New year, new mayor, new building for North High? 8 Akron stories to watch in 2024

Change is the watchword for Akron in 2024.

The Rubber City will have a new mayor, new police chief and five new members of Akron City Council.

Akron Public Schools, where Michael Robinson took over as superintendent in August, will welcome two new members to its board of education, including a very familiar face to voters: former state representative and Akron City Council member Barbara Sykes.

And Greater Akron cities, towns and school districts will swear in many new leaders who will help decide all sorts of local issues, from how to spend tax dollars to what should be taught in public schools.

Downtown Akron faces some enormous challenges and opportunities in 2024 with vacant office space, Lock 3 evolving into a year-round park and, across Main Street, the University of Akron’s $40 million project to turn the art deco Polsky building into the new front door to its adjacent campus.

Greater Akron, too, will aim to harness its deep well of local business and academic expertise in polymers and plastics to launch one of 31 federally endorsed tech hubs across the country aimed at reinvigorating local economies left behind during the digital revolution.

Statewide, political and court fight continues over voter redistricting and voter-approved legalization of marijuana and abortion.

Nationally, America is barreling toward another presidential election in November, which appears to be a rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.

2024 also holds a calendar peculiarity and two reasons to look toward the heavens.

In February, leap year means there's a 29th day.

In April, the sky will go dark during the first visible total eclipse in Ohio since 1806, with Greater Akron positioned for an especially good view.

And in November, NASA will launch its first crewed mission to the moon in 52 years, including the first Black and the first woman astronauts to make the journey.

No one knows how any of this will shake out, but here’s a glance at some of these issues and other unfolding stories to watch in 2024:

1. Public safety is on top of Mayor Shammas Malik’s 2024 agenda

Shammas Malik finally takes office in January after a seventh-month transition that began in May when he won the primary and became the presumptive mayor of this blue city.

He takes over for Mayor Dan Horrigan, who chose not to seek a third term.

Malik has said safety will be a top focus of his administration.

An Akron Beacon Journal analysis this year showed the frequency of gun homicides in Summit County has doubled in the past decade — a trend that's worsened since the pandemic, especially among youths.

Among other things, Malik has said he aims to build trust between Akron and its police officers, in part through shifting to community policing where officers get to know people in neighborhoods while on foot and bike patrol and through other initiatives.

At the same time, Malik said he aims to provide more resources to the police department, which he said has been stretched too thin to handle more than 250,000 calls for service each year.

One of his first public safety priorities will likely be hiring a new police chief to replace Steve Mylett, who steps down at the end of 2023 after serving just more than two years as chief.

Akron Deputy Chief Brian Harding will lead the department as acting chief in the new year during a nationwide search for chief, which also will be open to internal candidates.

Malik said the search is expected to take three to five months, and will include community input.

Another safety priority is deciding where police will work in coming decades. The department could stay in its outdated headquarters, a 1960s-era tower convenient to both Summit County and municipal courts.

Police could remain in the building, but only with expensive renovations.

Or the city could move police into a new or existing building, probably somewhere nearby.

Malik, who has also said he supports creating a new police substation somewhere in the city, is expected to decide where police headquarters will go during the first six months of his term.

2. Will the Akron Public Schools board approve redistricting or a plan to rebuild North high school?

Akron Public Schools Superintendent Michael Robinson is expected to present a redistricting plan to the school board for approval in early January.

The plan aims to reduce overcrowding on the north side of the city. Under a revised version of the plan, Barber CLC in the East cluster of schools would gain elementary school students from Harris-Jackson CLC to alleviate overcrowding. Harris-Jackson has about 30% too many kids for the building.

An influx of immigrants, many refugees, in recent years to Akron’s northern neighborhoods has made it the only area of the city growing in population.

If the school board approves, changes would take effect next school year. Families affected by boundary shifts would have to request changes to their children's assignments during a special open enrollment period Jan 29 and Feb. 9.

A presentation on the plan is available online at www.akronschools.com/district/district-information/redistricting.

The future of North high school, however, remains uncertain.

During a debate before November’s election, all school board candidates said they believed North deserved a new school and that closing it would hurt the community.

No candidate, however, committed to raising taxes to pay for a new school.

The estimated cost to rebuild North high school is $80 million.

Other changes are coming, too.

In December, the board approved a five-year strategic plan aimed at making  all students "college, career and life-ready by providing innovative educational experiences."

Among other things, the plan proposes expanding pre-kindergarten education to full-time, boosting attendance and reducing the overall budget by 4%,

3. Downtown Akron evolving again with empty office space, Lock 3 and university

Downtown Akron is now home to five vacant or nearly empty buildings collectively saturating the market with 1 million square feet of office space.

That doesn’t include the 28-story Huntington Tower, which has been on the market since 2019, or the 23-story 1 Cascade Plaza, where intervention by public and private officials staved off a lengthy tax foreclosure case this year.

Much of the vacancy is pandemic fallout. Many white-collar workers, who abruptly shifted to tele-commuting, never returned to their offices in Akron and cities across the country, leaving city planners everywhere scrambling to figure out what to do.

In Akron, part of the solution will likely be converting more offices into housing. About 2,200 people now live downtown. Officials say apartments are full and there’s demand for more housing.

At the same time, downtown is evolving into a residential space.

Construction to overhaul Lock 3 from a weekend event space to a 24-7 park is expected to be finished in the fall.

Planners say it will be a world-class space for events, concerts and festivals, with more green space for Akronites who live downtown.

The Downtown Akron Partnership also is working to bring more pop-up shopping near Lock 3.

Across the street from Lock 3, the University of Akron — with additional funding from the city and the John S. Knight Foundation – is leading a $40 million renovation of the former Polsky’s department store.

UA acquired the five-story art deco building 1n 1987. But the academic outpost — which spans an entire block of Main Street — has in recent years been largely cut off from downtown life, with signs covering ground-floor windows and some doors that only open from the inside.

The exterior of the building isn’t expected to change much. But architects are designing interior renovations aimed at creating a hub for community arts and creativity while simultaneously making new university classrooms and office space.

Construction is expected to begin in January 2025.

4. Will Akron Citizens’ Police Oversight Board find its footing?

Nearly 62% of Akron voters in 2022 approved Issue 10, creating a nine-member Citizens’ Police Oversight Board and strengthening the role of the city’s police auditor's office.

But the board in late 2023 was still working on establishing how it will work after Akron City Council rejected its first attempt.

The oversight board, through no fault of its own, got off to a rocky start last year when the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 7 (FOP) lobbied Akron City Council to deny the appointment of a young Black lawyer who is critical of police.

A replacement member was selected. But in December, a divided City Council voted against adopting the board's proposed rules.

The citizen board, in a letter to council, said it had the authority to conduct its own investigations parallel to active police investigations, as well as to issue subpoenas.

Akron’s FOP objected to the proposed rules, saying they violated the collective bargaining agreement between police and the city.

Kemp Boyd, the citizen board chairman, said the board's rules aren't intended to be adversarial to the police or the union and could benefit police “as we continue to want to build trust, but also transparency, not only within the police department, but in our community as a whole.”

The board can’t begin its mission without council approval of its rules, so expect new legislation in 2024.

At the same time, the citizen board is expected to soon hire an independent police auditor and a deputy independent police auditor.

The board was interviewing candidates during the final weeks of 2023.

5. Erica Stefanko’s old murder case and Mark Mickey new arson case slated for trial

Summit County Common Pleas judges have scheduled two high-profile cases early in the new year.

Erica Stefanko — already convicted in the 2020 murder of Ashley Biggs — is scheduled to stand trial again in January after an appeals court overturned her initial conviction.

The 9^th District Court of Appeals ruled that Stefanko’s rights were violated when her ex-husband, Chad Cobb, was permitted to testify via video from prison instead of on the stand.

Prosecutors contend Stefanko made a bogus pizza delivery call that lured Biggs to where she was killed.

Cobb, who was in a custody dispute with Biggs over their then 6-year-old daughter, was sentenced to life in prison for Biggs’ murder.

The unusual case has repeatedly made national news and even drew Court TV, which broadcast the trial from Akron.

Restaurateur Mark Mickey is slated to stand trial on an arson charge on Feb. 29, the extra day added by leap year.

Mickey, co-owner of Pavona's Pizza Joint and Mickey's Irish Pub, was seen on video leaving Pavona’s about six minutes before smoke started coming from the Northwest Akron eatery in October 2022, Akron police and fire investigators have said.

Mickey has pleaded not guilty.

No injuries were reported in the Oct. 7, 2022, fire, but it temporarily closed a part of West Market Street and affected nearby businesses, with some sustaining damage, and electricity and gas cut to some nearby buildings

Mickey’s Irish Pub in Cuyahoga Falls opened a few months later in the former Craft Social space.

What was left of Pavona's building has since been demolished.

6. Could Akron’s federal tech hub designation fuel an economic boom here?

The White House in 2023 dubbed Akron as one 31 tech hubs across the country, opening the door to turbo-charging an effort already underway to harness the region’s deep knowledge and skills on everything polymer and plastics.

The effort, known as the Akron Polymer Industry Cluster, began in 2021. A  group of polymer and tech companies, being led by the Greater Akron Chamber of Commerce, is collaborating to drive a new generation of polymers and plastics that are more sustainable and safer to make, transport and use.

2024 could be pivotal for the group.

It’s expecting millions of dollars from the state of Ohio this year and is applying for millions more through the federal tech hub designation.

That money could be used to invest in new laboratories, new projects and new efforts to jump start a second wave of polymer innovation here.

A center of innovation has far-reaching ripple effects on the local economy, drawing scientists, start-up companies, and investors to the Rubber City and Northeast Ohio, where more than 500 polymer-related companies already exist.

Just as the tire industry drove the local economy in decades past, a reinvigorated polymer and plastics industry could unleash a new wave of jobs that support it, from restaurant workers and delivery drivers to bankers and computer programmers.

7. Ohio lawmakers vs. Ohio voters on issues of marijuana, abortion

Ohio voters in 2023 approved legalizing recreational marijuana and enshrined the right to reproductive care – including abortion — in the state’s constitution.

But that’s not the end of the story.

In 2024, expect to see the Republican-controlled state legislature, Gov. Mike DeWine and the courts wrestle over restricting what voters said they wanted.

Ohioans can now legally grow and possess cannabis at home, but cannot yet legally buy it.

Issue 2, supported by 57% of Ohio voters, gave state officials up to nine months to set up the legal framework for the recreational marijuana marketplace.

In December, the Ohio Senate voted to allow existing medical marijuana dispensaries to sell recreational marijuana. It also voted to lower the number of plants residents are allowed to grow per household.

However, the measure died when the Ohio House did not take a vote on the issue.

DeWine in December said passing legislation that clarifies Ohio law on marijuana sales is crucial.

It will be up to the Department of Commerce to create rules and regulations around licensing dispensaries. James V. Canepa, who served as superintendent of the Division of Liquor Control for six years, begins his new role as the superintendent of the new Division of Cannabis Control in 2024.

Meanwhile, abortion opponents haven’t given up their cause after 57% of Ohio voters approved a state constitutional right to abortion.

Anti-abortion advocates say they are working with Ohio lawmakers to put forward a total abortion ban, The Ohio Capital Journal reported in December.

Austin Beigel of End Abortion Ohio, a coalition of anti-abortion advocates and lobbyists, told the publication that the proposed bill would, among other things, make having an abortion by pill a homicide.

Lawful abortion, under the bill, could only happen to save the life of the mother in danger of death, result in an unintentional rather than intentional death of the “preborn human,” and be performed after all other “reasonable options” to save both mother and child have been attempted or are unavailable, the Capital Journal reported.

Statehouse leaders say they have no current plans to overturn Issue 1, but Beigel told the publication that other anti-abortion groups are planning a new constitutional amendment overturning Issue 1, and another is planning a 15-week proposal for the ballot.

Whatever happens, abortion in Ohio will almost certainly end up back in the courts in 2024, particularly since the state still has several abortion laws on its books that that were not nullified by Issue 1.

8. Total solar eclipse: Greater Akron has once-in-a-lifetime chance to witness black-hole sun 

All of Greater Akron will be in the dark for just under three minutes as the moon passes in front of the sun April 8 during a total solar eclipse.

Greater Akron is part of the 124-mile-wide band across the state of Ohio perfectly situated to experience a total solar eclipse, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

On average, one happens somewhere on the Earth once every 1.5 years. Only 21 total solar eclipses have crossed the lower 48 states in the entire existence of the United States.

The eclipse will begin here at 1:59 p.m. as the moon slowly casts its shadow across the sun.

More than an hour will pass before complete darkness descends over at 3:15 p.m. Total darkness will last two minutes and 49 seconds.

But the moon won’t be completely clear of the sun until 4:29 p.m.

Ohio officials are bracing for eclipse tourism, as people pour into the area to catch a glimpse of the heavenly phenomenon.

The Ohio Emergency Management Agency (EMA) has been working across the state to prepare for the eclipse since 2021.

Ordinary sunglasses or homemade eclipse filters aren’t safe to view the eclipse, the EMA said, because the eclipse “will transmit thousands of times too much sunlight and could damage the eyes.”

A camera, mobile phone lens, telescope or other devices won’t protect your eyes either. You’ll still need to use a solar filter, the EMA advised.

Some schools in Ohio have already announced closures on April 8. Others are expected to follow or switch to remote learning that day, especially since the eclipse will happen just as schools are letting out for the day.

The last time Ohio experienced a total solar eclipse was 1806, when Thomas Jefferson was U.S. president and three years after Ohio became a state.

The next time it will happen in the Buckeye State will be in 2099.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: A new mayor and more: 8 stories to watch in Akron in 2024