After two terms, Akron Mayor Dan Horrigan is finishing his final weeks in office. Horrigan spearheaded economic development, investments in Downtown and a major sewer overhaul – but he also faced some tough times, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the fatal police shooting of Jayland Walker. Walker's death sparked protests and calls for police reform.
Ideastream Public Media’s Anna Huntsman sat down with Horrigan to talk about his eight years in office, as well as what comes next.
Editor’s note: This conversation has been edited for clarity.
Anna Huntsman: Thank you so much, Mayor Dan Horrigan for taking the time to talk with me today. First, you're a lifelong Akronite, correct? And you went to school here, worked at Swenson's here; now, you are in your last couple of weeks as mayor of the city. Did you ever think that this is where you would end up?
Mayor Dan Horrigan: No, there definitely wasn't a plan. There [were] a couple other jobs in between, in between Swenson's and there. But no, there was no plan, you know, whether it was high school or, or college; maybe on a public service career, but not necessarily, this particular one.
Huntsman: As you're in these last few weeks, how are you feeling? Is it sentimental? Bittersweet?
No, it's emotional, it's not bittersweet at all. You know, it's 25 years in public office, close to 25 years and, I was never looking to set a record, you know. I feel good about the, you know, the service that [I] provided, whether it was on Akron City Council or the Summit County Clerk's office or teaching high school, or in the mayor's office.
Huntsman: When you think back, what are you most proud of?
Horrigan: I can't rank them. You get as much satisfaction, I think, in helping the one person on the one day or the 50 on another, whatever it may be. I'd never say, ‘Well, this is the most important; this is the least important.” They all kind of work together, and that's the way we've always approached it.
Huntsman: There had to have been at least one day, though, where you finished a big project, or something happened, and you were like, “Man, I feel really good about that.”
Horrigan: Listen, I think all of them. You can't rank them. I feel I approached each day the same, you know; everything is significant. It could be a bridge; it could be (Bounce Innovation Hub;) it could be the one house that got repaired; it could be the 16 that we're building; it could be the (glass recycling program.) There's a laundry list, but that's what the job was.
I just never felt comfortable in saying ‘This is more important than the other’ because it is perception to the person that you're affecting, and I think that's important.
Huntsman: How about the sewer overhaul? This was something you were tasked with when you kind of started. So talk about that project - where does it stand and how do you feel about it?
Horrigan: I feel really, really good that, that we're almost - we have got two large projects left. Obviously, there's a bone of contention with the federal EPA about what we should be doing with this one project. If you set that aside, obviously, this is a project that they started, you know, at least about 20 years ago; the consent decree being entered in around 2011 or 12 or something like that.
But our first project, when I was actually on City Council, on Rack 40 on Cuyahoga Street, took care of about 35% of the problem when it came to the overflow and then subsequent dollars.
Obviously, we got the best value out of the dollar for those, you know, we're probably getting close to, with the small tunnel, really close to a billion dollars. And when you think about that, it's a billion dollars in infrastructure over the life of that project. So, the team has done a fantastic job, and it really does take a team effort. There’s the strategy of saying, ‘OK, we think these projects are good, let’s contest these and, and we've, we've taken three amendments to the Federal Court' and, and thankfully, Judge Adams – he’s questioned about, hey, what about this or what about that?’ But he's agreed to those amendments, on the main outfall, and the last one being the smaller tunnel size to be able to handle that.
But, it's also come at a cost to residents and businesses. There was an economic development impact to higher sewer costs, of which a number of communities are facing. We've taken our responsibility to clean up the river. You're paying for 150 years of industrial policy, where cities across the country just put things in the river because they figured it would just wash away. Well, we cleaned up the river. It's now been named the River of the Year, I think just a couple of years ago.
And that's a team effort, but it still comes at a cost to the residents and at some particular point, those dollars, you start to lose the value because you're putting more dollars in and it's capturing less and less. We feel we can spend some other dollars in some other ways to clean up the other ends of the river as it comes in, which is a better use of that $200 million. And they kind of throw around those costs like nickels sometimes and, and they're significant. We felt very important that we need to fight for this particular instance and not have to spend… it's got to be north of $200 million by now.
Huntsman: Where does that stand?
We made our pitch; the EPA has made their pitch. The state EPA is actually supporting the city of Akron on this.
It's a breathable plan. You just don't draw it up in 2007 and say, ‘You gotta do this.’ Things change: climate change has an effect; where rain falls has an effect; how much we're capturing and treating, again, all of those, you know, it’s not a static agreement. It needs to be kind of a breathable agreement to kind of be flexible, and so far, they have been flexible, up until this point. And so, we need to get past this. It's up to the judge decide, and then we'll kind of go from that.
Huntsman: I know your priorities when you started in the early years - I know population growth was a big thing, and I'm sure expanding Downtown and businesses. How do you feel that has come?
Horrigan: So when it comes to the vibrancy of Downtown, what that looks like, you know, in the middle of that, you get hit with a pandemic that comes up with the notion of remote work, which I don't agree with but, but companies have an argument that says, “Hey, we're trying to keep our employees and attract them and they want this.”
O.K., I get it, but the city has invested - and this goes back to the nineties - north of $100 million into the infrastructure of downtown, when it comes to Lock 3, Canal Park, investing into the [Akron Civic Theatre,] Lock 4, North Side, Bounce, all of that one-and-a-quarter mile stretch.
We think we've done our part with, obviously, there's more to go with more housing down here, more retail. Obviously, we'd love to see more restaurants. But, we also need people, and those businesses to fill up those buildings. I think is extremely important and whether that turns to residential, and that’s to be seen.
Huntsman: Reflect on the COVID-19 pandemic. This obviously threw a huge wrench in the plans of any city leader across the U.S.
Horrigan: Yeah, and we have a really good peer network. I know across the state of Ohio, with the Ohio Mayor's Alliance, but also across the country. And we commiserated literally weekly on calls orchestrated by a number of different groups, whether it was Bloomberg or whether it was the U.S. Conference of Mayors about what to, what to do, what are the best health standards, what are the best guidelines; consulting with, you know, Johns Hopkins and Cleveland Clinic and Summa Health. You know, what are we doing to keep people safe? Because that was our, obviously, that was our goal. It was a team thing to kind of say, “How do we keep moving forward knowing that there's going to be a vaccine, it’s going to get out there. We're not going to mandate everybody get it, but it's probably a really good idea, especially if you're health-compromised,” and really try to keep a positive message about what's coming next. And I think people appreciated that part of it, at least, I hope they did.
Huntsman: I want to talk about one of the, probably the biggest issues that the city has faced in the last few years, which is the, the fatal police shooting of Jayland Walker and the protests after that and calls for police reform.
I'm wondering how you think, looking back now, this incident has impacted the city, and where does it go from here?
Horrigan: Well, I think it's hard to sit there and say; it definitely had a significant impact - and this is not necessarily from me - there's a traumatic effect about how people see that, and what the role of police is.
To me, it's all part of that conversation that we've been having out of this office when it comes to being more accessible when it comes to incidences that do cause trauma, you know, where do we go from here?
And, I think, having that conversation inside the community, of saying, you know, “This is what happened, this is the effect, where are we going from here?” Because it is a community effort.
It's not just me saying, or whoever sits in this office, saying ‘Hey, this is what we're gonna do next.’ That's that part of that community conversation that I think they've been having, you know, for at least a couple of years and, are gonna need to have into the future.
Anna: How do you perceive residents' trust, or the community's trust, with the police department right now, and where do you see that going in the future?
Horrigan: I've said this from day one that it is a daily effort, not only with the police department, fire service, economic development, parks, mayor's office, we need to be … in the community every day having conversations around a number of different topics, not just around policing.
And they need to see us as a trusted partner in those conversations. You don't build it up over a day, but you can lose it pretty quickly. And those things going future of building, you know, stronger, they're never strong enough. You can always be stronger to be able to do that.
It was a concentrated effort on … our office to, to make sure that we are out there and we are listening to be able to do that.
Huntsman: I want to talk about you for a second. So when you leave this office, do you have any future aspirations? What's next for you?
Horrigan: That’s another common question. There’s nothing definitive when it comes to Jan. 1. We'll kind of go from there, like I said. I can say I'm not running for anything.
I hate to even caveat it by saying you never know. You know, 25 years in elected office is … I'm real good with that number, like I said.
So, there's nothing definitive. There's a number of things that I think, value-wise, that I can still help out, you know, across the community and we’ll see the where and when those opportunities come up, and I’m always willing to listen. So, we’ll kind of go from there.
Anna: When you think about Akron when you started, and now leaving the office - do you think the city is better off now?
Horrigan: So you're asking me to grade my own performance? Absolutely. I mean, I think there's a difference between the mayor's office and the mayor's job and, and, I think personally you have to … I take this job very seriously. It was an honor of a professional lifetime, certainly. you know, People are going to have their perceptions of whatever, and I'm OK with that. I’m comfortable with the way we made decisions, the decisions that were made, and to continue to move the community forward. If someone wants to argue that, ‘Hey, what about this, this or this?’ OK, that’s fine. It's going to be your perception, it's going to be your opinion, and that's kind of what you sign up for when it comes to elected office to begin with.
Anna: Do you have any advice for the guy taking your place, Shammas Malik?
Horrigan: I have been sharing that advice on a weekly basis as we meet and talk about ideas that are getting close that will definitely affect his, at least, first year, probably the first term.
Huntsman: Where it stands now - what do you think are the biggest priorities?
Oh, I don't think they change. I think it's still gun violence; I still think it's economic opportunity; I still think it's public schools; I still think it's safe neighborhoods, and people bring different perspectives into the job to do that. He and his staff are going to have to determine what are those most important things; those are for me, and they don't change. It’s how you approach them when you throw in circumstances like a global pandemic and how you continue to do those things. So, it's the adaptability of being able to adjust to what is, you know, the daily occurrence of what's going on in the office.
