{"id":5624,"date":"2011-11-06T11:15:06","date_gmt":"2011-11-06T16:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=5624"},"modified":"2011-11-06T11:16:59","modified_gmt":"2011-11-06T16:16:59","slug":"murphy-a-lot-accomplished-in-two-years-more-to-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=5624","title":{"rendered":"Murphy: A lot accomplished in two years, more to do"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unionville board candidate points to contract, HS renovation management as highlights of his term<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, UnionvilleTimes.com<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Frank Murphy<\/p><\/div>\n

In just two years, a lot has happened and often, Frank Murphy has found himself in the middle of it.<\/p>\n

Murphy, one of five candidates seeking a Region C seat for the Unionville-Chadds Ford Board of Education, found out he had a very short time to get his sea legs, as multiple storms kept rolling in on the school district in his first two years on the board. Murphy, incumbent Timotha Trigg and Sharon Jones, all Republicans, are running as one slate against Democrats Kathleen Meehan Do and Gregg Lindner in the Nov. 8 election.<\/p>\n

After winning a tight election race over Lindner in 2009, Murphy, of Chadds Ford, found himself at the center of two potentially controversial situations: as the new chair of the board\u2019s facilities committee. That meant he had to keep tabs on the renovation project underway at Unionville High School. Shortly thereafter, he was tabbed as the board\u2019s lead in negotiations for a new teachers\u2019 contract.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a challenging two years,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cBut I think we\u2019ve accomplished a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although new to the board \u2014 and somewhat new to the community \u2014 his unique background as both an engineer and attorney gave him an unusual skill set his colleagues wanted to take advantage of in short order.<\/p>\n

Plus, having only recently moved to the community from neighboring Aston, where he served on the township\u2019s board of commissioners, Murphy hadn\u2019t been publicly involved, pro or con, on the renovation project, allowing him to come at overseeing it for the board with something of a fresh perspective.<\/p>\n

With the project being so controversial, Murphy said he knew that it needed to be tightly managed and remain as far off the radar as possible \u2014 headlines about the project running late or over budget would heighten tensions in the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the state of division in the community over the high school renovation, we proceeded with the understanding that it had to be done right,\u201d he said. Currently, the project has gone smoothly and is ahead of schedule and under budget, although Murphy is quick to credit members of the school administration \u2014 specifically Rick Hostetler, the district\u2019s director of buildings and grounds, high school principal Paula Massanari, among others \u2014 with how well the process has proceeded.<\/p>\n

The smoothness, cost-containment and timeliness of the high school project stand out in stark relief to some of the district\u2019s other building projects such as Pocopson Elementary School, which was both late and over budget.<\/p>\n

The teachers\u2019 contract proved to be somewhat more acrimonious \u2014 and Murphy did find himself in the middle of some of the public back and forth as the talks got stormy at times. Ultimately, though, the two sides reached a deal, just before the start of the school year \u2014 and while he says he didn\u2019t enjoy the process, calling it \u201cdifficult,\u201d Murphy said he is pleased with the result.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe our contract is the envy of most of our neighboring districts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Despite working through those issues, Murphy anticipates additional challenges \u2014 especially on the fiscal front, as the district continues to look at dwindling revenues both from taxes and state and federal funding.<\/p>\n

Although he identifies himself as fiscally conservative, he makes it clear that his spending opinions are tied to educational quality \u2014 not dogma.<\/p>\n

He has often stated his goal is to provide the \u201cmost efficient education, not the least expensive one.\u201d<\/p>\n

That having been said, he doesn\u2019t think the district should tax just because it can.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnlike my opponents, I don\u2019t think we should tax to the max just because we can,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cI will vote to support education \u2014 and I have.\u201d<\/p>\n

But if money can be saved without hurting educational quality, then he said he feels the board has a responsibility keep tax hikes to a bare minimum, to reduce the burden on the community as a whole.<\/p>\n

He thinks that is where he and his running mates have a different take than the opposition \u2014 an issue that has at times, divided the community, even prior the high school renovation project. Murphy suggests his opponents are more willing to spend money without considering the overall impact on the community versus the educational value.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s a real philosophical difference,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

And while he thinks the board has done a good job in these stormy times, he allows that he sees room for improvement.<\/p>\n

Although he feels it has improved, he thinks the district still doesn\u2019t do a good enough job in communicating with the community at large.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve done a better job than previous boards,\u201d he said. \u201cBut some of the problem is that one message doesn\u2019t fit all \u2014 we need to do a better job of reaching out in different ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the last number of years have seen divisions in the community \u2014 some of which have played out in the rhetoric of this campaign season \u2014 Murphy said he hopes that once the election is over, people can find a way to come together again as a community.<\/p>\n

\u201cRegardless of who wins, everyone should realize that we should all be pulling in the same direction,\u201d he said. \u201cWe can\u2019t afford, as a district, to fail. The district has to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murphy graduated from Temple Law School, Magna Cum Laude and practices law with the Philadelphia firm Deeb, Blum, Murphy, Frishberg & Markovich. He also has an Engineering Degree from Temple University and a Master\u2019s in Mechanical Engineering from Penn State University.<\/p>\n

EDITORS NOTE:<\/strong> This is the seventh and final story in a series of profiles of the Board of Education candidates.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Previously run profiles:<\/p>\n

Region A<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rob MacPherson<\/a><\/p>\n

Victor DuPuis<\/a><\/p>\n

Region C<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sharon Jones<\/a><\/p>\n

Kathleen Do<\/a><\/p>\n

Gregg Lindner<\/a><\/p>\n

Timotha Trigg<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unionville board candidate points to contract, HS renovation management as highlights of his term By Mike McGann, Editor, UnionvilleTimes.com In just two years, a lot has happened and often, Frank Murphy has found himself in the middle of it. Murphy, one of five candidates seeking a Region C seat for the Unionville-Chadds Ford Board of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5626,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[485,182,24],"class_list":["post-5624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-board-of-education","tag-election-2011","tag-unionville"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}