By Tom Grace
Cooperstown News Bureau
June 26, 2009 04:00 am Oneonta Town Councilwoman Janet Hurley-Quackenbush, a Republican, is running for the District 4 seat on the Otsego County Board of Representatives. The seat is held by Democrat Richard Murphy, who is completing the last year of his first two-year term. Hurley-Quackenbush, 42, said Thursday she is running to try to restrain county property taxes. ``I've been working on property-tax relief at the town level, and I'd like to continue that at the county level,'' she said. ``In addition, the county's budget process needs to be fixed,'' she said in a statement e-mailed to The Daily Star. ``In the last two years, the county board has not even passed a budget, opting to let a default budget slide into place instead of a proactive effort to develop a rational budget process, with reforms in place, that ensure each member's participation and an open process,'' she continued. ``We need an active representative who is part of the solution, not a passive voice that lets a default budget set our spending and taxing," Hurley-Quackenbush stated. An Oneonta High School and SUNY Oneonta graduate, Hurley-Quackenbush has been a town council member since 1999. She operates a catering and linen businesses, and has two children in the Oneonta School system, she said during an telephone interview Thursday. ``I'm out in the community, in the schools, and with my business, at parties,'' she said. ``I see and hear from a lot of people.'' As she campaigns for office this summer and fall, she said, she will go door-to-door to listen to and speak with voters. ``I want to know what they expect from county government,'' she said. While serving on the town council, she has pushed for more use of technology "to lower cost and improve service,'' she said. ``I'd like to continue with initiatives like that at the county level.'' Murphy, 59, a retired speech therapist, said he enjoys serving the district on the county board. ``It's not easy sometimes, but it is interesting,'' he said. He defeated longtime Republican Rep. Hugh Henderson two years ago. In his second year on the board, Murphy, a Democrat, was appointed to the county's Administration Committee, which oversees the county budget. As one of only four Democrats on the 14-member county board, Murphy said he believes he was chosen because he is practical, looks out for the county and has ``a nonconfrontational style. I try to learn from and work with everyone.'' In recent weeks, the Administration Committee has had to cut department budgets, as the county's sales-tax income has been 6 percent below estimates. ``We've had to cut spending because of the economy, make some hard choices and we're always looking for ways to operate more efficiently,'' Murphy said. He also chairs a special committee, the county's Intra-Employee Relations Committee, and is the only Democrat in that position. He is a former Oneonta Town Council member who served with Hurley-Quackenbush, where they worked together to further the town's interests, he said. Murphy said he, too, sees promise in technology and wants to help the county harness it as the emergency 911 communications system is upgraded and plans are made to ring the county with fiber-optic cable access _ the backbone of high-speed Internet.
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