Akron voters yesterday chose the final mayoral candidates for this November’s ballot. After almost 3 decades with the same mayor, Akron will have a new man in charge come January. Eddie Sipplen is the Republican nominee and yesterday, voters chose SUmmit County clerk of courts Dan Horrigan, over longtime Akron city councilman Mike Williams, as the Democratic nominee. Ideastream’s Mark Urycki has details.
Horrigan will be the first Democrat not named Don Plusquellic to be on the ballot for mayor in the general election in 28 years. Many former staffers from the Plusquellic administration supported him in the race. But the county clerk and former city councilman says he will be different than the powerful former mayor. One idea includes assembling a diverse cabinet that includes Millennials and people not afraid to disagree with him. But overshadowing everything, says Horrigan, is a federal requirement to rebuild its sewer system to prevent overflows into the Cuyahoga River.
“The city’s already spent about $300m on the sewer project so far so it’s not like they’ve not been doing anything. You just don’t want it to be times 4. There’s a final bill in there somewhere and we need to be able to reach that with EPA and federal courts to be able to do that.”
Horrigan says if he’s elected he’d like an outsider assessment of Akron to see if it can be managed in a more financially austere way. And he says he’ll be open-minded and willing to hear from many citizens, including Millennials.
“They have a different way of communicating, a different way of looking at the world that I think is bright and refreshing. And my cabinet is going to reflect that too because I’m not a millennial. I’m only 52 but you want that other point of view in there to say ‘you know what, that is a good idea. We can do that; that does work in with the plan.’ It’s about all our residents not just one subset or one group.”
Republican nominee Eddie Sipplen is an attorney who ran unsuccessfully for a common pleas court judgeship in 2012.