When J. William Reynolds won the mayoral election this past November, his former City Council seat opened up.
On Feb. 1, his former colleagues will vote on his replacement. Applicants, who need support from three council members to earn the position, must be Bethlehem residents who have lived in the city for a year or more. City Council members are paid $7,100 annually.
Some advocates have noted that the city has never had a Black city council member, and this vacancy is an opportunity to change that.
Eleven applicants applied to fill the seat. Here are their names and backgrounds (in alphabetical order), based on their application documents:
Basilio Bonilla
Bonilla is a lifelong Bethlehem resident and former Bethlehem Area School Board member from 2011-15. A 2008 Liberty High School graduate, he’s pursuing a degree in political science from Moravian University. He is on the Bethlehem Democratic Committee, the Democratic National Committee’s LGBTQ advisory board and served on Hillary Clinton’s Pennsylvania Latino Advisory Committee during Clinton’s 2016 campaign.
Darian Colbert
Colbert is the founder and executive director of the Cohesion Network, an Allentown nonprofit that provides mentorship to Allentown youth. He’s also a volunteer group facilitator with Lehigh County Juvenile Probation.
Allentown Director of Community and Economic Development Leonard Lightner and Lehigh County Commissioner Zach Cole-Borghi sent letters of recommendation on Colbert’s behalf. Cole-Borghi’s notes Colbert could be the first African American member of Council. “Council can only benefit by appointing Colbert to the open seat,” Cole-Borghi wrote.
Edwin Corado
Corado is an area manager for a Walmart distribution center in Bethlehem and a 2006 graduate of Temple University, where he majored in accounting. Corado is bilingual in English and Spanish.
Michael Cunningham
Cunningham is a manager of technology infrastructure at Northampton Community College in Bethlehem Township, who previously worked in IT positions for ArtsQuest and Bethlehem Area School District. He moved to the Lehigh Valley in 2005 after serving as a nuclear weapons maintainer in the Air Force.
Todd Dietrich
Dietrich is a senior project manager at Sana Commerce, a New York City e-commerce service. He’s a lifelong Lehigh Valley resident and has lived in Bethlehem for over 10 years. He is a Penn State graduate and president of the Penn State Lehigh Valley Alumni Society, and volunteers with the Celtic Cultural Alliance, the Downtown Bethlehem Association and ArtsQuest. He also founded the nearly 11,000-member Friends of Bethlehem PA group on Facebook.
Wandalyn Enix
Enix is a retired schoolteacher and education professor. Born and raised in Bethlehem, she spent 10 years as a teacher at Bethlehem Area School District schools and nearly 30 years as an education professor at Montclair State University in New Jersey. The Bethlehem NAACP nominated Enix and called on City Council to appoint her.
Scott A. Hawk
Hawk is a principal managing partner at Crimson Consulting in Bethlehem. Hawk was born in Allentown, attended Penn State University, and has lived in Bethlehem since 2010. He served on the Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts’ foundation board and is a member of the Bethlehem Rotary.
John Marquette
Marquette is a retired librarian and graduate of Southern Lehigh High School. He is the founder of a nonprofit that funds the restoration of the Historic Archibald Johnson Mansion in Bethlehem Township and is on the board of trustees of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends.
Allison Mickel
Mickel is an assistant professor of anthropology at Lehigh University and has lived in Bethlehem for five years. She’s also volunteered as a communications coordinator with POWER Lehigh Valley and outreach and recruitment team lead at Lehigh Valley Stands Up, both of which are nonprofits dedicated to racial and economic justice. Mickel wrote that she is passionate about outreach to disenfranchised communities.
Joshua Ressler
Ressler is a senior applications specialist at Lutron Electronics in Coopersburg. He graduated from Kutztown University in 2008, majoring in political science, and holds an associate degree from the University of Phoenix in information technology.
Anna Zawierucha
Zawierucha is a retired high school math teacher in Northampton Area School District. She earned a master’s degree in education in 2005 from Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, and volunteers with the Bethlehem Food Co-Op and Coalition for Alternative Transportation. Before she lived in Bethlehem, Zawierucha served on the North Catasauqua Council.
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Morning Call reporter Lindsay Weber can be reached at 610-820-6681 and liweber@mcall.com.
