding, Siegel said county leaders should investigate creating a local sales tax. As an example, he pointed to Allegheny County, which passed a 1% sales tax in 1994. As part of the deal, Allegheny offset the new tax by lowering property taxes by approximately 30%, Siegel said. Diversifying county revenue would generate more money overall while easing the tax burden on seniors with fixed incomes, he said.
"All politics is national. People view much of what we do through a national lens, and they want to know where you stand on what's happening in this country."State Rep. Josh Siegel, Democratic candidate for Lehigh County executive
The idea isn’t a partisan one, according to Siegel. Republican lawmakers in Harrisburg have proposed eliminating property taxes entirely in favor of raising the sales tax. By adopting a mixed approach, he said, the county could make it easier for local residents to stay in their homes while generating more income to pay for things like mental health services.
"Do you want to cut those services when they need them most, or do you want to find a responsible and practical way of balancing those responsibilities?" Siegel said.
Siegel has also proposed that the county explore regionalizing police and fire operations at a county level. Under his proposal, Allentown and Bethlehem would continue to operate independently while townships and boroughs would merge into a county system. Siegel said the overall costs for policing in the county would drop by more than 10% while improving local response times in some communities. At the same time, he acknowledged that municipalities that rely on state police would likely see their costs increase under this plan.
Siegel said he was open to the countywide department being either run through the county or a partnership of the municipalities. While he favored a county-run operation, either would result in savings for most taxpayers, he said. The Lehigh Valley already has smaller-scale partnerships in place with the Colonial Regional Police Department in the Nazareth area and the Slate Belt Regional Police Department in the Wind Gap area.
He said his highest priority, however, is to address the region's housing shortage. The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission has found the region currently has a housing deficit of 9,000 units. With the Valley's population expected to grow at a relatively fast pace, the region will need another 44,900 units by 2050, LVPC found. The lack of options is contributing to rapidly rising living expenses in the area, Siegel said.
His proposal? The county should take out a $100 million bond to create a housing production fund. The county would then either hire contractors to build housing for middle-class households or build it themselves through the region's housing authorities. Most of the created homes would sell for market value while the remaining 30% would be used as affordable housing.
A similar model has seen success in Montgomery County, Maryland, Siegel said. Adding more housing should relieve pressure on the housing market and ease soaring prices, he said. Having the county involved would also allow it to steer development to areas with public transit and away from farmland or open spaces that could otherwise be preserved.
Any of the above proposals would require buy-in from county commissioners and municipal leaders, and creating a sales tax would require changes in state law. Siegel said that enacting any of the proposals would be a challenge but that elected officials owe it to their constituents to find solutions to pressing issues.
The region already has a reputation for collaboration and problem solving, he said, pointing to the creation of the Neighborhood Improvement Zone in Allentown and the redevelopment of the SteelStacks campus in Bethlehem.
"My vision of leadership is that it's not about low-hanging fruit. It's not about the path of least resistance. Leaders go out and make things happen," Siegel said.
MacLean says he's the steady hand needed
By comparison, MacLean is running more on his approach to governing than on specific proposals.
On the campaign trail, he has not advanced any changes to county government. When asked, he has said he will need to be in office before he can thoroughly review the budget and operations.
“I hope we’re getting the best value for the taxpayer’s dollar, but until I get in there, I have no way of judging that.”Roger MacLean, Republican candidate for Lehigh County executive
His top priority, he said, is to ensure that Lehigh County government continues to operate efficiently. While it has a reputation for running lean -- taxes are lower today than they were 11 years ago -- he intends on reviewing all its operations should he be elected.
“I hope we’re getting the best value for the taxpayer’s dollar, but until I get in there, I have no way of judging that,” MacLean said.
That mindset, he said, should not be confused with a desire to cut services. Most of the county’s expenses cover personnel who perform critical jobs -- 911 operators, social workers checking on the welfare of children and nurses at Cedarbrook caring for the elderly, for example.
“My philosophy is, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. If it’s running fine, let it go. We need to make sure that it continues to run fine,” he said.
That line of thinking, he said, would apply in large part to incumbent Armstrong’s cabinet as well.
While he would be the first Republican to serve as executive in 20 years, he isn’t looking to clean house on a team that hasn’t changed much since former Executive Tom Muller held office in 2017.
“Everybody would be getting a fresh start with me,” he said. “That doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be some changes, but that again would be something I decide once I’m there and I see what’s going on.”
One area that he believes there’s room for improvement is morale in some county offices.
While McLean said he had no complaints working under former Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin, he said the same can’t be said for employees in the Lehigh County Jail. Armstrong and county commissioners have acknowledged discontent there and have approved bonuses, which correction officers have said are too meager.
“I think it’s working well for the most part,” MacLean said of county government. “There’s going to be personnel issues no matter who’s the county executive ... that you’re going to have to deal with.”
MacLean said that county governments across Pennsylvania may find themselves in a tough spot in the months ahead after the federal government cut Medicaid funding and required states to contribute more to SNAP benefits.
That combination means less funding will come from the federal level, and that state government will have less money to spread around as it tries to plug its own funding gaps. MacLean said that under those circumstances, he would have to explore what services the county isn’t required to provide and consider a possible tax increase.
"My guiding philosophy would be to do what's right and what has to be done," MacLean said. "I hope ... that there's enough pressure put on the state and federal government to keep that from happening.
"But if the worse-case scenario would happen, we've got to do it. We have to pay for it somehow.”
A fiery campaign
The race has been characterized by fierce attacks the candidates have lobbed against one another.
MacLean has accused Siegel of being a political opportunist; Siegel launched his first political campaign, a failed bid for Allentown mayor, in 2017. He had just moved to the city and was weeks removed from graduating from Seton Hall University.
He's questioned Siegel's support for law enforcement. During Siegel's time on Allentown City Council, his colleagues introduced a censure resolution against him for allegedly supporting calls to defund the police, making derogatory remarks about other city council members and the police department and allegedly sharing then-Mayor Ray O'Connell's phone number with angry demonstrators during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.
The resolution was withdrawn and never appeared as an official agenda item, or went up for a vote.
Siegel has defended his behavior while at the same time saying his thinking on police issues has matured. As a city councilman and state representative, he said, he's voted for budgets that hired more police. At the same time, he has no regrets about participating in the protests.
He said he no longer supports removing funding for police to provide more social services but believes that those services — such as having social workers respond with police to some 911 calls — are still needed.
"I think any good leader accepts responsibility when they had the wrong approach or the wrong idea," he said. "All I was trying to say in 2020 was, 'How can we only be punitive and not be preventative?'"
Meanwhile, Siegel has attacked MacLean for what he's called a warped sense of justice. MacLean, he said, continues to support Trump despite the fact that he's a convicted felon who pointed an angry mob at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Siegel has also questioned what kind of police department he led given allegations of misconduct that occurred on his watch.
The attorney general's office is pursuing charges of rape, kidnapping and witness intimidation against Sgt. Evan Weaver. As part of the charges, authorities allege Weaver sexually assaulted a woman in May 2011 while MacLean was chief. Weaver is now on suspension awaiting trial.
MacLean denied that police officials knowingly ignored misconduct during his time leading the police department. Due to city policies, he said he could not address most personnel actions that took place. However, he noted his involvement in the investigation of Brian Sabo, an officer convicted of similar crimes in 2002.
MacLean said he was a captain when the complaint against Sabo was filed. Police received a court order that allowed investigators to bug Sabo's police cruiser. They later recorded him receiving more sexual favors from the woman after catching her violating her parole again. Under a negotiated plea deal, Sabo was sentenced to probation but was barred from serving in law enforcement again.
"Any disciplinary issue or complaint of misconduct by a police officer was investigated under my watch," MacLean said. "I've never turned a blind eye toward any complaints."
