Two Candidates Compete for Mayor of Macungie Borough

When you head to the polls Tuesday, you’ll be voting for the next Mayor of Macungie Borough.

Republican Ronald P. Conrad is challenging Interim Mayor Gary Cordner.

Cordner, a Democrat, was the only mayoral candidate on the May 21 primary ballot. Conrad earned the slot on the Republican ballot with a write-in campaign during the primary.

Cordner, 61, is a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Kutztown University. He served as a police officer in Ocean City, Md., and as the chief of the St. Michaels, Md., Police Department in the 1970s and 80s. He also was a commissioner on the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, the only national body that accredits police departments.

Conrad, 52, works in the security department at Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom and prior to that worked for Allen Organ Company for 31 years, according to a Lehigh Valley Live report about the race. He’s married and has lived in the borough for 27 years.

Cordner has been serving as interim Macungie Mayor since the end of July when he was sworn in to fill the remainder of controversial Macungie Mayor Rick Hoffman’s term of office. Hoffman resigned from the post in late June.

Cordner was selected by council to fill the iterim post at council’s July 15 meeting. Conrad, too, threw his hat into the ring for the job, along with Doris Horner, the wife of former Macungie Mayor Jack Horner.

Conrad criticized council at that meeting for choosing Cordner, stating that council was giving Cordner an unfair advantage in the November election. He told council that it should have chosen Horner to keep the playing field level in November. He said that he would have declined the position and recommended Horner in his place had he been selected.