Akron receives sewer petition

Donny will sell marco next, by the pound and give the proceeds to infocission!!

Glad to see the petition has been submitted. Mayor Donny Boy must be crapping in his pants that the voters, not him, will determine if the sewers are leased or not.

Every story I have read where the city sewers have been leased to a private company has resulted in disaster for it's citizens. The sewer rates have doubled and the sewer have fallen into dis-repair. A good example to look at is Atlanta. They tried it for 3 years then fired the leasing company because of the above.

What good are scholarships for the poorer students of Crack_Akron if their parents can't afford to live in the city? Doubling your sewer rates sure won't help. Good students with need will get scholarships anyway when they graduate for college. Those who don't have poor grades that won't get them into college anyway or they would flunk out. Those are the hamburger flippers of tomorrow.

Double or triple the rates, bad service and job loss? Who would vote yes on this one? I know that I won't!!!!

{{{''Voters need to know that the initiative petition filed [Thursday] is part of a scheme to try and kill our effort to provide scholarships for children of hardworking parents who are struggling to make a better life for their children,'' he said.}}}

Hmmm, the city hall hero needs to know that there are other avenues, such as annual fundraisers, to raise money for scholarships for a select few.

The sale of a public utility should always have the approval of the folks that pay for it.

Not some city politician lookin' for fast cash to help pay for his Goodyear and Firestone promises.

Plusquellic is a brainless twit

Let the voters decide.

one of the reasons why parents are struggling to make a better life for their kids is the raised taxes for APS....not to mention of course the raised prices for pretty much everything and no increase in wages...

why is don so scared for people to vote on this?? cuz he knows it's a bad idea? he's trying to build a legacy and i think trying to get a job at akron U....

suz wrote:

Plusquellic is a brainless twit

suz, that is the first thing from you in a while that has made any sense!=)

Always remember "There is no free lunch".

Note that, whenever challenged, The Don first and always demonizes and ridicules any other opinion or stance other than his own (or those behind him). Or resorts to fear-the-boogeyman tactics. He's become such a well-groomed neocon n-a-z-i mouthpiece.

Little wonder Honest Joe tore him to shreds at the UA debate. Joe stuck to the facts, while hizzonor played his usual cards.

Left to their own devices, Sponge and his posse have repeatedly proven that they can't think their own way out of a cardboard box. Only to repeatedly respond to challenges with the last resort of fools: ridicule (peppered with false-flag fearmongering).

Wake up, Akron.

Kudos to the organizers and signers of these petitions. It shows that the Spirit of 76 is not dead in Akron. Who knows, maybe this will be another shot at corruption heard around the country! But let's not count chickens/votes before they hatch. The vultures have an array of tricks to make sure that petitions are invalidated.

Plusquellic belongs in the very sewers he is trying to sell! He really needs to go-please stop voting for him Akron!

A Great Idea wrote:

Donny will sell marco next, by the pound and give the proceeds to infocission!!

Ha ha ha, then we will have a multibillion dollar corporation of the size of Walmart in the area !!! and we get rid of someone that should have retired to Rockynol a long long time ago, right? Truly brilliant.

Now, let's think for a minute. If I have a business that gives me some revenue, how do I spend it? Do I plow it back into the business to make sure that the repairs are made so the business remains financially healthy? Do I raise the salaries of my workers so they are happier and don't leave? Do I invest in new hardware to remain competitive? Or do I donate the revenues to the children of Akron so they can attend college?(and I go bankrupt at teh same time) Guys, our mayor is not thinking clearly. Whatever revenues the sewer system generates must go back to the sewer system and the employees that keep it running, not to the shareholders of some corporation who couldn't care less about Akron.

And the excuse to do this is more than childish. It is plain and simple stupid. Unless, of course, it is a pre-arranged agreemet with the management of Radisson, right? You give us 300K more, we bail you out of your problem but later we give you the sewer system so you can recoup the 300K and make some more profits. But, for the benefit of the children of Akron, of course.

Has anyone said that UA and all other Us in teh country have scholarship programs for those that want to study? Scholarships what a revolutionary concept. Maybe Don has not heard about them.

Guys, it is time to retire Don to Rockynol and put NEW LEADERSHIP, NEW BLOOD in Akron.

One little bird suggests that Pay-to-Play Don and posse already have a company in mind to run the sewers, and, judging from his track record, would reward him & his cronies handsomely for sealing the deal.

BTW, it is interesting that he's reportedly backed down from "sale" to "lease". Ever an explanation for the backpedaling?

The mayor's comment at the end of this story does not have anything to do with the intentions of the initiative to gather signatures and raise awareness. The whole point is to let the people (who pay their taxes to the city of Akron) have a voice in whether or not this is a good idea to let a private corporation control a utility that belongs to the people of Akron. There are stories all over the country and the world such as Atlanta, Georgia and Stockton, California that (without the consent of the people) had their water and sewers systems taken from them and handed over to private corporations who, had very poor service, damage to the systems themselves, extremely high utility payments, and had to fight to get them back. The people of Atlanta, tired of being pushed around by a private corporation, had to raise three times as much money as their system was sold for to finally get it back.
The question is, do the citizens of Akron want have a say and to vote now, or go through years of legalities and frustration to regain control of what was theirs in the first place.
We want to see all of our children in the city of Akron have an education. But I would rather donate money to a public education fund, then to not be able to call someone when the sewer system backs up or my neighbor loses the job he has supported his family on for 25 years because a corporation decides he is no longer an employee.
Let's let the people vote!

by the way I'm not from Cleveland I am a citizen of Akron!

I have been observing this mayor for some time. It is certainly time for him to go. The political machine that he has put in place over the last twenty years makes it very difficult to throw him out of office. Look at Joe Finley's valiant effort last year. Perhaps this grass roots organization should start a recall effort against this tyrant. I don't think they would have difficulty getting signatutes. Do you?

Every so often there will be a story on the new about some ancient city being discovered that had been covered with vegetiation, earth, or desert sands. These discoveries are often accompaned by speculation as to why these once bustling population centers were abandoned and died. They remind us of the truth of the overused old saying "nothing lasts forever". I think that one reason these places died was failure to either recognize of act upon signs that a fatal condition had settled over them. As a result, the did nothing and (since old sayings are in my mind) fiddled themselves away. Selling the sewers has risks but is far less risky than doing nothing. At the rate Akron is going, it is foreseeable that there will one day be no one to poop in the sewers to which some have become so attached.

The sewers for scholarships idea is brilliant, bold, and could be a defining momen for our area or could cause us to start digging outhouses. One thing seems even more certain to me and that is that inction in 2008 hastens the day Akron will be recaimed by nature. I salute the petitioners and their effort for bring the matter to a vote. I just hope that voters, if the issue makes the ballot, will be willing to take chance.

I agree that the citizens should have the final say on whether or not the city leases the sewers. But I also feel we should wait to hear the details of the program before condemning it.

For anyone to state that our rates will double, triple, etc. is rediculous because they have nothing to base that comment on.

It is also wrong to think that there will be no criteria for eligible students to meet. I would speculate that there will be minimum gpa and citizenship requirements just like any other scholarship dollars.