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Originally posted by ktsnake
Is this the only paper in Newark? If not, why the heck doesn't someone set up shop to actually publish stories critical of government. My guess is that the Newark city council members aren't paragons of morality and righteousness.
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Your last sentence is an understatement. I recommend watching the documentary Street Fight. It's impressive how you can run a city like a dictatorships and have the cops attack your opponents.
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Sharpe James, is a very controversial figure. In 2002 he made, as mayor of a medium sized city, $213,000 a year, a salary higher than any governor in the nation. He allows other Newark public officials to be similarly overcompensated. In 1997, James' chief of staff was convicted of bribery and his police chief was convicted of embezzlement.
James also presides over a government that collects less than 85 percent of the tax money owed it, and a city that has higher crime and infant mortality rates than other similar cities in New Jersey. In the 1990s, a good decade for American cities, Newark still lost 20 percent of its tax base.
2002 was James' only close election. He was challenged by Cory Booker, a Central Ward councilman and former Stanford football star and Rhodes Scholar. Booker ran on a platform of focusing on the city away from downtown, community policing, and expanding after school programs.
The contentious election was chronicled in the PBS documentary, "Street Fight"
Sharpe James ran on a platform of emphasizing his experience relative to the youthful Booker. His slogan was "the real deal". Unofficially, James ran on a platform of emphasizing his blackness and role in the civil rights struggle. James said, "[He] acts like us, talks like us, but is not us," and "You have to learn to be an African American, and we don't have time to train you."
James also privately said that Booker was "controlled by the Jews" and was a "faggot."
James won the 2002 election with 53 percent of the vote. Since then he has pursued an expensive arena for the Devils. He has also sought to punish groups that supported Booker. He has denied applications for the New Community Corporation to receive federal funds.
-Rudey