quick summary

Joe Sileo

Commissioner Director Sileo is up for re-election this year. Being that he is an incumbent and one of his challengers Capizola has less than one year of experience as a commissioner, he has more direct experience than his democrat challengers. Like his ticket-mate Commissioner Romero, Sileo has a long career in business, specifically within the steel industry. He has pointed out at a recent Republican breakfast that his business experience is important because many decisions of the Commissioner board are more business-related decisions as opposed to political decisions. He has also been involved in several community leadership positions throughout the years. This was also highlighted at the breakfast meeting as he pointed out that being Director Commissioner, he is now the leader and spokesperson of the board. Like most candidates at the local level, Sileo seems to be running slate (as part of the overall republican team) and there is little forward facing information about how he is directly different from his democrat challengers. Generally speaking though, the local Republican party has mentioned several times that the county has been predominantly controlled by the Democrats for the past 40 odd years, making a mess during that tenure (which is further suggested by recent articles claiming some of our towns are the worst to live in the state), so perhaps it is time for Republicans to be in charge for a while so they can clean up the mess. He has been reached out to via his government email to clarify his individual stances and how he differentiates himself from his opponents, with no response. However, he also did point out at the breakfast meeting that with the current 7-0 Republican board, productivity has been much more efficient since there are now significantly less political roadblocks, with the commissioner board being all on the same page. There was also an implicative claim on the campaign trail from his opponents that the South Ave Culvert project has not been efficiently handled, but you can see that the county is in the process of handling it here, County Press Release. This could be part the aforementioned 'layered onion'claim, so this project could be taking much longer than would normally be needed. You might also get some more updates by following the Cumberland County GOP facebook group for the remainder of the campaign season. Click the x at the top red of this box to go back to the page.