New At-Large Councilman Omari Shakur had nothing on the desk in his new office except for a book, a city-issued handbook for city officials, and a copy of the city's bare-bones 2020 budget Tuesday.

Even though Shakur had already been deeply involved in city government and policy, his mother taking him to his first council meeting when he was 11, he still has studying to do.

"This is my second day in office, so right now I'm just trying to inhale all this," Shakur said, smiling.

Newburgh native Shakur, 63, has a long history of activism, and does not hesitate to admit that he made mistakes during his decades-long social justice crusade.

"Newburgh's never going to change unless we change," he said. "So I'm showing that change with me."

He took a different tone Tuesday morning than he did years ago as an activist. Shakur's YouTube channel has a handful of videos relating to his activist work up until 2015.

Public Enemy's "Fight The Power" can be heard in the background of some of the videos. The 1989 hip hop track title was, in a way, Shakur's mantra.

It has since changed, though.

"It's not 'Fight The Power,' " Shakur said. "It's more like, 'how can we make the power work?' "

Shakur began recording and publishing police interactions with the public in the early 2000s, before it was common. That sometimes led to altercations between him and police, Shakur said. And it even got him arrested three times.

He beat those charges in city court.

In 2006, Shakur filed a civil lawsuit against the police department, claiming its officers had made unjust arrests. Two weeks later, Shakur's 23-year-old son, Antonio Bryant, was shot and killed by police in what police later described as a shootout.

Shakur is not bitter.

"We can't change the past," he said. "There's not one thing you can do about yesterday, but we can work on tomorrow."

Shakur said he has already had meetings with Police Chief Doug Solomon about police policy. Reached by phone on Tuesday afternoon, Chief Solomon said the meetings have been productive.

"We've met on different occasions about police," he said. "We've been able to the bottom of whatever it was ... I'm sure we'll continue to do that, and hopefully yield more positive results."

"We're in a process right now," Shakur said. "We're in a better process, and yes, I feel the police are doing a lot better right now."

Shakur said he will also lobby for a law, similar to one recently implemented in New York City, that would require Newburgh officers to state their names, state their titles, disclose their badge numbers, and provide business cards during most interactions with the public.

He also wants to strike an agreement to make footage from officers' body-worn cameras more available for the public to review.

"I've been down that hole with the police department," he said. "We've been through the 'Fight the Power' stuff. We've been through the protests. We've been through that. Now, I'm in a place where I'm not focused on the problems. I'm focused on solutions."

Shakur will attend his first public forum as a council member on Thursday evening when the council convenes a work session.