Politics
Cory Booker on track to winning Senate seat despite setbacks
Supporters on the other hand say Booker has reinvigorated the city. He has attracted hundreds of millions in philanthropic money – including a US$100 million grant from Zuckerberg to improve city schools; cleaned up parks and revitalized a once-moribund downtown that now boasts Panasonic’s headquarters, a sparkling new hotel, loft apartments with exposed brick walls, and increased commerce, including a trendy restaurant specializing in gourmet mac and cheese.
Don Katz, founder and CEO of Audible.com, an audiobook producer and Amazon subsidiary that relocated its headquarters to Newark six years ago, sees a vibrant city that abounds with cultural, culinary and entertainment options, and says he has never regretted moving the company from suburban Wayne to urban Newark.
He said he found Booker to be “an incredibly articulate visionary” whose ideas for urban transformation through the political system resonated with Katz. Both are also like-minded on school reform; among Katz’s 600 employees in Newark are interns and graduates of Newark charter schools.
Booker is aware of his detractors but is undeterred by them, beginning with former Mayor Sharpe James, who won re-election against the up-and-coming-councilman in 2002 after a bruising battle documented in the Academy Award-nominated documentary “Street Fight.”
“I’ve heard it,” he said, “too much Twitter from the mayor, too much exposure. There’s not a criticism I haven’t heard over the years. I’ve heard it all. But there’s one thing everyone has to admit about my life as a professional, from my days working in housing high-rises here in Newark as a tenants’ rights attorney to my time as mayor, is that I do not run from challenges. I run toward them.”
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press
