Julie Lofstad

The top issues Lofstad would continue to focus on are affordable housing, code enforcement and the environment, she said. “We have such a need out here for affordable housing,” she said. “We don’t have enough opportunity across the whole gamut. And that need merges right into code enforcement. People need to live in a safe place, and in a healthy place.” As part of a commercial fishing business, she said, she especially sees the need to protect the environment, and will look for ways to clean up the waters. “The environment is the engine that runs our economy out here,” Lofstad said. “We need clean water so we can keep clamming.”

Lofstad, 55, of Hampton Bays, is running on the Democratic, Conservative, Independence, Working Families and Women’s Equality party lines. She is seeking her first full term after winning a special election in January 2016. She ran unsuccessfully in 2015. Lofstad previously worked as an airport engineer for the Port Authority, designing runway and lighting systems, and as a bookkeeper for her family’s commercial fishing business. In 2002, she co-founded the Hampton Bays Mothers’ Association, a nonprofit that helped raise more than $100,000 to build two parks in Hampton Bays. She is a past president of the Hampton Bays Elementary School PTA. She received a bachelor’s degree in air commerce and flight technology at the Florida Institute of Technology. She is married and has a daughter.