Democratic Lackawanna County Commissioner-elect Thom Welby will replace Democratic Commissioner Brenda Sacco on Tuesday, ending her brief but contentious tenure that began little more than a month ago.
Welby, a Scrantonian and former Democratic state representative who won the Nov. 4 special election to fill the remainder of former Democratic Commissioner Matt McGloin’s unexpired term running into early January 2028, will be sworn in at 11 a.m. The ceremony is planned for Courtroom 4 of the county courthouse in downtown Scranton, where Sacco took the oath of office Oct. 22 and became commissioner pursuant to an appointment process established by the county’s Home Rule Charter.
Lackawanna County Commissioner Brenda Sacco answers questions from the press after a budget hearing at the Dunmore Community Center on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (CHAD SEBRING.STAFF PHOTO)
Her time in office would likely have been considerably longer had the process of filling the seat McGloin vacated in late February not been delayed by a protracted, monthslong legal battle Democratic Commissioner Bill Gaughan and the county initiated in March.
The suit challenged the Home Rule Charter’s appointment process involving the county Democratic Committee and the judges of the county Court of Common Pleas. It ultimately reached the state Supreme Court, which upheld the charter process in an October ruling that enabled Sacco to finally take office.
Her official appointment had been stayed since early September pending resolution of the legal challenge Sacco had called “frivolous.” The appointment process would have played out much earlier in the year were it not for Gaughan and the county’s litigation.
The bad blood that marked the legal battle did not abate after Sacco became commissioner and formed a de facto bipartisan majority with Republican Commissioner Chris Chermak. Together they ousted Gaughan from his position as chairman of the board of commissioners, voting during an unusual and acrimonious late-October reorganization meeting to make Sacco chair and Chermak vice chair of the three-member board.
Sacco and Chermak later attempted in vain to delay by a year the county’s first property reassessment since 1968, authorizing earlier this month an 11th-hour court filing seeking to extend the reassessment’s implementation deadline to 2027. Gaughan sharply criticized that legal effort, which failed when Lackawanna County President Judge James Gibbons denied the motion for emergency relief seeking to amend a stipulated court order requiring the county to implement by Jan. 1, 2026, new assessments for use in all property taxation.
Gaughan and the Sacco/Chermak majority also sparred over personnel moves, including the hiring of Sacco’s personal attorney, Paul James Walker of Clarks Summit, as county solicitor, the firing of county Communications Director Pat McKenna and the recent hiring of Scranton School Director Jenna Strzelecki as county human resources director.
Lackawanna County Commissioner Bill Gaughan reacts during the reorganization meeting at the county government center in Scranton on Monday, Oct. 27, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Sacco’s stated hope that she, not the special election winner, would hold the commissioner seat for the remainder of McGloin’s term was also a significant source of controversy. She, the county Democratic Committee and two other potential commissioner appointees were plaintiffs in a lawsuit seeking an injunction to block the special election Welby ultimately won by defeating Republican Chet Merli of Blakely and independent candidate Michael Cappellini of Jessup.
The suit argued state law doesn’t provide for special elections to fill commissioner vacancies, a position county officials originally held after McGloin’s resignation, and that the county Board of Elections lacked the authority to declare the special election when it voted to do so in late August. A panel of county judges denied the injunction in mid-September and a state Commonwealth Court judge later affirmed the county panel’s order on appeal, with the special election proceeding thereafter.
County Democratic Party Chairman Chris Patrick said earlier this month, after Welby’s victory, that the committee was withdrawing the suit. An attorney for the plaintiffs filed a praecipe to discontinue it Nov. 7, removing a legal hurdle that could have stymied Welby’s path to office.
The county election board then certified his victory and other Nov. 4 election results Friday, making them official and setting the stage for Welby’s swearing in.
Democratic candidate for Lackawanna County Commissioner Thom Welby makes a victory speech to supporters in Cafe Rinaldi in Old Forge Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Efforts to reach Sacco on Monday were not successful. She’ll leave office as just the third woman to ever serve as a Lackawanna County commissioner, following former Republican Commissioner Laureen Cummings and former Democratic Commissioner Debi Domenick.
“Even though it has been a short period of time and I should have been seated months ago, I am honored to have served the people of Lackawanna County,” Sacco said last week.
Welby, reached by phone Monday from the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania’s fall conference in Hershey, thanked Sacco for her “perseverance and patience.” He also said he looks forward to working with everyone and hopes to make a positive difference during his two-plus years in office, reiterating he won’t seek reelection in 2027.
In separate interviews, Gaughan and Chermak expressed confidence they’ll be able to work well with Welby.
What’s next for Sacco, who previously served as county economic development director for about five years before Gaughan and McGloin dismissed her after taking office in January 2024, is unclear. She said last month she’d left her job as an administrative officer for the State Workers’ Insurance Fund to accept the commissioner appointment.
Commissioners earn an annual salary of $88,929; the chairperson of the three-member board earns $92,227 per year.
Who might succeed Sacco as board chairman remains to be seen.