As Newark Fights Many Woes, Mayoral Candidates Take Jabs at Each Other

New York Times
5/12/2014

The mayoral candidate Ras Baraka, a burly man with a two-day growth of gray-flecked beard, was asked during a television debate last week to introduce himself to viewers.

Mr. Baraka, a city councilman here, rattled off a perfunctory sentence or two of autobiography before growing impatient and tossing a verbal haymaker at his opponent, Shavar Jeffries, two feet away.

?I want to address some of the lies out there,? he said, before reciting calumnies that he said Mr. Jeffries had heaped upon his head.

Thirty seconds later, Mr. Jeffries, a former assistant attorney general and school board member whose professorial demeanor no longer disguises his ability to toss a right jab, replied in kind. He mentioned that Mr. Baraka held two public jobs at once (principal and councilman), and employed his brother.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/13/nyr ... unchy-race-for-mayor.html

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Fulop's sole responsibility and duty is to meet or satisfy the needs and services of the residents in JC.

Its the Governor that should be stepping in if a Mayor is lacking in management skills or inept. The residents in Newark should be electing better representatives!

Purely political, for him and union support for his aspirations for higher office. As someone else posted, much of Newark's problems stem from poor uneducated citizens who are more worried about trying to survive day-to-day than thinking about the city. Meanwhile the elected officials look at Newark as their own little piggybank because no one is watching closely.




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It would not surprise me if the defunct Jon Corzine / MF Global had their hand in this as a crony capitalism deal.




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Right there with you on this one - I was SHOCKED that Fulop
supported Baraka. As a JC resident who supported Fulop
and who has worked in Newark for many years, I wonder
what Fulop's intentions are here.

http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2 ... orial.html#incart_m-rpt-1

Why would Fulop endorse the status quo? What does Fulop get in return for the endorsement? I supported Fulop, but he railed against Healy, the status quo candidate, and now...

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I'm envisioning you and score09 in a "cage of death" match, given your diametrically opposed political views...

For better or for worse, we'll never see this happening, just like score09's communist/socialist revolution will never take place. The entrenched culture of victimisation (a result of the depredations of capitalism that score09 decries) will never move to embrace the idea of a person being their own change agent. And capitalism markets itself too successfully - as the only natural fit for those who want to believe they can be their own change agents - to ever go down.

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Ha ha! Yeah, that'd be something.

Most interesting aspect to me in that whole story is that the Office of the State Comptroller did NOT release the name or identify the financial planning firm that advised Watkins-Brashear's dubious stock trades. Nor did it identify or release the name of the brokerage firm that put those trades "on." Covering for Wall Street? Why did it not ID those two entities in its report?

I MEAN, HOLY FUCKING SHIT!

i think the government at all levels could help improve places like newark and detroit by tough love or something along those lines:

* repeat offenders should be forced to stay in jail for extended periods until they get GED, pass tests and do some vocational training
^ perhaps vascetomies and tube ties for offenders and repeat welfare recipients
* welfare recipients should be required to some type of public service volunteer work

the problem with newark is that there are TOO MANY poor, uneducated people there.....and i know it's convenient, but you can't blame the teachers for the low graduation rates...blame the parents and students themselves

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Enough already, we already pay a BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR for Newark schools from NJ taxpayer revenue. For a dismal graduation rate, no less.

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Somehow the corruption in Newark seems to be a Democratic thing-start with Addonizzio is the sixties, to the 36 year corrupt reigns of Gibson and Sharpe James-all criminals. Somehow I don't think of Wall Street Republicans when I think of how these Democrats stole from their constituents.

And if sunshine is ever shone on the Water Board shenanigans that Booker was involved with he could be the next Newark Mayor to be indicted.

a municipal sales tax sounds good....or maybe each city should be given 1 to 2% of the state sales tax

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Ugh, what an eyesore. Did you have to quote the entire post?

But as to Baraka, I see nothing wrong with a 200K salary bequeathed to a guy who is responsible for liberating a city of 250,000 souls from the inhumanity of a corporate plutocracy, that is America today. I mean, that amount is less than a dollar per person.

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Baraka makes over $200,000 a year so if you think he is in your class, or a "class uniter," think again.

Wow, that's a power packed article. Interesting 2012 movie called "Detropia" for those looking to glimpse the Detroit of today.

Jeffries strikes me as a neoliberal capitalist who is in full support of the status quo in terms of the current day socioeconomic structure. Clear the way for less government and wall street takeovers, privatization of city services and of its schools. Clear the way for corporate dominance, so that every inner-city kid gets just enough of an education to operate a cash register in order to support the current need for menial wage earners. Cory Booker, with his big money cheerleaders like Oprah Winfrey, really ran a number on Newark. Newark Watershed Conservation & Development Corp? Holy smokes!

Now, Baraka, he seems like he might not be the great unifier in terms of race, but as far as CLASS goes, here's a guy who's looking to reign in the "wilding" capitalists from making drones of us all.

So, please don't read this if your net worth, excluding any property(s) you might own of course, is in excess of two million dollars. But if your current net worth, like mine, is less than this amount, then read on because we're all fucked.

As a nation, we really got to take a closer look at the Communist Manifesto! Why do we have such incredibly high numbers of infant mortality, drug abuse, alcoholism, gun violence, mental illness, teen pregnancy, domestic abuse, corporate malfeasance (like planned obsolescence) and the myriad of other socially destructive forces EMBEDDED into our society? Incarceration rates? Just google and look at the charts, lol. High School drop out rates? Capitalist America was cool up until Reagan deregulated the airlines. Most like minded people will point to the Reagan-Thatcher era as the time when all this neoliberal thinking started taking hold. And boy did it ever. The Statue of Liberty doesn't symbolize corporate rights to cause a financial crisis, nor does it symbolize the right to engage in predatory lending practices!

I am quite certain that most disagree with my sentiment. But ultimately -- and I don't know when -- the way this plays out is revolution and seizure of the military ON BEHALF OF THE PEOPLE. Might be ten, twenty or a hundred years from now, but trust me, this capitalist society WILL fall. And here's why:

INHUMANITY

So long as the deck is stacked in favor of the few, there will always exist inhumanity. The dominant forces -- those who control the economic capital -- will do whatever they must in order to secure their hegemony. They will divide us, invade our culture (so that we conform to their's) manipulate us and conquer us so that we are the pliant, docile little menial workers who carry out the status quo. So, the only way out into the light is necessarily through violence. See the movie "Snowpiercer" to get a good look about the type of society we have become.

Call me crazy, but to borrow from a billboard ad I saw a few weeks ago in the city -- THE FRENCH ARISTOCRACY DIDN'T SEE IT COMING EITHER.

Click link below:

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles ... wark-the-nextdetroit.html

IN THE BATTLE FOR NEWARK, FEARS OF BECOMING THE NEXT DETROIT

Two visions of a city's turnaround clash in a heated election
May 6, 2014

by Siddhartha Mitter

NEWARK, N.J. ? The latest challenge to the municipal authorities in New Jersey?s largest city came in March, in the form of an ominous letter from a state official.

?Newark is experiencing an extraordinary level of fiscal distress,? Local Government Services director Tom Neff wrote to Newark Mayor Luis Quintana, who was appointed last year to complete the term of former Mayor Cory Booker, now a U.S. senator.

Later that month, Neff made the threat clear. ?We may ask our Attorney General?s Office to ask a judge to place Newark under supervision,? he told the state Local Finance Board.

State takeover of a troubled city is a relatively rare step. But the experience unfolding in Detroit, where an emergency manager appointed by the state of Michigan controls operations and is taking the city through bankruptcy, has raised the profile, and perhaps the political appeal, of such a measure. And while fear of becoming ?another Detroit? has become commonplace in urban political rhetoric, Newark shares enough loose traits with the Michigan metropolis ? the spiral of disinvestment, middle-class flight, violence and poverty; the sense of a majority African-American community under duress ? for the idea to carry weight. Where views differ, however, is on just what it means to become another Detroit, let alone how to forestall it.

In Newark, the specter of a state takeover has added tension to an already tough campaign for the city?s May 13 mayoral election, which pits Shavar Jeffries, a law professor and former prosecutor, against Ras Baraka, a city councilman, high school principal and activist. Both men are Democrats, but they offer sharply contrasting approaches to city finances and economic development.

The new mayor will inherit a $40 million deficit and a perennially slow budget process, along with personnel appointments by Quintana that aroused state ire. He will also have to clean up a major scandal involving the Newark Watershed, the agency in charge of the water and sewer systems, whose director, a Booker ally, diverted millions of dollars in contracts to friends and payouts to herself, according to an inquiry. The agency has now been dissolved.

These concerns come on top of Newark?s chronic problems, which a series of big-ticket downtown developments and state-subsidized corporate relocations have not managed to blunt. Nearly one-third of the population and more than 43 percent of children live below the poverty line. The high school graduation rate is 68 percent. There were 111 murders in 2013 ? the most since 1990 and a shocking number in a city of 280,000 people.

As things stand, Newark has less than full control of its own affairs. The state has run the schools since 1995; current Superintendent Cami Anderson, an appointee of Governor Chris Christie, has alienated even supporters of her reform plans.

In addition, Newark gave the state power to approve hires in exchange for budget aid in 2011 and 2012; that agreement expired on December 31. And talks are underway with the Department of Justice to submit Newark?s police to federal monitoring.

Although its scope could vary, any state takeover of the city?s budget would mean a more thorough loss of local control. There is precedent: New Jersey took over operations in Camden, another major impoverished city, from 2002 to 2009. But the cautionary tale of Detroit carries greater impact, and Jeffries, for one, raises it often in his stump speech.

Once you have safety, then you can put together deals that are multi-use, that have the residential and commercial component. But the investment community has to have confidence in you.

On a recent Saturday morning, the tall, swift-talking Jeffries, who is 39, delivered his pitch before some three dozen volunteers in a storefront campaign office, revving them up as they prepared to knock on doors in Newark?s West Ward.

?This is an incredibly important election for the city of Newark,? he said. ?We can go in a direction that will bring about safer streets and neighborhoods, more opportunities to get our kids to and through college.? He listed positive outcomes, then switched tack.

?Or we can fall back, and we?re gonna be on the path to Detroit. We?ll have a situation where we?re divided based on race, based on class, based on geography. We could have a situation which will scare away the partnerships with the investment and development community which we need to grow our city.?

As his team fanned out into the neighborhood, Jeffries sketched out a vision centered on eliminating waste and cleaning up the city?s business dealings.

?We?ve got to have responsible leadership,? he said. ?We can?t have leadership based on the old politics of cronyism and hooking up political friends. That?s exactly how we?ll transact the city into financial ruin.?

Graft, he said, caused the school takeover, and had reappeared with the Watershed scandal. ?And if that?s true in the municipal government, then we can be sure the state will take that over as well.?

Jeffries has not, however, publicly released an economic plan. The issues section of his website discusses only crime and education, and his campaign message skews toward public safety. Playing up his record as a former state assistant attorney general, he advocates treatment instead of incarceration for addicts, but promises ?relentless? prosecution of violence, gangs, trafficking and illegal guns.

?Safety is the foundation of everything,? he said. ?Once you have safety, then you can put together deals that are multi-use, that have the residential and commercial component. But the investment community has to have confidence in you.?

We can balance our budget. If the state actually gave us enabling legislation to collect our own revenue in this town, then we wouldn't be here at all.

In their debates, which have been testy affairs, Jeffries has accused Baraka ? an organizer who first ran for mayor at 24 and was a thorn in Booker?s side ? of ?marching against Wall Street, against outsiders, even against white people.? He has also belittled his opponent?s record in the South Ward, which Baraka has represented since 2010 and where both candidates live.

Unlike Jeffries, Baraka has released an economic plan that promises a ?serious, sustained and coordinated effort to end this cycle of poverty and despair.? It envisions neighborhood corridors, partnerships with the city?s colleges ? including a large Rutgers campus and the New Jersey Institute of Technology ? and small-business promotion. He also promises to appoint a deputy mayor for full employment, likely a national first.

Interviewed at his South Ward headquarters, Baraka, who is 44 and a son of the late writer Amiri Baraka, said Newark could make savings ?here and there? but that his fiscal emphasis would be revenue. He reeled off ideas: water drainage fees for properties with non-permeable surfaces, a storage tax for the discarded shipping containers that blight areas near the port, more wine and beer licenses, and so on.

Baraka also suggested a municipal sales tax option: a surcharge on targeted goods and services that allows cities to recoup revenue from commuters. An estimated 100,000 people come to Newark each day, many to universities and county offices excluded from the city?s property tax base. Such measures would require state approval, however.

?We can balance our budget,? Baraka said. ?If the state actually gave us enabling legislation to collect our own revenue in this town, then we wouldn?t be here at all.?

How much a Newark mayor can do, given the city?s position as just one ? albeit the largest ? of the many municipalities that make up the New Jersey part of the tri-state economic area is in question. Even its two most visible assets, the port and airport, fall under the notoriously opaque Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

?The biggest thing the mayor can do is be a cheerleader for the city,? said Jonathan Wharton, a professor at Stevens Institute of Technology who wrote a book on Newark in the Booker years. ?The city needs to find ways of getting past its negative imagery.?

By general agreement, this was Booker?s skill ? and it brought major investment, albeit lubricated by generous incentives. Prudential and Panasonic built new headquarters. Newarker and ex-NBA star Shaquille O?Neal recently broke ground on a 23-story apartment building. A $410 million project to revive the once-thriving downtown intersection of Market and Broad streets secured $52.5 million in tax breaks.

?The plus is that the train has left the station: Downtown development is happening,? Baraka said. But he argued that the mayor should do much more. If elected, he said, he would work with the neighboring towns, as well as Jersey City, which is nearly as large as Newark, on joint procurement and regional development strategies. ?Mutual growth is what we should be talking about, not just city growth,? Baraka said.

Whether Baraka?s expansive approach or Jeffries? safety-first agenda gets put to the test will depend on an election that has heated up as it nears. Observers consider Baraka the front-runner, but Jeffries has the fund-raising edge. There are no independent polls: A survey published in early April by a pro-Baraka group showed him with a commanding lead, while a poll published this week by a pro-Jeffries PAC has him narrowing the lead. The vandalizing of Baraka?s campaign bus was traced to Jeffries supporters; a break-in at Jeffries?s campaign manager?s office remains unexplained.

The complexities of New Jersey politics are in play. Noted power brokers Joe DiVincenzo, the Essex County executive, and George Norcross, from South Jersey, have aligned with Jeffries, via intermediaries; Steven Fulop, the ambitious mayor of Jersey City, has endorsed Baraka, who also has the most union endorsements.

Newark?s ethnic politics ? the city is now only 52 percent black ? matter too: Jeffries is considered strong in the largely Hispanic North Ward and in the East Ward, which is Hispanic, Portuguese and Brazilian, but Baraka has picked off key supporters in each.

Baraka, whose campaign mantra is ?When I become mayor, we become mayor,? said he agrees with the growing view that a new progressive movement is taking shape in cities. Against the cautionary tale of Detroit, he offered the counter-example of Pittsburgh, whose revival around education and biotech, he said, offered lessons for Newark.

He downplayed the takeover threat. ?It?s bluster,? he said. ?I wouldn?t be surprised if some of this stuff is by design.?

Whoever becomes mayor will do so in a low-turnout election. Only 26 percent of Newark registered voters took part in the 2010 election, illustrating the sense of disengagement that prevails in many cities ? a built-in limit to any new movement, unless it can grow back participation.

?We don?t have a lot of people voting; we have to change that at the grassroots level,? said Richard Cammarieri, a longtime Newark community development activist. ?People are angry about things but turning that anger into apathy rather than action. That?s the kind of thing we need to work on, and then hold the people that we elect accountable.?