NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL INITIATIVE

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The following initiative on political empowerment and restructuring never got off the ground in Newark, New Jersey. Everything outlined in this proposal is relevant for every major city in America, and even for smaller cities over 30,000 population. There is a lack of adequate democratic (that’s democratic with a small “d”) representation. All power and responsibility is concentrated in City Hall, where non-elected bureaucrats run city programs and departments. This is the “civil servant mentality”. These civil servants are not concerned with resolving problems in the neighborhoods. Instead they are basically concerned with keeping their jobs and their pensions, and having as few problems and as few concerned citizens as possible to deal with. They just don’t care.

The Republican concept on resolving urban problems should be back to basics on democracy. The myriad of problems in the cities is best addressed by creating democratically elected Neighborhood Councils who live in the immediate neighborhood, who care, and who have the drive to define solutions. Power will be reconstructed as ‘bottom-up’ from the neighborhoods, instead of top-down from the County Democratic political machines to city hall, and then top-down again to the disorganized neighborhoods. Each neighborhood would be a defined geographic area of about 11,000 or so people.

GRAND VISION FOR THE NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL INITIATIVE

By Eric Martindale, April 26, 2017

Revised September 30, 2018

INTRODUCTION

There is a pressing need to restructure the City of Newark and to create an official neighborhood level of government, one for each of the city's 25 neighborhoods.  

The central government of Newark should function as a regionalized government, with a great deal of responsibility in the hands of each of the 25 Neighborhood Councils. There will still be an elected city council of 9 members for the City of Newark, but the fundamental political unit in Newark will be the 25 Neighborhood Councils, not the nine city councilmembers. The system won’t exactly be Ward-based, but each of the 5 Wards will have approximately 5 Neighborhood Councils.  

We need to EMPOWER the neighborhoods and more importantly empower the PEOPLE of the neighborhoods. In every neighborhood, there are leaders, activists and geniuses. There are community-oriented, family-oriented, and spiritual-minded folks who want to be part of the solution. We’re throwing up a big tent, and they all deserve a seat at the table. Local leaders need to be at the forefront in leading their neighborhoods, and formulating policy. All ideas and policy in Newark should flow bottom-up, not top-down.

In doing so, we will create the needed "hands-on" attention to address all of the critical urban problems in each neighborhood, especially 

The large scale restructuring proposed here is mission-central to actually ending the violence, ending the chaos, and solving the problems of Newark. 

The current population of Newark, believed to be about 290,000, divided by 25 equals 11,600 people. Some will be smaller than others in population, for instance the Dayton Ave area of the South Ward is a distinct neighborhood that is much smaller in population than the average. 11,600 would be the approximate size of each neighborhood jurisdiction. Those who have lived in small towns between 5,000 and 20,000 residents will understand the inherent benefits of small-town government:

• The people feel directly connected with the government 
  
• The elected officials of the jurisdiction know the residents
  
• The police have a more direct relationship with the community
  
• There is an intense sense of community and local pride, and 
  
• Residents are able to address and resolve all types of issues. 
  

The lack of this small-town community feeling is quite literally the chaos we know as Newark.  

This might be a tough sell to some people who have lived only in Newark, because they’ve never personally experienced the small-town perspective. We can have a strong local sense of community everywhere in Newark, and in other cities everywhere. 

FAILED ATTEMPT– SUPERNEIGHBORHOOD PROGRAM

Newark’s former Superneighborhood program was a step in this direction, but it contained a fatal flaw that ultimately destroyed the initiative. That fatal flaw was allowing the Mayor (Corey Booker) to appoint each of the Superneighborhood Board members. In addition, he selected one of his strongest supporters as the full-time paid coordinator of the program. 

It was abundantly clear that the entire program was an outreach mission for the mayor’s political organization. Everyone knew it. Mayor Booker didn’t want to risk having political opponents serving on the local boards, and everyone knew that as well. Growing support for the mayor was more important than actual community organizing. Due to the inherent flaw, it was 100% certain that the mayor’s first successor from outside of his political organization would immediately abandon the initiative. And that is exactly what happened. Mayor Ras Baraka was elected in 2014, and he walked away from it immediately. The very same flaw totally destroyed a similar initiative set up by Mayor Cunningham in Jersey City.  

For this reason, the number one priority for the Neighborhood Council Program is to have the Neighborhood Councilmembers elected by the registered voters of each neighborhood, on Election Day.

Newark is still divided into 20 Superneighborhoods, which are mapped out and recognized by the city’s Planning Department. The Superneighborhood Councils were initiated by political appointment, which automatically made them "suspect". There is a website that is still up and running, www.newarksncc.wordpress.com.  At least 12 of the 20 Superneighborhoods were actually appointed, and some of these may still be functioning in an advisory capacity to city councilpersons. None of them have any prominence.

The Superneighborhood program was part of a larger vision of community involvement that included setting up a special 4311 phone number (973-733-4311) for city hall to catalog every citizen complaint or inquiry. The first hint that things were going terribly wrong was when the 4311 operators were directed to stop taking complaints about code enforcement and property maintenance. That was by far the number one reason people were calling. Mayor Cory Booker started backing off the entire idea of directly empowering the citizenry long before he left office, because folks that he appointed onto the Superneighborhood Boards grew frustrated that they couldn’t get things done. 

At it’s height in 2008 and 2009, Newark’s Superneighborhood Program had at least 12 neighborhood groups up and running, and a full-time paid staff member at city hall to coordinate the program. They held annual conferences in an auditorium at Rutgers that drew hundreds of attendees. People left those conferences motivated and fired up about the future of Newark, and brimming with enthusiasm over Mayor Cory Booker. Even then, at that amazing level of organization, it was difficult to educate the public that the Superneighborhood program could be taken further, to the level outlined in this report.

The Superneighborhood program was a colossal failure due to its inherent flaw. Newark has since taken a giant step backwards in terms of community organizing. We’re just going to have to start over.

DETAILS OF THE GRAND VISION

The grand vision is to create 25 Neighborhood Councils, 5 for each of the five Wards, and with distinct boundaries to create a strong sense of community in each. Each Neighborhood Council would have 9 members elected in a general election of all registered voters, for a total of 225 additional elected officials. We are just never going to solve all the problems of Newark without another 225 dedicated community leaders elected to do it, and given all the resources to make it happen. 

Power in Newark will become non-partisan and bottom-up.  In addition to the focus on the neighborhood problems, there will be an equally strong laser-focus on city hall and all of its departments. 

The basic level of government in Newark will be the 25 elected Neighborhood Councils, and they will be powerful. 

The mayor, the city council, and the city departments will be continuously and strenuously concerned about serving the needs of each Neighborhood Council, knowing that their political livelihood depends on it.

The ultimate “Power to the People” movement is to incorporate such power directly into the government structure of Newark, to restructure the city, and to empower the neighborhoods.

There are a couple avenues to get this done. One would be if a slate of candidates for Mayor & Council ran on this issue. Another would be to elect a Charter Commission to restructure Newark. 

It's time to get involved, to bring this to the next level. People are generally mad. They are mad at Washington, DC, they are mad at Trenton, they are mad at our County Political organization, and they are mad at Newark City Hall. 

The ideas presented in the Outline below are still “bare bones”.  Everyone has the opportunity to contribute to this process, and to feel ownership in the finished product.   We are seizing the moral high ground, and we are advancing public policy and positive social change.

Interested parties should review www.empowerla.org to see one idea of what community empowerment could look like. This is not necessarily our model, but the Los Angeles model is very interesting.

The grand vision is to pick and choose the best ideas from various cities, incorporate our own locally generated ideas, and come up with the MOST EMPOWERING POSSIBLE local neighborhood structure for the City of Newark. We will develop the necessary State-level support. Other cities all around America incorporate the local government concept, in one form or another. We are not inventing something that’s never been done.

One serious obstacle: New Jersey does not yet allow a city to have defined neighborhoods with elected Neighborhood Councils. 

There are various forms of government that are allowed, and this isn’t one of them. This initiative will involve State legislation as well as a pro-neighborhood City Council. We recognize this from the onset. We have friends in the State legislature. We are not deterred.

Once this reaches our State legislators, I expect this proposal to completely shred Party lines. There will likely be strong bi-partisan support, and strong bi-partisan opposition, from our State legislators. 

1.  DEMOCRATS: The idea of grass-roots neighborhood empowerment is something that many Democratic legislators will support philosophically. The “true believers” will embrace it. However, the Essex County Democratic political machine may be less supportive because this represents a big change in their political world. They want things run top-down (from them), not bottom-up (from the neighborhoods). A good strategy could be to shame them into supporting this.

2.  REPUBLICANS: The proposed form of government is a challenge to the existing Democratic machine in the cities, so we’ll automatically have the support of the Republicans. It is also "back to basics on the whole concept of democracy", and that will draw strong support from Libertarian and Constitutionalist thinkers. It is also reminiscent of the "village elder" concept of small-town America. For all of these reasons, the proposal could draw significant Republican support, but it has to be carefully sold. The Neighborhood Council positions cannot be paid. Republicans (and even many Democrats) are not going to support another whole level of government with paid positions and pensions. That’s not going to happen.

3.  THE FINAL TALLY: If we can get 50% of the Democratic legislators and 75% of the Republican legislators to support this, we can get this through the state legislature in Trenton. Past governor Chris Christie would have probably signed it in a heartbeat, but support from current Governor Phil Murphy is uncertain.

What is certain is that many people have long been critical of how cities in New Jersey are run, and allowing the creation of Neighborhood Councils in New Jersey's cities will open up and expose everything. Bottom line: this proposal is so fundamental to the structure of democracy that partisan politics will not define it. 

THE BARE BONES OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL PROJECT

A.  STRUCTURE AND BOUNDARIES

1.  Neighborhoods Councils should be elected in a general election of all registered voters in each neighborhood. Significant duties and responsibilities should shift from the central government at 920 Broad Street to the Neighborhood Councils.

2.  This system must not be based on property ownership in the manner of a Business Improvement District (BID) or a Neighborhood Improvement District (NID). We cannot solve the problems of Newark with 78% of all household (tenants) designated as second-class citizens through the creation of BIDs and NIDs. Tenants are much more disaffected by urban problems than homeowners. The whole point is empowerment, and that empowerment must include everyone. BIDs and NIDs that do not include tenants as equal participants are firmly and absolutely not the model for this program.

3.  The system must be explicitly non-partisan to minimize the top-down influence of party bosses. Notwithstanding a few independent-minded elected officials, the partisan system (Dem/Rep) is inherently top-down. The proposed system is bottom-up by its very design.  Individuals shall run on their own merits, and on their own credibility. Tickets of candidates for the Neighborhood Council elections, including non-partisan tickets, should be disallowed. People should run on their own merits, period.

4.  The designated neighborhood boundaries should be as set in stone as municipal borders, which are also never subject to redistricting after every census. There will be many voting districts within each designated neighborhood. The number of the voting districts could increase or decrease in time as the population rises or falls, using the exact same equation that is used in small municipalities. The number of voting districts in a municipality can rise or fall, but the municipal boundaries do not change. Same concept here. There’s nothing novel here at all; what happens in every small town in New Jersey is that every town has it’s own voting districts, and they don’t stray over municipal boundaries no matter what happens with the census every ten years. What will change over time is Newark’s Ward boundaries, because they are subject to redistricting after every census. Every 10 years the Ward boundaries will change. The Wards are much larger than the Neighborhoods, and they will always incorporate voting districts in multiple Neighborhoods. A Ward could have some voting districts of a Neighborhood, but not all of them. We don’t care, as long as it’s an entire voting district that changes from one Ward to another with the redistricting. It doesn’t matter to us because the Wards determine City Councilmembers, not the Neighborhood Councilmembers. The whole point here is to create a fixed identity and political unit for each Neighborhood, while the ever-changing boundaries of the Wards is of zero concern to this initiative.

5.  The boundaries of police precincts should be promptly adjusted to reflect the defined neighborhood boundaries. Each Police Precinct will cover several neighborhoods and interact very heavily with the Neighborhood Councils.

6.  Over time, the boundaries of school districts should be adjusted to reflect the neighborhood boundaries as much as possible. Schools are inherently the focus of community life.

7.  Each Neighborhood shall be considered a Planning Unit for the purposes of the city’s Master Plan. Wherever possible, the boundaries of each neighborhood shall be drawn with an existing or planned neighborhood business district at or near its center.

B.  RESPONSIBILITIES FOR THE NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCILS

Newark will be functioning as a regionalized government of 25 communities, with many responsibilities handled on the local level, and some responsibilities remaining centralized.  Local responsibilities can include:

1.  Interact with all city departments to address neighborhood concerns. Provide direction to Code Enforcement, with an emphasis on the repair of deteriorated structures and the elimination of abandoned houses and vacant lots.  

2.  Set up a Code Enforcement Court, one for each defined neighborhood, for all issues regarding property maintenance codes.  The decisions will be binding. Such matters will no longer be within the jurisdiction of the existing overworked court system.

3.  Set up recreation programs, art-based and cultural programs, community events of all sorts, and youth programs specifically including youth mentoring initiatives. These shall include Faith-based programs by Christian, Muslim, and other organizations.

4.  Meet regularly with the Police to focus on criminal activity, as well as to provide review to police actions. Provide input to root out gangs, drugs, unregistered guns, and criminal activity. Encourage the formation of block watches, and provide direction to block watch leaders. Set up a Community Court for each Neighborhood regarding minor matters of delinquency, with a passive fine structure. All verdicts are to be posted online and at the local community center. This is to demonstrate that there is structure and authority, to shame the youth (and adults) into behaving, and to shame the parents into setting rules for their children. Shame and stigma are powerful tools to enforce the values of society. The emphasis of this process would be to identify youth in need of mentoring.

5.  The Neighborhood Council assumes the social role of respected “village elders”. Our youth need to see that there is a community structure and a social and economic system that works, that addresses people’s concerns, that creates a sense of place, that cares for them, and that encourages them to become responsible law-abiding adults. Otherwise gangs will continue to fill the void. There will be banners on telephone poles, newsletters, websites, and community meetings. There will be a strong sense of community and local pride among the residents. This is a holistic change over the status quo of Newark, and it will act to dramatically reduce urban social problems. This is central to the vision. Some people will understand this instantly, while others will think about it for years, and never understand until it is up and running.

6.  Facilitate the formation of Block Watches as sub-units within the Neighborhood. A neighborhood of 11,000 people could have dozens of Block Watches and dozens more large apartment buildings. Some of the Block Watches can serve as tenant associations, especially if the “block” is a single large apartment building. Provide direction to these groups, act as an umbrella, and address their concerns. 

7.  Local review of development proposals in order to provide formal input to the city’s Planning, Zoning, Board of Adjustment, and the Historic & Architectural Review Board.

8.  Assume responsibility to hire and fire private companies to maintain local parks and shade trees, sweep streets, and collect garbage and recyclables. All of these services will dramatically improve because of the pressure of market performance in a free and open economy. This is a Republican concept, as is the idea of privatizing government services. If these private companies don’t perform to the demands of the elected Neighborhood Councils, they will be promptly replaced. This is a sea-change from the civil servant mentality of unionized city workers. They have job security, and it doesn’t matter how well they perform. Under the new paradigm you’ll have business owners telling their workers “do your job well and respect the residents and community leaders, or our company will lose this contract, and you’ll be out of a job”. That’s going to work way better, for sure. Services will dramatically improve. It doesn’t matter how “blue” the cities have been, the Neighborhood Councils are going to love having power over these services. And they will know this is a Republican idea.

9.  Some power to create local ordinances, to be outlined after the system is set up.  Define which matters are under the jurisdiction of the Neighborhood Councils, and which matters are under the jurisdiction of the regionalized Newark City Council

10.  Create ad-hoc committees and project committees, to involve even more people on the grass-roots level, on as many projects as possible.

11.  Interact with existing houses of worship and non-profit organizations for all programs and initiatives. Support Faith-based initiatives, especially for youth mentoring. Create and maintain a website, email list, and newsletter.

C.  FUNDING FOR THE NEIGHBORHOOD LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT

1.  It is inconceivable that the State Legislature and the Governor of New Jersey would allow Newark to create another whole level of government with another 225 elected people drawing salaries, benefits, and pensions. This whole initiative will die in Trenton unless we firmly reject that scenario right from the start. They have to be non-paid.

2.  The more that duties and responsibilities are shifted to the Neighborhood Councils; the more the central government at 920 Broad Street can be reduced. Some duties will shift from paid city employees to the 225 elected people who are serving on the Neighborhood Councils. This represents a major cost savings, even if each Neighborhood Council has a full-time paid administrator and secretary. In addition, there will be large numbers of volunteers doing even more work.

3.  Once the Neighborhood Councils are elected, the hands-on neighborhood work will no longer be the responsibility of the City Council. The City Council should focus on the big picture issues, city legislation, and overall policy matters.  As a result of this seismic shift of duties, it will not be necessary for the city council members and the mayor to have so many staff members. The city council will need one staff member each.  Yes there will be 25 paid administrator positions, but we’ll be reducing paid positions for the city council and mayor’s office.  As many of the city council staff members as possible should be promoted into the paid administrator positions for each Neighborhood Council. This is a positive career move.

4.  Funding should not be set up as a special tax on properties, because some of the neighborhoods are in better economic shape than others. Those in worse shape need this program the most.  Funding shall be drawn from the general fund of the City of Newark in order to spread out the cost, and level the playing field. This approach is consistent with the basic principles of socioeconomic justice, and it will draw funds from commercial and industrial districts with little or no population. We believe that reducing the bloated central bureaucracies and outsourcing many services to the private sector will result in this program being a net reduction in the city budget.

5.  Request local houses of worship and non-profit organizations to provide free or low-cost space for all operations

6.  A dramatic increase in Code Enforcement activity will raise additional funds for the City of Newark. Revenues will exceed the inspector’s salaries. This money will go to the general funds of the City of Newark. In addition, as the sense of chaos in Newark is eliminated, the city will attract more investment and growth. This will dramatically improving the tax base. Property maintenance will also improve the tax base, and homeowners tired of living on the same block as dilapidated properties will get the relief they deserve.

7.  The Neighborhood budgets will be submitted annually to the City of Newark, and monitored by city financial personnel. There shall be complete open government. The finances, budgets, expenditures, etc. must be published, and posted online. 

8.  If most DPW responsibilities are privatized and handed over to the Neighborhood Councils, this will save millions annually. Shifting these duties to the private sector will free Newark of significant costs in terms of liability insurance, injury lawsuits, management oversight, vehicle acquisition and repair, pension and benefit packages for the employees. Newark may also make money renting DPW space to the private sector companies, for their vehicle and equipment storage.

D.  CONCLUDING THE BIG PICTURE

As the urban problems of Newark are addressed and resolved on the neighborhood level, the enormous cost of social services upon local, state, county, and federal governments will be dramatically reduced. This will happen slowly over many years. There is simply no way to calculate the cost savings over time, but it will not be in the millions. It’ll be in the billions. This is the big picture.  Like the village elder concept, people will either see it right away, or they won’t understand until it happens and they are reading the statistics, and say “Wow, what they did really worked”. And as I explain this, I have to immediately clarify to all readers. Yes, we will be saving government money and lots of it, but the real focus isn’t about money. Thousands upon thousands of people will be helped and uplifted, and children will be shown the right direction to learn, to grow, and to succeed. So many of the social problems of Newark will be eliminated. 

Now, back to the money. If one looks at the revenues collected by the City of Newark, and then subtracts the costs of government, police, fire, courts, schools, and social services provided by all levels of government and non-profit organizations, it is clear that Newark costs way over a billion dollars more than it collects every year.  Part of this financial burden is absorbed by various non-profit organizations, which are in turn heavily funded by government grants. However, the majority of the cost falls directly upon County, State, and Federal taxpayers. This is unsustainable .  Government on all levels is heading towards insolvency, and therefore we cannot assume that taxpayers beyond Newark will allow this to go on indefinitely. Newark has to fix its problems. Nothing is going to be solved until the neighborhoods of Newark are empowered and can control their destinies. Again, this is part of the big picture. People will either see it, or they won’t see it.

E. NEXT STEPS

The next steps are to create an organization and a grass-roots movement to develop these ideas. There is no way to sell this to the existing City Council. This could be the focus of a drive to elect a Charter Commission and restructure the City of Newark, and it could be done with an Initiative Drive pursuant to the Faulkner Act of New Jersey.

It appears that the restructure of Newark will require approval of the State Legislature, and perhaps by the voters of Newark in a referendum. 

We encourage as many community leaders as possible to join and help develop this important initiative.