As the first Tuesday of November approaches, it is clear that Middletown has an unusual election on its hands. Mayor Sebastian Giuliano (R) is running unopposed. Five Democrats are running for four available spots on the Board of Education, and have consequently been pitted against each other. Matt Lesser ’09, as well as three other Wesleyan-affiliated individuals, are running for political office. The Wesleyan student vote, Lesser said, could potentially sway the outcome of the election.
“Everybody understands that if Wesleyan students vote, the Democrats will win,” he said. “If students don’t vote, the Republicans win. The whole city is looking to Wesleyan.”
Lesser, president of the College Democrats of Connecticut, is running to become an alternate for the Planning and Zoning Commission, which approves construction and the transfer of property in town and consequently has significant influence over the town’s appearance. Lesser said that he is looking to put a higher premium on Middletown’s natural features.
“The environment is threatened in this city and I think very easy steps can be taken to help it,” he said. “The Republicans have pursued a policy of anti-environmentalism [and] pro-development policies.”
Lesser is running unopposed by a Republican candidate, a fact which he thinks proves that Middletown’s Republican party has something to fear in a strong Wesleyan turnout.
“By not nominating anybody against me, the Republicans are hoping to hurt turnout among students,” he said. “They understand that students are the key voters in this city and have a huge amount of power.”
Another Wesleyan-affiliated candidate is William Boyd (D), husband of Wesleyan Professor of Economics Joyce Jacobsen. Boyd is running for re-election for the Board of Education. He wants Middletown public schools to have slightly longer school days and school years, and is “interested in more efficient systems for carrying out education.” Boyd also agreed that the Wesleyan vote is important, citing the success of his last campaign.
“I got a lot of support from the Wesleyan community when I was elected four years ago,” he said. “For all I know, that made the difference and got me elected.”
Boyd feels that it is not only important that students go out and vote, but it is also necessary for students to understand the implications of their vote, especially when it comes to the Board of Education. This year, five Democrats are running for four available openings on the Board, while two Democratic Board members are not up for re-election. By law, one party cannot have more than six people sitting on the Board of Education at one time. Therefore, even if all five Democratic candidates for the Board of Education get the highest number of votes, only the four top vote-getters can sit on the Board of Education so as not to surpass the six-person limit per party.
“Even if the lowest polling Democrat gets far more votes than the leading Republican, that Democrat will not be seated,” Boyd said. “The leading Republican will be seated instead.”
Because of this regulation, Democratic candidates for the Board of Education are essentially running against each other in an attempt to be one of the top four Democratic vote-getters.
“If you vote for all the Democrats, you have in effect not helped choose anybody for the Board of Education,” Boyd said. “Your vote is basically null…you voted equally for all of [the candidates], so you didn’t help pick the one Democrat who won’t be elected, which means that you didn’t help pick the four who get elected.”
Boyd hopes that support from the Wesleyan community will give him and Renee Johnson-Thornton, another candidate for the Board of Education, the edge they need in order to stay out of fifth place and therefore be elected. Johnson-Thornton is an associate coordinator of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship at Wesleyan.
“I have a vested interest in getting elected and I have a vested interest in Renee getting elected,” Boyd said.
He recruited Johnson-Thornton specifically to run for the Board of Education with him.
Johnson-Thornton said that having five Democrats competing for four seats is “very uncomfortable.” Her own campaign is rooted in her passion for “issues concerning underrepresented minority students.”
“African-Americans, Latinos, children from low-income [families] and children with disabilities are very close to my heart,” she said. “I don’t think that we can afford to dismiss any members of our community.”
While she is certainly looking for one of the four spots on the Board of Education, Johnson-Thornton said that she still thinks of herself as part of a Democratic “team.”
“I try not to think about it as though we’re running against each other,” she said. “I think it’s a team.”
Because this is her first time running for a political position, Johnson-Thornton said that having such a supportive group of candidates has been especially helpful. She and Grady Faulkner, parent of Wesleyan student Lesley Faulkner ’11 and a candidate running for the Common Council, can relate particularly well to each other. Both are similarly inexperienced in the political arena, although Faulkner need not worry about competing for one of the top four seats on the Board of Education, since he has been a member of the Common Council for the last year and a half.
If elected, Faulkner wants to work towards creating a youth center for Middletown teenagers.
“I just think of the young people en masse, and Wesleyan is included in there because I see [students] as a great resource for our area between arts, between culture, and as role models for our young people in town,” Faulkner said. “It doesn’t get any better than that.”
All four Wesleyan-affiliated candidates claim that this connection between University students and the Middletown community should encourage students to vote. Boyd noted that this election in particular is important for Democrats because Republican Mayor Sebastian Giuliano is running unopposed by a Democratic candidate.
“I don’t think that the Republicans know or the Democrats know whether that’s going to help or hurt either party,” he said.
Ultimately, Johnson-Thornton said that this election and its outcome could be a strong statement about the University’s activist values.
“We really need to have strong voices coming from other areas to balance out the distribution of power,” she said. “It is the Wesleyan legacy to be involved in social issues. We’ve always had an interest and felt an obligation to understand what’s happening to people who may not even directly affect us. I would hope that Wesleyan students feel an impulse to get out there and understand what some of the concerns are, and then vote accordingly.”
Students registered to vote in Connecticut can vote next Tuesday.
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