Only one of six Scranton City Council candidates would say which mayoral candidate he would vote for in Tuesday’s general election.
With three of the five four-year council seats up for grabs Tuesday, the six council candidates include: three who won Democratic Party nominations in the May primary, Patrick Flynn, Sean McAndrew and incumbent Councilman Tom Schuster; Republican Marc Pane, who won the GOP primary; Virgil Argenta, who lost in the Democratic primary but got enough GOP write-in votes to be on the general election ballot as a Republican; and incumbent council President Gerald Smurl, who dropped out of the Democratic primary because of problems with his candidate-filing petitions, but now runs for re-election as an independent.
At the same time, a four-year mayoral term also is on the ballot Tuesday with four candidates: Democratic incumbent Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti; Republican Patricia “Trish” Beynon; and independents Eugene “Gene” Barrett and Rik Little. Barrett initially intended to run in the Democratic primary, but then did not and instead filed to run as an independent.
The three winners of the council election would join on council the two who were not up for re-election this year: Mark McAndrew and Jessica Rothchild. Councilman Bill King did not seek re-election. The three council seats on the ballot are those held by King, Schuster and Smurl. As a result, the election outcome promises to reshape the council and change the dynamic of the city’s legislative branch, particularly in how it might deal with the next mayor’s ability to get a budget, policies and legislation adopted through council.
Virgil Argenta, a candidate in the May 20, 2025 Democratic primary for Scranton City Council. (PHOTO PROVIDED / COURTESY OF VIRGIL ARGENTA)
Patrick Flynn, a candidate in the May 20, 2025 Democratic primary election for a nomination to Scranton City Council. (PHOTO PROVIDED / COURTESY OF PATRICK FLYNN)
Sean McAndrew, a candidate in the May 20, 2025 Democratic primary election for a nomination to Scranton City Council. (PHOTO PROVIDED / COURTESY OF SEAN McANDREW)
Marc Pane, a candidate in the May 20, 2025 Republican primary election for a nomination to Scranton City Council. (PHOTO PROVIDED / COURTESY OF MARC PANE)
Scranton Councilman Tom Schuster,a candidate for re-election in the May 20, 2025 Democratic primary election for a nomination to Scranton City Council. (PHOTO PROVIDED / COURTESY OF TOM SCHUSTER)
Scranton City Council President Gerald Smurl. (PHOTO PROVIDED / COURTESY OF GERALD SMURL)
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Virgil Argenta, a candidate in the May 20, 2025 Democratic primary for Scranton City Council. (PHOTO PROVIDED / COURTESY OF VIRGIL ARGENTA)
Last month, Cognetti announced a run for Congress that has started while she also is running for reelection as mayor. She aims to challenge in the 2026 midterm congressional elections Republican U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan for a seat in Congress from Pennsylvania’s 8th District.
Cognetti, a Democrat first elected in 2019 as an independent before switching back, has endorsed only Smurl, running as an independent and who generally has been an ally of the mayor, along with Rothchild and King. Schuster and Mark McAndrew generally have formed a minority on council that has been more critical of the Cognetti administration than Smurl, King and Rothchild.
The Times-Tribune asked each council candidate their preference among the four mayoral candidates. Flynn, Sean McAndrew (who is Mark McAndrew’s nephew), Schuster and Argenta each declined to say who they would vote for, but all said they would work with whoever is mayor; Pane was undecided but would not vote for Cognetti; and Smurl will vote for Cognetti.
Argenta, 65, of North Main Avenue in West Side, regularly attends weekly Scranton City Council meetings and often speaks during the public comment portion about city government matters. “Getting in there, I’ll work with anybody, even Cognetti. I’m definitely vocal and I’m definitely going to try to explain myself and try to win her over, or vice versa. But I’ll listen. I’ll work with anybody.”
Flynn, 36, of North Washington Avenue in Green Ridge, unsuccessfully ran in the 2022 Democratic primary for a nomination for state House of Representatives in the 113th District. “Whoever is elected as mayor, I look forward to working with to further this city and to move it forward in any way I possibly can,” Flynn said. “I’m also willing to push back on the administration, no matter who sits there in City Hall. But I would like to have a great working relationship and move the city forward with whoever is fortunate enough to win on November 4th.”
McAndrew, 37, of North Garfield Avenue in West Scranton, currently serves on the Scranton School Board but did not seek re-election there. A former president of the Scranton Municipal Recreation Authority, McAndrew unsuccessfully ran in the 2015 Democratic primary for Scranton city controller. “I’ll work with whoever the voters choose as mayor. That being said, the public deserves a mayor who wants to be here. It’s that simple,” McAndrew said.
Pane, 60, of West Market Street in North Scranton and owner of Pane’s Garage in Pine Brook, unsuccessfully ran for Scranton City Council as a Republican in 2023. “I don’t know yet. Put it this way, I know it’s not going to be Paige. She seems like a relatively nice person, I just don’t agree with her ideas,” Pane said.
Schuster, 44, of Forest Glen Drive in Keyser Valley and a former member of the Scranton School Board, was appointed in 2020 to Scranton City Council and elected to a full council term in 2021. “I will work with any mayor that comes into office,” Schuster said.
Smurl, 64, of Prospect Avenue in South Side, and a former member of the Scranton Municipal Recreation Authority and former chairman of the city Housing Appeals Board, was appointed by council in December 2022 to fill a vacancy on council through 2023. Smurl then won election in 2023 to serve the rest of that two-year term. “Would I support Paige? Absolutely. She is proven. We are financially stable. Gene Barrett signed us into (the state Act 47) recovery act (in 1992, when Barrett was on council), Paige signed us out (in 2022),” Smurl said. “We can’t go backwards.”
Council’s impact
An example of how a council might advance or curtail a specific policy or goal of the administration occurred Tuesday, when council voted 3-2 on a pair of ordinances underlying a $27.3 million plan for major changes to downtown streetscapes involving replacing some traffic lights with stop signs and reverting some one-way streets to two-way to improve pedestrian safety, as well as sidewalk, stormwater and other infrastructure upgrades. Smurl, King and Rothchild voted yes and Schuster and Mark McAndrew voted no on adopting each of the two ordinances from Cognetti’s administration to implement the plan.
In interviews conducted Monday and Tuesday of this week, before council’s meeting Tuesday night, The Times-Tribune asked the two incumbents how they would vote and they reiterated their stances.
Schuster supports infrastructure improvements, including sidewalk and stormwater upgrades, that also come with the plan, but was concerned about whether stop signs and two-way streets would indeed promote safety. He also questioned the overall financial cost of the project and whether there was enough public awareness and input into it.
Smurl sees the changes ahead as a rare, transformational opportunity for the city to dramatically improve the downtown for pedestrians, motorists, residents and businesses, and funded largely by federal American Rescue Plan Act dollars and other sources.
The newspaper also asked the other four candidates who are not on council how they would have voted on the streetscape ordinances if they had been on council.
Flynn was noncommittal, saying, “I would need to get a better grasp of where the business owners truly stand on this” and also speak with downtown residents. “I would like to have some conversations with those who truly have skin in the game on this … especially not just considering it’s a major overhaul of the downtown area, but it’s also a lot of money.”
Argenta, Pane and McAndrew each said they would have been “no” votes against the two ordinances.
“I don’t like it,” Argenta said of the plan. “It seems like we’re going backwards. The reason for traffic lights was for traffic flow and to save on fuel (because vehicles would not be stopped and idling). And going from one-way streets to two-ways, I think it’s unsafe.”
Pane said, “Everybody that I’ve talked to, and since this came out it’s a hot topic, people have been hammering me about it and telling me they think it’s a dumb idea, that they don’t want to do it … I think they (council) should be listening to their constituents and doing what they want them to do. You can’t be a rubber stamp just because it’s something that the administration wants. You really have to deal with how the people feel and what the people want, what’s best for them. So I would definitely be voting against that.”
Sean McAndrew said of the two ordinances, “I would need a little more data on that and look at it … I would not vote for it now. We need to start focusing our money into the neighborhoods. Downtown looks great. The developers over the last few years have made downtown look amazing, but our neighborhoods I feel like are neglected. So I think this is something that we don’t need to prioritize right now. We ought to prioritize our neighborhoods.”