MIDDLESEX TWP — The attempt by a group of residents to have the number of township supervisors increased to five from three has failed.

The group, led by Crystal Yost, gained enough signatures in the summer to have the referendum placed on the ballot. However, both the north and south precincts voted the measure down Tuesday night.

In the township’s north precinct, 566 voted no while 342 voted yes. In the south precinct, 508 voted no and 389 voted yes to the increase in supervisors.

Yost, a member of the parent group in the Mars School District that opposes the construction of a Marcellus shale gas well pad that will be within a mile of the district’s five schools, said the effort to increase the board from three to five supervisors was mounted because the supervisors failed to listen to the group’s reasoning for having a two-mile overlay placed around the schools to restrict gas wells.

The overlay would have prevented the gas well site, which is being developed on the Bob and Kim Geyer farm on Denny Road.

The three supervisors, Mike Spreng, Don Marshall and James “Hap” Evans, have said the current board is sufficiently overseeing the township. But they said if the voters want two more supervisors, they would accept the situation.

An effort by another member of the Mars parent group to have a referendum to reduce the Adams Township supervisors from five to three members was ruled unconstitutional last month by Butler County Judge Michael Yeager.