The Newark Municipal Council held its regular meeting on Wednesday, January 21, 2026, starting at 6:32 PM and adjourning at 9:44 PM. Eight members were present (Council Members Bey, Council, Gonzalez, Quintana, Ramos, Scott-Rountree, Silva, and President Crump); Council Member Kelly was absent. The meeting featured a lengthy public comment period, adoption of two fossil fuel ordinances on first reading, deferral of a $30.1 million refunding bond ordinance, and unanimous approval of numerous resolutions and motions.
Good evening. Welcome to the regular meeting of the Newark Municipal Council on Wednesday, January 21st. Please stand for the National Anthem, Pledge of Allegiance, an invocation by Imam Mujahadeen Mohammed. And we're so I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. With the name of God, the merciful benefactor, the merciful redeemer, we come together. Our Lord, let us enter this meeting through the gate of truth and exit through the gate of truth, and grant us from your presence a power to assist us. We pray for our youth that they may find the healing, the success that they need. We pray for our pioneers, our elders for their struggles, and we ask God to give us the strength to leave us away from those evil ways. We are reminded about these words. Council members. Present council. Present. Absent. Here Scott Roundtree. Council President, Council members. We are in the hearing of citizens portion of this meeting where each speaker will have five minutes to speak. When your name is called, please approach the podium and address the council members. The first speaker is Alif Mohammed. Good afternoon. I mean, good evening. Good evening. What's gonna happen? I'm gonna start going back to the beginning of things. Some restrictions that the federal authorities have allowed me to start saying some of the things I want. So guys, my brothers, in March, I'm gonna release a lot of things. I'm gonna release the videos of the chief of staff saying illegal things. Now you see the form I got in front of you. You see that I was sworn in, and I had a fiduciary responsibility. When I came down to the housing authority, I was trying to figure out how to help. So I went first for the house, and then I found out back to terrorists committed. So then I said, and I told the mayor, I told Middle, I said, let me look at vendors that maybe we could come back in-house. Because that's the good thing to get jobs back for people. See, all that crime stuff ain't gonna stop until they got jobs. You know, you go talk all you want and everything, unless they got jobs. And I came up with an idea about the landscaping because the company was doing a horrible job. And I did a resolute, I tried to do a resolution the first year, and Eddie Ellsborne was he let me talk, and he said, Well, commission, that's not in front of us. So we gotta vote. So I say, touche. The next year, I go to do the resolution. Ian and them didn't even want to do the resolution. So guess what? Carlos, I did my own resolution. Got the legend used to it pass. When it passed, 10 minutes after the meeting, I got a phone call for Mitty. I didn't take the phone call because I had told Mitty that he has a bad habit of jumping and just hearing people, and he couldn't do that to me. So 44 times in that weekend he tried to call me and I wouldn't take the phone call. It just happened that he came in my office uh on Monday unannounced, and he came in and tried to convince me. What happens is in my office, I'm a school, so I have cameras. The state let me cameras. And what happened during the pandemic, they gave me some cameras.