First faceoff for mayoral candidates

The three candidates for Lord Mayor squared off at a meet and greet session in front of a capacity crowd at the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 124 Tuesday night. The evening was hosted by Joe Accardo of the group FocusNOTL. 

The grassroots political action group was founded in 2017 in time to run a series of similar events for the 2018 election. Their Facebook page says they are focused on supporting and holding to account the Lord Mayor and town council by applauding successes and exposing failures to meet their promises and position. 

Current Lord Mayor Betty Disero and challengers Vaughn Goettler and Gary Zalepa sat alphabetically next to Accardo’s podium as he outlined the format for the event. Each was given 10 minutes for introductory remarks, delivered in an order chosen randomly by an audience member. 

Vaughn Goettler was first to introduce himself. The retired business owner promised to give the Lord Mayor’s position 100 per cent of his time, and added that his extensive business experience would allow him to build a functional council and staff in NOTL. 

“The buck has to start here,” Goettler added, comparing the Lord Mayor’s job to that of a CEO. “We need to set targets with firm completion dates for all initiatives. We need to create open and transparent meetings with community involvement, and we need to have a town watchdog. An Ombudsman with teeth, so to say, to report on what has been committed and accomplished.”

Goettler went on to push for a clear and focused economic and tourism strategy that would recognize the role agriculture plays as the backbone of the NOTL economy. 

“Tourism is the engine we can rev up or down depending on how we treat it,” he added. “If you listen to our constituents, traffic and related noise in all our villages needs to be managed. We can go up at the hospital and the courthouse to park cars. And we have the (former) firing range too.”

Goettler lamented that the average stay for a tourist in NOTL is 89 minutes. He promised to work for solutions to bring a Michelin Star restaurant or a Relais and Châteaux hotel to the town to attract the right kind of tourism. He added that agritourism and bicycle tourism need to be further explored. 

Goettler also called for a strategy that would allow seniors to age in place. He said the town has to stop losing institutional buildings like the hospital and come up with an affordable housing strategy.  

Zalepa outlined his experience as both a municipal and regional councillor.
He pushed his previous involvement on the town’s planning, heritage and urban design committees and his deep understanding of how to get things done at the municipal level. 

The real estate executive who operated an office with his father on Queen Street for 25-plus years said his leadership experience will help guide the future council in a collaborative style. 

“I will get the new council started with robust training,” he said, “and then we’ll get into robust and fulsome strategic planning sessions, to set a vision that we can rally behind. We’ll  get opinions to develop a strategic plan that will help guide council towards strengthening the operations of the town.”

Zalepa said his first priority would be fiscal sustainability. 

“We’ve heard comments from the current council that the budget is not sustainable,” he said. “That’s alarming. We need to build a team to get that moving toward sustainability.”

Acceptable growth was another priority he spoke about. 

“We’ve had a really difficult time in dealing with growth to date,” he explained. “The guidelines we have in our planning documents are too vague. There is an ability for us to bring those parameters in a little closer so that when proponents come forward with proposals for development, we actually have much more clarity for them so they can get their application closer to the guidelines.”

He then promised a strategic plan within the first 30 days of a new council after consultation with residents in each village. 

“I want to sit here in four years,” Zalepa said, “and hear from all councillors that they feel that their opinion mattered and that they would do it again. That’s my goal as mayor, to help the council get to that.” 

Incumbent Betty Disero began her introduction by acknowledging the challenges brought about by COVID-19 during most of her current term, lauding council and staff for continuing to keep the community engaged, and residents for helping their neighbours. 

Her speech focused on three areas: budget, planning and infrastructure. 

“This term of council will be leaving our finances in better shape than when we started,” said Disero. “We created new revenue streams, like the Municipal Accommodation Tax (MAT), so visitors are now contributing to the cost of infrastructure. We required business cases for expenditures over $50,000, and we purchased new budgeting software allowing council to identify trends in spending. Our reserves are up $3 million, and our debt was cut in half.” 

Her goals for another term include a zero-based budget, further implementation of the MAT and addressing the infrastructure gap.

On the planning front, she defended her record on the town’s official plan, saying the region had to complete theirs first before NOTL’s could be reopened. She outlined a number of planning successes, including negotiating the ability to shift densities amongst NOTL’s five distinct villages to meet the overall 25 per cent target. 

“Our vision, mission and goal,” she added, “is to protect our natural and built-form heritage, maintain our villages in each distinct area, and to protect our vibrant farmlands. We are conducting a zoning by-law review, and we are doing our tourism master plan.”

After outlining a long list of accomplishments by council during her term as Lord Mayor, she acknowledged that there is still a lot of work left to do, including securing funding from upper tier governments for the St. Davids Pool and meeting space and looking at all options for the intersection in that village that has been earmarked for a roundabout by the Region.  

“My wish is that the village centres in each of our locations should be vibrant, pedestrian-friendly, and celebrate our culture and heritage,” she concluded. “We are on a good path. We will get there. Please stay with me on this journey.”

Following opening statements, Accardo moved on to questions that were submitted prior to the evening by Focus NOTL members, residents and the media. He said the group had received more than 50 questions, but was able to get through four during the 90 minute session. 

A question was raised about the future growth of the Glendale area, specifically how each candidate would manage that growth in the best interest of the residents. 

Zalepa said the town needs to ensure development occurs where the town wants it to happen in a way that will be respectful to the community. 

“If we don’t get that right,” said Zalepa, “then we will see pressure on the other villages. I think it’s tremendously important that we follow the work that the Region helped us with. The secondary plan has to be tied into what the new council’s vision is going to be.”

Disero said a lot of hard work went into the Glendale District plan, first looking at all the green space, the heritage UNESCO biosphere that is part of it, and the Seaway lands that are earmarked for a 60-acre ecopark. 

“We planned out the main street with a public square, with cafes and bike lanes. And then we looked at where to put the buildings, where the jobs would be, where the homes would be. We will keep a watchful eye that it is developed in such a way that people will enjoy living and working there without big high rises.”

Goettler warned of the potential for Glendale to become a dumping ground for intensification. 

“We do need to have contextual development,” said Goettler. “Glendale residents are worried about high rises and related developments. We have to make sure we listen to the residents. Schools go without saying. We have to be very focused on human transit, too, as opposed to vehicle transit, bike paths and walking paths so people can get to and from safely.”

Another question dealt with how each candidate would use the proceeds of the MAT, estimated to be about $1 million in its first year.

“I’ve always been a supporter of the MAT to help pay for the infrastructure needed to welcome tourists,” said Disero. “The first million will be split 50-50. Half will be saved for municipal infrastructure repairs. The other half will go to tourisim marketing, or a DMO, as the province calls it.”

Goettler called the MAT a mixed bag, questioning its need, and suggesting that instead of being administered by the town it should be in the hands of the restaurant and hotel owners who will be assessing the tax. 

“Government is sometimes a black hole into which funds go,” said Goettler. “Hotels would administer it and report to council what they’re doing. It’s not a tourist-friendly tax, but it must go into the right hands to target the tourists we want.”

Zalepa said he supports the tax, but thinks the current council got the process wrong. 

“There should be a freeing up of municipal funding when this tax is collected,” he said. “That extra money should be returned to the taxpayers in a reduced levy in the 2023 budget. We really need to sit down with the stakeholders and find out what they want. Collecting the money and not really having a plan in advance, that’s not what they want. It’s a positive, let’s make it a positive and use it to benefit the community.”

The discussion then turned to the possibility of moving the council to a ward system. 

Goettler said he originally would not have been supportive of that move but changed his mind after speaking to a number of residents, especially some in the town’s farming community. 

Zalepa said he is not supportive of a change but would like to hear more about it. He added that if it would increase voter turnout, he might change his opinion. Either way, he said a properly reviewed process would be needed before any change. 

Disero said she was torn on the subject, acknowledging that government could be more efficient and effective with a councillor representing each village, but warned that a ward system could possibly lead to some elected official not working with the entire community’s well-being at front of mind. 

The evening wrapped up with more discussion on the town’s official plan, or lack thereof, and the confusion that it can create for developers. 

Zalepa reiterated that the town’s guidelines are not meeting the needs of the community. He called for better guidance for developers, improved clarity in the rules, and strong, specific guidelines that would help the town in court and avoid ministry tribunals, calling the town’s current guidelines “wimpy.”

Geottler promised he would bring a delegation to the province to make the case that NOTL is special and unique and should not have to meet the same density requirements that are placed on the suburbs of Toronto. He also promised to fight for a UNESCO heritage designation for the town. 

Disero once again defended her council’s work on development guidelines and protection of agricultural lands. She added that she did not see Zalepa in the room with her when she was negotiating with the region for changes in the density mappings. And she also shot down Goettler’s UNESCO idea, as she said the previous council applied for that designation in 2017 and was denied. 

The formal part of the evening wrapped up at about 8:22 pm, at which time the three candidates were able to mingle with the crowd directly. 

The next session hosted by FocusNOTL will see council candidates Gary Burroughs, Maria Mavridis, Richard Mell and Nick Ruller at the Royal Canadian Legion hall on King Street for a Meet and Greet on Oct. 5.