{news} Shapiro: ‘It’s easy being Green’

[David Bedell]

Stamford Times, 10/16/05

Shapiro: ‘It’s easy being Green’

By A.J. O’Connell, Staff Writer

STAMFORD—When Darek Shapiro announced that he would be running for mayor on 
the Green Party ticket this July, he told reporters that he did not expect 
to win the Mayoral race, but that he was campaigning to gain attention for 
the issues, namely clean energy and environmental concerns.

Now, after three months on the campaign trail, Shapiro’s tune has changed 
slightly.  He has expanded his issues to include transportation, taxation, 
and education and no longer openly states that he is campaigning only for 
his issues.

“Do I see myself as winning?  I see myself as winning the votes of the 
people who care about clean energy,” said Shapiro in a Tuesday meeting with 
the Stamford Times’ editorial board.

Shapiro, who as a private citizen, lobbied hard to get the 20 percent by 
2010 clean energy initiative passed by the Board of Representatives last 
year, has augmented his platform considerably.

As a mayoral candidate, Shapiro is following the lead of New Haven ,mayor 
John DeStefano, who suggested last week that legal identification for 
illegal immigrants who live and work in Stamford.  Shapiro is suggesting 
that all Stamford immigrants apply for an individual tax identification 
number [ITIN] from the Internal Revenue Service.  This is a number available 
only to nonresidents legal or illegal that allows them to pay taxes.  After 
two years of paying taxes, the immigrant with an ITIN would be able to 
qualify for a temporary driver’s license.

Shapiro also wants to clear up the transportation problem that has plagued 
southern Connecticut.  He supports cleanly fueled public transportation—a 
system of municipal jitneys that would allow people to travel within the 
city and to schedule pickup and drop off times on the Internet.  He also 
wants to discourage people from driving downtown in their own cars by 
raising the price of parking.  With parking prices raised he said, those 
from out of town may decide to take the train to Stamford instead.

As always, however, the base of Shapiro’s platform is made up of green 
issues.  He is endorsing lower energy costs and suggests that the city look 
into a study being done with  environmental agency Energy Star.  The study 
uses energy management techniques and equipment to reduce the amount of 
electricity or fuel used to power a building.  According to Shapiro, the 
study has reduced the energy use of buildings by 5 to 25 percent.  He also 
cited the need for new power lines and cleaner energy, such as solar energy.

Shapiro is also in favor of banning pesticides within the city.

He says that he would identify the most noxious pesticides, create a 
committee on the Board of Representatives to study the possibility of 
banning them and work on a grassroots level in Stamford to ban those 
chemicals.

This is the first political campaign for Shapiro, 52, a local environmental 
architect and a former Democrat.

He was courted away from the Dems by the Green Party this summer as a result 
of his work on the 20 percent by 2010 initiative and is the first member of 
their party to run for Stamford mayor.

Shapiro readily accepted, and said that for him, it’s easier being Green 
than it was being Blue.

“I want to lead the city in being an example of a clean, Green city for the 
rest of the United States,” he said.

Shapiro lives in North Stamford with his wife, Crystal.