Against a thematic background of ‘Unity Across the Community’, Judge Eugene Rizzo administered the oaths of office for those who will be serving the Town of Lloyd in the coming years.

A Color Guard from the Highland Hose Company displayed the flags as Scouts from Troop 70 led in the Pledge of Allegiance, This was followed by Laila Mach singing the Star Spangled Banner.

Highland Fire Department Chaplain Fred DeMaio offered an Invocation Prayer.

“Heavenly Father we pause this morning at the start of this new year to say thank you and ask for your blessing and protection, your wisdom and your courage. We thank you Lord for everything from this past year, from good times in abundance to challenges and grief. It builds our character and makes us realize that you are the maker of all things,” he said. “We lift up and ask your blessing over our newly elected town and fire district officials. We pray that your spirit will guide them and lead them every step of the way today and every day of this coming year.”

In a subsequent interview Supervisor David Plavchak laid out the Town Board’s immediate plans for 2022. He said after the re-organization meeting, “we’re definitely going to tackle the adaptive re-use issue, the ambulance contract has to be closed and sometime in the first quarter put together a Comprehensive Plan Committee to review it, which is a good 6 or 7 month type of activity.”

Plavchak said the Town Board will soon have to make a decision on a zoning change for the Assisted Living Facility and Planned Residential Retirement Development project, known as The Villages in the Hudson Valley off of Route 9W, opposite Hannafords.

“I want to also focus a lot on infrastructure, specifically the water and sewer plant, because they have kind of been neglected a little bit,” he said. “I think we have capacity at the one up on Brecia, but I think we’ve got to make it more effective because if you look at what we spend to purify the water versus what we bring in, in revenue, there’s a gap that I want to close. We’re going to have to look at if we have a problem with rates, a problem with the cost of chemicals or do we have a problem with the fact that the plant is old.”

Plavchak expects these 4 or 5 issues will keep the Town Board busy for the next few months.

“We’re looking forward to it. I think we have a good board and I want to try to get us working together, moving forward to the same outcome,” he said.

“We’re not always going to agree but as long as we can have the right objectives, it’s good sometimes to have resistance and hear all sides of the story. I’m definitely, definitely going to reach out to citizens at different times to try and get some new ideas, writing them down on paper or a white board and figuring out the pros and cons and getting the Town Board to determine what’s right or wrong and move forward. I’m looking forward to starting.”