{news} Green Teen Elected Constable

[David Bedell]

Cole Stangler was profiled in the online "New Canaan Patch."

David Bedell

http://newcanaan.patch.com/articles/green-teen-elected-constable

Elections '09
Green Teen Elected Constable
Cole Stangler of the Green Party becomes an elected official two months into his college career.

By Molly Shaker

Cole Stangler turned 19-years-old on Oct. 4. On Nov. 3 he became an elected official.

The Georgetown University freshman hasn't decided what he's going to major in yet, but he's now one of New Canaan's six constables elected to serve papers, including subpoenas and summonses, like old town sheriffs used to do.

In an uncontested race, Stangler was the top vote-getter of the three Green Party candidates, garnering 749 votes to 627 for 67-year-old incumbent Hector Lopez and 666 for his daughter Estela Lopez, a 2003 New Canaan High School graduate. Voters could choose four out of the six names on the ballot. Republicans John Ponterotto and Austin Furst, Jr. got 2,349 and 2,403 votes respectively; Democrat Ed Vollmer got 1,680.

In 2006, at the ripe age of 16, Stangler worked on Green Party member Cliff Thornton’s campaign for Connecticut governor. Cole’s mother, Barbara Stangler, said that her son became very active in the campaign and even organized an event at his private high school, Brunswick School in Greenwich, that attracted about 500 people, which was, at the time, Thornton’s largest audience.

“[Thornton] spoke at Brunswick, mainly about marijuana,” Stangler said. “The headmaster got fairly pissed off about that.”

Stangler said he was asked by the Green Party to run for constable in June, the same month he graduated from high school.

Now that he's studying at Georgetown, the 300-mile commute between New Canaan and Washington, D.C. could make it difficult to fulfill his duties. Fortunately, constables are able to decide for themselves just how much or how little they are able to accomplish as an elected official.

“We have had constables who, I believe, have never served papers,” Claudia Weber, Town Clerk, said. “We had a constable who lived in Germany. Out of all the offices, constable is the one where, if you choose to, you don’t have to invest a lot of time into the position.”

Weber added that, in a town with an active police force, like New Canaan, the responsibilities of a constable may be fulfilled by the police force.

“[Constable] is one of these positions that the state of Connecticut holds onto even though it really has no useful purpose,” Mike DeRosa, co-chair of the Connecticut Green Party, said. “It’s sort of like pet rocks: there’s a subjective meaning to something that has no specific meaning. You can make the position into what you want.”

He added that Stangler was encouraged to run because of his apparent dedication to the party.

“[Cole] has been involved with the Greens for a while and these positions are there and we encourage everybody to run for office if they can afford to,” he explained.

Stangler, who graduated from Brunswick cum laude, surprised his mother when he told her he had decided to run for constable. But Mrs. Stangler said she was ready to support her son no matter what.

“Teenagers don’t tell their parents what they’re doing and so he always tells me things at the last moment,” she said. “’Oh, by the way, Mom, I’m going to be running for constable.’ My first reaction was, ‘how are you going to do this and why?’ But, if he had come to me and said he wanted to run for selectman, I would have said yes. I like people to be involved. The only thing that can happen is you lose.”

While Stangler admits that he didn’t campaign very seriously, he and a friend walked around Waveny Park during the annual Family Fourth celebration and tried to shake hands with as many people as possible.

“Many people didn’t want to talk to me. They thought I was delusional,” he said, who also added that he was wearing a straw cowboy hat donning an American flag. “I’d say I shook about 15 to 20 people’s hands. That was basically my only true campaigning, (besides) word of mouth and telling my friends and what not.”

Stangler's July 4th campaigning efforts were followed by the Green Party’s Independence Day celebration on the steps of the Ferguson Library in Stamford where he joined members in playing music like Bruce Springsteen and the Grateful Dead while 2008 Green Party candidate for Congress Richard Duffee (who Stangler also campaigned for in 2008) read the Declaration of Independence out loud.

Despite his admittedly lackluster campaigning, Stangler says he ran for constable to emphasize the importance of third party representation.

“This is a symbolic position. Having the Green Party on the ballot shows that there’s this alternative to the two party system,” he said. “There are other voices to be heard.”

 		 	   		  
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