Ledger - Cory Booker - Transition guide being prepared

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"Booker nonprofit creating a guide on urban issues"
Group was formed to aid mayoral transition

Friday, April 21, 2006

BY KATIE WANG
Star-Ledger Staff

While Mayor Sharpe James prepares to head a new institute on urban issues, another nonprofit group with ties to mayoral candi date Cory Booker also has been quietly examining the same topics.

The group, called The Institute for Urban Excellence, was founded about a year ago by a group of Newark residents and outsiders that included Booker. The idea was to organize a "how-to" guide on running an inner-city, drawing ideas from Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles and Baltimore.

If he is elected, the guide could figure prominently into Booker's new administration.

"I'm sure it's going to be helpful in the transition and the administration," Booker said yesterday. Even if he does not win the May 9 election, Booker said he hopes his chief opponent, Ronald L. Rice, would use the document.

The institute started with the idea that Booker might be elected as mayor, said Richard Roper, a public policy consultant who also worked for former Mayor Kenneth Gibson. Roper said a mixed group of Newark policy wonks and people from outside of the city were brought together to study how other cities were governed.

The idea is similar to a think tank that existed under Gibson's administration called the Office of Newark Studies.

"We thought, wouldn't it be great if there were well-imple mented actions that could be launched expeditiously?" Roper said.

They recruited Bo Kemp, an entrepreneur and a founder of Vanguarde Media, with no ties to Newark, to act as the director of the group. Kemp said the group decided to focus on public safety, economic development, child and family well-being, government operations, education, health care and technology.

Kemp said the group has spent the last year traveling to Los Angeles, New York, Baltimore, Washington and Chicago to see how they run programs in those areas.

In the end, he said, the group's goal is to assemble a manual of best practices from each city to hand to the next mayor of Newark to help with the transition period.

"It's a short transition period that these mayors have," Kemp said. "They can't invest the time (after an election) to think through the best policies."

Kemp said he hopes the finished product can be used in other cities as well.

He said he expects the work to be done in about a month -- after the election. Kemp would not reveal who is involved or who is funding the institute because he said its members want to remain politically neutral.

Kemp said when the organization releases its publication, it will also reveal the roughly 25 individuals involved, but not before then because they want to be isolated from the politics of the mayoral race.

Kemp insisted the group is not a political one.

"A significant number of the people are from Newark," said Kemp.

The board of directors include Kemp, Maria Vivvearonto Soto, W. Deen Shareef and Mo Butler.

Shareef and Butler are considered members of Booker's inner circle. Butler runs Booker's nonprofit group, Newark Now, and Shareef is a personal friend of Booker's.

Booker said he occasionally passes along ideas to the group, but insisted there is a firewall between his campaign and the institute. However, when a resident asked Booker at a recent coffee klatch about a transition group, he mentioned the work that the group was doing.

And many of his stump speeches are sprinkled with references to other cities, such as Indianapolis, Baltimore and Chicago.

The group has filed as a non- profit organization with the state and has a Newark mailing address. The filings did not list who was giv ing the group money.

Kemp said the institute recently rented an office on James Street. It has spent the last year meeting in Irvington, Newark and Orange.

Katie Wang is covering the Newark mayoral race. She can be reached at kwang@starledger.com or (973) 392-1504.

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