The village of Clinton hopes a proposed sewer system will help boost economic development.

Village officials and residents urged Summit County Council on Monday to move forward with the process to install some 33-thousand feet of sewer lines in the small village in the southwest part of the county.

Clinton village mayor Allen Knack says Clinton's dependence on septic systems means businesses have been leaving town.

"We don't have anything like a restaurant, or a coffee shop, a place where you can go have ice cream with your children after ballgames, things like that, because we need sewer to have that," Knack tells AkronNewsNow.com. "Those are the rules, the laws of the EPA."

"The Canal Corridor goes right through the middle of town, the Towpath Trail, people want to stop there, people want to get something to eat, they want to buy a bicycle," Knack says. "Clinton has unlimited resources for people to come and develop. It's going to be a great place."

But the Clinton leader says the past few years, his village has seen the exact opposite...closed businesses.

"We had a FirstMerit bank that moved out, we had a gas station that closed, and we had a doctor who left his practice and went somewhere elsse," Knack explains to AkronNewsNow.com. "Once again, even when you go to a doctor's office, there are people there they have to have bathroom facilities, and you can't do without sewer."

Summit County Council had its first reading of the Clinton sewer plan legislation on Monday night, described as the "first step" towards starting the project.

Council will hear from residents to help develop the plan, and design, and the total cost is not yet known.

Clinton property owners would pay an assessment to fund the project, an assessment that county officials say should be reasonable.