By David Cruz
NJ Today
Attendance at today’s Newark City Council meeting was light, on both sides of the dais. Consider it the calm before the storm because Brick City is about to become engaged in — some might say, engulfed in — a political season that will go a long way in determining the path of the state’s largest city. Cory Booker, one of the country’s top political personalities, prepares to move on to higher office. For better or worse, Booker’s impact has been major.
“I think in a lot of ways it was good; it was bad,” says Councilman Ron C. Rice, who came to the city council on the original Booker slate of candidates eight years ago. “I think in a lot of ways Newark has an attention now from the national press. It’s gonna be looking for what happens afterwards, but I think that at least all three of the big name candidates are all gonna have, sort of, great expectations.”
Two of those big name candidates were not at the meeting today. One, Ras Baraka, is traveling and the other, Anibal Ramos, is preparing for his campaign kickoff tonight. They’re joined by attorney and former Board of Education member Shavar Jeffries as the three announced candidates, so far.
“I think safety is number one,” says Jeffries, who announced his candidacy two weeks ago. “The city cannot grow, cannot thrive with the levels of violence we have. I’ve even seen my own father-in-law robbed at gunpoint a couple of weeks ago in front of my house, and we have residents in this city who are increasingly fearful when you just listen to them as I have throughout the whole city for the last several months. They’re very fearful about their own safety, the safety of their children, our elders are being robbed. Our city simply cannot grow until we get a better handle on the safety situation.”
Jeffries is not alone in noting that — despite all the positive light shone on the city’s current chief executive — there is a lot about Newark that remains unchanged when it comes to crime and the economy. Cassandra Dock is a community activist who is at almost every council meeting. She is a one-woman news service, texting to a growing list of readers everything from city council votes to homicides. She’s got advice for those seeking to be the next mayor of her city.
“This is not a game,” she admonishes the candidates. “This is not about being on TV. This is about coming in here, really getting down to finding out what we can do; how we can do it, to improve our city, and it can be done. It can be done.”
Louis Shockley is another regular at city hall. Today he’s challenging the council on living up to its First Source agreements. He’s known for his anti-Booker T-shirt, but he’s got no great love for any of the announced candidates right now.
“Right now I’m not impressed or happy with any of them because they haven’t really stepped up to the administration,” he says. “The council has power and they could have stopped some of these things or at the very least, slow down. They allowed this mayor to get rid of 167 police officers. They should’ve stopped that. They should have emptied out city hall before they let go of one officer because crime is not going down and it hasn’t gone down.”
Besides crime, which Mayor Booker contends is down, overall, the lack of jobs and affordable housing continue to plague this city, and many of its residents have just come to expect little from their government, which is something even Booker hasn’t been able to change.
Booker will be a tough act to follow, but with three announced candidates already and still a year to go before election day, it’s clear that there won’t be a shortage of people willing to give it a try.