Yardley Borough Council welcomed two new faces at its June 21 meeting.
All seven council members voted unanimously to appoint Christine Ventresca as the borough’s new tax collector and hire Colin Murphy as a part-time police officer. His hiring is contingent on him successfully getting through some psychological and other testing, Police Chief Joseph D. Kelly III said.
Ventresca was one of seven applicants for the tax collector’s job after Cheryl Lowe-Cler asked to be replaced as soon as possible. She had served 20 years as the borough’s tax collector before retiring last year but then stepped back in to serve again after the newly-elected tax collector resigned barely two months into the job. Lowe-Cler had been filling the position since, and council also voted unanimously at the June 21 meeting to accept her resignation.
“I’m thrilled and want to thank the council for appointing me,” Ventresca said after the meeting. A 1992 Pennsbury High School graduate, she is a 38-year resident of Yardley Borough and lives there with her husband, Will, and their two teenage children.
Ventresca, who has a law degree, said she once worked in the office of a start-up company handling accounts receivable. She currently does not have another job and said she will have a lot of time and energy to devote to the tax collector position.
Ventresca will serve through 2023 by virtue of the appointment but said she definitely plans to run for the job in that year’s election in the hope of keeping it beyond 2023. She is scheduled to be sworn in at the July 19 council meeting.
Council member Matt Curtin, who made the motion to appoint Ventresca, lauded her many volunteer efforts and organizational skills. Curtin and other council members also praised the other six applicants – Carol Riker, Deborah Desroaches, Joanne Imhof, Fatu Markey, Beth Trevisani and Kristin Archibald – saying the council had a strong pool of candidates from which to choose.
Yardley’s tax collector is paid to collect borough, Pennsbury School District and Bucks County property and other taxes from borough residents.
This will be Murphy’s first police officer position after working the last several years as a tow truck driver while trying to break into law enforcement. A 2014 graduate of Council Rock High School South in Northampton Township, he has an associate’s degree in criminal justice from Bucks County Community College and a bachelor’s degree in the same major from Temple University.
His hiring leaves the police department with nine part-time officers and five full-time, including the chief.
Also at the June 21 meeting, council voted unanimously to award a $753,597 contract to G & B Construction for Phase Two of the North Main Street sidewalk installation project.
It also unanimously approved advertising for bids on a three-year snow removal contact that would take effect in October.
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