SCRANTON — Democrat Thom Welby will serve as chairman and Republican Chris Chermak vice chairman of the Lackawanna County Board of Commissioners in 2026, with Democrat Bill Gaughan blasting Welby at Monday’s reorganization meeting for elevating a “MAGA Republican” to the latter leadership role.
Gaughan’s harangue over the vice chairmanship suggests a potentially rocky road ahead for the three-member board following a 2025 largely defined by bitter fighting in and out of court over the vacancy created by former Democratic Commissioner Matt McGloin’s resignation and how it should be filled.
Monday marked the second time commissioners have reorganized since late-October, when Chermak and former interim Democratic Commissioner Brenda Sacco formed a de facto bipartisan majority and held an unusual reorganization meeting to remove Gaughan from the chairman role he’d held since taking office alongside McGloin in early January 2024. Chermak and Sacco, who was appointed to temporarily fill McGloin’s commissioner seat, made Sacco chairwoman and Chermak vice chairman of the board during the late-October reorganization.
But Sacco’s tenure was brief, with Welby replacing her in late November after winning a special election earlier that month to fill the remainder of McGloin’s unexpired term. The commissioners did not formally reorganize for the end of 2025 after Welby took office.
That set the stage for Monday’s session, where Gaughan made a motion to make Welby chairman that passed 2-0, with he and Chermak in favor and Welby abstaining. Welby then motioned to make Chermak vice chairman, prompting scathing broadsides from Gaughan and responses by both Chermak and Welby before the split board approved the motion 2-1, with Gaughan opposed.
Commissioner Bill Gaughan speaks during the reorganization meeting at the Lackawanna County Government Center in Scranton on Monday, Jan. 5, 2026. (REBECCA PARTICKA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Making a Republican vice chairman while “stepping over” a fellow Democrat is as an affront to county voters who overwhelmingly elected and expected a governing Democratic majority among the commissioners, Gaughan charged. He accused Welby of “choosing the path that avoids tension with the political cronies who now run this county.”
“Today’s vote did not reflect the will of the electorate,” Gaughan said. “It reflected a failure of nerve on the part of Thom Welby. And here is the truth that will outlast this meeting: you didn’t build unity today. You built a bridge for MAGA to walk into leadership over the backs of the voters who sent Democrats here to stop them. Majorities are not lost at the ballot box, they are surrendered by those too timid to use them.”
For his part, Welby noted Gaughan’s support for independent candidate Michael Cappellini, otherwise a longtime Democrat, in the recent special election for commissioner and accused Gaughan of having “turned his back” on the Democratic candidate in that race, Welby. He juxtaposed Gaughan’s election endorsement with his criticisms Monday, suggesting they’re at odds.
“Now all of the sudden he wants the support of the Democrats, which I am by party registration,” Welby said before decrying political partisanship more broadly. “I don’t want to see in this room, if I were to have my way, the bringing of politics and party into this. I hope at this table up here it won’t exist, and I hope that the people who walk through that door and come into this room will leave their party and partisan politics at the door. … We’re not working for Republicans. We’re not working for Democrats. We’re working as a democracy, working together.”
Commissioner Chris Chermak speaks during the reorganization meeting at the Lackawanna County Government Center in Scranton on Monday, Jan. 5, 2026. (REBECCA PARTICKA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Chermak had expressed a similar sentiment minutes earlier.
“This job is not about politics,” he said. “It’s about doing what’s right for this county and doing what’s right for everyone that lives in this county.”
The commissioners also voted unanimously Monday to follow Robert’s Rules of Order for conducting public meetings in 2026, which is standard, and to maintain their normal schedule for commissioners meetings this year.
Meetings will continue to be held on the first and third Wednesday of each month at 10 a.m. in the fifth-floor conference room of the county government center in downtown Scranton, unless otherwise specified. The first business meeting of 2026 will take place there Wednesday morning.
Whether it features the acrimony that marked Monday’s session and defined much of last year remains to be seen.
DA takes oath
Also Monday, Lackawanna County District Attorney Brian Gallagher was sworn-in to begin his first full term as DA after being elevated to the position last year when former District Attorney Mark Powell became a county judge.
Gallagher was uncontested in November’s municipal election. He was among a slate of Democratic incumbents who swept races for county row offices on Nov. 4.
Lackawanna County District Attorney Brian Gallagher, right, is sworn in by Judge Sean Gallagher in Courtroom 3 in the Lackawanna County Courthouse in Scranton Monday, January 5, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
The other Democratic winners were Sheriff Mark McAndrew, Recorder of Deeds Evie Rafalko McNulty, Register of Wills Fran Kovaleski and Clerk of Judicial Records Lauren Bieber Mailen.