ACCORD – The Rochester town council is poised to finally make a decision on a package of zoning code revisions first proposed nearly two years ago, and when it makes that decision, newly-appointed council member Cindy Fornino will be one of those voting on the measures.

Fornino was selected from three candidates who applied to fill in for Tavi Cilenti, who resigned at the end of July.

Public hearings on the code changes were held open until the October 2 meeting, to allow time for the town and county planning boards to weigh in.

Fornino is a longtime employee of the local hardware store who has served as an alternate member of the town's planning board for the past four months, following a failed bid to be elected to the town council on the Conservative party line last year. She will serve until the end of this year, at which point the last year of Cilenti's term will be served by the successful candidate in a special election to be held this November.

The changes to the code have followed an unusually circuitous path. After the contentious overhaul of town zoning late last decade, Rochester found itself embroiled in litigation over new restrictions to mining, a fight it eventually won. That held up what planning board chairman Michael Baden has described as a fairly routine process: the code is tested through actions of the planning board and zoning board of appeals, and any wrinkles which come up are smoothed out with revisions to the law. There was considerable reluctance to make any changes until the court ruled on the questions before it, so the number of "tweaks" added up over time. With the help of building department staff, Baden put together a package of these revisions, presenting them to the town board in early 2013.

Rather than have the planning board chairman explain the voluminous changes, the town board decided instead to reconvene the committee which had written the overhaul. Replacements were found for those individuals no longer willing or able to serve, and the revised committee made recommendations on a lot of the suggested revisions. A minority of the changes — which board members have loosely referred to as "the 20 percent" — became a sticking point, with board members split on whether it would make more sense to wait on those more contentious sections, or bull through and decide on the remainder themselves. That approach eventually prevailed, with board members Brian Drabkin and Sherry Chachkin leading the charge.

Two public hearings were held, one addressing changes to the chapter on subdivisions, and the other on zoning. Comments mostly focused on refining various definitions to be more precise, as the courts have relied heavily on what definitions a town has in its zoning code when ruling on lawsuits. While members of the public suggested changes no one spoke out in opposition to the revised code or any particular section of it.

Also, the NY Rising funds are nearly ready to start trickling in, and the first project to be addressed in the town will be flooding along the Rondout and Rochester creeks, for which $800,000 has been allocated. Board members authorized Supervisor Carl Chipman to accept the money, which will be kept separately from town funds and doled out once contractors for the work are selected. Chipman said that a request for proposals, or RFP, should be released in about four months. While federal procurement rules are all that's required, Chipman said that the RFPs for NY Rising funds would all follow the more stringent town standards, which call for three written bids for any project of more than $10,000. Federal standards only require that many bids for $100,000 or more.

By the supervisor's description, managing these funds will pose more storage pressure on the town.

"I've been advised to set aside half a file cabinet per project," he told the board.

He also noted that plans to redesign the Route 209 bridge will not be paid for with NY Rising money, being funded instead from several state and federal sources.