Last year, former President Donald Trump promised to deport millions of undocumented residents as he campaigned for re-election.
“On day one, I will seal the border, I will stop the migrant invasion, and we will begin the largest deportation operation in the history of our country,” Trump said Oct. 9, 2024, during a Scranton rally.
This year, as Trump began making good on his promise, WVIA News stories about the crackdown’s local effects produced widespread interest.
On WVIA’s government/politics/immigration/crime beat, immigration arrests shared the spotlight with tales of a former football-playing Lackawanna County commissioner’s resignation, the county’s reassessment and Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti’s political aspirations.
Like last year, one of region’s congressional seats attracted a lot of attention and a former Scranton mayor died.
ICE agents nab Lackawanna County restaurant owner ordered deported
No story all year spurred as much reader interest as the arrest of Nasario Damian Contreras.
Contreras, 45, a Mexico native, operated three restaurants in Lackawanna County’s North Pocono region. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested him July 15 outside Isabella’s Eatery in Jefferson Twp. Contreras, known to many as Damian, also co-owns Damian’s Eatery in Clifton Twp. and Leonor’s Eatery in Moscow.
North Pocono residents bombarded Facebook with messages of support and wrote letters, too.
“At the end of the day, it was really what helped us the most,” his son, Erik Arceno, said. “We invited a few people to make cards (letters) for him for his case. And then the whole town showed up, which is amazing. I never expected it to be really close like that. I can’t put it into words, really.”
As it turned out, a federal immigration judge ordered Contreras deported in February 2023, according to an ICE spokesman.
As of this week, Contreras' whereabouts were unknown.
McGloin resigns, and a saga is born
More than a decade ago, Matt McGloin, a star quarterback at West Scranton High School, surprised many by earning a spot on Penn State’s football team, even though he wasn’t recruited.
McGloin not only made the team, eventually he at quarterback. That success led to a contract with the Oakland Raiders that paid him millions of dollars.
After football, he tried politics and won a seat on the Lackawanna County Board of Commissioners.
In February, he surprised everyone again. He quit as commissioner to take a football analyst job at Boston College. He quit within a day and came home.
“I apologize to the people of Lackawanna County for the way things have played out,” he said in a telephone interview after he returned. “I'm sorry if I offended anybody. My intentions, I know, have always been good. I always try to do the right thing and what's best.”
That alone was quite a story, but his resignation kicked off a process to replace him that took eight months to resolve.
The county Democratic Party recommended three potential replacements, but McGloin’s former running mate, Commissioner Bill Gaughan, wasn’t happy with any of them. He wanted Dunmore Mayor Max Conway.
Gaughan went to court to upend the party’s process in favor of one that didn’t include the party. When he kept losing in court, he tried another route — a special election.
After more court battles, one of the party’s recommended candidates, former county economic development director Brenda Sacco, finally got the job, but only for a month.
Former state Rep. Thom Welby won the special election and replaced Sacco just before Thanksgiving.
In an interview earlier this month, McGloin said he’s doing well, but declined to comment on the saga his resignation spurred.
Prepare to hear two names a lot next year, part 1
A year ago, Republican Rob Bresnahan celebrated victory against six-term Democratic congressman Matt Cartwright.
Barely a month after the wealthy businessman took the oath of office in January, the barrage to send him into an early retirement commenced.
Bresnahan helped it along.
He did it first by becoming one of Congress’ most prolific stock traders, despite chastising Cartwright for that during the campaign and calling for a ban on trades by congressmen.
As WVIA reported in July, Bresnahan could order his financial advisers to stop trading his stocks, but he does not plan to do that.
“And then do what with it?” he asked. “Just leave it all in the accounts and just leave it there and lose money and go broke?”
Democrats pounced, spreading the quote all over the internet and all but guaranteeing its return next year as the congressman runs for reelection.
Bresnahan wants to put his stocks in a blind trust that would shield him from knowing about his investments but says he’s unhappy with House rules on how to do that. He insists he never tells his brokers how to invest his millions, but the issue arose again later.
In May, his broker sold stocks of companies that manage Medicaid-related insurance plans, a week before his first vote in favor of legislation that critics say will drastically slash Medicaid funding.
“I had to look up ... what Centene actually did,” he said, referring to one of the Medicaid stocks.
The Medicaid-related stocks he once owned amount to a tiny fraction of his overall wealth, but they may dominate his re-election campaign next year.
Prepare to hear two names a lot next year, part 2
You can bet Paige Cognetti will bring up Bresnahan’s stock trades.
Cognetti, a Democrat and Scranton’s mayor, already is.
As she announced her campaign for Bresnahan’s seat, her 2 minute, 4-second introductory video, blasted the stock trading.
“Said he wouldn't cut Medicaid,” Cognetti narrates. “Cut Medicaid for over 25,000 of our neighbors sold Medicaid provider stocks just before the vote, profiting off of Pennsylvania's loss.”
Cognetti was still running for re-election as mayor when she announced for Congress, a highly unusual move. Her opponents blasted her as overly ambititous, but city voters didn’t mind.
Cognetti piled up more than twice as many votes as her top two opponents, beating both by more than 35 percentage points.
Now, the former Barack Obama campaign staffer is free to mount a congressional campaign in one of the top races in the country, one that Democrats hope helps them regain control of the U.S. House.
Judge quickly denies Lackawanna County request to delay implementation of reassessed property values
To the last day.
That’s how long proponents had to fight to get updated values for Lackawanna County’s more than 102,000 real-estate parcels.
In all, it only took 58 years and only because a handful of taxpayers went to court to force the county to update values through a reassessment.
The last time the county implemented new values to calculate property taxes was 1968, one of the most tumultuous years in American history.
On Jan. 1, after 58 years, new values will go into effect, raising taxes for some, reducing them for others and keeping them about the same for still others.
“It means that we're doing the right thing,” Commissioner Bill Gaughan said. “Reassessments happen all over the country, sometimes yearly.”
New values will also go into effect Jan. 1 in Schuylkill County, where officials were also forced into reassessment by a taxpayer lawsuit.
Schuylkill County only needed 30 years to get new values.
New values in more counties are on the way. Data collectors are hard at work in Lycoming, Monroe, Northumberland and Union counties.
Split verdict in federal theft ring trial: Alfred Atsus acquitted, brother and two others guilty
More than two years ago, federal prosecutors charged nine people as part of a ring that targeted 20 museums and businesses and stole millions of dollars worth of art, rare guns and sports and other memorabilia.
This year, the gang began learning its fate.
One ring member died last year, but three who pleaded guilty received short prison sentences or less.
Another, ringleader Thomas Trotta, pleaded guilty, starred in a “60 Minutes” story on the ring, but also served as the star prosecution witness in the trial of the other four.
“Are you a thief?” Assistant U.S. Attorney James Buchanan asked during Trotta’s late January testimony.
“Yes I am,” Trotta replied.
“Are you a burglar?” Buchanan asked.
“Yes I am,” Trotta replied.
“Do you steal things?” the prosecutor asked.
“That’s what I do,” Trotta said.
Minutes later, Trotta fingered the four men on trial - Joe Atsus, Al Atsus, Damien Boland and Nick Dombek - as his accomplices and answered why they did it.
“For the money, to make money, an opportunity,” Trotta said.
The federal jury acquitted Al Atsus, but convicted Joe Atsus, Boland and Dombek about two weeks later.
In March, a federal judge sentenced Trotta to eight years in prison. Last month, Boland got nine years. Joe Atsus and Dombek still await sentencing.
Haley Zale, the great niece of the late 1940s middleweight boxing champion Tony Zale, whose belts the ring stole and destroyed, watched the trial with her mother and father and remembered her uncle.
“He was homeless in the streets of Chicago, and nobody in the family knew,” Haley Zale said. “He was too proud to tell anybody. And he could have sold those belts then, and he didn't, because they meant so much to him. So, I think Uncle Tony is looking down proud.”
No regrets, no grudges: Scranton's Wenzel lost limbs in Vietnam, kept war and patriotism in perspective
Last year, Scranton bid farewell to its 28th mayor, Jim Connors, a Democrat at heart who switched to Republican to run for his first term and switched back for a failed run at a fourth.
This year, the city’s 27th mayor, David Wenzel, the last real Republican elected mayor, died.
Wenzel, 80 at his death, died at a veterans nursing home while the University of Scranton honored his career as a triple-amputee Vietnam veteran, role model and advocate for people with disabilities and champion of peace.
Before boarding a flight bound for the Vietnam War that would cost him both legs and part of an arm, Wenzel comforted his wife.
“Don’t worry, I’m a lucky guy,” he said.
Don't forget to follow along each day at WVIA.org as we publish WVIA 2025 Year in Review, recounting the top stories of the past year through New Year's Day.
