Mayor Pat Murphy

Husband: Clark J. Chapin

Children: Veronica Swain, Murphy McRae and the late Thomas McRae

Education: She graduated from Van Rensselaer High School, and attended Albany Business School and Albany State University. She also attended Maryland University while actively serving in the U.S. Army.

Community experience: She is mayor, having served for 12 years. She is a member of the Service Academy Nomination Panel, Harrybrooke Park Board of Directors, the Connecticut Space Land Acquisition, the Artificial Turf Construction Committee. She is a past member of the Board of Trustees at Bridgewater Congregational Church, the New Milford Youth Agency Board of Directors, the New Milford Zoning Commission, the MORE Commission, the Ambulance Facility Construction Committee, the Emergency Communications Construction Committee. She is also a co-founder and past president of the Mountain Laurel Quilt Guild.

Issues facing the Town and Solutions

Three most important issues facing the town related to the office being sought and proposed solutions:

Keeping New Milford as affordable as possible to attract businesses and families: Continue to provide a variety of programs to attract and encourage business, including tax incentives, financing partnership with state and local stakeholders, more mentoring programs and assisting with grants and low interest loans. Implement the plan for the Century Enterprise property.

Infrastructure and facility improvements: Being responsible for more than 200 miles of roads and 60 bridges, we need to continue the bridge, road capital and traffic safety improvement programs. Continue to develop the Strategic Plan for upgrades to athletic and recreational facilities, such as to obtain land for a facility to include ballfields and plenty of safe parking for families, library modernization, riverfront redevelopment, senior center expansion, Lynn Deming Park upgrades and the Lanesville firehouse addition.

Like many other communities, there is a substance abuse problem in New Milford: Continue and expand our counseling and outreach programs for families and substance user/abusers. We are currently in the process of establishing a training program for our police officers to learn to administer Narcan. Support lobby efforts in Hartford to allow school nurses to be authorized to administer Narcan. Create educational programs for parents of young children, so they can learn to recognize the risk factors, current trends and and potential behaviors before problems occur.