Elen Snyder To Lead Newtown Township Supervisors In 2025

NEWTOWN TOWNSHIP, PA — Supervisor Elen Snyder was elected chair of the township’s board of supervisors on Monday during the board’s annual reorganization meeting.

Joining her in leading the five member board into 2025 will be vice chairman Dennis Fisher and board secretary and assistant treasurer John Mack.

Snyder, who has served as vice chairman of the board for the past year under the chairmanship of Fisher, pledged to continue her support for the township’s first responders and for the environmental health of the township.

Key Projects On The Agenda

Some of the key projects on the agenda this year include looking into renovations at the township’s police and fire departments at the township complex on Durham Road, the installation of new sidewalks at the Newtown Business Commons, and the construction of pedestrian warning signals at Sycamore and Silo and at Tara Boulevard and Newtown-Yardley Road.

“We will also be looking at ways to fund items that couldn’t be funded in this year’s budget such as more police, more firefighters, additional public works employees and capital purchases including public works vehicles and investigative tools for the police," said Snyder.

Snyder, who was elected to the board in 2021 to a two year term, won reelection to a six year term in 2023. She has served as liaison to the board's Environmental Advisory Council.

During her first term Snyder successfully assisted in negotiating an agreement between the township and the borough to ensure that both will have adequate fire coverage coordination for years to come. And last year, as liaison to the EAC, she supported and helped pass a ban on single use plastic in the township.

Snyder thanked her fellow supervisors “for trusting me to be the chairperson for 2025. I appreciate the wise guidance that I have gotten from them in the past three years that I have been serving my township.”

She continued, “There is nothing that gives me more pleasure than helping with the things I care about here, which includes the protection and welfare of those who live and work here. We have such great men and women working for the township, including the brave people in our emergency services and all those who work behind the scenes.”

Snyder also thanked departing chairman Dennis Fisher for his leadership of the board and his mentorship and guidance. “He’s been a real role model and mentor,” she said.

A Look Back At 2024

Looking back over the past year, Fisher highlighted some of the township’s major accomplishments including passage of an overlay district that will introduce new uses at the Newtown Business Commons.

The supervisors also awarded bids for new sidewalks at the business commons and secured a $1 million grant for a pedestrian bridge that will link the township and the borough at North Sycamore Street.

Fisher said the township also addressed pedestrian safety in 2024 with the awarding of two bids for warning lights at Sycamore Street and Silo Drive and at Tara Boulevard and the Newtown-Yardley Road.

In addition, Fisher said through its road program the township paved close to two miles of township streets.

In 2024, the township also hired four new career firefighters through a federal SAFER grant and welcomed two new police officers, one of whom will serve as a Student Resource Officer.

The township also commissioned an LED streetlight conversion project “which is well underway,” said Fisher. “And we also enacted the single-use plastic ordinance,” he said.

The township also purchased a new street sweeper, police cruisers, police vests, radios and body cams for its police officers and a tractor and several mowers for public works.

“We also ordered two pieces of fire apparatus to be designed, built and delivered in 2028,” said Fisher.

“And all this was done and more with no tax increase in 2025,” he said.