The Daily Newarker

“After this budget, I will be right in Christie’s face every single day saying, ‘You own these schools under state takeover, partner with me in making real reforms.’”

—Mayor Cory Booker, on the recent collaboration with Governor Chris Christie to take steps to reform Newark’s schools.

“What some people want to see me do is jump up and down and discredit the mayor. I do not believe in public name calling but when it was necessary I have spoken out against the mayor.”

—Councilwoman Mildred Crump, whose role as council president is up for grabs this week. Crump has been accused of running a “rubber stamp” council, who votes through the Mayor’s agenda.

NJ.com: Newark residents hope to replace demolished housing project with park, gardens

On Monday, the infamous housing project, once a sign of economic growth and Newark’s burgeoning prosperity, will be demolished, ending decades of blight, political struggles and legal challenges.

“Today we are casting out the shadows which once darkened this neighborhood,” Newark Mayor Cory Booker said Friday, at a news conference officially announcing the demolition of the nearly 80-year-old complex. “Brick by brick we will let the light shine down on a new and improved green space,” Mayor Booker said.

Good news.

NJ.com: Newark hopes city attractions lure more visitors

So where are the tourists on the streets below? To hear “insiders” at a forum titled “Greater Newark as a Destination” tell it, New Jersey’s largest city is on the cusp of becoming something of a mecca.

Cites growing interest in the Newark Museum, Prudential Center, and Harrison’s Red Bull Soccer Arena. It would be nice to see stories about the growing tax income as a result of these success stories. I don’t see any other way the city is going to sustainably plug the budget gap apart from more businesses moving to the city and paying their due.

NJ.com: Municipal Utility Authority could bring millions to Newark

The most immediate advantage of the authority will be its ability to bond, earning the city $50 million this year, $40 million next year, $10 million in 2012, and roughly $5 million every year after. Without the revenue, Booker said he will be forced to institute major property tax increases to slash an estimated $180 million deficit. According to critics, the move is a quick fix fraught with potential for corruption and rate hikes for residents. Booker and city officials are bracing for a major public outcry as the idea is presented and voted on this summer. If history is any indicator, the fight will not be easy.

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Booker said the alternative to the MUA is a 30 percent property tax hike as opposed to a 2.5 percent increase. Without knowing what the increase in water rates will be, the mayor said he is hopeful residents will take the gamble.

It’s unclear from Giambusso’s reporting here if the Mayor actually used the word “gamble.” To extend the analogy, this isn’t unlike putting the deed to your house on black to avoid bank foreclosure—doing nothing means you lose your house, winning means you get to keep it.

Losing, though, is where the analogy gets muddier. Booker seems to have been referring solely to an increase in water rates (a downside that may not outweigh the upside). But lending concerns and poor governance could make the downside an even costlier proposition for city residents.

Of course, none of this happens in a vacuum. If you believe that the city is on its way to a bright and prosperous future, perhaps even this worst case could be offset by future businesses and corporations taking up shop here in Newark. Staring down the barrel of a slow-moving economic recovery and double-digit unemployment makes that a pretty big “if.”

Adding transparency to the process of drafting an MUA plan could mitigate the risks of implementation. But, with a yawning budget gap despite year after year of cuts and layoffs at City Hall, is it a gamble the city can afford not to take?

Newark Art Walk!  A monthly showcase of Newark’s vibrant and evolving downtown art scene taking place the Fourth Saturday of each month through October

This Weekend: Saturday, June 26, focus on: Halsey St Village

More information: www.NewarkArts.org

Local Talk Newark: Verizon Opens New FiOS Store in Newark’s Central Ward

“We have about close to 100,000 households in Newark who will ultimately be served by our FiOS products but are served today by our phone and our high speed Internet products,” said Mary Yarbrough, Verizon vice president of marketing and sales for the Mid-Atlantic region.

She said Verizon plans to build FiOS out to all 93,000 households in the Newark area over the next five to six years.

Wow, Verizon, what’s the hurry?

For more, check out MTV‘s coverage, Eminem’s ‘Not Afraid’: Newark Locals Say Video ‘Shows His Heart’.

NJ.com: Cory Booker is re-elected as Newark mayor for second term

Newark Mayor Cory Booker easily won a second term Tuesday night, but with a tighter margin of victory than in 2006, and with only seven of his nine council candidates winning re-election, according to incomplete election results.

Booker received 59 percent of the vote, beating out three challengers — Clifford Minor, Yvonne Garrett Moore and Mirna L. White. Minor, a subdued former prosecutor and municipal judge, received just 35 percent of the vote.

At the time of publication, Charles Bell wasn’t the clear election winner in the Central Ward. According to the city’s Newark Election 2010 website, it looks like he has, indeed, won.

New York Times: Newark Project With Schools and Housing for Teachers

But the Newark development, a complex for middle- and lower-income tenants to be known as Teachers Village, takes Mr. Meier, 75, back to his roots, to a time more than 40 years ago when he devoted as much energy to subsidized housing as to beach houses.

Despite the project’s modest budget of $120 million, its tautly composed and thoughtfully laid out forms reflect the same intelligence and care found in most of Mr. Meier’s work. City officials are hoping its design – along with its location, a dilapidated neighborhood between City Hall and a cluster of college campuses – will help contribute to a much wider urban revival.

Teachers Village is not only the most impressive of several new initiatives in Newark, but also the most dramatic example yet of what is shaping up to be a significant and hopeful trend in architecture.

Wally Edge: If Booker gets less than 60%, is his star quality tarnished?

Newark Mayor Cory Booker has two opponents in the May 11 election: 67-year-old former judge and prosecutor Clifford Minor, and the expectations game.

The charismatic Booker, with a 17-1 fundraising advantage, is likely to win re-election to as second term against the quiet and reserved Minor, who has the backing of what is left of Sharpe James’ old machine. The problem for Booker is that he won with 75% of the vote four years ago (against a formidable opponent, State Sen. Ronald Rice) and then went on to become a national media sensation.

The defeat of Gov. Jon Corzine last fall makes Booker a leading candidate for the 2013 Democratic nomination for governor, if he wants it. But a lackluster victory against a bland, relatively unknown, underfinanced opponent – perhaps anything under 60% — might create the impression that local voters don’t think Booker is as good as his friends in Washington, Chicago and Hollywood think he is. That might make his front runner status in the next gubernatorial primary less automatic.

New York Times: First Trial in 2007 Triple Murder in Newark Opens

Nearly three years later, this city on Tuesday began to relive one of the most notorious crimes in its recent history, as the first of six defendants went on trial in the execution-style murders of three students in a schoolyard on a summer night.

Thomas McTigue, an assistant county prosecutor, called the defendant, 26-year-old Rodolfo Godinez, a recruiter for a violent street gang who actively participated in the crime — laying the groundwork for a charge that he committed murder whether or not he fired the gun.

Politicker NJ: Newark Straw poll: Booker detractors nurse hurt in Central and West, but Minor largely undefined as challenger

Disappointed with Mayor Cory Booker, a random scattershot of voters in the Central and West wards don’t know enough about challenger Clifford Minor to feel confident he would do better and some question his campaign trail passion, according to a PolitickerNJ.com straw poll conducted Saturday.

Dismantling your opponent’s platform while failing to articulate your own is rarely a winning formula, and never sparks meaningful policy.

We received a 10-page pamphlet from the Minor camp lambasting the mayor for everything from his high-powered friends to the city’s long-running battle with crime.  Minor has failed to define his platform as anything but the anti-Booker campaign.

One is left to wonder how Minor would govern City Hall, if given the opportunity.

New York Times: Devils’ Move Paying Off for Team, and Newark

The Devils ultimately fell to the Philadelphia Flyers a few days later, the third straight year they were bounced from the playoffs in the first round.

But off the ice, the team, which moved to Prudential Center in 2007 from the charmless Meadowlands, is starting to find its feet in Newark.

After a shaky start, attendance is up, more fans are traveling to games on mass transit and are spending more money in the growing number of restaurants and shops near the arena.

NJ.com: Newark students walk out, protest at City Hall against school budget cuts

You could hear the protests from blocks around City Hall.

With the municipal elections looming large next month, we’ll be making an effort to interview the prospective city council candidates.

This week, I’m pleased to present this podcast interview with Peter Pantoliano, candidate for the East Ward council seat.

Mr. Pantoliano has been a leader in the Ironbound community for years. He is currently serving as a representative for the 19th district in the city of Newark. He’s a prominent local business owner in the neighborhood, having started his first optometry office on Ferry Street nearly 30 years ago, and having moved to the East Ward about 10 years ago.

While considered by political prognosticators as the underdog in his race against the established three-term incumbent, Augusto Amador, Mr. Pantoliano’s grass-roots zeal and belief in the people of the Ironbound is palpable.

The podcast is about 30 minutes in length. Click the play button below to listen.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

In the podcast, we discuss:

• How Mr. Pantoliano came to live and work in the Ironbound and how he came to be interested in Newark politics
• Plans for the upcoming election and his campaign kickoff
• The major challenges and opportunities the Councilman sees facing the East Ward right now
• What platforms Mr. Pantoliano has chosen to make the core message of his campaign (taxes, public safety, and healthcare)
• What assets and experiences the challenger brings to the table for improving the Ironbound
• How the recent economic challenges might affect the neighborhood and what opportunities Mr. Pantoliano sees to address them
• How technology can position residents for the 21st century workforce

To find out more about Mr. Peter Pantoliano, check out his website or follow him on Twitter at @PeterEastWard.

Star Ledger: EPA chief tours N.J. two worst Superfund sites in Newark, Pompton Lakes

She was met with greetings of “welcome home” during a stop in Newark, where she focused on efforts to clean up a stretch of the Passaic River polluted with dioxins from a former Agent Orange chemical factory.

Jackson said the planned cleanup of the Passaic, along the portion known as the Diamond Alkali Superfund site, was one of the EPA’s two largest dredging projects in the nation, the other being a segment of New York’s Hudson River.

Pollution, like debt, is a plague where poor decisions in the past continue to rack up consequences as time rolls forward. The damage to the Passaic will continue to hold up progress in Newark and Harrison until the river can be restored.

New York Times: Once Uniforms, They Are Now Works of Art

Through the Combat Paper Project, which was founded by Mr. Matott, 32, and Drew Cameron, 28, an Iraq war veteran, in Burlington, Vt., in 2007, hundreds of veterans of World War II and of the wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan and other conflicts have turned their uniforms into hangable works of art meant to convey something of their experiences.

“The Combat Paper Project: Healing Through Art,” an exhibition that opened at the Newark Public Library on Thursday and will run through June 26, displays some 60 works of art on paper made from former military uniforms.

With the municipal elections looming large in the coming weeks, we’ll be making an effort to interview the prospective city council candidates.

I’m pleased to present our first podcast interview this week with Councilman Ron C. Rice, representing the West Ward. In Mayor Booker’s 2009 State of the City address, he referred to Councilman Rice as the hardest working person on the Council, claiming that the Mayor’s own aggressive schedule is matched by Mr. Rice, who is also known for driving around his neighborhood late at night in his own car.

The podcast is about 30 minutes in length. Click the play button below to listen.

In the podcast, we discuss:

• Plans for the upcoming election and the Booker Team kickoff
• The major challenges and opportunities the Councilman sees facing the West Ward right now
• What efforts have been undertaken to improve the West Ward, such as the Family Success Centers and the West Ward Collective
• How Councilman Rice had seen the Ward change over his four years in office
• How the recently-announced state budget cuts affect the West Ward and the city overall
• How his office is leveraging technology to serve his constituency and how the city is addressing the digital divide to position residents for the 21st century workforce

To find out more about Councilman Ronald C. Rice, check out his website or follow him on Twitter at @ronaldcrice.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Star Ledger: Sen. Ray Lesniak’s bill to replace N.J.’s Council on Affordable Housing needs work

It is a deeply flawed process. But COAH succeeded in creating 45,000 affordable housing units over 25 years that otherwise would not have been built. It needs fixing, but Lesniak’s bill would gut it.