PITTSTON TWP. — Lackawanna County Commissioner Bill Gaughan asked fellow members of the board that oversees the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport whether they communicated support to any candidate for the airport’s executive director job before interviews and hiring deliberations conclude.
It was one of a number of pointed questions Gaughan posed Thursday at the first airport board meeting since Lackawanna County Commissioner Chris Chermak confirmed last month his candidacy for the position and announced his leave of absence from the board he chaired pending a hiring decision.
Lackawanna County Commissioner Bill Gaughan speaks to fellow board members in the conference room of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport in Pittston Twp. Thursday, July 23, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
The board is normally made up of Lackawanna’s three commissioners, two Luzerne County Council members and the Luzerne County manager.
After initially abstaining due to a potential conflict of interest, Chermak, acting in his capacity as a county commissioner, voted with fellow Commissioner Thom Welby last week to appoint attorney Chris Munley to the airport board as his temporary replacement, a move Gaughan sharply criticized.
Gaughan’s specific questions, which went unanswered during Thursday’s meeting, came after Chermak said in a recent interview with WVIA that he has the support of the airport’s staff and administration and “most of the other board members.” Efforts to reach Chermak, who remains among five finalists for the executive director job, were not immediately successful.
Prior to Thursday’s meeting, airport board members met in executive session Monday with ADK Consulting and Executive Search, a Florida-based firm the board hired in March for $47,574 to facilitate the process of finding a successor to former Executive Director Carl Beardsley Jr. Officials discussed personnel issues, candidates and an upcoming interview process during the executive session, airport Co-Solicitor Donald Frederickson said, noting ADK is in the process of scheduling interviews with five remaining candidates.
ADK previously reviewed 20 applications for the position and at one point winnowed the broader list down to seven, before the pool shrunk again to five. While Chermak acknowledged his own candidacy, officials have not identified any other applicants.
The board meeting commences in the conference room of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport in Pittston Twp. Thursday, July 23, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
In addition to several questions stemming from Chermak’s claim in the WVIA interview that he helped run the airport in recent years after Beardsley developed health problems, Gaughan specifically asked Thursday whether any airport board members or airport officials “asked ADK to put Commissioner Chermak through to the next round.” He also asked whether another applicant with Chermak’s qualifications but with no prior relationship to the airport board would have ended up a finalist for the executive director position.
“Finally I would ask each member of this board one simple question: Can each of us honestly tell the public that this hiring process has been conducted solely on the basis of qualifications, merit and the best interests of the airport without regard to familiarity, relationships or politics?” Gaughan asked.
After Gaughan posed his questions, Luzerne County Councilman Chris Belles, the airport board’s vice chairman, said Thursday’s session was not a hearing.
The board “can certainly discuss possibly having a hearing if that’s what the board chooses to have, but we can’t do a fact finding during the course of this right now,” Belles said. “It’s OK to ask the questions obviously but I don’t want to get us down the road of having a hearing without (the) public being aware that there was going to be a hearing.”
Welby said it would be inappropriate to discuss the hiring process until the process concludes.
“It’s a personnel matter,” he said. “It should remain confidential until the process is over. When the process is over those questions can be asked and hopefully answered.”
Munley, the board member recently appointed to temporarily replace Chermak, and board member Romilda Crocamo, the Luzerne County manager, participated in Thursday’s meeting by phone.
“I did not speak to or direct ADK to advance any candidate,” Crocamo said in a text message Thursday afternoon. “That is not the way I do business or we do business in Luzerne County. Merit hiring means merit hiring. It means every applicant gets a genuine look. It means the process is not a formality designed to validate a decision that was already made.”
Crocamo also said Gaughan has never contacted her directly to discuss “this matter or any other.”
“It appears that when he wishes to communicate with Luzerne County, he does so publicly rather than through the appropriate professional channels,” she said. “That approach does not lend itself to the kind of genuine intergovernmental collaboration this decision requires.”
Reached by phone, Munley said he’s gotten no indication whatsoever during his brief time on the board that any members have already made up their mind about the hiring. He was surprised Gaughan raised his questions during Thursday’s meeting, he said, describing them as questions “he could easily ask the candidate when we do the interviews.”
“I can only hypothesize it’s because the media was there,” Munley said. “I only want to pick who’s best. … I don’t think that’s fair to the other members of the board to make those suggestions, especially while the process is still playing out.”
Airport board member and Luzerne County Councilwoman Lee Ann McDermott stressed immediately after the meeting that no hiring decision has been made.
“I honestly don’t know who I’m going to vote for because we didn’t interview yet,” she said.
Belles also emphasized after the meeting that he has a “very open” mind and is only interested in hiring the best candidate.
Stephen Mykulyn, P.E., Director of Engineering at the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport, speaks during a board meeting in the conference room of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport in Pittston Twp. Thursday, July 23, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)