News of Interest to Newtown Area Residents

Growth, especially in Newtown, has boomed and developers continue to put pressure on the township to approve the construction of more homes, convenience stores and shopping centers. And by “pressure” I mean lawsuits and threats of lawsuits. Remember, lawsuits cost the township time and money. At some point — and that point may be now — there is just not enough space and infrastructure (roads, water and sewer services) for it all.

What will Newtown and the other “jointure” municipalities — Wrightstown and Upper Makefield townships — look like in 10 years? How much land will be preserved as open space? How will we protect our water and air from pollution?

I fear that Newtown will become a “Pottersville” (as in the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life”) in the next ten years unless we have a plan in place that puts the brakes on overdevelopment in Newtown, which has been years in the making.

More...

Over 200 people have responded to my online survey: Issues of Importance to Newtown Township Residents, which asks respondents to rate the importance of several issues impacting the quality of life in Newtown Township.

I began this survey in August, 2016, long before I was elected Supervisor in November, 2017. At that time I applied for a vacant position in the hopes that I would be appointed by the Board of Supervisors. Unfortunately they picked someone else who served two years until he lost the election to me in 2017.

Now that I am running again for Supervisor, I want to give residents another chance to take this survey and let me know what is important to them to keep Newtown a great place to live, work, and play. 

NOTE: THIS IS NOT A NEWTOWN TOWNSHIP APPROVED SURVEY. IT IS SOLELY A SURVEY POSTED BY JOHN MACK ACTING AS A PRIVATE CITIZEN. YOU MAY REMAIN ANONYMOUS - YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION IS NEVER REVEALED WITHOUT YOUR PERMISSION.

At its September 25, 2019, public meeting, the Newtown Board of Supervisors (BOS) approved environmental activist Elen Snyder to fill a vacancy in the township's Environmental Advisory Council (EAC). Voting in favor were Supervisors John Mack, Dennis Fisher, Phil Calabro, and Linda Bobrin. Supervisor Kyle Davis was absent.

In her application letter, Ms. Snyder cited her family recycling business in Falls Township, her interest in the future of plastics recycling, and the "Tree Tender" title awarded to her by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society.

"It's very exciting to be approved as an official member of the EAC," said Elen when she learned of the BOS decision. "My passion is first and foremost the environment and specifically climate change and those things that we can do here in our township that will help our children inherit a planet that is cleaner with a focus on getting rid of single use plastics. Also, eliminating pesticides that poison our watershed."

Those unfamiliar with the role of a township supervisor may wonder: What exactly do we do? Are we compensated for our efforts?

To answer the first question and as a matter of accountability, Newtown Township Supervisor John Mack decided to keep track of and report ALL his activities as a supervisor on a monthly basis. Here's his list:

• attend required meetings
• attend optional meetings
• prepare for Board of Supervisors (BOS) meetings
• travel to & from meetings
• interact with residents
• engage in other official activities

Yes, supervisors do get compensated for their time. Article VI, Section 606 of the Pennsylvania Second Class Township Code, sets the annual maximum compensation of township supervisors depending on the number of residents counted in the last census.

Find out what supervisor Mack makes per month and per hour based on time spent on official business…click here.

The National Audubon Society has declared a "bird emergency" after a recent study found that the United States and Canada have lost a combined total of 2.9 billion birds since 1970 — a 29 percent decrease in the bird population over a 50-year period.

Just 12 bird families, including warblers, sparrows, blackbirds and finches, made up more than 90 percent of the total losses, according to the study published in "Science."

Additionally, birds that make grasslands their home had the largest population loss with more than 700 million breeding birds across 31 different species disappearing over the course of the last five decades.

Along with grasslands, bird loss in the United States was quantified in the study across three other terrains: western forest, aridlands and eastern forest. Pennsylvania falls under the eastern forest terrain in the study, where the bird population declined by nearly 20 percent since 1970.

"The connection between birds and humans is undeniable — we share the same fate," David Yarnold, president and CEO of the National Audubon Society, said in a statement. "This is a bird emergency with a clear message: the natural world humans depend on is being paved, logged, eroded and polluted. You don't need to look hard for the metaphor: birds are the canaries in the coal mine that is the earth's future."

Related:

• “Bucks Towns, Including Newtown, Aim to Boost Local Bird Populations in Celebration of 100-Year Anniversary of the Federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act”; http://sco.lt/5BNz8b

At the September 16, 2019, "Work Session" meeting of the Newtown Township Board of Supervisors, Mike Sellers, a member of the Newtown Creek Coalition, invited the Township to join in a project to construct a pedestrian bridge over the Newtown Creek in a partnership with the Borough of Newtown and the Coalition.

The prospective site for the bridge would connect Sycamore Street in Newtown Township with Frost Lane in Newtown Borough. With all of the new restaurants that are opening up in Newtown (Harvest Grille, Turning Point, etc.), some residents of the Borough feel the need for better access from North State Street/Edgeboro Drive to the Sycamore Street area.

There are other bridges over the creek that allow pedestrians to cross. So, why is another bridge needed or desired?

Learn more and give your opinion here…

About 87% of respondents to my online survey (N=151) said they would opt-in to a notification service such as Savvy Citizen as long as it was free to them (7% say “No,” 6% “Not sure”). The survey also collected 84 comments from respondents about the types of messages they would like to receive and if they preferred to receive notices via cell phone app, text message, or via email. 

The Newtown Township Board of Supervisors asked representatives of Savvy Citizen to make a presentation before the Board at the September 16, 2019, Work Session and answer questions. Unfortunately, videos of Work Sessions are not available. However, I made an audio recording of the presentation and present some highlights of the presentation - with audio and video - here.

You can download the complete presentation PDF here.

At the September 11, 2019, Newtown Township Board of Supervisors meeting, Elen Snyder – a resident of the Windermere development on Lower Dolington Road – presented a proposal to enhance the use, appeal and ecological health of Roberts Ridge Park and its watershed through native tree planting project(s).

Township Manager Micah Lewis – who was trained as a landscape architect – endorsed the plan, which the supervisors voted unanimously in favor of.

Donations will be collected from local residents, with an initial goal of planting 32 trees. “I am collecting donations from residents now and plan to start planting trees on Saturday, November 9, 2019,” said Ms. Snyder, founder of Friends of Roberts Ridge Park, a group of local residents.

The donation for each tree is $70, which includes deer protection, stakes, mulch, and a dedication plaque. “Education about native trees and how they help battle pollution and give a home to the insect community will be given to all of the kids (and grownups) at the time of planting,” said Ms. Snyder.

In August 2016, I read a notice in the newspaper that the Township needed to fill a seat on the Board of Supervisors due to a resignation of one of the supervisors. I decided to apply for the position. Not being an experienced follower of Newtown Township politics meant that I was unaware that it was a quixotic attempt — the Board majority chooses someone of their own party. But I impressed the minority members during the interview process and they asked me to run for office in the 2017 election. The rest is history as they say! I received the most votes of any candidate — Republican or Democrat — for supervisor going back to 2007!

I hope to do even better in 2019!

Read more about my qualifications here…

A plan for a new 5,000-square-foot Wawa with gas pumps has received the final green light.

The Middletown Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday evening to approve major final land development for the Wawa on East Lincoln Highway.

Wawa officials said the convenience store and gas station will have one main access point with a traffic signal on East Lincoln Highway across from the Penndel-Middletown Emergency Squad building.

The Wawa will have more than 60 parking spaces and a stormwater basin that will have trees planted around it. Access to township-owned woodland behind the new Wawa will also be allowed.

The location for the new Wawa is on a busy roadway, close to heavily-trafficked I-295, and not far from Route 1. It sits under a mile from the Wawa on Trenton Road and just 2 miles from the Wawa with gas station on Oxford Valley Road, both in Middletown.

The first-ever Newtown Environmental Film Festival will be held on the evening of Thursday, Sept. 19 at the historic Newtown Theatre. The event will feature several short environmentally-focused films, a panel of experts, craft beer sampling, light fare, and a free native-plant raffle.

Tickets for the film festival are available online at TheNewtownTheatre.com or at the box office one hour prior to the event for $10.

The evening will kick off at 6:30 p.m. with socializing and beer sampling from Newtown Brewing Company, a member of the Audubon Society’s Brewers for the Delaware River Association.

At 7:30 p.m., several short films will be screened that highlight issues such as the impact of people on bird migration, our connection to the Delaware River, and the importance of native plants in keeping water clean and providing habitat for birds.

Following the film screening, a panel of experts will discuss these issues and how area residents can help protect local resources. Confirmed panelists include moderator Beth Brown, Audubon Pennsylvania’s Director of the Delaware River Watershed Program; filmmaker Bruce Byker James; Diane Smith, Director of Education for the Bucks County Audubon Society; Zack Greenberg, Senior Associate for The Pew Charitable Trusts; and Steve Meserve, Owner of Lewis Fishery in Lambertville.

Newtown Township and Newtown Borough officials will also be present to share news about local efforts to increase the use of native plants. Several attendees will win the native plants that are part of the pop-up native plant garden that has been installed outside the theatre for this event.

Lower Makefield residents will get their chance to voice their support or displeasure for a proposed development that includes a Wegmans grocery store.

A hearing to amend a zoning ordinance to establish a “mixed-used overlay district” around a 36-acre property near Shady Brook Farm will be held at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 9 at Pennwood Middle School, 1523 Makefield Road, township officials announced Friday.

On Aug. 12, the planning commission voted to continue the last hearing after hundreds of residents packed the township building with many opposed to the proposal by Shady Brook Investors LP and ELU DeLuca Yardley LLC. The plan they have dubbed Prickett Run at Edgewood calls for stores, apartments and amenities along with the Wegmans.

On the day of the hearing, several attendees received a flier in the mail from an unidentified sender warning that “Lower Makefield is for sale” since the proposed ordinance would “change our zoning for big box retail, apartments, warehouse, stores ... whatever.” [Read “Lower Makefield Residents Jam Hearing to Protest Proposed Ordinance Amendment to Allow Wegmans & Apartments on Stony Hill Road Near Shady Brook Farms”; http://sco.lt/7p3iBE]

During the meeting, several residents said that they are worried that the development would bring even more traffic to the heavily traveled road near the Newtown Bypass. Many said that the township doesn’t have room for more development.

Developers want to amend the current ordinance* to bring the 100,000-square-foot supermarket, 55,000 square feet of retail space and 200 apartments less than than a half mile from Route 332 at the corner of Stony Hill and Township Line roads. Along with the supermarket and retail space, Prickett Run would include a “community gathering area” featuring a clubhouse, courtyard, splash fountain and amphitheater, said Vince DeLuca, of DeLuca Homes.

Playa Bowls opened its first location five years ago in the Jersey Shore town of Belmar by Robert Giuliani and Abby Taylor.

The pair was inspired by surf trips to Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, California and Hawaii.

"Almost every exotic surf town they visited offered their own unique version of an acai or pitaya bowl. They decided to recreate their favorite recipes with their own twist at home at the Jersey Shore," according to the website.

Kelly Sitch, an ecologist with the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources — Bureau of Forestry, will share an illustrated program about Pennsylvania’s native plant species at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 12 at the Old Library by Lake Afton, 46 W. Afton Ave.

The free presentation is hosted by the Friends of the Delaware Canal.

As well as providing the basics, Sitch will tell how native plants can be threatened, what the commonwealth is doing to manage and protect them, and what the public can do to help conserve them. Sitch will be joined by Kristi Allen, coordinator for the Pennsylvania Plant Conservation Network.

The PPCN is a new statewide program that coordinates conservation efforts of native plants by working with communities to promote stewardship.

Pennsylvania is home to about 3,000 plant species; two-thirds are considered native because they have adapted to the local environment and can exist without direct or indirect human intervention. The use of native plants in the landscape can save time, money, water and provide vital habitat for birds and other wildlife.

The nearly 800 registered nurses at St. May Medical Center in Bucks County have voted to unionize and be represented by the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Health Professionals.

Among the nurses who cast ballots in the two-day election that ended Friday night, the vote was 403 to 285 in support of joining the union

Based in Conshohocken, PASNAP represents more than 8,000 nurses and health-care professionals across the state.

“As health care has deteriorated to health business, nurses have had to bear the weight of the cuts in staffing and resources” said Joe Gentile, a nurse at St. Mary in Langhorne. “Now more than ever, we need to unify and advocate for each other. I’ve worked at St. Mary for over 35 years. This is my hospital, my home and my community. This hard-fought victory has given us a voice, a hope, and a future.”

More than 40 municipalities have been the victims of cyberattacks this year, from major cities such as Baltimore, Albany and Laredo, Tex., to smaller towns including Lake City, Fla. Lake City is one of the few cities to have paid a ransom demand — about $460,000 in Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency — because it thought reconstructing its systems would be even more costly.

In most ransomware cases, the identities and whereabouts of culprits are cloaked by clever digital diversions. Intelligence officials, using data collected by the National Security Agency and others in an effort to identify the sources of the hacking, say many have come from Eastern Europe, Iran and, in some cases, the United States. The majority have targeted small-town America, figuring that sleepy, cash-strapped local governments are the least likely to have updated their cyberdefenses or backed up their data.

Two years ago such attacks were still relatively rare. But now they are far more targeted, and as companies and towns have shown an increased willingness to pay ransoms, criminals have turned to new and more powerful forms of encryption and more ingenious ways of injecting the code into computer networks. Only this summer did the United States begin to see multiple simultaneous attacks, often directed at government websites that are ill-defended.

Last year, hackers based in Ukraine hit Allentown, Pa., a city of 121,000 residents, with a malware package that shut down the city government’s computers for weeks. No explicit ransom demand was made, but the attack played out like many that target cities, said Matthew Leibert, Allentown’s longtime chief information officer.

When an Allentown city employee took a laptop with him while traveling, it missed software updates that might have blocked the malware. The employee unwittingly clicked on a phishing email, and when he returned to the office, the malware spread rapidly.

The attack cost about $1 million to clean up, Mr. Leibert said. Improved defenses are costing Allentown about $420,000 a year, squeezing the city’s budget. He said one frustration was the scattershot targeting that happened to hit Allentown. “There are warehouses of kids overseas firing off phishing emails,” Mr. Leibert said.

Is a mobile-based service needed to notify Newtown residents about emergencies, public meetings, special events, etc.?

Like many local municipalities, Newtown Township has no official Twitter Account or Facebook page to help keep residents informed about public meetings, special events, public service notices, public works projects, etc.

The Township publishes notices in the classified ad sections of local newspapers and posts limited information to its website.

Wouldn't it be better if residents could subscribe to one service that is capable of providing ALL this information or just the information they want to receive? And wouldn't it be great if residents could get this information via a cell phone app, text message, or email?

Learn about a notification system that the Township may consider implementing and TAKE THE SURVEY to express your opinion.