Mayor Don Plusquellic said he was dissatisfied with the number of locals hired to work on other city projects, and said he wants to ensure future construction employs more Akron residents. He's expanding, he said, on an earlier idea to train residents as truck drivers.
"So we started training individuals for their commercial driver's licenses. Because lo and behold, I found that we were having trouble to drive trucks to scrape the snow off the street," he said.
Plusquellic said if the city already provides water services and fixes the streets, it should also be able to employ people in public works projects.
The Akron Beacon Journal reports the plan is being welcomed by at least one labor leader and faces skepticism from Ohio contractors.
