Policy and Politics: A Conversation with Mark Bonamo on the 2023 State of the City

Pod and Market

On April 18, Mayor Ras Baraka gave the annual State of the City at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, the ninth of his tenure as chief executive of the city. The event began with a poem reading, the singing of the Star-Spangled Banner and Lift Every Voice and Sing, and the performance of a spoke word piece. Past Nivea Nieves led the invocation.

The speech lasted about an hour and hit six major topic areas, each punctuated with video testimonials from Newark residents and city officials and partners. Those six topic areas could be categorized as: public safety; education; amenities/quality of life; housing/economic equity; employment/economic development; and pandemic/health/arts. While lighter on new initiatives and policies than in the past, the State of the City covered many of the existing programs and focuses of the administration while expounding the plans to grow such programs. The mayor ended with the repeated phrases of “Newark and Proud of It'“ and “Hold the Line.”

Mark Bonamo joins the podcast this episode—our first in almost a year—to talk through the speech, the questions it raised, the swirling rumors about a potential run by the mayor for Governor of New Jersey, and the overall state of the city.

Mark Bonamo—Mark is the Editor-in-Chief of TAPInto Newark and a Newark resident. He has long reported on local news and politics in Newark. For many years, TAPInto Newark has been recognized as the state’s best local news website by the Society of Professional Journalists.

Background & Articles:

• TAPInto Piece on the State of the City: here

• Facebook Live Feed of the Speech: here

• NJ.com Piece on the “Sister Cities” Issue: here

• TAPInto Piece on Absenteeism in Newark Public Schools: here

• TAPInto Piece on Trades High School Scandal: here

Quote:

“It finally hit me some dozen or so years later. I had come to Santa Fe to interview a painter and was sitting in a local pizza parlor, drinking beer and eating pizza and watching a miraculously beautiful sunset. Everything was soaked in brilliant red—my hand, the plate, the table, the world—as if some special kind of fruit juice had splashed down on everything. In the midst of this overwhelming sunset, the image of Hatsumi flashed into my mind, and in that moment I understood what that tremor of the heart had been. It was a king of childhood longing that had always remained—and would forever remain—unfulfilled.” Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

Permalink