My Guest Opinion from the Bucks County Courier Times

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Jenn Dix

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Oct 23, 2009, 7:54:53 PM10/23/09

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Newtown Township residents:

Thought you might like to see my guest opinion from yesterday's Courier. Please feel free to share this with friends and neighbors.

Changing of the old guard?

Ruling party arrogant and self-serving

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Bucks County Courier Times

By Jennifer Dix

The Newtown Township Board of Supervisors has had the same party in power for decades. As often happens when one party holds power for so long, many of our leaders have become self-serving and arrogant - putting their party ahead of the people.

Consider this:

1. Brandywine Office Complex

· Brandywine received preliminary approval to build a 414,000-square-foot office complex in the backyard of 400 homes in 2003, but needed a special exception for final approval. A Republican supervisor accepted a campaign contribution from a vice president of Brandywine in 2004. In 2005, the Newtown Area Republican Committee received donations from that same company official and the Republican Committee then donated to the political campaigns of two Republican candidates.

· Our supervisor majority supported a traffic plan designed to feed the more than 1,600 cars a day from the office complex through a neighborhood comprised of 150 families.

· Certain leaders loosened our floodplain ordinance for Brandywine, so they could build a multi-million dollar bridge through environmentally sensitive wetlands. Ongoing maintenance for a replacement of the bridge would have been an unnecessary financial burden on Newtown taxpayers.

· Residents, who were negatively impacted were forced to take legal action.

2. Upper Silver Lake Road

· Upper Silver Lake Road residents on the lower portion of the road didn't have to worry about the traffic from the Brandywine office complex traffic going through their neighborhood. They made a deal in a private meeting with a developer to have their road closed as part of the approval of Wiltshire Walk with the support of Republican supervisors. An elected Republican official lives on the lower portion of Upper Silver Lake Road. Existing residents not part of this private meeting were never given notice of the closure, nor were there publicly held hearings to vacate the road.

· Residents negatively impacted by this were forced to take legal action to get the right thing done.

· In August 2009, a judge ruled in favor of residents and ordered the road opened. At the Aug. 26 supervisors meeting, the board majority again did the wrong thing for most residents by voting to spend taxpayer dollars to appeal the legal ruling. The newly appointed supervisor was part of the majority - already demonstrating his willingness to put the party over the people.

3. Traffic calming for Stoopville and Swamp roads

· For years, Republican leaders disregarded residents' pleas for traffic calming measures on Stoopville Road and Swamp Road to ensure the safety of cars, school buses, pedestrians and bicyclists sharing those roadways with quarry trucks. It took fresh leadership from the Democratic Party - both locally and at the state level - to finally get traffic calming for Stoopville Road.

· Swamp Road residents continue to get lip service by Republican leaders who have failed to take any initiative for traffic calming on that road. In contrast, Democratic leaders have publicly pushed - since October 2008 - for downgrading Swamp Road from an arterial highway to a collector road so it can get much needed traffic calming measures.

4. Other examples:

· Old guard leaders made a decade-long push to move the Stockburger car dealerships out to the Bypass against the wishes of most residents.

· Certain Republican supervisors allowed the LSAT office building near Newtown Gate to ignore its' light curfew and to be lit up until all hours of the night. The angry complaints of bordering residents fell on deaf ears. Was this because the leader of LSAT was allied with the supervisor majority?

Newtown is ripe for change. We need a more open and honest government that truly serves and listens to the people.

Joanne Bintliff-Ritchie is the person I trust to bring these needed changes. She is not a political insider and has no ambitions for higher office. She is a long-time Newtown resident, human resources professional, wife, and mother who truly wants what is best for our community. She will work hard to:

· Ensure quality of life is enhanced for all residents, rather than a select few.

· Make preserving open space a priority by being creative and proactive.

· Choose the most qualified people for appointed positions and not political cronies.

· Improve revenues and better manage our investments.

· Make spending decisions more transparent.

I hope voters will give Joanne the chance to lead our local government. I have crossed party lines to serve on her campaign because I believe she will truly do the right thing for the residents of Newtown.