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WILKES-BARRE — Eleven Luzerne County residents — seven Democrats and four Republicans — filed nomination petitions by Tuesday’s deadline to run for county council.
Incumbent Councilman Stephen A. Urban, a Democrat, said he has decided he won’t be running “during this election cycle.” He is in his 20th year as an elected county official because he previously served as a county commissioner from 2000 through 2011.
Six of 11 seats are up for grabs this year.
The Democratic contenders: Patrick Bilbow, Martin Dartoe, Tim McGinley, Anup Patel, Robert Schnee, Joseph C. Sebastianelli and Jane Walsh Waitkus.
On the Republican side, the candidates are: Walter Griffith, Kendra Radle, Stephen J. Urban and Gregory Wolovich.
County Democrats and Republicans will each choose six nominees in the May 21 primary. These 12 nominees will then advance to the November general, when all voters are free to select six from any political party.
That means only one Democrat won’t make it past the primary.
Because only four Republicans are running, the party’s voters can select two more nominees through write-in votes. This happened in the May 2015 primary, when Republican Eugene Kelleher and Schnee — a Democrat — received the party’s write-in nominations.
Four of the Democratic candidates are already serving on council: Bilbow, McGinley, Schnee and Walsh Waitkus. McGinley is eligible to serve one more four-year term because the county’s home rule charter limits elected officials to three consecutive terms.
A brief synopsis of the candidates:
• Bilbow, 49, of Duryea, is Pittston Area Middle School principal. He was selected last month to fill a council seat vacated by Edward Brominski through Jan. 6, 2020.
• Dartoe, 29, of Wilkes-Barre, is a Wilkes-Barre Department of Public Works employee.
• Griffith, 64, of Kingston Township, previously served as county controller and is retired after 30 years in the auto repair business.
• McGinley, 72, of Kingston, is council chair and previously worked in the public school system and as the Commission on Economic Opportunity administration director.
• Patel, 47, of Mountain Top, owns and operates several businesses, including the Carriage Stop Plaza-Sunoco on Route 115 in Plains Township.
• Radle, 25, of Exeter, works as a graduate financial services counselor at Wilkes University and assistant cheerleading coach at Wyoming Area.
• Schnee, 59, of Sugarloaf Township, works as a meter reader for the Hazleton City Authority.
• Sebastianelli, 28, of Pittston Township, teaches special-needs children for the Luzerne Intermediate Unit.
• Stephen J. Urban, 45, of Wilkes-Barre, is an IT support coordinator for a major food company and previously served as a county councilman. He is the son of Stephen A. Urban.
• Walsh Waitkus, 70, of Dorrance Township, previously worked as a professor and director of the Teaching and Learning Resource Center at Penn State Hazleton.
• Wolovich, 26, of Hanover Township, is a produce quality assurance technician at the Wegmans retail service center in Pottsville.