At the last North Hempstead Town Board meeting, after the board passed a resolution to go forward with the PUD (Planned Unit Development) for the Lockheed property, the next item on the agenda was the approval of a Task Force to monitor the PUD and who would be granted representation on the Task Force.

The town at the outset announced that the Task Force would consist of nine members: two from the Town of North Hempstead, two from the Village of Lake Success; two from the New Hyde Park Civic Alliance; two from Lockheed Martin Corporate Properties and one from the New Hyde Park Chamber of Commerce.

However, the New Hyde Park Civic Alliance made up of four civic associations in New Hyde Park felt that two representatives was not fair to them and they spoke up. The Alliance represents: Parks Civic Association, North Lakeville Civic, Lakeville Estates Civic and Holiday Civic, which is Manhasset Hills.

The main spokesman, James McHugh, president of the Parks Civic Association said, "This is the most important decision in 25 years, that will impact the last vestige of vacant land on Lakeville Road, in New Hyde Park, that will impact all of the residents of New Hyde Park and you are going to tell us that a community of 900 homes will only have two representatives. We feel we should have at least four representatives to be fair to all the residents of New Hyde Park."

The board argued that the configuration was fair as it was stated, but McHugh did not agree and continued to lobby for the four seats.

Katherine Seyfried, of Lakeville Estates, agreed and issued a very long eloquent statement, that was submitted for the record, stating, emphatically, that New Hyde Park would not be fairly represented with only two seats on the Task Force.

Marianne Wolgemuth agreed and she too read into the record a statement stating that the civics in New Hyde Park should have more of a say in developing such a valuable piece of land that developed improperly will impact the quality of life on all of New Hyde Park.

After a very long discussion, the board spoke among themselves and agreed to give the Alliance members two more seats, but also granted the Village of Lake Success two more seats increasing the number of members on the Task Force from a nine to a 13 member board.

No date has been set for the first meeting but the guidelines of the Task Force are as follows:

The North Hempstead Town Board will appoint a facilitator from the membership of the Task Force who will prepare and distribute meeting agendas, who will have the responsibility to chair each meeting, ensure that all parties are heard and that the agenda is followed. Within ten days after each meeting the facilitator will distribute minutes of the meeting to all members.