From the Halls of Newark Academy to City Hall

Alumni Changemakers: James Solomon '02 and Keshav Poddar '10

 

When James Solomon ’02 won the Jersey City mayoral race in December 2025 and appointed Keshav Poddar ’10 Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development soon after, it marked a milestone not just for the city but for Newark Academy. Two alums, shaped by the same halls, the same Morning Meetings and many of the same teachers were now leading the oldest city in New Jersey and one of the most diverse cities in America.

Brought together by a mutual friend, the two first met over a beer at a local Italian festival and realized the NA connection during their conversation. Years later, when James needed someone to lead policy development for his mayoral campaign, Keshav, a political advisor for over a decade, stepped in. “New Jersey politics can be a rough and very transactional place, but James was one of the first people I met in this world who really cared about the details and the politics of things,” Keshav recalls. “And I just naturally gravitated towards that.”

Both credit NA with laying the groundwork for their careers in public service. For James, it was the teachers like Blackie Parlin, Mario Costa and Doc Blackburn who challenged students to think seriously about civic duty. Morning Meetings reinforced the idea that belonging to a community came with responsibility.

Morning Meetings really helped build the sense that you were part of a community, and you had a role to play in positively serving that community.”James Solomon '02, Jersey City Mayor

Keshav recalls his experience on the NA Honor Council Selection Committee and as Opinion Editor of The Minuteman student newspaper — two opportunities that sharpened skills he has utilized throughout his career and has now brought to City Hall. His AP U.S. History class with Benson Hawk, structured around primary sources and open debate, left a lasting impression, as did a moment in Lou Scerra’s 10th-grade American Literature class the morning after Barack Obama’s first election, when the class read his acceptance speech aloud and dissected it as a lesson in rhetoric. “These are a couple of examples that really stand out,” Keshav says.

Now those NA lessons are being tested in the real world. Jersey City faces a $255 million budget deficit — 28 percent of its operating budget and larger than the cost of Jersey City’s entire police and fire department. “It looms over everything we do,” says James. “We’re trying to get through this massive fiscal crisis but do so in a way where we minimize the pain for the working- and middle-class families in what is still a working- and middle-class city.”