Five Stories to Watch in 2014

The state’s largest city has changed and evolved throughout its 350-year history, and that process will continue through 2014, as Newarkers grapple with an ever-changing landscape in the schools, the streets and at city hall.

With that in mind, we offer a short list of the stories that will be capturing the headlines in the coming 12 months:

The race for mayor was very much underway as 2013 drew to a close and promises to heat up considerably in the months leading up to the May election. The candidates -- council members Darrin Sharif, Anibal Ramos and Ras Baraka, as well as former Newark Schools Advisory Board president Shavar Jeffries -- will be staking out their positions on a variety of issues confronting city residents in the months and years to come.

The past year saw yet another increase in the number of homicides, carjackings, robberies and other violent crime in Newark, forcing officials to craft strategies to make the streets safer for residents and maintain population growth after a decades-long decline. Local, state and federal officials throughout 2013 have worked to increase the number of police on the streets following a dramatic reduction in the force in 2010. Those efforts are likely to continue in 2014.

Superintendent of Schools Cami Anderson has proposed a sweeping reorganization of the city’s schools, a plan that involves closures and consolidation of some neighborhood schools as well efforts to combat student absenteeism and to integrate the city’s nearly two dozen independent charters into the traditional public school system. Anderson’s efforts will play out even as many parents, along with the teachers’ union, offer their own, alternative vision for the 38,000-student district.

Former Mayor Cory Booker, who still maintains a home in the city, is up for election again in 2014, when he will seek a full, six-year term to the US Senate after winning a special election in October 2013 for the remainder of the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg’s term. With little lead time, Booker easily defeated his Republican opponent a few months ago, but it remains to be seen whether a more viable challenger will emerge in the coming year.