Tara Zrinski announces candidacy for Northampton County executive
Northampton County Controller Tara Zrinski will run for county executive, becoming the second candidate to come forward since incumbent Lamont McClure announced Tuesday he will not seek reelection.
Zrinski, a Democrat like McClure, will make her announcement 5:30 p.m. Thursday at United Steelworkers Hall in Bethlehem.
She has served one year as county controller after being elected in November 2023. Before that, she served six years as an at-large county commissioner, being elected in 2017 and reelected in 2021. In 2022, she lost by 48 votes to Nick Miller for the Democratic nomination for state senator from the 14th District, a new seat for the Lehigh Valley. (Miller was elected senator that November.)
Commissioner Thomas A. Giovanni, who represents Council District 4, announced his intention to seek the Republican nomination for executive. He will make his formal announcement on Feb. 6.
In explaining his decision not to run for a third term, McClure said in a text message to Armchair Lehigh Valley that he is “exploring other ways to serve the public.”
McClure also said a new provision of the Home Rule Charter, where the next executive will be subject to a limit of two, four-year terms, influenced his decision. While he would have been eligible to serve another two terms, if elected, he said he wants to “respect the spirit of the term limit.”
Zrinski, 49, of Bethlehem and a mother of three boys, has taught philosophy as an adjunct professor at community colleges in the Lehigh Valley and at Lehigh and DeSales universities. She was a labor organizer for Service Employee Industry Union Healthcare in 2021 and sold solar panels before and after that.
As controller, Zrinski said she implemented forward-thinking initiatives to improve county operations. While on county council, she said she advocated for sustainable development, public health and social equity. Zrinski was a member of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania and its Energy, Environment and Land Use Committee, where she participated in the Solar Task Force.