Akron City Council President Margo Sommerville placed blame on and said she hopes for an apology from Mayor Shammas Malik’s office for a lack of dialogue between the administration and East Akron community members about a recycling, trash hauling and trash transfer station that WM is proposing for the Ward 5 neighborhood.
Sommerville issued the comments toward the end of the roughly nine-hour public hearing Thursday about the proposed 1400 E. Archwood Ave. facility, in which some councilmembers contended that there was not a city-led meeting with residents in Ward 5, where WM’s controversial 389 Fountain St. transfer station also stands.
“If we’re serious about rewriting the wrongs of the past that have been done to depressed neighborhoods, we should build that into any and every practice, project, development — everything we do,” Sommerville said. “We should be sensitive to it, and we should be intentional about addressing it.”
Mayor Malik, administration respond
Through a city spokeswoman, Malik provided a written statement to the Beacon Journal that did not include an apology or acknowledgment of wrongdoing but rather stated that his administration’s public engagement on the issue was thorough.