David Sipos (CAS’28) is endorsed by Brookline for Everyone, a grassroots organization of Brookline residents pushing for affordable housing. Among his other campaign focuses: improving public transportation and addressing climate change, he says.

Student Life

New to Campus and Campaigning: BU Freshman Runs for Brookline Town Meeting

“We can do better in Brookline,” says David Sipos, who is concerned about increased affordable housing and environmental sustainability 

David Sipos has experience in politics. He’s volunteered and interned with Democratic campaigns in the past, but he never expected that he would be a candidate. 

The Washington, D.C., native-turned-Brookline-resident recalls being in a high school auditorium last November listening to a three-hour Brookline Town Meeting session, after feeling demoralized by the results of the 2024 presidential election. 

Sipos (CAS’28) watched people who, he says, “supposedly represent” him discuss, and then reject, Article 9—a zoning proposal that would convert two-family units into three-family units, increasing the number of available housing units in Brookline.

“That was pretty frustrating, as one can assume,” he says. “I decided by the next evening that the best way to deal with that was to be one of the [voters] voting against it.” From there, Sipos’ campaign for Brookline Town Meeting was born.

Brookline’s election day is Tuesday, May 6, and with only five seats up for election per precinct during each election cycle, Sipos says most of his time this semester has been dedicated to his campaign.

Ana Albuquerque, a Questrom School of Business associate professor of accounting, is a current Town Meeting member and is up for reelection in Precinct 1—Sipos’ precinct.

Albuquerque says she admires Sipos’ willingness to be involved in local government, though she disagrees that there is little representation for young people, calling attention to first-year Harvard student Bradford Kimball, another Brookline Precinct 1 member up for reelection. Kimball is currently the youngest elected official in Brookline.

“It is a contested seat because there are eight people [running] for five positions,” Albuquerque says. “I am running this time as well. Not because I have the extra time; it’s because I think it’s important to be part of the decision-making process.”

Sipos and Kimball are both endorsed by Brookline for Everyone, a grassroots organization of Brookline residents pushing for affordable housing, one of Sipos’ main initiatives. Among his other campaign focuses: improving public transportation and addressing climate change, he says.

“Over 80 percent of Town Meeting is made up of homeowners, even though over 50 percent of Brookline residents are renters, so renters really aren’t represented in Town Meeting,” Sipos says. “I want Town Meeting to recognize that there are a lot of people who need them to act more aggressively on the issue of housing.”

Bob Weintraub (Wheelock’86), a Wheelock College of Education & Human Development retired senior lecturer in educational leadership and policy studies and a former headmaster of Brookline High School, is also up for reelection (though in a different precinct). He says it is exciting to see young people involved in government.

“Our schools are not doing a great job on educating kids about our government,” Weintraub says. “I’m happy that he’s running, I hope he wins. We need more young people [involved in politics].”

In preparation for the election, Sipos says he’s created a 26-step plan. The first order of business was to obtain enough signatures (a minimum of 10; he got 16) to be put on the ballot, which he did by waiting outside train stations with a clipboard in frigid weather. From there, he contacted Brookline for Everyone and incumbent members of Town Meeting to get his name out as a candidate and establish connections. Next came his campaign branding and website, and finally, canvasing.

Sipos uses the MiniVAN app to aid his canvasing. The site maps out registered voters in an applicable precinct and can track whether a candidate has canvased there already, established communication with a voter, and what the reception was like. He says that while phone banking and sending mail are other avenues he has explored, face-to-face interactions with voters has produced the best results. 

So far Sipos has raised between $500 and $600 for his campaign, most coming from friends and family. He says his friends thought he was a little crazy when he told them he was going to run for office, but most of them pitched in to donate and help where they could.

“My initial reaction was surprise, and then the more he told me about it, the more I thought it was a really good idea,” says Alex Miller (CAS’28), Sipos’ “unofficial consultant” and a campaign contributor. Miller has helped Sipos with graphic design work and putting up campaign flyers.

Sipos says the most memorable campaign moment so far has been registering people in his dorm to vote, and seeing them be “excited about a candidate for once.” Though he doesn’t consider himself to be an extrovert, he says he’s gotten used to making phone calls and starting conversations with random people, even finding humor in getting doors slammed in his face.

“I barely opened my mouth, and the guy closed the door on me in the pouring rain,” Sipos says. “I later recognized his name in a public policy reading for class. Then I looked him up, and sure enough, that was the guy who had closed the door on me.”

Win or lose, he says, he wants to remind young people that they can be the change they want to see in their government. 

“If that’s running for office, then I think you should run for office. You should run for school board, for library trustee, for whatever,” Sipos says. “Just get out there and be someone who is not [at] retirement age. I think you can make a difference that way.”