The Lloyd Town Board renewed a 10 year franchise agreement with Cablevision Altice at last week’s meeting. John Dullaghan, Director of Government Affairs with Altice, highlighted key provisions in the contract.

“This franchise governs video service only, which covers the entire town,” he said, adding that the company is working to provide 10 gig to every household within the next five years.
Dullaghan said the agreement provides for free cable service to 12 buildings, including the schools, the library and one municipal building in Lloyd. He said the company is providing Public Education Grant funding and additional money for the town to improve their communications.

Dullaghan said the agreement provides for a 5% gross revenue franchise fee that goes to that town, a percentage that is regulated and capped by the Public Service Commission [PSC]. He also noted that the Commission had his company invest $70 million in storm preparedness and customer service.

“These are milestones we had to reach with the PSC to make sure we are on track,” he said. “We heard from customers and we’re doing our best to build on that front.”

The board approved the franchise agreement 3 to 1, with Councilman Mike Guerriero the sole no vote. Councilman Joe Mazzetti was absent.

Police and Fire contracts
Supervisor Fred Pizzuto said the board is considering a contract with the Town of Lloyd Police Department and the Fire District. In the coming weeks the board will discuss this in order to move it forward.

Water And Sewer Lines Update
Councilman Lenny Auchmoody said the contractor, who put the water and sewer lines underneath the CSX crossing by the riverfront park, is working to bring these to the education building.

“He is having a tough time because of so much pressure down there on getting the pipe that they need,” he said. “He is hoping that maybe something can happen by the end of the month.”

Auchmoody said they will be cleaning out the education building so that the final inside work can be completed.

Ulster County Reapportionment
Fawn Tantillo, Deputy Clerk of the Ulster County Legislature and Andrew Monk, a member of the Ulster County Commission on Reapportionment, gave a presentation to the Lloyd Town Board on the reapportionment process that takes place every 10 years after the national census is completed. Commission representatives are visiting each town in the county to inform them of the process and to receive their input.

“Our task is to redraw the voting districts for your Ulster County Legislators on the recently released data and we will begin that process shortly,” he said, adding that since the last reapportionment the Legislature went from 33 dual member districts to 23 single member districts.

Monk said the single districts will be retained but there will be some modifications of the boundaries to account for population shifts from a decade ago. He said the Town of Lloyd is in District #9, which includes parts of Plattekill and #10, which includes parts of Marlborough.

“It’s unlikely that the districts will change massively but you will see adjustments based on changes of the population in town,” he said.

Monk said the Commission is required to keep all of the districts more or less even, with a variance of plus or minus 5% in terms of population numbers per district. He noted that although the districts in the western part of the county are larger geographically, they are similar in population size to the eastern districts in the county.

Monk said they diligently work to avoid gerrymandering “at all costs, which is why a citizen commission is so important because the Legislators can’t draw their own district lines to ensure their own partisan victory. Instead, we’re just trying to keep the towns whole and to make sure the populations are the same and we don’t have a partisan dog in that fight.” Presently, the population in each legislative district is approximately 7,600.

Monk said the Commission has partnered with a new mapping company, “so as we do the work you will soon be able to see the maps we’re creating on the county website.” There will also be public hearings scheduled about these districts before they are formally approved.

Supervisor Fred Pizzuto thanked Tantillo and Monk for coming to the meeting.

“It’s very informative, it’s new and I think we’re going to start seeing some innovations going forward,” he said.

ZBA Report To The Town
Previously, Supervisor Pizzuto acknowledged to the Southern Ulster Times that a provision in the town code requires the ZBA to report to the Town Board four times a year on their activities [Ch. 100-56 H (2)]. The code sates that the ZBA shall highlight for the Town Board, “all applications and appeals made to it since its last previous report and summarizing its decisions on such applications and appeals. A copy of such report shall be filed with the Planning Board and the Code Enforcement Officer at the same time that it is filed with the Town Board.”

Previously, Pizzuto and Councilwoman Claire Winslow said adhering to this section of the code was unnecessary, stating that the brief liaison reports to the Town Board were sufficient. After Pizzuto conferred with the town attorney, he reached out to the Southern Ulster Times saying the town had to comply with this section of the code. But at last week’s board meeting he took a different tact on the matter, stating that scheduling tri-board meetings of the town, planning and zoning boards would meet this requirement. He cited no legal statute to back his claim on how this could meet the code requirement but promised to present a date for the tri-board meeting at the next Town Board meeting.