At their meeting last Monday night, the Town Council voted to officially change the name of Stratford to Republicanville. The vote was 8-2 with Councillors Phillips and Catalano against the plan.
Councilman Santi who initially opposed the name change, later changed his mind, saying, “the Mayor whispered to me that his favorite number has always been four, and since I represent the Fourth District, that was what I needed to hear.”
Prior to the vote, several speakers presented petitions with the names of 31,000 residents against the plan. Republican Town Chairman and Registrar of Voters Lou DeCilio spoke in favor.
Following the vote, Mayor Harkins remarked, “since we’re not going to reopen Shakespeare, it makes good sense to re-brand the Town and get away from that whole historical and cultural thing.” The Mayor quickly added, “I had nothing to do with the vote, it was strictly a Town Council decision. Unless, of course, it becomes wildly popular in which case it had my support from the very beginning.”
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In a surprise development, the Mayor announced that new signs were already going up across Town. “We were able to get a volume discount on the “Welcome to Republicanville, we’re kicking it” signs when we ordered my re-election lawn signs,” the Mayor added.
Contacted by phone, Democratic Town Chairman Richard Buturla seemed surprised, saying, “I never saw this coming The entire Town Committee has been working so hard on Joe Paul’s campaign that we must have taken our eye off the ball. We’re just going to have to redouble our efforts in order to redouble our efforts.”
