My October 2020 Supervisor Activities: Lots of Meetings!

In October 2020, as Bucks County continued in the COVID-19 "Green Phase", I spent 60 hours on official supervisor business. Over 23 hours were spent attending meetings! I'm happy to report that Board of Supervisors (BOS) public meetings in October were live and allowed members of the public to attend (masks were required). Read summaries of the October 14 and October 28 BOS meetings.

The height of each bar represents total hours spent on official business that day. This includes time spent at meetings. Blue indicates I attended a required meeting that day, orange indicates that I attended an optional meeting that day.
BOS = Board of Supervisors, EDC = Economic Development Committee, JZC = Joint Zoning Council, EAC = Environmental Advisory Council, PC = Planning Commission,
FC = Finance Committee

Log of Hours Spent on Official Business

My log keeps track of the time spent on the following:

Attending “Required” Meetings
Preparation for BOS Meetings
Attending Optional Meetings/Activities
Interaction with Residents
Travel To & From Meetings

What This Report Does Not Include

My log of Supervisor-related activities does not include the many hours I spend posting to this blog, maintaining my personal website, writing a newsletter, creating and posting video clips from meetings, hosting podcast interviews, summarizing decisions made by the Board of Supervisors (BOS Definition), etc. Also not included is the time I spend posting to my personal Facebook page, Twitter account, and Instagram account. These activities are NOT part of my official duties as Supervisor, but represent my personal views.

Interaction with Residents

In my opinion, personal interaction with residents regarding their concerns is an important part of my responsibilities as Supervisor. I want to be sure that I spend enough time reaching out to and responding to residents via personal contact, official email via my johnm@newtownpa.gov account and via my personal john@johnmacknewtown.info account, and via phone and/or Facebook.

In October 2020, I spent 7.3 hours (12% of my total logged hours) interacting with residents in my official capacity as supervisor. Because of the COVID-19 restrictions, I am using Zoom to meet with residents. In October, I hosted two Meet Mack Monday Zoom meetings.

What did I discuss with residents? Here’s a partial list (some items are not included for confidentiality reasons):

Arcadia Litigation (discussed at the "October 12, 2020, Meet Mack Monday meeting")
Proposed 2021 Budget (read "Proposed Newtown Township Tax Increase is a 'Little Troubling'"; listen to the discussion)
Lack of Cable TV access to BOS meetings for some seniors

I decided to keep track of my activities as a Supervisor on a monthly basis partly because I want to be accountable to residents, but also to make sure I am making the best use of my time. It's really an honor to serve the community! I learn something new every day and have met many fine people and volunteers who also put in a lot of time without any compensation at all. Thanks to everyone who help keep Newtown in business and safe.

Posted on 05 Nov 2020, 12:54 - Category: Open Records/Transparency