Sharif Considers Run for Newark Mayor

Darrin Sharif, who since 2010 has represented the Central Ward on the Newark Municipal Council, is forming an exploratory committee for a possible mayoral run next year, Sharif told Patch Thursday.

“In the last three years I’ve done a lot of things, and when people start to hear about them, I think they’ll agree they’re the kind of issues politicians should focus on,” he said.

Should he run, Sharif would join at least three other candidates in the race for mayor in 2014: fellow council members Ras Baraka and Anibal Ramos, as well as Seton Hall law professor Shavar Jeffries. All three have spent the last several months raising funds and building campaign organizations.

Sharif represents a ward that’s home to much of the city’s recent building boom, including the headquarters of Panasonic, now under construction at McCarter Highway and Raymond Boulevard, and the Marriott hotel near the Prudential Center. He played a role last year in getting approval for a new Prudential office tower to be built in a designated blighted area along Broad Street and also took part in the negotiations surrounding the merger of Rutgers and UMDNJ, which became official early this month.

That experience, Sharif said, would serve him well as successor to outgoing Mayor Cory Booker, a strong favorite to win a special election for US Senate in October.

A self-described “deliberative” person who tends to speak with a technocrat’s precision, Sharif stressed that he will do a lot of leg work before deciding whether to run, a decision he expects to reach in September.  

“We’re going to do a lot of things first to make it a realistic proposition. We’re putting together an exploratory committee and we’re going to raise those funds necessary for a campaign.”

He also said he would go on a Hillary Clinton-style “listening tour” throughout August to share his message with prospective voters and hear their concerns.  

“The summer is a great time to do it. We don’t have many council meetings so I won’t have to neglect the most important duties of my office,” Sharif said.

Typically, candidates for political office emphasize their positions on tangible issues, like lowering taxes or increasing the number of police. Sharif, however, takes a much broader view of the role of politics in the lives of Newarkers, many of whom suffer from some of the highest poverty and crime rates in the nation.

“The greatest challenge of our lifetime is arrested human development,” said Sharif, who previously worked in government at the county and city levels and served as the director of operations for the Urban League of Essex County.

“All of these things that have been happening, the murders, the other crime, the poverty, are the result of arrested human development.”

Sharif wants to take that message -- about developing the “emotional, cultural, educational and social” potential of city residents -- to voters in every ward of the city, particularly those who feel alienated from the traditional political process.

“If I have a ‘brand,’ the one thing people attach to me is that I’m a serious person, a coalition-builder. Regardless of their ethnicity, there are some issues that affect all of us.”

Sharif also noted that a relatively small share of residents participate in city elections, and a large percentage of those who do are tied to “political machines”. 

“The people who don’t vote feel they are powerless, that they can’t engage with politicians in an effective way,” Sharif said.