Former Lackawanna County Communications Director Joe D\u2019Arienzo will begin his second stint in that role Wednesday after Commissioners Thom Welby and Chris Chermak rehired him earlier this month.<\/p>\n
D\u2019Arienzo, who previously served as county communications director from early 2012 to early 2024, is leaving a job as administrative clerk for the Lackawanna County Housing Authority to resume his former position as the county\u2019s chief spokesman. He\u2019ll earn an annual salary of $60,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the afterlife \u2026 if I meet the American novelist Thomas Wolfe I\u2019m going to tell him: \u2018Sir, I beg to differ, you can go home again,\u2019\u201d D\u2019Arienzo said. \u201cI\u2019m going home again to finish what I love to do. There\u2019s tons of good people in that building that I worked with and they\u2019re still there. There\u2019s probably some new individuals. And I\u2019m looking forward to it, because at the end of the day the bottom line is you\u2019ve got to serve the people that are paying the freight, and that\u2019s the residents.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGovernment has to exist to help those who need help,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
D\u2019Arienzo\u2019s initial tenure as county communications director ended in late January 2024 when Commissioner Bill Gaughan and then-Commissioner Matt McGloin demoted him to a community relations liaison position that involved working with the Scranton\/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders baseball team.<\/p>\n
The reassignment, which Chermak sharply criticized at the time, followed other personnel changes by the new Democratic majority commissioners, including the firings of county Health and Human Services Director William Browning and county Planning and Economic Development Director Brenda Sacco.<\/p>\n
McGloin, who abruptly resigned in late February 2025, and Gaughan hired longtime former Times-Tribune Associate Editor Pat McKenna in February 2024 to replace D\u2019Arienzo as communications director.<\/p>\n
Chermak and Sacco, who was appointed and briefly served as interim commissioner last year following a long and acrimonious legal battle over the filling of McGloin\u2019s vacant seat, fired McKenna this past October in a move Gaughan sharply criticized. That created the vacancy D\u2019Arienzo will fill Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Welby, who replaced Sacco as commissioner in November after winning a special election to fill the remainder of McGloin\u2019s unexpired term, praised D\u2019Arienzo in a recent interview. He noted D\u2019Arienzo\u2019s prior experience in the communications role and past tenure with the Greater Scranton Chamber of Commerce, where he worked for nearly two decades, as well as his recent experience with the housing authority.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s just so well-rounded and he\u2019s such a gentleman,\u201d Welby said. \u201cHe\u2019s easy to get along with and he\u2019s just got a wealth of knowledge, so yeah, I\u2019m looking forward to him maybe finding some new avenues for us to pursue in that department.\u201d<\/p>\n
D\u2019Arienzo, who joined the housing authority in 2024 after a brief stint in the community relations liaison role, thanked and acknowledged Thursday the authority\u2019s executive director, Pat Padula, as well as its board and staff.<\/p>\n
Gaughan, who thought there were better candidates for the communications director position, didn\u2019t endorse D\u2019Arienzo\u2019s rehiring. But he said he likes D\u2019Arienzo and, like Welby, called him a \u201cgentleman.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a very nice guy, but there\u2019s a reason we moved in a different direction \u2026 when we took over\u201d in 2024, Gaughan said of his and McGloin\u2019s past personnel shakeup. \u201cThat\u2019s nothing personal against him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Efforts to reach Chermak were not immediately successful, but he\u2019s previously called D\u2019Arienzo a \u201cgood friend\u201d and \u201cone of the best, most dedicated employees.\u201d<\/p>\n
D\u2019Arienzo\u2019s return to the county communications post coincides with recent controversy among the commissioners over a public communications policy<\/a> Welby and Chermak implemented this month. It requires at least two commissioners to sign off on any statement, publication or posting issued on behalf of the board of commissioners \u201cor purporting to represent a position of the County.\u201d<\/p>\n Welby defended the policy, which he described as a return to how things were done in prior administrations. Gaughan blasted it as an attempt to silence him.<\/p>\n