Hempstead clerk's race set. Who is running?

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Susan Cools is promising to bring transparency to the Town of Hempstead in her bid for the town clerk’s post — especially when it comes to spending taxpayers’ money.

Cools said that many of her fellow community members are unclear about how the town spends their tax money, which spurred her decision last month to run for the clerkship in November.

Cools is running as a Democrat against incumbent Republican Kate Murray.

Cools, who manages a real estate company in Rockville Centre with her daughter, Samantha, said she believes the role of clerk is the closest to the voters. She is also the president of the Baldwin school district board of education.

“One of the biggest problems in the Town of Hempstead is that eight out of 10 people — you ask if they know what the Town of Hempstead does, people don’t know,” Cools said. “If you ask them if they have any idea what service that their tax money goes to, most people don’t know. And I think that’s unfortunate.

“So it would be my hope,” she added, “to be more effective at reaching out to the taxpayers of the Town of Hempstead.”

According to Cools, the mail and social media are the two best ways to reach those taxpayers. “Unfortunately, the only mailings that we’ve been receiving lately are very expensive, very large, color, glossy postcards telling us to oppose the things that Governor Hochul is doing,” she said.

Cools said she doesn’t want these mailings to zero in on politics, but rather “focus on what the town can do for the taxpayers. I think a lot can be done to help the taxpayers understand this system that is the Town of Hempstead. And it’s such a problem that people don’t understand it.”

“I’ve been involved in community service for almost the whole 38 years that I’ve lived here,” she said. “I was a five-time president of the Baldwin-Rockville Centre Rotary Club, and I served (on the) PTA when my kids were in school.”

Cools also said she spent a lot of time at the Baldwin Civic Association, and hosted a variety of fundraisers.

“I’ve worked very hard to work for the community, and even surrounding communities, throughout the entire time I’ve lived in New York,” she said.

She is now in her seventh year as president of the Baldwin school board, and said she believed that being elected town clerk would be the “next step” in her career.

“It’s not only the next step, but I’ve always heard in conversations people expressing either dissatisfaction or confusion,” Cools said of the town’s operations, “and I just think that there’s always things that can be done to help improve a system.”