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Director appointed to new Neighborhood Assistance Department
NATALIE PEACOCK
Legal News Reporter
Published: June 5, 2012
After managing Acme stores throughout the Akron area for 28 years, it seems logical that John Valle would describe the Neighborhood Assistance Department as a one-stop shop.
Valle, age 55, was appointed director of the new department by Mayor Don Plusquellic May 18 to organize and advertise the services the city provides to its neighborhoods.
“Akron has done a good job of providing neighborhood services and assistance,” he said. “Where we haven’t done a good job is packaging and networking them under one umbrella. This is where I think I can be helpful.”
Valle has served the city of Akron since the early 1980s with 28 years as an elected official and six years as deputy service director. He is looking forward to his new role and already has big plans.
“The departments that I managed before were mostly operational,” he said. “Now we are forming this department and will be bringing our recreation bureau manager, housing administrator, customer service manager and our 311-call center manager together. This is a brand new department. We are designing this department from scratch and we are building it from the ground floor up.”
Valle says that they will try to focus a good portion of the new department’s $7.8 million budget on outreach programs. The department will have 46 full time and 90 part-time employees.
“I am going to have open office hours so residents can come in and discuss issues with us,” he said. “I’m also planning to have office hours at the community centers in the 21 different neighborhoods throughout the city.
“I’ll work with my staff to help get the word out when I will be at a particular community center,” he added. “That way if anybody wants to come in and talk about a specific neighborhood problem, we’ll be there for that.”
A lifelong Akron resident, Valle says he began his involvement in North Hill during his early 20s.
“I was active in my community,” he said. “I coached little league baseball and football in the North Hill area and got involved in the North Akron baseball association,” he said. I was employed at the Acme store on North Hill and went to North High School.”
He first became interested in running for city council when his councilman at the time was running for council-at-large.
“I thought to myself that this is something I’d like to do,” he said. “I could better serve my community and take that next step and be of some value, so I decided I wanted to be on city council.”
Valle campaigned hard and was elected to council. He represented Ward One from 1984-1989. He was then elected as an at-large councilman in 1989 and served for three four-year terms. In 2001, he became council clerk. Valle says, that he has enjoyed his many years of service.
“The best part of serving the citizens of Akron is helping them with problems,” he said. “Working with people, communicating with them, resolving problems and making suggestions on how you can resolve things are my strongholds. I’m very approachable.”
For example, the president of the South Akron Block Watch spoke at a recent city council meeting about conditions in Morgan Park. Valle met with him afterward and agreed to meet later that week at the park.
“We met at the park with some of his block watch captains, our community police officers, people from our parks maintenance, our building maintenance, our public works, our customer service, our recreation bureau,” he said. “We walked the park and looked at all the things we needed to do.”
Although many of the issues were minor cosmetic fixes like burned out light bulbs sand broken picnic tables, the walk also uncovered some homeless activity. The city cleaned out brush and debris from the area. Valle described a similar experience at one of the city’s dog parks.
With all his previous experience, Valle hopes to make a big impact with this new department.
“We want to make sure that we are making a difference in each and every one of our neighborhoods. We have 21 neighborhoods throughout the city and all of them are just as important as the other.” He said. “We want people to know that Mayor Plusquellic is supportive of our neighborhoods.”