Akron mayor: Sell sewer system for tuition

AKRON (AP) — The mayor on Thursday proposed selling the city’s sewer system to private investors and using the money to help Akron’s high school graduates pay for the cost of going to the University of Akron or a trade school in the city.

“I say let’s invest in our students. The return on that investment to our city will be dividends far into the future,” Mayor Don Plusquellic said in his annual State of the City address.

Plusquellic said the plan is a concept. The sewer system is not officially for sale, and he did not identity any interested buyer.

But he said the plan could attract people to buy homes in Akron because of the long-term education benefit of their children.

The mayor said the city’s sewer system conservatively is valued at $250 million.

He said the concept is partly modeled after one in Michigan, Kalamazoo Promise, in which high school graduates in that city get their college tuition and mandatory fees paid at a public college from a trust fund set up by philanthropists and local businesses.

“People started moving back to Kalamazoo to help their children succeed,” he said.