Mayor Stubbs has been at the helm of the small town of Talkeetna, Alaska for 15 years – an impressive feat for any elected official, but even more so considering Stubbs is a cat.
The part-manx is popular among residents, who voted him into office in a write-in election a decade and a half ago when he was a kitten, after rejecting the human candidates on the ballot.
“Lo and behold, Stubbs the cat won the write-in that year,” one resident told NBC affiliate WBBH. “And he’s been our mayor ever since.”
Stubbs was named Talkeeta’s honorary mayor, giving him what’s really a figurehead role since the 900-person town is a “historical district,” Chamber of Commerce president Andi Manning explained to CNN.
Town residents are perfectly happy with their choice, and had nothing but praise for his record in office.
“He’s good. Probably the best we’ve had,” Laurie Stec told WBBH.
Stec manages Stubbs’s main haunt, Nagley’s General Store, and says the cat has been a good leader when it comes to local small businesses.
“He doesn’t raise our taxes – we have no sales tax. He doesn’t interfere with business,” she told CNN. “He’s honest.”
Yet Stubbs has exhibited some diva behavior, such as drinking water out of a wine glass laden with catnip every afternoon.
‘All throughout the day I have to take care of the mayor. He’s very demanding,’ Nagley’s employee Skye Farrar told CNN. ‘He meowed and meowed and meowed and demanded to be picked up and put on the counter.’
“All throughout the day I have to take care of the mayor. He’s very demanding,” Nagley’s employee Skye Farrar told CNN. “He meowed and meowed and meowed and demanded to be picked up and put on the counter. And he demanded to be taken away from the tourists. Then he had his long, afternoon nap.”
Despite his high-maintenance habits, the mayor is well-loved in the town and online – he already has more than 10,000 subscribers on Facebook. Nagleys staffers say they’re flooded with cards and letters for him, and that 30 to 40 people come in each day hoping to meet “the mayor.”
Stubbs was named Talkeeta’s honorary mayor, giving him what’s really a figurehead role since the 900-person town is a “historical district,” Chamber of Commerce president Andi Manning explained
And Stubbs seems here to stay.
“His biggest political rivals would be other local businesses that would hate that he comes over and takes a nap and leaves fur everywhere. They aren’t big fans of him,” Farrar told CNN. “We usually say, ‘You have to deal with it. He runs the town.'”
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