Disero taking election loss in stride

With scrutineers manning each of the town’s polling stations Monday night, Betty Disero knew what the results would be from her first communication with her team.

“All I kept thinking last night,” Disero told The Local Tuesday, “is politics is an unsure thing. Nobody is guaranteed a re-election, and it is what it is, really. The town, I guess, decided that they wanted someone new. We’ve been through four very difficult years, and I think they just decided they wanted a change, a new fresh beginning.”

At around 8:30 p.m., once she had met with her supporters to thank them for their help with her campaign, she went home, had a short sleep, then woke up at 3:30 a.m. to begin collecting her signs from lawns in the Old Town. Her team was continuing the task Tuesday morning.

The last 12 weeks marked the ninth election campaign run by Disero. It also marked her very first election loss. Her career in politics began with her winning a seat as a trustee for the Toronto Catholic District School Board in 1982. Three years later she was elected to Toronto city council and served there until she resigned from her position in March, 2003.

“I’ve always acknowledged that nothing is a sure thing,” she said about finishing behind Gary Zalepa Monday. “You put your best foot forward. You try to tell people what you want to do, what you’ve done, why they should support you. You let them know how much you care for the community. But nothing is a sure thing. And after going through COVID, I can’t blame people for wanting something new.”

As some in the community may have demonstrated a lack of decorum during the final weeks of campaigning, the outgoing lord mayor feels the pandemic may have played a bit of a role in the anger. But she also acknowledges some may not have agreed with some of the decisions she and council made in the past four years, positing the Randwood Estate conflict as an example

And Disero spoke wistfully about not having the opportunity to see some of the work the current council started come to fruition. “I’m sorry I am going to miss (being the mayor during) things like the reconstruction of Highway 55,” she lamented. “Virgil will be so beautiful after that construction is done. And I’m going to miss the start of the hovercraft. Things that I worked on so hard to try to get for Niagara-on-the-Lake. Maybe I should have told more people what I had been working on.”

She also takes pride, too, in a number of accomplishments made by council during her term. “The biggest thing for me is being able to shift densities to preserve some of the heritage areas,” she claimed. “Another thing is putting an end to the debate about a man-made ditch versus a watershed for our agricultural community. And working with the region to maintain our Greenbelt, and not have to adjust or move any of those boundaries.”

She continued, “The MAT (municipal accommodation tax) is on that list as well. We’ll now have another revenue stream for bike lanes and things like that. Also, getting the budget to where we can now approve a zero-based budget, and we’d be one of the first municipalities in the province if the new council continues on that road. And I’m hopeful the new council will approve my motion to sell two pieces of benign land we own to use that money to help fund the St. Davids pool.”

Disero believes the overwhelming majority of residents want NOTL to remain a quaint, historic town. The conflicts, she said, have arisen from people holding different ideas as to how that will happen. She added that she and Sandra O’Connor worked to get development charges dropped at the regional level so the farming community could free up more funds to build sufficient housing for their workers.

“But I guess the majority of the farming community decided that what I did over the past four years wasn’t good enough,” she lamented. “I don’t know that I could have done more to assist them. I think people are just generally angry right now.”

She continues to hold out hope the new council will be able to complete the official plan, and that such a plan will include policies such as contextual zoning to protect the town’s heritage areas. Though she won’t be joining them in the council chamber, Disero said she is thrilled that newcomers Maria Mavridis, Nick Ruller, Adriana Cater-Vizzari and Tim Balasiuk will be having input on decisions. And as that new council gets set to take over, Disero promised she will not be hovering over their every move.

“Having gone through four years of the previous mayor and his supporters criticizing me every step of the way,” she said, “I would not do that to the new lord mayor. While I will be watching, because I am a resident of Niagara-on- the-Lake, it will not be productive for me to be criticizing. It’s really important for the whole town to unite behind the Lord Mayor-elect Gary Zalepa.” Disero says she moved to Niagara-on-the-Lake almost 14 years ago to retire.

To that end, she doesn’t currently have any plans to re-enter the political spectrum. “I haven’t even thought about that yet,” she said. “I’m too busy getting out there collecting signs. But Niagara-on- the-Lake is my home. My mom lives here, Dan (Williams, her husband) has a business here. Dan’s son lives here. I’m not going anywhere.”