“Downtown For All” Visions Compete In Alder Race

The quest for denser and more affordable housing, safer streets, smoother sidewalks, and a more accessible city for people with disabilities is driving this year’s contested alder race in East Rock/Downtown’s Ward 7 — along with online messages from the aldermanic challenger that made unsupported accusations of attempted murder and ​“intimidation,” some of which he called ​“satirical,” some sincere.

The two candidates running for the Downtown/East Rock alder seat in the Nov. 7 general election are Eli Sabin and David Agosta.

Sabin, the Democratic nominee and incumbent, is finishing up his first two-year term as Ward 7 alder, and his fourth year overall on the Board of Alders, having previously represented Downtown/Yale’s Ward 1. A New Haven native, Sabin currently works part-time as a legislative coordinator for Connecticut Voices for Children and is a first-year student at Yale Law School. He is on the board for the New Haven Legal Assistance Association, and chairs the Board of Alders Education Committee.

Agosta, who grew up in Wallingford and has called New Haven home for decades, is a disability rights activist and frequent attendee at public meetings like those of the Board of Park Commissioners. He consistently calls on city government to do better in making New Haven sidewalks and public places — like the top of East Rock Park – more accessible to those with disabilities that it make it more difficult to move around.

A longtime member of the Green Party, Agosta is running for Ward 7 alder as the Republican candidate, having accepted their nomination because, in his view, ​“Republicans here are Democrats who can still do math.”

Sabin: "Downtown For All" En Route

In an interview with the Independent about his run for another two years as Ward 7 alder, Sabin said he wants to follow through on a ​“Downtown for All” vision that he has spearheaded along with several local legislative colleagues. The plan has the goal of making the city’s center denser with housing and safer for all users of the road, especially pedestrians, cyclists, and bus riders.

“I’m very excited about the infrastructure projects in the works,” he said, including many that he has pushed for the state to fund, including a planned $5.3 million traffic-safety and development-boosting overhaul of State Street and $4.6 million worth of pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly improvements in and around the Green. He celebrated state-funding progress on the Move New Haven plan’s bus rapid transit proposal, as well as renewed city efforts to convert some one-way downtown streets to two-way.

All of these projects look ahead ​“to our city being a safer place for people walking, biking, getting around on the bus.” He said he’d like another term in office to help make these now-funded proposals a reality. 

Sabin said he plans to push for rezoning downtown to allow for denser housing development with the goal of decreasing rental costs by increasing supply of places to live.

“A core part of the Downtown for All vision is our belief that by improving the zoning for Downtown, we can help address our city’s housing crisis and make Downtown a more accessible and affordable place to live,” Sabin wrote in a recent email to constituents. ​“In the coming months, [he and his downtown-adjacent alder colleagues] plan to work on a zoning reform proposal that will allow more diverse kinds of housing to be built in downtown, which will lower rents, expand our city’s tax base, and make our downtown a more vibrant place to live. We will be considering changes to a number of aspects of our zoning code, including: floor area ratios, gross floor per unit ratios, amenity and open space requirements, and parking requirements, among others.”

“I think we’ve got to do what we can to keep gentrification pressures down,” he told the Independent, by allowing for the development of more housing. The inclusionary zoning ordinance and a city commitment to set aside 30 percent of new apartments building on publicly owned land downtown at below-market rents will contribute to the supply of affordable housing, he said, while new development more broadly will add to the city’s tax base.

Asked about accomplishments he’s most proud of during his alder tenure, Sabin pointed to his successful lobbying at the state legislature to increase housing-code-violation fines for negligent landlords — which has now translated to a penalty-hike proposal currently before the Board of Alders. He pointed to his chairing of the Education Committee which, through a series of public hearings, has put pressure on the school district to prioritize addressing concerns around chronic absenteeism, low reading levels, and outdated literacy pedagogy.

Agosta: "Disability Rights Advocate Out Of Necessity"

In a separate recent interview with the Independent, Agosta said he is running for Ward 7 alder in part to draw attention to what he sees as federal law-defying impediments to people with disabilities being able to move around downtown in ease and peace.

Agosta, who suffers from a rare genetic disease he said can make it difficult and painful for him to get around the city, focused his concerns on uneven and cracked sidewalks, walkway-infringing tree stumps, and a host of other ​“trip hazards” strewn across the district. He said Ward 7’s polling place at the Hall of Records ​“is not accessible from any bus stop” and is therefore in violation of federal law.

He said that he suffered serious neurological injuries in a car accident in 2010 when he was struck by someone who was texting while driving. 

“I became a disability rights advocate out of necessity,” he said. He said he hopes to bring that energy and focus and push for change to City Hall if elected. He spoke about how much he loves New Haven, a city he sees as so often in its history has been ​“a leader of civil rights.” 

“I’m going to be forced to move out of New Haven,” he said, holding back tears, as he described just how unaffordable it’s become.

Agosta also accused Sabin of intentionally making it more difficult for him to challenge the incumbent alder by redistricting George Crawford Manor out of Ward 7 and into Ward 3.

He accused Sabin of gerrymandering the public housing complex for seniors on Park Street, which he said only hurts his own campaign, since he is a disability rights advocate and many of the tenants at that complex are likely disabled.

Asked if he pushed George Crawford Manor out of his ward to hurt Agosta’s campaign, Sabin replied, ​“Absolutely not. That’s ridiculous. That’s not how the process works. I was sad to lose Crawford Manor” and a bunch of the blocks on George Street in the redistricting process.

"I Have Periods When I'm Batshit Crazy"

Agosta has posted online messages and sent emails to public officials and reporters that make sweeping accusations about Sabin that are not backed up by evidence, which he subsequently described as ​“satirical” or ​“crazy.”

Back in December 2022, when Agosta was contemplating a run for office this municipal election year, he posted to his Facebook page a writeup entitled: ​“Candidates Die In Freak Accidents on Election Day.” That message, which refers to New Haven as a ​“City of Irony,” describes Agosta and Sabin both tripping and dying in graphically odd ways while en route to the polls.

Asked if he had written this as satire, Agosta provided the Independent with the dictionary definition of satire (“the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues”) and said that he has written plenty of satirical pieces over the years.

When initially asked about this Facebook post during a phone interview, Agosta said that, as a result of the car accident he was in a decade and a half ago, ​“I have periods when I’m batshit crazy.” But, he stressed, ​“I’m not violent.”

Back in February of this year, Agosta sent an email with the subject line ​“Alder Sabin tried to kill me” to this reporter and a dozen top city officials, including the mayor and a number of alders and the downtown district’s top police officer. 

Over the course of 33 paragraphs, that email alternated between criticizing the city for not fixing tripping hazards on sidewalks, praising certain city officials as hardworking, explaining why he resigned from the non-cop crisis response team COMPASS’s board, and slamming the mayor for not appointing more people more quickly to city commissions that deal with accessibility and diversity. That email read in part: ​“Alder Sabin tried to kill me so that I would not be able to run against him because he, Alder Guzhany, And Mayor Elicker have used the power of their offices to intentionally discriminate against people who have disabilities in order to provide themselves with more convenient bicycle travel and to provide a financial benefit to bicycles shops.”

In his most recent interview with the Independent, Agosta referenced a sign that he found outside of his home on Orange Street earlier in the year that read: ​“We are not a democracy. We are a constitutional republic!! Not a democracy!! Dumb ass.”

Agosta said that sign appeared outside of his home at around the time that he had been speaking publicly about how democracy cannot survive with one-party rule.

Agosta said he doesn’t think Alder Sabin put up this sign, but he does think Sabin benefits from it. He described it as ​“candidate intimidation.”

Sabin told the Independent that he did not put up that sign. ​“I have no idea where that sign came from.”