They bicker like immature children trying to elbow their way for control of the schoolyard.
They have spent too much of their time working on the public dime for about a year now devising ways to discredit each other. They have taken steps — ranging from the stripping of titles to the firing of appointees — to aggravate, annoy and personally hurt each other. A few of them have been described in response as “full of…” (you are free to guess what) by a fellow member in the most formal of public settings, on the record, forever.
But as 2026 dawns, make no mistake that through the tumult of 2025 and its contentious reorganization meeting Monday that showed fractures in the county’s Democratic party are very much unhealed, Lackawanna County’s Board of Commissioners has given itself a great opportunity to be an example for other governing bodies across the region, state and beyond.
For the good of the people who elected these men to represent them, it is time to put petty differences aside.
And for the good of government as a whole and its increasingly deserved negative public perception, it’s about time some group, somewhere, proved the effort can bear meaningful fruit.
For far too long, progress in every facet of government from the cramped meeting rooms of supervisory boards in tiny townships to the halls of the United States Congress has been subject more to the rubber stamps of partisan majorities and less on the harder, more-challenging work of bipartisan compromise most Americans insist they demand of those they elect.
Frankly, there might not be a more fitting group of elected officials in the area to prove it possible than this one.
Individually, the three elected commissioners — Democrats Thom Welby and Bill Gaughan and Republican Chris Chermak — have strong records of dedication to their communities. All are longtime public servants. All can boast many examples of the selfless work they’ve done throughout our townships and boroughs and cities, often out of the public eye, to make the places we live better. Each seem to be generally well-liked. All are clearly devoted to improving day-to-day life in our area, even if their views on how to accomplish those goals differ.
Yet, their first acts of the new year were designed to keep an old dispute on the front burner.
With the opportunity to mend a torn fence in his own party Monday, Welby nominated the Republican Chermak as vice chair instead of Gaughan. It isn’t a stretch to suggest that Gaughan’s nearly yearlong efforts to resist the county Democratic Party’s attempts to appoint someone of its choosing to fill the full, unexpired term of resigned commissioner Matt McGloin was more motivation for that decision than a hope for true bipartisanship.
It was the type of decision typically made to elicit the type of response it received. That involved Gaughan questioning Welby’s “nerve,” insisting that “political cronies” in the party now run the county, and wrapping up with an assertion that putting a “MAGA Republican” like Chermak in a position of greater authority on the board was an affront to the will of the voters. Those voters had two opportunities in the last three general elections to ensure registered Republicans had the most seats on the board, and they passed on the chance both times, emphatically.
When both Welby and Chermak expressed hope that political affiliations could and should be left at the door, Gaughan answered “They’re both full of (expletive).” The use of the word was unnecessary and beneath his office. It also didn’t make any of what has to come next easy.
Moving forward means mending fences. Not just playing nice, but working together. Understanding that titles don’t guarantee a majority or a path forward any more than party affiliations do. Accepting that compromise, civility and duty to people over party is the only way meaningful way to guarantee progress.
Until elected officials understand their job is to provide the people the type of government they need through those means, nothing will change toward the positive politically. Perhaps, a board as divided as these commissioners can not necessarily learn to like each other, but accept that the future is more important than the past and accept their role in building it. By doing so, they’d set the best possible example for how government could and should work.
Saying party affiliation should be left at the door is one thing. Actually leaving it there is the key. It will take forgiveness, humility and the truest form of love for public service to get that job done.
It is time to see if the members of this board can ever be up to the task. For the sake of their constituents, they better be.