Brenda Sacco’s Lackawanna County Department of Planning and Economic Development awarded $30,000 in county grants to six different businesses owned by Alpesh Patel in early 2023, about two years before the county Democratic Committee advanced Sacco as a finalist to replace former Democratic Commissioner Matt McGloin.
Patel, the county Democratic Committee’s executive director, participated in the recent, controversial and now-paused process that saw Sacco advance as one of three finalists for the commissioner appointment from a pool of 18 applicants. He also benefited from at least six $5,000 county Business Improvement Grants, or BIG, that Sacco authorized in January 2023 to reimburse Patel-owned businesses for equipment purchases at gas stations and other enterprises, grant agreements obtained by The Times-Tribune show.
They’re among “hundreds of BIG grant agreements” Sacco signed during her tenure as economic development director, she said in a text message, noting she “always followed a fair and equitable process.” Sacco rejected any suggestion that her advancing as a finalist to succeed McGloin was tied to grant awards or other support for Patel’s business ventures.
“I am not sure where this false ‘quid pro quo’ theory is coming from but no one could have predicted 2 years ago that Commissioner McGloin would have resigned and created this vacancy,” Sacco said in a statement. “This is obviously a political hit by my detractors to somehow try and discredit my character and qualifications.”
“In my role as Economic Development Director, I helped many individuals and continue to do so for the betterment of the county,” she continued. “Improving the quality of life in Lackawanna County has always been my #1 goal and continues to be.”
After sending that statement, Sacco and her attorney, Paul Walker, filed in county court a petition seeking to intervene in legal action Democratic Commissioner Bill Gaughan and the county commenced challenging the Democratic Committee’s replacement process. Sacco contends Gaughan and the county’s legal arguments are without merit and should be dismissed with prejudice. She also contends the litigation is a pretext for Gaughan and the county to delay her potential appointment and orchestrate a “coordinated smear campaign” against her.
Her filing describes reporting by The Times-Tribune, accusing Gaughan and the county of pushing false narratives in the press to thwart and “sabotage her rightful appointment as Commissioner.” Sacco seeks in court an order preventing Gaughan and the county “from disclosing records, documents and information narrowly relating to (Sacco’s) previous employment” as county economic development director.
County solicitor Donald Frederickson acknowledged Sacco’s filing in a statement Friday.
“To the extent that Lackawanna County is being accused of ‘leaking’ information to the press, this accusation is completely false and not based in reality,” he said. “Any informationwhich the county has provided to the press is public information which any citizen and taxpayer is entitled to receive. At no time was any confidential or privileged information relating to any employee or former employee disseminated by the county government.”
Sacco led the county’s economic development department for about five years before Gaughan and McGloin dismissed her in January 2024, shortly after they took office as the county’s majority commissioners.
Former Commissioners Patrick O’Malley, Laureen Cummings and Jerry Notarianni established the Business Improvement Grant program funded by county taxpayers in 2016. The resolution adopting the grant program directs the economic development director to “sign and authorize” all documents related to the program.
Sacco signed in January 2023 grant agreements on behalf of the county with six different business entities where Patel is listed as an owner, each of which received $5,000 in reimbursement funding.
The businesses approved for reimbursement were Alnajuk LLC, Najukal LLC, Binnie Enterprise Inc., Al & R LLC, Al & P LLC and Abpatel Rasodu LLC. A seventh $5,000 grant was awarded to a firm called Als Tamaku LLC, with Komal Patel and Ronak Patel listed as owners. And while the grant documents don’t list Alpesh Patel as an owner of that business, his name appears in a corporate resolution submitted with other application materials.
Multiple efforts to reach Alpesh Patel were unsuccessful.
The county awarded more than 30 BIG grants in 2023, with most of the individual grants totaling $5,000.
While the county’s Business Improvement Grant manual notes that only one grant is to be awarded per eligible applicant, Sacco said business entities with different FEINs — federal employer identification numbers — were considered separate and distinct businesses and would be considered eligible for BIG funding provided they met all other funding requirements. County Economic Development Director Kristin Magnotta, who succeeded Sacco in that role, confirmed that remains the case.
All of the Patel-owned businesses receiving BIG grants have different FEINs, the grant documents show.
The newspaper’s review of the 2023 grant documents follows its recent reporting that Sacco served as a consultant for Alpesh Patel after Gaughan and McGloin dismissed her as county economic development director early last year and before the county Democratic Committee advanced her, Olyphant Borough Council President James Baldan and Scranton School Director Robert J. Casey as candidates to potentially replace McGloin. She denied in her court filing working as a “paid consultant” for the businessman.
Sacco is listed as a “consultant” on a document related to a state Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program grant that Alpesh Patel secured for a hotel and event space project at the former Gertrude Hawk property on Drinker Street in Dunmore. He applied in 2023 for $3 million in RACP funding to support the hotel development and secured a $500,000 state grant for the project last year. Specific details of Sacco’s consulting arrangement remain unclear.
Gaughan, who blasted the Democratic Committee’s replacement process as opaque and politically tainted, commenced his legal action last month in an effort to remove the committee from the process altogether. He and the county, both parties to that legal action, contend the replacement process established by the county’s Home Rule Charter violates a rule of judicial administration the state Supreme Court adopted in 2019.
Because McGloin is a Democrat, the Home Rule Charter process tasks the county Democratic Committee with submitting the names of three potential appointees for consideration by the judges of the county Court of Common Pleas.
The process that played out in late February saw county Democratic Party leaders, including Alpesh Patel and county Democratic Chairman Chris Patrick, use a scoring rubric to narrow a list of 18 applicants for the vacancy to three finalists: Sacco, Baldan and Casey. Those finalists were then put before the county party’s full executive committee, which voted to advance them to the judges.
Prior to the committee’s Feb. 27 vote to advance Sacco, Baldan and Casey, Gaughan held a press conference to introduce Dunmore Mayor Mark “Max” Conway Jr. as his preferred choice to replace McGloin. He later argued, after Conway wasn’t chosen as a finalist, that the committee’s process “threatens to turn the county over to a small group of politicos.”
Patrick vigorously defended the committee process against Gaughan’s broadsides, arguing Gaughan only ever supported one candidate, Conway, who Patrick said “isn’t even close to being qualified to be county commissioner.”
He also vigorously defended Sacco’s qualifications, noting she scored highest on a rubric party leaders used to determine which three candidates to put before the full executive committee. That rubric included points for government, professional and economic development experience, experience developing or helping to develop budgets, educational background and experience working for or with the county Democratic Committee.
“Brenda Sacco has a resume that would blow your mind if you looked at it,” Patrick said last week. “And Brenda Sacco, if anybody wants to dispute her qualifications let me say this to you, she’s more qualified by her resume to be the county commissioner than Bill Gaughan, Chris Chermak, Matt McGloin and probably 10 commissioners before (them).”
Gaughan continues to blast the Democratic Committee’s process.
“The Lackawanna County Democratic Party conducted a secretive process, to the point that it did not conduct interviews and did not even disclose the names of all the applicants,” he said in a statement Friday. “Alpesh Patel, as party executive director, reviewed the applications and he had a vote in the process. 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.”
The question of whether the Democratic Committee process should stand will be decided in court.
Gaughan and the county seek an amendment to a March 6 court order on the process of replacing McGloin that would bring the order into compliance with Pennsylvania Rule of Judicial Administration 1908, effectively removing the Democratic Committee from the process of filling McGloin’s seat for the almost three years remaining on his unexpired term.
Rule 1908 says the county court, not a political party, “shall receive applications from any interested candidates for the position” pursuant to a deadline established by the court.
Sacco’s court filing contends the Home Rule Charter “is superior to an internal court rule” and controls the replacement process.
President Judge James Gibbons gave last month the county Democratic Committee until April 7 to answer as to why the relief sought by Gaughan and the county shouldn’t be granted.
A panel of three senior Lackawanna County judges recently scheduled oral arguments in the legal matter April 22. Briefs from all parties to the issues raised by Gaughan and the county must be filed with the court no later than April 14.
Sacco seeks to have the matter dismissed “as soon as possible,” arguing in her filing that the briefing schedule and oral argument date necessarily mean “this case will be alive in the press for three more weeks.”
That would give Gaughan and the county more time to “impugn” her character with false allegations, she contends.