{news} GP candidate for Mayor in Stamford, CT

Fri Jul 22 09:03:23 EDT 2005

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/local/scn-sa-greens3jul22,0,479553.story?coll=stam-news-local-headlines 
Green Party hopeful would be 4th candidate in mayor's race  By Donna Porstner
Staff Writer

July 22, 2005

STAMFORD -- The Connecticut Green Party plans to put up a mayoral candidate in November, bringing the total number of people seeking the city's highest elected office to four.

While the other hopefuls are talking about the rising cost of government and public education, North Stamford resident and environmentalist Darek Shapiro said the No. 1 issue facing Stamford is rising energy costs.

"The main issue everybody's discussing is high taxes, but that is not the problem, that's a symptom of the problem," he said.

If something isn't done to lower energy costs, businesses and middle-class residents are going to flee and Stamford is "going to be a bedroom town for high-cost homes," he said.

Shapiro, 52, of Surrey Road, said the way to make the city more affordable is to reduce energy consumption. He said the solution can be as simple as replacing traditional light bulbs with more efficient ones.

"I'm a progressive thinker. I'm an idea man. That's how I make a living," said Shapiro, who specializes in green architecture -- a term in the industry for designing energy-efficient buildings with renewable or recycled materials.

Shapiro is the founder of the 2010 Clean Energy Committee, which lobbied the Board of Representatives to recently pass legislation agreeing to purchase 20 percent of the municipality's energy from clean sources by 2010.

Since the Green Party did not put up a candidate for Stamford's last mayoral race in 2001, Shapiro has to petition his way onto the ballot the same as an unaffiliated candidate. He needs to get 182 signatures from Stamford voters representing 1 percent of the votes cast during the last municipal election in 2003, said Pearl Williams, who is in charge of nominating petitions for the secretary of the state's office in Hartford.

Shapiro is jointly petitioning along with David Bedell of Glenbrook, a Green Party member running for constable, the Board of Education and the Board of Representatives.

While he is putting his name in for all three races, Bedell said he only plans to run for constable. He plans to be a placeholder and find other Green Party members to run for those seats.

Bedell, who was a write-in candidate for registrar of voters last year, is secretary of the Fairfield County Chapter of the Connecticut Green Party.

Shapiro and Bedell have until the Aug. 10 deadline to file their nominating petition.

"Our eventual hope is to get someone on every single board," said John Amarilios of New Canaan, chairman of the Fairfield County Chapter of the Connecticut Green Party.

The Green Party has elected candidates in Hartford, New Haven and small towns in the northwestern and northeastern corners of the state but does not have anyone in office in lower Fairfield County, Amarilios said.

Last fall, Amarilios ran unsuccessfully against incumbent state Sen. William Nickerson, R-Greenwich, for the 36th District seat.

"One of the biggest problems we have as a third party is the hurdles we have to go though to get candidates on the ballot," Amarilios said.

The problem, he said, is that the people who have the power to change state election law are Democrats and Republicans who have no incentive to entice competition from minor party candidates and unaffiliated voters.

Even when petitioning candidates get on the ballot, their names appear at the bottom under state law. If there is more than one petitioning candidate, state Elections Officer Arthur Champagne said, "whoever filed first gets the upper line."

Shapiro is one of two petitioning candidates challenging Democratic incumbent Dannel Malloy, who has been mayor since 1995. The other is Achille Fiore, an Oaklawn Avenue resident with no political affiliation.

Malloy's third challenger, Republican Christopher Munger, is a former FBI agent who lives on Elaine Drive.

Neither Fiore nor the Republicans see Shapiro as a threat.

"My support is growing," Fiore said. "I am not worried about the competition whatsoever."

Republican Town Committee Chairman Daniel McCabe said odds are slim Shapiro will take away votes from Munger.

"We're absolutely, totally not worried about him because the Green Party tends to attract a fringe voter and those people do not vote Republican," McCabe said. "He will not be a factor in the overall race."

The Green Party has 46 voters registered as members in Stamford, compared with 21,574 Democrats and 13,964 Republicans. There are 19,744 unaffiliated voters in the city, 251 members of the Independent Party, 46 Libertarians, 10 members of the Connecticut Party, seven members of the Reform Party and six members of the Concerned Citizens Party.

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      THE GREEN PARTY OF CONNECTICUT is the third largest political party in CT. The Greens are also the third largest political party in the US, with 220 Greens officeholders in 27 states. Over 80 countries in world have Green Parties. Wangari Maathai, the 2004 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, is Kenya's assistant minister for environment and an elected Green Party member.
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National Committee member from Connecticut: Tim McKee (860) 324-1684

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