Newtown Council Renews Search For First Borough Manager

NEWTOWN TOWNSHIP, PA — The search for a borough manager is back on track after being suspended in December.

Council President Emily Heinz announced on Wednesday that a newly-constituted search committee had met last week with the Meyner Center for the Study of State and Local Government to restart the search process.

The committee includes Mayor John Burke, Council President Heinz and members Kris Bauman and Julia Woldorf.

"The successful applicant will be our first manager to serve under the council-manager form of government, which requires a significant amount of professional local government experience along with an ability to create the culture of the newly-adopted government structure," said Heinz.

During the first round of interviews late last year, Council received 11 applications five of which were interviewed in the first round with two moving onto the second round before the borough's search committee suspended its search.

According to Heinz, the current round of recruitment began in late January with the executive recruitment committee holding a logistics meeting with the Meyner Center, a nonprofit center retained by the borough to assist with the search process.

"The schedule for the recruitment process has mostly been confirmed with the job posting going out by the end of this month, interviews in March, a conditional offer and background check in April with the goal of voting to hire a manager in May," said Heinz.

In other business, the council voted unanimously to make a conditional offer of employment to Mark Robert Compas as a part-time police officer.

Compas is a 2000 graduate of Central Bucks West High School and the Bucks County Community College where he studied criminal justice from 2006 to 2010. He graduated from the Montgomery County Community College Police Academy in 2008.

Also at Wednesday night's meeting, Heinz provided an update on the Centre Avenue pedestrian walkway which was closed last month for repair work.

The walkway was closed on January 22 after pedestrians using the span reported that a foot-wide hole had appeared on the bridge.

Because it’s a state-owned bridge, the borough notified PennDOT and the offices of State Senator Steve Santarsiero and State Rep. Perry Warren.

Due to the unsafe condition, the borough’s public works contractor set up barricades to temporarily close the pedestrian walkway for public use.

PennDOT reopened the bridge on January 30 after it replaced six boards and reinforced others, said Heinz.

The council also approved three special event applications:

• Mikvah Grand Opening, sponsored by Lubavitch of Bucks County, on Sunday, Feb 18 from 12 to 12:30 p.m. There is no rain date.
• Arbor Day, sponsored by the Newtown Borough Recreation Board, on Friday, April 12 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. at Brian Gregg Park. The rain date is April 19.
• Black & White Dinner, sponsored by the Newtown Theatre, on Saturday, Sept. 7 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. There is no rain date.