Kate Murray |

Murray, who points to her experience setting policy for a town with a larger budget and workforce than the district attorney's office, said she wants to more aggressively prosecute heroin dealers as a way of stemming a recent increase in local overdose deaths caused by the drug. She said she will still support diversion treatment programs for addicts, but not for their distributors. "That's the breakdown and distinction that's not happening today," she said. Murray said she wants to reinstate on-the-job training for newly hired prosecutors and would seek to create a new bureau aimed at elder abuse and fraud. "In the Town of Hempstead we take care of nearly 190,000 senior citizens each and every year through various programs. So I have the pulse of our seniors," she said in noting complaints of increased scams and burglaries targeting the elderly.

Murray, 53, of Levittown, is running on the Republican, Conservative, Independence and Reform lines. She also is endorsed by the Law & Order and Tax Revolt parties. She has been Hempstead Town supervisor since January 2003, having been elected to six terms after her initial appointment. Murray served as the town clerk in 2002 and 2003 and as a member of the State Assembly from 1998 to 2001. She began her legal career in private practice and then spent three years as an assistant attorney general for the state attorney general's office. Murray received a bachelor's degree in English from Boston College and a law degree from Suffolk University Law School in Boston, where she was involved in the school's Battered Women's Advocacy Project. She is single.