You may think outspoken City Councilman Tony Soares is everywhere at once since he won a seat on the city’s governing body in November. But the new official’s seemingly ubiquitous presence is not just a function of his hard work – it may also have to do with the fact that there is another Hoboken resident who looks like him to the untrained eye. Like Soares, mid-town Hoboken resident Sean Allison has achondroplasia, a form of dwarfism. Like Soares, Allison has dark hair. And like Soares, Allison has been fielding comments from residents about town politics lately. The only problem is that when people talk to Allison about politics, it’s usually because they think he’s Soares. “Everywhere I go, people think that I’m Tony,” said Allison in an interview this week. “Before the November election, people kept saying they were going to vote for me even though I wasn’t running for anything. Tony was. And for the first month and a half since Tony won the election, not a day went by where I didn’t get congratulations from someone. I’d say ‘Look, I’m not Tony, but thank you anyway.'” Allison said that even people who know him sometimes confuse him for Soares. “My own sister has gone up to Tony thinking it was me,” said Allison, who works for a discount brokerage firm in Jersey City. “There are subtle differences in the way that we look, but especially from behind, we look very similar.” Part of the confusion stems from the fact that most people are not accustomed to knowing more than one person who is short of stature, said Allison. “I think what happens is that when people see someone who is short of stature, they just aren’t used to it,” he said. “You know people don’t see a lot of them, so their memory goes to the first person they know. The confusion does not bother me. Sometimes I think it’s kind of funny. But the people who make the mistake usually feel terrible. They act like they’ve done something really wrong.” When asked what he thought about people confusing him with Allison, Soares quipped, “He’s a great guy. It’s like free advertising walking around.” “I do think though that it is a little bit of that ‘Oh, there goes that fill-in-the-blank’ syndrome going on there, because I get confused for all kinds of people,” continued the councilman. “Sometimes it bothers me when people think I might be a midget wrestler or something, but when it is just someone with good intentions, I don’t get insulted.” Soares also said that he was pleased that there were a number of people who were short of stature living in Hoboken, since it helps dispel some of the stereotypes that he says commonly are associated with dwarfism. “I’m happy about it, because it raises awareness,” he said. “There all kinds of stereotypes about dwarfism like that [short people] are mean-spirited. I think sometimes when parents find out that they are going to have a child who is going to be of short stature, they sometimes get a little scared. And I hope that this kind of thing helps dispel some of their fears, because there is no reason that they can’t live a normal life.” Soares and Allison pointed out that they are not the only short-statured residents in Hoboken. They said they are aware of least one other person who has achondroplasia in the city, but apparently they are rarely confused with him since he has lighter-color hair and a slighter build. Achondroplasia is caused by a gene mutation. It can be passed from parents to children, or the mutation can occur during the fetus’ developmental process. Of the more than 100 skeletal disorders that researchers have identified, achondroplasia is the most common. It affects about one in every 25,000 children. According to the Human Growth Foundation, a non-profit volunteer organization dedicated to helping individuals with health disorders, there are approximately 10,000 individuals who live with achondroplasia in the United States. When Soares won his seat on the city council in November, he became only the third person who lives with a form of dwarfism to hold public office in the United States. Allison said that he has no plans to run for office. “I’m not really that political,” he said. “If I were to do it, it would be very, very far in the future. I mean so far out there in the future that you can’t even see it on the horizon.”
Resident frequently mistaken for short-stature councilman
