Age keeps coming up in political coverage.
It did this year when Lancaster City Council swore in its first Gen Z member. The 26-year-old joined a council where millennials — the generation of Americans born in the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s — already made up the majority of the seven-seat council.
Meantime, voters are expecting to choose in November between candidates for U.S. president who were born in 1942 and 1946.
There aren’t a ton of elected officials in Lancaster County who are close in age to Joe Biden or Donald Trump.
But they are out there. We checked in with four of them to ask what motivates them to serve, why they’re doing so in their mid-to late 70s, and how they think age plays — or doesn’t play — into what they do.
By MARGARET GATES | Custom Content EditorLeo Lutz, 76
Mayor of Columbia, Republican
It’s been more than two decades since some longtime friends from high school asked Leo Lutz if he was interested in joining a push to improve a place they saw taking a turn for the worse.
“I said, ‘I certainly am. My wife and I are discussing if we want to remain in Columbia or go somewhere else, because Columbia’s actually dying,’ ” Lutz recalls. “Do I want to sell my house and get out of here while I still can? Or do I want to do something about it? They said, ‘Well, we want to do something about it.’ ”
Lutz was in. A couple of weeks later the friends called again and asked specifically if he’d run for mayor. Lutz had the time, having retired early from Caterpillar.
“I told them I’ll do it as long as you folks stay in it with me. And the rest is history,” he says. “I’ve been mayor for 23 years. Some of (those friends) have passed. But a lot of those folks are still active in some way in our community.”
Before taking office, Lutz sought advice from a grandfather, who himself once served as Columbia’s mayor. With a new millennium dawning, they discussed how the downtown district had more vacant buildings than ones that were occupied.
“He said to me, ‘The secret to Columbia’s future lies in its past,’ ” Lutz says. “I took that to heart and we got to looking back. We — meaning the borough — started to take a look at what in our past was great and noteworthy and asking if we should be recreating or celebrating those things ... and it seems to be working.”
Lutz will talk to anybody who’ll listen about the Columbia Crossing River Trail Center, the Northwest Lancaster County River Trail and renovations to the Columbia Market House.
“Each time I ran for office there were projects that were in the works that I wanted to see completed,” he says.
Lutz says in an ideal world, elected bodies should reflect the makeup of their communities — and that includes a mix of ages.
“I really like to see youth involved,” he says. “But young people want to make changes and folks who have been around for a while, like myself, are able to say, ‘Hold on, you might not want to do that … Here’s the reason we did this initially.’ ”
They may decide to make changes anyway, but with institutional knowledge, at least they’ll have the information, he says.
Age also often brings time — something not a luxury for those with jobs and young families, he says. From the get-go as mayor, he spent countless hours meeting with elected officials in the county and members of state boards and organizations, talking up and lobbying for Columbia.
“Right now, I’m very interested in what’s going to happen to the Veterans Memorial Bridge,” he says. “Reconstruction of that bridge is going to happen ... So I’ve been attending a lot of those meetings. I have the time.”
He’s also got the stamina. Age hits everyone differently, Lutz says.
“I’ve sat in meetings with school boards and things like that. And God love them, people were trying to do their best for their community,” he says. “But they would fall asleep during the meeting. You would have to point to the agenda where they were. Getting old isn’t fun. Sometimes it’s hard to recognize where we are as far as our abilities.”
But Lutz, speaking at the end of a week during which he rode his bicycle to the office every day, feels good about his.
“My mother is 96 years old. I stopped to see her yesterday and they were baking. She’s pretty sharp,” he says. “My uncle is 95 and he’s sharp as a tack. So I’m blessed with that.”
When it comes to serving in public office, competency is key, he says.
“If I’d ever gotten to the point where I was having memory problems, health problems, what have you, I’d have bowed out,” Lutz says. “If I couldn’t give 100%, I’d bow out.”
Jerry Meck, 77, just began his first term on Lititz Borough Council.
Jerry Meck, 77
Lititz Borough Council member, Democrat
Pick someone in their mid-to-late 70s who holds an elected office and there’s a good chance that person has been there for multiple terms.
But at age 77, Jerry Meck has a mere four months of elected official time under his belt. He was sworn in early this year after winning a seat on the Lititz Borough Council.
“I decided I wanted to get involved in the political process because I thought I had some skills in terms of planning and organizational consulting and understanding personnel dynamics that I could bring to the community,” he says.
Meck grew up on a poultry farm in Adamstown, spent time in Virginia and New York for college and jobs, and returned to Lancaster County to serve as CEO of United Disabilities Services. He also spent time consulting and lived for years with his wife in Akron. They moved to the Warwick Woodlands campus of Moravian Manor about eight years ago.
“Lititz is just a wonderful place to live. And that doesn’t happen automatically. That happens by intentionality,” he says. “That happens by leaders who have a vision for the community and are critical thinkers and strategic thinkers. That makes our community one of the coolest small towns in America. And I wanted to contribute.”
He says he also wants to model “a different way” of handling political matters. He drafted some guiding principles that the council adopted in April and has been having coffee with residents with prior contentious interactions with council to better understand their stories.
He says age never came up with people as he campaigned.
“I don’t know if it would have if they would have actually known my age. And age didn’t come up with any members of the Borough Council and they knew how old I was,” he says. “In fact, I was able to get endorsements from Republican council members because they knew who I was and what I was doing.”
His Moravian Manor neighbors were key, he says. Residents vote. But some have told him they couldn’t do what he’s doing, in part because of issues they’d tackle.
“It’s also a time thing. A lot of seniors want to travel and do other things and don’t want to be (tied) down,” he says. “I struggle with that, too, being retired and wanting to do other things with my family, my grandkids.”
Flexibility in scheduling committee meetings does help, he says.
Meck says there are more important issues than age when it comes to elections.
“It has to do with who the person is, their character, their leadership,” he says. “Someone can be in their 30s and have a lot of energy but maybe they aren’t a good leader ... Maybe they have an agenda.”
He says age can offer an advantage on that front.
“I don’t have to prove myself. I can be me and … follow my passion and my values knowing that’s not going to impact me in any way financially or career-wise,” he says. “That frees me up a bit.”
Mayor of Elizabethtown, Chuck Mummert leads in singing Jingle Bells during the Christmas Tree Lighting event on Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2022.
Clarence “Chuck” Mummert Jr., 76
Mayor of Elizabethtown, Republican
Chuck Mummert has no problem projecting his voice.
He has, after all, performed in full-dress productions with the Lancaster Opera Company.
And he’s happy to sing the praises of the town he grew up in and where he now serves as mayor. Mummert says that’s a huge part of what he was elected to do.
“Most mayors run for office because they think they’re going to change the world, and take care of taxes and tell police where to patrol and all that sort of thing,” says Mummert, who in addition to being mayor of his hometown is president of The Pennsylvania State Association of Mayors. “The borough code does not allow mayors to have that kind of latitude. The biggest thing I see a mayor doing is being a promotions person. Telling people how wonderful their area is.”
Don’t get him wrong. Mummert says he stands informed and ready to place any tie-breaking votes as needed for council. But among the most powerful toys he sees in his toolbox is his voice. And he says he weighs his words carefully.
“Some folks just kind of blurt out whatever they feel that people would like to hear,” he says. “I don’t think that’s always the best.”
Restraint and consideration come with age and experience, he says.
“I taught school. I was a salesperson covering nine states,” Mummert says. “I think all of that combined in my hip pocket, giving me a little more assurance and confidence.”
The aforementioned state association that he now leads named him Mayor of the Year in 2021. He was president of the Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs from 2016-2017 and is past president of the Elizabethtown Rotary Club.
Mummert says he visits well over 100 nursing homes each year, sharing there the pros that Elizabethtown has to offer. That word may reach family members or staffers as well as residents, he says.
After graduating from Elizabethtown Area High School, Mummert went on to pursue two bachelor’s degrees and a master’s before starting his career in sales in the music industry. He and his wife lived near Allentown for 26 years before returning to his hometown in 2001. Mummert was first elected mayor in 2009 after serving one term on Borough Council.
“I was a little disappointed about how some of them (council members) were handling themselves and that’s why I decided to run,” he says.
Mummert describes himself as “at the point where birthday candles on the cake cost more than the cake does.” But he said when it comes to political office, it’s about ability not age — even though the latter is getting so much attention in the presidential race.
“It’s nothing new. Ronald Reagan used it many years ago and kind of made light of the age of his opponent,” he says. “Right now, I think (the focus in the presidential race) is not age as much as it is deterioration.”
Lancaster Water Group chairman John Wenzel.
John Wenzel, 78
Manor Township supervisor, Republican
Never has there been as much attention on age in politics as there is now with the current presidential election, John Wenzel says.
And he gets it.
“Age impacts politics in both positive and negative ways,” Wenzel says. “The positive? You can’t duplicate experience.”
A negative? It can do a number on memory.
“You get more forgetful as you increase in age. And that is impactful,” Wenzel says. “However, it doesn’t do anything to deter or detract from my ability to analyze information and make decisions, in my opinion.”
He’s been doing that for 11 years as a Manor Township supervisor. Wenzel was appointed in 2013 to fill a position after someone resigned and stayed on following subsequent elections. Before that he was on the zoning hearing board. Years ago, Wenzel served on the Penn Manor School Board.
In his current position, Wenzel says he’s perhaps happiest to have been involved with the historic Safe Harbor railroad trestle — the nation’s third highest — which opened in 2022. The $9 million conversion project involved federal and state funds and money raised in a Manor Township capital campaign.
“That’s now there not only for us, but for our children and our grandchildren and beyond,” he says. “I’m pleased and proud to have been a small part of it.”
Decision-making suits Wenzel.
“I’ve been in leadership positions ever since the Army made me a sergeant a long time ago,” says the Vietnam veteran, who believes the military taught him he could do things he’d never dreamed of growing up as a farm boy. That included going to college on the GI Bill — an experience he says he loved every minute of, largely because it represented opportunity.
“Opportunity is the greatest gift anyone can give you, whether it be in private industry or serving the public,” he says. “So I get excited about it.”
Wenzel went to work in the late ’70s for a pump company that his stepfather had recently purchased and eventually took the helm. He remains today as chairman of what’s now known as Lancaster Water Group, but passed the day-to-day operations to his sons a few years ago. He talks about holding an elected position much like someone would describe paying off a debt.
“I want to give back for what this community and this country has done for me,” he says. “To me it’s as simple as that. It’s important that we all give back in one fashion or another.”
And that can take many forms depending on where one is in life with age or any other circumstance, he adds.
“I have grandsons in baseball and I love to see people coach or help with baseball,” he says. “It serves the community.”
