Michael Paz, Senior Photographer

Ward 1 Alder Kiana Flores ’25 — who is just past the halfway point of a two-year term — will not run for a second one, she told the News this week.

Flores, who was raised in Fair Haven by Honduran parents, currently represents eight of Yale’s 14 residential colleges, Old Campus and many University buildings, as well as around 85 businesses on Chapel and College Streets and half of the New Haven Green, on the New Haven Board of Alders. 

“It’s been a lot of learning experiences. I feel like every committee meeting that I go to, every board meeting, I’m learning something new about the city,” Flores said.

For several years, Flores was an activist. In high school, she founded the youth branch of the New Haven Climate Movement and often interacted with some of the Elm City’s alders in that role. 

In the past year, she has had “a really great time” getting to know the entire board in a new capacity. All in all, she characterized the first half of her term as “a very productive first year of just getting to know the lay of the land.”

From the start of her campaign until now, Flores said, her priorities have remained largely unchanged: housing reform, climate action and cyclist and pedestrian safety. 

On each of these fronts, Flores said that there were “a lot of things in conversation” — for instance, adding a bike lane and speed bump on Park Street. But overall, she said that much of what she works on are proposals that have long been in gestation.

“I think that’s a misconception that people have about the board — that something can get done immediately. But when you look at the most successful things that have passed, those are things that took years to do,” Flores said. “I think that being on the board has really made me appreciate [that] the board wants to do good things and also wants to do them right, and so that takes a lot of time.”

Ultimately, a single-term tenure as an alder is “a difficult position to be in,” said Ward 1 co-chair Rhea McTiernan Huge. She said that Flores is still adjusting to the rhythms of the board.

Flores herself has not sponsored any legislation, and instead of working toward sweeping change, much of her day-to-day involves responding to routine city concerns, from SeeClickFix work orders to uncollected garbage. According to Flores, much of her work on the Board has been behind the scenes, she said, involving coalition-building and building support among other alders for specific bills.

“She has built really good relationships with her colleagues,” said Ward 7 Alder Eli Sabin ’22 LAW ’26.

As both a Yale student and a New Haven elected official, Flores effectively sits astride the town-gown divide. 

Though tension is enduring, Flores described the relationship as “trending in a positive direction” and “continually growing.” As examples of this partnership, Flores noted the planned pedestrianization of a stretch of High Street and improvements coming to the New Haven Green.

This dual role also means that Flores herself must play a difficult balancing act: undergraduate student in the mornings and elected official in the evenings.

“It’s a daily juggle,” she said. But “it’s not crazy at all. It’s less of a balancing act than I think most people realize.”

Like Flores, the past three Ward 1 alders — Alex Guzhnay ’24, Sabin and Hacibey Catalbasoglu ’19 — were all enrolled at Yale during their one-term stints.

Recently, Flores has had one eye trained on Washington. With fear of a federal crackdown on undocumented immigrants widespread in New Haven, the alder said that she has been making toolkits and organizing Know Your Rights trainings.

Still, Flores says that she is an optimist by nature.

“I think a lot of what’s going to happen in these next four years is going to be people banding together to ensure that we are still the welcoming, diverse city that we’ve been for a really long time,” she said.

For the remainder of her term, which ends in January 2026, Flores said that she hopes to glean as much wisdom from her fellow board members as she can and help with the transition to her successor.

In both 2019 and 2023, one of the two Ward 1 co-chairs ran for and was elected alder. 

Currently, Norah Laughter ’26 and McTiernan Huge serve in the position.

The past two races have been relatively quiet: Flores and Guzhnay each ran uncontested for the Ward 1 seat. And the district has long had low voter turnout — in 2023, Flores received just 83 votes.

At the moment, there is no one in particular Flores predicts will run.

“I’m sure there are many New Havener Yalies or Yalies that are interested in local politics,” she said.

Based on data from the 2020 Census, 4,641 residents call Ward 1 home — 174 more than the population of the average ward.

Correction, Feb. 17: A previous version of this article said that Ward 7 Alder Eli Sabin ’22 LAW ’26 ran uncontested for the Ward 1 seat. In fact, he ran uncontested for the Democratic primary but faced Republican Chris Marcisz in the general election.