“I need people I can work with.” – State Sen. Marty Flynn, D-22, Dunmore
Autumn is nature’s naked nod to transparency. A tree stripped of its leaves can’t hide its branches. Its spindly limbs are easily traced back to the trunk that fed its rise.
Campaign signs and billboards are the political equivalent of stripped trees. The more one candidate’s name and face litter the landscape, the easier it is to follow the money back to its roots.
For the past month, Thom Welby’s name and face have been almost as ubiquitous as fiery fall foliage. The familiar likeness of the Democratic candidate in Tuesday’s special election to replace departed Commissioner Matt McGloin smiles from giant billboards up and down the valley. Signs bearing his trusted name seem to outnumber shedding oaks, maples and elms.
Such omnipresent exposure is exorbitantly expensive, especially in a race to serve out roughly half a term as a county commissioner. As my wife Chrissy and I and our intrepid cat Timmy rumbled down the interstate for a season-ending camping trip in the Poconos, I wondered aloud, “Where did Welby get the money for all of this?”
On Wednesday, Sunday Times Staff Writer Jeff Horvath provided the answer. The senator’s political committee, Friends of Marty Flynn, donated $100,000 to Welby’s campaign. Marty and Welby — his longtime chief of staff — both defended the donation, but the revelation couldn’t have come at a worse time for the Democratic Party Machine. It was a last-minute gift to independent Democrat Michael Cappellini, who is running against Welby, Republican Chet Merli and the Machine.
Although campaigning as an independent, Cappellini was endorsed by Democratic state Reps. Kyle Mullins, D-112, Blakely, and Kyle Donahue, D-113, Scranton. Marty’s huge cash infusion into his friend’s campaign was meant to make Welby seem inevitable. Cappellini responded with a rhetorical leaf blower.
“I owe it to the people of Lackawanna County to ask a simple question: why is a State Senator who represents only around half of Lackawanna County investing $100,000 into this Commissioner seat?” Cappellini asked in a pointed press release.
“It is fairly interesting to me that he would be as involved as he is,” Cappellini said. “Ultimately, I just think it’s another opportunity to look and see where the machine truly is. The machine is there. The old-guard politics are still alive and well, and I think that Lackawanna County deserves better … I would ask people to connect the dots and see exactly what’s going on here.”
The “dots” have never been easier to connect. Interim (?) Commissioner Brenda Sacco and Republican Minority Commissioner Chris Chermak gave voters a bitter taste of what to expect from an “Odd Couple” de facto majority.
At a Monday “revengenization” meeting I watched through the magic of YouTube, Sacco and Chermak removed Democratic Majority Commissioner Bill Gaughan as chairman and put Sacco in the high chair. Chermak is now vice chairman, the title McGloin held. Gaughan was dislodged by the former economic development director he and McGloin fired. Some saw the takedown as poetic justice. Others saw it for what it was — petty payback.
The Odd Couple also hired Sacco’s personal attorney, Paul James Walker of Clarks Summit, as county solicitor.
Paul is a friend and a fine attorney, but a letter he sent to President Judge James Gibbons may haunt him in his new job. The letter, co-signed by election board Solicitor Donald Frederickson, asked for a “discussion” with the court about the composition of the election board “on behalf of a majority of the Lackawanna County Board of Commissioners.”
That would be Sacco and Chermak. Gaughan was not informed of the letter. Chermak said he had “nothing to do with it.” Sacco didn’t respond to a request for comment. Gaughan seized upon the letter as evidence that Sacco was maneuvering to stay in office. Walker scoffed at Gaughan’s assertion, but it carried weight because of what Sacco didn’t say at the “revengenization” meeting.
Gaughan asked Sacco if she would honor the election results and vacate her seat “no matter who wins” the special election.
“I have no comment on that,” Sacco replied. The audience took that as a no and booed the new commissioner. Several shouted “Shame on you!”
Late Thursday, Sacco took to antisocial media to say what she should have said at the public meeting.
“There is a lot of concern regarding whether I will honor the lawful result of this special election — of course, I will,” she wrote. There are 22 words in Sacco’s promise to honor the result of the special election. The one to remember in the near future is “lawful.”
On Friday, Gibbons answered Walker’s letter with a curt declination.
“Regarding your inquiry about clarification of my September 17, 2025 order appointing Judges Nealon, Bisignani-Moyle and Ruggiero to the Board of Elections, I see no need for clarification,” the judge wrote. “The Order rather unambiguously says what it says.
“Regarding your invitation to discuss this matter, I am disinclined to acquiesce to your request. Finally, if the comments in the media from Commissioners Chermak and Gaughan are reported accurately, the representation that you write on behalf of a majority of the Commissioners seems, at best, mistaken.”
Ouch.
I left the prediction game a few election cycles back, but this is a special election and I can’t resist sharing some educated guesses.
If Welby wins, I expect the results to be certified quickly and without question. The Machine will find Sacco a soft place to land and get to work crafting a “winning ticket” for 2027.
If Cappellini or Merli wins, I expect Democratic Party Machine Chairman Chris Patrick to fight tooth and nail to keep Sacco in office. Such a stance would put Patrick and the Machine in the indefensible position of defying the will of voters. No one with even a modicum of personal integrity and political acumen would choose that fight, which is why I expect Patrick to do so with gusto if the Machine loses the election.
Whoever wins, the reassessment is a court-ordered done deal that cannot be “paused” or put off. Cappellini is the only candidate who has acknowledged this absolute fact. The dead-enders who still harbor and promote fantasies about delaying the reassessment are powerful property owners determined to put off paying their fair share. Calling a reassessment that took nearly 60 years to realize “rushed” is as cynical and absurd as anything I’ve witnessed over 30 years on this perch.
Over most of those years, Pat McKenna was one of my best friends and mentors. After a near-50-year career at this newspaper, Gaughan and McGloin hired Pat as county communications director. Last week, the Odd Couple fired him.
Pat knows more about county government than anyone who served in it over the past 50 years. His institutional knowledge is unrivaled and now unwelcome in the place it was most valuable. He earned every ounce of his sterling reputation for honesty and integrity by holding Machine politicians of both parties accountable for almost half a century. He penned countless editorials critical of Marty Flynn, each one a nail in the coffin of Pat’s two-year county career.
On his way out the door, Pat passed a pair of sheriff’s deputies dispatched to “perp-walk” him out of the building. It was a typically classless and petty parting shot from the Machine, and characteristically self-defeating for brainless bullies who always choose gall over grace.
Pat will be fine spending more time with his young grandchildren, who are already more mature than the alleged adults who pushed him out. His parting shot, issued in a prepared statement, was characteristically concise and biting.
“Staff people come and go,” Pat said. “It’s more important for people to recognize that the government they elected fewer than two years ago has been hijacked, and that they can begin to restore it by voting for independence on November Fourth.”
Throughout the course of this clumsy coup, Marty Flynn has flown just under the radar. The revelation of his massive donation to Thom Welby and the swift score-settling carried out by the Odd Couple stripped the senator of any remaining political cover. He is the naked trunk of this twisted tree.
“I want people I can work with,” Marty said.
That’s as transparent as it gets.
CHRIS KELLY, the Times-Tribune columnist, urges you to vote in the special and general elections on Tuesday. Contact the writer: ckelly@scrantontimes.com; @cjkink on X; Chris Kelly, The Times-Tribune on Facebook; and @chriskellyink on Blue Sky Social.