Asia Norton finds a renewing spirit of learning, working, family and fellowship, begun when her grandfather left the South after serving in the Korean War, came North, and made his home in Newark's South Ward, with a conviction now forged across three generations.

An attorney and former teacher whose mother and grandmother taught, former President of the Newark Board of Education Norton grew up with a strong sense of the South Ward's public institutions, its schools and churches, swimming pools, and neighborhood associations.

Now, she wants to represent the ward she loves as a member of the City Council, to strengthen community and government accountability, with a voice uplifted for neighbors seeking strong city services.

"The South Ward deserves leadership," Norton told InsiderNJ in a phone interview. "There is a lot of development going on in the South Ward and a lot of tax abatements. We need representation with an understanding of the different types of tax abatements, and I am a real estate attorney. Right now, the city has not proposed a budget. We have significant affordability issues. Prices are going up. Property taxes are going up, and we continue to see tax abatements. We don't know where those funds - payment in lieu of taxes - are being spent. Taxes are going up. Where is the money? At present, there is a lack of oversight, and my background will allow me to be an advocate."

In addition, she said, trash is not picked up on time, not the fault of DPW workers, she says, but a case of inadequate resources.

The South Ward also continues to experience violent crime.

Police response time is often substandard, she added.

"We need to do a better job making sure the community and police protect each other," said the South Ward City Council candidate. "There is a disconnect between the two bodies, mistrust between public safety and the community, which needs to be rebuilt.

"We need advocacy in city hall demanding resources," added Norton, who notes that as a school board member she brought more than just passion to the job of educating Newark's children. "I needed to understand how the system functioned," which is what she offers again, she said.

As a school board member in the aftermath of COVID, Norton - mother of a young child - said she made sure students had "additional learning time, more time reading, writing, and math, making sure the schools were very intentional about curriculum." She intends to take that same preparation and focus to City Hall.

Norton is one of six other challengers in the May nonpartisan election to incumbent South Ward Councilman Pat Council, an ally of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka. "This is a completely grassroots campaign," she said. "I don't have a machine behind me.

"This is my home," the candidate added. "My family has been in the South Ward since the 50's and 60's. We had block parties. I grew up in a church where we had community events. I was a lifeguard down the street. I taught my neighbor's children."

She knows too, the pain of the people in her midst, and in her own family, as Norton lost her father at a young age. A picture of her and her parents, happy on the surface, belies the fact that they posed in a prison, where her father was doing time. She understands at the core, she said, the consequences of a society that wrongly criminalizes people instead of nurturing them and educating them, and serving them, the driving passion, she insists, of her candidacy, backed up by a life of learning and public action.