Roads Category

Category: Roads

A Scary Preliminary 2019 Budget, But at Least It Calls for More Roads to be Repaved

It’s that scary time of year again - budget season!

The ghouls, goblins and skeletons were all there last night at the 2019 Budget Presentation. These guys greeted me at the door!

Interim Township Manager Micah Lewis and former Manager, Kurt Ferguson - now a consultant working for Newtown - presented some pretty scary numbers to the Board of Supervisors (BOS) throughout the night. Those numbers have to do with:

unpredictable Earned Income Tax (EIT Definition)
decreasing Real Estate Transfer Tax Definition
alarmingly low predicted year-end General Fund Definition balance
the looming shortfall in the debt service fund

I will post more information about these scary items in the next couple of weeks leading up to Halloween. Meanwhile, feel free to access the unofficial draft of the 2019 Budget here.

For now, I will focus on some good news: the budget includes a road paving program funded mostly from a PA Liquid Fuels Program Definition grant. The proposal is to repave 2.34 miles of roads in 2019. And the winners are:

That's it for now! Come back tomorrow for some more highlights - including video- from last night's Budget Presentation.

2018 Road Paving Schedule

The Newtown Public Works Department released the 2018 road paving schedule:

This schedule, of course, depends upon the weather.

There are a couple of changes from the original list published earlier this year (see here). Quaker Drive in Devonshire Estates and part on Sentinal Avenue at the intersection of Quaker Drive are not on the list due to Sewer Authority work. The Township decided that it wouldn't make sense to repave the roads and then patch them up after the sewer work. Consequently, this road work will be rescheduled for 2020.

Meanwhile, Franklin Court has been added to the list.

Faulty Bids Cause Delay in 2018 Road Improvement Program

At the March 14, 2018, Newtown Board of Supervisors (BOS) meeting, Township Solicitor David Sander advised the Board to reject all bids due to "deficiencies" and to re-bid the 2018 road improvement project.

Township Manager Kurt Ferguson confirmed that this would result in a delay and repaving of approximately 2.8 miles of roads will not be complete until the fall.

The following is the list of roads that was presented at the October 16, 2017, BOS meeting (for details, read "Budget Calls for 2.8 Miles of Roads to Be Repaved").

According to the public "Notice to Bidders" published in the Bucks County Courier Times today (March 20, 2018) and shown on the left, bids from contractors can be submitted not later than April 19, 2018, at 10:00 AM, at which time they will be opened and read aloud at the Newtown Township Administrative Building at 100 Municipal Drive, Newtown, PA 18940.

There will be a non-mandatory pre-bid meeting on April 10, 2018 at 10:00 AM. This would be a good opportunity for bidders to make sure they include all the necessary information when submitting bids.

Needless to say, this may be a big disappointment to residents in the neighborhoods where repaving was scheduled.

I am certainly disappointed. I have pushed for the re-pavement of Everett Drive in Country Bend long before I was elected Supervisor!

It also is problematic considering that many contractors may have commitments that prevent them from bidding on this project or the new bids may be substantially higher than the the rejected ones.