Oct. 26—SCRANTON — The four Lackawanna County commissioner candidates answered questions on issues Thursday night, treated each other respectfully, then gently applauded each other's closing remarks.
The responses by Republicans Chris Chermak and Diana Campbell and Democrats Matt McGloin and Bill Gaughan never bothered venturing into attacks on opponents while answering moderator Jean W. Harris' questions, unlike a few past local debates.
The University of Scranton's Center for Ethics and Excellence in Public Service hosted the debate in the school's Pearn Auditorium in Brennan Hall. The center inherited the duty from the League of Women Voters of Lackawanna County, which recently disbanded.
Readers can find a report on the candidates' views on other issues that came up during the debate in The Sunday Times.
Here are views expressed during the debate on issues that get less attention.
Transparency/accountability
Chermak said he's all about transparent and accountable government to ensure "people are where they're supposed to be when they're supposed to be there."
"Everybody needs to be transparent with what they're doing, whether it's the treasurer's office, voter registrations office, over to the prison system," he said.
Gaughan, a former Scranton City Council president who helped rewrite the city ethics code to add teeth and revived the city ethics board, promised the same for the county's ethics code.
"It's only about four pages long. I don't think there's really a lot of teeth in it. And the last time when it was adopted, was in 2008," he said.
McGloin agreed and said he wants the commissioners to annually report on "the state of the county" the way Scranton mayors do.
"Tell the people of Lackawanna County exactly where we stand and exactly ... where we're going," he said.
Campbell, the Mayfield council president, said the borough only has a couple of employees, but she and other council members instituted a time clock.
"And it's not because anybody was being dishonest. It's just because accountability is important," she said.
When developers wanted to build warehouses in Mayfield, she and others distributed leaflets door to door to notify residents of a public meeting to explain the projects.
"You obviously can't do that in the county," she said. "But I think the bottom line about it is they valued that. The residents of Mayfield said, 'Wow, you really cared about what we thought and you let us know that.'"