Northampton County Races Heating Up

The race for the Northampton County Council is heating up.

Hayden Phillips, a Lower Nazareth Township resident running as a Republican, is seeking one of five "at large" council seats in the 2013 election, according to a press release. This is Phillips' first run for elected office.

In his announcement, Phillips said "his training and experience will be a real asset in influencing the county’s budget process and monitoring its overall fiscal responsibility."

During his professional career, the press release added, Phillips "has mastered group facilitation, group dynamics and consensus building." These are skills he feels are important to council members as they work together as a team.

A formal announcement was expected Wednesday afternoon from Republican Seth Vaughn, a Bethlehem resident who ran for the District 1 seat in 2011.

The Freedom High School graduate served in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves and was deployed to Iraq with the Army's 101st Airborne Infantry Division.

Vaughn is a member of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission.

Glenn Reibman is expected to announce his candidacy for Northampton County Executive on Tuesday at the Grover Cleveland Democratic Club in Bethlehem.

Reibman, a former two-term Northampton County Executive, two-term county councilman and six-term county council president, is determined to finish the job he started when he was first elected back in 1989, a press release stated.