{news} Re: [DuffeeCommittee] Green Teen Elected Constable

[Richard Duffee]

Congratulations, Cole--
And it's a nice article.
And thank you Hector and Estella.
Next time we'll come in 3rd, 4th, and 5th instead of 4th, 5th, and 6th.
Richard

On Sun, Nov 15, 2009 at 2:16 AM, David Bedell <dbedellgreen at hotmail.com>wrote:

>
> 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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