Five vie for Montco commissioner seats
All three incumbent Montgomery County commissioners are seeking reelection on Tuesday.
All three incumbent Montgomery County commissioners are seeking reelection on Tuesday, Nov. 5, along with another Republican challenger and a thirdparty, write-in candidate.
Two incumbent Democrats, Val Arkoosh and Ken Lawrence Jr., will face off against two Republicans, incumbent Joe Gale and newcomer Fred Connor for three open seats with fouryear terms on the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners on Election Day.
The fifth candidate is John Waldenberger, a Libertarian who is mounting a longshot write-in bid.
The top three vote-getters will be elected to fouryear terms.
Arkoosh, currently serving as chairwoman of the three-member governing board, will be returning to the ballot for a chance at another four-year term. Arkoosh won election to a full four-year term in November 2015, after being appointed to fill a vacancy on the board in January 2015.
She was the first female chairperson in the county board’s history and is currently one of the highestranking female elected officials in Pennsylvania. She previously served as chairwoman of the Montgomery County Board of Health.
Prior to her appointment, she served most recently as professor of Clinical Anesthesiology and Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania.
If reelected, Arkoosh said her top priority will be “health in all policies.”
“As a physician, I saw the health of my patients impacted by things outside of the exam room that I could not fix. Serving as your county commissioner, I use my data-driven problem solving skills and my college degree in economics to improve delivery of services to Montgomery County residents, fight the opioid epidemic, reduce homelessness and food insecurity, fix our broken infrastructure, protect our environment, and keep the County’s fiscal house in order,” said Arkoosh. “I am guided by the philosophy of ‘health in all policies’ — meaning that everything we do should help improve the health of our community for the future. I hope that my three children will want to work and raise their families here in Montgomery County.”
Democrat Lawrence, current vice chairman of the commissioners, will also be returning to the ballot.
Lawrence began his career at the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce as a public policy representative performing policy development and analysis, grassroots outreach and lobbying on regional business issues. Following his experience at the Chamber of Commerce, Lawrence moved on to Merck & Co., where he handled public relations, product support, community relations, corporate contributions, crisis communications, issues management, government relations and media relations.
He then entered entrepreneurship and established his own consulting firm, Public Affairs Strategies. Lawrence was appointed by the commissioners in 2011 to serve as a county representative to the board of SEPTA and was unanimously reappointed in 2016. Previously, he was appointed by the commissioners to the board of the Valley Forge Convention and Visitors Bureau and served two terms from 2006-2013. In 2012, Lawrence was a member of the ShapiroRichards transition team serving on the Transportation and Infrastructure sub-committee.
Lawrence did not respond to a request for additional information for this article.
Republican Gale will also be running for reelection this Tuesday. Gale is a lifelong resident of Montgomery County. Raised in Plymouth Township, he attended schools in the Colonial School District. He is a graduate of Temple University’s Fox School of Business where he earned a degree in Finance and Real Estate. While in college,
Gale held several leadership roles within student government and community organizations.
Upon graduation from Temple University, Gale began working as a recording clerk in the Montgomery County Recorder of Deeds department. In this position, Gale saw first-hand county government at work and closely followed county operations. Gale then expanded his financial background in the private sector where he worked in the mortgage division of one of the country’s largest home building corporations, NVR Inc.
If reelected, Gale said he plans to continue to put people before politics.
“Four years ago, I made the pledge to always put people before politics and, as County Commissioner, that is exactly what I have done. Since assuming the role of Montgomery County’s highest elected office,
I am the only Commissioner — Republican or Democrat — in over a decade to vote against a tax increase. In addition, I opposed the county vehicle registration fee and led the charge against job-killing business regulations,” he wrote.
“Most importantly, I have been exposing the payto-play politics and backroom deals that have become business-as-usual in our county. Regardless of which political party is in control of the county’s over $400 million budget, there is a constant cycle of cronyism in which the campaign donors and establishment insiders get rich off your tax dollars.”
Republican Fred Conner will be facing the three incumbents in Tuesday’s election.
Conner is currently Whitpain Township’s board of supervisors’ chairman and has been on that board since 2009. Conner has also spent time on that township’s open space, planning and zoning boards, a Superfund advisory group,
a school district advisory council and more. He first got involved at the local level by joining his neighborhood’s homeowners association and said his goal has been to bring what he calls “competent, conservative governance” to each level.
Conner was a United States Marine Corps Infantry Officer for 12 years and led Marines in the Gulf War and numerous peacetime deployments, according to his campaign website.
He has also worked for small businesses and in the corporate world for the past 25 years. He now runs his own management consulting firm.
Once he started serving on local boards, Conner said, he went back to school and earned a master’s degree in regional planning from Temple University in 2007, “so I could understand the issues and understand what the developers and planners and engineers were talking about.”
Conner says he is a vet
eran and pro-life advocate and second amendment supporter who decided to run because he felt the Board of Commissioners was in need of local experience.
“I got into the race because the three incumbent commissioners have no local experience. They haven’t served on a Township Board or a Supervisors Board. That perspective is really sorely needed on our Commissioners Board. I’ve been involved in local government for 15 years in Whitpain and we’ve had a lot of success here. When you combine that with my business and military background and local government experience, the perspective will be helpful to our Board of Commissioners and to Montgomery County,” said Conner.
Additionally, Conner says if he is elected, he has three top priorities:
“First is public safety. Our 51 police departments in Montgomery County, our firefighters and police — that network needs to be better integrated … Second, is urban sprawl and traffic nightmares that are enveloping our county in so many places and ways. They have to be better addressed. And third, is a county service. We can do a much better job at friendly county services. First among them is a voter service. New machines were poorly rolled out and experienced a lot of problems that I think will continue into Tuesday’s election. We have to do a better job,” said Conner.
John Waldenberger, 2018 Libertarian candidate for Pennsylvania’s 53rd House District, announced his intention Nov. 1 to mount a write-in campaign for county commissioner.
“Our political climate today has become a total nightmare. One that George Washington, our first president, warned us about upon his departure from office. I for one am not happy with our choices for county commissioner, especially when two candidates from the same party cannot seem to get along and provide a united front. It is a sign that we need a new voice of reason to lead our county into the future. I feel that I can be that voice, if given the chance,” read a release from Waldenberger dated Friday.