The Folks Who Work At The Courthouse

This election is the one where we vote for those County elected offices who many of us will deal with at some point in our lifetimes ~ Clerk of Courts, Register of Wills, Recorder of Deeds, Prothonotary (filing of other legal documents), Controller (if you owe money to the county or they owe you money ~ they also do payroll for the county). Also if you ever have someone die in your home, even of natural causes, you'll probably meet someone from the Coroner's office. The Treasurer handles county funds and investments, and of course, I hope you'll never have to deal with the District Attorney or Sheriff (which is in charge of transporting prisoners and serving bench warrants, among other duties. It has 7 specialty units and 7 divisions. More info at this link.)

You probably can't get out of meeting the Commissioners at some point. They show up everywhere and talk your ear off.

But you need to take part in the hiring of all these offices by voting.

The current commissioners are Val Arkoosh, Kenneth Lawrence, and Joe Gale. 2 Democrats and a Republican respectively. Fred Conner is the other GOP running. You can google all their names for info. You'll vote for no more than 2 of them.

The other incumbents who are running again are all Democrats. The offices where no incumbents are running are Clerk of Courts and Prothonotary. And again, all candidates can be researched online, though some failed to answer voter guide questions. These office are for the most part, non-partisan in nature. If you're voting straight party for some noble reason, then go into the courthouse to get a marriage license, or record a deed, or close a loved one's estate, and are met with incompetence, well, it may be your own fault for hiring the wrong person in that job. Or for not voting at all.

For instance, one candidate for Coroner is a non-invasive cardiologist (doesn't do surgery) and isn't giving up his medical practice to be coroner. The other has a master's in Forensic Medicine, and has worked as an investigator for the Coroner's office and as a sexual assault ER nurse, and intends to work as Coroner full-time.

In the office of Sheriff, the incumbent is a full-time lawyer who owns his own law firm that serves as township/municipal solicitor to 20 different communities, most of which are in Montgomery County. This is a HUGE conflict of interest (though no politician in the county seems to care). He's a part-time sheriff (collecting the full paycheck). Yet, the challenger is young, but at least has a criminal justice degree and security experience, and she'd be full-time. There's always that write-in line, too.


So do your homework. It's important. And come out to vote on November 5 between 7 am and 8 pm.