Last week the Lloyd Town Board authorized Supervisor Dave Plavchak to sign an annual insurance policy with Marshall & Sterling that runs from October 2025 through September 2026. This year the premium was  $291,000 and for next year the company quoted $312,000, a 7.2% increase. Plavchak indicated that the town will raise the property deductible from $5,000 to $10,000 and with a few other adjustments is hoping to bring the annual premium to about $301,000.  

 

Before the vote, Councilman Mike Guerriero asked if there were any other insurance companies interested in insuring the town with Plavchak responding there were no others.

 

“NYMIR [New York Municipal Insurance Reciprocal] was the only one that would bid it,” Plavchak explained. “We also went to the Reese Group in Kingston and they thought they had someone who wanted to bid on it, but they backed out because we had some claims in the past and did not want to bid us either. I think there were about 13 insurance companies they tried and the only one that would really come back with a bid was NYMIR,” he said.

 

Plavchak said the idea behind NYMIR, “is that all policyholders share the risk and they use various underwriters/companies. Many of the large companies we know will not insure public entities, such as school districts and municipalities.”  

 

The board also approved a bid of $1,461.49 to have Builders Source enclose a heated plumbing area in a storage room at the Lewis C. DiStasi Jr. pavilion so that it can be used year round.

 

The board approved the purchase of a 2025 Ventrac Tractor with a tough cut and finished deck through Sourcewell Contract at a cost of $44,936.32, which is budget supported, and at the recommendation of Highway Superintendent Richard Klotz.

 

The board authorized the Supervisor to execute a contract with the Arold Construction Company for the Cured-in-Line Piping and Manhole Restoration project, paying up to $126,000 from the Infiltration and Inflow reserve line.  

 

“This is for about 1,800 feet of lining, mostly on Grove Meadow and Commercial Avenue and a section of Woodside Avenue and Woodside Place for an estimate of $126,000. There is some allowance in there, so we won’t go over it. We do have the budget for it because we have been putting away money for INI [about $230,000],” he said. “The other reason we want to do this is we know we have pockets throughout the town where we have clay pipe in a wetland. It’s old clay pipe, which I think the seams are normally every three feet and we’re getting infiltration in there by the flow rates at the sewer plant when it rains,”

 

Plavchak said doing this gives the town has a better chance of securing grants in the future for this type of work in other areas of town.

 

“We just can’t wait to do $100,000 a year because it would take us forever to get through the rest of the town,” he said, adding that the last time this was done was in the 2008-2009 time frame. “So it’s been kind of neglected for 17 years and we want to get started now because we’ve got the process, we know how to bid it and we’ll bid it every year and every year get a different price.”

 

Water & Sewer Director Adam Litman reported that the town is currently running full river water and the wells. He pointed out that in the past month the Hudson River has experienced an increase of a Harmful Algae Blume [HAB].

 

“We have been working with the Department of Health, and collecting samples twice a week from the raw and finished water. The HAB is present in the raw samples, but below the limit/undetected in the finished water. Our treatment process is working well,” he said.

 

Litman said the sodium content in the Hudson River increased in September to advisory levels and the rain last week did lower the concentration.

 

Litman said they finished reassembling the centrifuge and then tested it.   

“Our electrician had to reset the operating parameters for the clutch assembly and after starting it up a bearing failed in the gearbox,” he said.

 

Litman said Kayden Industries came and assisted with the disassembly of the centrifuge and returned it back to Texas. The company came back to assist in installing another unit last week; it is working and handled a full load of sludge.

 

Litman is still waiting for the start-up of the newly installed generator at the John Passante Hudson River Pump Station.