Latest news with #Liriano
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Incumbent Mayor Sherry Capello wins 2025 Republican primary, faces Liriano in fall
Republican incumbent Lebanon Mayor Sherry Capello will face Democrat Cesar Liriano again in the municipal elections Nov. 4 after both won their primaries Tuesday evening. With all precincts reporting and all mail-ins counted, Capello had 840 votes, while challenger Damian Vargas received 177 votes. There were 125 write-in votes in the Republican primary. Liriano, the only one running in the Democratic primary, received 552 votes. Capello is currently serving her fourth term as Lebanon city mayor after defeating Liriano in 2021. "I am proud of what has been accomplished during my tenure in office," Capello said to the Lebanon Daily News May 9. "We are moving the city forward, but we have more work to do to continue this momentum." Capello said that her administration has "improved public safety and efficiencies" for the police and fire departments by implementing new policies and providing necessary equipment to officers and volunteers. Her administration also secured more than $77 million in federal and state grants for various projects. If able to secure a fifth term, Capello said she wants to ensure sustainable housing for all residents and increase the number of affordable housing units to assist with workforce development concerns. Capello said she also wants to support additional investments in the Lebanon downtown and other commercial districts, along with continuing to be accountable with the taxpayers' money with responsible financial oversight of our annual city budget. Liriano is an independent contractor and former Lebanon School District board member. If elected in November, Lirano said he plans on maintaining a close relationship with the community so that they feel that his administration is for and by the people. "One of the biggest problems facing the city is the inability of new businesses to establish and sustain themselves," he said to the Lebanon Daily News earlier this month. "Some of the ways that I would address it are: 1. I would eliminate or minimize the obstacles people face when opening a business. 2. Create incentives for new businesses so they can be successful. 3. Identify locations where more parking can be created. 4. Support existing businesses so they can be successful." Liriano added that he would like to address the rise of drug use in the city especially among young people, and identifying areas and abandoned buildings to work with investment advocates to build affordable housing. The Pennsylvania 2025 municipal election is scheduled for Nov. 4. Matthew Toth is a reporter for the Lebanon Daily News. Reach him at mtoth@ or on X at @DAMattToth. This article originally appeared on Lebanon Daily News: Incumbent Republican Mayor Sherry Capello wins 2025 primary
Yahoo
28-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Lebanon DA explains who ‘illegal criminals' – targeted with new local ICE cooperation – are in region's most Hispanic county
LEBANON, Pa. (WHTM) — A day after saying 'deporting illegal criminals' was a priority — and that cooperation among her office, city police and ICE had already begun — Lebanon County District Attorney Pier Hess Graf explained who those 'illegal criminals' she's targeting are and aren't. On one hand, 'we are not proactively going out in the community and, for example, looking at you and saying, 'Sir, are you here legally or illegally in the country?'' Hess Graf told abc27 News. That is not our lane. That's not our job.' But nor does that mean she's only targeting the county's most hardened felons. 'So there is no 'sliding scale,' if you will,' said Hess Graf, who is a two-term Republican incumbent running for re-election this year. 'I don't care if it's a traffic stop. I don't care if it's the [second-degree misdemeanor] simple assault we had this week, if it's a homicide. If a police officer has contact with you for any type of a criminal investigation, you were here illegally and unlawfully. We are going to contact ICE, and we're going to see: should you be detained? Should you be deported?' Cesar Liriano, who owns three Lebanon businesses and has called the city home for 19 years — after moving from New York, where he immigrated from the Dominican Republic — said he has no issue with consequences for criminals, whether they are living in the country legally or not. 'If you commit a crime, you have to pay for it,' Liriano said. 'And if you have to be deported because of crime, that's fine.' But he said he has three issues with Hess Graf's move. First, 'that's going to create a lot of problems with safety in the city' — where he said immigrants have generally had rather good relations with police — 'because that is going to be a lot of crimes the community who is undocumented doesn't want to report' out of fear their interaction with police could lead to their own deportation, Liriano said. Second, he said he worries about the overall impact on a Hispanic/Latino community that is — in terms of the percentage of the population identifying that way in the 2020 census — central Pennsylvania's largest, at 14%. (Lancaster is second at 11%, followed by Dauphin at almost 11%, York 9%, Adams 8%, Franklin 7%, Cumberland 5%, Juniata a still-small but rapidly growing 4%, Mifflin 2%, Perry 2% and Fulton 1%.) And by extension, he said he worries what that could mean for the county at large. 'During the pandemic, we had the immigrants filling those positions and taking the risk to get sick and doing the jobs that not all of us want to do,' Liriano said. And third, he called Hess Graf's statement about her heightened with ICE unnecessarily divisive. 'You can comply with ICE without giving all those declarations,' Liriano said. Hess Graf defended the move. 'I think it's important to be very open and accountable to the community where you live and where you work,' she said. 'So I think for the people living in county, they like to know the cases we're investigating — the things that are going on in the community where they live.' Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Hess Graf said the timing of the heightened cooperation between local and federal officials is no coincidence. 'For the last four years, we could contact ICE, and they were there,' she said. 'But how proactive they were is vastly different than from what we've seen even in the past 30 days.' Hess Graf said the new relationship launched with a meeting in her office between ICE and local officials earlier this week. She said she's aware of 61 undocumented immigrants in the county who have already been convicted of crimes. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
