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Luis Quintana, who was sworn in today as the new mayor of Newark, displays a key to the city and personal message of good wishes left behind on the mayoral desk by his predecessor, Cory Booker, now a U.S. Senator.

(Kaitlin McGuinness/Newark Press Information Office)

NEWARK — He doesn't Tweet.

"I don't twit. I only walk. I don't email. I don't Facebook," said Newark Mayor Luis Quintana, who was sworn in yesterday to take the reins of the state’s largest city.

Unlike high-profile predecessor Cory Booker — who famously has more than 1.4 million followers on Twitter and chronicles his life with constant updates — Quintana said he eschews social media and does not respond to e-mails, which he called a distraction.

“I’m an old-school politician,” said the former municipal council president. “I return calls. I know neighborhoods. I know Mrs. Lopez.”

And just hours into his new job, Quintana, Newark’s first Latino mayor, promised changes to those neighborhoods — pledging to get more police officers onto the streets of the state’s largest city in the wake of a growing crime problem that has led to increasing deadly violence.

His plans include reassigning some officers now assigned to the areas around the Prudential Center and the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, and putting them into neighborhoods, in an effort to address a growing cycle of violence that has put Newark in danger of recording the most homicides in a single year since 2007.

“We need to do something to keep some presence, but it takes a lot of our money and we need those officers in the neighborhoods,” said Quintana. “We can’t take people from the neighborhoods to take care of entertainment.”

He also said he was looking to move officers from the motor pool and administrative positions, and is looking to hire a police surgeon to determine if officers who go on leave are really sick.

In a brief interview, in which he arrived an hour late amid a whirlwind of a day for the 53-year-old Puerto Rican native, Quintana said addressing the city’s crime rate will be one of his top priorities.

Earlier, he met with police union officials and said he also planned to cut his own security detail.

“I want to change the climate of the city so that people think they’re safe,” Quintana said.

He also must begin work on the city’s new fiscal plan, but has already asked Booker’s department directors to stay on until the mayoral election in May.

“We’re going to sit down and examine everything, he said.

Quintana was elected mayor by a unanimous municipal council which met in emergency session yesterday following the resignation last week of Booker, who won a special election to the U.S. Senate.

The council vote, initially scheduled for the day Booker was sworn in as senator, had to be delayed after an earlier council meeting had to be canceled for lack of a quorum.

The new mayor, whose term runs through July 1, 2014, said he has no plans to keep the job, but will seek re-election to the council when the city holds its general elections in May.

With his selection as mayor, Quintana had to step down from his post as council president — a position that for now will remain vacant because none of those on the council had enough votes to claim the spot.

Born in Añasco, Puerto Rico, Quintana has been on the council since 1994. He moved to Newark with his family at age 8, graduating from Barringer High School in the city’s North Ward. A graduate of Seton Hall University, he is married to a Newark school teacher and has three grown children.

With his temporary assignment, he also is eligible for a pay raise. Booker made $130,722 as mayor, in addition to $25,000 in expenses. As council president, Quintana was paid $71,375 and $20,000 in expenses.

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