Paige Gebhardt Cognetti (born 1979/1980)[1] is an American politician serving as the mayor of Scranton,Pennsylvania. She is the first woman to be mayor of the city and won her seat in a special election.[2][3] A member of the Democratic Party,she ran her first Scranton mayoral campaign as an Independent.
Cognetti was appointed to the Scranton School Board in 2017,[8] but later resigned in December 2018 to become a special assistant to Pennsylvania's then state auditor,Eugene DePasquale.[9] She has run on reform and pragmatism platforms;on the school board,she criticized Scranton's no-bid school bus contracts and unapproved payments to contractors.[10]
Mayor of Scranton
In 2019,Cognetti ran in the Scranton mayoral special to finish the term of former Scranton mayor Bill Courtright,who pleaded guilty to corruption charges in July of that year.[11] Cognetti,previously a lifelong Democrat,ran as an independent after she deemed the closed caucus system of nomination used by the local Democratic Party as not in favor of the people. She focused on investments and budgets for local businesses,education,and infrastructure.[12] Cognetti won the special election with 36% of the vote.[3]
Cognetti ran for election to a full term in 2021 as a Democrat and won in a landslide.[6]
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