Summary of February 2023 Board of Supervisors Meeting

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8 February 2023 BOS Meeting Summary

Planning Commission Report, Earned Income Tax Trends, Joint Zoning Council, 2023 Liquid Fuels Program, Sycamore Street Speed limit Reduction, More…

This is my personal summary of the February 8, 2023, meeting of Newtown Township Board of Supervisors (BOS). This is not a complete nor an official summary.

Access the 2023 BOS Chronicle for detailed summaries of all 2023 BOS meetings plus the BOS voting record (UNOFFICIAL) for 2023.

Agenda Items

Planning Commission Report – see Full Summary
Earned Income Tax (EIT) Trends
Joint Zoning Council Report
Engineer's Report
- 2023 Liquid Fuels Road Program
Solicitor's Report
- Speed Limit Lowered to 25 MPH on Sycamore Street
Manager's Report
- Police Report – Traffic Citations (January 2023 and all of 2022)
Official Video
Transcript

As the BOS Liaison, I reported that I attended the January 26, 2023, Bucks County Tax Collection Committee (TCC) meeting where Mr. Joseph W. Lazzaro, Vice President & General Counsel, KEYSTONE collections group, gave an update on Earned Income Tax (EIT) collected in 2022.

Newtown Township collected $5.76 million in resident EIT in 2022 according to Keystone (see 2022 Earned Collection Year-End Report for Newtown Township). In contrast, the township collected $5.24 million in resident EIT in 2021. Thus, the township saw nearly a 10% increase in resident EIT in 2022 over 2021!

For more details read “Bucks County & Newtown Earned Income Tax Collection Up in 2022!”

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Joint Zoning Council Report

Along with Supervisors Dennis Fisher and Elen Snyder, I attended the February 2, 2023, Joint Zoning Council (JZC) meeting. Several items were discussed as mentioned by Mr. Fisher (view the video archive or read the meeting transcript). I focused on the discussion regarding how the Jointure helps pay for expenses related to Provco's/Wawa Validity Challenge to the E30 ordinance.

Basically, Newtown received a fee of $16,250* from Provco for hearing expenses, including the costs of Zoning Hearing Board (ZHB) hearing, compensation for the hearing stenographer, any Consultants or expert witnesses required by the ZHB (but not Newtown consultants), ZHB Solicitor, and a few other things.

*Provo letter dated 10/18/22 includes check for $3,125 in addition to the $16,250.

After that money is expended, Newtown will pay 25% of all other fees and the balance of 75% gets split up and is billed to/paid by each of the three townships according to the jointer formula: 47.17% by Newtown, 37.82% by Upper Makefield, and 15.02% by Wrightstown. This is the new formula approved by the JZC at the meeting.

You can hear the 7-minute discussion on Youtube:

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2023 Liquid Fuels Road Program

RVE – the township engineering firm – has the roadway locations from Joseph Schiavoni – Director of Newtown Public Works Dept – and will begin preparing the bid package for the 2023 program. The bid package consists of 2.32 miles of roads to be paved (BASE BID) as well as 2.18 miles of additional roads if there is enough money (ALTERNATE BID). This works out to a total cost estimate of $1,342,308.

Meanwhile, according to Micah Lewis – Township Manager – the township has a total of $997,000 available from three funds: $530,000 from Liquid Fuels Fund, $300,000 from the General Fund, and $167,000 from the American Rescue Fund. Obviously, this is not enough to cover the expected total needed to pave all the roads in the BASE and ALTERNATIVE bid list of roads,

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Speed Limit Lowered to 25 MPH on Sycamore Street

The BOS unanimously approved lowering the speed limit on North AND South Sycamore Street to 25 MPH.

ORDINANCE No. 2023-O-2 states: “Sycamore Street has been re-designated as North Sycamore Street (between Durham Road and Swamp Road/West Washington Avenue, and South Sycamore Street (between Swamp Road/West Washington Avenue and the Newtown Bypass), and the Board of Supervisors desires to establish a 25 miles per hour maximum speed limit on both North Sycamore Street and South Sycamore Street in the best interests of the public health, safety, and welfare and to allow proper enforcement of the maximum speed limits.” See page 8 of the 2023 BOS Chronicle for the Sycamore Street Speed Signage plan. Also, see the North Sycamore Street Pedestrian Safety Timeline.

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