Voters OK expanding supervisors’ board to 5

The township board of supervisors will increase by two members in 2018 as the result of a close referendum vote Tuesday night.

By a 178-vote margin out of 8,942 votes vast, voters decided to expand the number of seats on the governing board from three to five.

The unofficial final result, according to the Montgomery County elections website, was 4,560 in favor of expanding the board to 4,382 against.

Jim White, the activist who spearheaded the effort with the group Upper Providence First, said he is “very happy with the result, although it was a hell of a lot closer than I thought it would be.”

He has argued that Upper Providence is “the fastest growing township in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania” and, as such, needs a five-member board, like the municipalities that surround Upper Providence.

In a letter to the editor earlier this month, supervisors’ Vice Chairman Lisa-Mossie, who opposed the expansion, suggested it was a political move by former supervisor John Pearson, who lost his bid for re-election in 2015.

In June, the board of supervisors did not vote on a request to put the matter on the ballot, so organizers collected the signatures necessary to put the question to the voters.

As a result of that decision by

voters, two new seats will be added to the board.

They will be staggered, said White, with one holding a four-year-tyerm and

one a two-year-term. The two major parties will field candidates in the 2017 spring primary, presumably, and the final vote on the two seats will be taken next November, White said.

The winning candidates will take their seats on January 2018.