Control of Northampton County Council to be decided on Tuesday
Races feature Kraft-Rowe, Warren-Foreman
Update: We corrected the first name of Kelly Keegan.
Four Northampton County Council positions are on the Nov. 7 ballot, but only two have contested races while the other two have candidates who are unopposed.
The two contested races for county commissioner showcase experienced Democratic candidates with large campaign war chests versus Republicans in their first bids for elected office who have raised significantly less money.
In District I, Democrat Ken Kraft, seeking to return to county council after a six-year absence, opposes Republican Bill Rowe. Incumbent Democratic Commissioner Ken Lott did not seek reelection.
In District III, Democrat Jeff Warren, who has won elections for Easton City Council and Hanover Township supervisor, faces Republican Casey Foreman. The seat will be vacated by Republican John Cusick, who is running for county controller this year instead of seeking reelection to council.
In District II, Kelly Keegan, 53, a Forks Township supervisor and a nurse at Easton Area High School, is unopposed. District II comprises Easton, Glendon, Stockertown, Tatamy, West Easton, Wilson and the townships of Forks and Palmer.
And in District IV, Republican incumbent Tom Giovanni, 70, of Plainfield Township is unopposed in seeking a second term. District IV comprises Bangor, Bath, Chapman, East Bangor, Pen Argyl, Portland, Roseto, Walnutport, Wind Gap and the townships of Bushkill, Lehigh, Lower Mount Bethel, Moore, Plainfield, Upper Mount Bethel, Upper Nazareth and Washington.
Control of county council, with a 5-4 Republican majority, is at stake in the election. A change to a Democratic majority could boost Democratic county Executive Lamont McClure’s chances to adopt his agenda for at least the next two years.
Democrats controlled council (5-4) at the start of the year, but then the pre-primary political drama began.
Democrat Kerry Myers, the first Black president of county council, was seeking reelection from District II and faced a primary challenge from Keegan. Two voters, including Keegan’s husband Edward, successfully challenged the validity of Myers’ nominating petitions, knocking Myers off the Democratic ballot.
That prompted Myers to switch to a Republican, flipping control of county council to the GOP. Myers undertook a write-in campaign to get the Republican nomination in the primary and earn a spot on the November ballot. However, he fell 53 votes short of the 250 required, leaving Keegan as the only District II candidate.
Unlike Myers, Rowe, who was bounced from the primary ballot after courts determined he had failed to file a required financial disclosure form with the county council office, had a successful write-in primary campaign.
County commissioners serve four-year terms, and starting next year, will be paid $12,500 a year, up from $9,500 that was set in 2010.
Northampton County commissioner District I
District I comprises Bethlehem, Hellertown and the townships of Lower Saucon and Williams.
Ken Kraft – Democrat
Kraft, 62, who is from Bethlehem, was twice elected to council, in 2011 and 2015, but resigned during his second term in 2018 when County Executive Lamont McClure appointed him deputy director at the county prison in Easton. At the time, Kraft was council president. Lott was appointed to fill the remainder of Kraft’s term and was elected to a full four-year term in 2019. He did not seek reelection.
In January, Kraft retired from his county job, making him eligible to run for county office, and then announced he would campaign to return to his old council seat.
Kraft was born in Bethlehem and graduated from Freedom High School in 1979, after which he served in the Marines until 1983. He joined the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, where he eventually became its local business agent.
He was appointed to the Bethlehem Zoning Hearing Board and later was appointed to the Northampton County Elections Commision and served as its chairman until resigning in 2011 when he first ran for county council.
After retiring from the county prison job this year, he started a business venture, along with co-owner Jim Wolf, to open the Lake Hydra scuba diving training center at the former Dutch Springs quarry in Lower Nazareth Township. The opening of the facility, planned for this past April, is pushed off to next year because of construction issues, Kraft said.
In an interview he explained why he seeks to return to elected county office. “I miss it,” he said. “I’ve been fond of public service since I got out of the Marine Corps in ’83.”
On his campaign website, he promises to “fight warehouse expansion and preserve open space. We will continue to invest in farmland preservation and ensure that environmentally sensitive land does not become lost to the endless thirst of profits from developers. I also will make sure that wages are attainable that allow a citizen to work and thrive in Northampton County, not just get by.”
Kraft supports opening a health center for county employees, a plan proposed by McClure. "It’s a good way to save money,” Kraft said.
Under the proposal, the county would hire Integrity Health, a New Jersey company that operates health clinics, to run one that would provide basic care and services without co-pays for county employees and families at a cost of $3.7 million for five years. McClure said that the county, which self-insures its employees, could save from $1.5 million to $2 million a year.
However, county council with a 5-4 vote in July rejected the plan, objecting to a no-bid contract with Integrity and questioning the promised savings to the county. In a statement afterward, McClure said, “This project isn’t dead yet.”
Kraft said he never voted for a tax increase while on council and opposes any future tax increase. He also said the county must repair or replace bridges that need the work. He supports keeping Gracedale under county ownership.
His campaign committee, Friends of Ken Kraft, has raised $31,000, with more than half of that coming from union PACs, according to campaign finance report activity through Oct. 23. Citizens for Lamont McClure provided $200 worth of in-kind services for robocall lists. The campaign spent $26,465 for the fall election.
Bill Rowe – Republican
Rowe, 30, lives in Hellertown, where he grew up. (He is on the ballot as William R. Rowe.) He graduated from Bethlehem Catholic High School in 2011, from Northampton Community College in 2013 with an associate arts degree in business administration, and from Temple University with a bachelor’s degree in business administration, finance in 2015. He has worked for Cantor Fitzgerald, the international financial firm, for six years; he serves as a vice president of compliance. He also founded Elevate Foundation in 2020, a nonprofit that helps the needy in the greater Lehigh Valley.
He points to working from when he was a young child at the family farm, Bechdolt’s Orchards in Hellertown, as teching him valuable lessons about life: grit, the value of a dollar and respect for nature, as noted in his campaign’s Facebook page.
“It was a very foundational experience in my life. I learned a lot, especially from my Grandpop,” he said in an interview.
He decided to run for county commissioner after talking to people and hearing their complaints about government.
“I think we've really lost touch, lost our grasp on that as a country. I talked to so many disgruntled people in the Lehigh Valley, and at one point I said to myself … ‘Put your money where your mouth is.’ I've always been very keen on public service outside of politics. I am very involved in different nonprofits. I think this was a different layer, the next step in my journey of public service.”
He supports keeping Gracedale under county ownership but said operations and care could be improved.
“The level of care was something that was expressed to me [from people he spoke to]. The care wasn't up to what they expected,” he said. “We need to rethink how we're doing things there. But I think there's a lot of value still in the county owning it if it's operated in the right way.”
He said it's time to reassess warehouse expansion in the Lehigh Valley, noting it’s an issue with bipartisan support.
He will not vote for a tax increase, saying “You need to think of creative ways to manage your budget.”
He would look to incorporate artificial intelligence into county operations, where beneficial.
“Technology works 24/7/365 and the primary outcome in my eyes of AI is just to remove human bottlenecks in the delivery [of services],” he said. “So I think there's a lot of areas where there's a lot of human touch, right? It may not be necessary. AI could deliver on a better quality of service at a much cheaper price to the taxpayer.”
He said, if elected, he would donate his council salary to local charities. He also pledged to serve only two terms, and he supports the decision to place referendums on the Nov. 7 ballot to set term limits for county officials.
He describes himself as a conservative running as a Republican but considers himself an independent.
“And what does that mean? That I'm not going to vote 100% in one direction or another. You know, every problem that comes across my radar, I'm going to think critically about it,” he said. “It's not about me. It's not about a party. It's about the people.”
The Friends of Bill Rowe committee raised $2,291, with $1,692 coming from the candidate, and spent $1,841, according to its most recent campaign finance report.
Northampton County commissioner District III
District III comprises Freemansburg, Nazareth, Northampton, North Catasauqua and the townships of Allen, Bethlehem, East Allen, Hanover and Lower Nazareth.
Jeff Warren – Democrat
Warren, 46, lives in Bethlehem Township with his wife Michelle and their twin daughters. He grew up in Forks Township, graduating from Easton Area High School.
He graduated from Penn State University in 1999 with a bachelor's degree in political science and government and earned a master’s degree in electronic media in 2010 from Kutztown University.
Warren owns a small business, PCS Digital Media, which he started in 2016. The company prepares online video and audio content for businesses and political candidates.
Since 2017, he has also worked as community outreach director at Court Appointed Special Advocates for Children in Lebanon, N.J., a nonprofit agency that helps foster children with family court matters. He is chairman of the Northampton County Children, Youth & Families Advisory Board.
He is owner, producer and host of a weekly Philadelphia sports podcast, “The Philadelphia Sports Table,” which he started in 2013.
Foray into politics
After graduating from Penn State, he gained experience in politics and government while working as director of outreach for state Sen. Lisa Boscola, the Democratic Northampton County senator from the 18th District. He spent 15 years in Boscola’s office, leaving in January 2014.
While working for Boscola, he was elected to a four-year term on Easton City Council in 2007 and reelected to a second term in 2011. He resigned in September 2014 when he moved to Hanover Township, Northampton County. He again ran for elected office in 2019 and served as a township supervisor from January 2020 to October 2022, before resigning after moving to Bethlehem Township.
He said he didn’t finish his terms in Easton and Hanover for personal and family reasons.
“When our twin daughters were becoming very mobile at the age of 3, we started looking for a new home during my second term on Easton City Council, and that's when our path in life led us to Hanover Township,” he said in an email response to questions. “After five years or so, I had the itch to serve the public again, and I ran for a seat on the Hanover Township Board of Supervisors. Within that first term, an opportunity for my family then led us to Bethlehem Township where we reside today.”
In 2010, he was arrested while driving under the influence and completed a probation program where his record was cleared. That experience helped shape his perspective.
“Today, now more than ever, I believe in second chances for folks within their personal and professional life,” he said. “No one is perfect, but you have to take responsibility for your actions.”
He decided to run for county commissioner because of a desire to return to public service.
His key issues include:
“Making sure that the county is living within its means in terms of the budget. … I will not vote to raise taxes on our county residents in the future.”
Preserving open space and farmland while opposing new warehouses.
Keeping Gracedale under county ownership and operation.
Protecting democratic institutions, which he said have been under attack recently.
“Advocating for responsible infrastructure projects will also be a priority for me as well. Overall, helping small businesses and our manufacturing sector needs to be a priority as well.”
For this year, the Friends of Jeff Warren committee raised $20,282, including $8,600 from union PACs, $2,500 from democracyFIRST PAC and $500 from the Lamont McClure 4 Executive campaign committee. Warren spent $14,521 on the fall campaign.
Casey Foreman – Republican
Foreman, 42, lives in Nazareth with his wife, Donna. They have five children. He and his wife are Realtors, who since 2017 have owned Foreman Team LLC, which is at Century 21 Pinnacle in Bethlehem Township.
He grew up in upstate New York and attended Onondaga Community College. After college, he moved to Boston and worked as a franchise retail consultant and then switched to real estate.
“Coming from a close-knit family, I truly value the strong community bonds that define Northampton County,” he said in an email response to questions.
“I am dedicated to bringing business experience to our county courthouse. After walking door to door throughout this campaign and meeting the people of our communities, many have said to me they need a breath of fresh air, a nonpolitician. There will be no personal agendas here. I'm here for our citizens, not political gain.”
This is Foreman’s first time seeking an elected office.
“The decision to run for county council stems from my deep-seated commitment to the well-being and progress of our community. As a Christian man that walks by faith, I've spent my life leading, training and developing human potential. Life experiences have taught me to appreciate the needs of others above all, and to listen,” he said.
“Witnessing the challenges faced by the residents of Northampton County firsthand, I feel compelled to step up with an honest, open, and transparent no-nonsense leadership approach to Northampton County Council and make a tangible difference by leveraging my experience and dedication to bring all parties together.”
On his campaign’s Facebook page and in response to questions, he outlined his priorities as a county commissioner:
Provide checks and balances on the county administration and advocate for responsible tax reductions.
Support farmland preservation and small businesses; ensure first responders have what they need to protect the public; promote mental health awareness and initiatives.
Improve conditions at Gracedale and make sure its employees are treated fairly and are properly paid.
Friends of Casey Foreman raised $510 and spent $2,786, with that money coming from the candidate reflected as an in-kind contribution and an unpaid debt to the campaign committee.