Today marks the dawn of the Thom Welby era and the official end of the “Odd Couple” de facto majority of interim Lackawanna County Commissioner Brenda Sacco and once-again minority Commissioner Chris Chermak.
Taxpayers should be cautiously optimistic about the former and ecstatic about the latter.
Despite the backroom monkeyshines of the Democratic Party Machine, voters ultimately chose the replacement for departed Commissioner Matt McGloin. The Machine managed to install Sacco for a few weeks of chaos and petty score-settling, but failed in its ham-handed plot to hijack county government.
Through a truly democratic process, We the People spared ourselves from another “Cheese and Crackers” majority concocted by Democratic Machine Chairman Chris Patrick. He put Republican Laureen Cummings and intermittent Democrat Pat O’Malley behind the wheel for four years of swerving around responsible, incremental tax increases and running the county into the deficit ditch.
A Sacco/Chermak majority might have made Cheese and Crackers look like filet mignon. Consider the clumsy carnage the Odd Couple managed over just 35 days in power.
Sacco, a Democrat, and Chermak, a MAGA Republican, immediately demoted former majority Democratic Commissioner Bill Gaughan, appointed Sacco’s personal attorney, Paul James Walker, as county solicitor and hired Scranton School Director Jenna Strzelecki as human resources director without interviewing other candidates and while cutting Gaughan out of the process.
In their most spiteful move, the Odd Couple fired Communications Director Pat McKenna because in his past career at this newspaper McKenna routinely hurt state Sen. Marty Flynn’s feelings with fair criticism.
For an encore, the Odd Couple staged an entirely performative bid to delay the decades-overdue countywide property tax reassessment. When the word “shall” appears in a court order, all wiggle room is instantly removed. Sacco and Chermak might as well have tried to repeal the law of gravity.
Either Sacco and Chermak didn’t understand the ironclad finality of the court order, or proceeded with the charade anyway to score political points with voters who accept cheap theater as a substitute for leadership.
Neither option recommends the pair as county executives. The former suggests an alarming deficit in reading for comprehension. The latter implies a galling example of old-school bait-and-switch politics – putting up a pyrrhic “fight” for the benefit of claiming you “did your best against the powers that be.”
Sacco’s political career is apparently over, but Republican voters should ask themselves what – aside from empty posturing over the reassessment – they got out of Chermak’s 35 days in the majority. If anything comes to mind, please let me know.
Why bother to look back on the past few months of melodrama and courtroom maneuvering over the right of voters to choose? Because in Lackawanna County politics, the past is perpetually prologue. Old habits die hard, and don’t die at all unless put down.
The grinding process to replace McGloin exposed fundamental flaws in the county’s Home Rule Charter and the long-simmering civil war in the local Democratic Party. When the courts are required to interpret the language of government’s basic blueprint, it’s time for an update. Ambiguity is the enemy of authority. Loose ends fray without attentive mending.
The intraparty fight is a DIY challenge. Democrats, heal thyselves. Despite his failed crusade to install a ringer and disenfranchise voters, Patrick is still running the county party. The process of replacing him with a democratic Democrat should be an urgent priority considering the mean political season ahead.
The Machine will have no choice but to publicly support Democratic Scranton Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti in her campaign to unseat MAGA Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan next year, but “MAGAcrats” who failed to foil her reelection in the city can be trusted to privately conspire to undermine her run for Congress. Bresnahan’s cheeky pre-election grip-and-grin with Democratic Scranton School Board candidates wasn’t a one-off.
Looking ahead, the Thom Welby era is cause for cautious optimism. He was elected by a sizable majority of voters and has a long, distinguished professional and personal record of public service. He brings much-needed maturity and experience to county government.
Welby also brings connections taxpayers can’t afford to ignore. The Democratic Machine backed him after its legal challenges to a special election failed. A $100,000 cash infusion to his campaign by a Flynn political committee rightly raised eyebrows and questions about Welby’s independence as a commissioner.
Time will tell. I trust Thom to serve honorably and in the best interests of the county’s 216,859 residents. His election was a victory for representative democracy in that he was elected, not installed.
CHRIS KELLY, the Times-Tribune columnist, is an expert on bad habits. Contact the writer: ckelly@scrantontimes.com; @cjkink on X; Chris Kelly, The Times-Tribune on Facebook; and @chriskellyink on Blue Sky Social.