By Mary Drier
Staff Writer
AKRON — An event intended to celebrate Christmas and community spirit has instead caused a rift among Akron Village residents.
Last year, the village hosted its first parade of lights. While the village event was being development this year, a splinter group of residents started circulating fliers to make the event a memorial for a deceased village resident.
At the last regular village meeting, the council took a unified stance that “the parade is a village event and would remain a village event.” The Parade of Lights was developed to be a fundraiser to buy a playscape for the park for the benefit of the entire community.
To reaffirm the village’s stance on the matter, the council officially named the 6:30 p.m., Friday Dec. 6 event as the second annual “Akron Parade of Lights,” and asked supporters of the memorial effort to work with then.
However, efforts to smooth over the conflict didn’t work. On Tuesday, there was a flurry of disparaging Facebook postings and cellular-phone text messages to village officials in opposition to the council’s stance that the parade of lights is a village event and that it was not to be a private memorial for a deceased resident that a grassroots fraction of residents were attempting to do.
“Their tirade has turned my wife into a (verbal) punching bag…,” said Trustee Lisa Duke – Schneider’s husband.
Duke – Schneider volunteered at the Nov. 19 meeting to chair the parade of lights event.
After hearing of the electronic and verbal abuse directed toward the woman on the council, the council reaffirmed its stance on again during a special council meeting Tuesday, which was not attended by those supporting the parade be a memorial – even though they were invited, that the parade was a village event.
“It would seem they would want to be here to talk this thing out, but the aren’t,” said Trustee Bob Hill.
During discussion, it was pointed out there is a lot of responsibility as well as liability in putting on parade.
The council has to give permission for a special event, use of village streets, police services and more, Hill noted.
“We (the council) wasn’t approached for a ‘memorial event,’ asked to use the street, or for police protection, or shown there is insurance coverage. They wouldn’t be legal,” said Trustee Chris Carland about the effort for a memorial parade. “They could have approached us about what they wanted… That wasn’t done. Things cannot be done willy nilly.
“Social media really blew this thing up!”
A lot of the discussion centered on liability and developing a waiver to participate in the parade as well as continued development of special event regulations by the committee.
At the end of the meeting, the council declared the second annual “Akron Parade of Lights” will be 6:30 p.m., Friday, Dec. 6, provided legal approval of a waiver of responsibility, and that subsequent Akron Parade of Lights would be here after the first Friday in December thereafter.
While council members are supportive and understand the sentiment of a memorial, they feel their responsibility is to all village residents and efforts need to be redirected to the original intend of a village event for the benefit of the park and children.
Along with their unified stance of keeping the parade a village event, the council wants to reach out to memorial supporters to work together. Two council members are in the process of trying arrange a meeting to smooth out hard feelings and to restore the spirit of “peace on earth and mercy mild” in keeping with the Christmas spirit.
The parade route this year will be the same as last year with the start and end at the Akron – Fairgrove Elementary School. The route will go down the following streets: Emery, North, Main, M-138, School and Lynn.
At the end of the parade there will be refreshments and baked items for sale at the school. Plus, children will have an opportunity to visit with Santa.
Volunteers and donations are needed. To help, call (989) 691-5286.