Young and new to the area, Stancil-Martin is ready to serve

If ever an Appleton alder candidate had to prove their bona fides and earn the trust of wary voters, it was Adrian Stancil-Martin. It’s hard to imagine a more unlikely prospect to sit on the Appleton Common Council and make important decisions regarding local governance. 

The things that make Stancil-Martin’s resume so impressive – intelligence, political awareness and engagement, his pursuit of both government and philosophy majors at Lawrence University, humility, youthful energy – weren’t guaranteed to overcome the significant barriers he’d have to clear to win and which made his campaign something of a long shot.

It wasn’t just the usual disadvantages of being an unknown, first-time candidate. His two opponents in the primary in February and his opponent in the April general election were also both newcomers on the Fox Valley political stage.

What made Stancil-Martin’s challenge uniquely daunting was his limited time and shallow roots in Appleton and the fact that he was born and raised in New York City, where he attended LaGuardia High School, considered the premier high school for the arts and academics in the country. It was the venue for the 80s TV series Fame, about a group of talented young musicians, actors, dancers and artists.

What might voters think if any of that came up and how could they relate?

There was also his youth. Stancil-Martin was just 18 years old when former LU Dem vice-chair Sam Brewer (a position Stancil-Martin now holds) talked him into taking a shot at a council seat. He had been in Appleton a mere five months when he took out papers in December to get on the ballot. He was 19 on April 1 when he won the District 11 seat, formerly held by current State Senator Kristen Dassler-Alfheim, in a landslide, garnering 70 percent of the vote and driving District 11 voters to the polls via a tireless campaign.

Over 2,000 doors

“I really thought I’d get more pushback when I was door knocking,” Stancil-Martin said shortly after emerging from his second Resident Leadership Academy, a 10-week program open to the public to learn about city government. “But I met with (Appleton Mayor Jake Woodford) and he was really young when he was elected and he told me that people are not going to make age an issue unless you make it a thing, right. So I would introduce myself and say who I was and these are my issues and here’s my number and my email if you want to contact me. And for some people it was the first time that a candidate had knocked on their door and they appreciated that.”

While some appreciated the outreach, some still told him they weren’t likely to vote for him either because of his age or because he was so new to the area. One told him he wouldn’t vote for a candidate who didn’t pay property taxes. Stancil-Martin never personalized these perspectives. He even understood.

But with the aid of fellow LU Dems Megan Eisenstein, Luisa Olsen, Brewer and a few others, Stancil-Martin blanketed the district that includes Lawrence and everything roughly south of College Ave between Memorial and Oneida down to Highway 10. There are around 750 households and Team Stancil-Martin covered every door three times each, more than 2,000 doors in all between January and April 1.

“I’d get to a door and I’d recognize the people and I could tell you, yeah, a veteran lives here,” he says. “And I’d sometimes apologize for coming by for the third time and I’d offer my flyer and they’d tell me, we still have the other two. 

“But I’d heard stories of alders winning or losing by two votes (current alder Sheri Hartzheim won her seat in 2021 by just two votes) and I did not want that to happen. I wanted to feel like I had put in the effort whether I won or lost.”

One of the things Stancil-Martin is proud of is the fact he would have ended up winning his seat even if he hadn’t received one vote from Lawrence University’s Ward 31. But win that ward he did, and by plenty, securing 466 of 556 votes as LU students turned out at a 90 percent rate.

He gives credit to Brewer, Eisenstein and Olsen for making it all happen.

One of Stancil-Martin’s former teachers congratulated him on his victory in a Facebook post.

“Watching him grow into the incredible leader he is today fills my heart with pride,” Kenji Haba wrote. “His passion for serving his community and amplifying young voices is truly inspiring.”

Lawrence an easy choice

Adrian Stancil-Martin came to political awareness during Covid and the 2020 election. He was just a freshman at LaGuardia High School, where he would go on to graduate with a degree in instrumental music (he plays classical guitar and cello). His parents were political, his mother much more so than his father. When Stancil-Martin got his picture taken with Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Wittmer at a Green Bay rally last summer, he was most thrilled with the prospect of sharing the photo with his mom.

He remembers watching the Democratic primaries that year with his mom, remembers her crying when Biden was finally declared the winner five days after the election. 

“So there was Covid, there was the election and then there was Jan. 6,” he says. “So it was like a domino effect. And I think that’s what really spurred my interest in politics.”

Coming from a blue state that didn’t garner a lot of political attention during presidential campaigns, Stancil-Martin was struck by Wisconsin, which is often the epicenter of national politics. He likes how, unlike in New York City, voters have a chance to get to know their representatives on a personal level. He was endorsed by his own state assembly representative, Lee Snodgrass, and met with Dassler-Alfheim, his predecessor and current state senator, to get some guidance on how to move forward as the new District 11 alder.

“And we just had coffee at Lawless and she walked in and came up to the balcony and here she is my state senator and I just think that’s really unique,” he says. “In New York I never met my state rep or senator and so it was really awesome.”

Stancil-Martin had his choice of schools after graduating from LaGuardia but he chose Lawrence almost immediately – and without even first visiting the campus. The initial draw was the Lawrence Conservatory. Lawrence remains one of the top music schools in the country. Though he will not pursue a music degree he is taking cello classes. Instead, he is focussing on a double major in government and philosophy and has now added a biomedical ethics minor to his academic pursuits. 

He also found Appleton itself pretty much exactly what he was looking for – a decent-sized town that had most of the amenities of a larger city but without big-city stress. He liked that downtown was accessible for students. Among other things that have earned his affection are OctoberFest and the Farmers’ Market, as well as the Cabaret variety show that LU hosted earlier this month. And he liked that Lawrence was small enough to create a more intimate setting, allowing him to get to know his professors on a deeper level, and they him.

All of that has allowed him to develop a rootedness in Appleton itself. 

Voices going unheard

Stancil-Martin seems like an old soul in a young person’s body. It’s not just that he is often nattily attired in tweed coats over vests or sweaters but the seriousness with which he appears to take the world. He has chosen to be engaged so fully despite being an introvert. Before he ever thought about putting himself out there so publicly, he went out canvassing for Kamala 

Harris and the Democratic slate of candidates last fall, guided along by Brewer, a senior at Lawrence and a veteran of multiple Democratic campaigns during his time in Appleton.

Stancil-Martin credits jumping into politics with helping him overcome some of his awkwardness.

It was especially tough going out and canvassing for himself, he says, and he was initially nervous. But the more he did it, the more he found he actually enjoyed it, even when he was out in February knocking on frigid, wet days. It was something he says he felt compelled to do.

“I have felt frustrated and I know a lot of students do about not really feeling like their voices are taken into consideration in government,” he says. “And even on the local level, so Sam thought it would be great to have a student on the council. And now I want to do my best to make sure that people who are least in the loop know what’s going on.”

He is serious about his responsibilities as the new District 11 alder and has taken meetings with multiple fellow-alders in order to gain some wisdom and best practices. He understands much of city government is the small, unexciting, seemingly picayune – but actually quite important – things like trash and roads and the basic business of governance. He says he sees affordable housing as a top issue and wants to work to improve that, though the issue remains a tough nut to crack all across America.

As far as what the future looks like, he says his plate is so full right now it’s hard to say. But he doesn’t rule anything out.

“I made a decision early on when I decided to run that if I was going to get elected I would be staying here over the summer,” he says. “I’d be staying over the breaks. So I am committed to this. As far as going forward, I did a lot of work in high school working with immigration law and so civil rights are near to my heart. 

“But I haven’t looked that far ahead.”