{"id":16829,"date":"2025-10-27T18:22:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T18:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/16829\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T18:22:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T18:22:07","slug":"county-commissioner-candidates-debate-at-scranton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/16829\/","title":{"rendered":"County Commissioner Candidates Debate at Scranton"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Lackawanna County Commissioner Debate \u2014 held Thursday, Oct. 23 \u2014 drew a nearly standing room-only crowd to The University of Scranton\u2019s Pearn Auditorium at Brennan Hall.<\/p>\n<p>Democrat Thom Welby, Republican Chet Merli and independent candidate Michael Cappellini participated in the debate organized by the University\u2019s Center for Ethics and Excellence in Public Service (CEEPS). A Nov. 4 special election will be held as the three candidates are vying for a seat on the three-member board of commissioners.<\/p>\n<p>Much like the <a href=\"https:\/\/news.scranton.edu\/articles\/2025\/10\/news-mayoral-debate-post.shtml\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Scranton Mayoral Debate<\/a>, held one week earlier, the Lackawanna County Commissioner Debate featured University personnel playing key roles. Brian Snee, Ph.D., director of CEEPS, was the debate moderator. Grace Lennox, a political science and philosophy double major and College Democrats president from Peckville, and Philip Huffman, a political science and history double major and College Republicans president from Scranton, read the debate rules, introduced the candidates and handled timekeeping duties. Additionally, three local journalists \u2014 WBRE-TV\u2019s Connor Coar, The Times-Tribune\u2019s Donnie Collins and WNEP-TV\u2019s Stacy Lange \u2014 served as panelists.<\/p>\n<p>The debate was livestreamed and recorded by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/live\/AeQrTXWsegY?si=2DfMcvHvuGMsPuAB\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">ECTV<\/a> and carried by other media outlets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Lackawanna County Commissioner Debate \u2014 held Thursday, Oct. 23 \u2014 drew a nearly standing room-only crowd to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[3561,3562,12224,8254,201,178,180,179,274],"class_list":{"0":"post-16829","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-ceeps","9":"tag-center-for-ethics-and-excellence-in-public-service","10":"tag-commissioners","11":"tag-debate","12":"tag-lackawanna-county","13":"tag-scranton","14":"tag-scranton-headlines","15":"tag-scranton-news","16":"tag-the-university-of-scranton"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}