McClure kicks off campaign to serve 2nd term
Surrounded by his family and members of his administration, Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure announced Thursday he will seek a second term in office as the county hopes to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic.
Speaking from a podium outside the Northampton County Courthouse, McClure pledged he will continue to support farmland preservation and vowed not to raise taxes if elected to a second term. Both were part of his platform in 2017, and he has committed millions to stop development of green spaces without a tax hike since taking the executive’s suite.
McClure also vowed to use county resources to help the region emerge healthy and financially strong from the pandemic. So far, the county has distributed $10.7 million to local businesses and partnered with local health networks to provide community testing. While he hoped to see federal leaders take more of a leading role in the recovery effort, he pledged to commit county resources to continue testing if further funding doesn’t emerge.
“It has been the most difficult test and the greatest honor of my lifetime to be leading Northampton County through its most
turbulent times in over 100 years,” McClure told the crowd.
2021 will mark the Democrat’s 14th year in county government, four as executive and a decade on County Council. He first came to prominence about a decade ago when he fought against then-Executive John Stoffa’s plans to sell Gracedale, the county nursing home. Ashift in federal funding left the county funneling millions of dollars into the facility, one of the largest nursing homes in the state, and Stoffa felt the county should end the service. The grassroots campaign against Stoffa’s plan succeeded, and the home eventually returned to the black
under Executive John Brown.
Under McClure, the county constructed a new forensics center, which officially opened a few weeks ago. The coroner’s office had been in need of a new facility for nearly 30 years and spent about half that time in a dilapidated farmhouse in Louise Moore Park. The county has also improved parking at the courthouse and purchased its Human Services Building in Bethlehem Township.
McClure has encountered some problems along the way, most prominently major failures of the new election machines in 2019. Inadequate testing failed to catch flawed touchscreens on the devices, and a faulty electronic ballot failed to count thousands of votes in a county judge race. The county salvaged the election by counting paper ballots that printed correctly; ES&S, the machine’s manufacturer, repaired the machines.
The fiasco led the county to commit more focus on its election division. While most counties across the state lagged behind to report their results in 2020 due to the surge in mail-in ballots, Northampton County was among the first to report results.
“We are not perfect, but when we make mistakes, we learn from them. For you, we adapt. We grow. And that is why Northampton County put on the best presidential election in the entire commonwealth,” McClure said.
McClure is the first candidate to formally enter any of next year’s Northampton County government races. At the moment, Democrats control both the executive and legislative branches.
However, with four of the six Democrats’ terms ending, Republicans will have an opportunity to reverse its losses from the 2017 races.