Gregg Semel

Gregg Semel, a longtime Zelienople borough councilman, announced he will run for the Republican nomination to the state House.

Semel, who first was elected to Zelienople Borough Council in 2013, will run for the District 12 seat in a bid to succeed Republican state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, who earlier in 2022 announced he will retire.

Under the current redistricting maps approved Friday by the state Legislative Reapportionment Committee, District 12 includes Adams, Cranberry and Jackson townships, plus Callery, Evans City, Harmony, Mars, Seven Fields, Valencia and Zelienople.

Semel said his experience in local government is one reason he is qualified to fill Metcalfe’s seat, but not his only qualifications.

“I think the proven accomplishments are certainly one (qualification), and I think the second is the experiences that have shaped my character,” Semel said. “Those experiences are 32 years in the business world and nine years as a local government official.”

He boasted of the accomplishments in Zelienople during his tenure, including the acquisition and subsequent sale and redevelopment of the Kaufman House on Main Street, the Main Street revitalization project now entering its third phase and the successful merger of the Harmony and Zelienople fire departments.

Semel added he has spearheaded many accomplishments, such as the borough’s sending to Zelienople electric company customers $50 gift cards usable only at local businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

“An early vision I had as a councilman was to create a Zelienople (mobile application) that would connect all of our nonprofits and government entities together, along with a municipal calendar, and so that way the consumers and residents would have an easy way to access everything that was going on in Zelienople,” Semel said. That application recently became live.

Should Semel be elected, he said he would focus on providing leadership for the Republican Party and “supporting the conservative agenda is going to be first and foremost.” While he has some ideas on what he would want in office, Semel said the last two years have shown it can be folly to plan specific details that far ahead.

“When I first became an elected official in Zelienople, it was very difficult to forecast what the issues were going to be, and certainly we’ve seen so many surprises and navigating through the pandemic is a good example of that,” he said. “I suspect there will be issues we won’t even know about — we as individuals, we as elected officials or we as the Republican Party,” he said. “Certainly, improving the elections process, voter IDs, these are certainly issues I think should be front-and-center with our party.”

Semel also recognized the next person in the District 12 seat would be following a longtime conservative stalwart.

“That seat was represented by our state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe for many, many years, and whoever is elected certainly has big shoes to fill,” he said.

Semel is the second person to formally announce a bid for Metcalfe’s seat, after Cranberry Township firefighter Nunzio Martin last week said he would seek the District 12 nomination.