As a career small business owner, Dr. Terrence Murphy is in the business of helping people. He’s dedicated his life to public service since his family moved from Yonkers to Yorktown in 1962, when Yorktown’s mascot, the Cornhusker, was still a common and public sight.
Elected to the State Senate in 2014, Dr. Murphy has brought common sense and Hudson Valley values to State government. He created the bipartisan alliance that defeated the Coast Guard’s proposal to turn the Hudson River into a parking lot for oil barges. A prolific author of legislation, our Senator has tackled the heroin crisis, delivered millions in funding for clean water and infrastructure and has authored and passed landmark legislation to protect our seniors, veterans and the environment, including:
Authoring 46 pieces of legislation that passed both houses, the most of any Senator in his class;
Recognizing Vietnam Veterans of America as a benevolent order to provide parity with other veterans organizations and increase services for veterans;
A new law protecting consumers from ticket scalping and ticket bots;
Passing a law limiting opioid prescriptions to just 7-days, now a national model;
Authorizing the production and sale of mead and honey-based products to spur economic development;
Creating a tax-check off box to support the New York State Veterans’ Home at Montrose;
Protecting the Saw Mill River, Bronx River, Pocantico River and nearly two-dozen local lakes as inland waterways for the purposes of waterfront revitalization;
Implementing State reciprocity of Federally debarred contractors to safeguard workers;
Forcing State government to publish proposed rules online; and
Requiring State agencies to create webforms for Freedom of Information Law requests to foster transparency.
With three children in our local public schools, he has worked across the aisle to deliver the highest amount of State school funding ever and has helped to keep our area an affordable place where he can watch his children grow and prosper, by cutting income taxes and fighting against anti-business regulations.
As the son of a blue-collar, Navy veteran of the Korean War who was a union leader with Con Ed for over twenty years and spent fifty years with the company, Dr. Murphy learned the importance of hard work, dedication, and commitment to community while growing up next to Wilkin’s Fruit Farm.
A former member of Utility Workers United of America Local 1-2, he started out as tree crewman and line worker and worked hard to put himself through college, receiving his Bachelor of Science in Nutrition and a Doctorate of Chiropractic from Life Chiropractic College.
He married a Registered Nurse who is a member of the New York State Nurse’s Association. Together, they helped invest in their family’s restaurant, which was recently acquired by a developer as part of a transformative downtown economic revitalization project that will create hundreds of construction jobs and permanent medical and other high-paying jobs. He opened Yorktown Health & Wellness Center in 1999, which continues to operate today and is also the owner of several successful commercial real estate investment properties and is also a trained Emergency Medical Technician who served as field doctor for both the Yorktown and Lakeland High School Lacrosse teams for over a decade.
He previously served on the Yorktown Town Board from 2010 to 2015. In the State Senate, Dr. Murphy chairs the Committee on Investigations & Government Operations, where he has led inquiries into ongoing corruption in State government, frivolous uses of taxpayer dollars on advertising, the Equifax data breach and the closure of Indian Point. His committee has also examined high-tech issues such as block chain and privacy protection, while providing funding to create the Bioterrorism Center of Excellence at New York Medical College and the new Touro School of Dentistry.
Instead of picking winners and losers, Dr. Murphy believes State government should get out of the way and enable entrepreneurship, while we claw back tax incentives from companies that fail to meet job creation targets. He wants to ensure all taxpayer funded projects are treated as public works that pay a fair, living wage and stop Albany budgeting gimmicks by that rob Peter to pay Paul by creating lock-boxes to protect the MTA capital fund, the SUNY and CUNY tuition accounts and the Environmental Protection Fund, which he helped fund at its highest-level ever, from being swept into the general fund.
He is a nimble problem solver, delivering first-rate results and constituent service from the smallest issues like the timely mailing of property tax rebate checks, to accomplishments on large-scale substantive issues, like stopping the reduction of services at the Montrose VA and holding our public utilities accountable for their failure to meet acceptable levels of service and response during major storms.
As a Senator, Dr. Murphy has won big for his district. He secured $1.2 million for a conservation easement to save Stuart’s Farm from development, Westchester’s oldest and largest working farm; $500,000 for the grassland restoration of the landfill cap at Croton Point Park, the largest conservation project in the history of Westchester; $270,000 for the Croton River Hydrilla Control Program to keep invasive species at bay; $80,000 for a new weed harvester for Mohegan Lake; $750,000 to expand the Center of Excellence in Precision Responses to Bioterrorism and Disasters at New York Medical College; and millions of dollars in grants for our municipalities, schools, libraries, EMS, police and fire departments, and colleges.
Governor Andrew Cuomo appointed him to the Statewide Task Force to Combat Heroin and Prescription Opioid Crisis. Dr. Murphy serves as Co-Chair of The Council of State Governments Eastern Regional Conference and was selected to represent New York State on the Responsible Pain Management Task Force by the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Dr. Murphy was named to the Farm Bureau’s circle of friends in 2015, 2016 and 2017, and received the Humane Legislator of the Year Award from the Humane Society of the United States in 2017. He was named Man of the Year in 2017 by the Supreme Court Officers Association and is a two-time recipient of John F. Kennedy High School Lux Christi Award. He is also the recipient of the Irish Echo First Responders 2017 Ambassador Award, the 2017 Daniel O’Connell Award from the American Irish Legislator Society of New York State, the Chiropractic Council’s 2016 Peter G. Mirto Legislative Award, the 2016 Westchester County PBA Partner Award, the 2015 National Appreciation Award from the Vietnam Veterans of America, the Retired Detectives of New York ARDY Award, the Putnam County “Good Scout” Award, the John Hand Award and the Thornwood Lions 2018 Community Service Award. He has also been recognized by the Civil Air Patrol, the NYPD Detectives Endowment Association, United for the Troops and the Yorktown Chamber of Commerce for his contributions to public service and our community.