The Northport Village Council proclaimed Bob Newell as the Citizen of the Year at its regular meeting on June 19.
The village received three nominations for the citizen of the year award including: Newell, for his work on village’s Tree Committee, including raising over $24,000 from bottle deposit returns to fund tree planting in the village; Kent Holton for his 37 years of service for Music in the Park; and Tom and Deb Wetherbee, who built a climbing wall at Northport School, and for 23 years, have organized the school climbing wall, without pay, for families to come free of charge to climb.
Newell said the award is recognition of the village tree planting and can collection project that’s been a team effort over the last couple of years. Since the summer of 2023, Newell has played a vital part in the village’s can recycling collection process, whether it be gathering the cans from the Northport Recycling Center and taking them into town to be redeemed or with coordinating tree planting events. The funds collected from recyclables have been used for initiatives such as the purchase of trees for the village. Newell said by the end of 2025, he estimates that a total of about 50 trees will have been planted using funds from the can collection program.