Following virtual interviews last week with five candidates for the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport’s executive director job, officials involved in the hiring process will soon conduct an in-person interview with one of those finalists, airport co-Solicitor Donald Frederickson confirmed.
They may also conduct additional in-person interviews with other candidates thereafter, depending on how the first one goes, Frederickson said Thursday. He again declined to identify any of the applicants.
The upcoming in-person interview represents the next step in a hiring process made controversial by Republican Lackawanna County Commissioner Chris Chermak’s candidacy for the director position. Chermak, who chaired the bicounty board that oversees the airport before confirming his candidacy in June and announcing his leave of absence pending a hiring decision, was among the five finalists who participated in virtual interviews Aug. 13.
Those interviews were conducted by the board of officials from Lackawanna and Luzerne counties, members of a local search committee and ADK Consulting and Executive Search, a firm the board hired in March to facilitate the process of finding a successor to former Executive Director Carl Beardsley Jr.
It’s not yet clear when the in-person interview or interviews might take place or when the airport board, which next meets Aug. 27, might vote to hire a new director. A vote next week remains possible, though Frederickson said September is more likely.
“I don’t think we’ll be in position to do so next Thursday, but it’s a possibility,” he said. “Depending on how fast we can get things set up here it’s a possibility, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”
The hiring vote, whenever it occurs, will cap a monthslong search process featuring some acrimony stemming from Chermak’s candidacy for the job that Democratic Lackawanna County Commissioner Bill Gaughan insists he’s not qualified for.
Gaughan objected last month when Chermak and Democratic Commissioner Thom Welby temporarily replaced Chermak on the airport board with local attorney Chris Munley, arguing among other things that Chermak taking a leave of absence due to a conflict of interest didn’t constitute an actual vacancy on the six-member body. After citing a potential conflict of interest and initially abstaining, Chermak, acting in his capacity as a county commissioner, voted with Welby on July 15 to appoint Munley to the airport board as his temporary replacement.
The airport board tasked with hiring the next executive director currently consists of Gaughan, Welby and Munley, Luzerne County Council members Chris Belles and Lee Ann McDermott and Luzerne County Manager Romilda Crocamo.
Gaughan also peppered the airport board with pointed questions July 23 after Chermak said in a mid-July interview with WVIA that he has the support of the airport’s staff, administration and “most of the other board members.” Other airport board members flatly denied having already made up their minds about the pending hiring.
“Merit hiring means merit hiring,” Crocamo said in a text message after last month’s airport board meeting. “It means every applicant gets a genuine look. It means the process is not a formality designed to validate a decision that was already made.”
Whichever candidate the board ultimately hires will need the support of a majority of both Lackawanna and Luzerne counties’ representatives to get the job. Under a new agreement the counties ratified earlier this year for the continued joint operation of the airport, any motion or resolution requires the majority support of both partner counties to pass.
If officials don’t vote on a hire next week, the airport board’s next regularly scheduled meeting is Sept. 24. It also could schedule a special meeting in the intervening time, Frederickson said.
Beyond Chermak acknowledging his own candidacy, officials have not identified the candidates for the executive director post.