Omar Nieves likes the shot his community ticket has today in the Newark School Board election, as he strives to make the case that “community” beats the so-called public unity of Baraka-Ramos and charter schools.

“It hasn’t been too bad,” Nieves told InsiderNJ, addressing the weather situation, an all-day spitting rain. “The numbers are low but the south and east wards come out late. We’re pounding the streets heavy.  We have one tenth the money they have.

The community ticket consists of incumbent School Board member Phil Seelinger (pictured) of the East Ward, and his newcomer running mates: Denise Cole and Ryan Talmadge.

“Basically their message is that 25 years ago the board was taken away from us and they’re looking out for the community first,” said Nieves.

“Let’s be frank,” he added. “The ‘unity’ slate is not a very quality assembly of people. These were hand-picked people who are easily controlled, and they’ve already thrown the charter school person [Flo Johnson] under the bus.”