Laura Glesby Photo
Ward 18 Alder Candidate Leland Moore at the Pardee Seawall: prioritizing "communicating on the localest of levels."
A legal advocate for the state is running to serve as a political advocate for Morris Cove, now that an alder seat might be opening up.
Assistant Attorney General Leland Moore has filed to run as a Democrat for that as-of-yet uncontested seat, representing the Cove’s Ward 18 on the Board of Alders.
The incumbent alder, Sal DeCola, has not yet filed for re-election. He declined to comment when asked directly whether he is seeking another term.
Moore said that he decided to run for office upon hearing word that DeCola would not be running again. He had been seeking a way to serve his neighborhood more actively, he said, and saw a need for someone dedicated to “speaking up for the ward.”
As the city’s southernmost ward bordering East Haven, Ward 18 includes a complicated mix of coastal parkland and resource-intensive infrastructure used widely across the city. The ward encompasses the New Haven portion of Tweed airport, a power plant, a wastewater treatment facility, a coast guard station, Nathan Hale Elementary School, the historic Townshend Estate, East Shore Park, the seawall, and Lighthouse Point Park.
If elected alder, Moore said, he envisions advocating for neighbors’ quality-of-life concerns associated with Tweed airport alongside park maintenance and beautification, climate change mitigation efforts, and community building efforts across differences, among other priorities.
According to DataHaven, Morris Cove has the city’s highest homeownership rate (80 percent), lowest proportion of low-income residents (9 percent), and highest white population (79 percent). The neighborhood is one of the city’s highest-voting wards, and in heavily-Democratic New Haven, it’s the ward where Republicans tend to have the most support; in 2024, Trump received 41 percent of Ward 18’s votes.
The last aldermanic race — a three-way contest between DeCola, another Democrat, and a Republican — turned acrimonious at times, particularly after an incident surfaced in which DeCola crashed his car into a constituent’s empty parked vehicle, drove away, and allegedly came forward days later while attributing the crash to a medical incident. DeCola, a retired mail carrier, was ultimately re-elected and has now served as the ward’s alder for nearly 14 years. When asked whether he plans to run again, he said over the phone, “I have no comment and I don’t talk to the Independent anymore. You never treated me right, so you have a wonderful day.”
Moore grew up in Massachusetts and has lived in parts of Hamden and New Haven for the last 15 years. After graduating from Quinnipiac Law School, he has worked in various state offices, including as the legislative advisor for the Board of Pardons and Paroles, the staff attorney for the Connecticut Sentencing Commission, and now as a civil defense lawyer in the state attorney general’s office. Then in 2022, Moore and his wife Ashley bought a house on Concord Street, where they currently live with their orange cat, Macaroni. Moore now works from home part of the week. In his spare time, he likes to take walks by the Pardee Seawall, sit outside with the cat on a leash, garden with his wife, and go sailing.
Among the more contentious issues facing the neighborhood is the impending expansion of Tweed airport’s terminal. A number of local activist groups have mobilized to try and hinder the expansion. Moore said he supports advocacy for a more thorough federal Environmental Impact Statement reviewing the climate impacts of the terminal plans, but stressed that federal approvals would not be under his purview as an alder.
In recent months, public dialogue around Tweed has focused on the airport’s primary airline, Avelo, which recently entered a contract with the federal government to facilitate the Trump administration’s deportation efforts. In April, DeCola emerged as the sole member of the Board of Alders who did not sign onto a letter condemning this contract and calling for its termination. Moore, by contrast, said he does support an ongoing boycott of the airline. “New Haven is a city built by immigrants and refugees,” he said. “I think people are right to stand up to Avelo,” especially as “people are being deported without due process.”
More broadly, Moore said he believes the most productive debate is not “pro- or anti-Tweed,” but rather how to address the “real quality-of-life issues” associated with living near the airport.
Among the most pressing of those quality-of-life issues, in Moore’s view, is traffic congestion. The city is pursuing a roundabout on the intersection of Dean and Burr as part of an effort to redirect traffic to and from the neighborhood. Some neighbors have advocated against the roundabout, including through a petition and at a community meeting, out of concern that more traffic could affect the Nathan Hale Elementary School area; “I think that’s a legitimate concern,” said Moore. He expressed enthusiasm for the public dialogue that emerged from that debate. “We didn’t get everything we wanted” from the city, he said, but “to me, that’s democracy in action.” He said he intends to represent the ward with a commitment to open dialogue and “communicating on the localest of levels.”
“One of the cool things about this neighborhood is that people are civically engaged,” Moore reflected. He’s learned through his work as a lawyer that “when you have a group of stakeholders who don’t see eye to eye,” there can still be “moments of people with diverging interests converging… magical, ‘aha’ moments.”
When they first moved to Morris Cove, Moore recalled, a neighbor gave them a heads up that ”if you want to participate in Halloween, you need at least 1,000 pieces of candy.” He quickly caught onto the neighborhood’s fierce civic spirit. “We all come together for the Halloween parade — that’s a major event in the neighborhood.” There’s also the Easter egg hunt, which Moore has volunteered to assist, and the Christmas tree lighting.
“I will continue to support those efforts to bring people together” if elected, Moore said. He added that he believes the neighborhood could benefit from a true “third space,” such as a coffee shop, where residents can casually and spontaneously gather.
Moore’s campaign, though currently uncontested, is perhaps his first opportunity to pursue his community building priorities. He said he’s looking forward to continuing to knock on his neighbors’ doors.