Most Moderate Person, Place, or Thing: The East Bay city least likely to break out in acrimony

Now-retired Newark City Manager Al Huezo once told this paper, “We work it out in advance, so when we get something to the council, it’s about celebrating it.” Huezo was referring to Newark’s historical affair with consensus in city governance. Think about it: The same mayor (a Republican, no less!) serving for nearly thirty years in a city full of Democratic voters; 28-minute city council meetings held in the heart of the East Bay, home to the nation’s highest per-capita population of gadflies and civic agitators; city employees given the cold shoulder for being “overly ambitious” in a corner of the world where political savvy is admired like football is in Texas. It’s not heaven. It ain’t hell. It’s Newark.