Alder candidates Gary Hogan and Claudette Robinson-Thorpe. Former Alder Jill Marks: "I am a victim" of the Kia Boys. Abe Vail stood up in the middle of an alder candidate forum to ask 50 of his Beaver Hills neighbors a question.“Show of hands,” he said: How many people here have had cars stolen, allegedly by TikTok-inspired teenagers who call themselves ​“Kia Boys”?Nearly a dozen hands shot up around the room.The group of Beaver Hills residents had gathered inside Wells Fargo bank’s Whalley Avenue branch on Monday evening for a community town hall about an upcoming special election.Attendees had a chance to hear from and ask questions of Gary Hogan and Claudette Robinson-Thorpe, who are each running to represent Ward 28 in Beaver Hills on the Board of Alders, after the incumbent alder Tom Ficklin died unexpectedly in October.The next alder will serve out the remaining 13 months of Ficklin’s term, which ends on Jan. 1, 2026. Election Day is on Tuesday, Nov. 19, at the ward’s polling place at Hillhouse High School.Monday’s dialogue quickly zeroed in on crime — and especially on local car thefts, attributed to teens inspired by a TikTok challenge to target certain Kia and Hyundai car models. The teens have identified themselves as ​“Kia Boys” or ​“Kia Boyz” via social media hashtags that originated in Milwaukee.According to CompStat data from October, car stealing has decreased by 20 percent in New Haven this year, with 793 reported car thefts so far in 2024 compared to 982 this time last year.On a neighborhood level, Beaver Hills has seen 20 percent fewer car thefts in tandem with the rest of the city. Currently in New Haven, car thefts appear to be most concentrated in Newhallville, the sole neighborhood in the city where reports of stolen cars have slightly risen in 2024 (to 144 so far this year).Still, as Vail’s straw poll demonstrated, enough Beaver Hills residents have had their cars stolen to make the issue a priority for many voters. Robinson-Thorpe, a social worker in New Haven Public Schools, said that she works with kids involved with the Kia Boys. “A lot of them need things they are not getting,” she said, adding later, ​“We took them out of Covid. They have no socialization. What we need is wraparound services for these kids.”She said that if elected, she would work with police to better understand barriers to holding the kids accountable. Hogan expressed support for a newly-formed police task force dedicated to these car thefts. Still, he cautioned, ​“I hate to say the word ​‘Kia Boys,’ ​’cause it kinda captures just young Black men — and it’s not true.”Robert Gibson told the room that he also takes issue with the term ​“Kia Boys” – for a different reason.“It’s too cutesy,” he said. ​“They’re thieves. They’re not boys.” His remarks were met with a smattering of applause.Childcare advocate Lashaunda Cruz called for a more compassionate approach to the Kia Boys. “Throwing them in jail is not the way at all. They’re still human — they need to be poured into,” Cruz said. She called for more of a focus on school and family support: ​“These children are being robbed educationally.”Over the course of the conversation, neighbors seemed caught between Gibson’s call for urgency and Cruz’s plea for empathy for the teens involved.Former Alder Jill Marks raised her hand. ​“I am a victim of them,” she said. ​“They stole my car and they ended up in a police chase” — and ultimately a car crash. “I wasn’t going to press charges. They were really young boys,” she said. But the incident distressed her.“This past summer, my daughter was nearly kidnapped by Kia Boys,” said Ephrat Lieblich. She was referring to an incident this past summer in which a pair of teens hopped into her car and drove away moments after her 8‑year-old had exited the vehicle. “We need a coalition of people who have been affected,” Lieblich said. ​“This needs to change.”“I’m not saying imprison them,” she clarified, elaborating after the meeting that ​“they don’t need jail – they need love.” She called for more parental education and support for the families of car-stealing teens: ​“The parents need the tools to succeed.”Gibson asked the alder candidates whether they would ​“spearhead block watches throughout the ward.”“I have no problem promising that. What I need is cooperation from you,” said Robinson-Thorpe. She said she previously tried to form a block watch network and couldn’t find enough willing participants. One hindrance to public safety in the neighborhood is the ​“bystander effect,” Robinson-Thorpe argued. She called on neighbors to step up to help when something goes wrong on their block. ​“The police can’t do everything. We’re our best keepers.”Meanwhile, Hogan replied, ​“This is a no-brainer for me. Public safety is number one.” He pledged to continue late Alder Ficklin’s efforts to facilitate conversations between police and community members about the issue.Abe Vail counts about a dozen car theft experiences in the room. Over the course of the meeting, the candidates largely echoed one another’s ideas and values. They both called for lower taxes, with Robinson-Thorpe focusing on how Yale should contribute more funding to the city and Hogan pledging to focus on ​“efficiencies” in the budget. They both expressed an ambivalent skepticism over soon-to-be-installed traffic cameras, with Robinson-Thorpe questioning the principle of adding more fines and Hogan questioning whether constituents’ data might be stored in invasive ways. And they both said they would advocate for everyday constituent needs like lighting fixes and leaf pickup.The winner of this upcoming election will represent a ward that includes the city’s second-largest high school, Hillhouse; a stretch of the highly commercial Whalley Avenue; and an otherwise overwhelmingly residential neighborhood. Recent alders have also played a role in cultivating bridges between various communities within Beaver Hills, which is one of the more racially and religiously diverse parts of the city; roughly half of its residents are Black, while a Chabad-affiliated Jewish community has become a growing part of the neighborhood.In general, Hogan framed himself as a ​“continuity” candidate, having worked closely with the late Alder Ficklin as a Democratic ward co-chair.The party-endorsed candidate, Hogan introduced himself as a lifelong Beaver Hills resident with a deep background in local housing policy. He recently retired from his role as vice president of operations at Elm City Communities/the Housing Authority, where he worked for over a decade. Prior to that, he spent two decades working for the city, eventually serving as the deputy director of the Livable City Initiative.Robinson-Thorpe, meanwhile, is a petitioning candidate who previously served three terms as Ward 28’s alder until Jill Marks unseated her in 2015. During her tenure on the board, she started out as a Unite Here union-backed candidate, but eventually became an opposing voice to the majority coalition — forming an aldermanic ​“People’s Caucus” that called for more public dialogue.Robinson-Thorpe currently works as a social worker in the New Haven Public Schools system, and said she recently obtained a doctorate degree that enables her to serve as a substitute administrator. She pitched herself as a candidate willing to take on unpopular battles on behalf of her constituents.Early voting will take place on Nov. 14 through Nov. 17 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the ground floor meeting room of the Hall of Records (200 Orange St.).Election day itself is on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024, with voting at Hillhouse High School from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.