Lackawanna County Commissioner Matt McGloin resigned six weeks ago but replacing him has produced a court fight that is pitting Democrats against Democrats.
On one side: Democratic Commissioner Bill Gaughan, 38, a former Scranton City Council president with no apparent fear of disagreeing bluntly with anyone, including more senior local Democrats.
Gaughan even thinks the county judges who will pick his next colleague should do it differently than they intended.
On the other side: more senior Democrats like county Democratic Party chairman Chris Patrick, 63, who share at least one goal with Republican Commissioner Chris Chermak.
In one way or another, they want to thwart Gaughan, who wants common pleas court judges to start the selection process over. He wants them to seek new applications and interview candidates instead of interviewing the Democratic Party’s three recommendations and picking one. He says the party ran a “tainted process.”
“My resolve is to stand up for what the law requires, and the transparency that the citizens of Lackawanna County deserve is undiminished,” Gaughan said during the March 5 commissioners meeting.
In an interview Thursday, Patrick said he followed a reliable process that’s decades old over one that judges would control entirely, though he added he would respect the judges’ decision either way. He accused Gaughan of using county resources to push a political agenda in violation of county policy.
“It still cracks me up that Billy decided to do this against his own ethics policy,” Patrick said.
Patrick and Chermak say Gaughan used taxpayer resources for a political process by introducing the man he wanted to replace McGloin inside the county Government Center and petitioning the court for a do-over on the county’s behalf.
“I will not stand idly by while commissioner Gaughan uses taxpayer money to further his own political agenda,” Chermak said at a commissioners meeting March 19.
Gaughan and the county deny violating the ethics policy.
At some point, the judges will pick the new commissioner; everyone agrees on that. The judges gave the Democratic Party until today to explain why they should stick with the party’s process instead of Gaughan’s suggestion. They gave both sides until April 14 to submit further written arguments and set a hearing for April 22.
From the beginning
The McGloin resignation set off a county home rule charter process that Democrats or Republicans have used at least three times when commissioners resigned before terms ended.
Approved by voters in 1976, the charter has served as the county’s basic governing document since January 1977. It lays out the government’s structure, functions and procedures, including filling vacancies.
The charter says the party a resigned official was a member of when they were elected gets to recommend three potential replacements. Then, the county’s common pleas court judges must pick one.
• In 2005, the judges chose former Scranton city official Michael Washo to replace Commissioner Randy Castellani.
• In 2011, the judges chose former Jermyn Mayor Bruce Smallacombe to replace Commissioner A.J. Munchak.
• In 2015, the judges chose former state Rep. Ed Staback to replace Commissioner Corey O’Brien.
In each case, no one challenged the process and the replacements took office.
McGloin announced his resignation Feb. 21, even though it was rumored for five days before that. Because Feb. 21 was a Friday, and a county party has only five calendar days to recommend three potential replacements, Patrick said McGloin, as a courtesy, made his departure effective Monday, Feb. 24. That gave the chairman five weekdays to come up with recommendations.
Neither Patrick nor Gaughan wasted any time.
Lining up candidates
The morning McGloin’s resignation took effect, Gaughan hosted a news conference in the commissioners meeting room at the Government Center to announce his preferred choice: Dunmore Mayor Max Conway.
Gaughan said he talked privately to several potential candidates before settling on Conway. He declined to disclose their names.
“He is a force for Dunmore’s economic development, fiscal stability, environmental well-being, government transparency and long-term best interests,” Gaughan said. “There is no time for on-the-job training ... I need someone who has experience governing.”
Patrick immediately solicited letters of interest. By the Feb. 26 deadline, he had 18 names, he said. Patrick said he and several other committee members reviewed letters of interest, narrowed the list to six and then settled on three. They did not interview anyone.
Patrick has repeatedly declined to name all 18, but the party executive committee met privately Feb. 27 and voted 26-3 with two abstentions to recommend:
• Former county planning and economic development director Brenda Sacco.
• Olyphant Council President James Baldan.
• Scranton School Director Bob Casey.
“We believe that what we did is appropriate, what we did is correct,” Patrick said March 18. “And, you know, hopefully the judges will see it that way.”
A different process
Unlike the public interview process the county Democratic Party employed to select nurse Bridget Kosierowski as its candidate for a special state representative election in 2019, the Democrats met privately as they did previously when they recommended commissioner replacements.
Patrick said Thursday the process of choosing Kosierowski had nothing to do with the charter and its five-day deadline. The party had more time to select her and was picking its candidate for the special election, not just recommending, he said.
In 2015, O’Brien made his resignation effective a month later, providing plenty of time to interview seven candidates, he said. In 2007, the party conducted no interviews before choosing Washo and two others, he said.
“It’s just the way — I hate to say it — it’s just the way it’s gone on,” he said, pointing out no one objected before.
Patrick said he hasn’t revealed the full list of applicants because some asked not to have their names revealed, an excuse Gaughan labeled “pathetic.”
Patrick said he wonders if Gaughan would have challenged the process if the party recommended Conway.
Furious the party didn’t recommend Conway, Gaughan raged. Conway said Patrick told him he didn't meet the committee's selection "rubric."
In a March 5 text to reporters, Patrick said the rubric included education and experience in government, a profession, economic development, budgeting and working for the Democratic executive committee.
In the Thursday interview, Patrick said Conway has little experience in governing or economic development and has never been especially active in Democratic politics.
“I don’t have him in my phone, I never saw him at an event,” Patrick said. “Maybe he scored well in Billy Gaughan’s rubric. I don’t know. But guess what? Who else scored in Billy’s rubric?”
He ripped Gaughan for conducting his own search without seeking applications and refusing to name others considered.
Gaughan dismissed the criticism.
“Listen,” he said. “Nobody in their right mind should take any sort of pointers from Chris Patrick, of all people in Lackawanna County, on ethics and transparency. Nobody ... He ran this thing in the shadows from day one. All I asked for was that there was a little bit of light shined on it, and now that it's on there, he's running for the hills.”
He criticized Patrick as “the laziest chairman in the history of the Democratic Party in Lackawanna County” for allowing the party’s voter registration advantage to diminish for years.
“We need people who operate in the light, and I've been doing that since I was on City Council, and I certainly take great offense to being challenged by somebody like him on ethics and on transparency,” Gaughan said.
Patrick shot back and pointed out the party has never lost a countywide election during his tenure and regained the district attorney's office.
“I consider that a compliment coming from a guy like him. He hasn’t said a positive word about anybody since he is commissioner,” Patrick said in a text. “He loves to call people names. He sounds just like Trump!”
Gaughan: No ethics violation
Gaughan rejected the suggestion he violated the county ethics policy by introducing Conway in the county Government Center and including the county in his petition to redo the selection process.
“Not at all,” Gaughan said. “Because I'm letting people know what my opinion is ... I asked Chris Patrick point blank, ‘Are you going to interview candidates? Are you going to do this in an open way?’ And it was clear to me that he wasn't going to do that. It isn't a political campaign. It's a government issue. This is about someone who's serving the rest of Matt McGloin’s term, which is almost three years. We have an awful lot of really important issues going on.”
On Friday afternoon, the county issued a memo authored by solicitor Don Frederickson that says “the appointment of a new commissioner by the court is a matter of county business and there is certainly an overarching interest in who the appointee is.”
“The use of the (commissioners) conference room (in the Government Center) for this purpose is related to a direct county interest and resulted in no financial or pecuniary gain for any party,” Frederickson’s memo says.
Gaughan declined to answer directly if he would have petitioned for a do-over if Conway was one of the three recommended.
“Regardless of any of that, this issue has to be resolved, no matter what,” he said. “(Does) the home rule charter stand? Or does the (judicial) rule ... stand?”
The charter vs. the rule
The judges waited until the county commissioners officially accepted McGloin’s resignation March 5, then moved ahead as they had for earlier vacancies.
They scheduled interviews with the three Democratic nominees for March 19.
On March 17, St. Patrick’s Day, Gaughan challenged the Democratic selection process.
In a petition to the judges, attorney Dan Brier, representing the county and Gaughan, argues the judges should still interview and pick the replacement, but should seek their own applications and conduct interviews.
First, Brier cites the state county code, which basically says the same thing as the charter: the common pleas judges pick the replacement who must be from the same party as the departed commissioner.
After that, Brier cites a new procedure that went into effect after the last time the county’s judges replaced a commissioner.
In 2019, he argues, the state Supreme Court added Rule 1908 titled “Filling of Vacancies” to the state’s Rules of Judicial Administration. That rule says the judges “shall receive applications from any interested candidates for the position.”
Brier says county courts cannot “implement procedures” inconsistent with Supreme Court rules.
Because a county judge raised the same possibility before McGloin’s resignation took effect, the county court consulted with the Administrative Office of the Pennsylvania Courts, the Supreme Court’s administrative arm.
County court administrator Frank Castellano declined to share the administrative office’s legal advice. After getting the advice, the judges planned to interview the Democratic Party’s three recommended candidates.
On Monday, Adam Bonin, the county Democratic Party’s lawyer, formally responded to Brier’s petition, arguing Rule 1908 doesn’t apply. The county code, like the charter, gives the judges the job of filling vacancies where state law requires, but Rule 1908 can’t trump the charter process, he contends.
He said the Supreme Court never intended that a judicial rule
"supersede the will of the citizens of Lackawanna County to enact a home rule charter."
"The Supreme Court is without authority or jurisdiction to 'preempt' an enacted home rule charter in a Pennsylvania county via the adoption of an administrative rule," Bonin wrote.
But first ...
Because the full-time county common pleas judges planned to use the Democratic Party’s process and Gaughan challenged that, the judges assigned three part-time senior judges to hear the case. Senior judges do not vote on filling vacancies.
The three senior judges are Carmen D. Minora, Vito P. Geroulo and Robert A. Mazzoni. Mazzoni sat on the commission that wrote the home rule charter.
They may decide another, even more basic issue first: whether the county should be part of Gaughan’s push for a do-over.
Brier filed the petition on the county’s and Gaughan’s behalf, but Chermak argues the Board of Commissioners never approved including the county.
Because replacing McGloin is a political process, Gaughan should pay for any challenge to it, not county taxpayers, Chermak contends.
On March 18, attorney Paul J. LaBelle, the assistant solicitor to Chermak, warned Brier in a letter he was hired without a vote by the commissioners, and he wouldn’t get paid. He called Gaughan’s challenge on the county’s behalf "improper, unauthorized and illegal."
“Any payment your firm seeks in this matter is the sole responsibility of Mr. Gaughan,” LaBelle wrote.
Six days later, he formally asked county Clerk of Judicial Records to remove the county from the petition. Brier has challenged that request as improper.
Clerk of Judicial Records Mauri Kelly said today she'll wait for a court ruling before doing anything.
LaBelle and county solicitor Don Frederickson debated the matter at the March 19 commissioner meeting.
Frederickson said asking the court for a do-over did not require the commissioners to vote. He cited a county code provision that authorizes county solicitors to take legal action "when the rights, privileges, properties, claims or demands of the county are involved."
LaBelle called that provision nothing more than "a job description" for county solicitors, not authorization to take legal action.
Sacco wants in
On Friday, Sacco asked the court to allow her to intervene in the court case between Gaughan and the Democratic Party. She argues the party correctly used the home rule charter process to select candidates and pointed out she ranked highest of the three.
Intervening would allow her and her lawyer to formally present arguments and evidence at the hearing.
In her petition, Sacco alleges Gaughan, the county and "their agents" have leaked routine grant records to reporters from The Scranton Times-Tribune and WVIA. The records are from her tenure as county community development director and meant to "falsely alleg(e) unethical conduct."
WVIA requested, and was provided with, certain records from the county. These public records, sent to WVIA via email from the county, list Sacco as a consultant on an application for a $3 million state grant filed through the county for Alpesh Patel, who wants to build a hotel in Dunmore. The state awarded Patel $500,000 in October.
In her petition, Sacco denies acting as a "paid consultant" to Patel on the $3 million grant application.
Patel, the county Democratic Party's executive director, was a member of the panel that narrowed the list of applicants for the commissioner vacancy to the three finalists. He and Patrick were among the 26 who voted to recommend Sacco, Baldan and Casey.
The county also provided WVIA other records related to Patel. These records show Sacco approved $5,000 business improvement grants in January 2023 for each of six companies that Patel owns or co-owns. The companies run convenience stores.
Sacco's petition says it's "laughable" to suggest her approving the $5,000 grants two years ago has anything to do with the recommendation to name her commissioner.
"I am not sure where this false 'quid pro quo' theory is coming from but no one could have predicted two years ago that Commissioner McGloin would have resigned and created this vacancy," she said in a text provided by her lawyer. "This is obviously a political hit by my detractors to somehow try and discredit my character and qualifications."
Patrick said he never met Sacco until she applied for the vacancy. He pointed out 26 people voted for the three names. He said Sacco was by far the most qualified of the 18 people who applied.
"She's more qualified based on her resume" and more qualified than most previous county commissioners, including Gaughan and Chermak, he said.
Gaughan and McGloin dismissed Sacco from the community development director job in January 2024. On Friday, Gaughan again refused to explain why she was dismissed. State law generally prohibits employers from discussing employee records.
In a Feb. 28, text, Sacco disputed the notion that she was fired, saying "reasonable minds can disagree about how to regard my prior separation from Lackawanna County."
In her petition, she said she's "proud of her exemplary record in public service and unafraid of legitimate scrutiny," but accused the county and Gaughan of "orchestrating a coordinated smear campaign to undermine her nomination."
In a statement Friday, Frederickson denied the county was "'leaking' information to the press" and said the county did not provide "any confidential or privileged information" about any current or former employee.
"This accusation is completely false and not based in reality," he wrote. "Any information which the county has provided to the press is public information which any citizen and taxpayer is entitled to receive."
In a statement, Gaughan again blasted the party's process for its secrecy and failure to interview any candidates or disclose the names of all the candidates.
"Therefore, neither the public nor the court had any way to know that Brenda Sacco, the leading candidate, had approved applications for public money that had been sought by Mr. Patel when she was director of economic development, and that she later was identified in a public document as his consultant," he said.
