Everything Newark

Newsvine: Mayor Offers Beleaguered Newark New Hope. Newsvine picks up the Associated Press story on Newark’s new day, with a great photo of our new mayor.

By the time Mayor Cory Booker concluded his inauguration address Saturday, he was screaming above the thundering crowd.

“Will you stand with me, Newark?” he asked and asked again, sounding like a preacher addressing his congregation. “We must stand now and meet our challenges.”

The Newark Star Ledger is providing some clips of the Inauguration, which features some clips of Booker’s speech, and a bit of a gaffe during his oath. The Ledger also recorded some video from outside the event where Joan Whitlow pokes a little fun at the $500 donation to attend (via Newark Speaks).

The Battle for Newark blog did a lot of great work in the last couple of days. Here’s Booker sworn in as Newark mayor.

New York Times: Booker Names 6 to Top Jobs in Newark. Two days before his inauguration, Cory Booker named officials to the top jobs in his administration. Booker’s appointments will be scrutinized relative to how they are able to deal with the growing crime problem as citizens fear an increase in the homicide rate.

Anthony Campos, a 20-year veteran of the Newark Police Department, was named acting police chief. Mr. Campos, 39, is currently the deputy chief of police and will succeed Chief Irving F. Bradley Jr. Mr. Booker said he was conducting a nationwide search for a permanent police director and chief but that he had authorized Mr. Campos to increase police presence on the street within hours of the swearing-in at noon on Saturday.

Newark has seen a rise in violent crime in the last year, and both Mr. Booker and Chief Campos cited last weekend’s violence in the city, in which eight people were shot and two of them died.

Newark Star Ledger: A mighty splashy Saturday for Newark. The Star Ledger has an critical opinion piece on Cory’s Inaugural Ball on Saturday. Apparently, you can’t attend the main event unless you’re making some sweet moolah (or were a volunteer for the campaign). Anyone planning to go to the “FREE” events?

If Jon Corzine could get by charging $250 a ticket for his gubernatorial inauguration, does it matter that Newark’s mayor-elect Cory Booker is charging $500 and up for his inaugural ball this Saturday at Bears and Eagles Riverfront Stadium?

The New York Sun: Newark Takes a Hard Lesson In the Pro Stadium Game.

It seems Newark Mayor-elect Cory Booker never did make it to those sports business management classes during his days as a Rhodes scholar or at Yale’s law school. It might have saved him some aggravation in dealing with major league sports owners.

Booker, who takes office on Saturday, is thinking about backing out of the agreement that outgoing Mayor Sharpe James cut with New Jersey Devils owner Jeffrey Vanderbeek to build a Newark arena for the hockey team. Why not welcome the Devils to Newark with open arms? Because James bought the city a major league franchise that won’t have the word Newark in its name or on its arena, and he did it for a questionable price.

Tom Moran: A serious accusation, made cheap in Newark. Moran takes a skeptical look at the “race card” that he says is played too often in Newark.

On Wednesday, the job fell to Councilman Ras Baraka, who sat directly across a large conference table from Corzine and his senior aides. The proposal had been modified by then, but its odor remained.

So Baraka played the race card.

“You’re looking at it from a racially and economically privileged position,” he told them. “I don’t have that privilege. I live in Newark where kids are getting shot in the streets and parents are coming to me saying, ‘My child needs a job.’”

• Battle for Newark: League of Women Voters letter. In brief, it went something like, “Ahem, NO we didn’t sponsor that.”
• WBGO: Sen. Rice wants the Newark mayor’s race monitored for fraud. Isn’t that we have state election boards?
• Newark06: Rice Goes on the Attack. Rice mimics James’ 2002 tactic of flinging hateful accusations at Booker in order to undermine his reputation. It seems that where the Booker team has matured, the current administration has descended to grade school warfare. What’s next? Will Rice shout boldly to Booker at the debate that “you’re not the boss of me,” or will he use the “I’m rubber, you’re glue” attack instead?
• Battle for Newark: Where to catch the candidates. Katie shares a quick reference for next week’s appearances for the mayoral candidates.
• Rutgers-Newark: Newark Riots – 1967.
  

Rutgers-Newark: Rutgers-Newark Campus To Host Newark’s Four Mayoral Candidates In May 2 Debate. One week before election day, Rutgers-Newark will be hosting the mayoral-candidate smackdown on May 2^nd at the Robeson Center.

The event at R-N will be the only forum to bring together all four candidates in the nonpartisan election: David Blount, Cory Booker, Ronald L. Rice and Nancy Rosenstock. The format calls for the debate moderator, Desiree Taylor of NJN, to present a series of questions, with each candidate given an equal amount of time to respond to each. Questions will be drawn both from audience questions, submitted shortly before the debate, and questions developed by Student Voices based on input from Newark high school students about local issues they are most concerned about. Doors to the program will open at 6:30 p.m. to allow audience members to submit their questions.

I’m just getting around to reading the Q&A Cory Booker had with the Newark Speaks community. His answers to the handful of questions he chose to answer were very clear and exciting for the people of Newark. One question, in particular, really struck me as an extreme example of public service:

Q. Do you plan to move (I’m embarrassed to say my mayor lives in a run down apt. building.) and if so what ward do he plan to move to?

Clement Price, Newark historian at Rutgers University, introduced tonight’s screening of Marshall Curry’s “Street Fight” by explaining its relevance in the stream of documentaries about the city, including “City of Promise” and “Revolution: 1967”. He noted the film’s Oscar nomination, but explained that the film was ultimately was beaten out by 100 penguins.

We got started with the film shortly after Curry shared some additional words of introduction—though some technical difficulties at the outset prompted a member of the audience to ask, “Is there anyone here from NJIT?” It was fun to see the film again, this time with an audience. We laughed as one enthusiastic little girl declared that Booker “smells like the future,” and gasped in amazement as Curry caught James telling lie after lie down the campaign trail.