The candidates running to be the next mayor of Akron took to the stage for the first debate of the campaign on Wednesday. The debate was put together by the Akron Beacon Journal, the Akron Press Club, Ideastream Public Media and the Ohio Debate Commission.
All seven candidates running for mayor were in attendance: Mark Greer, Akron City Councilmember Shammas Malik, Keith Mills, Akron City Councilmember Tara Mosley, Joshua Schaffer, Deputy Mayor Marco Sommerville and Summit County Councilmember Jeff Wilhite.
The debate was moderated by Akron Beacon Journal editor Michael Shearer. Candidates were asked questions by a panelist of local journalists that included Ideastream Public Media reporter and producer Anna Huntsman, assistant professor of journalism at Ohio University Mark Turner and Akron Beacon Journal managing editor Cheryl Powell.
Although this was the first opportunity candidates had to debate each other, the event remained civil, with a few jabs and responses from Schaffer.
Police oversight
With the city preparing for a grand jury decision on the police shooting and killing of Jayland Walker, police reform was top of mind for candidates.
Sommerville kicked off the discussion of policing when answering a question about how he would have responded differently in the wake of Walker's death. He maintained that the police auditor system in Akron did work in the aftermath of the police shooting. He noted that other cities where police shootings have taken place are taken over by the Department of Justice.
"That did not happen in Akron, and that's a lot to do with the fact that we had some sort of oversight that I started 20 years ago," Sommerville said. "That was long before George Floyd happened, long before any other situations that we see across the country happen, and I was one of the first to make sure that we had something in place that would work until we could take the next step."
Sommerville called Issue 10, a ballot measure passed in November that created a civilian police oversight board, that next step. But he criticized the review board for not being representative of all neighborhoods.
"A number of neighborhoods don't have representation and every neighborhood should be represented on that board to make these decisions and the way it was set up, it was not set up that way," Sommerville said.
Issue 10 was a mistake, Sommerville said.
"It was too important of an issue to be rushed through, and let's be honest about it, it was politically motivated," Sommerville said. "People wanted to get more people out to vote in that election, and that's why it was passed. And we made a mistake in doing that as a community, and now that it's here we'll have to work with it and make it work the best that we can."
Sommerville wasn't the only candidate to criticize the review board. Schaffer called out Malik for including police on the review board and said the board doesn't have enough power.
"The things that Mr. Schaffer mentioned, the board that would levy discipline directly, those things aren't permitted by state law or by our current contract," Malik said. "Now, we very clearly crafted Issue 10 to make sure it was consistent with our city charter, with state law and with our contract."
Greer criticized the fact that there is only one young, Black man on the oversight board.
"We should have more than one young, Black man, because that is the community that has been most affected," Greer said. "We have to treat our people better."
Wilhite pledged his support to the review board.
"As your next mayor, I will make sure that that police review committee has all the tools they need so that this doesn't happen again," Wilhite said, "and we can work every day to prevent this kind of tragedy from happening."
Response to Walker's death
All candidates aside from Sommerville criticized the way the city handled the fallout of Walker's death. With a decision looming on potential indictments of police officers in the case and a newly seated civilian police oversight board, the next mayor of Akron has a lot to contend with.
A big criticism of the city and the police department has been not firing the officers involved in Walker's shooting and the decision to let the officers return to desk duty due to staffing shortages.
"The police officers, if I could have, would have not been back on the force until the investigation was done," Mills declared. "I don't care if they have staffing issues or not. You're going to figure it out."
Mosley agreed that the officers should have been fired. She hopes to change the policy in the next collective bargaining agreement.
"I think we need to work on that because they're still employed," Mosley said. "They should not paid while they're sitting at home on vacation after the death of an individual."
Schaffer said the officers involved in the shooting should have been named and terminated.
The city failed to properly communicate after the shooting, Malik said.
"Instead of having kind of a closed posture, have more of an open posture," Malik said. "Acknowledging that this killing represents a systemic failure in terms of policy, in terms of practice."
Malik called for trust building between the city and the community before a tragedy, instead of after.
"We should have been acting on many of these reforms years earlier," Malik said, "but unfortunately we need someone in the mayor's office who treats this issue with a great deal more urgency."
The city should have been more transparent, Wilhite said.
Community policing
Candidates showed support for community policing to be expanded in the city. It's not a decision between public safety and police accountability, Malik said.
"Make sure that all of our patrol officers have some time and space in their week or their month to do foot patrols, to do the things that are going to allow them that space and time to build trust and respect and relationships with people," Malik said.
Police need to build trust back with the community, Mosley said.
"We need our police officers out of their cars, having conversations with those people in the community; doing park and walks, getting back on their bikes, having cops on the porch," Mosley said.
Police reform needs to be expanded, Schaffer said, adding that he'd like to decriminalize marijuana and end the war on drugs.
The police department needs to be more diverse, Sommerville said.
"Police reform cannot work unless the police department mirrors the community," Sommerville said. "Currently, you have 11% of the force is African-American. That is way too low, it's not representative of the community."
He noted that the department should also have more women, because they are better at de-escalation.
Increasing affordable housing
On the topic of affordable housing, candidates spoke about tax breaks, zoning issues and going after predatory lending and landlords.
Zoning code can be improved by changing the designation from single family to mixed use and adding housing units, Greer said.
"What this is going to do is enable us to focus on the need for infill housing, where we have so many of our city streets in our residential neighborhoods that resemble broken combs without many teeth," Greer said.
Mills rejected that notion.
"You can change your zoning, you can identify infill housing, right? Who is going to come build the house? Who is going to put that house up? That takes a lot of money," Mill said. "I don't know if anybody here has actually looked at building a house. It takes money"
Wilhite plans to target landlords and step up enforcement of maintenance rules for homes.
"You're not going to take advantage of us anymore," Wilhite said. "We're not an open door for your wallet. You have to be responsible if you're going to own property in the city of Akron."
School safety
With the recent resignation of Superintendent Christine Fowler-Mack and an increase in violence in the school district, candidates said they are eager to work with the school board to improve safety, learning and equity.
Mental health services are lacking in the district, Mills argued.
"People who have these mental issues that need to be addressed, they can only see someone who is provided by the school two times before insurance has to kick in," Mills said. "No insurance, no service."
Universal pre-k needs to be a priority, Malik said.
"Other communities have done this across the country," Malik said. "We were going to do this before COVID, but it's knocked us off track and the last few years of controversy has knocked us off track.
The mayor's role is to convene city and educational leaders to discuss the burden on teachers, Wilhite said.
"We as a community dump everything on them," Wilhite said. "When they go in to the classroom every day, they have to feed children, they have to clothe children, they have to find shoes for some of our children, they have to find mental health support for some of our children."
The midday debate was livestreamed and will be broadcast Wednesday night at 9:00 pm on 89.7 WKSU and at ideastream.org.
One more debate is set for next Wednesday at 7:00 pm at the Akron Summit County Public Library.
