Ethan Wolin, Contributing Photographer

Opposing slates of Democratic Town Committee ward co-chair candidates held events to mobilize support in the Hill on Saturday, a week and a half before voters in eight wards will decide the fate of the latest challenge to New Haven’s presiding power structure.

A slate of mostly incumbent co-chair contenders drew about 50 people, including top Democratic leaders, to a morning rally in Trowbridge Square Park. A smaller gathering at the Hill Museum in the afternoon featured candidates tied to New Haven Agenda, the first coordinated attempt in over a decade to dislodge the lowest elected rung of a party infrastructure dominated by Yale unions.

Speaking forcefully at the event for party-backed co-chairs, Mayor Justin Elicker attributed the rival slate to continued disappointment from last year’s mayoral election. Tom Goldenberg, the Republican-endorsed candidate whom Elicker routed at the polls, serves as the treasurer for New Haven Agenda.

“There’s an element of, I think, bitterness that’s coming out of November,” Elicker said. “We as a community came together and overwhelmingly crushed the opposition, not because they were weak, but because we are strong as a community, and we are going in the right direction.”

The co-chair challengers disagree. At their event, the challengers pointed to concerns ranging from poorly paved streets to uncontained garbage — and a general complaint that Yale’s UNITE HERE unions exert too much control over city government. New Haven Agenda fashions itself as the champion of community voices, rather than special interests, and has no policy platform.

DTC co-chairs — two in each of New Haven’s 30 wards — organize Democratic voters in their neighborhoods and participate in picking party nominees. They go uncontested in most election cycles, but this year New Haven Agenda candidates qualified for the ballot in eight wards, setting up elections for Tuesday, March 5. Registered Democrats can vote for their ward’s co-chairs.

“These are democratically elected positions,” Goldenberg said. “We should be happy to have choice.”

Both sides have begun to canvass voters and picked up their efforts with the events on Saturday and new campaign flyers. Vincent Mauro Jr., the DTC chairman, said he takes the challenges seriously. He has prepared voter identification lists for co-chairs and volunteers to mobilize their supporters for what are expected to be low-turnout elections.

The 9:30 a.m. rally in Trowbridge Square Park in the cold on Saturday brought a show of force from elected officials, such as Elicker, State Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney and State Rep.  Juan Candelaria. Speakers and attendees, including UNITE HERE union organizers, shared a sense of closing ranks to defend their own, as suggested by the incumbent slate’s name, Dems for Dems. Candelaria called the crowd a “family.”

“When I was asked to step up as a co-chair, I said yes,” Ward 3 co-chair Angel Hubbard said. “We can organize together to make sure we elect those who are helping to push for more safety in our streets, more programs for our youth and the resources we need to make more opportunity available for all.”

After 20 minutes of speeches, the crowd milled around, taking coffee and donuts from a table. Many then dispersed into the neighborhood to knock on doors.

About four hours later and less than a mile away, a group of New Haven Agenda candidates and their guests gathered at the Hill Museum for an event billed as a “meet and greet.” The museum mainly displays works by local artist Gregory ​“Krikko” Obbott but on Saturday also featured an installation by Joe Fekieta, a candidate for Ward 4 co-chair, who had assembled flowers and trash he collected in the streets.

Jason Bartlett, a Ward 6 challenger and former city official who is leading the New Haven Agenda coalition, told the group of fewer than 20 people that many residents have asked him what a DTC co-chair does.

“I always say, just to keep it simple, that we’re at the very bottom,” Bartlett said. “We’re out there to talk to constituents, to talk to the voters, to figure out what’s on people’s minds, what do they really care about?”

After four other candidates introduced themselves, an attendee asked whether they were qualified for the co-chair roles, which focus less directly on local policy than on political work like getting out the vote. In response, Fekieta proposed offering gift cards to people who show up at the polls — or even a raffle for a free car, an idea that prompted laughter.

To Goldenberg’s surprise, Ward 6 Alder Carmen Rodriguez and the ward’s two incumbent DTC co-chairs, cheered at the rally in Trowbridge Square Park, came to the New Haven Agenda meeting as well. Rodriguez declined to comment on the challenger slate’s prospects come March 5, but said the competitive co-chair races brought increased political activity to the Hill.

“To be honest with you, it’s exciting to see,” Rodriguez said.

The Hill has the highest concentration of contested co-chair races, in Wards 3, 4 and 6. Elections will also be held in Ward 7, which includes parts of downtown New Haven and East Rock; Ward 12 in Quinnipiac Meadows; Ward 18 in East Shore; Ward 28 in Beaver Hills and Ward 30 in West Rock.