What today’s politicians can learn from John Stoffa
I hadn’t even heard of John Stoffa when he announced he was running for county executive in 2005.
I was still a rookie at The Morning Call then, just wrapping up my first year on staff, as the beat reporter covering Northampton County. I was in the courthouse talking with politicos and public officials almost daily, and Stoffa’s name hadn’t come up.
My first impression was that he didn’t care about the political establishment or its rules.
I liked that.
At age 65, Stoffa dared to challenge an entrenched incumbent from his own party. That goes against the playbook. He didn’t get an ounce of support from the county Democratic machine. He didn’t need it.
He defeated two-term incumbent Glenn Reibman in the 2005 primary, then won the general election over former state Sen. Bob Nyce.
Stoffa won a second term but did not run for a third.
He passed away Monday at age 82.
I lost regular contact with
Stoffa a few years after he was elected. My duties at The Morning Call had changed. I no longer worked from our Easton bureau covering county government. I had taken on the role of helping consumers and exposing scams as the Watchdog columnist.
I still heard from Stoffa occasionally, though. He would suggest topics he thought I should write about.
And I followed his work as executive from afar.
Stoffa’s legacy should be he wanted government to provide good services, especially to the most vulnerable members of the community.
He spent 23 years in the human services departments at Northampton and Lehigh counties, many of those years as director.
Stoffa was a Democrat, but labels didn’t mean much to him. He was friendly with everyone. He announced his candidacy on the radio show of County Councilman Ron Angle, a Republican who had been a nemesis of Reibman.
Sometimes, Stoffa tried too hard to be apolitical. Shortly after being elected, he tried to appoint a Republican as director of administration, his second in command. The Democratic-majority council refused to confirm his choice.
Stoffa had a reputation for being deliberate, sometimes too deliberate. He was slow to make some big decisions early in his tenure as county executive and that frustrated some around him.
I attributed that to the fact that he came from a farming family. He was raised on a farm near Jim Thorpe, and lived on a 30-acre “farmette” in Allen Township.
Farmers toil tirelessly, but they must have the patience to let their produce and livestock grow.
Stoffa also was always trying to get as much input as he could so he could make the best decisions.
He was one of the most even-tempered public officials I have ever known.
He seldom got animated. I’m sure there were times he wanted to blow his stack. But he didn’t, at least not in public.
I managed to get under his skin pretty good once, though.
In 2011, I wrote a column questioning why the county’s new Wayne A. Grube Memorial Park in Weaversville wasn’t open. Many of the park’s facilities were complete, including trails and a playground, I noted. So why were the gates locked?
Stoffa told me finishing touches still were needed, and the county still was working out the details to have staff open and close the facility daily.
That wasn’t a good answer, in my opinion.
So I closed my column by noting that the park’s namesake, late County Councilman Wayne Grube, had lobbied relentlessly for a park in that section of the county.
“I wonder what he would think,” I wrote.
Stoffa considered that to be a cheapshot and called me to express his displeasure. More than a decade later, I still remember that conversation.
But that quickly blew over. Stoffa recognized that being a public official means being subject to public criticism. He had thicker skin than most politicians I have covered.
I only covered the first year or so of Stoffa’s tenure as county executive, so I’m not in a position to judge his effectiveness.
But I am certain that today’s leaders can learn much from him.
He was one of the few elected officials who was good at separating government from politics. Or at least trying to.
Stoffa put up with politics because he had to. It was part of the job as county executive. But he always was focused on the goal of good government and making decisions in the best interests of the people.
That’s a lost art.
RIP John Stoffa.