Ted Kostas Among 5 Candidates Seeking Worcester District 4 Seat

WORCESTER, MA — On a recent hot, sunny afternoon, Ted Kostas was inside iKrave Café — the coffee shop and bistro along a sun-parched stretch of Park Avenue where he's a regular — holding a binder with a black and white photo of Teddy Roosevelt on the cover.

The binder contains an organizational plan for winning a Worcester City Council seat in 2023 with sections on civic issues and press he's received. He decided to run for the seat in January after longtime District 4 Councilor Sarai Rivera announced she would retire.

Despite the binder, Kostas says his run for the seat, "wasn't planned at all" and only came together in January.

Kostas is facing four competitors in the Sept. 5 preliminary for a seat in a district where an incumbent has been in the mix in every election for decades (Barbara Haller held the seat from 2001 until Rivera won in 2011). Rivera is known as a center-left councilor representing a district that covers the city's core from College Hill to Main South to Elm Park roughly bound by Park Avenue, I-290 and Highland Street.

District 4 is heavily Democratic, but, like the ex-president on the cover of his binder, Kostas is a Republican. He's a member of the Worcester Republican City Committee, calls himself a conservative and backed Donald Trump in 2020. Among the field of 2024 presidential candidates, he's leaning toward Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a Democrat who's taken heat for claims about vaccines and the effect of COVID-19 on certain ethnicities — but is also looking at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-South Carolina.

"Fair, balanced, everyone gets a fair shot. Everyone gets a chance to own a house," he said when asked what being a conservative means to him.

This is part of a series profiling the 14 candidates who will compete in the Sept. 5 Worcester city council primaries. Patch has reached out to every candidate in each preliminary race seeking interviews.

He doesn't want voters to think he's just a Trump guy, sayings he's a "moderate conservative." He says he once volunteered for Michael Dukakis, but also Republican Ed Brooke, who Democrat Paul Tsongas beat in 1978 in a U.S. Senate race. He supported Tsongas' later senate bids and his presidential run in 1992. He switched his party to the GOP a decade ago when his wife, Jacqueline, ran as the Republican candidate for a local state House seat. She also ran against Rivera in 2015.

Kostas grew up in Worcester the son of two Greek immigrants who arrived in the 1950s. Although born here, Kostas said he only spoke Greek until entering public school. He still lives in his childhood home a block south of Elm Park.

He left Worcester in 1980, dropping out of Worcester State to move to South Beach near Miami. He opened a pizza shop there selling "California pizza" with toppings like BBQ chicken and avocado. He returned to Worcester more than two decades ago to care for his aging parents. He began buying rental properties in northeastern Connecticut, later selling some as condominiums. He now works for Open Sky, the large local human services agency.

On local issues, Kostas says he would support a small sanctioned homeless camp and would welcome back the winter homeless shelter at Blessed Sacrament along Pleasant Street — a sore point for many, although the shelter was in District 5. He's not in favor of moving to a single tax rate, a longtime wish of the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce.

Kostas expressed satisfaction with the result of the recent passage of a more conservative inclusionary zoning ordinance. He said he would vote to expand the ordinance's affordability levels, even if the business community pressured him not to, he said.

"I would vote to expand inclusionary zoning, no matter what," he said.

Other items he'd like to see in Worcester: more attention on cleaning up trash, adding more police and making sure the new 311 system has enough staff.

If elected, Kostas would join Donna Colorio as the second local Republican city committee member on the council. Kostas said he hasn't received any advice from Colorio, who is running for her third at-large term in 2023. He says he would advocate for the "will of the people" while reaching out to residents through neighborhoods and at community events.

"I'm Ted Kostas, I make my own decisions," he said. "My promise is: I will fight for you."

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