Few Turn Up For Borough Election

By Steve Bigham

A total of 49 people turned out to vote at last week’s borough elections at Town Hall South. The cost to put on the election was approximately $3,500, which works out to about $71 per vote. Typically, even fewer people show up for the election, which means this year’s cost per vote was a relative bargain.

None of the seats up for election this year were contested.

The high cost to put on an election was a subject of discussion at a Board of Burgesses meeting the day after the election.

“We did talk about the cost of it and how we could save money. I think perhaps Borough Attorney Donald Mitchell will be looking into it,” explained Borough Clerk Darlene Spencer.

But it may be difficult. State law mandates the borough hold regular elections because it is considered a separate municipality.

According to the Registrars of Voters, the borough charter would have to be amended to allow for some other form of voting – perhaps a boroughwide meeting, similar to a town meeting. State legislation would also have to be changed.

State statutes require there to be one voting machine for every 900 eligible voters, plus a second machine on hand in case the first one breaks down. In the case of the borough, there were a total of 1,221 eligible voters, meaning three machines were needed and approximately seven paid employees to work and monitor them. There is also the cost of printing up the material for the machines, as well as machine maintenance.

Borough Warden Joan Crick said the issue of changing the borough’s voting mechanism has not been fully researched, but what it had looked at turned out to be a dead end.

“It is stated in the state statute so there really is nothing we can do about it,” she said. “You have to have a machine for every 900 people and you never can predict how many people will show up. If the incumbent were contested like in 1991, you could get 900 people voting.”

Elected last week were incumbent Borough Warden Joan Crick, elected to a seventh term in office, incumbent Board of Burgesses members James O. Gaston, Betsy Kenyon, and Marie F. Walker, Borough Clerk Darlene M. Spencer, Treasurer Marie F. Walker, and Tax Collector/Assessor Dawn Ford.

Also reelected were Borough Zoning Commission members Brian Connolly, Patrick Lyons, and Brid Craddock (alternate), and Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) members Walter Dzitko and John Madzula. Mr Madzula and Janet Woycik were also reelected to the Board of Assessment

The Borough of Newtown is a one-square mile area that runs from Blackman Road in the north to Borough Lane in the south. East to west, the Borough stretches from Sugar Hill Road (off Route 302) to the railroad overpass on Church Hill Road. Approximately 1,800 people live in the Borough and pay additional money in taxes each year.

Judge William Edmond and other prominent members of the center of Newtown formed the Borough of Newtown in 1824, which, at the time, was by far the most densely populated part of town.

Borough zoning was created in 1932, more than 20 years before town zoning was put into place in the 1950s.

In 1995, Main Street was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, and in 1997 the borough was granted its own historic district by the residents of Newtown.