Murray for another term

The Town of Hempstead provides residents with a range of services, from sanitation to highways to water to senior citizen programs. But during Kate Murray’s current term, the town’s role as a zoning and environmental authority on the Lighthouse project has been in the spotlight locally and nationally.

The task of deciding on such a transformational development is one that most elected officials never have to tackle in a lifetime. The Lighthouse has been compared to the crafting of Levittown, which served as a unique model for suburbia more than a half century ago.

Murray has been accused of delaying the town’s decision on the proposal. Her defense is what she calls the town’s expeditious and unprecedented 20-month process, which normally takes years. While she has reservations about the scale of the project as proposed, she says she is confident that a development in some form will occur at the Nassau Coliseum property.

Everyone knows that this development, as proposed, will raise major traffic, water-use and other issues, and bring major benefits in terms of employment and tax revenue. We believe Murray and the town board should have been more involved sooner, and that political self-interest — on both sides — has muddied a project already fraught with complications of great consequence. Murray must stop using legalistic, procedural defenses that make her and the town board seem like obfuscators on projects like the Lighthouse and the Courtesy Hotel in West Hempstead.

Otherwise, it is hard to criticize Murray’s performance as town supervisor. She has led an administration that has held the line on taxes and even reduced spending during difficult economic times, while maintaining the highest bond rating. Several green initiatives have been implemented during her term, thanks in part to her administration’s ability to find grants that fund these projects without impacting town taxpayers.

Town services have been maintained and even expanded at times during this tumultuous economic period. While some senior citizens’ services were cut on the county level, Murray’s administration absorbed some of those left behind into town-run programs.